Sorrow

As I started this entry, one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands came on the radio. Bad Religion's "Sorrow" is just a rad song. It talks about how when people start doing good things, selfless things, there will be sorrow no more. It's totally punk rock, so it's really hard not to let this song put you in a good mood.

My dashboard lights are chillin' as I listen to the tunes. It's delightfully warm here in Denver, and I'm really shocked that it's only supposed to get warmer as the week winds on.

No big plans for the weekend, short a barbeque, a retirement party, and a trip to the homestead. Not all bad, methinks.

Climate Change

While I'm not too scientificly minded when it comes to a great many things, I do happen to be very observant. I have been told I can see things that make people feel as if I've been a good friend of theirs for a long time, an old soul, so to speak.

However, I don't feel like it takes a perceptive individual or scientist to see that it's February 3rd in Colorado, and it was almost 60 degrees today. Where's the snow? Where is the bitter cold? What's going on here?

This trend is (possibly selfishly) disturbing. I say possibly selfishly because, as someone who is not a scientist, I can't begin to tell you what the cause of this change is. One side would say that it is we humans who have polluted our planet to the point of creating our greenhouse. But I also believe in the idea that our planet has rapidly gone through periods of extreme hot and cold all on its own. This being said, I feel selfish in that regardless of how it came to be here, we have the ability to impact this climate change for the better of our own humanity. It could be the first time in history a species (that we know about) has had the technology to save itself from a "natural" phenomenon.

Crazy thoughts from Russell T tonight.

A chilly day with the bro-skee

Bart and I had an incredible Super Bowl Sunday... all the way up until the Steelers scored with less than a minute left, but whatever.

We drove from our parents' place north and into the hills. Bart is as competent a driver as I ever was off road. We explored some of the trail system being built near Salida, Colorado. Then we went to check out some of the access to these massive rock formations in the Browns Canyon Wilderness Study Area. It's closely tied to Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area. We drove up Chinaman Gulch and I got schooled driving. Then we looked at 4-wheeling up Carnage Canyon... yeah... right. The sign said 39s and winches mandatory. There was a creepy old guy there. He said to us, "have you ever been up there?" I said no. He said, "oh, fuck!" and then walked up the rocky trail laughing the whole way.

We get back home to a huge buffet of hot wings, egg rolls, quesadillas, eight types of dip for six kinds of chips and a 24-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon.  So far, it was the best Super Bowl Sunday ever (except for XXXII and XXXIII... go Broncos!).

Family

I've found throughout my travels, my trails and tribulations, that I've been fortunate enough to have one constant in my life:  family.  I realize not all of us are lucky enough to have this constant, and yet for others, we do have this constant, and it is no good thing.  However, for me, it seems that no matter what I've done in the past, no matter where I'm trying to go or what I'm trying to accomplish, and however I may fail spectacularly in my attempts at doing so, my family is always here for me.  The house I grew up in is here and will always be, like a pillar of solidarity in a world where things are much less certain.  I feel like if someone is lucky enough to be a grown man and feel this way about their parents legacy, then they can consider their parents successful.

The brink...

It's amazing to me how close we all seem to be teetering on the edge of insanity. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I know that there are times when I feel buried and overwhelmed and driven to the brink of craziness by work or girls or family or politics or religion or a number of other things over which I have no control.

Sigh...

Let's consider work. Many of us take this part of life for granted, as if it needs to be here and we need to participate. Taking this one step further, we feel like work takes us for granted, that we are just another cog on the gear, just another robot on the assembly line. Some of us simply accept it for what it is, and others will try to fight through the system, looking at being made from a robot to a robot operator or from a cog to the whole gear, maybe even the whole gear box. When one considers that here, in America, the average CEO makes over 400 times the salary of their average employee, it has the effect of making the robot realize that they are simply that. Robots. Maybe it will be a depressing fact that's accepted and thrown out of the head before the next day's work. Or, maybe, it will make a small percentage of these robots step back and realize that they are more than robots. They're not puppets! They're real boys! And they'll stop playing the game and start living a life more fulfilling and joyous than previously imagined.

I could make equally powerful statements about relationships, family, politics, and many, many other realms of life, but I suppose the moral of the story would almost always be the same. We all have the power and the patience and the will to take a deep look into our own souls, to see what makes us tick and what makes us complacent. Sometimes this is a very long and arduous process. Hell, if it wasn't that way for me, this blog wouldn't exist. Still, it should be necessary for everyone.

Alas, it's amazing how close we all seem to be teetering on the edge of insanity.

Chili for a chilly evening...

I found a new recipe for chili this past weekend, and so I tried it out. It was delicious. I will send the recipe to anyone who asks, but rest assured it was spicy and f@#$ing awesome.

We got a few inches of snow here in Denver. It's cold, but not unbearable. There's more snow in the forecast, but it's all good. I'm warm with chili and friendship. That is the best kind of warm (especially when you have a beer to chase it all down).

Oasis

I often ask people one of my favorite "old person sayings". These are quirky and weird quotations asked by the greatest generation, like "whaddaya know?" or "whaddaya think?" My favorite happens to be, "what's the good word?"

Today, I asked a co-worker that question, and we spoke. We talked about forgiveness in the context of people who we can consider to be abominations to humanity. Is it possible to forgive those who have wronged so many tens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of lives? Is it possible, even, to forgive God or science for taking those lives so dear to us without any explanation or cause?

The good word of the day was coined by my co-worker to be "Oasis". I pondered this for a while, and looked up the definition of the word. I found "1 : a fertile or green area in an arid region (as a desert) 2 : something that provides refuge, relief, or pleasant contrast". So I'm wrapping my head around the idea that to forgive ultimately leads us to our oasis. We are drawn to a sacred space where we have the capacity within our hearts to forgive and enjoy the fertile grenery of our oasis.

It's been a deep afternoon.