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Showing posts from May, 2012

India-Losing My Religions

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Holy Cow After my trip to India, a place rife with professional thieves, beggars,  con artists , and skinny cows, a  vegetarian is only as lactose  intolerant  as his options.The happy go locals   will eat anything with wings except airplanes, and everything with legs except tables. Cultural Anthropologist   Margaret Mead said "It is easier to change your religion than your diet". After further  study, you don't have to change your diet or your religion to live in America, just keep an open mind and  and an open mouth. It took Picasso 10 years to paint like Rafael , and a life time to paint like a child. Children are, after all,  completely gullible: they will believe anything and, more than that, will eat anything. I am eating like a child again!!!  It's not as important what I eat as how I eat-in my case frequently (6-7 small portions per day)  The Apprentice- "Everything in life is luck." Donald Trump Although I am a Math At...

India-Losing My Religions

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Holy Cow After my trip to India, a place rife with professional thieves, beggars,  con artists , and skinny cows, a  vegetarian is only as lactose  intolerant  as his options.The happy go locals   will eat anything with wings except airplanes, and everything with legs except tables. Cultural Anthropologist   Margaret Mead said "It is easier to change your religion than your diet". After further  study, you don't have to change your diet or your religion to live in America, just keep an open mind and  and an open mouth. It took Picasso 10 years to paint like Rafael , and a life time to paint like a child. Children are, after all,  completely gullible: they will believe anything and, more than that, will eat anything. I am eating like a child again!!!  It's not as important what I eat as how I eat-in my case frequently (6-7 small portions per day)  The Apprentice- "Everything in life is luck." Donald Trump Although I ...

Indianapolis 500- Life In The Fast Lane

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You win some, you lose some, you wreck some. The 96th Indianapolis 500- the best way to convert money into noise---was fast paced with lots of lead changes and drivers dabbling  in and out of  the boundaries  of disaster. There’s no secret to ovals. You just press the accelerator to the floor and steer left. The drivers  who think the brakes are for stopping usually don't win. As Mario Andretti said, "“If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.” These open wheel drivers are like fighter pilots, flying in a gymnasium. The crashes fans  remember, but drivers remember the near misses, but nobody remembers who finished second but the guy who finished second. For the record, New Zealand's Scott Dixon was runner-up this time. The weather was hot in America's Midwest after an emotional tribute to last year's winner  Dan Wheldon, the popular Englishman whose  thrill of speed overcame the fear of death  and in fact,...

Indianapolis 500- Life In The Fast Lane

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You win some, you lose some, you wreck some. The 96th Indianapolis 500- the best way to convert money into noise---was fast paced with lots of lead changes and drivers dabbling  in and out of  the boundaries  of disaster. There’s no secret to ovals. You just press the accelerator to the floor and steer left. The drivers  who think the brakes are for stopping usually don't win. As Mario Andretti said, "“If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.” These open wheel drivers are like fighter pilots, flying in a gymnasium. The crashes fans  remember, but drivers remember the near misses, but nobody remembers who finished second but the guy who finished second. For the record, New Zealand's Scott Dixon was runner-up this time. The weather was hot in America's Midwest after an emotional tribute to last year's winner  Dan Wheldon, the popular Englishman whose  thrill of speed overcame the fear of death  and in...

Thailand-Survival of The Kindest

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The Infinite S mile  O f Ordinary Living My linguistic skills got a triple bypass at Nana.   There are over 900 jai phrases. I stopped counting.   Genius is constant attention but pure attention, without advice, without judgment is absolute kindness. What better compliment to pay my host country,  the land of smiles, than with pure attention, as I did in Mae Sot,  Hat Yai, Phuket, C hiang Mai,  Nong Khai   and Bangkok. See: All Thai'd Up    Khao San Road - the most spectacular outbreak of mass delirium that you are likely to see Wheels Down, I enter Lonely Planet, and wish there were more people. Countdown-3-2-1... To achieve great things, two things were needed: a plan and not quite enough time. I had both. Remember the gypsy curse--- May you get what you wish for . Ba-bamm, like rap music, in your face, pedal to the metal, one is none, and I am part of the idea that everyone is better than anyone, kind of an open source chaos for livi...

Thailand-Survival of The Kindest

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The Infinite S mile  O f Ordinary Living My linguistic skills got a triple bypass at Nana.   There are over 900 jai phrases. I stopped counting.   Genius is constant attention but pure attention, without advice, without judgment is absolute kindness. What better compliment to pay my host country,  the land of smiles, than with pure attention, as I did in Mae Sot,  Hat Yai, Phuket, C hiang Mai,  Nong Khai   and Bangkok. See: All Thai'd Up    Khao San Road - the most spectacular outbreak of mass delirium that you are likely to see Wheels Down, I enter Lonely Planet, and wish there were more people. Countdown-3-2-1... To achieve great things, two things were needed: a plan and not quite enough time. I had both. Remember the gypsy curse--- May you get what you wish for . Ba-bamm, like rap music, in your face, pedal to the metal, one is none, and I am part of the idea that everyone is better than an...

Bali-Rocks For Jocks-Geology

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Shaken- You can't  win an earthquake.     but you can get odd or even We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.We learn geography if we happen to be cruising in the same hemisphere (but 3000 miles away) in Bali Indonesia where I am right this instant. GR8 internet connection  by the way. I remember the 1994 Northridge Quake in California on my way back from Japan- So when I heard just now  the news that Japan's 8.9 Earthquake- Ouch. I feel for my Nihon Jin Tomodachis(Japanese Friends).  I remember my worst earthquake experience...  I certainly was one of the last American's to go into  Christchurch's Cathedral before it shattered this  Kiwi Architectural Landmark Lonely Planet Earth, the very status symbol  of all that is solid, had moved beneath your  feet like THAT, one second of time conveys to your mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of ZEN reflection --- Wayne Dyer, Ram Dass (Be Here...

Bali-Rocks For Jocks-Geology

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Shaken- You can't  win an earthquake.     but you can get odd or even We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.We learn geography if we happen to be cruising in the same hemisphere (but 3000 miles away) in Bali Indonesia where I am right this instant. GR8 internet connection  by the way. I remember the 1994 Northridge Quake in California on my way back from Japan- So when I heard just now  the news that Japan's 8.9 Earthquake- Ouch. I feel for my Nihon Jin Tomodachis(Japanese Friends).  I remember my worst earthquake experience...  I certainly was one of the last American's to go into  Christchurch's Cathedral before it shattered this  Kiwi Architectural Landmark Lonely Planet Earth, the very status symbol  of all that is solid, had moved beneath your  feet like THAT, one second of time conveys to your mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of ZEN reflection --- Wayne Dyer,...

All Ashore-Tranquility Base-The Ego Has Landed

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Work Is Prayer My universe is made of stories, not atoms: land, air and sea travel and the power of now. If I  wanted to be a multinational soul, I couldn't  do it in cities  where I taught English like New York or Los Angeles, Paris  or Tokyo alone-I needed to get  consecrated   by  sailing on the oceans.   It's a wonderful thing to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don't know anyone; where, as Melville said,"God's one and only voice is Silence."   If hollywood is loneliness under a  Hawaiian  palm tree,  then happiness is solitude sailing through   the fjords Ship Happens Living on a ship , might be summed up as monotony tinged with hysteria. It's not real life but an alibi.   It  is like going out of your mind everyday- in order to come to your senses; and a fool who persists in his folly becomes wise. After 10 ships, yes TEN, I no longer want t...