darkathame

Of sorts. These last couple of weeks passed by like mere hours. I've been spending time doing things that rejuvenate me. I've started  reading actual books again. Instead of just a steady stream of blogs and journals. Although some of the blogs I read are quite stimulating. At any rate, I'm about to tear into my reading list for the year finally. Only six months later. I've also been gaming quite a bit needless to say. I've formed an intimate relationship with my PS3. I will conquer Resistance 2: Fall of Man and save the world.

I also manged to finish White Witch, Black Curse, which I may have mentioned before. This was supposed to be my first book to read for the year and it took me damn well near six months to finish when it should have taken a week. I'm such a slacker, I swear.

A thing of note, I had a tooth pulled recently. Recently being yesterday and boy did it truly suck. Despite 4 shots of whatever they used, I still felt pain when the dentist was digging around in there. It was awful. She couldn't understand why I could still feel her poking, prodding, cutting and pulling. Whatever was going on, I'm glad its over. Oddly enough, once the numbing subsided, I felt very little discomfort. After the anesthetic wore off from when I had my wisdom tooth removed, I wanted to pull my own head off rather than deal with that pain. And I didn't feel a thing when the doctor was yanking that thing out.

Well, that's that. I think for this month, I'll start posting more photos again. I've taken a few that I like that I'd like to share.

Stay tuned.

Good Night.

..came a bit early for me. On Monday a package arrived that  JCT made clear I should be home to collect. Soon after arriving home from work, she sliced the taped seam of the oh so familiar Amazon box to reveal to me my Fathers day gift which I admit was a complete and utter surprise. It was a PlayStation 3. The first thing to pop into my head was, "hell YESS!!". The second thing was that I would sooner or later be found comatose staring at the TV after a 96 hour stint of Red Dead Redemption. But I'm sure it will be worth it.

Being both a computer and gaming geek I'm so stoked about exploring this machine. There's so many things that can be done with it, from a hackers stand point. And the so cool awesome games I've been wanting to play that aren't made for my PlayStation Portable are so abundant, I hardly knew where to start. Strike that. I did. I joined GameFly. This site is like netflix for games. And they have just about everything I want as well as games I didn't know I wanted until I saw them.  Although it's monthly fee is a bit pricey, it'll definitely save me on buying overpriced games only to sell them at a fraction of the cost when I done and bored with them. My first two games arrive tomorrow.

I don't think I'll sleep for the first week.

Good Night. Or not.

mind blank. But this time It's because I'm exhausted. I got up way to early on too little sleep. And I hate napping in the middle of the day because I feel like I'm wasting time. So now I sit here trying to write so my mind won't go to mush. But its probably too late for that.

I can hardly keep my eyelids open, and I have an early and long day tomorrow. I wish I had the wherewithal to be self employed. I think working from home would be a dream. Or a nightmare. But at least it would be stimulating.

Going to bed.

Good Night.

I'm having one of those mind blank moments. Those times when you have thoughts that you want to share rolling around in your head aching to be pontificated on. Then when the opportunity arrives, whoooosh, their gone. Like they never existed. It makes you doubt yourself sometimes. It makes me wonder if I ever had anything to say to begin with. So right now I'm rambling hoping that this will trigger my memory or just give me something else to blab about.

Oh wait! Nope. Thought I had it. Lost it.

At any rate, I've started carrying my camera around with me again. I guess I'm ready to start taking snapshots once more. Since school is out, and my 365 is bust, so I won't have any pressure to come up with some last minute nothing. So quality photos should ensue. Maybe.

Enough babbling. It's gotten late and because I watched J all day today, I was unable to work my yoga/knee routine until now.

Good Night.

