For what?  I don't know.  Anything you can think of, I suppose.  I'm not running for anything.  I haven't been nominated for anything.  I don't think that anyone is about run an election or contest that would include me, or even anything for which I would be an appropriate candidate.  The only office I can recall ever winning was as a double write-in (both the title of the office and  myself as an unknowing candidate) was sophomore class dog catcher at the undergraduate school which I finally escaped.  This would seem to be as accurate an example of sophomoric behavior as any.

To digress for a moment; this act was perpetrated by the the same "friends" who left a cat in a drawer of my desk when I went home for a weekend and who paid my demand for 30 pieces of silver to accept the strangest student in the class as a roommate so no one else would have to.  It is also closely tied to my dislike of the school itself, which during the graduation ceremony gave me a diploma cover which contained, rather than a diploma, a note stating that I owed the business office $32.00.  For 41 years now, I have diligently kept that college up to date with my current address in the hope that I will eventually cost them more in printing fees and postage than I spent on my alleged-ucation there.

Back to voting for me, though.  I have "won" a number of offices, titles, contests, and the like, but I don't recall ever having done so by a process that required campaigning or voting.  If I have forgotten one, I maintain that I did not run for it intentionally.  I was pushed.

I have now come to a point in my life that I want to win something.  I want the warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing that my constituency really wants me to have this.  So I now ask, nay beg, for your vote.  The only part I am unclear on is what I wish to be running for.  I shall, therefore, leave it to an enlightened electorate to decide exactly what it is for which I might best be suited (or do the least damage,) vote for me for that position, and then tell me in a comment what I was running for and if I won.  I thank you in advance for your kind consideration and greatly appreciate your confidence in me.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2009, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do." – Will Rogers

I have been trying to think of a pithy (no, I am not  lisping) manner of expressing my thoughts about the meaning of Earth Day.  A way of thinking, or a concise expression of principle, to remind myself of how I might live out my days in consonance with the hopes and intent inherent in the overall guiding principles of Earth Day.

I came up with this:

“Help me, Mother, to be of more Karmic value while living upon your surface than I shall be as compost beneath it.”

Though far from perfect, I believe this conveys the essence of what I am trying to express.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2009, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

“My karma ran over my dogma.” – Possibly the world’s first VW Microbus bumper sticker – or not.

I subscribe to a free, but very addicting online newsletter, Cool Tools, the arrival of which I eagerly await approximately once per week.  Tools, as defined by this newsletter may be anything of good quality that is useful in accomplishing something.  This week's edition included a feature to more efficiently search Craigslist, a Delta Airzound bike horn, an ergonomic infant carrier, the Derma-Safe folding utility knife, and the Online Clock.  A Cool Tools archive of past issues and product reviews is also available.  I try not to go there too often because there is always "stuff" there that that is useful, unique, and just cool enough to convince me that I need it rather than only wanting it.  If this sounds good to any of you, they are currently seeking a part-time (10 hours per week) editor for a temporary period of about six months.  OK, so much for the advertising for them, but it's a fun newsletter and I like it.

The Online Clock is a free website that displays almost any kind of a clock or alarm clock, countdown timer, binary or space clock, choices of colors for moving parts and for backgrounds, and on and on.  Alright, so I'm easily amused, but it's free and it does something I can figure out without an instruction book.  Take a look and have fun with it.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2009, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"I wasted time, and now doth Time waste me:  For now hath Time made me his numb'ring clock; My thoughts are minutes" – Wm. Shakespeare

I suppose I should have paid my taxes yesterday.  I'm not avoiding them with any purpose of evasion.  They'll get paid with interest.  It simply terrifies me to attempt to do them for myself.  For many years I combined a small business portion with a personal wage-earner portion and never did quite figure out which I should claim for which.  I had to have a cell phone to respond to emergencies, but also used it for personal calls.  The same went for a computer, home office space, home treatment room space, could I claim mileage to and from my business Post Office box, and the like.  It remains somewhat complicated (for me, anyway) because I stay current with my license, professional membership, journals, professional liability insurance, and beard care, but am not presently in active practice.  My preferred response, without help, would be to simply walk into an IRS office with my checkbook and ask how much they wanted.  I don't know why taxes are a greater fear for most Americans than contracting a dreaded disease or dying, but they seem to be.

