What’s Really In Store For 2010?
Recently, a long time blogging friend Glenn shut down an older blog of his and started over again by moving to a new site located here. In reading his first post of the new blog, Glenn said something that resonated with me deeply.
I needed to get out of the past and into the present with an eye on the future
That’s really what this year is all about for me as well. I think that in 2009, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to replace what had been lost instead of looking to the horizon, spreading my wings and opening myself to everything that should have been new. As such, I did nothing except to stagnate myself. This epiphany came to me in a rush at the end of 2009 and I vowed that this year would be about me and my journey…just me. 2010 is about retreating to a place within myself and trying to find the person who laughs from his belly and has a positive outlook instead of always being negative, grumpy and ready to chew the head off of anyone who looks at him the wrong way. I want to find the person who goes from day-to-day not worrying about the little shit in life because most of it can’t be changed any damn way. I want to find the child within me again who is fascinated by pretty much everything. This year is also going to be about renewing my relationship with God. In 2009, I started laying blame for everything that went wrong and I let it and him go. Fortunately for me, He is not like me and I know that He has waited for me to come back like the prodigal son.
Today, I had the most bizarre conversation with my ex-wife. We started talking and she let it slip out that she “might” have a date in a couple of weeks. I got her to talk to me about it and I found that I was genuinely interested in what was going on in her life. I have found that we now get along better than we ever did when we were married and we certainly communicate far better. I talk about this because it is testimony to that which has happened to me in the last month; I have let go of the past.
I am now living in the present and although I know there is a future and that I am definitely headed there, it’s murky at best. I still don’t see light at the end of the tunnel. For that matter, where the hell is the end of the tunnel? Does anybody really know that? What I do know is that my eyes have become accustomed to the darkness of the past and they allow me to see clearly even though the present is still somewhat dark.
The best thing about clarity in the dark is that when the ray of light finally makes itself seen, it’s going to light up EVERYTHING! That’s worth looking forward to.
First Nominee For The 2010 Darwin’s Award
Acting on a citizen’s tip, police in Marathon Florida located and confiscated six marijuana plants on an empty lot. Detectives then left a “ransom note” at the location which said this:
“Thanks for the grow. You want them back? Call for a price…..let’s talk”
Twenty minutes later as they’re sitting around joking about the ransom note, the phone rings and it’s some guy wanting to get his plants back. Detectives negotiated a price of $200 with the guy and then met him on a nearby street corner. The man gladly paid the $200 to these detectives not knowing who they were and was subsequently arrested for Cultivating and Selling Marijuana and Possession of Paraphernalia. Officers also confiscated a detailed log of his grow operation. The guy even had names for his plants.
OMG! Never name your stuff. What was he thinking??
Click here for the whole story at CNN Justice.
What If I Went Left
A few weeks before the end of the year, I remember reading a discussion in a forum somewhere that led into Quantum Theory; more specifically the part being that for every decision that we make, a parallel universe is created where that decision is lived out (and so on and so on and so on). This makes for an interesting thought process because quite literally, the number of universes would be, well, numberless.
I think that it might have had something to do with my train of thought at the time, but it occurred to me that if this theory held any water at all, then somewhere out there, there is a Mike who has made all the right decisions. He turned left when he was supposed to turn left, turned right when he was supposed to turn right, met all his goals and achieved all of his dreams. I was very encouraged to consider the possibility that there was a Mike who had it all. Then reality pounced down upon my head like a softball size hail cluster. If that Mike exists then there is also a Mike out there who has for his entire life made all the wrong decisions, never accomplished anything and is completely miserable. Both these Mike’s lack a very important trait – experience. Neither of them ever learned anything from their choices.
I certainly don’ t have a lack of both good and poor choices so I look forward to this year with great anticipation. It’s time, as The Oracle might say, for me to understand the choices that I have made. 2010 is a time for me to be selfish. It’s a time for me to truly sit back, be alone and try and figure out who Mike is again.
I know he’s in here somewhere
United Breaks Guitars
If you haven’t seen this yet, it’s a hoot! Another testimony about how careless airline employees are with our belongings. Fantastic!!
