I'll be returning to CHSR-FM's 'The Crazy Train' tomorrow night as a guest with local guitar legend Larry Hall and local personality and mega Dreamkick fan, Sean Callahan to talk about the 'Rock For Donnie' benefit at the 'Tribute Bar & Lounge' (Aka 'the Dock' Aka 'The Loading Dock', Aka 'The 'Bottom Part of Nikki Zzzz's' Aka 'The Lava Lounge').
The Crazy Train, hosted by Johnny James 'Dio' starts at 6PM and we'll be on at around 6:30PM.
You can tune into the show on your radio: 97.9FM or listen online at www.chsrfm.ca -Then click on the 'Pop Up' player in the upper Right Hand corner.
The benefit Saturday, Oct 13th will include: 12 hours of live music featuring band mates of Donnie...
Awake By Sunday
Sheltered (reunited for this event!)
Hero’s Last Rite
South Bound Sinnerz
Brother
Vinyl Tap
Wasteland Zombies
Shed Heads
Mad Mary
Brass Knucklehead
Run for Your Lives (Iron Maiden experience)
Appetite 4 Destruction (GnR experience)
$10 donation at the door gets you in!
Kid friendly event until 6pm!
Donate $5 for a chance to win awesome prizes... including an Epiphone Slash Les Paul guitar valued at $1100, a Yamaha electronic drum kit valued at $600, Marshall Bluetooth Speaker Systems, and much much more!
Hourly prize draws, Donnie Robichaud Memorial T-shirts for sale, and tons of great music!
All proceeds go towards the trust fund for Donnie's children.
Come celebrate Donnie's life with us while raising money for a great cause.
That was Centennial Building on September 8th.... Check it out today, September 27th
That's all that's left! Once they got the gutty works out looks like they've been ripping through it.
I mean, they've been going full out really, I was really shocked on a walk with Nancy on Saturday evening, that they were jack hammering away at like 6:30 or so. It's kinda cool, the Sun is shinning where it's not shone in a couple decades, which I imagine is nice for that neighborhood. But it won't last long, as a huge new building will no doubt be blocking out the Sun again, but maybe in a year or so down the road.
Ok, when I posted the last entry, I was just sitting down to supper and hobbling out to see where Brad was soaping to death the nests of Box Alder beetles... I did grab some pix. It's hard to tell what you're looking at here because they are reduced in size. But if you see any 'red' dots, that's the female of the bug, the males are black-ish/gray with a red 'V' that's on their backs, it kinda runs along the outside of it's wings.
I'll make 'em as big as 'Blogger' will let me so you can maybe see.
Genocide!! We've committed genocide on a massive scale with soap! Muahahaha!
When I've been out in the backyard, several times a small (I think they are all small) Black and white chickadee comes by, seems to be braver than other birds that frequent the feeder. The chickadee will land, take a couple of looks at me, then start to pick out stuff off the feeder. At first I was kinda miffed at it's behavior, it would stick it's beak into the feeding hole and pull out seed, throw it to the ground, pick out more, throw it to the ground, pick out more, throw it to the ground, Oh! it found something it liked, takes it and flies off.
I was thinking, 'What a little jerk! Throwing what it disliked to the ground!', but really, it's good for ground feeding birds and the chipmunks (not like they don't get enough food...)...
So here's some pics of the black & white chickadee:
Kinda dumb that 'Blogger' won't let one use 'tables' or attach photo's side by side to save room. Tried multiple ideas, but none worked, anyone have any clues, would love to hear 'em
Buddy!
And now! Some bonus photo's of 'Buddy' from Sept 23rd. I didn't post them then with the video because they are blurry, but they are pretty funny, looks like Buddy is making faces, but obviously he's stuffed to the gills with nuts!
Man, last Fall we had this outdoor infestation of Alder beetles... Little fuckers! Brad (my neighbour and I), had found them in the field last year and then they got the house. So THIS Fall, we were prepared, we've been watching the field since probably July, we found a big nest about a month ago and I've been dumping soapy water now and then on the sporadic nests I've found, but nothing like what we found a couple months ago and NOTHING like what we found tonight.
Brad found a MASSIVE mound, like hundreds and hundreds of these fuckers! It's a true miracle that soapy (dish soap) water instantly kills them dead! Dad says the soap gets in their 'breathing apparatus'' and well they suffocate! if anyone thinks this is cruel? Please, by all means come to our field and scoop \em up and take them home with you.
Last year we had them all over the side of the house, they don't do any harm, aside from getting inside, they emit a 'stink' when you upset them or if pets or anything else tries to eat em... But they are a pest. Our house has like shingles all over it, so they love to hide in those and winter there... Not this year!
Now I've had quite a few conversations with the jehovah witness folk, Phillip and Claire (I think).
