Kicking Around What God Knows With Copilot

I asked Bing AI Copilot today:

You

definition of omniscient?


Copilot

The term “omniscient” is an adjective that describes a state of having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding12. It’s often used to refer to an entity that perceives all things2. The word “omniscient” combines two Latin roots: “omni-”, meaning “all” or “universally,” and “scire,” meaning "to know"1. This term is frequently used in religious and philosophical contexts to describe a deity or higher power that has unlimited knowledge. For example, in many monotheistic religions, God is often described as being omniscient1.

You

so if god can manipulate space/time does that mean he fully comprehends how it works and why?

Copilot

In many religious and philosophical traditions, a deity or higher power, such as God, is often described as being omniscient, meaning they have complete and unlimited knowledge of all things. This would presumably include a full understanding of concepts such as space and time.

However, it’s important to note that these are deeply philosophical and theological questions, and interpretations can vary widely depending on one’s personal beliefs, religious tradition, and philosophical outlook. Some may argue that a deity’s understanding of space and time transcends human comprehension, while others may hold different views.

In the end, the interpretation of such concepts is often a personal and subjective matter. It’s a fascinating topic and has been the subject of much debate among theologians, philosophers, and scientists throughout history. It’s always interesting to explore these ideas and consider different perspectives. 😊

You

is that in the bible?

Copilot



Explore

Yes, the concept of God’s omniscience is indeed mentioned in the Bible. Here are a few verses that highlight this:Psalm 147:5: "Great is our Lord and abundant in strength; His understanding is infinite."1
1 John 3:20: "In whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things."1
Psalm 139:4: "Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all."1
Matthew 10:30: "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered."1
Hebrews 4:13: "And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do."1

These verses, among others, suggest that God is all-knowing, or omniscient, according to the Bible. However, interpretations can vary, and it’s always a good idea to read and study these passages in their full context. 😊

You

what is the "I am" quote

Copilot




The “I am” quote is a significant phrase in the Bible and is linked to the divine name of God1. Here are some notable instances:Exodus 3:14: God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’"2
John 8:58: Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."2
John 14:6: Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."2
Revelation 1:8: “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."2
John 11:25: Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."2

These are just a few examples. The phrase “I am” is used in many other contexts throughout the Bible, often to emphasize God’s nature and attributes. As always, it’s a good idea to read these verses in their full context for a deeper understanding. 😊

You

if god knows you will turn left, but someone pops in from another dimension and slaps you and you turn right, would god have known you'd turn right?

Copilot

This is a fascinating question that delves into the realms of theology, philosophy, and even theoretical physics. The concept you’re referring to is often discussed in terms of God’s omniscience (all-knowing nature) and the nature of free will.

In many religious and philosophical traditions, God’s omniscience is understood to mean that God knows all things: past, present, and future. This would presumably include all possible outcomes of all possible events. So, in the scenario you described, if we follow this line of thinking, God would know both the possibility of you turning left and the possibility of you turning right, even if the latter is influenced by an external force from another dimension.

However, interpretations can vary widely depending on one’s personal beliefs, religious tradition, and philosophical outlook. Some may argue that God’s knowledge is beyond human comprehension and not bound by our linear understanding of time or the constraints of our physical universe.

It’s important to note that these are deeply complex and personal questions, and there’s a wide range of beliefs and theories about them. They’ve been the subject of much debate among theologians, philosophers, and scientists throughout history. 😊

You

yes but does god know the potential of what is to come or what actually will transpire outside of his view looking forward to what could and likely would be?


Copilot

This question touches on the concept of divine foreknowledge and predestination, which are complex and often debated topics in theology and philosophy.

In many religious traditions, God is considered to be omniscient, meaning that He has perfect knowledge of all things, including the future. This would suggest that God knows not only all potential outcomes but also what will actually happen.

However, this raises questions about free will. If God already knows what will happen, do we truly have the freedom to choose our actions? Different religious and philosophical traditions have different answers to this question.

Some propose that God exists outside of time and therefore perceives all of time simultaneously. This means that God’s knowledge of the future wouldn’t necessarily cause or determine future events, preserving free will.

Others suggest that God’s foreknowledge is compatible with free will because knowing what will happen doesn’t mean causing it to happen. In other words, God knows what we will choose to do, but we still make the choice freely.

These are just a few of the many perspectives on this topic. It’s a deep and complex issue with many nuances, and interpretations can vary widely. It’s always a good idea to explore these ideas and consider different perspectives. 😊

You

I ask this because the quotes you gave me all appear to be humans making and sharin observations of God. God speaking directly in the old testament is his describing himself but not in ways that actually explain my query.

Copilot

I understand your point. The nature of divine knowledge and its relationship to human free will is a complex and deeply philosophical topic. The Bible, as well as other religious texts, often present these concepts in a way that is open to interpretation and discussion.

In the Old Testament, God does indeed describe Himself, most notably in Exodus 3:14 when He says to Moses, “I am who I am.” This statement has been interpreted in many ways, but it often is understood to mean that God is self-existent, eternal, and beyond human comprehension.

As for your specific query about whether God knows the potential of what is to come or what actually will transpire, the Bible doesn’t provide a direct answer. Many theologians and philosophers have debated this question over the centuries, and there are a variety of interpretations.

Some believe that God, being omniscient, knows every possible outcome and what will actually happen. Others propose that God’s knowledge is more like an understanding of all possible outcomes, without knowing which one will occur. This view allows for human free will and unpredictability.

Ultimately, these questions touch on mysteries that are at the heart of many religious and philosophical traditions. They invite us to reflect on the nature of knowledge, the future, free will, and the divine. It’s a fascinating topic to explore! 😊

You

If god is an entity of higher dimensions can he know what might interfere in our lower dimension if what affects us should come from a higher dimension he either isn't a party of or does not at the time populate?

Copilot

This is a very intriguing question that delves into the realms of theology, philosophy, and theoretical physics. The idea of God as a higher-dimensional entity is a concept that has been explored in various forms of speculative fiction and theoretical physics, but it’s not a concept that is explicitly addressed in traditional religious texts.

In many religious traditions, God is considered to be omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omnipresent (present everywhere), which could imply the ability to perceive and interact with all dimensions, even those beyond human comprehension.

However, your question seems to propose a scenario where there are dimensions even beyond God’s reach or perception. This is a fascinating concept, but it’s not one that is commonly discussed in mainstream theology or philosophy. It’s more akin to speculative fiction or certain interpretations of string theory and other advanced physics concepts.

It’s important to note that these are deeply complex and personal questions, and there’s a wide range of beliefs and theories about them. They’ve been the subject of much debate among theologians, philosophers, and scientists throughout history.

Walkabout Thoughts #71.6 covid & not walking to the clinic...

Yesterday I had to go to urgent care for post covid. I thought I had a sinus infection post covid and Paxlovid. Three hours I'll never get back. But chest xray was good, it's just post covid healing period now. Uncomfortable, no fun, but dealing with it.

While I was waiting I listened to Marc's podcast with one of my favorite actors, Malcolm McDowell. 

Episode 1530 - Malcolm McDowell  WTF with Marc Maron Podcast

If you like Malcolm you have to hear this one. Asked how he got the show he's on now, Son of a Critch, based in Newfoundland, he said someone saw him in a show, "Truth Seekers" and they got ahold of him. I've been watching this show from the beginning and apparently it is the biggest comedy show CBC has in Canada now.

There is also a ""Caligula recut coming out in August. I saw that film when I worked at Tower Video and it came out on VHS & Beta. I had to rent (from us) a Beta machine to watch it back then. No one I knew had a home video machine. I was staying at my parent's house. This was after the USAF and college as I was transitioning back into the workforce. 

A friend of mine and I brought it over and we started watching the film, then realized how bizarre it was. Not knowing that the famous actors in it had thought they were in a real drama, but it was produced by Bob Guccione of Penthouse. We hit one of those scenes in the film and stopped the film and decided we had to go buy some weed before finishing this film. 

So we headed out, leaving the machine attached to my parent's living room TV. We returned in about an hour, walking in and seeing my mon sitting on the couch and the film running. I panicked. My very Catholic mom was watching THAT film? I looked at my friend and we both grinned.. Mom seemed mesmerized, as if she didn't even notice us come in.

She saw the looks on our faces, looked at the TV, hit pause, and they panic swept her face. She got very upset and stood up and started complaining about how filthy the film was. We tried to explain but she hurried upstairs to her bedroom where she spent most of her time, reading or watching tv, or whatever.

My friend and I were both stunned. We sat down looking at the paused scene, a rather racy one and felt horrible. We talked about it and then my friend said, "But...she was watching it." I said, "But how much?" I picked up the control and hit reverse. We had to back up quite a ways to get to where we had stopped the film and realized she had watched quite a bit and many questionable scenes.

At that point we (quietly) broke up with laughter. Stoned as we already were, we continued to film to completion, quite shocked by the end that those actors were even in it. Malcolm McDowell...well, maybe. But Helen Mirren? John Gieldud? How?

