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I’m longing for a time travel machine so that I can go back in time about 20 years.  I’m missing some of my jazz spots.  My city and the surrounding area has always been a jazz hot spot.  But I do miss some of the small local clubs and restaurants.  One of those is the Hurricane, a small restaurant not much more than a shack on Pass-a-Grille beach.  But they had the best fresh grouper sandwiches around.  During the day and early evening most everyone sat outside on stone benches at stone tables for meals and beach watching.  It was  just across the street from the beach and a great location to watch the sun set.  That’s the only place I ever had a pina colada in a Styrofoam cup.  A person would order through a pass through window and receive a meal in disposables.  In order to eat on real plates and drink out of actual glasses, one had to eat inside.  That’s where I wanted to be at night, because that’s when the jazz happened.  And terrific jazz at that.  The only place better for jazz was B B Joe’s. The Hurricane is still there, but the great atmosphere is gone.  It was a local hangout discovered by the tourists.  Now it’s been built up and out and is just a nice place to eat.  They still have jazz and great grouper sandwiches, but the atmosphere is gone.  The last time I went there, the round stone tables and benches were gone, too.  I guess they could fit more wooden picnic tables into the same space.  I don’t bother to go there for the jazz anymore.  Maybe some day a real hurricane will come along, sweep it all away and it can start over as a great little place for jazz and grouper.

I’ve seen several interesting quotes recently, and I’m sharing some of them with you.  Do you have any to share?

“It’s a strange thing, you have said it thousands of times I am sure…you will never know what you can do until you try.  However the sad truth is, that most people never try anything until they know they can do it.”  Bob Proctor

“For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been’.”  John Greenleaf Whittier

“The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do.  The hard part is doing it.”  General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

“You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a firefly and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer’s heart.”  Fred Allen

“I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”  Martha Washington

“Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.”  Herbert Hoover

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”  Socrates

“He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.”  Chinese proverb

“The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.”  George Bernard Shaw

I’ve been doing all I can to avoid Microsoft Vista.  My computer is trying to die and I’m working with it and babying it.  I’m afraid I won’t be able to find a new computer with Windows XP and I don’t want to get stuck with something as flawed as Vista.  I just read an article at TechCult titled “Microsoft To Bully Businesses Into Unwanted Vista.”  This is a terrible way to do business.  If Microsoft (or anyone else) can’t get a product to work properly, then it should not have been offered for sale in the first place.  If Microsoft didn’t figure out just how bad it was prior to putting it out to sell, it should have been withdrawn as soon as the problems started multiplying.  Microsoft is not on the edge of bankruptcy.  There is absolutely no reason why Bill Gates cannot admit failure in this endeavor and do the honorable thing which would be to proceed on to Windows 7 and not try to shove Vista down the business owner’s throat.  Read the article at TechCult.  I’m too steamed to write any more about it here.

I’ve been trying to consume less gasoline when I drive, but I feel as if I’m in a very small minority.  I’ve driven a small car nearly thirty years, so you know I’m used to being part of a minority group.  But I still feel as if there just aren’t many others out there concerned enough about our rising fuel costs and availability to change their driving habits.  Boy, are people behind you at a red light unhappy when you don’t take off with a jack rabbit start when the light changes.  And they’re pissed off if you see a yellow light and slow down rather than speeding up and ignoring the signal.  In town drivers get annoyed with you, but out on the highway, they try to blow you off the road.  I seem to be noticing more and more drivers lane jumping back and forth, mostly without using a signal to warn you.  Also, if I happen to only be going 65 in a 65 zone, when they cut in front of me, I have to brake to keep from hitting them.  I guess they are going so fast that they think I’m pedaling along at 45 or 50 and they have plenty of time to make the lane change.  What amazes me most are the vehicles flying along at 80 and 90 mph.  They are nearly all big gas guzzlers.  These people must have more money than sense.  Do they not realize just how many more tanks of fuel they have to use to run those huge pickups, SUV’s and Hummers up and down the road?  Have any of you noticed this happening where you live and drive?  You can go here to see what Consumer Reports has to say about driving green.  Are you trying to conserve fuel and live a more frugal and green lifestyle?  I’d really like your input.  Thank you.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  There is no law against such things.  And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

Galatians 5:22-26

I’ve fallen in love with these cute little critters.  Amigurumi is the Japanese art of knitting and crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures.  Today, I’m providing links to some free patterns.  Please share some of your links with me.

chick/baby bird

squid

tree frog

tiny turtle

manta ray

tiny angelfish

hummingbirds

Bumble the Bee

soot sprite

We are talking about terminal cuteness here.  If you haven’t seen amigurumi yet, check it out and fall in love.

