{"id":975,"date":"2021-02-02T16:20:33","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T20:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/?page_id=975"},"modified":"2021-02-03T22:26:16","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T02:26:16","slug":"latest-news-from-aerendel-page-6","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/latest-news-from-aerendel\/latest-news-from-aerendel-page-2\/latest-news-from-aerendel-page-3\/latest-news-from-aerendel-page-4\/latest-news-from-aerendel-page-5\/latest-news-from-aerendel-page-6\/","title":{"rendered":"“Latest News From Aerendel – Page 6”"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{{ A lot of this { Below } is Copied & Pasted \u2013 Don\u2019t try clicking on anything inside a box that looks like a link. }}}<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n

<\/h1>\n

“Weekend Progress @ the Pallet Factory?”<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n

\""Weekend<\/p>\n

\""Recently<\/p>\n

\""Hydration"\"<\/p>\n

\""Roof<\/p>\n

\""Words"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Don’t Vote For Anyone Who : …”<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n

\""<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Monday Morning – Resurrecting Old Computers – Installing Update #120 of 220 -“<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n

\""Resurrecting<\/p>\n

\u2014 So, yes, I\u2019ve been trying to fix some problems on an aging computer that came with Windows XP Media Centre back before Windows 7 was released and has had a few quirks \u2013 had its system font changed to symbols by a boy with an inquiring mind and fixed by his mother who had to jump through microsoft hoops to do that. \u2013 Had a houseguest mess around with settings so he could connect through proxy servers to a group in Africa that was closed to Canadians \u2013 and things like that. For the last week I couldn\u2019t get a lot of things to work right, went out and bought some used memory chips to more than double the pitiful amount of RAM it had and deleted tons of redundant files and applications and it still wasn\u2019t able to check for all those pain in the rump \u2018updates\u2019 that microsoft wants you to believe you need and really want. \u2014 until last night, about 12 & 1\/2 hours ago, when it finally realized there was enough space on the newly cleaned and defragged hard disk to download and install almost three years worth of all those pain in the rump updates. \u2013 I think something might have frozen because it\u2019s been sitting on \u201cInstalling update 120 of 220\u201d at least since 7 am this morning. There\u2019s a caution sign that\u2019s warning us about trying to shut down or restart \u2014 Like \u201cdon\u2019t do that-\u201d I may have to close my eyes and push the button and see what happens and maybe start all over again with the updates shortly \u2013 maybe it has enough of them under its belt so it won\u2019t have an electronic mind fart next time. ?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Shrug \u2013,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

—Happy Monday?\u00a0 Poor Cathi had to go back to work this morning \u2014 it rained so much on her last week off that she didn\u2019t finish working on the \u2018new\u2019 pallet bed frame she\u2019s been working on this month.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 But, anyway, Happy \u201cThey\u2019re changing Denali\u2019s name back to what it was called all along by Native Americans Day\u201d \u2013,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

— And now the pets are threatening to tear me apart if I don\u2019t feed them within two minutes 😉<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

~~~~~ Jim<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“September Is Here – Time To Scream? Or Smile?”<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n

\""Scream<\/p>\n

\""Pallets<\/p>\n

\""Less<\/p>\n

\""NDP<\/p>\n

\""End<\/p>\n

<\/h1>\n

“Lawn Sings On A Casual Drive -“<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n

\""Counting<\/p>\n

— Note: Two orange signs that were up have disappeared from Canada Street, here on the North Side of town. I didn\u2019t stop to ask anyone why \u2013<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

—Thanks, that\u2019s all for now, I\u2019m dealing with a wicked headache.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

~~~~~ Jim<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Stages Of Moral Growth – & The Mean Politix Of Fear”<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n

