May 1, 2008
Proof That Heaven Exists
It’s morning and I’m eating cinnamon donuts, drinking hot coffee and creatively writing – so what else would I be doing if I were dead and in heaven having a “perfect morning”? Nothing! This is it. This is my heaven! Right here on Earth. Like I said, proof baby.
May 3, 2008
This month we salute the Carson triplets, Megan, Mary and Zoey.
Because of their uncanny resemblance to one another, the gals needed to come up with a way to differentiate themselves once and for all besides Megan’s plan that they wear tuxedos or shiny satin sequined outfits. Nothing worked until they stumbled upon Enrico’s House of Tyrolean Hair in the Swisstown Mall,
Enrico, Prop.
where each girl got a different Enrico creation, “And now, everybody knows who we are!” quipped Zoey, right, the most childlike of the three and the one with the outrageous Bozo cut that says, Hi, I’m Zoey! Outrageous but fun!, while Mary, center, the no nonsense sister, got the Princess Sparkle Pony look to go with her outfit, and Megan, left, the most confused Carson triplet, went with the semi-mannish Dutch helmet look because she was, well, confused. So this month we salute the Carson triplets and their chic nod toward individuality, with of course a tip of the hat to Enrico for his masterful Swiss creations!
May 4, 2008
I’m in the government liquor store looking to buy some Guinness as a thank you gift for an English fellow who did me a favor. I wasn’t able to find it, so I hailed a young clerk. He locates the beer and says, “Here’s your Guinness drout.” Uh, that’s pronounced draft, I say. Guinness draft. “Then why is it spelled like drout?” That’s the British spelling of draft, I reply. “Drout, draft, pish, posh,” he returns. What? “The stupid Brits are making this job harder than it has to be,” he let on conspiratorially, “just like those stupid French wines,” he says, gesturing toward another part of the store. Then he walks away. What?
May 5, 2008
Update on The Best of KeithSpeak.
It was supposed to be out a few days ago but there were computer problems. Hardware failures caught me running around like a madman initiating a whole bunch of fixes which eventually clashed and ruined something that has to be unruined before I can post the new book for download. Worse, the underlying software issues that caused the hardware to choke, may take me a couple of weeks to fix. Swell, huh? So I'm officially declaring that the new book’s release date is now sometime in the next couple of weeks, give or take. I know this is virtually unacceptable but...I’m not a machine! Tee hee. Much love, over and out.
May 6, 2008
I am in the active process of shedding a bad habit. I’ve identified something that I would like to change within myself. I see that this behavior stemmed from a specific belief that I harbored, and was reinforced over and over again by my bad habit (which at the time was useful and not ‘bad’ at all). But I don’t want to continue doing that anymore. So I know what I want to change, I know why I’m currently doing what I’m doing (the bad habit), and the last step is to define what I want to replace it with. It’s not enough to rid yourself of the old, you need to initiate the new behaviors which will supplant the old. I have spent some time determining what I would like to have happen. I have imagined my future self living with the new habit and the belief that spawned it, and it feels comfortable for me. It’s what I want. Now all I do is focus upon my intended goals and act accordingly; the old habit will be replaced by the new habit and I will achieve the change that I foresaw. That’s how you shed a bad habit.
May 7, 2008
How cool is that?!
The Endeavour
May 8, 2008
I had to stop feeding the songbirds because it’s bear season and the big brutes will raid and wreck the birdfeeders, which are in the yard, at the house, which means there will be bears in the yard, at the house, which is not good, and something to avoid, so I pulled the feeders, and the birds are ticked. They just sit on branches around where the birdfeeder outside my office window used to be, and glare at me through the glass. Especially in the morning, after a cold night, when there’s nothing to eat, and it’s still cold, and the bugs aren’t out yet, and they’re hungry, just sitting and glaring. I feel bad, I do. I love seeing these little guys and would feed them year 'round if it weren’t for those darned insensitive life-threatening predatory bears. Bad bears.
