Notepad rant

I'm a little obsessed with notepad of late.
I Love that it reminds me of a type writer.
With technology booming, it reminds me of a simpler time.
Strange what is considered old or antique in this world.
I think it's the font.

Maybe it's the fact that this little program can do so much
It can simply be used to write a note. Or write HTML code,
or write a program. Yes technically you need something else
to run it but you could still write it here.
There's so much in life that is taken for granted.
Money, Food, Clothing, Water, Healthcare, Freedom, Family,
friendship, generosity, goodness, Love...

In today's western society, we have this sense of entitlement
that if left unchecked will be the demise of our culture.
Sporting Coaches are fired for speaking too harshly,
Hitting some one who deserves it could send you to jail.
Not warning someone that what they are doing could be harmful
could end with you paying them millions of dollars for their stupidity

We need the newest and best of everything, no matter what.
House, Cars, clothes, food, make-up, entertainment, even lightbulbs.
When did things like books go out of style?
or when did learning get replaced with test scores?

Our government was elected by promising the American people that
if they are elected all of our dreams will come true.
That we'll never want for anything, That without earning it we'll
be given everything. and what's worse we think we deserve it!
Our "money for nothing and our chicks for free"

When did we forget? There's no such thing as free.
There always has been and always will be a price!
The price of freedom has been lives lost.
The price of our dreams is sacrifice and dedication.

You cannot lie down and expect everyone and everything to cater to you
it doesn't work that way. Life doesn't work that way.
People want fair, LIFE'S NOT FAIR!
People want easy, LIFE'S NOT EASY!

There will always be a struggle,
there will always be a fight of good vs. evil.
There will always be the decision between hard and easy
And the result of Easy will never be as good as hard.

Unless something drastic changes, America will go the way of Greece
and Rome before her. I have heard the statement,
"If America was to fight for its Independence from England today,
we'd still be part of the UK." and conversely that same statement
restated of WWI and WWII.

But, I must believe that it is untrue.
I must believe that there are enough good men still left in this
country that would stand strong in the face of oppression.
Many of them I believe have been to Iraq and back.

My prayer is that we will finally come to our senses as a nation.
and that good men will no longer be silent in the face of
foolishness and tyranny.

TIPA Awards

I received two awards from the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association this year. If you are interested in reading them, here they are. I hope you enjoy them as much as they did.

First place in Division 5 Newspaper for a Feature story
Hurricane Ike

Third place in Online for Best breaking news story.
Obama Election

and the actual election story that ran in the paper...
Bells Election Story

Enjoy! =)

On Nasal Congestion

Since I was five years old (which is essentially as far back as I can consciously remember) I have had sinus problems. I can remember at that fragile age driving for hours to a specialist in Los Angeles to have them subject me to numerous tests all of which were uncomfortable and some of which were painful (and scary I might add) for a five year old. Of course, they would be uncomfortable for an adult too. I remember getting two gigantic stamps that covered both of my arms with black ink. Anyone that's had this torture test is familiar with the idea that the stamps are only designed to cover your wrists or forearms with ink boxes depending on how many different things for which you are being tested. I had ink boxes stamped all the way up to my armpits (almost). This of course is not the worst part of the test, after your arms are covered with ink boxes that are each individually labeled with a different selection of things for which to be allergic. Then they bring you into a room hold your arms still and inject you with everything known to man. A small prick in each box, everything from plants to soil, animals to food. When you only have a few on the wrist, not too torturous. When you have hundreds and you are five it is quite dramatic experience. Of course all of the pricks itch at first and then only the ones you are allergic to itch, but they for into ant-bite-like bums that itch like crazy and you are not allowed to move. People wonder why I don't like hospitals.
Aside from dramatic experiences being tested for allergies the actual allergies themselves have been much more traumatic over the years. Sneezing uncontrollably, hay-fever, post nasal drip, countless nose bleeds, a hernia caused by sneezing, severe sinus pressure and a yearly battle against sinus infections.
SINUS INFECTIONS. My hatred for you is most severe. I have said I do not like hospitals because of traumatic experiences, here's another one.
Again during one of the most tragic periods of my life just before the allergist stamp test experience I found myself again as a five year old in the hospital with a severe sinus infection. The doctor's were unsure what was the cause of my problems and decided that I needed to give blood. My mom took me to the appropriate area of the military hospital and we waited. When it was my turn the young naval nurse took me to the chair and strapped me down. Let me describe this chair. Have you seen the electric chair? No exaggeration it was that chair with large leather straps for your waste and twice on the arms without the head part. After having been strapped down to the torture chair the nurse then took what looked like an inkwell pen and forced it into my arm. I closed my eyes and held my mother's hand. Just when the worst was nearly over the nurse says to me, “Look it looks like kool-aid.” I looked and saw the large gauge hose protruding from my arm filled with a bright red ooze. I don't remember anything after that moment. From that moment on, every time any needles have been in or around my body I have lost all consciousness. I have of course been able to prevent the black outs by never looking at the needle. A grown man who passes out from needles. Sad.
Finally, many people have tried to convince me that sneezing is enjoyable if you embrace them, never have I sneezed and it felt good in any way. I despise the very thought of it.