So what is my excuse for all this fear and trembling?  My accountant retired.  She certainly deserved to.  She was "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena" of tax preparation; over 80, sharp as a tack, and knew tax stuff I didn't even suspect.  She always managed to find a legal category, name, or explanation for whatever strange financial things I had done the previous year.  I held a simple, unreasoning faith that she could fix any stupid thing I had done, all would be well, and I would escape imprisonment for yet another year.  I have discovered nobody in whom I have that kind of trust yet.  I really must do that very soon, though, before I receive any sort of "governmental motivation" to do so.

Though I searched, I could not find a "Greekified" name for fear of taxes.  Naming phobias is a bit silly anyway, as I pointed out in a 1.25 inch thick paper on phobias in grad school.  It was titled False Erudition.  It's a whole lot easier to say that "he panics when he sees a Form 1040" than it is to try to find a pseudo-Greek equivalent which the next reader won't have a clue about and will have to look up anyway.

Hopefully, this post will be legally admissible evidence that I really meant to pay my taxes on time (just in case you don't hear from me for a while.)

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2009, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win!"
Wm. Shakespeare – Sonnets

Do emails have hearts?  Well, they don't in the sense of a beating, pulsing, blood pumping physical organ.  In common parlance though, the word heart is used in more ways than to describe this physical organ.  "Have a heart" one may beg.  "You've captured my heart" on Valentine's Day.  "I (shape commonly accepted as looking like a heart) New York," or whatever else one wishes to display their fondness for on the bumper of their vehicle.  This is actually quite humorous if you compare the shapes of various organs in an anatomy text.  What we usually unquestioningly accept as heart-shaped more closely resembles the male prostate gland than any other organ.  The heart is also found in references to reaching the essence of something - "Getting to the heart of the matter."  It is in that sense which I use it in the haiku below.

I recently received a short email which hurt very much.  "Pierced my heart," if you will.  Words from that email, from a person I had tried to reconnect with since high school, have been used, in context but not completely, to create a haiku:

I wish you nothing

I have no time or interest

Hope you understand

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2009, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"I never knew until that moment how bad it could hurt to lose something you never really had." - From the television show The Wonder Years

I waited while nearly a month and a half passed to finally receive the Dell Vostro 2510 laptop to which I had them make some upgrades.  I could have had the same or better performing unit simply by buying a slightly more expensive version of the Inspiron line that would have shipped "off the shelf" and later purchased an extended life battery.  The real reason that I went about the purchase in the manner I did was that, when ordering through their business outlet, I was able to get it with XP-Pro installed on it and a Vista Home downgrade included, should I ever become witless enough to want to do that.  It was delivered on 9 Mar 2009.  I will admit to being somewhat surprised to discover a red computer inside the box, but what the hell?  I look at the screen and keyboard, not the candy apple red exterior.  Actually, with Crane Cams and J&E Pistons decals and some flames painted on, it could be moderately cool.  But I digress, as old people are wont to do.

I have had it less than a month and it broke already.  One of the same problems suffered by Leonard the Laptop occurred.  A key top fell off.  I couldn't find it, either.  Perhaps Stinky or Bittle ate it or claimed it as a toy. 

This concerns me.  Honestly now, how much damage can one person, typing with two fingers, and having no weapons within reach do to a keyboard?  I was extremely lucky that it was a totally useless top this time, the "Microsoft" key rather than the "T."  The only one I would rather have lost would have been the "Caps Lock" top which I firmly believe was added to the keyboard layout due to a temporary daemonic possession of the designer.  There is even a website devoted to the elimination of the Caps Lock key.

Using my vast store of computer knowledge, I pulled the same key top from one of the two HP donor keyboards in the room and snapped it into place on the Dell.  Fixed.  So why am I being cantankerous?  Dell computers are at least assembled in the USA and buying American is something I try very hard to do, and I bought what I believed to be a heavier duty, business model laptop.  It is under warrantee for another eleven months and I'm sure that it would have been repaired free, had I cared to return it and lose the use of it for another month or so.  I may even have voided my warrantee by making an unauthorized repair.  Out of all of this, the part that bothers me the most is that  every time I look at the keyboard, I will see one key with a slightly smaller and brighter logo on it than the rest.  *sigh*

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2009, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"I had to Google 'jfgi' to see what it meant.  The irony is overwhelming." - classyhorse23