But this evening, I initiated conversation about 'faith'. I was telling Phil that I had had a great conversation with the mormons the other night and was telling Phil that I had been to the mormon temple in Utah and he was quite surprised (as you will recall the mormons were too) and asked me what I had thought of all that.
So I pointed over his shoulder and said that I had grown up going to that anglican church behind him and that I had an appreciation of the beauty of that Gothic style cathedral, inserting not that the mormon temple is any Gothic style church. And Phillip said, "I noticed you said, 'going to that church', you don't go anymore"...
And there it was, yes, I opened this by pointing out that I went to church but Phillip saw his way in, but I don't think he was prepared for what he got.
I told him, as I told the mormons, I had moved beyond 'god' or the need for a religious belief. I told him that all of the life questions I ever had had been answered and that 'spiritually', I was fulfilled with those answers and had no desire to bow down or placate any 'deity'. I brought up the virtual world theory and that out there there is some computer nerd who's programmed all this, and I also told him that I don't necessarily subscribe to that theory, but that IF, that was the case I didn't feel that this person needed me to ritualistically worship it.
And I said all this with a big friendly smile on my face, confident in what I was saying and sure of what I believe. I was no 'lost cause', someone searching for the meaning of life that only the jehovah style 'god' could answer.
Here I kinda changed gears and quickly threw at him, 'You don't vote do you?'
And I don't know if you know this or not, but the jehovah witness are forbidden to vote. It's in the bible, lol, trust me and Philip showed me just where (On his tablet, not an actual physical bible). Because I said I knew they didn't vote, but couldn't precisely recall why that exactly was.
So basically, it's under Matthew 22:21 jesus said "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to god the things that are god's." And as Phillip was showing me a passage close to that one by Matt, I said, "Render unto Caesar..." and he said precisely and then went on about how they have "already voted" and that their allegiance was to the "kingdom of god"...
So then Phillip said, in his South African accent, "Chris, have you read the bible?"... I had thought Phillip and Claire, when I first met the couple during the Summer, that they were maybe from Australia or New Zealand, I knew the accent wasn't any British accent....
I said, 'Yes, I've read the bible three times', he said, "Oh really" 'And I continued, 'and I've read the koran 3 times, the book of mormon, I've read the version of the bible you believe...'
Years ago, I read the bible, old and new testament, three times. The first run through was to get my eyes on it, begin to absorb the information, the second time through was to really try to absorb the information and to try to mentally book-note any 'crazy, violent or contradictory, bizarre or odd' entry's and verses. The third time through I took a highlighter and highlighted all of the bloody, death, bizarre, odd and crazy parts. I also did the same with the koran. I didn't read the other tomes as thoroughly at I did the two 'big ones' because the books of mormon, jehovah witness, scientology are fuking crazy from the get go!
In the end I came back to where I started and that was that I was a satisfied person. He kinda threw that 'ol christian vs/ the atheist (which I don't call myself an 'atheist', they have their own doctrine), "Well Chris, without 'god' there's no morality".
And I said, 'Look, I've had a great life, I've been very very lucky to have had the experiences I've had. Have I had some horrible times? Have I been good all my life? Do I have regrets, sure, but everyone does. There'd be very very few people who've had a completely great, no issues, nothing bad or untoward had ever happened life.
Have I had some horrible horrible times? Sure, but all around, I've got it really great. Great relationship with my family whom I love. The best friends that anyone could ever ask for, a roof over my head, good food in my stomach, good smoke, a hilarious pet(s- if you count the chipmunks), awesome neighbors, a fantastic landlady and live in a pretty decent clean, low crime city in a democratic, free from war country.
He asked me, "why then, when we know we have to drive on the right side of the road, that there's always someone who will challenge that?"
And I replied, 'Well Phillip, you're asking me why people do bad things' and I continued, 'I obviously don't subscribe to what you believe, nor what the muslims or any other christian sect believes, but huemahns are inherently flawed, it's in our genes, there will ALWAYS be someone who will want to get ahead of someone else, there will always be someone with a different opinion and outlook on life, it's just the way we are and if I believed in 'god', then I'd have to say IT was the one who made us that way'. That huemahn 'flaw' IT gave us and there will probably never ever be real global peace on this planet.
I went on to say, 'Look, not that I haven't ever done anything bad or even broken the law (jaywalking, spitting, not wearing a seat-belt), I've never been arrested or been in jail, I have no record... I'm maybe one of the only people in my family to have retained a lawyer to pursue someone and not have them defend me.
But I don't need 'god's laws' to live by. At this point and probably much earlier in my life I knew 'right from wrong', if I didn't, things might be a lot more different for me.'
At that point, I think Phillip may have had enough and I smiled and said, 'I'm not a lost cause'.
He then said to me, 'Well Chris, it was great to talk to you this evening...' and I said, 'Likewise' and he continued, 'Next time we can maybe take some time to talk about what you think 'god's' plan for you'...
