Comin' home

[curt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua_ODg0FmzQ

soon

[curt]

I had the strangest dream during this most recent resting period. I'll try to describe it as best I can, using a minimal amount of words.

I was caught up in what developed into a revolution. As if having been beemed into the heart of the action, I saw the first stone fly and everything that came thereafter but I didn't know what year it was or even which country or city I was beemed into. All I knew was to run like hell before I got killed. So I ran. Everybody else did too. It was a life or death mattter so people were using their elbows to get ahead. It's like that most every day at the station here by the way....disgusting germans. I used to be a good sprinter so in my dream, I made it to a barn while it looked like nobody had been able to follow me. I ran around to the back of the barn, found an open door, jotted inside and looked for a place to hide. The coppers would be there any minute....or so I thought. This is where the fun begins.....finding a place to hide, in a barn. A huge barn. I wanted the best hiding place so I moved from one to the next until I found this dusted up casket up in the second loft...amongst all kinds of old stuff, all of it covered with dust. Cobwebs in my face etc. You get the picture, right? I open the casket and there's a skeleton in it.....rags falling off the bones. Dude was in there a while. Thought to myself "you can't hide in here. It may be morbid but it's not a good hiding place". So I left the lid of the casket adjarre just a little, reached down and gathered up some dust to throw over the casket lid where my hands had left their marks..in an attempt to hide the fact the lid had been touched at all. In my dream, it worked. I hid nearby, under a heap of canvas, worked at getting my heart rate down to the point of almost stopping breathing. Then I had a deja vu. Been there, done that...so I went through the dream the way I had dreamt it the time before...to see where the coppers would be looking. In the first dream which was part of last night's dream, the coppers did come looking after me but in last night's dream they didn't because as they stood out in front of the barn, the one cop said to the other cop "he's probably hiding in the barn". The other one said "nah, we looked there in his last dream and he weren't there". Then I had to wonder just how many times I've had this dream.

Okay, I too am mad.

[BO]

Sounds like home-coming anxiety to me. Like in...you're coming home to visit the old haunt.

The cobwebs represent unresolved issues. The barn represents your mother's womb--old and dusty. And the skeletons represent your lost youth which you are finally ready to put into the past. The coppers represent your father and must be challenged before you can become a fully autonomous and self-actualizing individual.

OK, that'll be 200 bucks.

Warning! Don't drop acid before watching this video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_sPcaa4g3U

[Mouse]

Just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in... very nice. Just the job on a Sunday morning.
Paintings due to be returned today after appalling exhibition, don't know what condition they will be in.

Tried that picture icon, and it wanted an image address from the web, and my pictures are on my computer.

Curt, they say the building usually represents your own psyche. That dream reminds me of my daughter's dream when we moved into that house up in the hills in Ireland. She was seven. A few weeks after our arrival she dreamt that she was running and hiding from a truck load of soldiers. She hid in a cupboard in the house. They found her and shot her, and she died.
She was so upset, overwhelmed by the sensation of having died in the dream. Afterwards she became terribly nervous whenever we heard anything heavy moving on roads through the woods. My best efforts as a calming mother failed to change this for her.

Five years ago today she was five months pregnant, living with me here in this house with her young man. I was getting ready to go shopping on my bike, wrapping up warm for a freezing day. She started to cry, became distraught, begged me not to go, not to get killed. Wild stuff, she was in pieces, and this quite unlike her usual witty, cool self. It took a couple of hours to quieten her, I had to go. But it was so late by the time I left that it was twilight when I loaded the bike in town, and I'd not brought lights with me.

I got so far on the way back, up the first hill, up the second hill, turned right, stopped. Couldn't go any further, started to babble and cry, no-one can see me, no-one can see me....
And no-one did see him. The driver who hit him didn't even know he'd hit a man. That was when it happened, her father was crossing the bypass just then.

Afterwards she was very much comforted and comforted me with the memory of that struggle between us. It was the day of his death, nothing could change that.

[curt]

"Upload an image" (from the web)

"or insert an existing image" .......this is the one to use to upload an image from your puter. You'll have to know where it's located....click through to that location and okay it.

I'll have to read that again to come closer to understanding it. Dreams are real. Some of mine have come true so I started testing them. The one that proved it all was too real. Spooky but harless because I didn't reach down to pet the rattlesnake. I worked on controlling what happens in my dreams. Always have had two reoccurring dreams ;

1) having to walk around naked as a jaybird and be laughed at

and

2) falling off a cliff after being chased by a deamon.