\""Moral<\/p>\n

Stages in Moral Growth <\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

& The Politix of Fear \u2013 The Politix of Mean<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2014 I think it was\u00a0 1968, The Boston Globe published an article by or about an academic type that explained Stages in Moral Growth \u2013 This may have been a book review, I believe it was in the Sunday Edition of that newspaper. & What vividly sticks in my memory is the idea that \u2013 unlike most other growth processes, those who are at a lower level of Moral Growth believe that those who have grown and adopted a higher level or Morality are actually either immoral or amoral. I\u2019ll explain that a bit further in a bit.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

===<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Here are the levels \u2013 with my own labels: It should be noted that, like Freud\u2019s theory of \u2018Libido\u2019 \u2013 Traumatic events that occur to those at lower levels may make it much more difficult for an individual to progress and\/or grow to a higher level. The process is not automatic. Social pressures, governmental pressures, authoritarian pressures, peer pressures, the fear of legal consequences \u2013 may conspire to scare all but the strongest individuals out of considering advancing\/growing\/evolving to a higher level.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

===<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Level One \u2014 \u201cInfantile\u201d \u2014 Whatever feels good is Right and Good. \u2014 It\u2019s bad to be hungry. It\u2019s bad to be wet or sitting in a soiled diaper. It\u2019s Good to be warm and dry and have a full belly. It\u2019s Good to have a Mommy or a Daddy smile and talk to you \u2013<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Level Two \u2014 \u201cToddler\u201d \u2014 Whatever Mommy and Daddy say is Good is Good and Right. \u2014 Mommy and Daddy ( or whoever is filling those roles in your eyes ) are the ultimate authority in your known universe. They pretty much know everything worth knowing, They\u2019ve told you that it\u2019s bad to touch a hot stove, and it\u2019s bad to run into the road without stopping and looking all ways and maybe even waiting for Mommy or Daddy to tell you it\u2019s okay to proceed.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Level Three \u2014 \u201cGrammar School\u201d \u2014 Living by a child\u2019s peer group\u2019s values becomes more important than following the rules that Mommy and Daddy have laid down at home.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

*** Here\u2019s where the bit about those who are at a lower level can become obvious: If your peer group says \u2018Smoking is Cool\u2019 and a younger brother or sibling sees you smoking. That younger sibling will most likely believe you are \u2018being bad\u2019, because Mommy and Daddy told you that smoking is bad. And if your younger sibling tells Mommy and Daddy, then you will believe that younger sibling is being a \u2018stool pigeon\u2019 and you and your peer group will believe that telling on you is a bad thing. ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Level Four \u2014 \u201cMiddle School\u201d \u2014 \u201cMy Country Right Or Wrong!\u201d \u2014 It begins with the belief that your school is the best and rival schools are the enemy. It usually expands to the belief that your town is Good, and the Right place to live and the next town might be something like the enemy, especially if they\u2019re involved in competition for tax money to complete projects, build schools, improve roads \u2013 and so on. You may then grow to believe that your State or Province is full of the good guys and a neighboring State or Province is populated by bad guys. So when your government tells you that another country is evil and you need to go to war to punish them for what they tell you is a crime against your Country, your King or Queen, or President or Prime Minister, then of course \u2014 going to war against those sub-human monsters would be the right thing to do.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Level Five \u2014 \u201cConscientious \/ Rigid\u201d \u2014 \u201c- \u2018Thou Shalt Not Kill\u2019 does not mean \u2018Thou Shalt Not Kill Unless Your King And Country Tells You To.\u2019 \u2013 \u201d\u00a0 \u2014 This is a level that not a lot of men and women evolve to. It takes a lot of courage to make a giant step away from the beliefs and values of the majority of your friends and neighbors. Governments and Churches have tried to muddy the waters here by invoking \u2018Jihad\u2019 and \u2018Crusades\u2019 philosophies, to try to convince everybody that \u2018God is on Our Side!\u2019 & they try to convince everybody that they want to control that \u2018Conscientious Objectors\u2019 are cowards.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

