Rush “Free Will”

I have wanted to get abducted for years. I have still not seen a green or grey creature on a ship loaded with flashing lights. I am waiting for my alien probe and I don’t mean being raped by an illegal.

It seems the Byrds wanted the abduction experience way back in the ’60’s. Here they are on the Smothers Brothers show with “Mr. Spaceman”.

Now I am off to get pics and the inside story of the festival. I’ll have them up tonite and will continue covering the festival all weekend.

Have a pleasant Independence Day and don’t forget the kids serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Thats one of the top draws for tourism attractions in and around Roswell. There is much more to this city though. We have a small but nice arts community here as well as many parks and nearby mountain fun. I will show you around a bit as the International UFO Festival starts tomorrow and I wont have time for non festival posts for a few days. (hang in there I will get back to my rantings soon.)

A small eastern New Mexico town located on the Pecos River Roswell has been steeped in the cattle industry. Still known as the “Dairy Capitol Of The Southwest” it was on the Chisholm Trail.

This cool sculpture sits downtown across Main Street from the Chaves County Courthouse shown here Ten Commandments out front and all.

In front of that very courthouse I was told my sign memorializing fallen soldiers in Iraq would get me arrested and charged as an enemy combatant.

As you can see they won that one and I no longer carry my memorial sign even though just at the other end of the block there is a big granite or marble memorial standing.

I guess my sign wasn’t fancy enough.

Although this picture has nothing to do with our towns history or attractions I just wanted to remind you that McCain loves Bush and his policies.

I got kinda thirsty taking these snapshots so on the way to the art museum I stopped at our local Mc Donalds for a Coke. The alien theme extends to the business world here as you can see from the flying saucer shaped play area there.

Arbys is in on it too.

As well as the Christian coffee shop.

Even before the crash in 1947 Roswell was steeped in space travel research. Robert Goddard experimented with rockets here from the early 1920’s through the early ’40’s. There is a great exhibit of his workshop and some actual rockets at the Roswell Museum And Art Center.

The museum faces the Spring River.

Yeah, I know. Huh? The river side of that curb is about 18 inches. I have seen it almost to the top once. Kinda seem more like a ditch to me after living in Louisiana for so long.

During World War 2 there was a big POW camp just outside of town. The German inmates were put to work on projects around here and one of the things they did was lay rock walls along the river bed. One day while they were quite unsupervised they laid the rocks in an Iron Cross. The Roswaliens were pissed. A group of citizens poured congrete over the cross to hide it. The mixture was too thin however and soon washed away. It is now a National Monument and there is a small pocket park overlooking it.

The POW’s were treated well here. Nothing like the POW’s are treated in Gitmo today. The people of Germany remembered the treatment and when the Berlin Wall came down they sent our city a piece of the torn down wall. Both a thank you and a symbol of world unity. It sits in the park where the cross is.

The nearby mountains and villages scattered through them offer summer coolness and lots of winter sports. The Bottomless Lakes State Park is just 9 miles east of towm amd the Bitter Lakes Nature Preserve is just minutes from downtown as well. Lots of local wildlife abounds in the area and at the risk of sounding like a travel agent I want to invite y’all to visit.

I will be covering the Festival in the next few days so hang on and stay aboard my big rig to insanity. I may go interstellar on you.

I thought I knew what Pain was. I have experienced some severe pain at different times of my life. I live in a world of constant pain and have fooled myself into believing I knew the worst. I was wrong.

Being the anti narcotic freak I am I chose not to have pain medicine during the post surgery part of the treatment procedure I went through Tuesday and Wednesday. The surgeon inserted a catheter into my back so I could have injections directly to the damaged area in and around my lower spine. The injections had enzymes that break up scar tissue but don’t affect the nerves. The doctor had told me that they would cause “extreme discomfort” so I translated that to mean they would hurt really bad. I didn’t know the agony they would bring. I was brought to tears yesterday morning. I have never experienced pain so extreme.

Doctor Alexander is kind, helpful and very understanding. Even though she knows my adamant stand against my narcotic intake she still recommended the pain meds. Since they wouldn’t let me smoke my weed up there I told her I wasn’t going to have anything. She tried, so the pain I went through was all my fault. When the first post surgery injection hit I felt like my legs had been dipped into boiling water. The severe screaming pain lasted about 5 minutes.
I considered the meds seriously after that injection. When the pain subsided my stubbornness kicked back in and I opted to go through it with the next injections without drugs. I am not sure if I did the right thing but I paid for it.

I felt great between injections and walked around the hospital freely. Feeling kinda grungy I asked the nurse about a razor and a comb. She disappeared into a closet for a moment and returned with both a comb and an old fashioned safety razor. I combed my long hair and prepped my face for shaving. Having scraped my face with disposable shavers with angled blades for so many years I forgot the old style razors were different. Whacked my cheeks and chin up quite severly. I have many cuts to show for it.