Today I decided in addition to my knee strengthening workouts, I would add yoga to my routine. If my memory serves me correctly, about two years ago when I first took a serious step into practicing yoga, after each class I really felt great. During class I would sweat like crazy. Leaving embarrassing sweat pools wherever I sat or stood. however at the end of class, I felt amazing. Even my knees. So based of that last experience I started with it again. Except this time, I'm not going to a class (way too expensive). I'm doing it at home using a DVD/book combo I purchased on clearance several months ago.

I had thumbed through the book and browsed the DVD some months back trying to figure out which of the many routines would work best for me. It has several mini routines for when time is short and a long basic one for when you have more time. This is the one I did today and man o man I thought I was going to die. When I previewed it, it didn't look that difficult. I couldn't have been more wrong.

For example, there is this one pose known as a bow or danurasana. While laying on your belly, you are to reach back with both hands and grasp your ankles, then breath in and lift your heels and your upper torso away from the floor...... What!??? I can say with a high degree of certainty, that pose came right from the torture chambers of the Spanish Inquisition. Tomas de Torquemada came up with this one himself. I thought my spine was going to pop out of alignment. Or perhaps pop in. At any rate, I'm going to try and do this long routine at least 3x a week. And perhaps some of the shorter routines in between. Yoga should be done everyday if possible. I'll work my up to doing the long one everyday eventually. And of course, I did feel good after that whole mess was over.

Good Night.

I've been meaning to start working out again for the past few years, so this past week I've started. It was an odd time to start, the middle of the month. I decided to start now because I know that if I try and start at the beginning of a month and then miss the day for some reason, I'll wait until the next month. Then I'll miss it that too and end up pushing it back month after month after month. So I thought I'm just going to start this Sunday, and I did. However, my current work out is not in the usual sense.

I have hereditarily bad knees. And by bad, I mean that I have problems getting up, sitting down, stooping, squatting, climbing stairs, etc. I feel and move like I'm much older than I am. My brother and sister both share the same problem. I saw a sports medicine doctor awhile back who explained to me in great detail what my knee problems are and how to compensate for it through physical therapy. The series of exercises seemed to help a great deal. They centered on building strength around the muscles and tendons around the knee. So when I felt my knees were better, I discontinued the therapy. This turned out to be a mistake. Now my knees are weaker than before.

At the beginning of this week I started doing those knee exercises again. The idea being that I would like to start running again. Even if its just on a tread mill. I found a great deal of pleasure in running and I want that back. I also want to start cycling again. I don't want to miss out on another summer and this one's turned out so far to be a magnificent one.

Good Night,

DA

...J.S. Bach's Minuet No. 2 in Suzuki book 1. I've been working on that piece for the past 6 to 8 weeks at least. It wasn't perfect when I played it during today's lesson, but it was enough for K to give me a pass. I personally think she was as tired of hearing it as I was playing it. Besides, the next piece looks much easier to play and it's something that I've heard many times before. Another J.S. Bach masterpiece, Minuet No.3.  An absolute beauty in it's simplicity. Of course, once I start practicing it, I may change my mind about the simplicity thing.

I have scarcely realized that it has been almost 14 months since I've started. I had amused myself that when my first 'anniversary'  came about I would mark the occasion somehow. However, it seemed to have gone by without so much as a shoulder shrug. Ah well, at least I'm still playing, although there was never a real time that I wanted to give up. I made up my mind that I was going to learn this thing no matter what. And I'm very proud to say that I've stuck to that. Now, if I can just get into the habit of practicing every day, I just might do something with this.

Just a few thoughts I wanted to get down.

Good Night All.

DA

I've been working on the same piece for about 6 weeks now. Suzuki book 1, exercise 14. Minuet No. 2. When played well it sounds simply divine. I am not nearly there yet and at this rate it seems that I never will be. It's at the point that I hate to even look at the sheet music much less play the darn thing. Hopefully tomorrows lesson won't prove to be too much of a drag. It going to be an hour as opposed to the half hour it usually is. The other half hour is a make up because my violin teacher had to cancel. Maybe during the hour we can finish this up. I think she's ready to have me move on as well. From what I've seen of the next lesson, it seems that it might be easier. And besides, one can over practice a piece of music.