Haha, I've heard that one before... But I said, 'Sure, have a great evening Phillip'... And Claire was there this evening too, but when I rolled up on Phillip, she and another witnesser were engaged trying to con over some young family... Actually for all I know, maybe they were fellow witnessers!
I can't remember the young woman's name that was with them, but she's usually there if Phillip is not. But I bid them a great evening as well and was on my way, a grin still on my face knowing full well that if anything, I showed Phillip I'm a 'force to be reckoned with' in conversation.
Someone to Believe
Bad Religion
Dark, frozen, hibernation held at bay
As your mind, left behind, lost another day
But finally there's someone to believe
Anti-social boredom is all the rage
But the time comes when you gotta turn the page
And then finally there's someone to believe
And now you walk with confidence and ease
And there's no call to sell your soul
Or confess or drop down to your knees
Who, what, or where made you change your mind?
Doesn't matter anymore 'cause you've seen a sign
And now finally there's someone to believe
Searching for the answer's a lonely quest
But the act is liable to bring out your best
And then finally there's someone to believe
And now you have a purpose to proceed
And you find out the baggage that you discarded,
You didn't even need
No one can deny a return to form
Irrespective of the morass, shame, and scorn
But then finally there's someone to believe
Ready to emerge and direct your fate
As the self-determination radiates
Because finally there's someone to believe
And now you walk with confidence and ease
And it feels like the spring equinox after a long winter's sleep
I believe, in short what this song is saying, and it's what I live by, Believe in yourself, have great wonder and intrigue about the world around you. Find your own answers, question everything and find out for yourself from multiple sources and just trust yourself, because if you can't, who can you trust?
I used to always hear growing up that, "If you don't vote you don't have ANY right to complain about the way things are in your Province or Country"....
That's 100% bullshit. Being a 'Canadian' gives you the 'right' to do whatever you feel (obviously, I'm talking within reason)... If you don't want to vote, maybe you're lazy, maybe you don't care, maybe you're too busy, maybe you feel there's no one to vote for... Whatever your reason, that's up to you and IF you don't vote, you can bitch all you want. If I didn't have certain responsibilities, I probably wouldn't vote... But I did. Ask my neighbors, I went with them.
I'm very pessimistic about our World politics. I believe the system is broken. Each and every person running cannot be trusted.
I think there used to be a saying about lawyers, that none could be trusted, I feel that's the same about politicians. No matter what their intentions going in, the system is now so screwed and messed up, broken and destroyed that no matter WHAT 'good' intentions one running for an office may have, when they get into that position, the realities are much much different and they can never live up to the promises made on the campaign trails. How many years now have we seen on the news, months and years after elected persons are in office that their promises are listed and scrutinized and ALMOST always never fulfilled.
So why vote at all? It's a very good question. Last provincial election in NB some 65/68% voted. Why didn't the rest vote? Who knows, maybe for the reasons I wrote above...
There sadly will never be a time when NO one votes at all, society is just not like that. Like any protest, there's always going to be those who won't take part.
IF, no one voted, IF, people stopped buying certain products from certain companies, then those, the 'powers that be', might see, "Ohhh wow, the general populace is really upset here... But that will never happen (that no one votes or people completely boycott something.
So, if you voted, hurray for you! If you didn't, hurray for you... Sad things is, things are just going to remain the same, spiraling out of control, creating more and more division and dissatisfaction....
It's not a brave new World out there, it's just the same 'ol, same 'ol.....
During the early 1990's, along with a whole slew of Metal, Grunge, Pop and Rock, I got into a lot of 'Alternative Rock'.
Some of the bands, like Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Redd Kross, School Of Fish, Jesus Jones, Asexuals, Change of Heart, Blind Melon, Eels, Ween, Weezer and of course, The Wonderstuff.
Hailing from Stourbridge, in the West Midlands of the UK. Miles Hunt, is the son of Bill Hunt who was the keyboard player for early ELO/Wizzard along with Malcom Treece, Bob Jones and Martin Gilks.
The band was kinda Folk Rock, but more towards the 'Rock' side of things. They started off soft and grew large. The album that really turned me onto the band was 'Never Loved Elvis' released in 1990.
The single 'Size of a Cow' propelled the band into international recognition, but nothing, ever could touch the scale of their live shows in the homeland..
Seeing thousands of sweaty alt-Rock kids bouncing along with the band became a signature to their Euro shows.
'Construction For The Modern Idiot' released in 1993 and saw the band tour into 1994, when sadly, as it seemed they could only get bigger, they called it quits.
I used to walk to work everyday in 1993, and I worked way out on the highway at an NB Power building that was several kilometers from my Mom's place on Glenngary.
Each day I'd set out with my walkman, loaded with 'Never loved Elvis' and would walk to this song.