Even though the food was bad….not good doesn’t describe it….it was bad, I had a quite pleasant stay in the hospital. I met an old guy that was in extreme pain. He was waiting for a procedure when I met him and he was just down the hall from me the next morning. When I dropped by his room yesterday he smiled and said, “There’s that nice young man from yesterday”. I haven’t been called “young man” for years but when an 84 year old brother calls me that I know 50 seems quite young to him. I visited with a sweet dietician and some kind student nurses. I had a nice physical therapist stop by with instructions on the exercises I need to do to keep better. The nurses aides were all very nice and the lady who cleaned my room was so wonderful. I was so happy to have so many wonderful folks around to help I feel blessed. They were all great and then there was Valerie.

Early Wednesday morning I went out front to have a smoke. The parking lot was empty so I didn’t have to go far to be isolated and not worry about getting caught. They did tell me to bring any regular pain meds with me so the joints I had were following directions…or so I tell myself. I got a nice little buzz on and wandered back into the hospital to await my next scheduled injection. (turned out that was a couple hours away so I shoulda waited to have the weed) I walked back into the wing my room was in and saw a stunning woman walking down the hall towards me.

“Rocky, I presume.” she said. “I’m Valerie and I’ll be your nurse today. Doctor Alexander will be up shortly but for now is there anything I can do for you?”

Her sincere smile made her even more beautiful. Her friendly attitude and the obvious care for her patients made me feel comfortable and I knew that I would be cared for well. I wasn’t disappointed. Her kindness lasted all day. I’m sure I bugged her but she treated me as if she had nothing else to do except care for me. We all know that nurses do all of the work and the doctors couldn’t even find their own prescription pad without them so we know she was busy but she never let on that I wasn’t the most important patient in her day.

Her smile was unwavering. Her sweetness never faded, even for a frustrated moment. She jumped to help and even took time to chat for a minute here and there. Cheery and happy she made my ordeal much easier. The pain faded quickly because of her presence. I thought when I left…”Damn. If I were only 20 years younger”.
Yeah….she was that special.

All in all it wasn’t a bad experience. The pain was intense but brief. The care was good and even though I had to go to the cafeteria to get Rice Krispies (no way the hospital cooks can screw up cereal) I feel rewarded by the people that came into my life. Even if it was during a short stay in the hospital.

But I am back and I feel ok.

Springsteen.

Listen to what he says before breaking into “Livin’ In The Future”

The Big Muddy is set to overflow in Iowa and Illinois. The levee system there isn’t high enough to keep the big river back.

Reading so much about this brings me back to when I left Louisiana on the Thursday morning after Katrina hit. Days after the flooding started FEMA is still asessing the way to help. Not really doing much except looking.

We left that day heading west on Hwy. 190 til we got to I-49 north at Opelousas. There were rescue crews form all points north and west lined up on the shoulder of the freeway headed south towards New Orleans. I-49 ends at Lafayette and Hwy 90 continues to N.O. from there. The FEMA rats had all of the volunteers stopped and forbidden to go any farther. Fire departments, water rescue groups and hospital/emergency health folks had poured from their hometowns to rush to the needs of a city which had fallen to disaster, but the feds wouldn’t allow them to go do the work they had gone for.

I wonder if the people of Iowa and Illinois will think about this response and equate it to the FEMA disaster that was the Gulf Coast just a couple of years ago. Wonder if they will vote according to the response come November.

The Political Cat wonders which of the candidates you would want to be in office if disaster hits your town. McSameolBushit or the kid with the big ears who actually turned a hand to help?

(UPDATE) Sorry if I gave the impression we were Katrina Victims. We had moved to Roswell one month before and had just returned to get our last load of furniture and stuff. We were just as appaled as we would have been if we had still lived there though. We were some of the lucky ones.

On a forum I visit, and sometimes contribute to, some of the members sling bitter barbs and insults freely. Political and social issues are argued there with a venomous, name calling fervor. Some of the people on the forum are so ready with names for those with opposing views. A couple have a long standing feud that seems to drive some of their posts. One with extreme right wing views the other extreme left.

“M” is always ready to find flaws in “P”’s statements and calls him a filthy liar. “P” counters with slurs and name calling that equates “M” with the commies of the outdated Soviet Union. Both “know” they are right and the other therefor has to be wrong. It’s an interesting online fight. They hate each other. Or so you’d think.

But this weekend I saw how their relationship really is. No matter how opposite their world views are they still would not let the other down in an emergency. “P” lives in an area affected by the fires in the Santa Cruz mountains while “M” lives in town. When the fire was threatening “P”’s home and evacuation orders were coming down “M” offered his home as a refuge. An act of community and kindness toward his neighbor.

