Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Motorcycle Mania

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Motorcycle Mania



I used my ten-speed bike to become a curb painter for extra money, and designed a nifty coffee can transporter that just fit behind the seat of my ten speed. It held all of my painting and stenciling supplies. I think it only broke open once, and after gathering all the contents back up, I tried to look dignified and go on my way.

My step-brother Chris and I decided to go on an adventure on our ten-speed bikes, and being young and hungry, decided to ride up to the State Capitol, then out to a water-treatment plant below Big Cottonwood Canyon, to the house of some girls we had met that weekend, and then to my uncle's.

What was the reason for this 100 mile trip around Salt Lake City? We spent the majority of the day traveling to the Capitol for free hotdogs and drinks for some event I can't remember, and then to the water treatment plant for - you guessed it - free hotdogs and drinks. We would go just about anywhere for free food, even if it meant pedaling a hundred miles in a day.

The girls part shouldn't need to be explained, and it didn't hurt that they lived somewhere in the vicinity of my uncle. Only I couldn't find my uncle's house so I think we may have called home for instructions on that one.

The part I won't forget happened just after we left the newly dedicated water treatment plant full of hotdogs and drinks. It had rained lightly, and while it was still drizzling a bit, it was pleasant to ride in since this was the summer. Behind us we heard a mighty roaring, and then a skid and a string of profanities.

As we pedaled along the road and looked back, a motorcycle and its former rider came sliding past us going about 40 miles per hour. The guy was wearing his leathers, so he wasn't injured that we could see. But he was sliding on the slick road magnificently, right up alongside of his motorcycle which caught up with us, passed us and then came a stop about a hundred yards ahead of us. I'll spare you the details of the language that also slid past us; I'm guessing you can imagine what the guy was feeling at the time and fill in your own expletives.

We were almost to the guy - when he got up off the ground, wiped his hands over his leather suit a bit, and then jumped back on his bike and rode off. I'm thinking if that would have been me, I probably would have done the same thing if two teenagers on ten-speeds were approaching to help me.

It prepared me a bit for watching my daughter Aleesa do a face-plant on the asphalt of the hill above us. We were going somewhere important and had gone up the hill to tell Aleesa. If she wanted to go, she would have to ride her bike home, and she did want to go, so we followed her down the hill. She started to lose control of the bike and as it shook back and forth it finally violently slammed her face first onto the road. We were just behind her in the car, and we watched the whole thing happen in slow motion, helpless to do anything but rush to her as fast as we could.

Debbie held her on the way to the hospital where they scraped her face from the road rash, pebbles and dirt. It was a terrible thing to watch your own child go through. It seemed a thousand times more terrible than any injury I have ever endured myself.

My wife and I recently had a scare on the freeway, which is bordered right now on both sides by crash barriers while an expansion is completed. Some guy passed me going way to fast, dodging in and out of traffic. Speeding back in front of me, he slowed as the cars in front of him were going much slower. The car rocked a bit, like he was losing control. Then the car bounced into the right barrier and bounced up into the air. The undercarriage bounced off the cement divider, and the car continued in a perfect 360 degree circle, landing back on the tires and facing the right direction in the right lane -- still going pretty fast, just like a stunt from a movie. I was hanging back quite a ways, so when it looked like everything was okay, I changed lanes and we passed the rapidly slowing car. You could smell rubber, since I think one of the tires had blown. He pulled off the first chance, probably very happy to be alive.


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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

White Fang by Jack London -- Part Five/ Chapter Two

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CHAPTER II—THE SOUTHLAND

White Fang landed from the steamer in San Francisco. He was appalled. Deep in him, below any reasoning process or act of consciousness, he had associated power with godhead. And never had the white men seemed such marvelous gods as now, when he trod the slimy pavement of San Francisco. The log cabins he had known were replaced by towering buildings. The streets were crowded with perils—wagons, carts, automobiles; great, straining horses pulling huge trucks; and monstrous cable and electric cars hooting and clanging through the midst, screeching their insistent menace after the manner of the lynxes he had known in the northern woods.