This was maybe 1984 or so. It wasn't until this podcast I found out how. Malcom told Marc they had been hired to do that film and he knew the director. When he questioned the money behind the film he was told it was the Penthouse publisher but the director had said, "Who cares?" 

It wasn't until the film was completed, their roles all finished and "in the can" that Guccione added the pornographic scenes, unbeknownst to the actors. Actors who had signed a contract and could do nothing about it. Although, Gore Vidal, who had written the (in Malcom's words, horrible) screenplay, had them take his name off the film. Malcom said he had a screenwriter help him rewrite it and it wasn't a bad film, except for the Guccione editing where for instance, 40 minutes of Helen Mirren's acting had been removed and porno replacing it, leaving her only 15 minutes of screen time.

Apparently more recently some guy had purchased a storage unit and found a complete print of the entire film and has re-edited it and in August of 2024 a new version is coming out which is the original film and according to McDowell, a very good film now. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Regarding "A Clockwork Orange" Malcom has some interesting stories about Kubrick. He said at some point Kubrick had asked him what he wanted to wear in the film as they were walking out to Malcom's car at Kubrick's place. Which surprised him. He asked, "What do I want to wear?" Kubrick said, "Yes. What do you have?" And they looked in his car where his cricket gear was. And so Malcolm ended up wearing some of that as his costume in the film. 

About his "Singing in the Rain" dance in the film, that was apparently ad-libbed during their designing the scene and Kubrick liked it so much, he immediately purchased the rights to using the song in the film. Something Gene Kelly was not happy about it after the film's release.

Marc asked Malcolm if he ever thought about doing a "Son of a Critch" TV show reprise Alex from "A Clockwork Orange" as the grandpa version on the show. Malcolm loved the idea and said he was going to pitch it and that they just had to do it. That, would be awesome.

They discussed the film "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" which Marc recently hosted a showing of at a theater. I need to re-watch that film.

Malcom's favorite movie: "Fargo"

I switched at some point the the Pod Save America podcast ep: The People vs Donald Trump 

So let me get this straight... Trump is calling his own criminal trial the "Biden trial" because what? Biden was president when Trump committed HIS crimes when HE was president? What? Unbelievable this guy...

And with that... I wish you all great success and health! Until next time!

Cheers! Sláinte!

Walkabout Thoughts #71.5 covid not walking...

 What the hell happened?

After my last walkabout I got home and got sicker after my first 5 mile walk this year. Progress! Then... no progress. It is now a couple of weeks later after being unable to do much and losing ground daily on my walkabouts. Now I'll have to start building up to 5 miles...ALL OVER AGAIN AND I''M NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT!

I tested posted for covid for the 3rd time, two days after my last walkabout. I didn't think it was covid. Again. I'd gone to get a blood draw regarding my changes in long covid this year and I think that's where I caught this, I should have worn a mask. I mentioned that the the VA Nurse (see below) and she said, yes, I saw you did that and was going to say that may have been where you caught it.

That was a week or so of discomfort. What I've now been calling the most fun version of covid of the three bouts I've had (it's not fun). So I called the VA Nurse and he sent me to local urgent care to get Paxlovid via a VA program called "Mission Critical Care" ("You can use that 3 times").

So I took Paxlovid, three pills in each blister pack twice daily for five days. The day before I finished the meds, something else started. I'd had trouble getting my sinuses open, especially the top ones in my forehead, always a problem and I know that after only 2-3 days it can cause a sinus infection.

I finally was getting over it when saline flushes brought out blood from my sinuses over a few days...meaning I had a sinus infection. That's when I called the VA nurse again. She said it may be "Paxlovid Rebound" or covid rebound. 1 in 10 (10%) of people taking Paxlovid get this. Lucky me.

I thought maybe the sinus issue just caused a sinus infection, so take some antibiotics (which I avoid as I do tranquillizers and pain meds), and I'd be good. But she said let's hold off, see what happens, then take a test the day after I finished the Paxlovid.

I did. She had said not to be surprised if I tested positive as I probably would. I did not. So that's something. I've had all the covid shots, long covid twice, so would this new round of covid start me with a new round of long covid, again? April 1st was my 2 year anniversary of this last long covid experience. I'd hoped it would be done within 18 months like the first time, or 2 years. I mentioned the long covid to the VA Nurse who didn't know much about it.

This is an issue I've run into since I first contracted long covid in February 2020, health care professioanls know very little about it. Which was why I wrote a book on it, Suffering "Long Covid". I'm amazed still today how few are informed on it. It may only be 10% of those who were infected with Covid, but that's still actually a lot of people.

From Copilot:

As of 2024, the statistics regarding long COVID are as follows:

• 6.8% of American adults are currently experiencing long COVID symptoms, which is an increase from previous months¹.
• It’s estimated that 17.6 million Americans could now be living with long COVID¹.
• More than three-quarters of the people with long COVID say the illness limits their day-to-day activity¹.
• About 1 in 5 say it significantly affects their activities, which translates to an estimated 3.8 million Americans experiencing debilitating illness after COVID infection¹.
• Additionally, 7% of all adults reported that they have long COVID, and among those who reported ever having had COVID, roughly 3 in 10 reported having long COVID at some point².
• More than 17% of U.S. adults reported having ever experienced symptoms of long COVID as of February 2024³.

These figures highlight the ongoing impact of COVID-19 and the prevalence of long COVID among those who have contracted the virus. It’s important to note that these numbers can vary due to factors such as new variants, vaccination rates, and changes in public health policies

What happened? The VA Nurse said Paxlovid might keep me from getting long covid and may shorten the infection, but that even if I got covid rebound it's worth having taken it. I have not been feelin any long covid since taking the Paxlovid. THAT was hopeful!

I'm very hopeful that long covid may now end. But will it? Over 3 years of long covid off and on? I'm ready to be done with it, emotionally exhausted about it all.

So I now just have a sinus infection apparently and I'm waiting to see if I need to call the VA Nurse again for the antibiotics, which I'd like to avoid if saline flushing my sinuses works, I'd be good with that but if I continue feeling sick, sinus headache upon waking every day as today again (not yesterday when sinuses were clear), then I'll need the antibiotics.

The good side of all this, as I couldn't do anything but watch TV these past two weeks was that I saw some great shows.

"Sugar", just started on Apple+

"Fallout", on Amazon Prime from the video game I have over 700 hours into helping me get out of long covid in early 2022 and led to my producing my greatest award winning documentary, "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero". Loved the show, can't wait until series two comes out.

I'd already watched the 30 ep Chinese version of "Three-Body" on Amazon Prime and newer ("Game of Thrones" producer related) "3-Body-Problem" on Netflix. Just wanted to give them a call out.

"Marcella", on Netflix was fun. 3 seaons.

Tried season 5 of "Virgin River" on Netflix, I uncharacteristically liked that show but this season is killing me. Maybe because it's a Christmas season but I can't get into it. Sometimes it just takes getting through a few episodes though, so we'll see?

New, "Shogun", that was fun.

"The Girls on the Bus", very fun.

"The Hunt", very enjoyable about finding Lincoln's assassin.

Just started, "Franklin" with Michael Douglas, starring. Like it very much.

So, time will tell how things go with this current respiratory infection as we watch the further demise of international lowlife Donald Trump in our country's first criminal FPOTUS trial of a career criminal authoritarian, our first to have run for POTUS, and who actually, ludicrously got it. 

We were lucky his first time. If he gets another he'll try to end America and be more effective at it in now having those around him who are not protecting America and are very into evolving an authoritarian country. 

Hopefully we're stronger than that, we are more aware of what a lowlife Trump is, he's lost many of his MAGA, and hopefully we won't lose the democracy these people hate so much. 

My older MAGA brother being one of them, the only one in our family where we all grew up democrat and a union (Teamster) family. I've been an independent most of my life, voting for the best candidate. The GOP in recent years and Donald Trump ended that, pushing me necessarily into partisanship. Something I find disgusting, binary thinking, and anti-American.

But we must fight against a GOP whose motto appears to be through actions: "Profit and power at any or all cost to any or all others, as long as it's not US." Corporate Thought at its worst. This is Russian level stuff, China level stuff. 

Better times are coming though, people. 

We cannot afford to descend into a Trump inspired Putinesque mire of RINOistic hate and division and despair.

And with that... I wish you all great success and health! Until next time!

Cheers! Sláinte!

Walkabout Thoughts #71

Thoughts & Stream of Consciousness, rough and ready, from an award-winning filmmaker and author you've never heard of, while walking off long Covid, and listening to podcasts…from walk on 4/3/2024

Weather for the day… starting out, 56° broken clouds, nice sunny day

Podcast, Prosecuting Donald Trump, ep., The Fair Administration of Justice

Second for the day, Pod Save American, ep., Trump's Veepstakes Begin

NOTE: This is the next day when I'm ill with the flu now (see the end note). Rather than edit this, I just can't...this is what it looks like without editing in one read through. Most of the mistakes are voice to text errors due to environmental noises or stream of consciousness issues. Probably be a while before I feel well enough to edit this so I'm just tossing it out there for reasons of timing. I wish you well!

