NOVEMBER 5!

So, November 5th will be a very eventful day.

November 5th I will be getting my long, long hair cut finally.

Off with my hair!

A ponytail will go out to Locks of Love. No longer will I have the need for those bandy things anymore, showers should take considerably less time as well.

A great weight will have been lifted from my shoulders!

Oh, I think we’ll also know who is going to be our next President by then too.

The important thing for me though is getting my first haircut in little over two years.

Amazing!

Between now and next Wednesday I have to at least take some pictures of myself with the unruly mop of hair exploding out like it can. If only to remember it.

I’m not sure if I’ll be growing my hair long again. Never say never but, I’m not entirely sure if the long hair thing works so well for guys my age.

I don’t even fathom what does work for guys my age but certainly the long hair isn’t it. If anything I probably should be going in the opposite direction because the one thing you don’t have to worry about, as you get older is hair.

Hair grows just about everywhere the older you get.

Not in places you want it to, but boy does it sure grow!

I’m not a hirsute kind of guy; still I’m always aware of all the weird bad things that happen to guys, as we get older. It’s like our bodies are old driveways and weeds keep springing up. If we’re not careful, we get overrun by the damn things.

Women don’t mention it to men but it doesn’t mean they don’t notice either.

I’m talking about things like the slight bush growing out of your ears, or the dandelion of nose hair or even the one wild thick strand going awry from your eyebrow. You’ve got to stay on top of that stuff.

I was out with someone recently and she was relaying how she had been out with a man whose eyebrow looked like a caterpillar doing a dance across his forehead. Needless to say there wasn’t a second date, it just doesn’t work unless a gal is an entomologist.

Well, all I know is I’m cleaning up my act. I’m sure any potential companions will greatly appreciate the effort. :) (1274 Views pre transfer)

Don’t believe in change.

Election day is almost upon us and of course in the next few days the drumbeat will increase to a fever pitch as the very real prospect of one candidate winning and the other losing will become a reality.

I’ve made up my mind who I’m voting for, I still can’t fathom people who say they are as yet undecided. Do these same people need help having someone picking out their clothes for them in the morning or having another person feed them?

Thing is, whoever gets in, people need to be a lot more realistic about what our prospects are.

We are on the cusp of a prolonged recession. The volatility of the market aside, over the coming months there will be decreased consumer spending, higher unemployment and growing deficits.

If you doubt me on this, ask yourself how freely you spend money given the current economy and how secure you feel about money going forward.

The point is whoever wins this election will have a tough row to hoe. There will be very little leeway for any chief executive after dealing with the problems of the economy. Consequently, expect the next year to two years to be a very difficult time.

I don’t want to sound pessimistic but, as caught up as people can get in the frenzy of campaign season, it is imperative to realize January 21st, 2009 if your guy wins, the sun will not immediately come out, birds will not start singing and all will not suddenly become happiness and light. The people who believe that are going to be in for something of a rude awakening.

Likewise, if your guy loses... well, it’s not all the new President’s fault if things suddenly don’t go swimmingly. I would venture between now and round about June of 2010 were going to be having some sobering times. The booms in the last century were in the 20’s, the 50’s and the 90’s it may be a bit of time before another boom comes along. (1334 Views pre transfer)

I’M CUTTING IT OFF!

So after much thought and an equal amount of frustration I have come to a decision. Something must be done. There is no escaping it and drastic measures are called for.

How I set upon this path though, requires some explanation.

A few years back, I was saddled with the burden of caring for an aging parent. This is a truly onerous task to put it mildly. Taking on this burden meant everything in my own life had to be put on hold, on hold for a period of several years.

If you try to explain the scope of how all-consuming a task this is to someone who hasn’t gone through it themselves, they can’t fully grasp its scope.

When you care for an aging parent, your life is a constant battle, as you are being challenged by a person of diminishing capacity who does not want to let go of the reins of control. Think of a fading power unwilling to change the status quo.

To be a caregiver is a challenging job in and of itself but, to add the element of battling with someone who knows you almost as well as you know yourself, makes the job take on Sisyphean proportions.

You sacrifice.

Things fall by the wayside in your life. Works, relationships, friends, all are a fading backdrop as your time is increasingly occupied by the management of your charge’s deteriorating condition.

Age is the one disease from which no one recovers.

If you can comport yourself with grace and retain your sanity, you are one of the special few, but no doubt there will be moments when literally you will think about banging your head against the wall in frustration.

So, why cut it off?

After watching the woman in my life have her fill of this and realizing I had no time to even think of dating, I began to wonder what use I had for even toying with the concept of a social life. Also, I thought given the circumstances and the competition I face in my age group, it wouldn’t matter much anyway.

