YzGuise

http://createfan.com/

2011-12-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

http://createfan.com/
Awesome visualization of your genealogy. You will need to have a free registration to the genealogy site but the output is awesome to look at. Go try it especially at Christmas time when family means so much more.

Pain

2011-11-08T13:54:00.001-07:00

Oh Pain! How can you come?
Invited by others but much more than none.
The bittersweet calling that man must endure
is a challenging song, that he cant sing for sure.
As it beats at the heart of a man that is losing
his calling, his power, the souls of his choosing,
to a cold bitter foe based in humanity
full of pride and of youth and of anger towards thee.
In the end only hope leads him back to whole
and this losing sting will someday go
replaced by a knowledge that he stares at his past
and what he did, who he hurt, what hope he dashed.
How to go on? memories cry when looking back.
The forward chapters seem written in black
and this moment I seem to come undone.
Oh Pain! How can you come?

Drop

2011-10-28T16:37:00.004-06:00

The water starts dripping like yesterday's storm
returning to haunt me like pictures long gone.
The trails of the drops sting my heart as they land
on a spot black with passing, alive now it stands.
A deep memory made by the passing of years,
the smile of our lives and the frowns of our fears.
The brier this now fosters quick melts the eye
but stings the finger for it's picking's a lie
Either to keep or to toss it matters not
an invincible, unforgiving, endless lot.
The drop turns to puddle, to pool then to flood,
in the dark depth you fade to the stain of dried blood.
The wind beats my face as it bursts in loud screams
was it me or your chest as it gave its last heave?
I come back to real life with so many around,
breathing deeply, watching internal tears that fall down.
My arms are as empty as last night and before
of your presence, your guidance and strength which you bore.
Why? Why? Why so soon is this here?
No answer, no one, but just one more tear.

One's self...

2011-09-27T13:01:00.000-06:00

One of the hardest personal things we can do is to look inside and communicate the feelings we have to others. Now in some instances we can find a soul that has been in an almost identical situation and therefore the explanations just snaps into place sometimes with minimal words. Most times though we cannot, with adequacy, place the vision of our inner being in a place that it can be understood.

For those who know, I am not a man that is lacking for words or opinion or even in the most part communicating difficult subjects. I have, however, found great difficulty in expressing the avalanche of emotions that have enveloped my existence in the last year or even in the last 5 years, realistically. My difficulties most times hidden from view have created a lot of turbulence in my soul and have probably resulted in changing behavior patterns as well as abnormally high levels of stress.

As that level increases it becomes much harder to contain the raw emotion inside myself. I know my attempts to swallow that energy are not healthy but the alternate of unleashing it on the world goes against my view of my responsibility to those around me. This concept also hinders me from accepting help from others. I bury the emotion, motivations and fears so deep in me that its almost a physical battle to retrieve them to share.

The difficulty then lies in my perception that another will adequately treat the emotions as I express them. To trust the insight, the vision, the understanding. That is tough. Maybe it is my arrogance at understanding myself or maybe it is a reluctance to let anyone stumble trying. Maybe I just don't trust that I have done the right amount of research into myself to do myself justice.

Knowing what I know about people we look into ourselves and see a mural painted by emotion not logic. Sure we can analyze external data to build a logical solution but what we see when we turn the looking glass into our soul is pure emotion. Pure emotion rarely leads us to the real problems and real answers. Emotion is, by it's nature, the reaction of the real problem or the truth.

Evaluating this facade and pulling out the author of our emotions in order to deal with it takes a practiced eye and a disciplined psyche. It doesn't happen overnight and most often it takes the insight from others who don't have a vision clouded by our emotions.

Just as one becomes a master craftsman, or a professional athlete practice and hard work spent looking within ourselves for real problems and real solutions will make us masters of human relationships.