So after I regretfully, took half of a melatonin at 2.5mg to get to sleep last night as usual, I woke with “wet” lungs, and not feeling that great. Thank you on Covid and who knows whatever else might be going on. But I’m out walking. Wish it was just a tad bit less cool.

Just want to mention something about energy. I’ve been a strong believer as a long time computer “power user”, being someone who utilizes all and more of what a computer and program can supply, an energy power user believer. Yes, I do believe in Green energy, and I believe we need to conserve under our current circumstances. But I also have a belief that we should be utilizing all the power we can access. And the reason for that, is we need to solve the issues about the power grid being updated and as much energy as free as possible to every human being. That might sound counter to the paradigm with green energy but I would say it’s parallel to it. If tomorrow we solve cold fusion and we upgrade our power grid and our battery situation for peak usage times and somehow it’s so profitable it’s free to everybody than everybody would be able to use all the power they want and we would be able to enhance the quality of the human experience overall as well as the ecology and through time we would become ever more green with more usage price goes down and cost goes down as in the cost to anything.

The film many should be seeing, rather than the propaganda they are...

Against All Enemies goes deep inside the violent extremist movement in America, with members of the Proud Boys, 3 Percenters and never before seen footage of the Oath Keepers. These groups -- organized and led by highly-trained, highly-motivated military veterans -- pose the greatest threat to the United States today. And while most veterans are successful in their transition to civilian life, after the longest wars in our nation's history an increasingly radicalized element has been drawn into the insurrectionist movement.

That being said, I got onto green energy with Puget Sound Energy along time ago and they first offered it. It was a little more expensive and I only did a parcel. I then built up to half of my energy being green and went full green as soon as it was available. That being renewable energy sources and avoiding fossil fuel energy production.

Something called Arcadia came up and I signed up for that along time ago. They recently changed over to Sal systems. Whatever that is. And now we’re at a point where this is all just confusing me. I just got notified that I had a double energy bill. I paid it and reset up automatic payments. Still not sure what happened with that but in reviewing my energy situation, I’m finding myself a little confused. So I’m completely. Signed up with Puget Sound Energy again and trying to figure out what the hell is going on and what I should be doing.

I just wanted to mention that in case anyone else is confused or interested in going more or completely Green because I’m pretty high-tech and I’m finding this confusing. Not because of the technology, but because of the bureaucracy.

I’ve done well in digital currency. I got about that same amount in my stocks. For various reasons my 401(k) from retirement is gone. But I still have Social Security and my retirement from the company I retired from. I will never understand what the hell Republicans are doing making so much noise about things like Social Security when it isn’t what they’re selling it as. But then again, they’re in this information and keep it alive the Spectre of the old Soviet. That’s not partisan banter that’s commentary from someone who studied the KGB and the Soviet system for decades and noticed in the 1990s it suddenly, I saw the GOP evolving using KGB tactics, including this information that is only gotten worse until they served us a Donald Trump.

The podcast is talking about the gag order on Trump and how would that works with most people. And one thing in certain conditions is you can’t possess a gun or carry a gun anyway. I just like to say from someone who has been trained in Firearms beginning in 1968 I was in the military And has played the role of bodyguard armed bard bodyguard multiple times in the past when you have Secret Service protection in the last thing you need to be doing is carrying a guy because who you gonna end up shooting if you ever need to pull your gun. Show how often People are shot with their own gun, but my concern here would be a dumbass like Trump and a coward, such as he is accidentally shooting a Secret Service member or a civilian. Even if he shot a criminal, I would not be surprised to hear. But the bullet went through and hit, or killed a Secret Service agent, or a civilian. Because that’s who, and what Trump is. Cowards tend to not do well carrying firearms in dangerous situations. Which is why we need more controls over who’s allowed again and who’s allowed to conceal carry again or who’s allowed to open carry gun.

That wasn’t about a gag order above but more than a gag order, which is being considered because of Trump‘s ill behavior. Trump doesn’t act like a ex president in this court situation he acts like he thinks he’s king. For those people who think that’s admirable it’s not. Extreme lowlife act better in court, which says something about Trump‘s character. Trump acts like a poor person who thinks he’s rich acting how he thinks a rich person should act which is basically like an asshole because he can get away with it. That is a bully. Nobody likes a bully. But those it or not favor authoritarianism find that person as a positive positive role model of an alpha male, or a leader. Trump is one of the most horrible leaders I’ve ever seen in my life and the type of person I have always avoided.

It’s been accurately noted that since this trial stuff has begun, Trump has attacked judges, 117 times and threats against the judiciary has doubled.

That’s not the behavior of a former United States president. that’s the behavior of a spoiled, petulant, oppositional behavior, tight child

My older MAGA brother, who is bought into toxic conservatism as labeled me, repeatedly live tired, and TDS, which the joke is on MAGA because that’s what they have. I just find it interesting that throughout my life, my studies into things like the KGB, who are much more professional than anyone like Trump or the GOP, although very underhanded means… All those people I have understood to be, and learned by behaviors to be the worst possible types of leaders, and people is exactly what Trump is and many of those who follow him.

From the beginning, when Trump started running it, POTUS, I didn’t care about his politics. In fact, I didn’t care if he said and promised everything I want in a president. Certain types of people you do not hand power to. Pathological narcissist is one personality type. And I don’t say this is a partisan, it is someone who studied psychology and from my objective point of view, Trump is the last person you give the most powerful office in history of humanity to. I mean, if you have a clear head look at what he’s done and all the damage he’s fomented, and what he’s promising to do more of.

I keep saying this. People who are complaining who like Trump are complaining from a point of democracy and how this country is now. If they hand power over to Trump, he will take it this time in his final second term with no fear of either being elected again or ever leaving office and these people will be living in will not be with their complaining from now where they have the freedom to complain.

As someone said, business leaders, and the wealthy who are now supporting him to get what they want, and to enriching themselves need to face the reality that all it takes for them to be in serious trouble or their company, slandered, and ended for themselves jailed or some MAGA supporter killing them, is to have a child who posts on social media something against Trump. And Trump taking this favor to them or their company or cause. And suddenly they will wish they had never heard the name Trump. Now is the time to not want to hear that name not when it’s too late.

Who is the most dangerous people on the planet? Theocratic extremists. And Trump is siding up to them and they are supporting him because as they say in their own words, he’s doing this for us and he’s being prosecuted for us. And in the whole Christian religion, we feel that deeply and support him even though he’s a sinner in fighting for us.

That is so much nonsense it borders on mental illness

I was posting elsewhere today that to debate requires common ground of reality. Until we were, they heal from their psychosocial illness we have no common ground on which two debate with MAGA or some of the GOP and that’s kind of a problem. Luckily they’re in the minority. But when you have an entire political party who refuses to follow rules or decency or ethics from morality that put those in the correct lane of the national highway following the rules of the road while others are taking potshots and ignoring the speed limits.

All of America outside of MAGA needs to understand and actualize. This is not standard operating procedure or up against, and that has been weapon against us.

In 2000 I voted for vice president Gore as POTUS. While I knew George W. Bush wanted to go to war against so I’m Hussain in Iraq. He had no recourse to do so. When America elected Bush, I threw up my hands but I realize they’ve been duped. It takes us back to the Awareness I had from early 90s that the GOP was tired of losing and had taken on underhanded tactics if not glean from the KGB definitely paralleling them.
The 911 hit and all bets were off and Bush could do whatever he wanted. The Intel community told him there were no WMD. Every time they told him the Oval Office sent them back out “to find some.”

Until finally, they found someone who would and did, and we went to war with an Iraq.

up to that point after 911 hit, I kept telling people America was hurt and they were frightened, and they’re going to punch some country in the mouth most likely one who had nothing to do with 911

In case you haven’t noticed that exactly what happened

When they reelected bush, which is expected during a war, I really threw my hands up and gave up on America. Once I get that fool me twice you’re lost cause

And then we elected Barack Obama, and there was hope again. And eight years of that made us complacent just like decades of Roe versus Wade protecting women’s rights made us complacent.

I graduated high school in 1973. I went in the Air Force in 1975 as Vietnam era. my last semester of high school was civics and world problems by a person who had actually worked in that field who had met Chag KI Shek in an international working group in Taiwan. I received a good education just in that. Looking back it was probably the best things I learned in all of high school so I didn’t think so at the time I love the class because of the teacher.

When Rovers Wade happened it was much rejoicing, and from that point on, I started to think OK good but now you have to have Congress actually make it a national federal law don’t rely on a court case which we did. And now we regret that.