Two days ago I received a notice that we are going to be receiving a tax stimulus check of $1,200.  I’m wondering why they are wasting so much money sending out these notices.  They could have just sent the check instead of the notice.  I’m thinking we as a country could come a lot closer to balancing the budget if we could only find someone interested in cutting the waste instead of promoting the pork.  I’m one of those people who got messed up with the direct deposit because I used Turbo Tax online.  I didn’t even pay them out of a refund.  Their payment was strictly separate.  I’m still waiting.  That check is going to build up the emergency fund and pay off most of my auto loan.  I’m getting impatient.  When am I going to be stimulated?

Mercer’s gives us some highlights from their 2008 Quality of Living survey.  The five safest cities worldwide are:

I’ve spent a fair amount of time working in Helsinki for a former job and I never once felt unsafe.  It didn’t matter if it was during the white nights or the dark.  I always felt safe.  We would take trams from the Kvaerner Masa yards into the downtown area, but if we were out very late they wouldn’t be running when we were ready to go back to our ship.  It was not unusual for a bunch of us to go to Casino Ray at the Hotel Presidentti and walk back to the yards any time between midnight and 3:00 a.m.  We might walk back in a bunch, or just a couple of us or sometimes I would walk alone.  I’m not sure how many miles it was, but I never thought twice about getting out there and walking home.  If my steps happened to get a little faster before I got back to the yards, it was only because it gets cold there. 

The top five cities in the Americas for personal safety are:

• Calgary, Canada (tied for 22nd)
• Montreal, Canada (tied for 22nd)
• Ottawa, Canada (tied for 22nd)
• Toronto, Canada(tied for 22nd)
• Vancouver, Canada (tied for 22nd)

There’s not a safe United States city until Honolulu at 28.  Next are Chicago, Houston and San Francisco all tied for 53.  I’ve never been to Honolulu, but I know you wouldn’t catch me walking around Chicago in the middle of the night by myself. 

And the city with the honor of bottom place at 215 is Baghdad.  I don’t think you should consider vacationing there.

I’ve been reading a book with some really bloody scenes.  I just read Leviticus, chapters 1 through 4.  I’ve read through the Old Testament before, but so many more things are catching my eye this time.  Previously, when I thought about the burnt offerings and sacrifices, I just never thought about all that blood.  Ironic, isn’t it?  That’s the main point of it all.  But really, where do you think all this took place?  There wasn’t a nice little butcher shop in the back of the temple.  The slaughtering of the animals for sacrifice took place right at the temple entrance.  “You shall lay your hand on the head of the offering and slaughter it at the entrance of the tent of meeting.”  This phrase is repeated over and over for the various sacrifices.  So, think about it.  The priests aren’t going to just offer one sacrifice every morning and then be done with it for the day.  This is the place where an entire nation of people came to be cleansed by the blood of the sacrifices.  This act was repeated many times a day.  Not only that, but the priests were instructed to sprinkle and pour some of this blood on the altar, at the foot of the altar and other places.  What a bloody job!  I don’t know who had to clean this mess up every night, but can you imagine being in the midst of that day in and day out? 

How good it is to be covered by the blood of Jesus, the Christ.  Once and for all His blood was shed and doesn’t need to be repeated.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  John 3:16 & 17

That’s what I’m doing and that’s what Stephen King did.  I just finished reading On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.  This book is a combination of memoir and instruction manual.  In other words, it’s very entertaining.  It’s divided into four sections, the first of which is C.V.  It’s not really an autobiography, although it presents autobigraphical details to show how he was formed into a writer.  This section will make you laugh.  I loved chapteer nineteen  in which he explains why he didn’t belong in a smart people’s club.  No, I won’t tell you why.  Read it yourself and be prepared to smile or even laugh out loud.

The second section is Toolbox.  In this section, King helps you develop your writer’s toolbox.  He shows how to make your material reader friendly without complicated words and complex sentences.  One of the most useful tools that he recommends is Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.  This is a book I’ve carried around with me since I had to buy it for one of my college classes.  I’ve been vindicated.  I don’t know how many times people have asked me why I’ve held onto that “old book.”  Now I can tell them Stephen King told me I need it.  He also tells you what you don’t need.

The next section, On Writing, gets into the actual process of writing and editing.  Not surprising is the advice to read.  He says that you need to read a lot as well as write a lot.  You need to set a goal of writing a certain amount every day.  Some days it will be easier than others, but you need to stick with that goal if you want to be a writer.  He also discusses your surroundings and atmosphere in your writing place.  Keep that place exclusively for your writing and it will help you get in the mindset whenever you are there.

King wraps up the book with another bit of memoir, On Living: A Postscript.  This takes us to the 1999 accident in which he was struck by a van and nearly killed.  It chronicles his recovery and his return to writing.  He ends with an “undressed” story and the revised version so that one can visualize the editing of a manuscript.

If you’re serious about writing, you need this book.  I checked it out of the library, read it and now have to buy myself a copy. It will be living in my toolbox right next to Strunk and White.

I still like the part about why he doesn’t belong in a smart people’s club.