Merry Christmas from the family

Coyotes and Chest Pain

Coyotes were yipping and howling late last night. Of course my dogs have to join in with their yodeling which makes sleeping very hard to do in my little cabin.

I was having a dream about a witch-doctor lady who was trying to minister to me by pressing hard on my chest while I lied down across her desk. I expressed to her this tightness and pain I had in my chest and she was trying to remedy me.

There's sometimes in my waking hours an awareness of anxiety or a tenseness I carry around in the center of my being that feels like my heart. I press and bang on my chest some but it doesn't go away. It is mental or emotional, not physical – I think.

As I'm lying there listening to the coyotes and my dog howl. I realized how much I worried about the ability of outside life - for example, wildlife, and even maybe nature - to survive outside of man. Somehow I've become convinced that if mankind doesn't change behavior, we will wipe out all life on earth. Well, maybe not all life, but surely the newly arrived surrounding coyotes in my neighborhood will more than likely be shot and killed out by someone, making them at least locally extinct.

I felt this same burdensome pressure in my chest.

Then I thought about the wily nature of the coyote and how sneaky he has been to successfully avert the onslaught of man with his semi-civilization of dogs, guns, and farming. Realizing to myself that in spite of man, coyotes have still so far survived. If man completely became extinct, coyotes might still survive on the outer edges somewhere.

Just knowing that I myself and mankind in general isn't completely in control and responsible for all wildlife - that man might die out someday and other wildlife could continue - released the pressure in my chest.

I exhaled and felt better than I've felt in long time. The pain in my chest went away.

Deer Fighting

It's rutting season for the deer in the Texas hill country and we sit on our porch nightly and catch a few bucks fighting now and then. It is amazing and intense.

Seeing some of these trophy bucks almost makes me want to go back to my deer hunting days.

When asked why I don't shoot one of these deer I reply, "I'd rather see that head and rack running around in the woods than cut off and hanging on my wall." We haven't filmed any of these incidents but I found a few interesting deer videos on YouTube.com.

Mountains, Texas, and Texas mountain music

Mountains are on my mind and I just wrote a bluegrass song about a man that gets jaded at the altar - it's called "oh, the pain"..... lots of lyrics and i find myself having trouble remembering my own lyrics. My wonderfully beautifully daughter recently went to Enchanted Rock had a picture of herself looking out upon the true West of Texas hill country. She is beautiful and enchanting. If you haven't found the internet stream ripper yet, go get it and rip some good music..... you won't regret it.

The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace

Thanks Mr. Shapiro for calling Americans what we have surely shown to the world that we are - petty, disloyal, and short-visioned. Why Americans are so shallow as to place all the hopes, blames, and problems upon a single man - the President - is beyond me.

I hope Americans grow up and stop looking for a father-figure to solve their own problems. Unfortunately, Obama has taken his new post on that very platform - that things have been very bad for us and now "change" has come in the form of a black messiah.

I guess we'll find out soon enough. I hope Obama remembers how fast the public turned on Bush from a 90% approval to 20% over matters mostly beyond his control.

Americans should be proud that we have come such a long way that we can elect a black President. We should be ashamed again for our past for so easily disdaining a man like George W. Bush.

A Great Nation

Congratulations to every black person who has survived their history to get to this magnificent point in America's timeline.

Congratulations to all of America for stepping up and voting their conscious regardless of color.

May our past be behind us.

May just the beginnings of the greatness of this nation begin to unfold.

Tarantula Wasp

We have tarantulas around us here in the hill country. We also have tarantula wasps. These are hummingbird sized insects that fly around looking for tarantulas to kill. I came across one the other day that just killed a tarantula and was dragging it somewhere - I assume to its lair. It headed due north and climbed straight up and over my rock wall dragging the dead tarantula.

The Vinnie Show

I understand why Pilate washed his hands

I don't like to kill things

I don't mind if something has to die so I can live. But meaningless death bothers me. It's even harder if I have to do it.

Dogs killed another deer today. Or near killed it. Dogs chasing the deer. Wife (and this time my daughter also) chasing the dogs. I followed them all. A small female deer running for her life. Smashing into the fence over and over as the dogs are either on her tail or at her throat. It's very dramatic and fast happening when you are trying to prevent it.

Deer jumps up and crashes one more time before we get the dogs under control. It lays there breathing. The women screaming.

I pull them back. Daughter stares and watches the doe dying for awhile. Comes back an excites the mom into hysteria and senseless guilt. More wailing and cries of pain.

I have to rid the living, still breathing, but dying animal.

Bringing a fold-out Gerber knife I bought as a kid and recently sharpened. Talking to a friend who calls and says, "hey how's it going?" I go to the deer to try and finish her off.

Cutting her throat repeatedly, it comes to semi-life and kicks to try and remember its former life of romp and pleasure.

Friend on the phone, says "... man, why are being short with me."... "Sorry, dude, .. I'm trying kill this deer ... it don't wanna die", I say.

(When we die, do we need that extra time to repent and think about the life we've lived. Does cutting someone's or something's throat steal away the few extra moments a creature might have to say goodbye. Or is it imaginary? Is it just a slow loss of consciousness?)

Wife and daughter are making peace with each other now. A shot of tequila for me. I don't like killing things.

The dogs still pant.

Blood is on the rocks where I dragged the deer to an open field in hopes of the buzzards soon to spot.

I don't like dying. I don't like death.

I don't like cutting the throat of a living creature to help it die.