Of course, having three conservative justices elevated to Scotus, who swore it was a done deal and they wouldn’t mess with it when they got the opportunity they did exactly that and again here we are today

Just turning around at the one and a half mile mark… Yay, it’s warming up. Whenever I make this walk, I leave the house and head south on the peninsula. When it’s cool, cold wind hit me in th when I turn around and head home in the half mile. It’s at my back and sometimes I don’t even notice if it’s cool. Today one of those days were both directions I’m in the face with the wind.

Where is all those MAGA second amendment nutcase is out there, whose children have been slaughtered in a mass, shooting to say that those are crisis actors, or to continue their support of insanity or to continue believing the faucets of things like trickle down economics, and only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun, both of which have been proven fall so many times it really does border on mental illness to continue on that toxic capitalistic path actually. Because if you dig down into any of this, it’s all about power and money for the right or power and money for the wealthy or power and money for the powerful. And while you can poke fingers that Democrats are independence is only one party of big business who overly claims to be that, the GOP who are no longer grand and haven’t Been grand for going on 40 years now

From the podcast: they’re saying this is essentially what Trump is claiming in his court situation: “I’m running my mouth, so I shouldn’t have to go to trial.”

So do I ever get sucked into conspiracy theories? No. Not since I first stumbled across them in the early 70s. I came across my first conspiracy theory reading the book struck me something is not right. And it was written by very high military leader. So I couldn’t disprove what he was saying which has since been disproved, and in fact, that book is completely disappeared. But I did learn about conspiracy, theories, and from that point on, I’ve never fallen for conspiracy theories. A few times, I may have it lasted only as long as I vetted the information and found it false and that has been literally took me 30 seconds a couple times to disprove typically a few minutes and it’s never gone on longer than a few days or a week, and I actually can’t remember it lasting a week but maybe. What I discovered about MAGA when Trump took off his POTUS and there were so many conspiracies and lies and bullshit MAGA denigrating the rest of us who were based in reality what I found is a university, trained researcher and a previous senior, technical writer, you can get more based in reality than that not to mention degree in psychology, was that I would vet the crap that people threw at me and I would find the first thing I found, supported it, and sometimes the second layer down, supported it, but almost never the third or fourth layers down. And I took that to. mean one thing. That conspiracy theorist I was dealing with either did not vet their information and believe the memes they were seeing or the information thrown at them, back, then the misinformation, and soon they’re after the disinformation, and that is nationally where, as internationally Russia was hammering us with disinformation tactics, but so was the GOP. That if you could even find someone who said yes, I vetted my information. Especially if they said I do my own research. That’s a huge red flag. Because most people doing their own research is vastly different from someone like when I do my own research. Because it’s childhood my aim has always been truth not my beliefs.

Starting mile three…

Anyway, when I would ask these conspiracy divers, did they vet their information? And into what they did for those who would admit it, they would go look it up somewhere typically on a conservative info bubble website. But not going out as you should at least three disparate information sources who would typically disagree with one another. Because that’s the gold standard. If enemies agree on reality, you’re probably somewhere near to it.

I would say, most of these people did not vet their information at all. “I believe my source “ sometimes I’d ask who’s your source and they’d say Donald Trump. Did I say more? For those who vetted it was they go to one website maybe two and that was it. There is a few times that I mean very very few times where someone would say yes, I vetted my information. And I would go out and vet their information and they would be correct. It would disagree with my beliefs. It would rankle me. But I adjusted my information and my orientation to fit what I found to be reality. Those people were very very few and far between.

On exercise and long Covid: i’m lucky, I’m retired. I don’t know how lucky I am, and that I worked my tail off my entire life through a lot of family issues and emotional situations and bad managers and bad jobs… No, I’ve been lucky that I’ve chosen mostly good managers, and good jobs. but when I decided I need to exercise for my life to help camp down long Covid couple years ago my attitude was as I’ve discussed before with other things. My life is now about getting those miles in. That’s how I got to college. Nothing in my life mattered as much as graduating. Nothing mattered as much as finishing that quarter of school, I did not worry about grades. Of course I tried to get the best grade I could, but I often found I was up against learning a lot in a class or getting a good grade and I opted for learning a lot. I don’t think they were many who studied as hard as I did, or who was at the library as much as I was. researching. Because I knew once I graduated if I didn’t go on to post graduate work and get a masters or a PhD… My mind would likely never be as sharp as it was at graduation, and I would never have the kind of freedom within the constraints of the class structure and the degree structure to learn as much as I had the opportunity to learn at that time and over those four years. since I went to summer school each year and I took enough credits each school year if I’d stay around for less than another year I would’ve had 2 university degrees. I thought about it but I was kind of burned out. I thought about going for my masters, but I really just wanted to be a writer.

Why did I get a psychology degree if I wanted to be a writer?

Maybe a literature degree would’ve been better. But I had enough problems from childhood that I wanted to resolve. I figured a psychology degree was a free therapy session that lasted years. And it worked out plus when you’re a writer you need to understand character development. Who understands that better a Lit major or a psych major? And so that’s why I got a psych degree. One quarter was a class that was basically a three month group therapy session with students and a professor. I refused. I didn’t want to feel exposed and paranoid. I talked to my professor, and we debated it until he finally said look if you want to psych degree you have to do this that’s the end of it. And so I did it. It was difficult for the first few days and it got easier. I’ll tell you, at the end of that quarter? I was a more relaxed and open person.

Two weeks until jury selection for Trump’s trial. I don’t know why it’s so hard to get this guy through the court system like all the rest of us would have had to go. If this was any of us, the trials would be done and we’d be in prison by now.

This is kind of sad. I’ve been looking for one of my best friends from high school for decades. People complain about Facebook? And yeah he’s got problems. It’s caused a lot of problems nationally and internationally in one country. People even died because of it. But I’ve been able to reconnect with a bunch of old friends And stay connected to distant family.

Brother has kids. His son has a friend. One day they were talking and I don’t know how it came to be but his friend contacted me on Facebook and asked me if I knew his stepdad. And it turned out his stepdad was at best friend from high school and afterwards. This is a guy who’s older brother and I went skydiving the day after his I want to say 19th birthday? I was younger than him. When I graduated all my friends were 18 and 19 and I was 17. anyway my friend in the screenplay “the teenage bodyguard “, is mostly this guy. Sweet guy. We have some adventures to tell. Like skydiving that day with hangovers for the first time. Skydiving the first time, not having a hangover.

Anyway, this guy that reconnected me with him is pretty MAGA. Like my older brother. Like his son as happens with sons and dads. my kids are not MAGA because I raised them with an open mind and a sense of reality and education. They don’t follow my lead by any means they have their own views, and we have interesting discussions and debates. But we have a great relationship.

This guy I’m so grateful for reconnecting me with his dad attacked one of my posts on Facebook couple days ago. And it’s just been hammering me about you you know whatever MAGA people say when you disagree with them. About how bad Joe Biden is for instance. You know I’ve looked into all these claims about him that MAGA professors to be true and You don’t even get past the first level of vetting before it proves false. So my intention of late because I quit debating these people before the end of the Trump administration because it’s useless and a waste of my time. I got sick of prove me wrong! Or show me where I’m wrong! I spent three fucking years doing that and no one believed anything I said even though it’s solid information solid sources solid facts. So now I just know that the issue is my latest blurb, which is basically MAGA in the GOP have a psychosocial poor health issue that we, and they mostly they need rectify before we can ever have common ground like reality, to debate from, and that’s it. That’s all there is to it.

America has a split personality and while this side is annoying and a very small minority extremist not like the right portray at all, but they do have a cycle, social mental health issue, and a leader, who is pathologically narcissist.

There should be no need to say anymore ever about that. I like Obama a lot. But if he acted like Trump, I would’ve turned on him in second. When we have a POTUS, they are people they make mistakes. Hopefully they try their best. But when all you do is present is play golf, as opposed to those who stay up late into each night, studying world issues, national issues who actually do something and try and have a party behind them who wants to do positive things, they are the better party. The GOP likes to sit back to as little as possible. Maintain their positions and blame the Democrats for screwing up. Here’s a news piece when you do things you screw up then you fix them. You don’t do nothing or try to break things defund which they’ve been doing a lot longer than BLM decided to defund police which wasn’t about finding the police but properly funding them and getting them help as they’ve been begging for 40 years. I grew up a blue-collar family, a Teamster union family, a theater, workers union, and I was a wrap in the early 70s in high school, and a democrat. Soon as I turned 18 I voted in the next election. All of my life I voted for the best candidate and I didn’t bother with party. That is new to me.

We have to do better.

Starting my 4th mile…

So John Eastman, Trump’s buddy was judged guilty for helping Trump conspire against the election. That can’t be good for Trump and his trial. This is from the podcast. They judging this trial, so it said there was clear and convincing evidence not merely a preponderance, which indicates over 50%. So he’s saying the Donald Trump absolutely did what he’s charged with. So it’ll be interesting if they can use this trial at all in the other trial and the way things are going probably not.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this? But the one national entity and state entities who have supported the law in all of his trumpets, is the bar associations. And they’re removing the license to practice law from those criminal Trump supporters who are now convicts they are doing a patriotic and substantial duty to America and the law. And this actually includes many attorneys, who agreed with Donald Trump, or supported him, but did not sign up for breaking the law, or losing their law license like those who have supported Trump in an insurrection already have.

