Rules Must be Obeyed

From the moment your mother first tells you “no” you learn to hate rules. From then on it is a slippery slope of pretty much nothing but rules. As my sister would say, “It’s what makes us different from the animals!!”

I guess. I could also argue that hair products also make us different from the animals but why bother? Suffice to say that if you are a well adjusted, law abiding citizen you have learned to live within rules…or more than likely…learned a fine balance of obeying some and ignoring others.

Hawaii is a great place if you like rules. There are rules for everything. There are rules for what route to take when you drive somewhere. There are rules for where to buy a certain food item and rules on how to eat it once you get it. There are also rules that dictate what gifts you will buy when you visit a certain locale and where you will buy them from. You get the idea. It really is part of the charm of life here.

It also gives me plenty of reasons to cover my ears and scream “ENOUGH WITH THE RULES!”

Rules that I live by vary but there are some that always seem to be in my top five:

1) Love God

2) Treat other people the way you would like them to treat you

3) Be charitable

4) Never pay retail

5) Never pass up a straight line

Some are easier to do than others so maybe it would be better to refer to these as goals as opposed to rules but I’m not going to pick nits. Some also seem more ruley than others.

Rules don’t always have to be a chore. Rules can be fun. Number 4, for instance. It is a challenging goal that can be fun and quite rewarding.

Number 5 is fun but has gotten me into quite a lot of trouble over the years. It took me a while to realize not everyone has a sense of humor. And some folks that do have a sense of humor may not have MY sense of humor. I’ve made a lot of friends following rule number 5. I have also alienated quite a few folks. It hasn’t stopped me, it has just made me more aware of how others are perceiving me. It hasn’t stopped me because it is a rule after all. And as we all know, rules must be obeyed.

 

 

 

I’m No Fan

It’s not in me to be a “fan”. Of course I like certain things, people, music, sports etc. But it just isn’t in me to be one of those rabid followers of anything. I don’t look down on people who do have it in them; heck it seems like most of the human race have it in them. Gees look at TV. Modern American television counts on the FANatical inclinations of the American public. “American Idol”? I could not care less.

I credit my parents for this lack of fanaticism on my part. They didn’t have it either. There was no idolization of any popular figure in my house. It wasn’t forbidden by any stretch. Much to my parents credit, they never inhibited or restricted those feelings on the part of me or my siblings. We were all allowed to go a little crazy for people or fads and my parents trusted that it was just normal childish behavior that we would eventually grow out of. I guess they were right.

Yes, gentle reader, I am old enough to remember the beginnings of a once popular singing group known as THE BEATLES. Ever hear of them? Talk about people that inspired fanatical behavior! They were liked in my house, even by my parents. My sister had little inflatable George, Paul, John & Ringo dolls. I can still smell their vinylly goodness. They were packed away after a few months. The real group’s popularity lasted way longer than my sister’s fandom.

I credit this upbringing to my parents’ belief that everyone was basically the same. No one was better than anyone else. You certainly needed to show respect or deference to certain people and institutions in your life, but that was really just protocol more than anything. We were never taught to think someone is better than us simply because of their job or their bank accounts. This type of upbringing tended to have the secondary aspect of teaching us not to envy someone else or be jealous of what they are or what they have. I am grateful that it has allowed me to be the kind of person that can share in someone else’s joy or good fortune.

And no I am not saying we are (were) saints by any stretch of the imagination. We are human for Pete’s sake and have the same emotions and foibles as everyone else. I’m just saying that as a family, I don’t think we have propensity for some behavior that is pretty much considered “normal”. So I guess that would make us somewhat abnormal.

To wit: my parents’ inability to take a compliment. I guess my folks were aware that there was a preponderance of negative humans out there because one thing they taught us to be aware of “the evil eye”. There was a little ritual to deflect that evil eye. Normal folks would just knock wood or throw salt over their shoulders. Oh no, not us. To deflect the evil eye, one must spit on the back of their hand and then smear said spit on their forehead. Repeat 3 times. All is well.

The evil eye would come to you as the devil himself; all sweetness and light and full of charm.  So you had to stand guard. Did someone just complement you on that new haircut? They were probably secretly giving you the evil eye. Did they tell you they have never seen a cuter baby than yours? EVIL EYE people!