The Best of 2009
The best of 2009? Almost a contradiction in terms from where I sit here in front of my computer. This year has been such a roller coaster ride that the best thing about 2009 is that it’s almost over!! As this year comes to its end and Christmas has passed, I find myself in a calmer, more serene state of mind and actually looking forward to what 2010 has in store for me. I think that my goal for 2010 is to simply take it as it comes and not get so involved in the what if’s and the oh shits. I simply need to continue to remind myself that there is some type of lesson in everything that happens; whether that be good or bad and to accept them both with equal amounts of enthusiasm. Yeah right!! We’ll see how that works out.
With that in mind, here are the years end stats for the last 365 days here at Simply A Night Owl.
The busiest day was October 8th with 263 visits.
The busiest week saw 1006 visits.
The busiest month was November with 3,676 visits.
The top four posts of the year were
“Live Long and Prosper“ (I guess people really thought they’d be reading something about Star Trek)
“If This Wasn’t So Sad, It Would Be Funny“
“Deception“
“Standing At The Crossroads” (This must have been a popular place this year)
Looking back at the year, I really didn’t write all that much. Even so, my favorites are
“Keep God In The Pledge“
“This Got Me Thinking” Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3
The top referrers for 2009 are
http://garrettwalker.com/today_at/latest.php
Nicholas at Sansego
Nicole at A Journey Worth Taking
Nate at Defined
The top “clicks” from this blog were all pictures that are included in posts except for one. Apparently, people want to know which Star Trek Character they are. I’ve taken this several times over the last year and always come up with this answer.
My absolute favorite category is Search Engine Terms. These are what people have been searching for that have brought them to visit with me and these are the top four from 2009.
1. Crossroads
2. Live Long and Prosper response (Important info for our day and age)
3. Deception (I’m guessing not the same people looking for the live long and prosper response since everyone knows that Vulcan’s are incapable of lying)
4. Positive Thinking
Some of the more interesting search terms have been pain although not specifically whether the desire is giving or receiving, pandora’s box which I have opened on many an occassion and will gladly give it away to the highest bidder, jedi squirrels in order to keep peace in the parks and hunt down those two elusive sith squirrels and getting out of bed which of course cannot be answered at a blog called Simply A Night Owl. Hello?? Finally, it amazes me how many people want to know more about Ensign Ricky.
Have a great new year and I’ll see ya next year!!
Police Harassment
This is an oldie but I still think that it’s great.
Recently, the XXXXXXX Police Department ran an e-mail forum (a questionand answer exchange) with the topic being, “Community Policing.” One of the civilian email participants posed the following question, “I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it?”
From the “other side” (the law enforcement side) Sgt. XXXXXXX, obviously a cop with a sense of humor replied:
“First of all, let me tell you this…it’s not easy. In XXXXXXXXXX , we average one cop for every 600 people. Only about 60% of those cops are on general duty (or what you might refer to as “patrol”) where we do most of our harassing. The rest are in non-harassing departments that do not allow them contact with the day to day innocents. And at any given moment, only one-fifth of the 60% patrolers are on duty and available for harassing people while the rest are off duty. So roughly, one cop is responsible for harassing about 5,000 residents.
When you toss in the commercial business and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 10,000 or more people a day. Now, your average ten-hour shift runs 36,000 seconds long. This gives a cop one second to harass a person, and then only three-fourths of a second to eat a donut AND then find a new person to harass. This is not an easy task. To be honest, most cops are not up to this challenge day in and day out. It is just too tiring.
What we do is utilize some tools to help us narrow down those people which we can realistically harass. The tools available to us are as follows:
PHONE: People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus on a person for special harassment. “My neighbor is beating his wife” is a code phrase used often. This means we’ll come out and give somebody some special harassment. Another popular one is, “There’s a guy breaking into a house.” The harassment team is then put into action.
CARS: We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars with no insurance or no driver’s licenses and the like. It’s lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light. Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, they are drunk, or have an outstanding warrant on file.
RUNNERS: Some people take off running just at the sight of a police officer. Nothing is quite as satisfying as running after them like a beagle on the scent of a bunny. When you catch them you can harass them for hours.