(Watch the audience in this video)
That's some pumpin music. The bands mix of Folk and Rock brought them on tour with Canadians 'Spirit of the West', and some of those members actually ended up recording and going on tour with the Wonderstuff.
THAT song would lead into 'Play' the second track off the album... Another amazing 'walking' song.
I could go through almost every album song by song, all hits to me, but I'll leave you with two more to explore.
'Here Comes Everyone', "If they fast die young, you'd make a good looking corpse"
Ok, I lied a couple more.... 'Unbearable'... I Didn't like you very much when I met, and now I like you even less...."
And last but not least, 'On The Ropes' from 'Construction For The Modern Idiot'...
Sadly, since the band broke up in 1994 I never for to see them live. They would have been on my bucket list for sure. I did get to see Ned's Atomic Dustbin though and they were another one of my favorites of the time period... Check out 'Walking Through Syrup'... The jawdropping, ear melting thing about Ned's Atomic Dustbin was they had TWO bass players, kinda like a lead and rhythm bass..
Plus Ned's used loads of great samples, from Clive Barker's 'Nightbreed' to 'The Wickerman'
JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency is like the 'little space agency that could'. They've had some great success' and they've had some great loses, including a couple of probes that missed their mark, one completely sailing past the planet it was supposed to visit. Another probe's programming malfunctioned and it too became some huemahn waste out among the stars.
But the Hayabusa2 space probe has just plopped two hopping landers on the Near Earth Asteroid 'Ryugu'! It's quite a mission!
Read my friends and learn the secrets of the Milky Way (ok, really just some news on this space probe, but learning is fun!0
They Made It! Japan's Two Hopping Rovers Successfully Land on Asteroid Ryugu
An artists rendering of the two 'hopping' space probes MINERVA-II1 -IMmge: JAXA
(CNN)The Japanese space agency JAXA said it made history Saturday by successfully landing two unmanned rovers on an asteroid.
"The two rovers are in good condition and are transmitting images and data," a JAXA statement said after the rovers separated from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft and landed on the asteroid Ryugu.
The rovers are collectively known as MINERVA-II1. The space agency reported that MINERVA-II1 is the world's first mobile exploration robot to land on the surface of an asteroid.
"I felt awed by what we had achieved in Japan. This is just a real charm of deep space exploration," said Takashi Kubota, a spokesman for the space agency.
The Hayabusa2 began its approach to Ryugu from an orbiting altitude of around 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) on Thursday afternoon.
As the craft approached to within 100 meters (328 feet) of the space rock, it sent back a photo showing Hayabusa2's shadow projected onto its barren, cratered surface.
Japan's Hayabusa-2 probe touching down on distant asteroid
First photo from MINERVA-II1 caught in mid 'hop' - Image: JAXA
Beneath their desolate surfaces, asteroids are believed to contain a rich treasure-trove of information about the formation of the solar system billions of years ago.
The 1 kilometer-wide space rock, which is shaped like a diamond, is expected to be "rich in water and organic materials," allowing scientists to "clarify interactions between the building blocks of Earth and the evolution of its oceans and life, thereby developing solar system science," JAXA said in a statement.
A series of specially designed cameras -- four on the first rover and three on the second -- will take stereo images of the asteroid's surface. The rovers are also equipped with temperature gauges and optical sensors as well as an accelerometer and a set of gyroscopes.
A third rover called MASCOT will be launched from Hayabusa2 in early October.
Later in the mission, scheduled for the end of October, the spacecraft will land on the asteroid after blowing a small crater in it using explosives, so samples that haven't been exposed to space can be gathered from below the object's surface.
After examining the far distant object and taking samples, Hayabusa2 will depart Ryugu in December 2019 before returning to Earth by the end of 2020 with its cargo of samples.
If successful, JAXA has said it will be the "world's first sample return mission to a C-type asteroid."
Japanese scientists are racing NASA for that achievement, with the US agency's sample retrieval mission due to arrive back on Earth in 2023.
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) took this snapshot of the Large Magellanic Cloud (right) and the bright star R Doradus (left) with just a single detector of one of its cameras on Tuesday, Aug. 7. The frame is part of a swath of the southern sky TESS captured in its "first light" science image as part of its initial round of data collection. Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS
(phys.org) - - NASA's continued quest to explore our solar system and beyond received a boost of new information this week with three key missions proving not only that they are up and running, but that their science potential is exceptional. On Sept. 17, 2018, TESS—the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite—shared its first science observations. Later in the week, the latest two missions to join NASA's heliophysics fleet returned first light data: Parker Solar Probe, humanity's first mission to "touch" the Sun, and GOLD, a mission that studies the dynamic boundary between Earth and space.