Emotional Cancer

2011-05-25T12:14:00.000-06:00

anger blinds
blood in the eyes

objects a mere haze
reality too

like explosions
blinding spots in the eyes
happen in the distance
not in your soul

a cancer
that is only valid
for a brief time
then it eats you

without question
one by one gone
sight, mind, heart, soul
like ashes blowing away

never returning
never put together again
by anyone
but you

stop now
save yourself
save emotional pollution
save your world

give your pain
to the one
not others
not yourself

it is your only hope.

Thats Heavy!

2011-05-04T14:16:00.000-06:00

Marty you keep mentioning how everythings heavy, why is that what happens in the future does gravity change?
-Doc Brown

Great movie line from a great series of Movies. Old Doc Brown had something here. Although it was a popular catch phrase to Marty that meant nothing more than "WOW!", Doc brown took it as something altogether different.

What happens in the future that we would consider as heavy or "Wow!" These things seem like a vision to us a "will happen", a hope or a nightmare. Depending on the reality of these visions they could be something that will eventually happen like graduating high school or college and moving into a real career, getting married, winning the lottery, in the converse growing old and the effects of an aging human body for ourselves or our family.

As human nature would hold true we obsess on those things that are of a positive outcome and we repress thoughts of the worst. Both activities can lead to worse than expected doses of reality in the end when we are saying out loud "Thats Heavy!"

It is definitely a tough balance. How to be cautiously optimistic allowing this optimism to drive our ambition while knowing and planning for the worst without slipping into a funk because of what will happen...someday.

Many "somedays" came due the last few months for me. We don't always know how these "somedays" will manifest themselves. Maybe that is one of the things that complicates our ability to prepare for
them.

Part of me really thinks this is one of the perspectives that has to be learned the hard way. Its not quite as simple as getting burned by touching a hot pan. That self preservation change comes much more quickly and takes less proof of consequence.

Only through experience do we understand human life do we understand ourselves. Only then can we temper enthusiasm to realistic levels or deal with the tragedies in a way that we will be able to continue to function and carry on. This is the grace of watching our elders speak and recount and testify...they have been there.

I am not there yet even though I have a bag of memories and experiences meant to bring me around. Maybe I am getting a lot closer than I think.

Look into my eyes can you see the tears shed by my father in pain or the resignation in his soul? Is there disappointment, frustration, fear reflected in steel iron bars? Can you smell on me the almost sickening floral small from spreads of funeral flowers or nostril burning hospital rooms? How about the fresh cut grass covering my mother? Can you hear the quivering in my voice over the results of my failed choices or the danger to my children?

If not then I hide it well and may be on my way.

The surface does not give way to the upheaval that goes on underneath just as the pain will never diminish the upheaval will just be controlled and channeled by the perspective of the change.

Now...that's Heavy!

What I believe, What they believe

2011-04-19T14:56:00.000-06:00

Over my lifetime I have developed a system of belief as we all have. It is based on many influences that directly happened to us or they may have happened to our ancestors. These have molded and shaped what we are today.

With me, religion is ingrained. As I live ceremonies, rituals or methods of every day living are based in tradition usually representing a mortal form of some spiritual concept. This is a way for us mortals to understand or grasp things of faith or things that are otherwise difficult to wrap our minds around.

As I have matured in thinking my views of religion expanded and actually became less black and white over the years. I am very observant of cultures. They fascinate me and religious culture is just as interesting as as say some ethnic culture. Because of this I don't shut out others, I listen intently and am very interested in the similarities.

Now It is often that the methods, outcomes and goals of other religions don't overwhelmingly match up with the tenets of Mormonism, but I do find many times that some practice rituals that could very easily apply to my beliefs and prove valuable.

One religion that is fascinating to many LDS members is Judaism. Why so? Well what is practiced today is what was practiced by many of the Prophets we learn from even today. Because the establishment of the Jewish beliefs are so steeped in their tradition as well the similarities between what is practiced today and what was practiced in the time of Jesus are not far removed. In addition the existence of the Jewish State does not directly compete with the beliefs of Mormonism rather it is the religion that was established and had existed for hundreds or years prior to the Christ establishing the new Law.