May 9, 2008
If one were to build a new house, a couple of things to consider, 1.) urinals. The days of guys pissing a few ounces into gallons of clean water only to flush it away – wasteful, gone (and that isn’t to mention splash over or outright missing, yuck). Oh, and they shouldn't be just regular old urinals either. I’m talking designer residential urinals. If it were my house, I'd talk to my cousin the glassblower... See, that’s the kind of environmental, artistic, 21st century modern jump start we’ve been looking for, don’t you think, as a nation, designer home urinals?; and 2.) bring back the Murphy bed. So cool an idea. Guestrooms, which are seldom used except when one has guests, duh, can do double duty by folding the bed up into the wall and creating a whole new space. Or, imagine how bad an impression it would make to have a bed in your office, you know, right there beside your desk – which you would kill for! dream on! – because there’s only been a hundred times a day when you wished you could just lie down for a few minutes... well now you can!, by folding it up into the wall where it looks like a piece of furniture, like this, and your boss will remain clueless to your naps or extended sleeps as long as you avoid bed head and snoring. There you are. My best thoughts for contractors and interior decorators everywhere. I’m always thinking. Stayed tuned, I might have other ideas later.
May 10, 2008
Proof That Heaven Doesn’t Exist
It’s morning and the coffee machine has gasped its last (without delivering a drop, the bugger), the overnight network virus scan detected intrusions that it tried to remove but failed to do so, which means I now have to manually muck about the Registry, great, and earlier I dropped an open carton of orange juice on the kitchen floor where it splattered and ran everywhere and which now has to be mopped and cleaned because it’s later and the floor is all yucky and sticky. Great. So what else would I be doing if I were dead and in heaven having a “perfect morning”? A lot! Certainly none of this junk. So obviously, there is no heaven. Like I said, proof.
May 11, 2008
Calvin lived in a constant state of grace, whether people liked him there or not.
May 12, 2008
I hope something big is about to happen because the last few months have been all about infrastructure repair. Fixing issues under the hood, unsexy in the best of times, have resulted in a more robust website. And since one thing always leads to another, I’m figuring this must be in preparation for something big, colossal even. So lessee, breakout year for the site? Discovery by the masses? Keith Ryan achieving brand name status? Ooh...
May 13, 2008
A few nights ago my site stats showed that some IP address in Beijing accessed this site 184 times in a 12 hour period. And it wasn’t a bot. That was pretty weird. This morning, I get an e-mail from a University professor in Beijing who tells me that he has a single laptop set up in his lecture hall with a different website on it each day for “instruction purposes”. Students were encouraged to go up and visit these sites on this computer (which would eventually time out and the next person would have to log back in, 184 times in a 12 hour period, now I get it). He had some student submitted questions for me, if I would be so kind...
I couldn’t get over the “instruction purposes” comment. Man, I can’t imagine what they were supposed to be learning from here other than how to live a full life with conscious intent, and I doubt they’re teaching that in communist China.
May 15, 2008
Bud sure was proud of his doomsday machine. Part labor of love, part revenge against his ex-wife’s Esperanto instructor, Moncrief LaBelle, who mocked his theories, called his ideas crazy and then stole his wife, Bud built his killing machine out of spare parts, ingenuity and a psychotic desire to eliminate Moncrief LaBelle. Now he would show them just how good his crazy ideas were, or just how crazy his good ideas were, he could never remember which it was he wanted to show them, but he knew one thing, they would all remember Bud in the end. Those left anyway.
May 16, 2008
I read an article about a famous novelist who had a mad on for a famous book reviewer. She would savage his work and then he would savage her back in the media. It had been this way ever since each rose to prominence in their field. They actually had a relationship of hate. His latest book, inexplicably, draws a rave review from her. Now he loves her to death and forgives her his former loathe. He uses the media to extol the gem-like brilliance of this oh so important reviewer. We are, he tells everyone, BFFs forever. Shoo, kids in a sandbox. Intellect has no defense for ego. None.
