The movie's website gives the scientific facts as well as things ordinary citizens can do to change the global warming. If you don't go see the movie, at least go see the website.

So what will the world be like in twenty five years? I like to remain confident that we will wake up in time to change things for the better. Gore shows how we have rallied to change many injustices in the past, so it is not rosy optimism to have this hope, as long as action is being taken. Julia and I, although we tested well below average on carbon dioxide emissions, could do more to recycle, reuse, etc.

What will I be like in twenty five years?

Imagining Me at Age Seventy Two... Seventy two! Only twenty five years away! Tick, tick, tick, the minutes crawl there faster than you think. What will I have accomplished then? Shall I have written books? Will poem upon poem stack like tiny bricks to the heavens? Will my art flower in every style and form? I am looking forward to see. But not TOO forward. I don't want to rush this time. I'll hold each moment and try not to waste it. There seems in me two people, one that watches everything unfolding, and the one doing the unfolding. Do they change places at times? Twenty five years ago, where was I? I was twenty two, and just mastering a job. I was proud to learn the alteration methods, getting into a daily flow. Did I know I was as young as I was? Could I imagine myself then at forty seven? I can't recall that I ever did. Will I at seventy two know myself to be old, or will the crisp bounce of youth still manifest from time to time, besting the aches of age? I like to see myself that way. I like to see myself finding more and more ways to find 'flow'. The Will pointed to Xeper will be sure to find it. That much I can be sure of. But the details! This is the hazy thing. The only way to work on the future seems to be by working on the present -- This present, in which I breathe and occupy space, in which my tummy digests its good meal, and I am sheltered from the heat.

(In case you didn't know, briefly, Xeper means 'willed conscious evolution'.)

Saturday, July 15, 2006 C

"A Tree Limb Falls"
7:40pm

I was sitting here reading in my favorite web arenas. One writer was telling of his meditation under a tree, and how he hopes to go back someday to meditate under that exact same tree. While I was reading of his hopes that tree will still be there in the distant future, my own contemplative mood was interrupted by the sound of a mighty crash onto our porch. It sounded like a giant tree limb, and it was:

Okay, it's just a PART of a tree, but it's a huge part that neither Julia nor I can lift. We'll have to call the office so the handyman can remove it. Or maybe if both of us try together we can lift it and drag it to the dumpster. Even from this crappy photo, you can see parts of it were still living, while much of it had died. I don't think it was from an old tree. I think it was a young tree.

How strange to be reminded in even this way of the impermanence of all things!

Sunday, July 16, 2006 A

"Sobering Truths"
7:12am

Julia woke me up early. I grunted as she reminded me, "You wanted to get up early to have a walk in the park." After some more grunts, I got up. It was good to get out in the steamy, but fresh, air and stretch our legs.

As soon as we got back, I got the wash in the washers. As I walked down to the laundry room, I looked at the trees around me. Each and every one has dead sections! Is it a result of global warming? Or are the trees in our apartment complex not being properly cared for? Do they have some sort of disease? Maybe they got stressed when the ground was all dug up for the gas pipe repairs:

One of the dying trees...

The trees in the park this morning seem healthy. It's a mystery.

Regarding our tree damage, as I examine the photos from March, our trees look green and healthy there. I'm suspecting the digging they did injured the roots of the trees..

Regarding global warming, which probably hasn't helped, but which I think isn't the main cause of our particular dying trees, I learned some more amazing facts from the CBS Sunday morning TV news program. I typed as quickly as I heard them:

The first half of this year has been the warmest in history.
Last month was the second warmest June in history.
This year, 50 thousand wildfires.
4 million acres gone up in flames!

Afterwards, I couldn't believe what I'd typed. Did I hear that right? Yes, and then some. Here's the facts:

"There have been over 61,000 wildland fires across the Lower 48 States since the beginning of 2006, with large fire activity focused in the Plains, the Southwest and the Florida peninsula. As of July 9th, over 4 million acres have burned across the U.S., according to estimates from the National Interagency Fire Center."

Neither the news story nor the website speak of the global warming which is the cause. There may be other causes, related or not, to the increasing warmer planet. But that movie "An Inconvenient Truth" really shows how the changing climate is the main cause.

Sunday, July 16, 2006 B

"Didn't Plan Ahead..."
9:22pm

I thought I'd try an observational piece using the linear style of my intuitive drawings. I took no prior sketch, and it shows:

The Gods offering... ...She who didn't plan ahead!

She who didn't plan ahead!

She not only doesn't plan ahead, but also doesn't DUST!

Still there's something I like about the drawing. I like the facial expressions of Naga Kanya and Thoth, even if the little jar is somehow sitting on top of the Naga. She looks meditative, while he looks alert and ready to be helpful.

I added him to my Thoth page

Monday, July 17, 2006

"Sad Maiden of the Icelands"
8:24pm

When I was drawing her, I was visualizing her with the icy blue tones. She seems a sad maiden of the ice lands, but what has saddened her heart?

Thursday, July 20, 2006

"Most Popular Page Request"
6:05am

If you've been reading along, you know I've had to cancel the old debit card and send for a new one. This requires a whole process of changing various accounts to reflect the new number. Thus it was that I went to my webpanel at our webhost, Dreamhost. After imputing the proper number, I couldn't help but notice a link to a page called 'statistics'. I've never been one to have web trackers which keep track of every hit to your website. I didn't know this is something one's webhost does, keeping track of raw statistics. I would never have guessed that aztriad.com gets the number of hits it does. Thank you, all of you! Before I got too excited, however, I noticed the two main requests. One is 'robots.txt', also a failed request. I've since learned this page is sought by polite webcrawling robots prior to doing their search. People who wish to disallow the various robots tell them so in that text file. The second, oh, my, there's a bunch of happy hairy handed hunters looking for a "blowjob.html".

Now that I've changed the title of that page, you'll all come to this page. Fret not, the page is just as Laura designed it. But seeing as I have all of your attention, before I refer you to the new page, allow me to say a few things. I surmise you have a healthy appreciation of our physical, earthly aspects. Set smiles. One of Set's titles is 'Great of Virility'! Who's Set, you may ask? He belongs to the ancient Egyptian pantheon. Actually, now he belongs to whoever claims him. What is a pantheon? It is a set of deities whose interplay of roles explain the working of the cosmos. There are several well known ones. There is the Germanic, Hindu and the Greco Roman, to name but a few. Why a pantheon? This is reclaimed from the days in which we understood ONE GOD cannot do it all, but needs the help of his buddies. All of this is to maintain what the ancient Egyptians call Ma'at, or order and balance. Oh, it's not so dull as all that, within that order is a bit of 'necessary chaos'. That chaos is part of Set's duties.

Why should you care about such things? Don't you ever wonder, inbetween interests in such things as 'blowjobs', about the deeper meanings of life, the mysteries, the 'why' of everything? "Seek the Mysteries!" There's lots of them out there, and the finding of one leads to the search for ten new. Why? Because it's fascinating, it keeps your mind and spirit ALIVE and AWAKE. We are, after all, more than 'meat machines', as wonderful as those machines are. But, yes, those machines are wonderful, and all appreciation of them worthwhile.

Before I give you that URL, let me also encourage you to "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle", reduce your carbon dioxide emissions, and help protect endangered wildnerness areas, and the diversity of species. So many critters are going extinct because they are losing their habitats. A world without their splendidly diverse beauty is a very sad and impoverished world.

Okay, enough 'preaching'. Here's Laura's famous blowjob cartoon,! Have fun!