thisiswhatyoushalldo

Vote/Finance Stan, Toss Musgrave

It’s official Stan Matsunaka has tossed his hat in the ring for Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District. In a rematch of the 2002 election, Matsunaka is tanned, rested and ready to present his blend of socially moderate/fiscally conservative politics to voters of eastern and northeastern Colorado. Like he did in the Colorado Senate, including one term as President of the Colorado Senate, Matsunaka presents a reasoned, educated and disciplined approach to lawmaking. If I lived in the district, I’d vote for him. Let’s get Crazy Marilyn outta Washington. Colorado doesn’t need her headaches and headlines. Hey Julie, move back to Greeley! They need some Democratic voters out there!!

Guitar Bands Attract Broads . . .

“I gotta tell ya, this festival thing sounds like fun. I think we should have one. How hard can it be. Make a few calls and people start showing up, right ” – Steve Van Zandt

I have been sitting on this for a bit. But for those of you listening to music online – your favorite radio station or show, well add this to the list: Little Steven’s Underground Garage. When he ain’t singing back up and playing guitar for Bruce, or on a hit for Tony Soprano while managing the girls at Ba Da Bing!, Lillte Steven has a regular radio gig. It plays Sunday nights at 10 p.m. on 99.5 in Denver, but you can hear the show in its entirety on the web. It is a themed affair of early to middle 1960s rock(the who, the kinks, the beatles, dave clark and a bunch of one hits) with a lot of fun audio pop culture flashbacks and Steven’s dry sense of humor. Click on the big old psychodelic oval marked “Listen To The Show On Our Jukebox” and give it a whirl.
(I tried it on dial up and it isn’t too bad.)

I gotta tell ya, this festival thing sounds like fun. I think we should have one. How hard can it be. Make a few calls and people start showing up, right?

Got Your Face On?

I don’t use MSN messenger or other chat programs much anymore. Work takes me away from idly chatting with the gang. But for those of you still connected graphically, give this a try. It creates little MSN sized GIF avatars. Make it look like your face, or someone else for that matter.

How Much Ya Payin’?

I found some gas the other day for $1.929. Talk about ecstatic! That’s cheap compared the more average Denver price of $1.98 a gallon or higher. I credit our successful war on terror and our ability to open up the gas fields in Iraq for my good fortune. After all, due to US price subsidies, gas prices at the pump in Irag are only $0.05 a gallon. That’s right, five cents a gallon. As we know the war in Iraq was to be paid for by Iraqi oil and the result would have been sweet, sweet petroleum nectar flowing from the gulf right into your tank.
But now, instead, we are paying the Iraqis to buy gas and charging the average American the highest gas prices we have ever seen. Gas prices at the pump are now averaging 50 cents a gallon higher than they were before the war.
And the news of the oil subsidies in Iraq is hard to find. Buried in a few AP reports but not really talked about by the major media like the Networks, CNN, Fox or even the New York Times. Wouldn’t want to impede the war on terror by talking about how much this war has cost us.
“We thank the Americans,” Baghdad taxi driver Osama Hashim said.

Well, I guess, you are welcome.
It makes my blood boil.

Not Me

This will wake a guy up. I stumbled on this after typing my name into Google and clicking the image link. I quickly logged off, quit surfing and went outside to live my life.

[That personal essay thing]

It’s Not Procrastinating

They call it procrastinating. I call it contemplating.
Mostly, I spend my time contemplating. Contemplating and dreaming. Dreaming about winning the lottery. Dreaming about my future. The company I work for wants people to be “Do”-ers. I am not a Do-er. I am a dreamer. Getting past the dreamer step and into the real world is a challenge for me. I am always looking for that shortcut. As a kid I always immersed myself in books. I read all the biographies in the child’s section at a very young age and have always had a special fondness for non fiction, for the book that would tell how to get something done. Now, as an adult, I am at a particularly pesky part. The answer is not in the book anymore. I generally have the answer. I know what I need to do to have a good retirement – save and invest. However I seem unwilling to actually do the work. Instead I dream about it. I know what I need to do to be healthy and live a long life – eat a balanced, healthy diet of fresh ingredients and lovingly prepared food. Exercise every day. But instead I sit in front of the television eating my Sonic Burger and tater tots and plan and plot my healthy lifestyle shortcuts. To play the guitar, I must practice everyday, but instead I stare at the guitar, by more books and cds on how to play it and hope I will find the short cut. There is no short cut, I just must do the work.

I come to this easily enough. My father was dreamer, holding on to his last dying days for a chance to win the lotto. He dreamed of being a Senator or a Governor. He dreamed of the big house and the big farm. My mother, too was a bit of a dreamer, although smaller in scale and scope. She cares very little about the lotto or the Governor’s mansion. But she dreams. She has big dreams for her husband, her sons and daughters. She has big dreams and plans for the new life she is sculpting in her mountain valley home.

The dream is a sign, perhaps that we are alive. That we still are filled with hope and desire. When the dream is gone, when the desire dries up, with it goes the ambition and promise. But getting past the dream, getting past the blissful stare out the window and rolling up the sleeves and actually getting to the work is the real challenge. When doing the work, when fulfilling the dream, there is little time or energy left to do much else. Dreaming takes us away from the work and the work moves closer and closer to fulfilling the dream.

Now, if I could just find that to do list and get to work.

More On RWR

Eric Alterman, over at his Blog on MSNBC.com has been putting together some thoughts on the Reagan passing. I think it is important to hear from the left and the populist side of the aisel as our nation gets wrapped up in a Reagan frenzy. He was a good president and probably what our nation needed to pull us out of the funk of the 1970s, but he was not our greatest leader and in fact was kind of tarnished when he left office. Take a moment and read Alterman’s thoughts. And for a deeper distillation, Paul Krugman in the New York Times takes the glowing reviews and the Reagan-era tax philosophy to task. This is a great article that says it so much better than I can.

Wicked Cool Transit Of Venus Pics

With digital cameras and the like, it is no longer necessary to stand in the middle of a vacan lot with a telescope and binoculars to see a neat eclipse or solar event. Where was this technology when I was floundering my grade in Astronomy class in college!
Here is a great site with constantly added and updated pictures of today’s Venus Transit event, which happens eight years a part about every 100 years or so. Have a look. Here is my favorite so far.