I know it's been a while since I posted... but, I have been taking care of a lot of business regarding my health and the like.

Anyway, I was just watching a movie I love "Eddie and the Cruisers II" and in this one scene Michael Pare and his girlfriend are traveling between gigs and are stopped with the band at some snowbound rolling river play area... and it reminded me of this really cool experience in my life when I lived in Reno, NV.

I was living with my girlfriend Honey, who later was to become the mother of my daughter Rachael Jayne. I had gifted Honey during one Christmas with an absolutely beautiful healthy six-month-old St. Bernard Puppy who was delivered to the house with a huge red bow around it's neck on Christmas morning. Honey was, as you can imagine ecstatic, especially because she, at another time in her life - had owned two Saints... and had told me many many stories about them.

One fine cold February morning, a couple of months later - I took Christopher, then eight months old, X-Country skiing with me out in a very flat area near the Truckee River tributary
near some cabins that a friend owned to see how the dog handled himself in the snow and to see how his nose was when I hid from him... you know the old St. Bernard Finding people in the snow stuff. Turns out that there was nothing I could do to ditch this dog. What an animal!

I took him over to what was called the "Little Truckee" river, which was the tributary I was mentioning above - to see if there was a safe area for the dog to drink. Turns out that the tributary was flowing way too fast - and was about three (3) feet deep right at the edge with no safe place to wade in.

So what does Christopher do? He steps right in this little river, goes head over heels and begins to get carried downriver really fast. So, should I jump in immediately? Like right NOW!? I'm screaming & calling and whistling and running (following down stream) as loud as I can, when suddenly he comes to a stop in the middle of the river, laying on a sandbar or something, facing upstream (my way).

He looks at me and cocks his huge-little eight-month old puppy head as if to ask, "why are you shouting"? And then, (I swear to God) he dips his head and casually begins to lap at the water... drinking his fill of this freezing river water! I doubled over laughing! When he was through, I called him - and he, without a struggle swam upstream towards me, met me right where I was standing, I reached down and grabbed him by his fur on the scruff of his neck and helped him out, stood back, he shook off, and that was that.

We Wrestled in the snowand and laughed for about five minutes. I then went to him and examined his fur. Pulled it apart down to his skin and there was at least a half-inch of his fur that wasn't even wet, let-alone his skin.

Sure loved that dog. Ask me sometime about some other Christopher stories. I've got some beauties.

Scans of Monks' Brains Show Meditation Alters Structure, Functioning

As we each learn how to cope with lifes' goings-on, we learn how to handle age changes, partner changes, job changes etc.

The egg-heads teach many coping mechanisms i.e. therapy, excercise, education, mentorship, yoga and the like.

However, back in the day, another less taught coping strategy was meditation. A calming sedentary and spirutual undertaking that many throughout the ages have found to be the best answer to an overall healthy beingness.

I ran across a great article I would like to share that more or less proves the value of meditation as an answer that has worked, but physically changes and alters the brain as well.

Enjoy & discuss. Click here...

Organization

As I get my Blog organized, I find that rather than simply blogging about any of the three or four subjects that I feel qualified to write about... I'm probably going to have to split into three or four separate blogs

1. General Technology and Trends associated with teaching the average guy why it all matters
2. Mobile Technology - having your tech "move" with you
3. The politics of world order, religion and the associated economic picture
4. Spirituality and the Balance of Life

So, until I figure out how to move some posts to the correct Blogs... I will continue to use this blog "Balance of Life" as a catch-all.

RSS Feeds are also worthwhile... for those willing to learn just a little...

Clicking here will take you to a video page and a video that in two minues can explain what RSS Feeds are and how to use them.

Oh, and by the way, just in case you were wondering - RSS = Really Simple Syndication!

In humble service to mankind, brought to you by Common Craft and WrongAdvices and of course Balance of Life.

Wiki's are Worthwhile
for those willing to learn just a little....

Clicking here will take you to a video page and a video that in two minues can explain what Wikis are and how to use them.

In humble service to mankind, brought to you by Common Craft and WrongAdvices

OK OK OK!