First light data from GOLD was captured at 6 a.m. local time, near sunrise in eastern South America, and shows the ultraviolet atomic oxygen emission from Earth's upper atmosphere. Colors correspond to emission brightness, with the strongest in red and the weakest in blue. The emission is produced at altitudes around 100 miles above the surface (note how it extends above Earth's surface on the horizon), when Earth's upper atmosphere absorbs high energy photons and particles. The aurora, at the top and bottom of the image, and daytime airglow, on the right-hand side, are also visible. An ultraviolet star, 66 Ophiuchi, is visible above the western horizon of Earth. Credit: NASA/LASP/GOLD
Part of the data from TESS's initial science orbit includes a detailed picture of the southern sky taken with all four of the planet-hunter's wide-field cameras. The image captures a wealth of stars and other objects, including systems previously known to have exoplanets, planets beyond our solar system. TESS will spend the next two years monitoring the nearest, brightest stars for periodic dips in their brightness, known as transits. Such transits suggest a planet may be passing in front of its parent star. TESS is expected to find thousands of new planets using this method.
Together, the two other missions represent two key observation points in the giant system of space—dominated by particles and magnetic energy from the Sun—studied by the field of heliophysics. Parker Solar Probe will help us understand how the Sun's atmosphere drives particles out into space; GOLD monitors changes in the space close to Earth, much of them driven by ever-changing solar activity. The two viewpoints support heliophysics' focus on our star and how it influences the very nature of space—and, in turn, the atmospheres of planets and human technology.
In early September, each of Parker Solar Probe's four instrument suites powered on and returned their first observations on the spacecraft's journey to the Sun. While the data are not yet examples of the key science observations the spacecraft will take closer to the Sun, they show that each of the instruments is working well.
The instruments work in tandem to measure the Sun's electric and magnetic fields, and particles from the Sun and solar wind. They also capture images of the solar wind environment around the spacecraft. The mission's first close approach to the Sun will be in early November 2018, but even now, still outside the orbit of Venus, the instruments indicate they're ready to gather measurements of what's happening in the solar wind.
"All instruments returned data that not only serves for calibration, but also captures glimpses of what we expect them to measure near the Sun to solve the mysteries of the solar atmosphere, the corona," said Nour Raouafi, Parker Solar Probe project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland.
WISPR, the mission's only onboard imager, captured the first snapshots from its journey to the Sun on Sept. 9, 2018. Similarly, the FIELDS instrument suite provided the first magnetic field observations and even captured a burst of radio waves, signatures of a solar flare. One of the SWEAP instruments sampled its first gust of solar wind, and the IS?IS instrument—pronounced "ee-sis" and including the symbol for the Sun in its acronym—successfully measured the energetic particle environment.
GOLD's first light closely followed Parker Solar Probe's. On Sept. 11, the GOLD—short for Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk—instrument powered on and opened its cover to scan Earth for the first time, returning a full-disk image of the Western Hemisphere in ultraviolet. In this wavelength of light, which is invisible to the human eye, GOLD enables researchers to view global-scale temperature and composition at the dynamic region where Earth's upper atmosphere meets space.
GOLD commissioning began Sept. 4 and will run through early October, as the team continues to prepare the instrument for its planned two-year science mission.
"The GOLD mission is a game-changer, providing never-before-seen footage of upper atmospheric weather similar to the very first terrestrial weather satellites," said Sarah Jones, GOLD mission scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "These global-scale pictures of the boundary between Earth and space will allow scientists to start teasing out the effects coming from the Sun versus those coming from Earth's weather below."
With missions both near and far, like bookends in the vast stretch of space between the Sun and Earth, researchers are eager to fill knowledge gaps in our understanding of the complex relationship between solar activity and conditions at Earth.
Historically difficult to observe, the region GOLD studies is little-understood and can undergo dramatic change in as little as an hour. GOLD—which occupies geostationary orbit, hovering 22,000 miles over the Western Hemisphere—will provide hour-by-hour updates on the ever-changing conditions in near-Earth space, known as space weather. Shifts in space weather can garble space-traveling communications signals, interfere with electronics onboard satellites, endanger astronauts and at their most severe, disrupt power grids.
Meanwhile, Parker Solar Probe will travel into the blazing corona, closer to the Sun than any spacecraft before it. The mission seeks to answer fundamental questions about the Sun—questions that lie at the root of understanding how solar activity shapes space weather across the solar system.
The first images from WISPR, short for the Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe. Researchers studied the images to determine the instrument was pointed as expected, using celestial landmarks as their guide. The left image shows the Milky Way, looking at the galactic center. In the right image, there is a distinctive cluster of four stars near the right edge that is in the constellation Scorpius. The planet Jupiter is also visible in the right image as the bright object slightly right of center. The Sun, not visible in the image, is far off to the right of the image's right edge. Credit: NASA/Naval Research Laboratory/Parker Solar Probe
TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by Goddard. Dr. George Ricker of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research serves as principal investigator for the mission. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT's Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.
Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA's Living with a Star Program, or LWS, to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. LWS is managed by Goddard for the Heliophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Johns Hopkins APL manages the Parker Solar Probe mission for NASA. APL designed, built and operates the spacecraft.
GOLD is a NASA mission of opportunity as part of the heliophysics Explorer Program. Goddard manages the Explorer Program for the Heliophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. It is designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space using principal investigator-led space science investigations relevant to the agency's astrophysics and heliophysics programs. GOLD is led by the University of Central Florida. The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder built and operates the instrument. The GOLD instrument is hosted on a commercial communications satellite, SES-14, built by Airbus for Luxembourg-based satellite operator, SES.
Yeah, so I probably really shouldn't have done that walk tonight.
Let's go back to last Saturday. I was walking off a curb and I did that fine, I am careful with curbs because even the smallest of 'drops' is pretty painful.. After I had got both feet on the ground I went to step forward and the pain came from my big toe, shot right up through my legs, almost buckling them, up my spine and to my brain. I have NO idea what brought that on. I have had pain in all my toes since about April 1999 and I do believe that this problem toe, my big toe on my right foot, is one that I had broken when i was about maybe 15/16 and I was walking down the carpet stairs to my bedroom when my foot slide perfectly following the curve of the step and my toe was driven straight down into the stair, I heard the crack, but I never did anything about it aside from nurse that toe for a while until it felt 'better'.
Goddamn it, it's only 7:20PM and it's already freakin just about dusk!
Anyhow, it seems my big toe's latent injury just decided it needed more attention. THEN Tuesday night into Wednesday it was pretty cold, dreary and inclement and I woke up early Wednesday morning and my ankle was really painful and swollen.. It was the same when I woke up, but by the time I was ready to hobble some errands, it didn't feel all too bad, so of I went. Then last night it was a bit tender and I woke up again with it quite swollen and sore (My ANKLE|!) Despite it's bit of pain and tenderness I set out again today though I wrapped my ankle in tensor bandage. This evening I was cursing my ankle and toe... I decided since the weather was agreeable I'd go out, 'no pain no gain right'?
By the time I was almost home my hips felt like they were going to shatter... I'm blaming this on the 'change over' from Summer type weather to Fall, I mean, in a matter of days we went from near 35°C to +18°C and definitely a change in humidity.
I first was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis in 2000 by rheumatologist Dr. Angela How. An amazing doctor. She was in oncology but saw so many people suffering from arthritis that she switched medical fields (I was also told that seeing so many people dying from cancer was also a bit of it). She felt she could do greater good dealing with us folk (arthritis sufferers).
For near a full year I had no diagnosis and from standing up to being in a wheelchair in 6 months was a frightening experience, especially since it came so very fast and no one knew what the hell was going on.
I saw a 'casting specialist' via my GP and he said that the incredible swelling of my feet and toes was due to.... "An infection from athletes foot"...... Seriously.... I was rubbing this shit on my toes and feet for like 2 months to obviously no avail (as well as taking an antibiotic -Which actually DID help a little bit at the time because there has been relief shown by taking antibiotics for psoriatic arthritis, the shit deal of course being if you take a lot of antibiotics it becomes harder to fight infections... I did actually go on an antibiotic regime sometime around 2007, just to try it because nothing else was working.
It's been a fight my friends and given that as we get older we all generally get joint issues anyhow, I could be seeing even rougher times within the next couple of decades as I get older and my body starts to give up the ghost as it were.... My rheumatologist said back in around 2003 that she thought I'd be in a permanently in a wheelchair by the time I was 30. So here's to proving them wrong.
Music!
Trumpet
Josh Clayton-Felt
I love my trumpet, but I just can't make it sing
I love my trumpet, more than almost anything
She gave it to me, and she knows how to dream
So mush bigger than I do
I found myself at the top if a hill
I haven't climbed yet, but I'm sure I will
And the words going round could make you stand still
If you heard what they're saying
And every time (every time I think I know)
I think I know where I stand
Every time (every time I think I know)
I think I know that I can
I get turned around so easily
I love my trumpet, but I just can't make it talk
I stay up nights, but I've never seen the dark
And I hope you'll come by
And show me where to start
Cause I never would have gotten it for myself
Sometimes you need to take a little help
And when you gave it to me, so easily
I couldn't ever tell
And every time (every time I think I know)
I think I know where I stand
Every time (every time I think I know)
I think I know that I can
I get turned around so easily
Everything in this world had to come from somewhere
No, not her dhe came out of thin air
And she floats around, floats around
Floats around over there
And every time (every time I think I know)
I think I know where I stand
Every time (every time I think I know)
I think I know that I can
I get turned around so easily
Everything in this world had to come form somewhere
No, not here she came out of thin air
And she floats around, floats around, floats around
She floats around
She floats around my aching head
Until I don't know I said
I was standing outside myself
I was standing beside myself
Written by Josh Clayton Felt - Album: Inarticulate Nature Boy
That walk was, cold, painful, but OOOh so worth it!