Shows how folks look past differences when the chips are down. No matter how different they are they can still be friends.

At least for now.

Representatives Barny Frank of Massachusetts and Ron Paul of Texas introduced House Bill 5843 back in April. The bill would allow users of marijuana to possess and smoke the herb without federal penalties. This would surely cover medical marijuana patients in the states where it is legal now. While the bill allows for states to make their own laws concerning possession many states already have decriminalized small amounts and some have laws legalizing it for medicinal purposes.

While this bill is still in front of 2 committees I urge you to write your representatives in support of this bill. I will provide you with two links that have an article as well as easy links to write to your congress persons. WashingtonWatch.com

and the NORML site.

Jerry musta been feeling good this day.

Grateful words to live by ’til you are Dead.

Short and to the point.

After my years growing up in a fundamentalist preachers home I had a lot of the Christian Bible shoved into my head. Stories and parables still haunt me to this day. Lots of legends passed down through the eons. I believed them as infallible until I realized that any traditional fable will get changed and re-interperted over the years as they are passed down from generation to generation.

One of my favorite was the story of Moses and the “Children Of Israel” wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years. Culminating at Mount Sinai with the tablets written by God, a commanding set of rules for mankind to live by, the journey is talked about to this day. I liked that the benevolent god would feed them every morning with food from heaven that was laying around when the sun came up. What a cool idea. Manna, just waiting to be picked up.

Over the years in my life I have harvested a lot of mushrooms from cow fields and pine forests. You know the kind. Natures acid. Fun stuff….most of the time. The best time to pick is early morning, just after the sun warms the earth enough for the fungus to start expanding. Where there was nothing the night before a big fluffy shroom would appear.

No wonder the folks wandered around for 4 decades. Hallucinogenics are confusing to those who ingest them. If they can help make a person think they should follow a band, like the Grateful Dead, around the world in todays time searching for that perfect “Promised Land” or “Dark Star” like I did. I’m sure that those on an ancient quest for the promised land had more than one trippy experience that led them to strange paths that they got lost on as well. But that was just my uneducated theory, until today when I found out that Moses could have been tripping when he climbed the mountain and “talked to God”.

Here is an article that explains that theory. Kinda nice to see my theory about trippin’ in ancient times has a little foundation.

I was surprised and confused last night when I saw the nomination for my blog in a post at Rotus. I first ran into Clark over there during Blogroll Amnesty Day. His site was great and informative plus he runs a book review site, as well as another blog that reviews music.

I read his blog often and was humbled that he would nominate me for an Excellent rating here in Blog World.

It seems that one of the conditions of this award nomination is to nominate 10 blogs myself. I started looking through my blogroll, as well as looking around to see what others I could add when I ran across another of my blogging hero’s post of his 2 awards for excellence. I was nominated for another award by Stephen over at Drinking Liberally In New Milford.

His Connecticut based blog was the first blogroll exchange I had after I started my humble site on Christmas Eve. I have gotten a lot of inspiration and knowledge from him if he knows it or not.

So in keeping with the tradition I had to come up with not ten but twenty nominations to pass along. I would have gladly given my top 2 nominations to them but I’m not sure they would have wanted to have to go into finding 10 more blogs to nominate so I guess they will have to just receive my thanks and know I will always be Gratefully Deadicated to keeping their blog sites in the forefront here on the big rig of insanity.

Now trying to find sites that are worthy of this award is easy. There are so many great opinions and writers out in Blog World it is hard to narrow the field down to just 20. There are political sites, humor sites and ones that promote the legalization of medical marijuana. Music sites, photo sites and just junk sites that make me laugh. I don’t know where to start.

I think the blogs that deal with the “War On Terror” and bringing our troops home while ending this stupid thing are my highest priorities so I will concentrate on them and try to keep this whole thing fair. Now the tough part. Narrowing the field down will be a task for sure. So here goes. Bear with me in my struggle.

In no particular order or level of priority they are;

Redneck Liberal

The man is out for surgery right now but he deserves this award based on the presentation and content of his blog site. I visit his site often and read his sometimes hilarious look at scary issues. (Get Well Soon)

The Political Cat

Obviously the love for cats can’t overshadow the love for our world and mankind.

ViceZilla

This blog proves the old Grateful Dead adage, “Sometimes you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right”.

My View Of “It”

Carol’s place for peace. Full of humor and political insight with a womans slant.

Clarks Picks

Reviews and stuff about music from blues to jazz. probably some other styles thrown in. I know this site brings me tuneage I have either forgotten about or never heard. Take a music break. Give it a listen.