I think I'll tickle the strings a bit just in case I get totally uninterested in practicing before going to my lesson.

Good Night.

DA.

I've stated before that my most favorite season is autumn. A very close second would be spring. Across the street from my work place is a huge forest preserve. Whenever I go outside to do security checks or just to take a break, I can smell what seems like the very essence of the season coming from there. On days like today when the temperature is in the 70's, the sky is cloudy but no forecast of rain, is the weather I enjoy most. I never considered myself the outdoorsy type. I'm definitely a city boy all the way. But when I get opportunities to be amongst the trees, grass, and flowers, I feel a sense of peace and communion. Perhaps in a past life, if one believes in that sort of thing, I was something of a forest dweller. Man or animal, I can only guess.

I remember as child that I thought it would be the coolest thing to be a druid. Druidry was the only nature based spirituality that I knew of. But as I grew into adulthood and was able to take the time to find more about it, I discovered that modern day neo-druidry was part of a more general postmodern belief system called Paganism or Neopaganism. And like finding something about yourself that you never knew existed, I knew that this was me. I'm a Pagan. By calling. It sounds silly whenever I say it out loud. But nevertheless, it is what it is.

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to visit that forest preserve for the first time. As I walked past trees and through shrubbery, I imagined myself able to feel the energy of the forest all around me. Trying to communicate something. I know it was just romanticizing the whole experience but it made me smile and it was fun. At some point during my wanderings I came across a clearing and this imaginary energy I felt seemed to be greatest there. I said aloud " something happened here". I fancied the idea that some kind of ritual had been done there and the spiritual energy that was cultivated had left some sort of echo that I was feeling. I amused myself with that idea of people in robes doing some sort of ritual dance. At any rate, after leaving the preserve, I went about my business and didn't give it much thought again.

A few weeks later, I was talking with some other guards who had worked here for a number of years about the strange things they had seen or heard from "across the way". Some of the stories they told were just down right silly, but one in particular I thought an amazing coincidence. This guard who was well know for her accuracy of knowledge said that there is a group of Witches that perform ritual magic over there. My eyebrows rose when I heard this. Taken that for disbelief, she called over some other people who knew of the group to confirm what she said. Logic dictates that this was sheer coincidence. Forest preserves are popular places for such groups to do such things and the clearing I came across was such an obvious place to choose. Then again, what if it wasn't.....

I've just realized how much I've gone on. I don't know how to end it so I'll just say this, I think that there is more to my "connection" with nature than meets the eye.

Good Night

DA

Me and posting haven't been getting along to well lately. It's not like I don't have anything to say. As a point of fact, I think I have too much to say and that could be part of the problem. Opinions, events and tales of woe have all taken root in my brain and are refusing to leave. Causing such an overcrowding that nothing can find its way out so I can journal it. I suppose that this is my attempt at evicting at least some and get it down here.

The school semester has ended. That was a big load to get off my mind. Especially the one class in particular, "Evidence Photography". The class wasn't very difficult. It was quite a lot of fun in fact. But the final project which was to set up and photograph a crime scene loomed over me like my own personal rain cloud. Putting a shadow on everything. Making it difficult to do anything. Anything but concentrate on that cloud. However that is now over. The weight has been banished and the light shines on my world once more. Things are possible again. Now I just need to recall what those things are.

Because of the demands of school and of course the aforementioned cloud, I fell behind on my photo project. For awhile I thought it wouldn't matter I missed a few days. A week even. But that week will soon be a month. So i figure I'd just chuck that project and start anew. That's what so wonderful about doing a 365, you can start on any day you want. Usually people pick some sort of milestone such as January 1st or their birthday or some other such thing. I was thinking of starting on my birthday and perhaps do a self portraits thing. I'm unsure. I have some time to figure it out.

More to say later.

Good Night,

DA.