This was bugging me last night. If anyone reads this blog and wonders why from time to time I mentioned my health or my physical progress on this walk. That’s just for those out of shape, wanting to get into shape and those with Covid or long Covid who are suffering and can see how at least one person is handling it. And they can see how I push myself but then I mindfully consider when to give up and take a break for the day or whatever. So this really isn’t ego or narcissism on my part. If you know me, that’s just not me. I was raised with plenty of reasons to have poor self-esteem, and have to fight through that grown-up, but with a very critical mind that could compare Social reality to actuality that surrounds us.

Just thinking about Covid. If I had not caught Covid in February 2020, and again end of March 2022, I would have so much more done. I might have another couple books published. I might even have another couple of films produced. I hadn’t thought about that till just now, I was just remembering novel I started a while back maybe 10 years ago I’d like to finish. And I realize it wasn’t for Covid right now. I probably could have the time and enough projects behind me that I would feel comfortable spending on finishing another novel. I thought all the age would find me in better health. And I could travel more have more energy. Get more done. Wow. Not so much. But I’m positive and hopeful always and optimistic. And I hope I’ll hit a point where I am again doing well. Healthwise. Regardless I’m still getting older every minute.

How is moving forward. Always trying to do better. Remember that to maintain equilibrium and to maintain your position requires progress and movement. And to think that you can “standstill “movement is to have no observation whatsoever of your own history and knowledge of the world, or humanity or physics.

Ha! I haven’t mentioned this a long time… I grew up in the 50s and 60s and 70s in watching old movies and adventure movies and eventually Indiana Jones and all my life. I’ve tried to find Native American arrowheads or prehistoric hand tools or whatever. I’ve been around the country and I’ve Backpacked The superstition wilderness in Arizona for days. I can’t remember ever finding any kind of historical artifact until I moved to Bremerton Washington. And within a year I found two certified hand tools on the street just in the gravel on the side of the road.. verified by an actual archaeologist. Funny that. I assumed maybe somebody dropped it who knew what it was and was sad they lost it or what seems more reasonable to me is the city trucks in road gravel from outside the city and it was probably just in one of those dumps from out in the woods somewhere or wherever they get gravel originally.

On the podcast she says there’s always been bad lawyers. Well there’s always been bad presidents. But with the advent of Donald Trump, putting Nixon to shame there is now only one bad president in American history. And it will take a lot and possibly Trump again or someone far worse in the future to be the second worst president of our bad presidents which will most likely require the ending of the United States of America for something far far worse as Trump is trying to do now. I say let’s not let him.

Now up on the podcast, Jeffrey Clark, who is worse than John Eastman because he had a position in the DOJ

Just a reminder, Donald Trump is POTUS45 over 30,000 lies to the American people. And took the fifth amendment over 400 times in his deposition.

Starting the 5th mile…

15 year old Transgender Day visibility fell on Easter this year. Biden has said something about it on that day the past four years. But literally anything Trump can whine about and his Maga GOP can be pissy about they will be. We fear and hate what we’re ignorant about. Which are transgender people to conservatives but not MAGA to the rest of us. Whom we know all too much about thank you very much.

Trump and GOP the leaders in manufactured outrage

Here’s what I don’t get about the transgender evangelical Christian bullshit. Didn’t Jesus meet a leper in the Bible? Was he mean to him? I bet anything he met a person who today would be transgender and was he mean to him? I bet he was kind. Because that was kind of his thing. Transgender is a minority. There’s not many of them around. I have some fucking compassion if you’re angry about them learn about them so that you won’t be angry anymore and you’ll feel sorry for him and have some empathy. Thank God I’m not Gay or an ethnic minority, other than white or saying, maybe Muslim or trans or any of those things I didn’t have to suffer through other people of using me over that is none of their business. If you don’t like something, turn your head or turn the channel. This anti-white racism bullshit is exactly that. When you’re the majority and you start seeing yourself as a minority and you start feeling butt hurt because other people are starting to get a little of the light of the world, and of course you’re gonna lose a sliver it’s not half it’s a sliver. And if everybody gets there do sliver at a time you know what that sliver after sliver adds up to? Just a bigger sliver. But it’s still a sliver and it’s not really a piece of the pie. So shut the fuck up. I don’t understand this Christian nationalist white wing extremist we despise compassion and empathy, but we like to call ourselves Christians nonsense. The way I see it, your Christian or you’re not or your American or you’re not and I’m seeing a lot of people claiming to be religious or patriots and they’re just not supporting with their actions and beliefs.

By the way, I use the term oh my God once in a while. I grew up with it. I was raised old Slovak school Catholic in the 1950s and 60s and that’s my right I earned it just as I earned educating myself to understand how abusive religion has been historically, and how, especially Christianity and Catholicism literally murdered people to stop religions replacement as that of science and psychology and sociology and education in general, which has traditionally been an asthma to religion. Because the more you know the more you know. Trump said white? I love the uneducated. It’s not for the reason you think.

Wow! I am now turning around to head home at the 4.5 mile mark that means I made 5 miles plus today. For the first time this year. On a day I woke up not feeling good and my lungs are being kind of weird. I don’t feel too bad. I feel beat to hell. But not as bad as when I finish 4 miles two days ago. This is definitely progress now I just need to make the next two walks over the next week each 5 miles and I’ll have pretty much locked in for the rest of the year.

It’s 12:20 PM, so when I get home… Lunchtime!

Listening to the pod Save America podcast now because the other one finished. They’re just talking about what I mentioned above which they were talking about the Eastern transgender thing. And one of them said in a statement by I don’t know if Trump or somebody they mentioned Christians and Catholics. And one of the pointed out Catholics are Christians. I would point out Christians I’ve known generally don’t say they are Catholic. I know a little about the history of Christian and Catholics. I learned even more when I wrote my story that may culpa document of London. Which I mentioned in my last blog.

I would just like to mention that if your religion not only doesn’t allow for gay people and trans, people, such and non-binary, and you have trouble with non-binary, thinking the problem there is it with those people but with your religion and the way you think. I known plenty of Christians who are just fine with all of that, but they’re not binary Thinkers.

I discovered after a few years of marriage to my youngest mom, and now ex-wife. We were very different people. She was very cowgirl and a professional horse rider, trainer and instructor. Grew up in the farm life. I grew up in cities and suburbs. I grew up with a mother, who was, very interesting in her psychological make up. But I don’t think I was ever a binary singer after I got past kindergarten? I wonder if we should see people stuck in binary thinking as having a developmental challenge? Not mentally incompetent, just at times. Not sociologically inept just too often.

The podcast just conjectured if when we wanted Biden to win and beat out Trump in 2020 if we all didn’t get a little hooked on the Trump bullshit and when we said we wanted a boring president again we kind of didn’t? Well, I was one of the people saying that, and I mean it. And the way I mean it is, I love when I never hear from my leaders and they just do a good job. I saw having to see Trump every day on TV when he was POTUS 45 as the worst nightmare for a leader you could have. I always enjoyed seeing Obama when he talked about often it was about that shit but he was handling. But I wouldn’t want to see him on TV every damn day. I want to think he’s off work for us and he has delegated to professional mouthpieces to speak for him, has his historically tradition. When you see somebody like Trump in front of the TV every day that’s just a fucking narcissistic asshole. And in Trump‘s case a supremely ignorant and bigoted one.

And I’ll leave you with that. I made my 5 miles first time this year!

And it’s noon and time for lunch.
Temperature is 56° now

NOTE: It's now the next day I got home and started feeling ill within a few hours and the flu hit me hard. Home Covid test came out negative. I called the VA nurse who suggested I go to emergent care in the morning as they were closed. In bed trying to sleep my lungs felt raw. I woke feeling pretty crummy but my lungs, though weak feeling, didn't feel raw, nor did my throat. This does not feel like Covid which felt like something vile was in my system and acid in my veins. I called emergent care and they were busy, I left my phone number and they never called back. Finally I called the cancelled. I don't feel great but I'm not concerned it's something bad, just miserable and time will heal things 

And with that... I wish you all great success and health! Until next time!

Cheers! Sláinte!

Walkabout Thoughts #70

Thoughts & Stream of Consciousness, rough and ready, from an award-winning filmmaker and author, while walking off long Covid and, listening to podcasts…

From 4/1/2024 April Fools' Day

Weather for the day… overcast, starting out, 50°

Podcast Marc Maron, Episode 1526 - Alejandro Escovedo

Sitting at home, the next day, editing. Here's what I'm seeing when I look at my front window...

Happy April Fools' Day! 

Regarding that for this year? I got nothing, not until Donald Trump is another election loser, and convict, so maybe next year there will be something to laugh about. Enough politics. Good fair article...