Of course nowadays it is more likely that people will be cutting you down to your face rather than giving you a compliment which kinda takes the guess work out of whether you are being cursed or not. The internet sure has upped the ante in people cursing other people. Some attribute that to the anonymity of the internet encouraging bad human behavior but I don’t think people need to hide to act bad. Heck, if it will get them attention I think people will do anything to be looked at or heard.

I may not be a typical fan but that doesn’t stop me from following some well known people on Twitter. I do not own a single record by Bette, Liza, Judy, or Barbra….but I do follow Cher (@Cher) on Twitter. I feel it is my duty.

I have no idea if that person claiming to be Cher is in Cher. It is more than likely a cadre of PR people paid to tweet as Cher but that’s  not my problem. I follow nonetheless. One thing you will notice about Cher’s tweets if you follow long enough, is that she often wonders why people that seem to hate her, follow her. And not only follow her, but also tweet their dislike directly to her. I gotta say that is a head scratcher for me too. People will tell her she so stupid or makes no sense or that she retweets things wrongly. It is just bizarre.

If that is what being a fan means nowadays, I guess I’m glad I’m not one.

 

 

Everything is Beautiful

Here are a few pictures snapped on a recent trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. No dramatic pics of spewing lava I’m afraid, but some mighty pretty images nonetheless.

Here we see my SO making like a Billy Goat and scampering across a field of jagged lava rock because “it looked like there was a kind of a trail”. There wasn’t so he made his own. Ok. Not such a pretty picture. But it’s my blog.

 

 

Along the same pile of rocks I came across this fragile looking piece of driftwood that looked like it might even be a branch of coral.

 

 

The day started out a very windy one as the whitecaps on the deep blue sea can attest.

 

 

So can the flags standing at attention.

 

Here’s the view from about 3500 feet above sea level. The wind was stronger up here and was really rocking me on my feet. It was in the 60’s at this altitude and the wind made it seem colder than that. I just love the way the there is nothing but green flowing down the mountain side until it blends into the blue of the Pacific.

 

 

In this shot you can see how the green turns into jet black in the distance before it reaches the sea. The black is a newer lava flow that hasn’t broken down into anything resembling soil yet. A dramatic reminder that the land under my feet is alive and still growing. And lest you think I only spend my time looking at the ground, check out that wildly dramatic sky!

 

 

From the following angle you can see in the distance the black outline of mountain with a bank of clouds well below its summit. This behemoth is the mountain known as Mauna Kea. There is a complex of astronomical observatories at its summit and is one of the few places in Hawaii that gets measurable snow fall.

 

 

Of course at journey’s end one must reward oneself for being an intrepid traveller. In this case the reward was Kobe Beef sliders with caramelized onions, brie, truffle aioli on brioche buns.

 

 

 

 

Next Time I’ll Take a Bus

Did you ever see that episode of SEINFELD where Jerry has to rent a car? He is at the rental counter ready to pick up his car only to find that they have no car for him. Oddly enough they have his reservation, but they simply have no cars.  Doesn’t the reservation HOLD a car he asks rhetorically? Apparently not. That show is like 20 years old and sadly renting a car is still an aggravating event that borders on the absurd.

Today I had to rent a car. I tend to use ALAMO because they have fairly decent prices and because they have a thing called “Kiosk Rental”. If you enter all of your info online; driver’s license, etc you never even need talk to a human. You take your printed reservation to the Kiosk at your destination and after a few quick presses on a touch screen you go pick out your car and drive away.

Today I packed my reservation receipt by mistake and therefore had to suffer through the living hell of dealing with the felon behind the counter…er I mean the clerk. DId they have my reservation? Yes. Did that mean ANYTHING? Nothing at all. Seriously. Nothing.

They needed all the info again. They needed imprints and copies of id’s and credit cards. They even insisted several times that I take a compact car because that was “adequate” even though my original reservation clearly showed I had a free upgrade to a midsize (which is actually a compact but that’s another story entirely).

The whole thing felt like one giant shake down.

Why should the Kiosk checkout experience be so much better than having to deal with their employees?

As I was finally getting in my car I saw that the employees had all met up in the parking lot to have a smoke. They looked like a bunch of High School thugs hiding under the bleachers and cutting class. I could be wrong but I swear they were pitching pennies and drinking beer. I also had the strangest feeling that they took my lunch money….

