All In A Day's Work

Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up I noticed I was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Made my way upstairs and had a smoke
And everybody spoke and I went into a dream

"A Day In The Life"  Beatles

      Things started out weird this morning, so I decided to keep track of all the things that the universe was throwing at me. I made mental notes so I could write about them later.


1) The Universe Gives Me A Big Thumbs Up

       I stayed up late writing a blogpost about some religious thoughts I had while driving to basketball practice yesterday. The post was about how small I feel the difference is between what science believes and what religion believes. Although portrayed as a yawning chasm, I think it is actually much smaller and the only reason that it hasn't been bridged already is that both sides are ridiculously petty creatures hanging on to the bad feelings that were engendered by a four hundred year old feud.   

        I wasn't real happy with the piece because the thoughts behind it were kind of complicated, and I don't think I did them justice in the telling. One of the reasons why is that I tried to explain why DaVinci's drawing Vitruvian Man actually is about explaining why the universe is centered around man.

     This is ironic because a modernized version of the image is being used as the symbol for International Humanism which is a secular organization. The concepts behind Da Vinci's drawing could have been used by the Church as a supporting fact for its own argument in defense of an esoteric understanding of a geocentric universe. Secular Humanism has stripped most American institutions of any vestige of spiritually. I believe this represents a misunderstanding of its own ideas.

      The problem being that empirical thinkers hate organized religion so much that they equate it with all religion, and this is simply not the case.

       This morning I got up, went down stairs, dragged a comb across my head, and noticed my copy of Martha Heyneman's The Breathing Cathedral sticking out of the bottom of my coffee table. I don't how it got there. I opened it up and there was a picture very similar to the DaVinci drawing and text that basically said the same thing I had said in my blog the night before.  It also mentioned that the same idea was encoded into the great cathedrals built during the late Medieval Ages. 


2) The Struggle is Real

     I  usually take my Mom breakfast and coffee in the morning. This morning at McDonald's I saw a young man who was filling out a job application. His mom was reading it for him and helping him to complete the application. I witnessed this as I was filling out my order on one of those self help computerized screens. To quote Arsenio Hall it was one of those moments that "make you say, umm?"

3) The Roads Round Here Go Round and Round

     Heading to Visalia, I encountered a car coming from the south at the big roundabout at the end of Whitley Ave east of town. I waited for the driver to go first, she didn't as she was waiting for a truck coming from the east.  Problem was the truck was about a quarter mile off while we were both in the circle. She got mad at me when it was her coming to a dead stop in the circle.

     It occurred to me that the same people who convinced our leaders that the two way stop that was there forever was unsafe, will be the same people who make these stupid roundabouts dangerous too.

      I thought that they should have placed two ramps one on either side of 43 and made us jump over the highway. It might not have been any safer, but it would made life a lot more fucking interesting. And if we were headed toward Visalia, we didn't have to worry about the ramps damaging our cars as the roads of Tulare County were going to beat the shit out of them anyway.

4) The Roads of Tulare County Were Going to Beat the Shit Out of Them Anyway

     People should get medals or some kind of recognition for completing the journey from Corcoran to Visalia. It's like a damn video game trying to find a piece of pavement large enough to allow you to navigate around all the potholes. They are so large and numerous that they should be fucking tourist attractions!

    You not only have to get your tires aligned every week, you also have to visit the chiropractor.

     To make matters worse, it is also the dirtiest damn drive in the entire universe. You will drive through a dust storm or two on your going or coming. It's inevitable as death and taxes. I spend $30 to get my car washed and get to enjoy a clean car until I pass over 99 on Caldwell. After that, it's a dust covered nightmare.  There's a lot of Dust Bowl Okie families in Tulare. I figure some of them must have brought a little piece of the Dust Bowl with them when they migrated west.

5) Shanks Posts that Calvin and Hobbes Story

     My friend Shanks O'Toole shared a story about the last time Hobbes visited Calvin as his friend lay on his deathbed. It was a real tearjerker. It was about leaving your childhood behind. I commented that the story reminded me of the time that I went to first grade one morning and when I got back all of my stuffed animals were gone. My dad had ordered my mom to get rid of them.

      I don't know if either one of them knew how much that hurt me. I had one them brown and white sock monkeys. I talked to it all of the time. I wonder if he thought I was in on it.

6) Sharing an Insight With the Team

     Our COS team is composed of a bunch of great young ladies. Yet, They are having a few problems focusing enough to learn our offensive sets and inbound plays. Focus, or the lack thereof, is becoming an ever increasing problem in a world where people stare at four inch screens all day.

      I told them that you can't just keep going around and around passing through dust cloud after dust cloud. Some day you are going to have to leave your childhood behind or the potholes on your life's journey are going to beat the living shit out of you. If you don't learn to focus, you are going end up applying for a job at a fast food place and your mom's going to have to fill out your application.

      Do things right though and the universe will surround you with love and great truth.

       How was your day?

       

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