*** The Academic Type guy who wrote the book explained that most members of the World War II Generation were firmly stuck in the \u2018My Country Right Or Wrong\u2019 stage and that a lot of \u2013 especially American \u2013 youth who had grown up in an era of peace and plenty \u2013 had evolved to a higher moral level than their parents and this is why the movement against the Viet Nam \u2018Police Action\u2019 was so divisive. ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Level Six \u2014 \u201cConscientious \/ Extenuating Circumstances\u201d \u2014 \u201cWait a minute \u2013 Let me think this through -\u201d \u2014 This is the highest level the Academic guy explained. \u2014 Here\u2019s where the most conscientious people go through a personal re-evaluation and come up with, \u201cOkay, I have believed that it\u2019s wrong to kill under any circumstances \u2013 but \u2013 If I fail to act and allow a murderer to kill innocent people, have I become an accomplice? \u2013 If I try to wound somebody I see aiming a rifle at a child and accidentally kill that person, would this be not only justifiable, but a good thing? Is putting my immortal soul in jeopardy to save a life something that God would find acceptable?\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

===<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Do not blindly accept that the above is Right and Correct. Do not blindly accept that anything I say is true, right and correct without testing the ideas, values, and principles, or checking the data. My opinions are my own. I\u2019ve come to embrace those opinions the hard way, struggling one at a time to test and weigh pros and cons and all the various degrees between \u2018ultimately right\u2019 and \u2018completely wrong\u2019.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

===<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Yesterday, Labour Day \u2013\u00a0 Two candidates for federal office \u2013\u00a0 running under the Conservative Party of Canada\u2019s banner \u2013 were \u2018fired\u2019 for \u2018questionable behaviour\u2019 One guy, running in the Scarborough area of Ontario, not far from Toronto \u2013 who had been self-employed as a contractor \u2013 was caught on video urinating into his client\u2019s coffee mug and then dumping the urine into the client\u2019s sink where he was working on the faucet. Another guy \u2013 who was running in a section of Toronto \u2013 was \u2018outed\u2019 for recording and posting on YouTube = several telephone conversations in which he subjected women to sexist insults and other telephone conversations in which he made fun of handicapped\/challenged citizens.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 The Politix of Mean: Members of the Conservative Party of Canada are not the only ones in politics who have exhibited a Mean Streak. I have close friends who believe that Conservatives may have refined their \u2018mean speak\u2019 more diligently than others \u2013 sharpened and developed it as a tool that they believe will help them get elected, and\/or stay elected. There have been scholarly studies that reached the conclusion that negative political ads have much more impact than positive political ads. My spouse used to ride a bus with thirty and forty something year-olds whose conversations sounded like a script written for high school students in a programme like \u201cmean girls\u201d. She shuddered and wondered how the people she rode with every day never outgrew the attitudes, postures and mocking tones of voice they probably developed in high school or even middle school.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 There has been a television barrage of negative political ads in which several actors pretending to be a corporate board of executives are reviewing the job application of the leader of Canada\u2019s Liberal Party \u2013 These actors look and sound like a high school clique making fun of classmates they would never consider allowing to join their inner circle. They make accusations they don\u2019t back up with facts and accuse non-Conservative Party candidates of wanting to take money out of the pockets of parents throughout Canada \u2013 and cite programmes that have been criticized for only benefiting millionaires. They claim that the Liberal Leader has promised to get rid of a programme they claim is giving much-needed funds to families who need it the most when news stories have pointed out that the current Conservative Government has ended a programme that gave money to parents of children and replaced it with a program that on the surface, gives those parents money, but when researched more deeply, is a taxable benefit,which \u2013 after taxes \u2013 \u2018gives\u2019 an average family $13.19 a month where the other program, the one they got rid of, gave them hundreds and didn\u2019t \u2018claw back\u2019 anything. This morning I heard people who responded to a call in show that asked \u2018un-committed\u2019 voters to explain their concerns, and it seems that too many of those voters believe the propaganda behind the political ads and haven\u2019t learned that the money they\u2019ve been promised is not a give-away, but a political gimmick that will be severely reduced when it is clawed back at tax time. And nobody reminded anybody that the government had scuttled the program that had been giving people who needed help a lot more help that this new and highly touted program would actually deliver.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Before that call-in show aired this morning, someone else had called in a previous program and said that when the Conservative Prime Minister called for this election and established a much longer campaign period than the usual month-long period between announcing the election and Election Day \u2013 which has been the Canadian standard \u2013 The Prime Minister did this with the smug assurance that his party had a much larger \u2018War Chest\u2019 than any other party and was probably secure in his belief that the party who spends the most during an election receives the most votes.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 My \u2018gut\u2019 feeling is The Prime Minister will more than likely wake up the morning after the election smugly looking forward to a nice, comfortable, well paid retirement.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 One thing that will probably come back to bite the Conservative Party during this election is, no matter how much money they have to spend on memorable negative attack ads. The fact that the sitting Conservative Government closed down quite a few needed Veterans Administration offices at the height of a crisis in which a lot of returning vets were being given the run-around, were being denied help after being diagnosed with PTSD, and were committing suicide in epidemic numbers. The Minister in charge of Veterans Affairs then announced that he was giving the Prime Minister a cheque for a billion dollars that would have been used to serve Veterans through those closed down office. This has not been lost on a group that the Conservatives have historically counted as being firmly behind them. Veterans groups all around Canada have begun a campaign they\u2019re calling \u201cA.B.C.\u201d \u2013 \u201cAnyone But Conservatives\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

