Virginia Breeze

From time to time I enjoy reading the newspaper and learning about what is going on in the world. It’s not something to do every day because too much news is not a good thing. In fact, too much news can drive you crazy. I used to follow the news closely until one day I found myself downtown trying to find the office of our number one elected official so I could discuss something with him.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I had gone around the bend and ought to find something else to do. So I stopped watching or caring about the news and became a blogger. Now a giant wave could pass outside my window here in Richmond, Virginia and I would simply note it in a blog post, take a few photos and resume playing Lord of the Rings Online.

It’s so nice to be sane once again. I’m really proud to have made such progress in so short a period of time.

I enjoy reading about things that are happening in the world. But it’s like eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. You really have to limit your intake or you will die way before your time.

Speaking of death I was sad to see in the news yesterday that two motorcycle drivers had a head-on collision here in town over the weekend and passed away. Condolences to their family and friends but how do you have a head-on collision with another motorcycle driver? Don’t people drive motorcycles so they can go around things? I see them all the time in traffic going around cars that are stuck in one place. Perhaps these two were related in another lifetime. Maybe they were brothers who went off in different directions and missed each other terribly.

Now they are together again in heaven. Angels are tenderly trying to separate them so that they can begin their heavenly training.

I also enjoy reading about what happened on this day in history. On July 1, 1867 Canada became a self-governing dominion of Great Britain. This news also is causing me some confusion however. Doesn’t the word dominion have something to do with the word dominate? And isn’t the concept of self-government different from the notion of domination? It’s a little like what happened to Prince Charles on this day in 1969. Because he was formally invested as the Prince of Wales by his mother. He was given a position of great authority and prestige on this day.

And here we are forty years later and he’s still got the same position and precious little authority! Henry V!!! who has been so vividly portrayed lately on Showtime had his wife’s head removed based on some trumped up rumors about her infidelity. But Prince Charles had to watch while his wife went tooling around Paris with her boyfriend in a luxury automobile for the whole world to see!

Boy things sure have changed in the last four hundred years.

Maybe.

Canada did manage to get a national anthem on this day in 1980. It only took 113 years to come up with some music to mark the occasion.

In 1946 on this day the United States exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. But on this day in 1968 the US, Britain, the Soviet Union and sixty other countries signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Between these two dates
in the 1950’s above ground testing was conducted out west in the US near Las Vegas! People were encouraged to go out in their yards and watch. In fact they were given radiation badges that were collected and analyzed.

Some of these folks later discovered that they glowed in the dark except on one little area where the radiation badge had been located!!

Oh, I just made that last part up!

Maybe

Marlon Brandon left us on this date five years ago. Maybe he can welcome our two motorcycle brothers into the fraternity up there and do a quick replay with them to figure out how they went wrong.

And, finally, a bevy of beautiful babes are enjoying birthdays today. Olivia de Havilland, Karen Black, Deborah Harry, Genevieve Bujold, Lisa Blount, Pamela Anderson, Liv Tyler and Jamie Farr are all having special days.

And I have completed my adventure into a world full of news and history and insanity. Clearly its time to relax and do some deep breathing. My wife always hides the car keys for awhile when I do this so no one will be tempted to go downtown. Not that I would actually try and go anywhere to see someone about the current state of our terrestrial paradise.

Who would I talk to anyway? It seems like no one is in charge in any meaningful sense. We are all just drifting along through time waiting for the last day when history is able to amaze us.

And we become it.

So enjoy!

Tags: atomic testing, canadian independence, deborah harry, genevieve bejold, jamie farr, liv tyler, lord of the rings online, marlon brando, motorcycle deaths, pamela anderson, prince charles, prince charles and princess diane, princess diane, this day in history

Oh the joy of waking up at two am and not being able to sleep! What do we do in this situation? Some of us turn on the television I suppose. Others may grab a book and start to read. A few intrepid souls may go for walks and look at the moon. Still others may grab a snack. This last is bad for you I’m told because the calories just sit there and result in an increased waistline.

