Three Dreams

Thought I'd share the dreams flowing through my fertile mind this morning. I must warn you that I watched an episode of Sherlock Holmes last night just before retiring.  This is a BBC version of Sherlock Holmes and takes place in present day London for the most part.

The first dream I recall I found myself in a car? that was moving down a street, but I was not at the controls of the car.  I'm not sure anyone was. The drivers seat was two rows ahead of me.  I reached over and somehow released the back of one of the seats ahead of me and that resolved the situation.  Apparently there were two other people in the car with me then.  We were approaching an intersection at which our "street" did not cross.  The house directly across the intersection was a small house and that is where Trey Burke lived.  He and Tim Hardaway Junior were on the porch preparing to deliver their paper route.  They both had T-shirts on that had 816 E. Third St. on the front.  That was our old address in Flint.  Today is the day Trey is to announce whether he's leaving Michigan to turn pro.  It is expected he is and that Hardaway probably will also.  The car I was in turned left and turned into the driveway between Trey's house and the next-door neighbor's house.  I said, something like,"Don't go in here, turn around."  We started turning around but several people came out of the two houses and invited us to hang out with them.
Trey's grandmother lived in that house.  We sat around a large table that was outside and we were offered Pot.  One of the women said that the local dealer had been by a couple of weeks ago and had some good Shag? I don't recall the name now. She was going to go and get some of her stash so we could experience the good stuff.  Everyone started pulling money from their pockets to buy the good dope.

Dream two took place in the desert.  It involved working as a team,  setting up a small plot of ground.  I know not what for.  We were being led by President Obama in this effort.  Mom/Brooke was working on it and was on the phone talking to Emma reporting how well I was participating. The whole project was based on one that had been abandoned  years ago by Walt Disney.  

Dream three combined a boomerang and the 14 year old golfer from China who is playing at The Masters this week end.  What? You say Who is on first? No, who is playing at The Masters.  Except his name isn't Who .  It is Guan. My dream thoughts combining the boomerang with golf was that this kid was playing golf in a different way.  He plays in total harmony with the golf course.  This includes the conditions and movement of the air above it.  I think most of us see golf as a challenge and the wind is an element to be fought and conquered.  The new way is to use the conditions as they are presented.  Remember the speech by Bill Murry in Caddy Shack.  He was speaking of caddying for the Dalai Lama with the flowing robes. That may be the new "Way".

Food for thought.     

Altered states of mind

Just yesterday I was watching basketball on TV.  Things seemed different in some way.  I've had this feeling before; it's as though the things I am looking at are familiar, but I am seeing them in a different light.  My cymbal of course did look different, because I had just given it a ketchup bath.  I had also just returned from Planet Fitness where I had ellipticised for 25 minutes.  But something was going on with the brain.  Was I having some sort of stroke? Do I have a tumor? I was trying to think of the names of the players on this years Michigan Basketball team.  I couldn't remember them.  Only one came up. Tim Hardaway Jr.  I could remember the other players as to positions and characteristics but not names.  I was kinda panicking.  Then I slowly started getting the names back. Trey Burke, Nick Stauskus, Glen RobinsonIII , Mitch McGary.
Shortly after, I noticed the shimmering of and Aura in my vision.  I have been getting these for years.  Doctors have said they are often precursors to migraine headaches.  I  don't get the headaches, at least not very strong at all.  Well this is all more or less experiencial.  (I've been reading a psychology/hypnosis book)

One point in the book: It is difficult to know you are in an altered state when you are the one in it.
As I sit here this morning I still don't feel "normal".

Happy Spring everyone!

PS:  I sent an email yesterday about an idea for a beer drinking device. The next thing I see there on gmail, is an ad for beer brewing supplies. I hate this cyber snooping. Just let us have our free email and privacy at the same time.  