Train ride

I half expected the conductor to yell, “All aboard,” as I boarded the southbound Amtrack from Dallas to Temple. I climbed the narrow stairs and found an empty seat on the second to last car.
“I wonder if they still call it the caboose?” I thought to myself silently.
My bags stored above me I plopped myself down onto the seat and threw my backpack that was filled with various technological devices into the empty window seat next to me. I did this partly to claim the seat as my own so as to be able to spread out comfortably and partly to ward off any freaks wanting to chat my ear off for the next four and a half hours. I was in no mood for talking.
This was my first time to ride the train and I was (for the most part) impressed. I had almost expected the seat to be made of hard wood and that at any moment we may be overtaken by bandits on horseback who would undoubtedly loot us for the strong box. Instead, riding coach reminded me more of an airplane than of a train and was in actuality was much better than air travel in many ways.
As I settled in and the train began to pull out of the station my thoughts began to wander back to the city that I was leaving. The sapphire blue eyes of the girl I loved and the tears we had shed an hour ago. It was a hard time for us both and work had again separated us from each other. I brushed her hair away from her forehead as our bodies surged together for yet another long goodbye kiss. We stood together in the rain holding each other close one last time until we would once again see one another. At least how I liked to remember it. In reality a quick peck on the cheek and a muttered goodbye was all that was exchanged as she dropped me off at the station. A quick mumbled, “I love you baby,” was all I replied in return as I rushed off to barely catch the train. It didn't matter, either way my heart still ached for her.
The train lurched back and forth unsteadily on the track as it reached full speed.
“Eighty miles an hour,” some one across the aisle was saying.
“Not too bad for an old steam engine,” I commented sarcastically.
The constant sway of the train reminded me of the cruise that my family had taken a few years before. How I had bragged to my sick cousins that as a pirate and a lover of the sea and as such would never succumb to seasickness. Perhaps my constant state of inebriation had more to do with my apparent immunity to motion sickness than any nautical infatuations. I was starting to feel a bit woozy. This was the same feeling I had on the night that I had first kissed my then girlfriend. My stomach was turned upside down in nervousness. When the time came, I prayed to Jesus that I wouldn't hurl. Thankfully, my prayer was answered and fireworks came instead of my lunch. How I miss those soft lips.
The train stopped and my unhealthy bad habits came back. I left the train with a half-empty can of grizzly. Upon re-boarding I pulled out my pen and notepad. Having just come back from a writer's conference, I was inspired to to finally finish that novel that I had promised myself to finish before Christmas but which had instead gotten lost in the shuffle of life. As pen touched paper my mind began reeling with imagination and I instead attempted to write a poem. Having finished the poem I was reminded why I had not yet become a famous poet. It was, as is often the case, too strange to be clever and too disjointed to compile one complete thought. I often think that I am too strange to write. My imagination runs wild turning the most mundane scenes into a fairytale dreamscape in which you will find the most fantastic and horrible creatures ever concocted. Any original idea or thought is often lost in the mangled mess of my mind.
“Would you like to make a dinner reservation?” said the large well dressed black man standing next to my chair.
In his hands he held a menu and what I assumed was the dinner reservation list and he had a pleasant look about his face.
“No thank you,” I replied.
My destination was not far enough to warrant the need to pay for overpriced train food. I probably should not have assumed that the food was overpriced or not quality food for that matter but I had promised an old friend to take him to dinner upon my arrival to Temple and I had no intentions of eating twice. A snack sounded did sound too good to pass up and I made my way to the dining car. Upon arriving to the snack bar I had been very tempted to succumb to one of my other vices and order a cocktail. Instead I held true to my promise and stayed on the wagon with some nuts and a soda. God, how we used to argue as I would stumble into our apartment smelling like Jack Daniel himself. The tears that I caused her had finally quenched my thirst and I had been sober for nearly a year. On the return to my seat you would have thought me to have been drunk to see me as I stumbled back and forth. I had the balance of a toddler as the train jerked from side to side. I dove back into my seat and once again restored my composure as I attempted to appear unaffected by my journey. I still felt a bit woozy, perhaps the soda would help. I checked my phone, a text message. I must have missed the alert during my trek for almonds and Pepsi.
“I LOVE YOU,” is all the message said in all caps.
I smiled and pictured her hand gesturing in sign language.
I wrote her back, “I love you bigger!”
It was our way of competing with something that cannot be measured. I could still barely comprehend the knowledge that she loved me. I had been told that by many others and all had turned out to be liars. Needless to say the trust she had gained from me in our three year courtship was not easily attained. I still had my moments.
I nodded off. My dreams were filled with adventure and more of the randomness that fills my head on a daily basis. I was currently dreaming of a picnic in the country with my fiance that had been attacked by Nazis when I heard a loud voice over the intercom. “Next stop, Temple, Texas.”
I jolted awake. Once I regained my bearing and some of my consciousness I gathered up my things and prepared for departure. The train screeched to a halt and I descended the stairs and jumped out to the sight of the familiar city to which I was traveling.
Temple was where we met. Two bright eyed star crossed lovers who were unaware of anything or anyone outside of themselves. I needed her.
As I waited for my long lost friend who was running late for our dinner appointment I couldn't help but count the minutes until I would return to Dallas and to her.