For these reasons I look intently upon what they do as if I was viewing a bit from my past. It is enchanting for the same reason Watching Saving private Ryan was enchanting to me. Now I don't mean in the sense of complete pleasure other than the pleasure I derive from knowing, seeing examples of and near living my past and the past of my family.

Today I read about the Jewish community in Utah. As you can imagine, Utah is not known for the large Jewish presence however on this day I am presented with one of these culture learning experiences thank you to the KSL.com. I paused to think this is probably the same curiosity which draws others to pictures and stories about Mormonism.

A picture of a Jewish family that had gathered all the chametz from their house. Chametz is all items that are leavened. The Leavening is symbolic of one's arrogance and self awareness. They had then taken the chametz and burned it as a symbol of resetting ones self in humility and modesty. They do this at the beginning of Passover or the commemoration of the birth of the Jewish people.

This is a fascinating principle and the symbolism is something that could easily be taught in a LDS Sunday school class. This just strengthens my current vision of our existence. While I will always hold that God and Christ require an order be fulfilled in order to return to the presence of God. Even so, many have truth that can and will enhance my life and my chances and being successful in this life and hereafter if I just open my mind to hear and see the truths they know and teach.

“Never seek to exult over others' faults; deal sympathetically with the errors and mistakes of others; hear onlygood things about them; and do not give an ear to scandals.” - Atharva Veda

Sarah

2011-03-07T00:49:00.000-07:00

So long ago just a blip in time
when you came here to stay
only a memory,
a stop along the way.

A figment almost yet I held your hand
such a small human footprint
touching my skin.
with no glint.

I know the reasoning,
no doubt what you are now,
but the loss of potential
still stings in us how.

You have great company
my mom and her's too.
They can talk about the would have beens
or could have beens with you.

Help us all how you can
as you watch us struggle.
Be a happy high five
a comfort shoulder for trouble.

We don't see what you do
probably couldn't and live on
in a world so imperfect
you couldn't stay long.

So this thought in passing
on the day that you touched.
Til the would haves and could haves
are the here now not was.

Sarah Lorraine Burge 3.7.2000

2011-03-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

I know we as humans have so many responsibilities and stressors . The daily onslaught of choices and decisions we have to make can be daunting to the best. Yet we do it. We do, however spend an inordinate amount of time trying to explain away choices that we make of which we know are based in very self serving reasons.

While most choices affect more than ourselves some are intentionally targeted against our fellow beings. They can be good or bad. When we act in a good way to affect others lives we are called selfless and then there are the choices that intentionally hurt others. Those are shameful.

The worst however are the choices that we make in which we sacrifice the happiness and well being of others to fulfill selfish motives. It may be money it may be comfort or safety. Some even mortgage the future of others for our moment of glory or the temporary monetary windfall.

Even the worst of us still take pause, when we make a decision that is poor or harmful to make it right within ourselves.

Justification.

Yeah...what an evil device. While I think the worst among us miss little sleep over harmful choices because they have reached a point of desensitization. The tool Justification allows a majority of us to function in relative peace of mind when we make particularly harmful choices even if it is rare that we intentionally do so.

Justification takes on many forms just as a normal tool box has many tools that might get a particular job done. We could argue the degree to which each justification tool is evil in nature I think none is despised by all as much as the tool of religious justification.

Now by Religious justification I am not referring to legitimate reasoning based on religion. I am talking disingenuous use of religion. The crusades for instance where evil men used religious reasons to eliminate all opposition and murderously acquire goods and services. They used religion and religious terminology and practices to hide the disgustingly self serving, larceny and lust filled behaviors.

In doing so they helped eliminate any scrutiny on their actions and choices purely because it is based in Religion. Most religions utilize the principle of faith to bridge the gap that our human eyes cannot see past. There are many legitimate reasons for the use of faith by God these are not in dispute here. What this principle opens up is however.

Because Faith is believing those things which are not seen (or provable) which are true. Men and women that choose to use religion as a justification for their harmful or poor choices tap this as a weak spot. If you cannot see or prove my justifications origin then you cannot question it if I merely state it is true because God Told Me So.