All this was the manifestation of power. Through it all, behind it all, was man, governing and controlling, expressing himself, as of old, by his mastery over matter. It was colossal, stunning. White Fang was awed. Fear sat upon him. As in his cub hood he had been made to feel his smallness and puniness on the day he first came in from the Wild to the village of Grey Beaver, so now, in his full-grown stature and pride of strength, he was made to feel small and puny. And there were so many gods! He was made dizzy by the swarming of them. The thunder of the streets smote upon his ears. He was bewildered by the tremendous and endless rush and movement of things. As never before, he felt his dependence on the love-master, close at whose heels he followed, no matter what happened never losing sight of him.

But White Fang was to have no more than a nightmare vision of the city—an experience that was like a bad dream, unreal and terrible, that haunted him for long after in his dreams. He was put into a baggage-car by the master, chained in a corner in the midst of heaped trunks and valises. Here a squat and brawny god held sway, with much noise, hurling trunks and boxes about, dragging them in through the door and tossing them into the piles, or flinging them out of the door, smashing and crashing, to other gods who awaited them.

And here, in this inferno of luggage, was White Fang deserted by the master. Or at least White Fang thought he was deserted, until he smelled out the master’s canvas clothes-bags alongside of him, and proceeded to mount guard over them.

“’Bout time you come,” growled the god of the car, an hour later, when Weedon Scott appeared at the door. “That dog of yourn won’t let me lay a finger on your stuff.”

White Fang emerged from the car. He was astonished. The nightmare city was gone. The car had been to him no more than a room in a house, and when he had entered it the city had been all around him. In the interval the city had disappeared. The roar of it no longer dinned upon his ears. Before him was smiling country, streaming with sunshine, lazy with quietude. But he had little time to marvel at the transformation. He accepted it as he accepted all the unaccountable doings and manifestations of the gods. It was their way.

There was a carriage waiting. A man and a woman approached the master. The woman’s arms went out and clutched the master around the neck—a hostile act! The next moment Weedon Scott had torn loose from the embrace and closed with White Fang, who had become a snarling, raging demon.

“It’s all right, mother,” Scott was saying as he kept tight hold of White Fang and placated him. “He thought you were going to injure me, and he wouldn’t stand for it. It’s all right. It’s all right. He’ll learn soon enough.”

“And in the meantime I may be permitted to love my son when his dog is not around,” she laughed, though she was pale and weak from the fright.

She looked at White Fang, who snarled and bristled and glared malevolently.

“He’ll have to learn, and he shall, without postponement,” Scott said.

He spoke softly to White Fang until he had quieted him, then his voice became firm.

“Down, sir! Down with you!”

This had been one of the things taught him by the master, and White Fang obeyed, though he lay down reluctantly and sullenly.

“Now, mother.”

Scott opened his arms to her, but kept his eyes on White Fang.

“Down!” he warned. “Down!”

White Fang, bristling silently, half-crouching as he rose, sank back and watched the hostile act repeated. But no harm came of it, nor of the embrace from the strange man-god that followed. Then the clothes-bags were taken into the carriage, the strange gods and the love-master followed, and White Fang pursued, now running vigilantly behind, now bristling up to the running horses and warning them that he was there to see that no harm befell the god they dragged so swiftly across the earth.

At the end of fifteen minutes, the carriage swung in through a stone gateway and on between a double row of arched and interlacing walnut trees. On either side stretched lawns, their broad sweep broken here and there by great sturdy-limbed oaks. In the near distance, in contrast with the young-green of the tended grass, sunburnt hay-fields showed tan and gold; while beyond were the tawny hills and upland pastures. From the head of the lawn, on the first soft swell from the valley-level, looked down the deep-porched, many-windowed house.

Little opportunity was given White Fang to see all this. Hardly had the carriage entered the grounds, when he was set upon by a sheep-dog, bright-eyed, sharp-muzzled, righteously indignant and angry. It was between him and the master, cutting him off. White Fang snarled no warning, but his hair bristled as he made his silent and deadly rush. This rush was never completed. He halted with awkward abruptness, with stiff fore-legs bracing himself against his momentum; almost sitting down on his haunches, so desirous was he of avoiding contact with the dog he was in the act of attacking. It was a female, and the law of his kind thrust a barrier between. For him to attack her would require nothing less than a violation of his instinct.

