land of confusion

Every now and then teenagers can benefit from some parental guidance - even if it's just help finding their way out of their bedroom on a Saturday morning.

ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz yah later -- EAG

...double shootout, tie-breaking, game winning goal!

Attack of the Killer Volkswagon

Some people really get into their work.

Burp! -- EAG

All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten

That's actually five-year-old "me" second from right.
Notice I don't have a chair like the rest of the children.
I probably didn't belong at that table.
Or maybe I just couldn't stay in my seat.

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

[Source: "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum. See his web site at http://www.robertfulghum.com/ ]

"... and I owe it all to my Kindergarten teacher - my Mom"

That's me second from left. Cousin Rod Robertson, far right, and mom in dashing red. -- EAG

"Oh.. and my Dad too, he's mom's right-hand man"

I thought I should clarify one fact: Dad is actually left-handed. He's still pretty handy though.

-- EAG

the sky's the limit

Driving home from work along Notre Dame Drive I had to pull over and jump out of the vehicle to capture the fading light with the moon so low in the sky. Colours rapidly shifted hues from pink to purple, then to an inky blue-black sky. Wish I was shooting bigger than 300mm for this one.

EAG

winter moon

Fighting fear for fun