I will tell you this though, after observing and pondering on this for a while, Whether you believe in God or just understand the basis for which others believe in a God I am sure we all can say with a surety that any God one would believe in would shudder with utter contempt and rage at any followers who would dare to carry out selfish harmful and destructive acts in his or her name. Even if the justification is only in your own soul I would not want to face an explanation of that magnitude at the judgment.

For those who use religious justifications to sway public opinion or to negate critical assessment of your choices will not pass judgment here on earth for I want the full judgment to occur in front of any God which you choose to represent. I will say you have not fooled me. The fruits of your choices damn you here on earth and prove they are not of any God. Ultimately, you and your family will suffer for your choices of greed and self service on earth and most likely in heaven.

There is always forgiveness. God knows we do these things and has created a big hammer that we can use to fix these errors we are guilty of. Unfortunately it is a two handed tool. You cannot use both at the same time. Sadly, for many, I don’t think that tool has even the smallest chip of paint.

Jan 28th, forever

2011-01-28T15:48:00.000-07:00

A lot of reflecting has happened over the last week. This is a tough time of year. For a period of time that stretches from October 10^th through today, Jan 28^th, which is marked continually with events that culminated with my mother’s passing 4 years ago.

Today it is still stinging and hard to not feel the empty pit in my heart where her light would warm me within. All knowledge and emotional teaching still exists but there is something about that fire of her alive and well that is missing. The pictures of her that I come across still tear me up.

My sister created a slide show for Christmas morning about my mother that was fantastic with many pictures that I have never seen before but none evoked emotion more than the picture of her smiling on the ground with a bald head.

The tears that fill my eyes at these times are not sewn by her love but of regret for time wasted, anger at a human body that is so resilient yet so incredibly fragile. I hate the pain she suffered and the fear she felt as she realized that she was moving on. I want someone to pay for that pain and fear. Everyone knows she in no way deserved even a fraction of it.

This is an ugly paradox with the high love and revering that a mother commands mixed with pain remorse and loss capped off with that touch of hate. It is such a tough set of emotions that we all feel or will feel. At this time in life I have experienced a lot of the loss of loved ones. Close or not so some aspects are dealt with inside me even before they happen.

I still fear it.

All that fear came crashing back as my Father went into the hospital on New Year’s Eve. I was so upset and scared because of the events 4 years ago on New Years when we rushed to Cottonwood Hospital because my Mother was so sick and had been admitted. While there my Father joined her because he passed out while filling out paperwork. We spent that night, 4 years ago, going between floor 5 and floor 2 supporting both of them. My Father was out the next day my Mother stayed for 18 more before being released. It was her last time to the hospital.

I don’t have anything philosophical to impart to you here today. No words that you can chew on other than you can see that for those of you that have suffered loss….you will go on and survive. You won’t be devastated forever. Those times you are overwhelmed will come less frequently and you will be able to stifle them until you are alone. They will never disappear.

Others know very well the pain of your loss because they have been there, some multiple times. When these people see those that are in the midst of loss they aid and comfort as they can then cry in their cars, bedrooms, bathrooms or the graveside of their lost loved one where you can’t see.

The vacant space that is left when you lose someone you love will never be filled again. It will remain empty as a testament to their irreplaceable influence on your life.

While I firmly believe that we will be reunited beyond this life, we are still bound to a mortal existence in our minds and souls that makes all the feelings real, important and valid.

SO for now I will wander over to that peaceful space overlooking Utah County with these lyrics and this song rolling over my mixture of emotion to hopefully bring the peace to my soul that my Mother now enjoys.

Well, it's hard to say good bye and let go
And it's hard to see it end
When the mem'ries we've just made
May never happen again.
But it's harder for time to ever erase
The together times we've shared.
So, when we're apart remember
All the love we shared together

And for all that love,
Thank the Lord above
Who showed us the way
That we can be together, forever someday

Parenting

2011-01-17T17:08:00.001-07:00

As a parent of many years in some ways I am still learning but with a 17 yr old there are few things that I have not encountered. I’m not so naive to think I have experienced it all but I suppose your attitude about what you see changes.