May 17, 2008
A mouse has been living in our truck engine - while we’ve been driving it! Lordy. The truck wouldn’t start so I pop the hood and am checking things out when I see a small wad of nesting material tucked in behind the battery box. That’s pretty weird, but it didn’t compute. I’m still looking around when out from under the air cleaner shroud pops a little field mouse. Whoa. It sits on top of the manifold and we stare at each other. It then dives down behind the starter and is gone. I look all over the compartment and see evidence of the mouse everywhere which means it’s been living in there. Imagine that – a blistering hot engine with whirling fans and fins and blades and belts and all of it moving at highway speed, turning right, turning left, stopping, starting... unbelievable. At Susan’s suggestion, I put a Havahart live trap (on top of the catalytic converter) and caught a little field mouse last night. I released it out in our field, where it should be, not in our Toyota, where it was.
May 18, 2008
Our place in Spring.
May 19, 2008
The evening news with yet another clip of Bush saying something ignorant in public...eight years of this poseur liar moron...who is listening anymore? And why?
May 20, 2008
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII The TUCKER & SOPHIE & MADDIE Chronicles IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
It’s pouring rain and the dogs want to go out for a walk. I’ve stalled them as long as I could, but they’re getting demonstrative. In approximately one hour, our house will smell of 3 wet dogs and one drowned rat human. Yummy.
May 21, 2008
When you speak out loud, your thoughts take flight through your mouth and speech; you are intentionally propelling your ideas forward into the world. But what does that same thing when you’re thinking to yourself? What moves those thoughts out of your head and into the world when they only exist for you in your mind? Could it be intent here as well? Because really, what’s the difference between plotting and scheming to kill someone, planning on being a beauty pageant winner, dreaming of owning your own home, and winning the Stanley Cup? Nothing. They are all goals and dreams, all born in someone’s head as a thought, that for whatever reason became intentional, something to deliberately achieve, and will be evidenced in the real world when the goal and dream is finally realized. It’s at that time that the pageant and Cup winners/assassin/home owners will tell everyone who is listening how it all feels like a dream, to realize their dream, because it has been a dream from the very moment they imbued the original thoughts with intention. (Ok, maybe the assassin wouldn't say much, but the others...)
May 22, 2008
Ever since switching the site, my game plan for my digital self has gotten larger and more complex. My chalkboard is a mess as I’ve had to supplement the traditional X’s and O’s with some G’s, H’s and F’s of my own. Over here I have my short term plans – that’s what these little ticks are, and these will segue into some nice mid range markers I’d like to hit, which will then set me up for a long term scenario that terminates some 40 years or so in the future, way down here in the corner of the board, see that there? Wait a minute, will the Internet still be around then? Cripes, I have to revise some stuff... I might have to invent some N’s and possibly W’s. I might have to get a bigger chalkboard.
May 23, 2008
The Best of KeithSpeak has arrived. Yea!
Check it out here.
May 26, 2008
It’s 5 o’clock in the morning. Susan is fast asleep. I’m in my office doing some work. Maddie is with me, asleep beside my chair. It’s dawning light outside and pouring rain to boot. Tuck is snoring on the screened-in porch, and Sophie is outside, sleeping under the eaves. Why is it that being awake when your family is asleep feels so...valuable?
May 27, 2008
How cool is that?!
St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg, Russia
May 28, 2008
Tales to Live By
A story about a couple of 18 year old hackers who want to name their almost due baby, 1’s and 0’s or 1s and 0s. That’s right, they’re not arguing over the digital nightmare of the name, but are instead fighting over whether to apostrophize the s. “We’ll probably call it Ten for short anyway,” let on the Mum to be, a hacker who specializes in publically exposing greedy corporations for the ”scum sucking, bottom dwelling, soul draining vermin they are”. When asked why they didn’t just name the baby, Ten, in the first place, the Dad to be explained, “It’s not very formal, now is it, Ten?”
Tales to Live By
May 29, 2008
When you go about judging your life, remember, it’s not so much about who you were and what you did as who you are and what you’re going to do. Oh, and while you’re beating yourself up, try to be aware that from this moment on, you can consciously stop doing that to yourself.
May 30, 2008
I’ve just decided I’m taking the day off. I called in my secretary (the glamorous yet charmingly old fashioned) Loretta Longacre, and told her to cancel all my appointments.
She did. I’m free. So toodles.
May 31, 2008
Last day of the month.
May seemed like such a slog.
June looks promising.
Later, my pretties.
Return to KeithSpeak or go forward to next month
KeithSpeak June 2008