But with the sheep-dog it was otherwise. Being a female, she possessed no such instinct. On the other hand, being a sheep-dog, her instinctive fear of the Wild, and especially of the wolf, was unusually keen. White Fang was to her a wolf, the hereditary marauder who had preyed upon her flocks from the time sheep were first herded and guarded by some dim ancestor of hers. And so, as he abandoned his rush at her and braced himself to avoid the contact, she sprang upon him. He snarled involuntarily as he felt her teeth in his shoulder, but beyond this made no offer to hurt her. He backed away, stiff-legged with self-consciousness, and tried to go around her. He dodged this way and that, and curved and turned, but to no purpose. She remained always between him and the way he wanted to go.

“Here, Collie!” called the strange man in the carriage.

Weedon Scott laughed.

“Never mind, father. It is good discipline. White Fang will have to learn many things, and it’s just as well that he begins now. He’ll adjust himself all right.”

The carriage drove on, and still Collie blocked White Fang’s way. He tried to outrun her by leaving the drive and circling across the lawn but she ran on the inner and smaller circle, and was always there, facing him with her two rows of gleaming teeth. Back he circled, across the drive to the other lawn, and again she headed him off.

The carriage was bearing the master away. White Fang caught glimpses of it disappearing amongst the trees. The situation was desperate. He essayed another circle. She followed, running swiftly. And then, suddenly, he turned upon her. It was his old fighting trick. Shoulder to shoulder, he struck her squarely. Not only was she overthrown. So fast had she been running that she rolled along, now on her back, now on her side, as she struggled to stop, clawing gravel with her feet and crying shrilly her hurt pride and indignation.

White Fang did not wait. The way was clear, and that was all he had wanted. She took after him, never ceasing her outcry. It was the straightaway now, and when it came to real running, White Fang could teach her things. She ran frantically, hysterically, straining to the utmost, advertising the effort she was making with every leap: and all the time White Fang slid smoothly away from her silently, without effort, gliding like a ghost over the ground.

As he rounded the house to the porte-cochère, he came upon the carriage. It had stopped, and the master was alighting. At this moment, still running at top speed, White Fang became suddenly aware of an attack from the side. It was a deer-hound rushing upon him. White Fang tried to face it. But he was going too fast, and the hound was too close. It struck him on the side; and such was his forward momentum and the unexpectedness of it, White Fang was hurled to the ground and rolled clear over. He came out of the tangle a spectacle of malignancy, ears flattened back, lips writhing, nose wrinkling, his teeth clipping together as the fangs barely missed the hound’s soft throat.

The master was running up, but was too far away; and it was Collie that saved the hound’s life. Before White Fang could spring in and deliver the fatal stroke, and just as he was in the act of springing in, Collie arrived. She had been out-maneuvered and out-run, to say nothing of her having been unceremoniously tumbled in the gravel, and her arrival was like that of a tornado—made up of offended dignity, justifiable wrath, and instinctive hatred for this marauder from the Wild. She struck White Fang at right angles in the midst of his spring, and again he was knocked off his feet and rolled over.

The next moment the master arrived, and with one hand held White Fang, while the father called off the dogs.

“I say, this is a pretty warm reception for a poor lone wolf from the Arctic,” the master said, while White Fang calmed down under his caressing hand. “In all his life he’s only been known once to go off his feet, and here he’s been rolled twice in thirty seconds.”

The carriage had driven away, and other strange gods had appeared from out the house. Some of these stood respectfully at a distance; but two of them, women, perpetrated the hostile act of clutching the master around the neck. White Fang, however, was beginning to tolerate this act. No harm seemed to come of it, while the noises the gods made were certainly not threatening. These gods also made overtures to White Fang, but he warned them off with a snarl, and the master did likewise with word of mouth. At such times White Fang leaned in close against the master’s legs and received reassuring pats on the head.

The hound, under the command, “Dick! Lie down, sir!” had gone up the steps and lain down to one side of the porch, still growling and keeping a sullen watch on the intruder. Collie had been taken in charge by one of the woman-gods, who held arms around her neck and petted and caressed her; but Collie was very much perplexed and worried, whining and restless, outraged by the permitted presence of this wolf and confident that the gods were making a mistake.

All the gods started up the steps to enter the house. White Fang followed closely at the master’s heels. Dick, on the porch, growled, and White Fang, on the steps, bristled and growled back.

“Take Collie inside and leave the two of them to fight it out,” suggested Scott’s father. “After that they’ll be friends.”