The jehovah witness haven't been around since the weather turned... But tonight the latter day saints were around! I had a great 10/15 minute chat with those gals... 'Missionaries', 'Sister Rodriguez' and 'Sister Facewave' ('Facewave' is what a friend of mine replaces someone's name with when they've forgotten said person's name).
So, chat began about my cane and the marble in it. There's a marble in the mouth of the dragon on my cane and I was saying I'd like a blood red one or some other colors, but, you can't just buy 'one' marble, you got to buy a fucking bag of them! (I didn't swear that the nice young ladies) - From there I had told them that the jehovahs ain't been around lately, so the Green was theirs! Sister Facewave asked me if I was aware they were missionaries and Sister Rodriguez spoke up and said, "Oh yes, we've chatted before"... I mentioned that I had been to the Salt Lake City temple and Sister Facewave was astounded, she said she'd never even been there before, I told her she was still young. Sister Rodriguez inquired as to how I ended up at the temple and I explained the annual car trips across the Country with Dad..
Sister Rodriguez asked if I'd been to the cults website ever and truthfully, I told her yes I had not too long ago... I blurted out, 'You should no longer be referred to as 'mormons' or 'The LDS', just 'latter day saints' and she said or the church of jebiz crispy.... When I said this, Sister Facewave lost her mind!
She exclaimed, "How do you know that!!! Half our church doesn't even know that!!" and I just smiled wryly and said, 'I know things'.... And Sister Rodriguez lol actually said that too...
From there I said, 'You know, you're not going to convert me'.... And Sister Facewave asked, "Why not" and I told them I don't believe in 'god', I told them I believe in science, it's my god and Sister Rodriguez said, "We also believe in science" and I said, 'yes, but I've taken the 'god' part out of that equation and went on to say that I didn't need 'god' anymore, asked them, do we need Odin anymore, to which they both kinda looked at each other like, 'What???'.. and I went on, we don't need Zeus or Jupiter nor any of the Egyptian 'gods'.. I said that the Egyptian civilization lasted for over 5000 years (that we're willing to believe) with their religion and we don't need that anymore.. I said that I'd moved beyond the need of a 'god'... Sister Facewave asked if I'd read the book of mormon and I told her I had and that I had read the jehevah's book and the koran and the bible and that science has provided me with all the answers and added some questions for me, but that I didn't need to believe in any deity.
Sister Rodgriguez asked if when I thought about the universe, if I ever thought about god along with it and I said, 'no, look' I said, 'There's a theory that the universe is a hologram, so out there, outside of all this, there's some really fat computer nerd that's created all this, but I feel no need to worship it, nor prostrate myself before it, nor engage in any rituals to placate it' and I added that I didn't believe 'it' wished me to do any of that.
Then I mentioned multiple universes and they both agreed that they believed in that... Which for once, they surprised me... But my surprise was short lived as Sister Rodrguez stated that, 'We can't be the only huemahns out there"... So I began to see that she was mistaken the 'universe' for 'solar system', as she ended off saying, "Just think how many stars are out there, there has to be not just us".....
So with that, I bid the ladies a 'good-evening' and was off on my way home.
The old Centennial building / new courthouse is coming along... More floors gone...
Had 'Stag Chili for supper (My goto cold dreary Fall/Winter night supper).... The cats gonna hate me later....
Drug my body out of the house to get some provisions today. While quickly throwing on some rain gear at the corner of Regent and Dundonald St. I spotted our way over-kill of a vehicle, the RCMP T.A.V. (Tactical Armored Vehicle)... Like I said, that thing is WAY overkill for this city but man it's fuckin' bad ass! YOu could mow down a crowd of hippie protesters with that sucker and probably not even feel a bump!
As it went by I gave the guys a big 'thumbs up' and then threw them the 'Metal horns'... Which I don't think they seemed to appreciate!
I've always wondered if these suckers are equipped with those acoustic weaponry. The sound weapon that could make a crowd shit it's pants (really) or vomit or have panic attacks... Acoustic weapons are evil! But look like a load of fun!
Man, the weather changed. Cold and windy, one of the trees behind the house lost most of it's leaves yesterday afternoon. Elsa was being driven batty watching the blizzard of leaves falling and tossed and whirled about by the wind.
Had to wear fukin' pants today! Summer is OVER! Gone! POOF! Disappeared, all but a memory of those hot sweaty days, lounging on the deck of the houseboat, lounging by the pool.