===<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 The Politix of Fear.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Another core group of Conservative Supporters \u2013 Hard Core Supporters \u2013 are the \u201cLaw and Order\u201d group who live their lives in fear \u2013 or at least anxiety \u2013 that the \u2018criminal element\u2019 will destroy their health, forcefully relieve them of their wealth, and threaten their family security.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 In recent years, the US government has been practicing the politix of fear, finding that when they can convince the American public that there are terrorists out there actively plotting to blow up buildings and kill American citizens where they live, they can get most American citizens to happily surrender most of their rights and freedoms. Homeland Security appears to be a glowing success. When a government can create an atmosphere of fear it becomes very difficult for most citizens to calm down and yell, \u2018Hey wait a minute \u2013 this is bull chips! \u2013 There weren\u2019t any communist spies hiding under everybody\u2019s beds in the nineteen fifties and there are not a million terrorists sneaking into hometown America every ten minutes ready to jump out, rape our women and children and brutally butcher your gawd-awful tax base!\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 There are quite a few people standing up and saying, \u201cIt was the C.I.A. who Created al-Qaeda\u201d \u201cIt was C.I.A. trained agents who created ISIS.\u201d \u201cGovernments have murdered more of their own Citizens than all foreign armies in all the wars in the last century. This includes World Wars I & II -\u201d Werner Von Braun told his close friends that \u2018Intelligence Groups\u2019 would manipulate us into the cold war and keep us afraid the Russians might attack us in our sleep until that message no longer resonated, and then they would manipulate a fear campaign that \u2018rogue nations\u2019 would unleash what sounds an awful lot like the \u2018Terrorist Actions\u2019 they are keeping us off-center and easily pushed around now. & when the fear of Rogue Nations\/terrorists no longer scared enough of us into blindly surrendering our rights and freedoms \u2013 the dark ops intelligence groups would launch an attack in broad daylight using very advanced secretly developed flying machines and claim that we were being attacked by a new enemy from outer space.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 These people will do anything to keep us \u2018under their control\u2019. And fear has always been the most effective weapon that they use against their own people.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 The Current Canadian Government seems to believe they should follow the US model and use well-chosen lies and propaganda to spread the atmosphere of constant Fear throughout Canada as a ploy, which, when coupled with their lies that they\u2019re the only ones prepared to protect Canadians from whatever boogeymen they can convince us are hiding under every bed and around every corner \u2013 this just might keep them in power forever, at our expense.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Don\u2019t buy it \u2014<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 But then again, in 2011 my spouse and I were enjoying dinner in a \u2018down home\u2019 mom & pop type restaurant in the Ottawa area of Ontario when a group who looked like farmers were gathered at a table near us, enjoying each others\u2019 company and chatting over dinner, telling jokes and looking friendly. But then one guy, probably in his forties, growled, frowned and barked out, \u201cHey, did all of you hear what \u2018Taliban-Jack\u2019 said this afternoon?\u201d Referring to Jack Layton, then Leader of the NDP, who was calling for reason in the face of an anti-Taliban propaganda campaign and not to commit the lives of Canadian Soldiers to fight somebody else\u2019s battles in a war that he believed was mis-directed and one we couldn\u2019t win.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 We came to the realization that we lived in an area where too many voters had been brain washed to the point where they would gladly vote for a dead goat as long as that dead goat ran under the Conservative Party\u2019s banner.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Don\u2019t vote for anyone who believes there is such a thing as \u201cThe Great Unwashed\u201d.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Don\u2019t vote for anyone who believes they know better than you do how you should live your life.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