“Then White Fang, to show his friendship, will have to be chief mourner at the funeral,” laughed the master.

The elder Scott looked incredulously, first at White Fang, then at Dick, and finally at his son.

“You mean . . .?”

Weedon nodded his head. “I mean just that. You’d have a dead Dick inside one minute—two minutes at the farthest.”

He turned to White Fang. “Come on, you wolf. It’s you that’ll have to come inside.”

White Fang walked stiff-legged up the steps and across the porch, with tail rigidly erect, keeping his eyes on Dick to guard against a flank attack, and at the same time prepared for whatever fierce manifestation of the unknown that might pounce out upon him from the interior of the house. But no thing of fear pounced out, and when he had gained the inside he scouted carefully around, looking at it and finding it not. Then he lay down with a contented grunt at the master’s feet, observing all that went on, ever ready to spring to his feet and fight for life with the terrors he felt must lurk under the trap-roof of the dwelling.


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Thursday, August 18, 2011

Abundance Questions August 14

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This is the complete episode of Abundance called Questions from August 14th.


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Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Sonnet Twenty by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Twenty


A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,
Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.


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Sonnet Nineteen by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Nineteen


Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.

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Sonnet Eighteen by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Eighteen


Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.


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Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Sonnet Seventeen by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Seventeen


Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'This poet lies:
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So should my papers yellow'd with their age
Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme.

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Sonnet Sixteen by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Sixteen


But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
And fortify yourself in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens yet unset
With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life repair,
Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,
Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.
To give away yourself keeps yourself still,
And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

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Monday, August 15, 2011

Bicycle Crashes

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Bicycle Crashes



As a kid, I was always crashing my bike - into cars. I know that I crashed my bike at least 5 times into just as many cars, which were usually just innocently parked on the street. The sad part of the story is that most of these crashes could probably have been prevented if I had only lost my fascination with my back wheel.

I loved to watch it turn. As an adult, I'm still too preoccupied with the traffic behind me, and the only correction I remember receiving about driving from my Dad was "Stop looking in the rearview mirror.”

For some odd reason, I remember being fascinated with the wheel under and behind me. Maybe I was worried it wasn't working right, or I was looking for the source of a strange noise. But I really think it was just my excitement about the mechanical marvel that is a bicycle.

The saddest part of the story is that I actually looked at the back wheel when I was close to a car, and then suddenly, I was on the ground and wondering what had happened. I don't think I ever stopped to think about the car owners, to tell them about what I had done to their car. I'm sure I slashed tires and dented fenders, but usually I was limping home instead of wondering whose car was the latest victim.

The worst case ever was when I went over the handlebars onto the street. The only bad thing about being male is the dangling dangers which can suddenly meet up with sharp handlebar bolts. I won't bother to explain if you don't already get it, but suffice it to say that I didn't report this accident to my mother. I was too embarrassed, being only eight years old.

The only other serious injury from bicycling came from making the mistake of riding barefooted. You really don't think about how hard the asphalt is until you drag your big toe across a strip of it. I must have dragged my toe for a foot or more, and it was excruciating. It swelled up and turned blue. I had a ridiculously painful throbbing later and the toenail had to be pierced with another hot needle to release the blood behind it. The toenail eventually fell off, and a replacement grew back. It was quite attractive, if I do say so myself.

I wish I could say that my bicycle incidents stopped when I graduated to the hottest thing of its day -- the ten-speed bicycle. Back then, they were incredibly heavy and unstable compared with today's bikes. I even got to repaint my bike after it had been in enough crashes. It was a candy-apple red with sparkles in it that started to peel off almost as soon as it was painted. But that bike saw me through thick and thin.

One way to certainly injure myself was learning to drive this newly acquired machine with no hands. The older guys did it, and based on my accidents when I was younger, I tried to make sure I was always far away from cars when I practiced this precision-balanced insanity. I learned to be able to ride with my arms folded across my chest as I traveled down Redwood Road, one of the highest-traffic roads in my area. Going fast always helped, but when you crashed, it hurt more.