Lucky 13

I’m not a superstitious chap. At least I try not to be. I probably will knock wood when the occasion dictates but I wouldn’t mind a bit if a black cat crossed my path. In fact I find black cats quite pretty and would be happy if I saw one.

Contrarian that I seem to be by birth, I also find the number “13” to be somewhat lucky. And with that I’m happy to share a little bit of minor good news with you this lovely 13th day of June.

A few weeks ago my SO mentioned to me that he had gotten a sample of a shaving cream and really liked it. If you knew him, you’d know this must be one helluva shave cream because he will generally use whatever is in front of him at the moment. I told him I would keep an eye out for any deals I could find on it and get it for him.

As luck would have it, I saw that Beauty Encounter (www.beautyencounter.com) was having a little drawing for said shave cream. All one had to do was follow them on Twitter and tweet “My Dad is the best!” and they would randomly select someone to win.

I did just that and got notified today that I won! How awesome is that?

It was the perfect way to start off a Monday the 13th.

Thanks Beauty Encounter!

Blog O Matic

So in honor of my new Apple OS computing I sprang for a couple of writing apps that hopefully will make posting here a walk in the park.

I am writing this on one of them. It is called MarsEdit. It seems to get mixed reviews but it was the only thing in the app store that specifically mentioned WORDPRESS so I am giving it a shot.

I sure hope this thing has spell check or I am S O L!

**EDIT** The above was posted fine with MarsEdit but I see the new post was not tweeted as I like to do. That’s not a good thing. Major fail with first use. Bummer.

**EDIT #2** Sent a tweet about the problem directly to MarsEdit and got a very swift reply…that of course it wasn’t their problem it was WordPress.

I’d Rather Switch Than Fight

If you are of a certain age, you remember these cigarette commercials. Yes little ones, they actually use to advertise cigarettes on TV. Nice people actually smoked tobacco and they weren’t considered demonic.

“I’d rather fight than switch” was the catch phrase. Meaning you were loyal to your brand and they’d have to pry it from your cancer wracked bony little fingers before you would change brands. I’d like to say that the brand was called TAREYTON but I’m just guessing. Was that the same brand with the “charcoal tip”? I dunno.

All I know is that brand loyalty translates pretty well to modern times when it comes to computers and their operating systems. APPLE or WINDOWS. Pick any site that discusses such things and everyone is so angry all the time defending the one they like.

Personally I would just like my computer to work and do what I want it to do. I am loyal to the one that serves my purpose.

Recently I made the total switch from Windows to Apple and so far I gotta say I am thrilled with the change. In fact this is the first thing I have actually written on my new machine.

It isn’t my first foray into the Apple world. I used to be a little MAC head in fact. I even have a few MAC clones in the closet. Remember those? They were supposed to make MACs more popular by making them inexpensive.

I gave up on MACs long ago as I got so sick and tired of fighting with things that were just totally incompatible with MACs. My chief frustration were how oh so many web pages would not display in my MAC browser (if they displayed at all). Secondly, although I was promised MACs were now somewhat compatible with files created in WINDOWS I found the opposite was true. And the extra software that was required to run WINDOWS was so slow and cumbersome it might as well not worked at all. I eventually gave in and went over to a WINDOWS environment. Not a wonderful OS but generally it let me do the things I like to do.

Of course that was a long time ago. Pretty much a different world. Apple is back with a vengeance and I’ve joined in.

The switch wasn’t exactly difficult but it sure has been time consuming. I have many files I need from my WINDOWS machine and haven’t really decided what I am going to do about that. Part of the huge expense (sorry folks but they are huge) with MAC systems is that they are pretty bare bones. No massive amount of software plugged in waiting for you to use. Heck even the juicy extended warranties they dangle in front of you once you make the purchase are upwards of 25% of the cost of the machine.

So in theory I would like to install windows on my new iMAC and transfer everything I need from my old machine which means buying a full copy of a WINDOWS OS and that is yet another large chuck of change. We’ll see.

In the meantime I hope the new machine helps with my productivity. It is lovely to look at and delightful to use so maybe I’ll get my fingers in gear and actually start blogging on a regular basis again.

You have been warned.