Where I Came From

In evaluating a city council meeting that I attended last evening, a thought that kept entering my mind was "remembering where I came from".

I have my opinions, and I can wear them on my sleeve. And more often than not, people who disagree with me take issue over them, but it's often because I tend to write very strongly. I write much more effectively than I speak.

I came from humble beginnings. We were basically poor, my mother and father and I. We lived in military housing, depending only my father's income from the Navy. My family didn't own their home until after I graduated high school. My family didn't own a car until I was 6 years old.

I can on and on, but it's a boring story, and everyone else has a story to tell too.

But to get to the point, many of us forget where we came from.

Today, I do pretty well for myself. I run a small business, an incorporated business, where my wife and I are the stockholders. I get to work out of my house, and the industry I'm in is such that my clients never need to talk to me. I might get an e-mail once in awhile from one of them, but this industry is so automated, there's really nothing much to talk about day to day.

That gives me incredible amounts of freedom, with a high profit margin, being able to work from home, and being able to work anywhere there's an Internet connection. Few business owners can comprehend what I have.

I'm very grateful for that. I actually started a meetup group a couple years ago just to share that knowledge with others in my town. And I'm more than willing to share that knowledge again.

But I would never for once think that I'm at any higher level than anyone else. Everyday I remind myself to stay within the arms of the People. The people are who I champion. I come from these humble beginnings, and as far as I know I'll probably die with a humble ending.

Well, going back to that city council meeting. All I could see was selfishness. Despite all the explanations we were given, I found none that made any lick of sense. It was pure selfishness all the way through. Even today, I continue to hear excuses used to justify their selfishness. Only our Mayor seemed to listen to the people, and put himself above the self-serving interests of his colleagues.

It's a bold statement from me. For those of you in my town who happen to find this blog, well there you go. Don't forget where you came from. No one is a self-made man. Each person got help from other people to get where they are. Keep yourself in the arms of the People, those people won't forget.

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Posted:   Wednesday, February 04, 2009
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My Dad Has Cancer

Last October, my dad called me to say that he has cancer.

Fortunately, his comes with a very high survival rate. He found a lump on the side of his neck. Turns out, there's a malignant 'noma of some type growing on the back end of his tongue. He's on chemotherapy and radiation, and things are looking good he says.

So that conversation has thus far caused me to be more concerned about him. I've thought about him, and felt rather sympathetic.

I remember that song in the 1980's by Mike and the Mechanics, "In the Living Years", that described a man who's father passed away and was left without the chance to rekindle a lost relationship. I've described my lost relationship with my father in an earlier article here.

So thinking about his cancer has perhaps made me think of my father in a new way.

The past couple of years since his retirement, he's made trips down here to visit me. And in those visits we've talked about the old days when my father, mother, and myself lived together as a family, and he's answered my barrage of questions of why things happened the way they did.

Him being in Renton, WA and me here in Menifee, CA makes it difficult to have a father-son relationship. I feel like time is running out, and if my dad and I are ever going to become father and son again, I need start soon.

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Posted:   Thursday, January 22, 2009
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Little Green Army Men

Little Green Army MenI think of all the toys I grew up with as a kid, my all time favorite was my collection of little green army men.

My mom used to buy me bags of them, and each time she threw down another bag at me, I would pour through them eager to find what new soliders I'd find, similar to a philatelist pouring through a box of old envelopes.

That was when I was between 5-8 years old. In those days, I had a friend who lived on the other side of the block, Mark. We could cut through our backyards and hook up.

And he had his collection of army men also. The American guys were always "army green" in color, while the German guys were always a grayish blue.

Mark's house had a cool area by the side, mostly covered over by thick growing oleander. But his dad was pretty cool. He cut out some branches and carved out a space in the dirt where we could dig our trenches, plow out some roads, and build some hills. Then set up the battlefield.

Once set up, we would execute the battles. Booom! Kssssh. Crack-kak-kak-kak! Vrooommm! KaBOOOM!

What fun.

Mark's dad and mom were hippies. This would have been around 1971-1974, in San Diego, in the community of North Park, right off the corner of Boundary and Orange Ave. I actually lived on Iowa St, but Mark's house was on Boundary. (see map). This was a time when the hippy movement was just dying down, and they were reentering suburban life.

Anyways, his dad would tell us the stories of World War II. Mark and I would sit down on the dirt, legs folded together and staring at his face while he spoke. He said the Germans would cram their cannons with poop whenver they ran out of bombs. "Ewwww!" we said. "Yeah." he replied while nodding his up and down.

Down the road, my mom bought me little plastic indians and cowboys. Mark and I tried playing with those too, but we just didn't find much fantasy with cowboys and indians. WWII always seemed to present some kind of mythical quality for us. Stories of Germans blasting fecal mortar fire allowed our mischievious minds to wander freely throughout the art of war. It helped foster a sense of creativity.

Later on as I grew into my teens, I bought my little brother a bag of Army men, along with a bag of Germans. I showed him how to play. But that was during the 1980s, when we had a video game console. The wonders of childhood will never be the same.

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Posted:   Tuesday, January 20, 2009
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When is the End of the World

I'm watching this television program on History Channel right now about the end of the world.

It's centered around the year 2012 doomsday prophecy. They've spent considerable amount of time describing a woman named "Sybil" who during the Roman era before Christ, predicted that the world would end around this time.

You know how it is. Back in the late 1990s, all the major media channels made a big deal about Nostradamus and his prediction that in the year 2000 the world would end. I remember even Pat Robertson saying that it was true. Then, it never happened.

So Nostradamus is out, and now Sybil is in.

I saw a website that predicted the Apocalypse, or "the Rapture" would begin in August of 2007. And this website even quoted Pat Robertson that this is when it would happen. Well, so far, Pat Robertson is still here on Earth, so I guess he was wrong.

Here's what I believe.

First, the world won't end, at least not for another few billion years. When we talk about "the end of the world", we're talking about a massive loss of humanity. Otherwise, there's nothing Mankind can do to physically end the world.

Second, as it stands right now, the world continues to add more people than it takes away. If we keep on adding more people, then certainly there will come a time when there are SO many people on this planet, that we'll become vulnerable to pandemics. The Earth can only produce so much fresh water, so much food, and so much oxygen. Eventually these commodities will become so valuable, that it will be the cause of great war. Anybody can predict this. Whether or not it happens on 2012, I doubt it.

Third, a doomsday means different things to different people. If you're an Iraqi, then sure enough, the world did in fact end as you knew it. But it just changed, that's all. If another country were to invade the United States, and actually occupy it, then Christians here might claim that the Apocalypse started.

Fourth, this talk of global warming as an indication that the end of the world is coming is baloney. The Earth has been going through cycles of warming and cooling for a million years. That's how much of our geography was created, by ice sheets growing and receding. This isn't the end of the world, this is just Nature doing what it has always done.

As far as these soothsayers like Nostradamus and Sybil, they're just people who rolled the dice and came up lucky. For every prophet who predicted that the world will end in 2012, there were a 1,000 others who predicted a different year. I mean, how many fortune tellers has this world produced? If you consider that Humanity will indeed experience disaster over the centuries, then sure enough at least of few of those soothsayers will get a lucky roll of the dice.

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Posted:   Monday, October 08, 2007
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