We lived on a pretty steep hill in Bennion, which was great when you were going downhill and not so great going uphill. The first time I went too fast down the hill I also tried to turn on the canal road. The good news was that I was already past the canal as I realized I was going too fast. The gravel on the other side of the road slipped my wheels out from under me as soon as I made the mistake of putting on the brakes. The bike went sideways right into the large ditch. I slid for a while on the road before also being unceremoniously dumped into the ditch, having the unique experience of dragging my palms across two or three feet of gravel before my ignominious landing. I sat at the bottom of a deep ditch with bleeding palms filled with gravel, wondering how long it would take me to limp back up the hill and get bandaged.

Or I could just tough it out, wipe the blood on my pants and get on my way to wherever it was I was hurrying to so fast. I think I must have been going to baseball practice, so I took it like a man. I gingerly rubbed my scraped up hands on my pants until most of the gravel was gone and then went to practice.


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Friday, August 12, 2011

Abundance Potential August 1st

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This is the complete episode of Abundance called Potential from August 1st.

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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Sonnet Fifteen by William Shakespeare

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Literature Out Loud

Sonnet Fifteen

by William Shakespeare

When I consider everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and cheque'd even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.


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Sonnet Fourteen by William Shakespeare

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Literature Out Loud

Sonnet Fourteen

by William Shakespeare

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;
And yet methinks I have astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well,
By oft predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;
Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.


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Sonnet Thirteen by William Shakespeare

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Literature Out Loud

Sonnet Thirteen

by William Shakespeare

O, that you were yourself! But, love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination: then you were
Yourself again after yourself's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honor might uphold
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know
You had a father: let your son say so.


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Sonnet Twelve by William Shakespeare

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Literature Out Loud

Sonnet Twelve

by William Shakespeare

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defense
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Sonnet Eleven by William Shakespeare

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Literature Out Loud

Sonnet Eleven

by William Shakespeare

As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest
In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.
Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase:
Without this, folly, age and cold decay:
If all were minded so, the times should cease
And threescore year would make the world away.
Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,
Harsh featureless and rude, barrenly perish:
Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more;
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby
Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.


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Together by Dane Allred

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Together
by Dane Allred


When I think of us together,
I smile.

There is something we are when we are in each other’s company.
Something that doesn’t exist when we are apart.

The two of us together make up more than two.

We have a family,
But those children aren’t us.

We have a home,
But that home isn’t us.

When you reach out and take my hand,
That is when we combine
Into one thought,
One purpose

That is us.


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Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Potential by Dane Allred

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Potential
by Dane Allred


You have unlimited potential.
As an intelligence, you have existed forever.
Deep down inside you know this to be true.

You were never created, but have always been.
We were in that Bright Space together,
Our experiences shared,
Knowing all there was to know.

We knew there was more possible.
There was more we could achieve.
But that meant leaving the Bright Space
And all that we had ever known.

That also meant we would forget
All that we had ever known.

We are here to learn all we can before
We return to the Bright Space.
We will all be together again.

But until then we are here to do something.
That thing you are here to do.

That inner potential you carry about with you,
That can help you accomplish
Those things you need to do.

The prospect of what will be lives in you.
We are pools of unlimited potential.

When we see all that is possible for ourselves,
When we consider all we could achieve,
There is that promising glint
Of what could be,
Of what might be.

Only you know what that is.

Watch for that spark of familiarity
Next time you seem to recognize someone.
That person you meet who it seems you have seen before.

The person who you seem to have met before.
Somewhere.
Someplace.

They may be here to help you accomplish that thing you need to do.
Or you may just be recognizing someone
You once knew from very long ago.

As the Universe shrinks,
And we find ourselves acquainted
With those we were with before,
The potential of the universe expands,
When we work together now to learn all there is to learn.

When we are all together again in that Bright Space,
We will share all we have come to know
As only we could know
As we live our own individual lives,
Apart, and yet connected with all the power of the Universe.

There is nothing we cannot accomplish together.

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Monday, August 8, 2011

High Ho Silver

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World of Hurt

High Ho Silver

One of the most traumatic events of my youth occurred when I was eight or nine. I had been given my first horse which was all mine. It was a grey Shetland pony who I think was named Flicka, but that may just be too much adolescent television talking. I think I may have tried to forget this particular pet's name subconsciously, and the why of that statement will become evident in a moment.