I’m talking about my hair, of course.

You might have read something else into the title but, I had let my hair grow incredibly long.

On the one hand, I thought it was to my advantage. Many of my peers can no longer boast about having a full field of hair never mind having long flowing locks. And... I have hair; it has a life of its own! Although the rub is, I keep it up most of the time, so I can’t say anyone enjoys it.

There was an earlier period when I first met my previous companion and having such a mop of hair was a plus. She loved being loomed over by a beast of a man and being buried beneath wild tresses.

There was something very raw in those moments, raw and fun.

I lopped off all the hair as a concession though. Wanting to impress those members of family I came to meet who were conservative, I wanted to make that ‘good impression.’ So, as the song goes, ‘that long beautiful hair’ it was gone.

I stayed with short hair for quite some time, and then I took on this burden and she left.

And my hair grew...

...and it grew and grew.

Until we reached where we are today.

It’s more of a bother than anything now though. Lacking a single focus of my attentions, wanting to make that good ‘first impression’ my mane has become more of a liability. Instead of it being appreciated, it takes on the aspect of me being ill-kept and ungroomed.

So, off it must go!

Still, there is a chance to take anything and turn it to good ends if you are of a mind and even though I am taking the dramatic step of going back to ‘short hair’ some good will come out of this.

I found an organization that will take my long locks and turn it into a wig for children stricken with cancer. At the very least someone will get a chance to appreciate it and in the end that’s all that matters. (1278 Views pre transfer)

My funniest debate moment.

Not sure if people picked up on the irony of it or not.

Funniest moment: Listening to the candidate who complains the loudest about wasteful government spending and wanting to cut government costs whining about how his opponent didn’t take money from the government for his campaign. (1627 Views pre transfer)

NUDE PICTURES!

Okay, this one is for all the guys out there.

Apparently, this is happening a lot more than I realized. So, if you didn’t get the memo... guys, nude pictures of yourself to strangers are unwelcome.

Aside from embarrassing yourself (even if you’re hung like a horse and have great definition), you’re impressing no one.

Look at it this way, if it’s not okay to hand a nude picture of yourself to a woman on a first date, how in your right mind can you possibly believe it’s a good idea to send her a nude picture of yourself before you even get a chance to meet her?

Let’s make a bit of a joke about it... it’s bad form.

I’m kind of surprised to tell you the truth but it seems like every woman I meet who does the online dating thing has the story about some clown who sent her a nude picture... or who wanted her to be in a threesome... or who wanted to be a top to her bottom.

Listen, save yourself the trouble and the embarrassment and go over to Adult Friend Finder and see what you can scrape up. Adult Friend Finder is set up for that kind of thing, even if a women is interested in the activities described above... at least, AT THE VERY LEAST! Give her some credit for being discriminating.

C’MON!

It seems that responses to the whole man sends a nude pic of himself thing can be broken down to a few select reactions as follows:

• Eeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

• Rolling of the eyes, immediately dismissing the person mailing the aforementioned nudie as a loser.

• Uncontrollable giggling.

• and (in very rare instances), yum.

Believe me, from polling I’ve done, survey says, 9.5 times out of 10, IT AIN’T YUM!

So, in closing... keep it to yourself guys.

At least until you’ve gotten a woman fooled enough into buying your bs. You’ll save yourself a lot of embarrassment and keep a really ugly stereotype about our gender from being perpetuated.

And ladies, now’s the time to chime in to confirm how you feel about these things because if I‘ve got it totally wrong, well... we men would like to know. And if I’m on the money, believe me when I say nothing aside from being blunt will ever put a stop to it.

Just sayin.’ (1887 Views pre transfer)

CALLING ALL GENIUSES!

So, given the events of the last few weeks does anyone still think it’s a good idea to privatize Social Security or allow people to invest their own money for retirement?

I’m thinking this should end that discussion for once and for all. (2165 Views pre transfer)

History repeats!

I came across this tonight and was stricken by how familiar sounding it seemed:

These revolutions arose from such a wide variety of causes that it is difficult to view them as resulting from a coherent movement or social phenomenon. Numerous changes had been taking place in society throughout the first half of the century. Both liberal reformers and radical politicians were reshaping national governments. Technological change was revolutionizing the life of the working classes. A popular press extended political awareness, and new values and ideas such as popular liberalism, nationalism and socialism began to spring up. A series of economic downturns and crop failures, produced starvation among peasants and the working urban poor.

Well, the peasants aren’t quite starving yet but a lot of the other things mentioned resonate somewhat with recent events, no?

If you think so, go to Wikipedia and look for the Revolutions of 1848.

A gentleman never tells.

I tend to be discreet about my activities.