For number one, I use a spell to remove all clothing from all laughers. It happens in a split second and the laugh is on me.

On number two, I turn and confront the deamon, do a kung fu on it and send it flying off the cliff...and if that doesn't work, I just open the mini parachute I always have with me in my dreams.

Bo, you're too expensive. I'm gonna get me a new schrink!

Wifey and me are out for a ride here in a sec. Sunny and cold, no salt. Already wheeled my bike out in the sun while hers is getting a battery massage for that cold start.

[Cal]

Thanks all for the good music & good company this weekend.

Making conversation over family christmas time I mentioned that I had met an interesting group of people on the internet. Family all looked at me ... sister said she thought that was a bit of a 'disturbed' way of meeting people ... brother-in-law asked in his best medical doctor voice 'so how often do you do this Cal?' ....

Mouse you are not alone in your madness! And thanks for the Callas link. I've been listening to Callas alternating with Pink Floyd this weekend ... nice to see the video clip of her in action.

Have a good week all!

[pan]

I used to have the chased by a demon and fall off the cliff dream a lot. It always started with the whole town being holed up in a store and I was the one that had to go out and try to save them from the siege. I always woke up before I hit the bottom or I would replay the initial falling over and over again. I also had dreams of falling that were totally physical, not visual. Those used to scare the shit out of me. But at sometime I realized that I wasn't going to die and I started indulging in them, staying on the edge between sleep and waking to really enjoy the sensation. I got to the point where I was able to change the direction of the fall and to loop de loops. And then I just stopped having any falling dreams at all.

When I was a school kid I had the naked in school dreams. When I first had an acting role in a small company I had a recurring dream that, on opening night, the director told me that the black actor who was playing a very stereotyped black role was sick and I needed to fill in. I, of course, got very anxious because I didn't know his role and I am white. This dream reoccurred several times until I finally had a dream where I went ahead and did the role - and I was OK. I have had success in dealing with anxiety dreams by allowing myself to face the fear with the realization that I am ultimately in control of the dream.

Funny thing though, ever since I have successful dealt with my scary dreams I don't have the wonderful fantasmic dreams I used to. My dreams are rather mundane or I forget them as soon as I am fully awake.

After reading the most recent batch of posts I have come to the conclusion that one of the connecting threads of this little community is that all of us, in spite of our attempts to completely cynical, are hopelessly sentimental romantic saps.

[curt]

Demon, not Deamon...right. Too long out of town. What we've described as reocurring dreams, alpträume, nightmares.....are the most common. How we deal with them is our way of dealing with them. Psychiatrists have similar therpeutical measures to "assign". This is all very basic and quite normal. Or so, I've learned.

"...completely cynical, are hopelessly sentimental romantic saps." ;-) Yip. All human. Real. Warm. Loving and real.

Some dreams, seeing as we now can control our dreams....are : not only predictions, they're what can be seen as projections of what is to come. Our anxieties are reflected in our dreams, yes. I'm nervous about coming home, yes. My mind races. My fantasie gets the best of me. Reality, I know and reality is what I try to come to terms with...before it happens. That's why I dream. It's like sifting through sand. Most of it is rubbish. Experience helps us see things in real terms. Asphalt is hard, except when real hot. Heat causes thirst. Long rides along Route 66 are not a dream....they can hurt your arse!

Told my one son about your beer. He realy is an expert, says we can do it too. Wifey says we don't have enough room in the house for all the beer I drink. The law says I can brew 200 Litres a year, perpson in the household. That makes 800. Still not enough. Well, 2 litre a day is more than enough. My fav beer = Hacker Pschorr from Munich.

Mouse, I had it wrong, the first field is for uploading from your puter, the second from the web. Or so.

P.S. another fav is "Brunnell" or .....

But there's realy nothing beter than a ...........

[pan]

The wife and I have been dreaming of a bicycle tour of the breweries of Belgium. Of course it would be great to check out the beers of my "homelands" of Bohemia, Germany and Ireland - all great beer locations.

Guinness really varies on where you find it. My Irish friends in San Francisco found a pub or two that poured a good pint but, oftentimes, it disappoints over here.