Of course if you have a snack and then go for a walk you might burn some of those calories. And if you end up being chased around the neighborhood in the middle of the night by a dog or a shadowy figure you may be glad you had something in your tank to burn.

There seem to be certain hours of the night when it’s not alright to take a walk. Or am I just imagining things? It’s fine to go out late or get up very early and walk before daylight but that’s different.

We have a Nintendo Wii now and we can do different things on it. I can bowl on it or pretend I’m a penguin on a large piece of ice. When fish flop up on the ice I can try to eat them and gain points. It’s a balancing exercise and very good for someone who has poor balance. Maybe I should go downstairs and turn it on.

It’s a better deal than, let’s say, going for a walk in the dark at two am and falling over into the ditch because you have poor balance when you cannot see things.

Another thing you can do in the middle of the night is blog. Maybe you will regret it in the morning however. Your eyes will crack up because at some point they finally cracked shut. And you will think “Oh,oh. What did I post last night? Maybe I should have taken a walk.”

Well it can’t be helped. We must take risks in life. We must venture out into the darkness of physical space or inward towards the unknown thoughts floating around in our heads. We can put on our shoes or start typing words that will hopefully lead somewhere in a short period of time.

Sitting. Waiting. Hoping. Fingers at the keyboard.

Nothing. There is nothing here. And my teeth hurt because I clench them when I sleep. Maybe I should turn on the television and watch Billy Mays tell us all about the joys of effective cleansers. Oh wait. He died very unexpectedly after returning home following a rough landing that burst the tires of the airplane. He left home and did not return in good shape.

Maybe he should have bought a Wii and worked on his golf in cyberspace. No. That’s not right. He went out and lived his life in a very successful way. And he died trying. Michael Jackson on the other hand died in bed and he was not full of peanut butter and crackers when his soul went out the door. Excess calories were not his problem.

Maybe he should have taken more walks even in the middle of the night. Scary as that seems to me it could have done him a lot of good. Taking real or imagined risks makes sense sometimes. Yes.

I should take a walk. Right now. In the middle of the night. And bring along this little MP3 player. Perhaps I will see the moon and clouds racing along in silent joy. Or perhaps it will be completely dark and I will fall in a ditch.

Either way I will have accomplished something. I will have merged my two worlds and remained whole. Maybe I will listen to this while exploring the darkness.

04 – Thriller

Tags: billy mays, confronting fears, merging worlds, michael jackson, rambling ruminations, taking walks, thriller, walking in the night

Last summer we spent a week sailing around the Bahamas. And there was a hurricane churning around on the other side of Florida while we were there. So we had a few cloudy days and one really cool and amazingly intense but brief downpour. So one of my favorite songs by Jim Morrison and The Doors came to mind when I was putting some of the photos from that adventure together.

There are a lot of good things happening in this song. Please feel free to click on it and then the photo thumbnail. Change the photo timing feature on the slide show. Do what you want. And I hope you get to sail somewhere on a clear day sometime soon.

Play Waiting For The Sun

27 – Waiting For The Sun

Sailing in the Bahamas

Tags: bahamas photos, fun photos, hotphotos, hurricane season and the bahamas, jim morrison, sailing in the bahamas, the doors, waiting for the sun

It’s time to hit the beach again and we are just about ready. The repairs on the building are (hopefully) coming along and we no longer have to worry about seagulls flying through our bedroom while we are trying to sleep. Here’s one of Roy Orbison’s classic homages to women who make the landscape so much more attractive than it otherwise might be.

Where would be be without them? Depressed for sure!

Pretty Woman

Play Oh, Pretty Woman

20 Oh, Pretty Woman

Click on the music and then the photo thumbnail for a slide show experience. And don’t hesitate to play with the photo timing feature.

Tags: hotphotos, oh, pretty woman, pretty woman roy orbison, roy orbison, Virginia Beach, vriginia beach fun

originally uploaded by Davidlind

Play Hush

02 – Hush

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

Tags: air and space, deep purple, hush and deep purple, photos of airplanes, smithsonian air and space museum, space museum