I have argued for the last few years the premise about why older people seem lose the zest or fire for taking on the world. I believe it is not so much that they don’t care about the injustices, the posturing, petty behavior, ect. I am certain that they encounter a switch in the way that they deal with these things, internally and externally.

I look back at my youth and how volatile I was about certain things. How black and white the world was to me. In no way has this left me. Friends can well testify that given the right situation, the right motivation or the right basketball game I can come unhinged with the best of them.

I don’t think I get quite blown up now as I did then more so because I am older and physically less capable of carrying on for long periods of time. More likely I am also less desirous of having a prolonged periods of extreme High Blood Pressure.

It’s a maturity that serves to preserve us. This is a testament to the mercy of God on us because as we age we witness the fruits of our abilities as a parent and of the choices we have made in a lifetime. If we were we to carry such an idealistic view through our entire life we would all die at an early age. I have noticed that in my life recently.

I have made the shift to teaching teenagers about choices and made clear the affect their choices have on their lives. It is less about punishment and anger than it has ever been. It has made me a better parent to look at it that way.

No longer am I the one that will make the success of my children. I am just a teacher. That was a hard thing for me to buy into or more likely to get through my skull.

I recently have dealt with many levels of teenager. One particularly is making choice after choice that has resulted in the loss of privilege. Even after making clear what additional acts of misdeed would cost, poor decisions were made again. Sometimes these poor decisions were new sometimes they were a repeat. Additional restrictions or rather extension of the restrictions were levied.

I shake my head even now knowing how clear the paths were. How obvious the penalties for Good and Bad decisions made it a no brainer. Choosing the wrong still continues regardless.

As long as I have punished I have always found it a thing of personal failure and many times panic. I couldn’t let my children fail! It was my job to ensure their success in life. I eventually accepted the fact that my children were going to struggle with what they would struggle with. No amount of my threat or anger would change that. Their personality and character would dictate their struggles in life.

I have lost the panic because I realize the limits of my responsibility and affect. I now feel greatly disappointed that they choose as they do. I await them to come to me honestly seeking advice and answers and guidance. Most recently I feel a deep sorrow on their behalf when they choose wrong. I still worry for their safety in life but I also accept that while mistakes would set them back most will be not fatal and would provide the same growth and maturity my mistakes provided me.

All in all while providing and parenting I have given service to those over which I have been given accountability I have been given the biggest lesson. I know this concept has been repeated a plethora of times throughout existence. It is as all true things…..the moment you realize and truly know the truth as it applies to you it becomes a way of life and something you can no longer doubt or ignore.

I exist today in a relationship with my children much like my Father in Heaven relates to me. I need to shape up I am sure I have provided many nights of heartburn for everyone involved.

A New Goal

2011-01-17T15:23:00.000-07:00

Well I am a little late on the goal setting for the year but I have recently had the urge to better document my observations. I have always had a way of looking critically at things that go on with me around me or to me. I most often have published the items that have been emotional or have motivated me to take action. This isn’t always the best read because I am typically motivated by negative or heavy things. Well what I want to do is practice myself into being a great writer.

As with anything you only become proficient at “it” by regularly doing “it”. To that end I want to make a goal to publish at least one blog entry a week.

It’s ok if you roll your eyes at me now.

I think we have all heard that about a gazillion times at this point of the year and thought to ourselves, “That person has in no way done that in the past I give them 0% chance of being successful now.”

I would take your odds that will be successful for a year if I were a betting man and in Vegas. But here I am stating it publicly as a goal. I can’t promise you funny or serious or thought provoking every week. Some weeks will be much harder than others to tickle the keys into something magical but I hope that what will develop will be a much more comfortable approach to writing as I have to work less to make a though into entertainment.

By the way how are your goals for this year coming? It’s ok I will give you a couple extra weeks to catch up to me. Don’t stress too much I only picked one thing…you don’t get extra points for a long list I will just roll my eyes for a longer period of time at you.

