The Unknown Ostrich (OPI)

This has been a frustrating week primarily due to gadgets and devices which seem to own me! As I said in an earlier post, I grew up without computers and electronic games only to have them dropped on me as an adult! I have an attachment disorder with electronic devices because I missed that vital window of opportunity for bonding that comes somewhere around age 10.

It started with remote control devices and we all know where it has gone from there but the personal question is, " do I continue to assimilate these devices into my competency base, or do I simply stop and refuse to move on"?

I should expand my rant to include all the other things which vie for ownership in my life. I'm thinking here of cars and swimming pools, garbage disposals, cell phones, plumbing (yes p lumbing.....mine is possessed!

quick disclaimer: I am blind out of one eye and can't see out of the other tonight. My eyes are watering, blinking, blurred, etc and I'm having difficult time with this so make 'perceptual guesses about what you see and you should be fine. Perhaps some of the words which I actually type will be more appropriate them the onees I had intended to type.

Anyway...............Andy got a new computer this week and somehow I got elected to get it up and running for her. Most of it was pretty straight forward until I reached the dreaded P and U words. Password and Username) Of course I have one for Windows, one for the ISP, one for the wireless router and on and on,,,,,,,,,,, When you add the ATM, bank,voice mail....................etc. you get my point. Add to that genetic problems from being born male and not writting down important numbers and you have a disaster in the making.

Somehow I kept going back and trying different word combinations until it locked down the program. For my next act and actually changed the password on my computer and then we couldn't use either one. My stress level is entirely too high to even continue with this discription so I wil stop and practice my progressive muscle relaxation techniques and imagery to see if I can continue.............
.............feel much better now............I eventually called the help line for the router and spent 2 hours on the phone wi th a nice man whose accent was such that I only understood approx. every third word he said. Sort of like you who may be trying to read this... The real problem was that the third word I understood was computer giberrish and so I continue to be lost. One thing I am though is tenasious [how do spell this word). Two hours! I had to put down the phone to fully medicate myself during the masacre and when I picked back up the phone he was still talking.

But enough about that..............I came to talk about the draft...........strick that ; wrong song...................so we'll just wait for the right one to come back around on the guitar..............here it comes.

I eventually made it and we are back on line which is another complication in itself. Which leads me to my point; you may know someone in a similar situation; or you may be in a similar situation and you may not be as lucky as I was. Please Pray Prior to Password Preparation......................
but I also wanted to tell you abut a painting I just finished. its meant to go along with the poem , alone in the wilderness, and it is a scene of a dark woods with a hicker (hiker, I don't know that he is a hick) sittting by a fire by himself, next to his tent. I wanted to create the scene you see at night with only a small fire illuminating the dark surroundings; an erie scene. The weird thing is ; after I finished I see ghost like figures hovering over the camp site. I think they are angels but some may see demons, etc. depending upon the light and your particular medications. Stranger still, i saw what appeared to me to be my face just below these figures..................

I'll take a picture and perhaps you can see it also. For one dollar parking you can even come over and see it in person...................no better not start that.

see ya/ tom

Alone in the wilderness

Alone in the Wilderness

A man needs to be alone in the woods
every once in a while-
said I ,to myself since
No one else was listening .

I planned all week, laying in
Grub and gear and supplies enough to
meet any challenge--……….I hope,
So now I am busy rethinking everything I forgot.
The dusk is settling into the mountains now-
I can see it; I can smell it; I can even feel it
giving my legs a jolt of adrenalin and
Quickening my pace up this long and winding trail.
“A man needs to get away from the carpentered world
Of climate- control and mitered corners and microwaves
and recalibrate his sense of direction, get back in step
With nature”, so says the expert whose book I’m reading.
But right now I am looking for just the right
homestead for the night-
A few feet of level ground and a view of the sky--
That’s all I really need but I will need it soon
because things take on a whole new perspective
In the woods after dark;
up here dark really means dark ! And I wonder to myself, since no one else is here to wonder at-
What am I doing here? Why did I come and put
Myself voluntarily in this place -
My sensory equipment is working just fine, thank you
And I am hearing every sound in the forest.
There is a feeling of security that comes from
Entering one’s home and closing the door-
Even if that home is the 3 pound piece of fabric
You’ve carried in your pack all day
And I am still wondering. It’s not about the exercise
Or the scenery; that’s just gravy on the mashed potatoes and,
Like I said before, it’s dark out here. The only scenery I can make
Out now is what is revealed by my tiny headlight.
I know it’s about reminding myself that I can do this,
I think as I dive into my sleeping bag and shiver until
The warmth envelopes me. It’s about facing fears, and there
Are only a couple of options here.
I can face them and feel them; ignore them and rationalize
them or worse yet, build an altar to them. Fear is palpable but
So is my heart rate and there is no mistaking that I
Am alive, Dark- thirty and all is well.
You can talk to God here, right out loud, and he hears
You and talks back, or is it the other way around? After
All He lives here, doesn’t He? At the very least, this
Would make Him a good foot stool, if he wanted one.
Eventually, sleep prevails but I call it rock and roll. There
Is always at least one rock that ends up under you and I roll
Over and over In my bag until dawn, sort of like a roast on a spit ,
Cooking until done.
It starts to rain and the first drop of water that hits me on the nose
Wakes me up and reminds me that I had left my rain fly off in hope of
A clear night to see the stars-
As I scramble out to lash down the fly I’m reminded of another night years ago when my son and I were doing the same thing. In the dim light of what was left of our camp fire- two guys, in their underwear, running around
Putting the roof on before everything inside got wet. All the while, laughing our heads off at the thought of anyone from civilization seeing this scene! I named it the ‘Mystic, midnight , underwear dance’and we remember that night still today.
But don’t get me started with stories, I’ve got a million of them
And besides it’s day light and I have things to do and places to go.
Eat light and pack up all my possessions - but before I go, I build an altar to Jehovah God. I do this every once in a while but don’t ask me for doctrine-
I met with God here and worshipped Him and I just pile up a few rocks
As a place of remembrance . He is true to His ‘word and I thank Him and move on down the trail.
It’s only eight miles to my Jeep and a good part of that is down hill; ‘child’s play’ my old hiking buddy Lenny would say.
With any ’luck’ at all I’ll be back in the suburbs by dark-thirty, ready to face
The carpentered world but with the promise that
I will come this way again.
8-2-08;;;;;;;;;;;;;Tom Hudgens

It's hard to believe but I'm old enough to remember time before computers! I wasn't much of a visionary and never really thought too much about the endless possibilities in store for all of us 'normal ' people who now communicate successfully with the whole world with machines much more powerful that those housed in government agencies and business just a few years ago..........................Although they do eliminate some types of day to day stress they sometimes seem to add more anxiety, and pressure and information then I can deal with. My style of 'information processing' is much more oriented to slowly walking a ways with information, chewing on it for a while,'cogitating' on it...............but then I'm Mr Slowsky.
Here is a poem I wrote in 1971 while working at Lithonia Lighting.. The computer system was down more than it was up or at least it seemed that way. I thought some well placed humor might serve to reduce the tension

A New IBM ( a new tune for J. Joplin)
O Lord, won't you buy me a new IBM,
my friends all have orders
I can't enter them.
I work all day long try'in to keep up my end-
extract my transactions and purge all my sins.

I spent all this week try'in to redo what's done
still nothing is certain
my print-outs ain't run-

You've just got to help me
I'm out on a limb-
O Lord, won't you buy me
a new IBM.
Tom Hudgens