I had experience with horses from when I was younger. I've been told that one night I was out in the barn while Dad was working on one of the horses. I walked too near the backside and received a complimentary kick across the barn. Apparently the horse caught me right in the chest, and since I couldn't have been more than 5 years old, was promptly deposited against the nearest barn wall. Ouch.

But back to the Shetland pony. This particular horse was not very nice. I remember being bit several times, even when trying to feed the stupid horse. I had hay fever, so I didn't have to worry about feeding the horse too much - my dad had other horses which he fed at the same time.

I was allergic to the horse a bit, but it was still too much fun to ride to let that get in the way. After saddling up the mini-saddle on the mini-horse, I could pretend I was galloping through the Wild West. Mostly though I was galloping through my still developing neighborhood. I did have the sniffles for a while after every ride, but it was glorious fun until the day we jumped the ditch.

If you have never been on a horse, one of the important things to remember is that you often have to straighten your legs in the stirrups of the saddle or you may wind up on the ground. This includes when the horse might buck, jump or when the ride is just too rough.

This is especially true when jumping ditches.

We were tooling around the small fields which hadn't been turned into building lots yet, and there was this small ditch which ran across the center of the fields. It was probably only a foot deep, but it was a serious enough jump for the small horse that I should have had the sense to stand up briefly in the stirrups and avoid getting dumped off the back.

You guessed it. I bounced when the horse landed on the other side, fell off the back of the smallish horse, and continued to follow.

My right foot was caught in the stirrup. This meant that the pony, which didn't like me all that much to begin with, was now dragging me across the fields which contained various rocks, tall weeds, and other exciting stuff to scrape my back upon.

My shirt had immediately shot up around my armpits, which made it difficult to try to reach up and disengage the boot from the stirrup. The brambles and the dirt were scrapping up my back pretty well, and the stupid horse showed no sign of stopping.

I don't know if the horse was enjoying the romp or was just scared since it was dragging this big weight behind it. It didn't seem to matter which was the reason. The horse just kept running.

Every once in a while the horse slowed up a bit and I could try to reach my boot again. The worst news is that every time I got close to being able to get the boot out of the stirrup, the horse would kick me right in the forehead.

I must have been kicked in the head seven or eight times. Ever since then I felt I was destined to be a performer.

Finally the horse came too close to a home which was being built nearby, and a neighborhood father was able to grab the reins and stop the mayhem.

I sat up slowly and released my boot. I stood and pulled my shirt down my now scratched and bleeding back. I took the reins from the man who stood looking at me like an alien. Here was a kid who had been dragged across the field and had been kicked in the head several times.

And I was still walking upright.

Double ouch.

I walked home very slowly, unsaddled the horse and put it back in the pen.

When I went inside, I told my mom I wanted to sell the horse. She looked at me and the horse was gone in a week.

It almost makes me wish the urban myths about people who like to eat horse flesh were true. I don’t hold that grudge anymore, but then I haven’t ridden many horses lately.


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Saturday, August 6, 2011

Abundance Obstacles July 31

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This is the complete episode of Abundance called Obstacles from July 31st.

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Friday, August 5, 2011

Sonnet Ten by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Ten
by William Shakespeare


For shame! Deny that thou bear'st love to any,
Who for thyself art so unprovident.
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lovest is most evident;
For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate
That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire.
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:
Make thee another self, for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

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Sonnet Nine by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Nine
by William Shakespeare


Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
That thou consumest thyself in single life?
Ah! If thou issueless shalt hap to die.
The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind.
Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused, the user so destroys it.
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murderous shame commits.

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Sonnet Eight by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Eight
by William Shakespeare


Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'

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Sonnet Seven by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Seven
by William Shakespeare


Lo! In the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract and look another way:
So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,
Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.


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Sonnet Six by William Shakespeare

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Sonnet Six
by William Shakespeare

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

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Thursday, August 4, 2011

Obstacles by Dane Allred

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Bright Space

Obstacles
by Dane Allred



Why are there so many obstacles?
If life was easy, would we value all the experiences we have had in life?
We can only grow and achieve if we are challenged.

But there is a reason we are here.
There is something we are to do today,
This week,
This month,
This year.
This lifetime.

You may think you don’t know what it is,
But it floats in your mind and pesters you until you do what you know you need to do.
It’s not always what we want to do.

We are given a lifetime of opportunities to live purposefully.
When we choose one thing or another,
We are navigating our purpose here by our choices.