That being said… I went to my older sister's and her husband's for Easter dinner yesterday and our cousin was there, and my brother-in-law‘s sister was there and we had a great time. I hit my cousin up about our grandfather‘s historical information. I finally got to ask her if she’d be interested in helping me with the documentary I want to do about him. She'd worked for years, years ago, working writing grants for an educational institution, so she’s very good at this kind of stuff. I’ve tried writing FOIA requests but I didn’t get very far and I realized I’m not that good at it. She said she would be interested. Yay! But she said first come over to my house because she has a bunch of his papers and I can just have them. So I’ll have to do that.

I have one copy left of my original publication of my book Suffering "Long Covid". Usually, if I want to get rid of a copy I’ll put it in a Little Free Library up the street. But there’s still one in there from last December (that's my book it in above in the pic). They've been going well in this way so far. So maybe that’s a good sign. Somebody had taken my last published fiction book I put in there ("The Unwritten") and brought it back, and then somebody else took it. So that’s a good sign. I really like that book. Fun story to write. And I think I’m gonna utilize part of it in my next movie. Which I still have to come up with at working title for.

So that’s all good news on the arts front and, the family front.

Have I said how much I hate long Covid? Well, oddly enough, today is its two year anniversary. Two years ago I caught Covid for the second time. I’ve covered this extensively on this blog. It was one of the worst nightmares of my life. My first infection was far worse in the initial Covid infection part. My second infection was far worse for long Covid. I think. I mean two years ago when I caught it again I had to call the paramedics twice within a week. The first time I ever ended me up in the ER wearing a heart monitor for a couple weeks. On the other hand the first Covid infection I had in February 2020, that was the week from hell. Breathing felt like I had inhaled acid and my veins felt like they had acid in THEM. But that was over in a few days, and about 6 months before my lungs felt mostly normal again.

I’ve been extensively tested by the Veterans Administration health and I seem to have gotten through all this unscathed, as far as we can tell anyway, though I still have some problems. But like no lung, brain or heart damage. Currently I'm going through some new long Covid things, this since the end of December 2023 that got really bad in January and then pretty much healed up from with some rough issues that don’t seem to wanna go away completely yet and are a real pain. Long covid is good for that, lingering forever. I have a new round of testing and doctor appointments now. I’m hoping the way long Covid works, as I’ve seen so far, is that at some point I’ll just get really sick and then it’ll just go BANG, and it's gone (finally).  The first time I had it lasted about 18 months so maybe this one will be longer? I think I’d say tentatively six months from now maybe it’ll be gone, hopefully within another six months after that? Who knows. It's the crazy disease. Its like someone developed it to make it drive you nuts, or kill you. And no, it wasn't weaponized in a lab, whether it originally came out of one or not. 

For those out there saying Covid is a lie or total nonsense. Fuck you.

Onward and upward…

I’ve had flat feet all my life and problems with my knee joints. After years of Karate and tournaments, I wanted to be on a team, a football team. SO when I got into junior high, it scared the crap out of my mom. She took me to a doctor who said I couldn't do it because of your knees. I suspected my mom got him to say that, but as it turns out, he was right and said as I get old, I'll have more problems. I've had 2 surgeries on them. I asked my mom why she didn't want me on a football team. She said because you'll get hurt. I replied, you sent me to Karate (it was originally her idea, but I loved it), where I had to fight 5 fights a night for years and was in tournaments against other dojos, but you don't want me on a football team where I actually have an entire team protecting one another?

This was also from the woman who told me, when I later wanted to be a fighter pilot that I couldn’t, because I had fillings in my teeth. Which was bullshit. Whatever… 

Anyway, I got these bubble insole things with fluid in them that you stick in your shoes, your feet riding on top of them. I got a pair from my son because he’s on his feet all day at work and I wanted him to try them. I have to say we both love them. I’d use these kinds of things before in the past, but these seem to be holding up really well. I figured they’d last a month, it’s probably been six months or a year now. Put a pair in my fuzzy suede slippers that I mostly wear around the house, too. Nice warm slippers but with good soles on the bottom.

I had a pair of those with slick bottoms years ago, and I slipped three times in a week on the stair landing, each time exactly on my right forearm in the same place. I’ve written about this before. The last time it happened I finally threw a perfectly good pair of slippers in the garbage and eventually got a pair with good non-slip soles which are so much nicer (and safer).

Anyway, I mention this because I’m walking and pushing my limits on these walkabouts and my feet kind of "giggle" with every step and feel so damn good. These are the same flat feet that in 10th grade I'd had surgery on the arch of my left foot and the surgeon had said he'd never seen such flat feet on his operating table. These are the same flat feet I got into the USAF with. I asked the doctor at the AFEES station, physical/ check in evaluation day. The physical that lets you into the service or not. I stood there in my underpants and socks and asked the doctor, "do you want me to take my socks off like everybody else?" He said, not even looking up from his desk where he was writing, "Not if you want to get into the Air Force."

When I told that to the foot doctor in basic training, he got really pissed off at that doctor and canceled me out of my guaranteed law-enforcement position. I picked a back up job as flight simulator technician. But everybody wanted that and I ended up with my back up of my back up, which was parachute rigger. Because I figured, what the hell, I’ve been skydiving before...as detailed in my screenplay about it that in my screenplay: ”The Teenage Bodyguard”. Which I’ve now won a bunch of awards for. Which was nearly made into a movie three times now, but I’m waiting for a director shares a similar vision for the movie that’s at least in the same ballpark as mine, as a drama. I worked with producer, Robert Midas on it, who works with Michael Douglas on films as producers. I worked on it with Jen Grisanti, who is a screenplay consultant. It’s an interesting screenplay, a true story, true crime about Tacoma, Washington’s mafia family, and a woman who was protected for a week from them because she witnessed them commit a murder of one of their own.

Earliest memory. 1956.
I was in my crib. Maybe 18 months old according to my mom.
All were asleep. I had played at Uncle Byron's the day before, who lived on the cross block at the end of our block, at the "T" intersection. I was bored waiting for mom and dad and my sister to get up.
I remember the feeling of crawling over my rail, out of my crib and falling to the floor.
Opening the front door (I was wearing a onesie) snow was everywhere, in the middle of winter. I hesitated but thought, "It's only end of block." So I walked out into the snow, leaving the front door open. It was exciting. Maybe my first solo adventure. No one to tell me what to do.
I walked to the middle of the street and headed to my uncle's house.
Cut to mom waking up.
Something's not right. Why's is it cold? She gets up puts on her bathrobe, follows coldness into the living room.
Sees the open door, snow blown in onto the rug. She walks to the door and sees tiny footprints going toward the street. She steps into the doorway outside to see the footprints in a line toward the street until she sees me trudging through the snow.
She hustles out to get me, self-conscious she's outside where anyone can see her. She picks me up and hustles us both back inside.
"What were you going? You can't leave the house when everyone is asleep."
"To uncle Byron's. I had fun there, I wanted to play."
"But everyone's still asleep, there too."
"Oh.... but I want to go."
"We can go later if you want [we didn't], after everyone wakes up [again, we didn't that day]. But you can't be leaving the house like that ever again when everyone's still asleep. OK?"
"OK."
She secured the door for a few days after that so I couldn't get out.
My oldest memory.

Another memory, one with Clive Barker. I've met him several times, just at book signings, but after having written back and forth with him previously. My oldest son once shook his hand from his stroller at about 2 years of age, having no clue what was going on but Clive couldn't have been nicer. IF only I'd had a camera.

I was wearing a pin my artist wife at the time had made and Clive liked it so much he wanted one. So she made him a duplicate of her "inside out face" pin out of Super Sculpy and I mailed it to him in London. I have no idea if he still has his, but I still have mine (while I also now have an extra ex-wife...3.5 of them to be exact, with no expectations of a future ex-wife ever again on the horizon, since as my divorces have progressed in escalatory fashion, I expect any future divorce to simply be a nuclear war...not from me, I couldn't be nicer in a divorce but my last ex was so unhinged, for no real good reason (long story, trust me), other than mental issues, that her own lawyer started understanding and feeling sorry for me, and actually protected me during arbitration a couple of times, which seldom happens).

That was interesting. I have my Apple Air Pods in, listening to the Marc Maron podcast and he’s just talking by himself about a live event he did with Larry David and how that developed. He couldn't understand why Larry didn't want it recorded for posterity. I just got a phone call from an 866 number. I hate that when it doesn’t say who it is because it's usually someone I would talk to if I had a choice. But I’m waiting for some doctor's appointments to be made and indeed, it was VA Triwest calling to make an appointment. It said if you don’t have any dates to avoid press one. So I did. It said, somebody will get back to you. So that was easy. Otherwise I’d be walking outside here with my calendar trying to set up a date. Which isn’t a big deal and I was hoping somebody would call soon, I just don't want to deal with it on a walk if I can avoid it. I got two phone calls from VA last week asking me to come to Seattle and I said no, can’t it be local? They said, we can set you up for that in your community. Cool. but then nothing for the entire week. So this week I thought I need to get a hold of somebody and get this sped up. So, that phone call made me feel a little better anyway. Just getting some check ups for long covid issues. I should have gone in last week for a blood test but was waiting on a call. Then I just now realized to call and ask and sure enough, there's an order just waiting for me to hit the VA clinic in Silverdale. 

