TastyAlmonds

Well, it looks like I missed the whole month of September :-/  From the looks of it, this is the first time I’ve ever missed a whole month - check the archive listing below and to the right.

So for now I’ll leave you with a rather short post.  Consider this TastyAlmond: a million monkeys typing on a million typewriters will produce the entire works of Shakespeare in a million years.

Hey everyone, thought I’d pop in here and drop off some TastyAlmonds.

First one is Ronald Jenkees, and here’s the Youtube video that got me hooked. Sometimes you just get moved by music and you have to have it - this is the first album I’ve bought in years!  I really do appreciate all kinds of music (except rap), and this has definately brought a whole new dimension to my palate.

On another note, went to my family reunion last weekend and enjoyed seeing some of the old cousins, new cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and everybody.  We did some shootin’ - trap shooting.  I also got sunburned :-/ It’s what I get for working inside all the time and not getting enough sun I suppose.  Overall it was a great weekend, and it really hit home how much gas costs these days.  It cost nearly $200 to drive to Norwood, Colorado, and back here to Denver.  I didn’t even leave the state! I could have also purchased plane tickets to Las Vegas for less!

My birthday will be this Friday, and I’ve taken the whole weekend off from work.  Good thing I scheduled it so far in advance, because with the Democratic National Convention, everyone is booked up to work at the store to keep up with the expected traffic increase.  Rather than doing that though, I’ll be relaxing and having a mojito or beer or something

That’s it for now folks.  Hope you have a great rest of the week!

Just thought I’d leave a quick little update on the motorcylce here.  I ended up buying an old Honda trail bike from my cousin Paul :-)  Here are the pictures!

So I’ve been looking at alternate modes of transportation and considering once again getting a motorcycle.  Various thoughts and considerations go along with such flights of fancy, and I figured I’d share a few with you.

What it looks like right now is that the lease will be up on the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited I am driving now, and I will need something to replace it. I’d like something that is at home both on the road, and off - much like the Jeep.  I’d also like to see better gas mileage.  Now I’ve always had a special place in my heart for motorcycles, having grown up in the mountains and having experienced what it’s like to take to the trails and back-country roads here in Colorado.

I’ve looked at a few options, and am particularly enamored with a certain BMW at the moment.  I also have seen some pretty neat DIY projects out there, where a person has gone and built themselves an electric motorcycle.  This has considerable appeal for me, since it’d be clean, fuel costs are nearly absent, and I have a background in computer and industrial electronics.  So I’m searching for a dual-sport motorcycle which I could convert.  I’ve already found the motor and speed controller.  I’ve also recently heard from a Chinese manufacturer about prices on some really nice lithium batteries that would work perfectly for this project in my opinion.  All told, I’ve figured on my spreadsheet that given current costs of Jeep and fuel, I could pay off all associated costs of building my electric motorcycle in about 9 or 10 months.  This would be a mode of transportation I could use for years to come, and the only thing really needed maintenance would be some of the various mechanical bits, and maybe in four or five years swapping out some batteries (which with technology progressing as it has, I would expect even higher capacity batteries to be available on the market).

Well, those are my TastyAlmonds for now.  I’ll keep you posted on just what it is I’ll be up to here.

Later this month I’ll be taking a seminar on Happiness.  It’s a one time event, kind of like those happy moments in life - you know, first kiss, first car, first whatever.  That’s an assumption by the way, that your first kiss went well

So knowing this event is up and coming, has me inquiring into what it is that has happiness present in my life.  Many of my friends will also be attending this event, and they too are in this inquiry. One has even been asking the question “If happiness were your one true pursuit, what would you be doing right now?” While I know the answer to that, I find I then go into the mode of “How do I get that?”, i.e. the one true pursuit.  Just so we’re clear, it takes quite a bit of cash to fly to space!

Otherwise, I can look at what I’m currently occupied with, and create my own happiness in this world as it occurs to me now, sans space travel.  I’ve identified things or actions that have me feel happy - good music, signing along with good music in my Jeep, being with friends and having a beer or BBQ, sci-fi movies and shows, etc.  Really though, I think it comes down to my choosing to be happy, such that those things in life occur as happy experiences. I could be grumpy, but that just wouldn’t make life worth living.  I’d much rather be satisfied as a result of creating my own happiness here on the third rock from the sun.

For now, take that TastyAlmond and see where you could apply that into your life.  That’s what I’m doing, and I am finding that somewhere along the way, I’m responsible for my happiness - and that works.