Ted’s Soapbox 2.0

Along with an almost daily update from Ted’s life this blog takes you into the world as he sees it.

Guys From Area 51

Being from Roswell, NM myself I thought the name of this blog was interesting. (the Air Force moved the bodies and wreckage from here to Nevada after the controversial crash in 1947. many think area 51 is in Roswell when it is actually just north of Las Vegas, Nevada) After reading it I realized they were as serious about our world as I am. Looking at it through shattered glasses they present the news in an unique way.

Alternate Brain

When I first linked to this site I wondered about the camoflauge and soldier oriented images. But with their military service in mind these guys are the ones who have the most to say. And they say it well.

Obsidian Wings

The winged folks claim to be the voice of moderation…I’ll let you decide if that is true.

Let me know if you think they are right.

Morningsideways View

How the world looks from New York. Educated and opinionated he writes it as he views it.

There are the first ten. Wheewww. That was time consuming yet not tedious. I looked at articles and video’s while I was getting this done. It is much more entertaining than I thought it would be. Actually I am enjoying the latest posts while I am making the decisions. Here’s ten more.

Grateful Dissident

Deadheads were sometimes politically outspoken even before Bob Wier and the remaining Dead endorsed Obama. This head’s views are open and are sprinkled with Jerrylicious Grateful Dead videos throughout this informative blog.

A Poetic Justice

Using poetry this blog begs folks not to burn the flag. Just wash it.

FreeDetainees

Linda brings those forgotten victims of the administration back into the light. Our mainstream media and even the Blog World has seemed to have forgotten the prisoners of “The War On Terror”.

The Daily Scare

A think tank of diverse writers contribute to this well presented blog. Lots of good stuff on here.

Left Wing Nut Job

Claiming the right to be left of center it is. Wishing I sometimes had the guts to shout the things they do.

The Liberal Doomssayer

Opening our eyes to impending doom…well, let’s fix it then.

the s.n.a.f.u. principle

Situation Normal. These posts are far from fucked up.

House Of The Rising Sons

Constitutional literalism at it’s finest.

I Was Just Wondering

After discovering this blog lately I have been wondering as well. It’s a newly found daily read for me.

Last Left Turn Before Hooterville

I clicked on this one from Drinking Liberally a while back. The fact that the author has a Great Dane mix caught my eye. As many readers know I just lost my Dane a few weeks ago so my tears from my loss clouded my reading. I kept reading though and was impressed this busy woman would have time to do such a great site. 2 cats, 4 kids and a Dalmation/Dane are a lot of work. Then add the husband factor…well maybe I should have put her at the top of the list.

Like I said though, No order or preference went into the list.

Again I thank Stephen and Clark for awarding these to me and I hope to live up to their expectations.

The peace sign

turns fifty today. It was first used for a march on a nuclear weapons facility. For a story about it with links to a newspaper article go to our friend Ted’s Page.

13 is my lucky number. People have a strange idea that 13 is unlucky. Some believe that it brings bad tides and omens. Some feel that only bad things can happen on the 13th of the month, especially Fridays,but the 13th of November, 1999 was one of the luckiest days of my life. I met KittyKitty for the first time.

The 13th pup from a litter of 16 he was the most adorable thing I had ever seen when it came to puppies. I picked him to be mine on the day he was born. I didn’t know he would eventually pick me to be his as well.  8 years later I still look at him as the best dog a guy could have had. He was truly my best friend.

Today he went to that great sofa in the sky. I’ve heard they have pools of nacho cheese with bacon floating in them. Soft couches are everywhere and there are plenty of kids to play with. Love abounds and more companions than he’ll know what to do with. Dogs and people hang out together and that other one, (god is just dog spelled backwards) will make sure he has everything he ever wants. He wont be in pain any more either. The last few months weren’t pain free for him but they will be now, forever.

I have so many wonderful memories of my close friend and when I struggle through my grief I guess they will be very comforting. Please listen to the If You Get Confused post today. It is a fitting song for his memory.  The Grateful Dead always had a way of stealing my face right off my head and Kitty took it with him. I don’t need it anymore.

Sorry I haven’t posted in a few days but making sure his last few days were comfortable took a higher priority as well as much of my time.

He isn’t in pain anymore. I loved him so.

Osama bin Laden’s son is a peace activist. Omar and his wife Jane Browne are planning an event across Africa to call for world peace.

“Of course, many may have a hard time getting their mind around the idea of “bin Laden: peacenik.” Omar said last week.story here

George W and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke are trying to buy the favor of the American people it seems. They call it stimulating the economy through tax breaks, extending unemployment benefits and increasing benefits to welfare recipients. They figure dumping 100 billion back into the economy will keep us out of a recession. Maybe so but I think its just another ploy to gain favor for Republicans in the upcoming elections. Story link.