  

Difficult question

Say you heard about a new disease that has cropped up in the U.S.  Only one person in 10,000 will get the disease but it is always fatal if you get it.  You are scheduled for a physical so you decide to include a test for the new disease.  The Doc tells you the test is 99% accurate.  When the results come back, you find you have tested positive for the disease.  Should you be devastated? Slightly worried or not too worried at all?

This is included in Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown.  It turns out you still have less than 1% chance of having the disease, so not to worry.  I am slowly working my way through the book.  It takes good concentration to stick with it.  Usually I don't have that quality of mind, especially when I'm reading just before going to bed.  It is more like reading a text book.  

I thought I'd find out something about vapeing.  If you haven't heard about it, it's a way of getting the benefits of marijuana without smoking it. There is also no strong smell.  Instead of burning the "medicine" you grind some up and put it into a vaporizer.  The vaporizer has some means of heating the herb to a temperature less than the combustion point but the cannibinoids are released as a vapor.  One inhales this and gets the benefits they seek.  I still haven't seen anything telling me that it definitely is not a health risk.  After almost 30 years of not smoking I thought I might try vaping.  The vaporizers can be pricy and I can't believe the price of pot.  It used to be $20 for an ounce of Mexican, $40 for pretty good stuff.  Now it's more like $300 for "medical grade".  I think I'm just going to stick to PBR, FiveOClock vodka and cheap wine.

I did learn that the human mind can produce it's own cannibinoids.  Maybe I can develop a hypnosis routine to increase this.  Just received some bad news so I'll see you later.

Bloggin at 5AM

It's late in the morning since I woke up at 2:30.  Once in a while I will wake up and lie in bed for an hour or so before I fall back asleep.  If it goes on much further than that I get up for a while and then go back to bed when I get sleepy.  It may be part of an unstated and unplanned strategy that Brooke and I have fallen into, where we give each other the floor, as it were.  We try to avoid being in the same place at the same time.  It just works better that way.  I'm sure it happens with a lot of couples.  I mentioned it to one of Brooke's cronies when she was visiting and she remarked it's like room mates.
 It's working for us right now.

I'm following college basketball.  The big ten is still up in the air with a lot of good teams.  Indiana beat MSU in East Lansing last week and last night Indiana went to lowly Minnesota and lost to the Golden Gophers.  One of my favorite team names.
Michigan has both MSU and Indiana to play, both at Ann Arbor.  It's fun to follow.  It gives me something to do this time of year.

I am engaged in home improvement, also.  I am painting the side bedroom.  The ceiling is being prepped and tools assembled.  Wallpaper must be removed and repairs made.  I may put in Wainscoating.  I'm sure there will be a couple of very hard days involved before it is completed.

We are members of Planet Fitness now.  That is working out well so far.  It makes one feel good to walk on the treadmill or elliptical for a while.  

That's all the boring stuff for now. The really exciting stuff will have to wait 'til next time.    

Life's Eddys

How did I end up with this title?  Well, I was thinking about where my life is now.  When you retire it's kinda like being out of the main stream.  When one goes over to the side of the stream one thing that is encountered is eddy currents.  They swirl and sometimes go back upstream for a ways.  Like reflecting on the past. Whatever,  I also have been reading Keith Richard's auto biography, "Life".   It is quite good, and so I suppose it goes along with my title.  Also there is a part in there where the newly forming Stones were referring to all the day-to-day people as Eddies. Based on people encountered in a restaurant they frequented, all seemed to be named Eddie.  I am only about a fifth of the way through the book, but I recommend it justfor that part.  

Keith Richards is about a year older than me.  He tells of his youth and what it was like in post WWII England.  What school was like.  It was similar to my youth.  When you're a young boy there is a lot of fighting and bullying on the playground etc.
After the war there were people living in this area near his house.  It was a swampy area I believe along a river.  Some homeless people lived there.  Left over from the war still thinking it was going on.  Some mental cases.  Must have been a strange place to be with people running and hiding.  Maybe like hobo areas here in the states.  As he said, "Some of them were mean. He was shot by someone with an air rifle there." I take back those quote marks- I'm paraphrasing.