On Reading

I love books. Literature, poetry, picture books, magazines, newspapers, etc... I am a sucker for a good read. If I am ever in a book store it is likely I will not make it out without buying at least one or two books. I own more books than I know what to do with and my friends and family all know that if they want to make me happy on any holiday a great gift for me is a book. However, I must admit like Paul I have thorn in my side, a life long struggle about which I often pray for deliverance.
I am not a strong reader. When it comes to reading I am inept.
Don't misunderstand me, however, I am not saying that I do not enjoy reading, I am simply commenting on the fact that I am not a good reader. For some people reading comes as naturally to them as walking or riding a bike. While the concepts may have been somewhat difficult to learn for them once the knowledge held fast in their brains they were able to fly through the pages of books as if gale force winds were turning the pages for them. For some it is a steady retention of knowledge. It may take them a bit longer to read, once they have read it the information is attained as if their memory banks were some sort of computer database to which they may refer at any moment they need to regurgitate the information. I must admit that I would give nearly anything to read like either of these two types of readers.
As for me I can read something ten times and not remember the information half an hour later. While I retain some of the knowledge but much of it is muddled in the mess of dis-connectivity that is my brain. The other bothersome feature of my reading ability is my speed. If I were in a race against an average joe to read an essay, he may be likened to a Chevrolet Corvette while I am stuck in an Electric car, not one of the new revolutionary hybrids that are supercharged with potential but more like a go-cart that is low on batteries.
Do not be mistaken, I am not illiterate! My grammatical and phonetic skills are much higher than average and I received a nearly perfect grade on the reading and writing portion of many placement tests. However, while those sections took a small amount of time for most students, I was doing them nearly the entire time.
But why is my ranting today over reading? I can assure you it is not to complain. “woe is me,” to the cyberspace universe. It is instead to encourage anyone reading this to take advantage of you superior reading skills. If I could read like you I would likely have read many more books that I currently have. Possibly all of my books.

Soon Everyone, Like Fools In Sin, Have Nothing Except for themSelveS

By Terrynce Caleb McKeown & D. Stuart Platt

Selfishness is the root cause of every action,
It’s the love of one’s self and the hatred of everything
It’s the reason we eat and drink in a redundant pattern of excess
The reason children cry in the night & why husbands cheat on their wives.
It’s the cause of pain and hunger in 3rd world’s you’ll read about in the news
It’s the fall of mankind in and of it’s self
I know this because it’s the reason behind my next action
I sit alone at a table, staring down at the glass of false courage that’s half empty
I’ve waited a while, courage is hard to muster when your only friend is a loaded pistol.
A picturesque slideshow of things past, flow methodically through my brain like a bad documentary,
And everything passes so slowly that I wish I could just get this over with.
Yet in reality not a second has passed since this slideshow began.
An image of my Mother crosses the screen, I hit pause
I can’t imagine the look on her face when she sees my “poor course of action”
All over the ceiling and walls
Or my Father after viewing the crime scene that once represented the life he rejected
No doubt he’ll forget my existence after a visit from his best friends Jack and Jim
Hit play, my friends, they won’t notice I’ve gone until their object of ridicule is no longer present for the sole purpose of their enjoyment
They feel bad for a moment and sit back remembering their acquaintance
Whom they assumed was their friend,
Until some new freshmen comes along and they again have an object of amusement for their short lived attention spans
The film is almost finished, it was so short most people thought it was still in the beginning stages…
But then, they weren’t really paying attention were they?
Each empty greeting is a silent farewell address, a symbolic gesture of their apathy.
As I have said, Selfishness will kill
I reach for the Colt and pull back the hammer, the last noise I hear is both quick and effective
A light flashes before my eyes, a glimpse of what could have been if only I’d made different choices… if only…
My body goes limp as it hurls itself backwards, the darkness engulfs me as I fall towards the silence that awaits
The room is still and the air is thick.
Very soon the sound of latent sobs will be the only thing that’s heard all around the blocks where I once resided.
Selfishness is the root cause of every action
And as actor with curtains closed, my act is finished