Some of us have many more opportunities than others,
But that shouldn’t stop us from making the difference we can make.

When we keep the positive uppermost in our thoughts and actions,
We will see results.
They may not be the results we want,
But we also learn every time we fail.
In this world of abundance,
We’ll know better how to accomplish what are striving for the next time we are given an opportunity.

We can have a purpose and also live on purpose.

When we live life on purpose, knowing what we want to achieve,
We have more than a goal.
We have massed the forces of the universe behind our intention
And we will reach it.
Or we won’t.

But then there will be another choice for us to make.
And when we listen to the cacophony of negativity
It is easy to get discouraged.

Are we looking to help those who need our help,
Or do we selfishly think only of ourselves?

Do we let the weight of trouble in the world
Stop us from accomplishing what we can
While we can?

Obstacles are put in our way to help us learn to navigate life.
We were all together once in the Bright Space,
And together, there is nothing we cannot achieve.


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Needlephobia

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Dane Allred's World of Hurt


Needlephobia



I am a baby when it comes to needles. I try to convince people I have an actual phobia by explaining how much longer it took for me to give blood than my bride to be. But my sister is the needle master. She has had a liver transplant, but the strangest thing she had to endure was a weekly gamma globulin shot when she was young. Her white blood cells were low, and she had to get this peanut butter thick shot every week.

This is where my fear of needles begins. When she would get the shot, I was usually in the waiting room listening to her scream. I was in the waiting room because I only got to see the needle once, and I must have looked like I was going to pass out, because I never saw her get another shot. But seeing that one shot was enough.

Imagine a turkey baster miniaturized. That's what the hypodermic and the needle looked like to an impressionable young boy. Then, after you’ve filled it with peanut butter, try to imagine getting that thick glop through the needle and into the skin of the victim, I mean, patient. It resides just under the skin as a huge bump of medicine waiting to be absorbed by the body. I have never had one and hope I never will. Anyone I have talked to about gamma globulin shots tells me it is one of the most painful shots you can get.

To make matters worse, now that I have this mental image of the torture device firmly etched into my feeble brain, I get to sit out in the waiting room and imagine what is going on in the next room. And I have a good imagination.

Each week, as she endured the torture of the shot, the needle got bigger and bigger in my mind. The concoction got thicker and thicker, until you have the quivering mass of flesh I am today with a genuine phobia of needles. The doctor knows better than to let me see the needle, and so does the dentist. They discreetly hide it, hoping the big baby sitting in their office won't faint dead away.

Another needle incident happened when I was probably nine or ten, and an incredibly painful sore appeared on my side next to my right hip. Technically it was high on my hip, but it would be correct to state that I had boil on my butt. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone for several days. I just thought I had stabbed myself with wire or something.

A boil is an accumulation of infection, pus and other impurities your body is trying to expel. This time it just happened to be my butt that my body chose as the site of the expulsion, but it could have been worse.

But (!) I finally had to tell my mom, and actually show her part of my butt. I was humiliated, and I think she could tell, since she sent Dad to the rescue.

What happens with all of these impurities your body wants out is that they accrete just below the skin in a painful mass that resembles a giant pimple. Some of the mass was hard and felt solid, but mostly the stuff crowded into this small space and pressed for escape. The pressure built and the pain increased as we all wondered what to do.

Dad tried squeezing it like a pimple, but that just made things worse - it hurt even more and didn't want to pop.

So of course, the only thing to do was to lance it. This will be my Dad's answer to a painful toenail later also. I have already detailed my fear of needles, but to watch my own father put a sewing needle into a hot flame just before he intends to stab it into me sent my heart racing so fast I'm surprised I didn't have a heart attack.

Now that the needle was sterilized by the flame, and also red hot, Dad decided it was time to take care of business. He lanced the boil without further ado, and squeezed all of the contents out with a large amount of blood. This is what I call true love. Until you have had a boil lanced by a parent you may question their sacrifice for you. After lancing a boil, there is no other demonstration necessary.

It immediately began to feel better, and I still have a small scar from the operation, it was one of Dr. Allred's many successes. He later branched out into giving shots to calves and horses, and I was happy to be spared the pain.

I know it’s silly, but just don’t let me see the needle.

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