I thought it was funny that The Rolling Stones had a gig playing at a party for Lady Lampson early in their carrier.  

The weather here is very cold these days.  I'm talking about Jan. 2013.  I've been putting up plastic film on the windows to save some heat.  It does help.  I'm still in the aftermath of the hypnosis seminar. Figuring out how to send Links to people so they can get the deepening audio file that I put in my Dropbox.  I'm pretty sure I got it, finally.

I want to make some progress with guitar now.  It's been going along slowly but steadily.  This time of year is the worst in Michigan.  Things start to pick up in March.  Groundhog Day is coming up soon.
Be of good cheer.  



  

Hypnosis Party in side bedroom

 I wrote this to Jake and Emma, thought I'd paste it here too.  The "party" was to allow me to practice giving a self-hypnosis talk.



Aunt Elizabeth(not her real name) and the next door neighbors
attended.  They learned a lot about hypnosis and were very interested
in the process.  Bob(fake) had done some reading on it and had some good
questions.  Elizabeth said her sister , Monica(fake name), uses a hypnosis tape
regularly.
  Tammy-Lynn(fake) has a problem with going along with the relaxation etc.  Even
though I said just pretend and play along.  She couldn't let herself
do it.  Maybe some trust issues. Who knows, but that kinda disrupted
things.  We didn't accomplish the goal of learning and practicing
giving yourself suggestions.  It was instructional for all though.
I will probably do it again.  I will make some changes and am sure it
will be much better.  I think Friday night is a bad choice of
time...people too tired.  Maybe serve Red Bull instead of wine.  The
mind should be alert for hypnosis.
All in all it was great from my perspective.  I learned about uses for
the tablet; speech to text, audio files and drop box.  I also reviewed
a lot of information on hypnosis.

So, the event was useful and fun.  I'm learning more about internet fakery though.  One thing that came up in our table talk, while drinking wine and eating snacks, people write blogs for other people just to keep their numbers up.  This keeps their google listing higher.  I wonder if we need two internets.  They'd probably both get corrupted.

I did give an example of giving yourself a suggestion and ever since I want to"Exercise every day and love it."

Written by Ken Lamson(real name) 

 

Christmas Eve 2012

Had a few minutes before I clean the bathrooms, so while I'm listening to classical Christmas tunes, thought I'd let you know what Christmas eve was like here.  Jake and Martyna took Gabe and Luke out to Seven Lakes State Park to romp around in the snow and maybe slide down a hill or two. Emma is finishing up some cookies that Brooke had started earlier.  Suhitha spent the night in Windsor partying with a friend.

The morning was spent playing with Omar and Gabe.  Brooke comes up with the most fun games that boys enjoy.  Brings back memories.  Toy cars were going over "Monkey-butt Hill" this morning.
Omar has a fever and I'm coming down with a little something.  My right ear is blocked and it makes sounds very different than normal.

Our nephew Ben was over last night and he had suggested jokingly that we could have the TV set to play a fireplace on Christmas.  I found a couple of them on Netflix and tried one out.  It was nice with christmas songs playing along.  Omar, being slowed down by  his cold, enjoyed sitting on my lap and watching the fire.

The tree is nice.  Jake, Martyna and I bought it at a farm and Jake cut it down with a saw.  We all trimmed it that night and it's so fresh and even.  It looks great with all the gifts underneath.  Gabe's big gift is a two-seater Jeep.  It is so big it is in the camper-van.  It is a beautiful blue with "chrome" accessories. Lots of decals make it very appealing to the very young group.  I wouldn't be surprised to find that Gabe buys a real Jeep one day.  

I gotta go.  We have a new toilet seat in the upstairs bath. The old one broke and I replaced it with a "no-slam" seat.  The occupants of the adjacent bedroom won't be awakened by the slam anymore.
Hope you are as blessed as we are this Christmas.