Looks like the remnant of 'Florence' will hit us (not really) on Thursday. Just some wind and rain..... Which is what we got in the last couple of days... So I don't really know what the difference will be.
These cold wet wind blown evenings put me in a horror movie mood. Not that I haven't watched horror flicks year round, but the Fall just screams for Horror! get it??? 'Screams'??? Ahh
So last night, I watched to begin, John Carpenter's 'Prince of Darkness', classic, awesome movie! With the late Donald Pleasence and a side bit by Alice Cooper (killing someone while the victim's listening to his music)... If you've never seen 'Prince of Darkness', SEE IT!
After that I watched 1957's 'The Seventh Seal', a black and white Swedish flick.. Not so much horror as it is just ... hmm... eerie? Mysterious? Wikipedia calls it a "Historic fantasy" movie... it deals with a knight who is playing Death a game of chess as he travels and picks up companions along the way. The film is set in the period of the Black Death and of course the paranoia, religious fervor and death that came along with all that. It's a subtitle movie, but still a great movie.
Tonight i'm thinking 'X-Files - Fight the Future', not an all out Horror, but Sci-Fi/Horror and I just hadn't seen it in ages... Dunno why it popped in my head... I have about 100 or more Horror flicks lined up for September into October. So I'll be posting those as I watch them!
Today while downtown I ran into Jonas Colter. Got a great big hug and Jonas was reflecting on seeing my first band K.G. Wolfe at FHS around 1987 or '88 I think.
Jonas is a HUGE music fan and has run the 'Evolve' music festival since 2008. He showed me this super cute video of his then 6 year old playing drums to Black Sabbath's 'The Wizard', his son has amazing timing for that age.
It's very flattering when people come up and tell me how great a time they had back then. It's a huge coup for me to know that something we did over 30 yrs ago made an impact that people still remember to this day.
K.G. Wolfe had got accepted to play the FHS cafeteria. I'm not sure what exactly was the 'event' per se. It wasn't a battle of the bands, I think someone had just set up a show with young local acts with a place to play.
We played the cafeteria show and then, even though at that time our two guitarists, Bryce McKlellen and Chris Gullison were the only high school students in the band, we were invited to play live at the FHS battle of the bands held in the theater at the school.
This was a show that gained us a lot of attention. During our set, not for ANY other reason than I got hot when I was flying and jumping around like a maniac in those days, I took off my shirt... It wasn't to be a 'sex symbol', it wasn't to impress any young ladies, I was simply dripping with sweat....
Well, this didn't sit well with then vice-principle Mr. MacIntyre. He promptly walked on stage and said, "That's your last song, you're done!", well we had i think two or three more songs, so I said, 'No, we have more songs' and MacIntyre told the stage hands to close the curtains on us (At least no one brought out the big hook to pull us off stage!).... Once the curtain were shut, there was a bit of yelling by my part and MacIntyre said we'd never play FHS again (lol)... He then told my guys to get their gear off the stage and again, i put my foot down and said to the guys, 'If they want it off the stage, they can carry it themselves'.... Which the stage hands did.
That was the talk of the school for quite a while and when I got to FHS a year or so later everyone seemed to know the band.
One of our more impressionable songs called 'Chosen One' was a chant I'd hear right up into times when I came home for a visit from Vancouver. periodically through the years I'd run into people who'd seen the FHS show and they'd chant, "Chosen one, Chosen one!"...
It was great to run into Jonas today, just forgot to ask what he was up to these days. I know he had been running a health bar that was down the far end of King St. but yeah, not sure what he's up to these days. He asked me if I was going to go to the FHS grad reunion next Summer, but I never graduated, so I'm not sure if I can attend. The thought occurred that it would be neat if K.G. Wolfe could do a reunion, but Rob and Chris are both in Ontario somewhere and Bryce, last I heard was in BC somewhere. Too scattered for a reunion, plus at our age now, I'm not too sure how many people would appreciate that!
Video I took today of 'Buddy' sitting on my shoe. He has climbed right up my leg when I've been wearing my pajama bottoms and interestingly, he stops at my socks if I'm in shorts, he 'tested' my skin and stopped before doing something like Elsa would do and that would be to dig in them claws and climb up my body, skin or no skin
I've learned a lot this Summer about chipmunk behavior. They are neat little rodents, smart but very cautious, mind you, if you were that size, you'd be cautious too!
Some of the more unique behavior I've seen is them going along the top of the fence, which is prime area to be scooped up by a bird.
Yesterday I saw the baby chipmunk and Buddy together, which was odd, as Buddy is pretty territorial with any other chipmunk I've ever seen in the back yard at the same time. He generally gives the run to anyone trying to scoop up food. But with this 'baby', he just seemed to ignore it.
Ahh, good thing I decided not to go for a walk! Rain has just started and I would have been half and hour into my walk.... I'm made of sugar and sweet things ya know! I could melt!
