another test
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[info]oldmaninnastix
xoxoxoxoxo
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testing/exploring
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[info]oldmaninnastix
Hi ho hum..
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(no subject)
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[info]oldmaninnastix
ATTENTION ALL WHO STRAY HERE


The oldman has taken a hike(some would say that happened a long time ago). You can find him

HERE


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On the road again.....
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[info]oldmaninnastix
Josh, Luke and Mark, 20-somethings.. lifelong friends about to hit the road in a few weeks.

Any of you interested in following their road trip (ending up at Burning Man) can sign up with 'em for their on-the-road updates and photos.
Should be GRAND FUN!


VagaBender



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HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY
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[info]oldmaninnastix
Here is an email I got today from a friend. I'm pretty sure she wrote it herself, but maybe it's one of those circulating emails. It certainly could, or maybe, should be. It made me smile and think about all those who I could send something like it to.
So I put it into cyberspace and address it to everyone, including men. Imagine who you know who might send this to you and then consider sending it to them.




THIS IS FOR ALL THE PHENOMENAL WOMEN IN MY LIFE! THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR LIVES WITH ME AND BEING A PART OF MY JOURNEY.. SOME OF YOU I SEE OFTEN, SOME I HAVEN'T SEEN FOR SO LONG (TOO LONG) BUT SOMEHOW WE MANAGE TO TOUCH EACH OTHERS LIVES, EITHER IN PERSON, BY PHONE OR E-MAIL. I APPRECIATE EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU. YOU HAVE MADE ME LAUGH, CRY, TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT MY SELF, QUESTION WHO I AM, BROUGHT ME MUCH JOY, BEEN SO SUPPORTIVE AND LOVING NO MATTER WHAT I WAS THINKING OR DOING. GOD I AM SO THANKFUL! AND ON THIS MOTHER'S DAY, WHETHER YOUR CHILDREN ARE GROWN, STILL GROWING, NOT HERE YET. NEVER BEEN OR NEVER WILL BE, ALL OF YOU HAVE NURTURED ME IN SO MANY WAYS AND FOR THAT I WILL ALWAYS GRATEFUL.


SO ON THIS MOTHER'S DAY I SAY A HEART-FELT THANK YOU AND REMIND EACH OF YOU THAT YOU ARE LOVED!
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WISH IDA THOUGHT OF THAT
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[info]oldmaninnastix


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Fading to black..
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[info]oldmaninnastix
well.. it just feels like I am done with the "oldmainnastix" journal for awhile.. (it really is getting old writing here.)
Maybe I'll be gone a short while.. maybe a long while, maybe the whole thing is done with ..it's hard to say at the moment. But wow! ..it certainly has been a creative, and meaningful ride for me for nearly 4 years...I have [info]mindslide to thank for that in that I had never heard of "live journal" (Thankyou Kristen) before accidentally landing on her LJ and thinking "what is this?!".. ..and then from that, after a few days of thinking that I could have my own little "soapbox".. a place where I could have my say no matter what it was.. was immensely appealing to me! And so it began.

..and a big thanks as well.. to all of you who have listened to my "mind drizzles" and often shot back usually favorable comments at me, especially you, Debbi and you Trish and Wailaki, I thank you all.


But now, on the threshold of Patti and I driving back to our farm in Iowa..(the lawn needs mowed already!)and to spend some time away from city life and for my spirit to reconnect again to my own home turf, I also feel the need for some big change in my relationship to this web community, and to livejournal, and to put behind the old..that is, the old-man-no-longer-much-in-the-sticks and grab hold of the new.. whatever that means in actuality.
It is all something that has not yet bubbled up into my consciousness, but I know it will as time goes by.