I never made the transition to whole grain brewing - less equipment, less time, less hassle. Though it would be cheaper per brew to to all grain I am more than happy with the control I have with extract and adjunct grains.

Check out Brew Your Own I subscribed for nearly a decade. Full of recipes and hints. Their archives include brewing basics for the beginner. I was lucky to have a home brew shop a couple blocks away from me when I first started so I just hung out and talked with them. It really is pretty easy. Have to say though, Guinness is a hard beer to clone.

Oh, you weren't that far off. Demon is the christianized version of the word daemon.

[BO]

A very eery and sad story, EM.

Your lack of success at your latest showing is no doubt, the result of a declining economy--not the quality of your work.

[Mouse]

Thank you Bo, it was not the right time nor the right place. I don't really mind, there's a lot to be said for the quiet life.

Been thinking of Curt's dream: In the first dream which was part of last night's dream, the coppers did come looking after me but in last night's dream they didn't because as they stood out in front of the barn, the one cop said to the other cop "he's probably hiding in the barn". The other one said "nah, we looked there in his last dream and he weren't there". Then I had to wonder just how many times I've had this dream. That's wonderful. Can't help thinking that there's a message for us all there from Curt's unconscious mind.

[littleoldme]

I second Bo, my kids who run a screen printing business out of their garage, and sell out of booths at the flee markets, are having a hell of a time making ends meet. Nobody's buying.
I think Curt's mind might be right, anybody else see this little ditty? I think it's starting.


New Operation to Put Heavily Armed Officers in Subways

In the first counterterrorism strategy of its kind in the nation, roving teams of New York City police officers armed with automatic rifles and accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs will patrol the city’s subway system daily, beginning next month, officials said on Friday.

Under a tactical plan called Operation Torch, the officers will board trains and patrol platforms, focusing on sites like Pennsylvania Station, Herald Square, Columbus Circle, Rockefeller Center and Times Square in Manhattan, and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

Officials said the operation would begin in March.

Financing for the program will be funneled to the Police Department and will come from a pool of up to $30 million taken from $153.2 million in new federal transit grants to the state.

Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, and Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced the grants at a news conference on Friday at Grand Central Terminal, where Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly outlined his plans to add a layer of security to the city’s 24-hour transit system.

Mr. Kelly’s plan to heighten security and monitor a subway system that carries nearly five million people a day along 656 miles of tracks reflects the city’s continuing concerns about a possible attack.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, police patrols increased in the subways, particularly at the entrances to the 16 underwater tunnels. As terrorists have hit rail systems around the world, the police in New York have reacted with strategies tailored to thwart similar attacks.

For instance, after the bombings of three trains and a bus in London on July 7, 2005, police officials in New York took steps to protect the city’s subways, including random inspections of train riders’ backpacks and packages, a program that continues today.

“New York remains at the top of the terrorist target list, and mass transit remains a concern because it has been targeted many times around the world,” Mr. Kelly said in a statement released by his chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne. “There have been several thwarted plots against New York’s subway system as well.”

Each team in the operation will comprise a bomb-sniffing dog and six officers: a dog handler and a sergeant and four officers from the Emergency Service Unit who will be outfitted in heavy, bullet-resistant vests and Kevlar helmets and will carry automatic weapons, either an M-4 rifle or an MP5 submachine gun.

The officers will work in shifts of 12 hours to provide as much coverage of the subway system as possible, Mr. Browne said.

Officers with high-powered rifles have patrolled sensitive sites above ground in New York, like the Empire State Building, and have guarded subway entrances after attacks in other cities, but have never made daily patrols. .

Michael A. L. Balboni, the state’s deputy secretary for public safety, said that since May, National Guardsmen armed with automatic rifles have patrolled the platforms of the PATH train system in New York and in New Jersey.

Mr. Balboni said that having heavily armed city officers routinely patrol the subways was an important first step.

But more broadly, he said, linking security plans for the disparate rail systems in the metropolitan region was “key in securing additional funding from the Department of Homeland Security.” He said that Mr. Chertoff praised the state for collaborating across geographic regions, since transit systems in New Jersey and Connecticut would also be affected.

“Going forward, the New York metropolitan transit system is getting a $50 million increase over last year’s funding for transit security,” Mr. Balboni said. “What we did was pull together eight agencies, three states and a multitude of police agencies to come up with regional funding priorities.”

Scary huh?

[pan]

"Show us your papers"