My friends & family expect me to stay up with the "next big thing(s)" and I've been waiting to make this jump for quite awhile.

I've purchased a UMPC! My sister didn't particularly like it... but for the most part she has believed in me while I've dragged her yelling and screaming through the various reverse knotholes that modern technology has to offer.

I sprung for a Sony UX280p that I found a great deal on at Ebay. It was slightly used but came with a bunch of extras including and extended battery, bluetooth keyboard et.al.

I have been waiting because the UMPC specs have been all over the place in terms of speed, battery life and form factor. The most expensive (which is usually the best, right? :-) was up around $2500 bucks, including the port replicator. The least expensive was down around $800 including not a whole-lot!

As my digital lifestyle has included it's acquisitions and upgrades, I realized that if I was going to blog and teach and learn and share what I'm learning, I was going to need a very good PC that was extremely mobile, relatively powerful and hopefully would include some longevity being as how I cannot just willy-nilly purchase whatever, whenever.

My first step in this direction was about eighteen months ago when I purchased my PDA Phone from Sprint - a phone that included the ability to share its EvDO (evolutionary data optimized) Internet connection with other devices through its Bluetooth radio. In other words, I can surf the Internet and get email and blog right from the device itself - and - I can carry another device that can get its Internet connection from this device and it can be bigger, more powerful and easier to blog/post (on & from) while sharing the connections from the PDA. - more later...

OK, it's later... my next step was to obtain a device that could function and display full-sized - non-compromised web pages so I could more easily read & post blogs. For this I chose a Nokia N800. The N800 is a great tool for reading RSS Feeds & Blogs - but, as I found out - not so great for posting.

My solution was to take the leap and buy a UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC. I ended up with a Sony UX280P. I chose this platform for many reasons... price ($1000 from eBay) upgradability, speed, size & platform-type being among them.

UMPC's are in their second generation now. The platform is changing as more & more manufacturers listen more & more to the folks who are starting to buy these useful little beauties. The UMPC can get you on the Internet using a WiFi connection, an Ethernet connection, a Bluetooth connection from your cell phone or an EDGE or EvDo connection from a cellular provider.

I can go from a port-replicated (docked) connection to my PC in my office using my big 19" monitor with full-sized keyboard & mouse - to the living room connected & used as a hand-held, or, I can connect in any of the various ways mentioned above and set the unit on the table using its high-res monitor and type with a wireless Bluetooth keyboard & mouse.

I LOVE it!

The dreaded "DeathWhip"...

As my writing skills and my ideas for this story (blog) develop, the diversity for a while will be extremely varied.

In life, I don't pretend to know everything that's significant, but lately my dreaming seems to be, well, all over the place. Sometimes a series of chase dreams, sometimes sexual, sometimes just darn pleasant. But this morning's dream - well, let me know if you find anything significant.

In my dream, a gorgeous woman and myself were in some sort of a basement playroom spending a nice quiet evening together playing pool... on a u-shaped slot car track where the track, instead of being flat was u-shaped all around it.

Instead of there being slot cars, or even billiard balls... there were stuffed animals all around the track in bunches - laying along the track with long empty spaces with no animals, just track.

I said to her, "I've got my eye on you now, so be careful!" She teasingly replies... "What do you mean, 'you've got your eye on me" with a smile as she was leaning over the track with a pool cue about to make a shot.

I said, "I just wanna make sure you behave!" As she made her shot (with some stuffed animal along the track) she said, "It's not me you have to worry about, it's your dog"... "Why do I need to worry about her?" I said.

I have two dogs, one is an old, overweight Austrailian Sherherd (Daisy) and a young 2 and 1/2-year-old Jack Russell named 'Jasmine'. One of Jasmine's favorite passtimes is destroying stuffed animals. Fisrt the eyes and butt then the stomach and stuffing. Then she just beats it into submission and eventually, it dies.

Anyways, she replied... "you need to be worrying about her grabbing one of thes animals off of this track and subjecting it to the "DeathWhip!" Which is a sort of figure-eight back and forth slamming of the animal into the carpet until it eventually meets it's maker.

so there you have the dreaded "DeathWhip".

When you get that figured out for me, please post a comment below!