What has come to my attention though, is there is a breed of man out there in the world to whom no reasonable boundaries exist. When I say boundaries, I’m not even talking about following some arcane rules of etiquette as much as I am about observing normal social niceties. I cannot help but be amazed by the temerity, rudeness and stupidity of some of the guys out there!

Case in point, without going elaborate detail, I’ve corresponded with several women and heard amazing tales of their experiences in the world of online dating. These have included strangers (or near enough) sending along videos of themselves, or pictures or just notes with what would best considered inappropriate suggestions. What I can’t for the life of me fathom is how a guy could think it would be okay to do something on the Internet he wouldn’t do if he were meeting a date for the first time!

Think about it...

I can’t say I’ve ever handed over a nude picture of myself to a woman on a first date, nor have I unbidden suggested we immediately engage in either an open relationship or a continued study of the intricacies of the Kama Sutra.

Well, today topped all.

I got to emailing back and forth with someone and she was describing her experiences (which were pretty funny to say the least). As proof of the veracity of her stories she forward along a picture of Spider Man to me.

Well, maybe I should qualify that.

She forwarded along a picture of a guy (from the back thankfully) who was body painted as Spider Man and pretending to wall-crawl.

Nothing is as funny as seeing naked Spider Man for the first time! (2113 Views pre transfer)

I’m going in to delete all my emails today AND YOU PROBABLY SHOULD TOO!

Why?

Well, twice in the past two days I have lived other lives. That is two times too many.

What do I mean?

Well, something happened here that has never, ever happened to me before in all the years I’ve surfed the web (and that’s a lot of years people because I started surfing with Mosaic).

I logged into the site and yesterday I was a 40 something year old woman from Texas.

Today I was a 30 year old guy living in Manhattan.

I didn’t do anything special. I just logged in the way I normally do... as a matter of fact, I got a notice there was an email waiting for me today and when I followed the link I wound up logging in through someone else’s account!

Stuff like this?

It shouldn’t happen... ever.

I would send a message off to the mods but aside from them digging about in people’s emails and blocking people from communicating with me, I’ve found them to be almost entirely unhelpful.

I got a bit of a vicarious thrill, actually I got a chance to see how someone else approaches the whole online dating thing but none of this stuff is private - and people should know that. You should be aware that if you send your phone number or direct email address to someone via FC email, there is the very strong likelihood that someone you hadn’t intended to get your private information will gain access to it. Unless you delete the email you sent containing that information and the person receiving your email does the same.

A word of caution TO EVERYONE! YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF THIS AND ACT ACCORDINGLY!

If it had been a one-off thing, I wouldn’t be as concerned but it has happened now twice in two days so, I know for myself as a precaution I’m deleting all those emails from people who have written me containing their personal info and if you have any respect or concern for the people you’ve come in contact with through the site you probably should too. (2707 Views pre transfer)

A question about John McCain.

Does anyone else get this image of him as the cantankerous old guy who lives on the block and who is always screaming at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn and turning the hose on them?

Just checking. (2006 Views pre transfer)

Fearless.

I just watched an old movie yesterday. I’m a movie guy; I like movies quite a bit (or maybe I should say film because it makes me sound so much smarter) .

I just watched a good flick today - Margot at the Wedding but the one I was thinking about when I started to write is from way back in the sixties.

The movie I was talking about is this old Roman Polanski movie, Fearless Vampire Killers. I don’t think a lot of people have seen it, or at least not a lot of people under the age of 40 for sure.

It’s a good flick, racy for its time and a bit forward-looking in its sensibilities. I guess you could put it on a double (or triple) feature with something like What’s New Pussycat or Casino Royale pretty easily.

Sharon Tate is in it too. I’m not sure if she and Roman Polanski were already an item when it was filmed or if their romance grew out of making this movie together but in either case it’s a little piece of history too.

I hadn’t seen it in a long time; I mean a really long time. I think I caught it on broadcast TV as a teenager and hadn’t seen it since so I was a bit curious to see if it held up to the memory I had. It did, something that is the exception for a lot of films.

Halloween is coming and I got to thinking a lot of folks usually go and rent Friday the 13th or some other scary flick but this is a bit more fun.

Check it out and you’ll see what I mean. (1573 Views pre transfer)

LOW!

I was listening to this earlier (actually I was watching the video on YouTube) and I just remembered how much I like the song. Also, it’s got a great video with Sandra Bernhard - but I like the marriage of lyrics to the video:

Sometimes I wanna take you down.
Sometime I wanna get you low.
I brush your hair back from your eyes.
I take you down let the river flow.