Just started my 2nd mile…

Hey, have you seen this video about the dad and his kid pulling his vehicle out of a ditch? Love it. I so would have done this with one of my kids had I thought of it. I loved doing things like that with them. I have video of my first born driving his little electric car and it's hilarious. Then he decided he wanted to drive onto the real (and busy) street with real cars and it took a bit to dissuade him.

 Love this stuff. Here's a screen shot of the video on the internet (you get the idea)...

Here's my son as a kid in his car...

1989

Oh, I will say this about politics.

It was on the news today that a guy that knows all about Trump campaign was talking and said you know a lot of people now are sending Trump handwritten notes when he’s asking for money saying I’m sorry I’m giving you a lot of money over the years and I just don’t have anymore to give. That’s a good sign. So I sent that info to my son in a text and he just wrote back: "L O L".

Hey! On a personal note… This is the first walk I’ve done this year that within the first half mile my heart, my chest would be kind of hurting and I’d have to stop and could feel my heart pounding as if it took my body time to acclimate to the fact that I’m exercising because I’ve been so sedentary through the winter, even though I’ve done some walks over the past month or two. So, making some progress.

I’m really wanting to get to writing the screenplay for this new movie project I’ve thought up. I know, first I need to finish my "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero" film companion book. I fear that might be one of those books that takes forever to get finished. I need to finish processing my movie "Gumdrop" to get it up on Filmhub or some film distributor anyway. It failed once I have two more attempts before they’ll cut the movie off. But my friend and fellow Indie Director Kelly Hughes turned me onto two other sites so I could just stick it on one or both of those and screw Filmhub. Filmhub's come up with this new deal $600 and they’ll take your movie that they have online and turn into a DVD and sell it. Translation: Indie filmmakers spend $600 on a vanity purchase that may never sell except for what you personally sell or giveaway. You know some films might catch on and could make a few bucks, or a lot if it goes viral. But for most? Yeah...

So the last two weeks I did the Chinese "Three-Body" series on Amazon Prime, 30 episodes with the last half of that episode being a subtitle nightmare, and my just having learned about doing subtitles for my own movie in doing it myself, which also failed on Filmhub. I'd set it up for subtitles to show up in three different locations on screen to try and capture everything for the deaf, but Filmhub can't handle multi on screen locations, so instead I’m just gonna do it as just a dialogue only subtitle. I just wanna get this over with. Maybe I’ll put the fancy work on my DVD which I created a couple years ago for this movie (and one for my other movie). But in just about being done with the film festival circuit I’m going redo them because I received a lot more awards, I think "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero" documentary/filmic poem, won 60 awards internationally? See that’s a frustrating thing about being a technician, and a good one. I could pay someone to do it, but I know if I just take the time and effort, I can just do it myself. I do look forward one day to being that lazy and just having someone do it for me. Who would probably do a better job as they'd be doing it as a profession. Anyway...

It’s funny, and I know some others who go through this... I look back on books or stories I’ve written, or screenplays or films I’ve produced, and sometimes you think. “damn this is really good! Who wrote this? Who did this? How could it be me?“ This in it's being either really good or really complicated and I just wonder sometimes how did my brain ever achieve this? Your next thought then though is, how can I ever reproduce this or do it again? But my experience has shown me I don’t have to worry about that kind of stress/anxiety anymore. I just know if I do it, I can do it.

It’s kind of like "imposter syndrome" symptomology. For years, I would just write  micro short stories. After I got out of the service, I made new friends and I would show those to them. They would always hand them back to me and say, this is really good! But put a fucking ending on it!

That was the problem. I saw so many options as an inexperienced writer, I couldn’t finish it, I couldn't accept the responsibility of an ending people would judge. Then I started college. This was between the USAF and college. By time I graduated college, by my senior year when I had moved into the arts, alongside my psych studies toward my degree, I got very good at writing endings. That helped towards becoming a tech writer in IT and to move into the top of my field there. That helped as Isaac Asimov said in his first autobiography “In Memory Yet Green“, in that tech writing is a good foundation for science fiction writers. It helps with writing on demand and being a professional writer in general. You’re not coddled as a tech writer in IT, trust me. I'd turn in something requested by a manager and there was no bullshit. They cut you to the quick and you’d walk away, dejected, and demoralized. I got into a pattern. I would turn in an initial (not first) draft and they'd comment, not like it. I'd turn in a succeeding draft, same thing, but I'd be closer. I'd finally turn in three versions of a final draft for them to choose from (few ever did that) and they'd almost always be amazed at how good it was, and how I'd gone from what they last had seen to the final version. 

What was going on was that I would give them my best first shot, reorient and give them my second shot, both a bit wild, then from that I could hone in on what I thought they wanted, what I thought they needed and what I wanted them to have. Three versions. Wasn't hard once you had the initial one you thought they wanted, to alter two other versions. And it made me look pretty impressive. I'm not bragging here, just relaying what actually happened. It happened once and I thought, that's interesting and cool. But then I kept doing it, with that manager at US West Technologies and then with other managers elsewhere and it was consistent. 

After a while tech writing toughens one up toward writing fiction. When you write fiction though it’s different. But if you already have that tech writing experience, it makes it much easier to bear the difficulties. In business you're dealing with other's expectations and needs. In fiction typically your own, unless you're writing for paid projects which I've done well at, but generally avoided.

You know it’s fun and cathartic to share things in this blog. But I really don’t like the editing part, even though I do it fast and once through and then post it. I tried using an AI. I've considered how helpful it would be to have an assistant, an intern maybe who did this for me and post it. But in editing it, I realized since this is special, since this is historical and mostly nonfiction, that it really takes the author to do the editing or edit with an editor (a person) as an author would normally do. But in this case, I think I’m gonna use it as a way to help me get back into the swing of working again. 

Because, as I said in a previous blog recently, Filmhub rejecting my submitted movie due to technical issues, which are fixable, but is a real pain in the ass, and with long Covid having hit me really hard around that time, it completely stopped all of my work efforts. I just lost interest. Deflated. When you feel exhausted and not well and get bad news after a lot of work and a few years of thinking of doing it and then you fail...it sucks. So I'm trying to get back into the swing of working again. And on top of that I got this new movie project idea that I really want to start working on. I’ve also got my grandfather's documentary preproduction, research, and prep stuff on a back burner which I’d really like to get to. All this is just taking too long. Nothing out of the normal in that though, really.

So what does one do in that situation? One foot in front of the other. Start with anything and finish it and then move onto the next thing and don’t worry about time. It's nice since I have no contracts or deadlines right now. Other than I just want everything done yesterday as usual.

Those authors who just wanna be authors, who sit down to write America’s greatest novel and then three months later, they’re still staring at a blank sheet of paper? Look. Type some fucking letters! It’ll come to you. But you gotta start and do the work. You ahve to have work to work on. It seems at times impossible. But it's not. Just start typing crap, if necessary. Once you start? It only gets better. If you don't start? It never gets better. IF it gets worse? Practice, it gets better. If it never does? You're not a writer. Or whatever it is you're working on.

Which brings me around to something I’ve talked about before, which is how I write. I get a kernel of an idea. I notice it’s motivating me. Through phenomenology having studied it in college, I was able to dig into that consideration and process. I realized what that motivation or that energy was or what caused that excitement. When I have a kernel of an idea, it’s not the kernel that excites me. It’s the fact that it has tendrils going back deep inside of me. Into my history, my knowledge, my personality, my orientation, my expectations... whatever. 

When I have an idea, a good idea… and I’ve had so many people say, "Hey, I got a great idea, you gotta write it! Just give me 15%!" First off, fuck you. I have plenty of my own great ideas. You like it so much? You write it. And that’s kind of when I finally figured out what’s going on with me in this situation. That, "kernel". It doesn’t matter how great YOUR idea is, if I don't come up with the idea, I won't have that foundation within myself that means I’ll be able to finish that project. The experience and things to draw upon to make that seed of an idea grow into... whatever. If I don’t have that, yes, I CAN do it, in the professional or tech writer sense of things. If I want to, if say, I accept payment, or I simply accept the project to do it for you, or whatever… Yes I CAN do it. But that’s probably not going to be as inspired as if I came up with it myself. That’s not always true because I’ve done some really cool things off of people getting me to do them. But at this point my life, I just prefer to do what I want to do in what I come up with myself. I mean, come on... If somebody offers me 5 million bucks to write something? Yeah, I’m probably gonna do it and give it my best effort. But that’s a lot different than if I come up with my own idea. There's more to it than just taking an idea and running with it. I've avoided working for a studio or moving to Hollywood and working for a big production company. Sure, I'd have gotten further, made more money. And sometimes I do wish I'd done that when I was younger. But by the time I realized that, I wasn't so young anymore and I had a family and was making good money elsewhere. Every time I tried to do art for a living, yeah, it's hard. Few I knew ever made it. Jeff Ament. He made it. But he was one of the few I've known or worked with (Pearl Jam).