So until it does present itself, it is fade-to-black for me... Ta Ta For Now! bill :-)
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Video Testing..mp3 testing as well..
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[info]oldmaninnastix
I am also in process of creating my own mp3 playlist that I and YOU can also listen to while reading/writing and surfin' around the web. well, if you are so inclined and have high speed. I will, of course, be putting on only the music that my own spirit resonates to.. that makes me dance on the inside. This web shit is all good. Click HERE
for the first one,(more later) then open another browser window to continue on your flight in virtual space.Ok.. let's see if this works for anyone. (later) well, yeah it does just ducky.

modem users.. give me some feedback on approximately how many minutes this takes to load into your computer, if you want to. There is a little lag time even for high speed after punching the Play link.
Also..for some reason all videos load in at full volume sound..so be careful, ..a couple of times (while wearing earphones), I have nearly blown my eardrums out. So turn your volume on low at first or be really quick and reduce the quicktime volume before the movie plays..

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Anyway.. this video was taken 3 winters back. Then 18 year old Jesse from Eugene,Oregon (a good friend of my daughter Brie) had never been sleigh riding (city boy!) before visiting on our Iowa farm. This short clip is his first ride in the snow on a ski-sled. He flies over a terrace and actually manages to make it to the bottom of the hill without crashing. It's a moment of absolute pride and happiness for him. We made a memory, Jesse! ..and here it is.. just for you. :-)bill





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Cherry Blossoms...
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[info]oldmaninnastix

(Warning: boring LiveJournal entry below)


Spring has definitely sprung in the DC area.. in fact it has become hhhhhooooottttttt! (that's "hot" for the mentally impaired trying to figure out what that word was.)

So.. Patti and I decided that it was safe to get out of our 9th floor apartment for the first time this winter and drive down to the tidal basin here in Washington, to take in the warmth of the spring day, and walk around the green grass a-growin'.. and of course to take in all the beautiful and exploding cherry blossoms.

Yes sir ree bob.. that's what Patti and I decided to do..
along with 16 billion other people having precisely the same idea.

It really was NOT a great idea because of the traffic.. tons of folks all looking for a parking spot, the same as we were.

After an hour of creeping along at the proverbial snail's pace among the cars and tourist buses, (it felt like we were trapped in a slow moving parking lot) all of us searching for some place to stop and park so we could get out and just walk around awhile.
But alas, it was not meant to be.
We finally gave it up, and just took a couple of exceedingly unimpressive photos from the car and then wrangled our way back home again.

Altogether it was a 2 hour trip of driving in stop-and-go traffic.. a half hour to get there (about 3 miles) and then creep-along traffic for the next hour.. oh slow.. a turtle could waddle as fast.. and finally another half hour back home.
ummmm yeah great fun... and fancy that, those cherry blossoms all smell exactly like car exhaust.

Ok then, it's roll up the windows.. air conditioner on.. snap a couple of pics for this entry, and it's Welcome to Washington, DC's Cherry Blossom spectacular ..and attending tourists. Whoopee Ki Yi Yo get along little doggies... and.. let's get out of this! I think I need a nap.

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Maybe we will try to do the National Cathedral in a day or two.. take pics/feel holy. At least in this town, the parking lots for the pious are never, ever full..


God, don't sit on this!
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Teaching the daughter to fly (revisited)
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[info]oldmaninnastix
When my daughter Brie was visiting here a short time ago... I decided that she was old enough now, and also.. that it was time for me to reveal a long and closely guarded family secret to her:
..that sometimes members of our bloodline inherit the incredible ability to actually levitate!

Neither my mother nor my father could do this unusual feat, however there has been handed down through the generations an old story about my now-long-gone Aunt Pearl (on my mother's side) who used to be able to jump farther than anyone.. In fact she could, uh.. 'jump' so much so, to such a great distance, that people of her generation avoided her, thinking that she was part-witch, or some other superstitious foolishness. She died alone many, many years ago.. poor old Aunt Pearl.. never finding love nor having any children of her own... cursed by the narrow minded paradymes of her generation.

Early on in my life (if any of you have been tracking my LiveJournal in which I previously revealed to the world this ability of mine), I discovered as a youngster that I too had inherited this incredible power to actually lift my self off the ground and float in any direction or height that I wished. It has been something, this ability of mine to fly ...that I have up until now.. kept as a closely guarded family secret, revealing it to no one other than my own mother, when I was a child. And.. for almost the whole of my daughter's life, I have known that she too inherited this astounding ability to lift-off the ground.. Since day-one, I had always watched her closely wondering "what-if.."