STATUTES: When we don’t have PHONES or CARS and have nothing better to do, there are actually books that give us ideas for reasons to harass folks. They are called “Statutes”; Criminal Codes, Motor Vehicle Codes, etc… They all spell out all sorts of things for which you can really mess with people. After you read the statute, you can just drive around for awhile until you find someone violating one of these listed offenses and harass them. Just last week I saw a guy trying to steal a car. Well, there’s this book we have that says that’s not allowed. That meant I got permission to harass this guy. It is a really cool system that we have set up, and it works pretty well. We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass and we get away with it. Why? Because for the good citizens who pay the tab, we try to keep the streets safe for them, and they pay us to “harass” some people.
Next time you are in my town, give me the old “single finger wave.” That’s another one of those codes. It means, “You can’t harass me.” It’s one of our favorites.
Authors Note: The name of the department and name of the officer have been removed since there is no way to confirm that this actually came from there or them. Aside from that, I really wish I had a dime for every time I’ve been told that I was harassing someone!! 
When Prayer Becomes Gossip.
This post, originally published on January 3, 2009, has been brought to the top because there has been a recent comment that I believe could benefit from the input and discussion of everyone who reads here and not just me. Please feel free to give some input.
Mike
_______________________________________________________
One of the worst things about the human condition is that eventually, it takes over everything else – including the best of intentions and for that matter, common sense. Where’s this coming from you ask? Let me give you one of what is probably one of a thousand examples.
I’m sure that some of us have heard of prayer groups; some of us have probably participated in them. Prayer groups are powerful in that they are small, intense and focused on intercession for those in need and at first, that’s what it’s all about. It doesn’t seem to stay that way though. At the outset, people get together and they are focused on prayer and that’s all they do. Eventually, prayer must be worked up to by a group discussion of people’s needs. Since people come to the group with prayer matters, this in and of itself is also not a bad thing. What happens is that this pre-prayer discussion eventually becomes a forum for the group to decide what it is that people need prayer for and eventually, there is more talk about perceived problems being done than there is prayer. At this stage we’re talking about people instead of just praying for them and the whole idea seems pretty superficial.
My advice ~ if you are going to form or be involved in a prayer group then pray…and that’s all. The most powerful prayer group prays what is laid on their hearts to pray at the time and when there is silence, they know that the Spirit is praying with them and for them. When humans take the time to discuss and decide who needs prayer and more importantly why, prayer becomes nothing more than gossip and the intent morphs into a desire for God to change the behavior that we perceive as being wrong. In this case, we are putting our will above His will.
Can you share an experience where the human condition took over something pure and good and made it something different?
50,000
I was noticing today that this blog gets more traffic when I’m not writing than when I am. What’s up with that??? At any rate, I have crossed the 50,000 visitor mark so I guess I will continue “sporadic writing”.
Thanks to all who have stopped by!!
On Facebook, Mafia Wars and Addiction
I have found that I have a very addictive personality. If you don’t believe that, then I invite you to go through every single post in this blog, map out my journey and come to your own conclusions.
There’s a game on Facebook that I have been playing since I first heard of its existence. It’s called Mafia Wars. The object of the game is simple, get experience to advance to the next level. This is done by doing jobs, winning fights and building a large family. As the game has progressed, its writers have added more and more to the game in order to keep it interesting and I, in my infinite capacity to be drawn into something like that, played right along with it. I even tried to quit playing a few times only to find myself right back into the game the next week. I played to the point where I spent money to get points to achieve more and allowed people who I didn’t even know to become “friends” just so I could add them to my family.
The other day as I was sitting here staring at my computer screen and playing, it occurred to me that it had reached the addiction level. I would play before I went to bed and it was the first thing I did when I got up. There were times when I would actually sit there and hit the refresh on my live feed so I could watch what my family was doing to see it I could get in there and assist them because it aided me in my climb up the ladder. Then I remembered that my primary reason for signing up for Facebook was that it was a method of staying in touch with friends. It even actually has put me in touch with people I have not seen in years so as a tool for interaction, it has been invaluable. I think though that is where it needs to stay.
My life has been in such a state of flux in the last year and there has been much that I have ignored simply because I have escaped into cyberspace; and Mafia Wars provided a great way to escape. Those days are over though and now it’s time to get back to priorities and to try and figure out exactly where I belong in this “real game” called life. So if you want to interact with me, I’ll still be here and I’ll even still be around on my Facebook page. I just won’t be living there anymore.
Off to the decompression chamber…