###<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

~~~~~ Jim<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/h1>\n

“Parallel Worlds – Quantum Physics – Or Just Weird Dreams?”<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n

\""Quantum<\/p>\n

\u2014 I dreamed we were discovering shark fins sticking up through the ground. Some of them were still trying to move. I was walking around with Cathi and at least one scientific investigator type while we hypothesized that the barrier between our world and a parallel world wasn\u2019t functioning properly \u2013 that maybe the coastline was just a little bit different. We weren\u2019t afraid the sharks could burst out of the ground in their struggles, they were stuck in solid ground, some of them in solid rock. The scientist was wondering if this dimensional barrier losing its integrity thing explained a rash of missing people, some of whom had vanished in the blink of an eye. We weren\u2019t worried that we might be the next victims.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 I woke up and glanced at the clock, it was 7:57 am. Cathi had already gotten up, got dressed, had breakfast, and left for work. I almost always wake up around 7, get up, and push the button that starts her morning coffee brewing. \u2013 We haven\u2019t spent the extra hundred dollars it would take to buy a \u2018smart\u2019 coffee maker that we could program to brew the coffee at the same time every morning \u2013 & I\u2019ve developed a mistrust for \u2018smart\u2019 appliances and the electronic pollution they emit, and especially \u2018smart meters\u2019 that emit so much electronic pollution that quite a few people have a lot of trouble sleeping as soon as the ice-holes from the power companies with their ulterior motives install the bluddy things. So many \u2018smart meters\u2019 have spontaneously burst into flame that they\u2019ve been outlawed in some places. They should be outlawed everywhere. Anyway \u2013 when I got my eyes half-open I couldn\u2019t find the dog, who is usually either on the floor beside the bed or up on the bed, having taken advantage of us being asleep and not objecting to the 125 pound dog trying to wedge himself between us.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 I got up and stumbled around. Everything was grey outside, and very wet. Rain had been forecast. It wasn\u2019t raining. Nothing was moving. There was no hint of a breeze and at almost precisely eight o\u2019clock in the morning, no cars were zooming up or down the main north and south road that\u2019s between 75 and 100 feet or meters from our living room door. It was almost spooky. I remembered stories told by people who believed they had somehow stumbled into a weird zone between dimensions where they were out of phase \u2013 where buildings were there, but no life \u2013 and they\u2019d reported that the light was weird \u2013 darker than they thought it should have been. I think one husband and wife team being interviewed in a paranormal spot on the radio described this, said they got to where they were going but nothing seemed right, not even bugs were moving there. I forget how they blundered back across the border into our \u2018normal\u2019 world, but they were immensely relieved when they did.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 I looked around, couldn\u2019t see the cat or the dog. The cat can find places to hide and we both swear he can teleport around inside the house, and maybe anywhere else he might want to go \u2013 at will \u2013 but not finding the dog was a bit worrisome. I stepped out into the glassed-in porch Cathi calls our front porch, I think of as either the back porch or a side porch \u2013 and looked around. No dog, no cat, nothing moving outside, everything very wet. Except for the fact that I could turn doorknobs and open and close doors I could have begun to worry that I\u2019d either left my physical body in the bedroom and was moving around in \u2018astral\u2019 form or might have died in my sleep-<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 I went back into the bedroom and looked around again. I couldn\u2019t find the dog at first, but I hadn\u2019t turned the light on and our big black Labrador can sometimes quite effectively blend in with shadows. I called him by his nickname \u2013 \u201cBoof-\u201d and one shadow moved. I was surprised at how much relief I felt. The boof wanted to lead me to the refrigerator and have me give him a piece of bread or other treat for having saved my sanity and on the way the orange cat appeared from under the kitchen table and said, \u201cUnga mah mara-\u201d which means something like, \u201cHi there, you\u2019re up and around, thank you for the cat treats you better give me if you don\u2019t want your bare legs shredded-\u201d and smiled a big happy passive-aggressive smile.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 I won\u2019t say that everything is right with the world, But at least I haven\u2019t fallen through into a parallel dimension, or something worse, like a dimension where everything familiar is in a state of suspended animation, with me the only living thing moving around. It would be a real bummer to find proof that quantum theory works on this level and not be able to tell anybody about that-<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Happy Wednesday \u2013,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