Starting my 3rd mile…
^
Here’s a long Covid comment. I discovered when I started walking for long Covid that walking decreases long Covid symptoms. The problem with that is long Covid makes you sick and you don’t feel like walking, but to get the sickness to go away you have to walk, but if you walk too much, it makes you sick and can make you really sick. So you've got to balance that, wait till you feel good enough, walk a little, acclimate to it, build up to get to that point where your body responds best. For me, that seems to be 5 miles every other day. I’d like to do it every day. I wonder if I did maybe 3 miles every day that would equal 5 miles every other day? Anyway you've got work stuff like that out for yourself. When I went into the last winter at the end of 2023 I wondered, knowing how I am in the winter… I used to say I’m part bear, I just wanna hibernate in the cold, I’m much more of a summer person… so it occurred to me going into this winter not to let myself become sedentary. I kept walking on nice days. Tried using my elliptical, but I inevitably slid into not getting enough exercise, and didn’t feel good all winter. Then after a winter of not feeling great, and not exercising, I’m wondering if end of December long Covid said "party time!", and attacked me? So that in January when I got hit really hard with this thing, was it something new/ different? I thought overly hopeful, it might be long Covid getting really bad and then going away completely. Which has happened before and not just with long Covid. It happens with some other things too. Or was it because it wasn’t enough exercise and that’s how this is until long Covid goes away? If that’s the case, if that’s the logic that is. Long Covid does everything it can to trip you up on logic or diagnosing the condition. It always seems like you’ve got some other thing, but then you track it back to long Covid. Or is it triggering something in you, which comes down again along Covid lines. So I’ve got these doctors appointments and blood test coming up. I’m wondering if I get this exercise in, would it all just stop? Well, even if that’s the case, I’d like to get a new round of tests and finally see a specialist. It's only been 3 years now wishing to see a long covid specialist (are there any yet?), or something. Maybe we’ll come up with something my primary care VA doctor even admitted on our last TeleMed appointment, that he knows there’s things going on that are out of his purview/experience, and I need to see a specialist.

Good Fucking times.

Instagram: If you go back into these walk about thoughts blogs, you’ll notice I always included an Instagram post. Usually one that I took on the walk. Then Instagram instituted some changes I found really annoying and it got a bit too convoluted. I liked its ease of use before. So I stopped doing it. What I find interesting is some of the simplest posts get the most hits. One of my last walks a few times ago I took a picture of a rock on the ground close up and then I backed up from it. Threw in some music and... it got like 20 views within a day. I looked at it yesterday, it now has as of today 6478 views. If you look at my Instagram account, you’ll notice that the ones that seem to get the most views are the ones that I was messing with visual perspective on. Zooming in or out on something and it gives you a weird visual effect. While some of what I thought were my more interesting posts only got 6 or 20 views. Go figure…

Yes, I realize anyone who read every one of these walkabout thoughts blogs would notice I'm sometimes repeating things, or sometimes I'll say that I’ve talked about something or other more extensively elsewhere, previously, and sometimes I’ll even add the link to that previous blog. But I figure there’s a good chance too no one has ever read two of these. And if so, hi! Thanks! Nice to see you! If not? Nevermind...

I just had an interesting thought about one of my stories. In my first book ever Anthology of Evil, a collection of my first ever short stories, of my first published short story from 1990, I have a story called "The Mea Culpa Document of London" (which is an ebook and an audiobook). it’s about a witch hunter in I think 1299 England. I wrote it for my senior year university fiction writing 101 intro to fiction or whatever it was. With the help of one of my theater professors, Perry Mills as he’s a student of medieval literature and we got to be friends. I was in his office between classes a lot, or waiting on my next theatre class after coming over from the Miller Hall, the psych building. If I remember correctly, there’s a blurb about how that story was discovered in an old church. Which was odd in it being wrapped in a very Jewish item. So I took that story and wrote it in British English vernacular as best I could do. I later wrote a newer, much longer story which I think is the longest story in my Death of heaven book. That’s a complicated story, that entire book. I got a book review on that book not long ago by entering a book contest (didn't win, but more to come this year) and the reviewer said I had a lot of spelling errors in the book. I released the book in 2012 and revised it in 2014. I had worked hard on it with an editor and we went over it with a fine tooth comb. There weren’t any spelling errors. But I double checked and I found, I think nine errors, and some of them kind of weren’t errors. Most of the errors you might call errors we’re in that story Vaughn’s Theorem. which was written in British style. So yes, in American English it has misspelled words, but not in British English, no misspelled words. So I shared that with the reviewer and they kindly updated the online review and now we’re both happy. But it occurred to me. What if I got a British editor to help me make it seriously British style? And update not just any potential grammatical errors but British lifestyle errors there might be in the story? Which made me think I could then make a new book by taking that story and the original and put them together in a new revision, releasing it as, I don’t know, the whole story though in one e-book about the witch hunter, the document and all that comes from it.

On that note there’s a similar issue with the whole book of Death of heaven. Which apparently some people think is a religious book due to the title, which makes me laugh because... it’s so not. Death of heaven is a phrase I got from my son who did a CD in high school in music lab. One of the songs on it was called Death of Heaven. When I was writing that book, I asked him, hey, can I use that as a title for my book? And he said, sure. To me, the phrase I used for the book title is the whole thing Neitzsche said in "The Gay Science" (German: Die fröhliche Wissenschaft), that “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”. The title of my book refers to a realization that we’ve misperceived in every religion on the face of the Earth. And here’s why, as told in my story.

The catch in that book is, the overall story comes from the novella at the end of Anthology of Evil titled, “Andrew“. Which is another story I wrote for that fiction 101 class. I could say that story blew the entire class away. Except for my professor, who hated the story.

Why I’m bringing this up here and now is because I’ve also considered doing a revised edition of Death of heaven, as a second revision after the first and after the initial publication. I could then add "Andrew" in Death of heaven and yet there’s one other story called "Perception" that I wrote one night, working on my greatest nonfiction psychology paper on synesthesia and schizophrenia. I typed it single space on one page and gave it to my prof the next morning, just on a lark. The next day I went to class, and he’s handing copies of it to everyone of his students. Hey, high praise. But anyway, I could then include that story, too. That story is about when humankind could first y think and thought to look up to the heavens, and consider something bigger than themselves... other than carnivores. They immediately misperceived the universe and centered it around themselves. And then we got somebody in the middle ages saying, Hey, I think the earth revolves around the sun instead of the sun and stars around the earth. And of course, the church then immediately put him to death.

And that is the premise for Death of heaven. But it's much, much bigger than just that and extends to the creation of earth and nearly, or perhaps, its end. The other story about Andrew is another interesting story which goes into before (after) how the earth was evolved, as well as humankind and religion. So that by the end of Death of heaven, you have a very different perspective on our world.

Beginning my 4th mile…

Thought I’d take a photo of my book in a little free library. That’s been there for months now. It’s a book about long Covid and I say a pretty good book from what I hear. I think it helped a few people who’ve read it. Or so they’ve said. It occurred to me when I noticed it was still there, after I started walking again this year...there's probably not a lot of long Covid sufferers out walking. Just because I talk about it in the book, one way to help get over long Covid is to get exercise. I mean, it’s a lot of other things, but this is very helpful. The problem is what I detailed above. You have to get well enough to walk and then push yourself, but don’t, because if you overdo it you’ll get really sick and it’ll take longer to get over. So take your time. 

I started martial arts in 1965 and I fought two major tournaments those next two years. And a bunch a little tournaments around the Pacific Northwest. So all my life it was, whether punching a bag or lifting weights or whatever, you push yourself. So with long Covid, yes, push yourself. But it’s a whole other kind of "push". It’s a very gentle and very slow incremental push. It’s the kind of push of... get out of your chair and go walk to the mailbox, and back. Don’t overdo it. And I’m not joking. Whatever you’re doing every day, double that. And what I mean by that is… If all you do every day sit in your recliner, like I did for eight months that first year of 2020...I would try to go downstairs to do laundry, come upstairs and sit, try and calm my breathing for 15 minutes. Or I'd take a shower and would take 20 minutes to calm my heart down afterwards, just from washing myself. So if that’s all you do, walk to your mailbox (somebody’s gotta do it unless it’s on your door and mines down on the street), next day walk to the end of the block, or a couple neighbors houses down, and come back. The next day double and just whatever works for you.

Damn! Approaching 3 1/2 miles one block away one short block. Starting to wonder if I should do 5 miles. Then my left foot tweaked with pain. Maybe this will be enough at 4 miles.

55° when I got home. Yep, it's a 4 mile day.

I’ll leave you with that. It’s noon and time for lunch.

I wish you all great success and health! Until next time!

Cheers! Sláinte!