..and then, one day it came..
When she was just learning to walk as an 18 month old.. she too lifted off the floor several inches. I quickly and gently pushed her back down, shaking my head "no".. Fortunately we were alone at the time.. and no one else saw what she had done. From that moment on I kept a "eagle's eye" on her life.. but she never did it again... and I suspect had long forgotten the whole incident.



Fast-forward 18 years to the present...
Daughter visits her old man on the ancient family farm here in Iowa.




After a lengthy conversation with her explaining all of this.. and revealing it all to her wide-eyed wonderment and amazement, we both agreed that now was the time for her to consciously try her hand at it herself.. to see if she could do it.. and experience for herself this unique capability of ours.
We had some breakfast, and headed out into the yard on a lovely spring morning in March, where I could further explain the theory and demonstrate the complete technique to her..



I lifted off first to show her exactly how it was done.. demonstrating to her the particulars of being in a certain "frame of mind" (although it really is a certain frame-of-beingness).. that allows a perfect state of limbo-like stasis between two opposing energy forces, the earth below and the sun above... sensing both these incredible forces "as-one". Then, the subtle shifting of emphasis from one energy pull to the other.. thus allowing actual movement of the body inbetween these two forces.
After I finished my own demonstration (and LOTS of talk on my part), we decided it was time.. after all these years.. it was finally time for her to experience this family-phenomena. Following my explicit instructions.. and a little energy help from the old man.... well.. as you all see..

O yeah!!!! You got it!!! Rock and Roll, daughter! You are there!....

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After a couple of short "runs" with me below and being her safety net, we decided it was time for her to try it completely on her own.. I stood back, grabbed the camera and took the next photo.. AND having to emphasize to her more than once, "don't get cocky!.." (kids love driving parents up-the-frickin'-wall with their stunts!) and..bruises from an ill-performed energy-shift are not fun! (of this I know all to well.)


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..but I could tell already.. she's got style and she's got grace and it would not be too long before she would be out-performing-to-perfection her old pops.. doing things that I would never have dared even to try..



After "playing" for awhile in the yard.. lifting off no more than a few feet because of trees and electric lines overhead, we decided to walk down into the corn field and away from all overhead obstructions, where we could move on to the next lesson... one that seriously ramped-up the danger level.

I talked a great deal to her about the fear that would be felt when one is a hundred feet off the ground! .. and that this fear, if you let it.. well, it can kill you. As for myself, being quite experienced from years of multiple lifts throughout my life, I no longer feel any fear whatsoever... and occasionally I go way-high.. if the weather is good enough to do so.. (no wind is important.. and night is better, in that no one can see me.. and spin out of their minds from seeing a body floating around way up there in mid-air). I informed her that she was to concentrate fully on keeping "in-line" with the energy fields.. and not how high she was going... and that it was exceedingly vital to subdue the fear of being high.. if she was to maintain this position of freedom and not come crashing down sideways like an out-of-control kite. I gave her the camera and showed her exactly how to do it.
She was dumbfounded.. and yelled up at me to "not go so high.. come back down!"
..and so I did.. But I had to laugh at her.. I think it freaked her just a little. my going up that high.

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But now the real test was at hand. She was apprehensive to be sure... and rightfully so. (as was I.) but I said "as soon as you feel the fear, let up.. and you'll come right back down... just don't get cocky!"..
Confidence with practice is good.. but false confidence can kill you if you're not careful.. know the difference.
Now... now.. it was her time to try... "You'll be fine.." said I "just keep the energy lines straight!"

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As she lifted off and up, I could see she was beginning to waver off to the right side, and I yelled up at her to "straighten it up!"..

She yelled back down to me "poppeee!!.. I don't like this!"


I managed to get off one picture as she gently came back down to the ground...a little spooked for sure.

"hmmm" I said..."I think that this is enough for one day."
And so we walked back to the house... to make some hot chocolate..
walked back in silence..
two wonderful smiley-faces, ear to ear...
and a day in the Life to remember...
Isn't it all just grand!

...and may all we Fools everywhere..
(even you, dear reader..)
have just the grandest of all Aprils.. and beyond.

(we deserve it!;)



hahaaaa..

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