~~~~~ Jim<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Half Past September?”<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n

\""Half<\/p>\n

\u2014 My long time best friend Greg and his sister Nina stayed with us for a couple nights during their vacation and sightseeing trip around New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and a little bit of Nova Scotia this week. Before they left Greg rolled out a blanket and showed us the beautiful hand-made bread boards and cribbage boards he designs and creates and brings with him to flea markets where he sells them and takes special orders \u2013 Then he surprised us by asking Cathi to pick one and keep it as a gift. She chose a round one made of a dark-ish wood that almost matches the dark cherry stain she likes a lot.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\""Greg's<\/p>\n

\u2014 We haven\u2019t traveled south to visit the United States much in the past several years. I think I dashed down alone myself twice last year, once to see my sister and mother and family and friends as mom and my sister dashed around New England on March Break as they visited from Alaska, and once in July I think, to finally empty out a storage unit with stuff that I\u2019d been storing since 2002, when mom sold the old hacienda and moved to Alaska and I packed everything I could into an old hatchback Chevy Corsica and drove to Ontario to apply for extended visitor status, then permanent residence and then dual citizenship to be with Cathi, who had captured my heart and imagination without trying :).<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Wow- I explained some of that to Greg\u2019s sister and relived the first glimpse I had of my beautiful \u2018amour fou\u2019 after we\u2019d communicated through the internet and then over the phone for a couple of years, read each other\u2019s creative writing and trouble-shot each other\u2019s web site editing. Yup, I lost my heart with our first hug and I still think my brain went out looking for my heart and never found its way back \u2014 That might explain a few things.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 But reconnecting with Greg and his sister, even if we didn\u2019t have enough time to sit down and catch up on everything that\u2019s happened around us in the past 45 years \u2013 (yikes-) started a few creative juices flowing and connected a few dots that gave me the jolt I needed to figure out what might be missing in the huge and incredibly rambling\/meandering novel I\u2019ve been writing since 1968 \u2014 Funny how connecting with friends can give us the nudge we need to see past problematic obstacles like silly plot twists that either have to go or might be explained completely elegantly by an infusion of insight triggered by unexpected events and happy conversations with friends whose subtle influence and presence in our lives was something we didn\u2019t realize we\u2019d missed so badly.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 insert big happy smiling face here \u2014<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

~~~~~ Jim<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{{ A lot of this { Below } is Copied & Pasted \u2013 Don\u2019t try clicking on anything inside a box that looks like a link. }}} “Weekend Progress @ the Pallet Factory?”   “Don’t Vote For Anyone Who : …”   “Monday Morning – Resurrecting Old Computers – Installing \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":942,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-975","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P559rH-fJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=975"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1001,"href":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/975\/revisions\/1001"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}