Travel bug

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
- Augustine (354-430)

I saw this quote in two different places today. I think "someone" is trying to tell me something.

We were planning to go to Sacramento this weekend to visit our niece and her new baby. But this morning I woke with a sore throat and I'm afraid if I don't start to feel better we'll have to postpone because I don't want to get the baby sick.

A life-long dream of mine has been to travel to the British Isles. This seems like a no-brainer that this should be our first "BIG" destination trip. So we're planning to do it for our fifth anniversary. Sometime in 2009. But it seems soooo far off. Meanwhile, we have lots to learn in planning this vacation of a lifetime.

I'd also like to travel to Hawaii, just to swim in clear, warm ocean water. I'd avoid all of the tourist-y spots and go for the more remote, camping out on a secluded beach. Waterfalls a must. And fragrant blossom breezes.



And Tahiti. That would be a trip! I just like hearing the French language spoken and the tropical lifestyle.




Sometime (before I turn 50) I'd like to see India. Visit the homeland of my guru Paramahansa Yogananda. See the Taj Mahal, that monument to love.






I have a passport that's two years old and never been used. I've only been outside the US to Baja California in Mexico and to Alberta in Canada, which is a pretty sad declaration considering I wanted to be a travel agent or airline ticket agent when I was a kid, just so I could travel the world. Ah, the forsesaken dreams of youth.


In my own homestate of California you can't beat Yosemite for immense natural beauty. Which is where we spent our honeymoon.

Not a political blog

I did not intend for this to be a blog devoted merely to political rants. It's just that when I see injustice I have to call it for what it is. I hope I always will. If I *had* to pigeon-hole myself politically I would call myself a conservative left-leaner. Ah, and full of contradictions. This blog is and always will be a work-in-progress. As much as anything else, this blog is about *this blog* and the topics I choose to write on will be about my views as seen from the window of my experience and my reflections on the world around me and within my purview. I don't really expect anyone to be reading this anyway. So, in actuality, it is mostly for my own use to gauge where I am and where I was at any given time. Anyone else who might be interested in my head space is welcome to read. I promise myself that I will try to be regular with postings. I promise you that I will not discuss personal biological and overly graphic personal health topics. I will try to respect the privacy of those friends, loved ones and acquaintances whom I choose to write about. I considered changing the name of my blog to Barking Against the Wind or maybe Whispers on the Wind but I'll have to think on that a while. For now, that's all I have to say about that.

Having read that FEMA workers and National Guardsmen are retrieving dead bodies from the hurricane area and tying them to fences and trees is one of the most repugnant and sickening things I have read yet. This whole thing just gets more disgusting by the day, no - make that by the hour. Specifically, the government's piss-poor response to the tragedy. And those same morons are telling news reporters that they cannot photograph the disgrace which the Guardsmen and FEMA workers are now causing because the government is trying to protect the dignity of the deceased. What a fucking crock of shit! How fucking UN-dignified can one get than to have its lifeless body tethered to a tree. Reeks to me of lynching. If they wanted to show any dignity to these poor people they would take them one by one or as many as can be put into a transportation vessel at one time and taken immediately to a morgue for identification purposes and notification of next of kin as best as humanly possible. It just goes beyond all common sense to treat these people in this manner. I am deeply ashamed of my government. This is atrocious. My God, I try to imagine how I would feel if it were someone close to me. But THEY are. These are our neghbours, our fellow-citizens, they are human beings. And they're being treated like waste and debris. It is ungodly and inhumane. And may God have mercy on their souls. Read it for yourselves:
FEMA Censorship

There are also reports of policemen refusing to help survivors and of abandoning certain groups who asked to be evacuated. This article out of Great Briton states that Britons were abandoned and refused help because they were foreigners. It also reports how they deserted a group of women on a rooftop because the would not show them their tits. WTF? I try not to be gullible and believe everything I read on the internet or even what I hear on CNN but sometimes you have to believe the eye witnesses who were there. How could anyone make this shit up? There is going to be hell to pay for a long time to come for so many.