Sometimes I go and walk the street
Behind the green sheet of glass.
A million miles below their feet
A million miles, a million miles

I'll be with you girl
Like being low
hey hey hey like being stoned
I'll be with you girl
Like being low
hey hey hey like being stoned.

A million poppies gonna make me sleep.
But just one rose it knows your name
The fruit is rusting on the vine
The fruit is calling from the trees

Hey don’t you wanna go down
Like some junkie cosmonaut
A million miles below their feet
A million miles a million miles

I'll be with you girl
Like being low
hey hey hey like being stoned
I'll be with you girl
Like being low
hey hey hey like being stoned.

Blue blue is the sun.
Brown brown is the sky.
Green green are her eyes.
A million miles a million miles

Hey don’t you wanna go down
Like some disgraced cosmonaut
A million miles below their feet
A million miles a million miles

I’ll be with you girl
Like being low
hey hey hey like being stoned
I’ll be with you girl
Like being low
hey hey hey like being stoned.

120 miles.

I took a ride the other day. I went up to visit a friend at their house. It turned out to be a sixty-mile trip each way.

120 mile roundtrip for a visit isn’t usually the kind of thing I would do but I had promised I would do it and it had been put off for a bit of time. The reasons it had been put off had to do with weather, health and obligations but I finally managed to do it this past Thursday.

Thursday we were supposed to have the kind of sunny days that are dwindling down to a precious few now that we enter October. The temperature was supposed to get up into the 70’s and it was supposed to be sunny. What it would up being was a mostly overcast day and about ten degrees colder. We even had a pretty good rain at one point in the afternoon.

It may seem a little odd to spend so much time dwelling on the weather but there’s a good reason for that.

I rode the scooter the entire way.

The trip up took a bit longer than I had planned; it wound up being around two and a half hours. I had printed out a triptik from the triple A website and there was just a little less detail in the thing than I would have liked. So, at one point I managed to take a wrong turn that added a bunch of time to the trip. I compounded that by taking a second wrong turn adding even more time.

Being a guy though, I wasn’t lost. See, guys are never lost. ( LOL )

Actually, I stopped for gas after the second wrong turn asked a girl in the gas station (to no avail) and a lady school bus driver (again no help) before finding a strip mall I had been in once a long time ago. The strip mall has a supermarket and a Rite-Aid but neither of them had a county map! Fortunately, I found another way to determine my location and got to where I was going.

It rained during my visit. This had me dreading the trip back especially since rain hadn’t been forecast but, the weather cleared and even though I took a bit more care because of the wet roads the trip back was shorter and less eventful than the trip up.

However, I have to say in retrospect... it was an amazing day!

Sometimes, I forget just how beautiful the countryside around me is. Literally a short drive away is some of the most picturesque landscape a person could imagine. It really is awe-inspiring. I had forgotten that. I don’t know why but I had and it was wonderful just to be out exploring.

I road from where I live over the Bear Mountain Bridge. To get to the Bear Mountain Bridge from here requires you to drive along a winding, heavily traveled two-lane road that clings to the shear face of a mountainside. I’ve driven this road on the scooter a few times now and I love it. The mountains are lush and the river cuts through them making everything look postcard perfect.

After I got over to the other side of the bridge, I shot up 9W past West Point. Here, the road climbs and climbs and climbs as it makes its way over the mountains that border the river. You go further and further up until you have a view of the land on the opposite bank spread out beneath you. After you crest the ridge you have a long downhill run that winds up in some rolling fields of farmland.

Then it was a matter of cutting through gently rolling landscape populated by damp groves of trees and meandering small rivers occasionally bursting out into swatches of open fields.

Four hours plus of riding.

Aside from the strong winds on the way up and a little bit of a chill it was a spectacular ride. Next time, I’m making sure I dress a little warmer but I’m also going to take my time and stop along the way to take some pictures. (1685 Views pre transfer)

Debate this.

I started to watch the debates last night and I just had to turn it off.

Really.

Listening to the news today, one question came to mind immediately... when did not screwing up become a measure of success?

To hear all the analysis of the debate, someone (I’m not going to say who) didn’t screw up, didn’t make an obvious gaffe and didn’t do anything that would prove detrimental to the campaign over the long haul but, how is this a victory?

Is this emblematic of the watering down of the standards we have for our leaders?

The debates are fine and everything but, they are so tightly choreographed as to be almost useless to a lot of the American electorate. Besides, who are the debates really for?

If you’ve already made up your mind about who you are going to vote for, is anything that happens during the debate really going to sway you away from the candidate you’ve chosen?

Debates I imagine are for that vast pool of undecided voters. They’re for them and for the rest of us they are akin to some kind of sporting event (this is proved by the existence of the Palin Bingo card). (1448 Views pre transfer)