I don't like dying in general.

...can somebody

get me out of this thing?

Wimberley - Keeping it Weirder

Well to hell with the rest of the world, and politics and crashing economy and all that.... we here in Wimberley have kept the party rolling according to our motto of "keeping Wimberley weirder."

Last weekend I entered Phoebe (my elite but whiny American Bulldog) into the "Blessing of the Animals" celebration. She won an award for something - either best dressed or being a big dog or something.... we marched around and asked God to bless our animals... some folks had chickens, rabbits and a hermit crab. God was able to bless them all.

This weekend we had the 3rd annual Calamari Chili Cook-off - the largest chili cook off in Wimberley on this side of the Blanco River. It was great. We didn't win but came real close. Adena's chili was devoured by everyone. Mark won the "Best Booth" award with his Elvis in Hawaii dress-up. He did look cool I must admit. We were the "Raise the Dead" chili and dressed as such. I got to entertain a little on my slide guitar and harmonica with a make-shift gig with the popular Whitney who was there.

Whatever the rest of the world is doing, we're going to keep it weirder here in Wimberley and keep it fun.

It sucks to live in other places.

I love YouTube - Joe the Plumber is funny - Government is not.

With much ado, I was able to snag the code from YouTube that give me the specific videos I want... check all of these out that I've watched and enjoyed today... some about "Joe the Plumber" and some about various White, Black and government perspectives - mostly around Obama ... some of it very funny... some very serious (like the Ron Paul one)... enjoy.
If you don't like one, mouse over and click the arrows on video to go to the next.

Be sure to catch the last one entitled "How to Dance Like a White Guy" and don't forget to actually hear Hillary Clinton's onstage fart.

Barack Ocommie

Good ole' Joe. Boy this is fun.

Joe Plumber

Breaking news: Joe Plumber get lecture from Obama. Told we need to "spread the wealth". Joe Plumber doesn't laugh ... thinks about slapping Obama upside the head.

If the below thesis is epistemologically sound, then literally:

I make the world that makes me

I make the world that makes me

Thinking Makes It So

[context: "economic crises" going on now]

FAITH in the banks
FAITH in the financial system
FAITH in the economy

How can FAITH be the sustainer of anything?

Confidence. Truth. Believing that something is sound and true.

How can belief in something actually make that thing what you believe it to be - to be?

I don't get it? This is totally backwards to me. But that is what all the experts, government officials, and smart people of the world are saying is required to stabilize our economy - the banks, the financial system itself.

I don't get it.

The thing either exists or it doesn't. The qualities of the thing either is good or bad or somewhere in the middle. It's somewhat fair to characterize it at any given moment if it is to the left or to the right of that exact middle between Extreme good and Extreme bad. So this is not a black versus white issue.

So it is fair to say things can be described as GOOD or BAD.

The economy is either GOOD or BAD.
Banks are either GOOD or BAD
My BELIEF of whether something is GOOD or BAD can't actually make it become the very thing I believe it to be.

Can it?

Is this a paradox? Hidden wisdom? Magic? Mystical cause and effect in dimension of reality that we don't understand? Is this just some kind of hard-wired brain trick or semantic puzzle?

I don't get it. I can't say I believe it possible. I can't say I could get any reasonable person to confess that just simply believing in something MAKES it exist.

Yet I kind of believe it.

The economy rolls when people are confident. Banks work, the economic system works when people trust in it. We all kind of know this.

And this is true. (At least it sure appears to be.)

So is it the fact that these beliefs predominate across the masses? Is it the fact that the vast majority of people believing in, having faith in, trusting in some actual state of existence that actually makes it happen.

We all believe it is good and therefore it is good?

We all believe it is bad and therefore it is bad?

Does attitude itself MAKE the environment around us?!

And where does that leave the individual? Where does that lead me?

I think I am good therefore I am good?
I think I am bad therefore I am bad?

We - Need to Be

Need to be ... the essence of purpose and therefore joy ... what we all aspire to and the only thing that makes us happy. The NEED to be. Being needed. Being and engaging in the compiling of maneuvers to orchestrate events to survive that others might live; this is what brings joy and life.

Death is not being needed or wanted. Death is not supplying this essence to some other - imaginary or real.

HOPE is the fuel of self.

The need to be is the supplier of that fuel.

Politics, Polls, and Propaganda

$700 Billion bailout package turns out to be a "pebble in sea-storm". Find out and remember which of the Congressmen and Senators voted for this subsidizing. Thanks to Knight of Pan for the link.

Be sure to catch all of John McCain's video propoganda here.
Be sure to catch all of Barack Obama's video propoganda here.

And if you're looking to keep track of the swinging and swaying of which state will be voting for who keep this link on your favorites.

Squirrel Repellant

Sweet! I found for only $99 I can buy "fox urine granules" gauanteed to keep them damn squirrels away.

Word to that! Send me two!

I wonder how they make these? Trap a bunch of foxes and tie little baggies to their backends? Then freeze dry 'em?

Free but not Free

Remember the "Free Kevin" campaign? Kevin Mitnick was one of the first examples made by the federal government for "hacking" into computer systems. Well, Kevin spent 5 years in prison (4 1/2 BEFORE a trial) and has been out for 8 years but is still being harrassed.

On a same but different note, another Kevin also is being claimed as injustly being held by our federal government.

Oh, and by the way... If you've ever used a peer-to-peer network and swapped copyrighted files, chances are pretty good you're guilty of a federal felony.