So we Dance

2010-04-20T13:07:00.001-06:00

So we dance
The music hiding what we dread most.
Its gentle musings of happiness and joy.
Flowing through the hearts of many,
pounding on my heart like a toy.

Growing flowers in the soil of my soul,
the season appears so brief.
Beauty brilliant, beyond compare,
because of that no time for grief.
So we dance.

She smiles and laughs and is so strong,
when I know my heart is failing.
I draw the smiles inside myself
to protect against a storm asailing.

She smiles not for me to save
but to give back those happy times
and in turn add strength to her
to bring us both to the sublime.
So we dance

Her arms surrounding tightens my grip,
as if doing so could stop the tide.
It will just bring her closer
pieces of her soul to mine.

Her breathing in cadence with the tune,
dancing through her dreams, by my side.
I stand watch, falling into step,
matching her strides and smiling wide.
As we dance.

Does the music stop or fade?
As yet it does not seem it will.
Whether I cannot see it or refuse,
it does not matter as we build.

Moment for moment, quality time.
Holding the terrible someplace safe
from making our dance corrupt
and from taking a smiles place.
We Dance.

Michael Burge © 2006

Written for my Dear friend Carolyn and her Daughter who battled cancer from the age of 11 and succomed to it April 12, 2010, 5 years later.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/In-Loving-Memory-of-Kaitlyn-Adams/108542765851549?ref=nf#!/pages/In-Loving-Memory-of-Kaitlyn-Adams/108542765851549?ref=nf

The Olympics...

2010-02-28T03:15:00.002-07:00

I love the Olympics. Every 2 years as we approach Olympic time my heart just swells with the excitement. of course I love the competition seeing twists and turns and championship performances that occur following such sacrifice and dedication. I want my nation to win it all but of course dedication and sacrifice is not unique to the US. The US is one of the greatest competitors…we have the athletes, the resources, the training sites that will be of a great advantage to anyone training. We will get ours. I love to see the severe underdog do great things. I watched a young Ice skater take home the first ever figure skating gold for South Korea…the Underdog. I watched a 16 year old who found out she was going to represent her country 3 weeks before the Olympics in a program length she had never performed and she made me proud not because she was from my country but because she took the challenge when offered and was great. She didn’t win a medal but she won my admiration. I watched Athletes fail and succeed and fail then succeed. I watched Champions that both won and lost.

I sat tonight and watched the medal ceremony and I watched tears overwhelming men who seemingly should fear not much in life but the payoff for their efforts, the pride the felt in their country was enough. I too welled up knowing the championship spirit we have fostered here. I am so happy that in the midst of the politically charged stupidity that is out government I can be reminded what makes the United States great. Maybe we should take a recess for our politicians, sit them in front of the tv and make them watch 2 weeks of what makes the US Great. It can remind them that we are about hard work, dedication, personal responsibility, failing and succeeding. We can remind them that the instant fix rarely works and sometimes it takes 4,8, 12 years or a lifetime to be great. It can remind them that champions do not rely on anyone to do it for them they do it for themselves.

I look forward to shedding tears as this Olympics winds down and then again every 2 years. It’s a great reset for life.

Pictures

2010-01-28T01:49:00.000-07:00

The corners of your mouth turned up, I’ve seen pictures of you.
As a child, so carefree, like Shirley Temple with curls in your hair.
Blinded by the shine, the imagined flash of sun off your teeth,
I can’t help but smile with the look, such happiness you share.
Your teenage years the telltale bouffant of styles gone by.
Another picture from the stack of a beautiful young lady with the world in front of you.
It’s hard to imagine your youthfulness or the silliness of a teenager in you
Yet if I could compare you probably weren’t much different as you grew.
A young mother holding me in your arms. I know I was as happy as you were
I can see it in your face, different though, the smile now touched by heaven.
Something I could not know until I held my own beautiful children.
Knowing the picture doesn’t lie..I was witnessing you as a woman being leavened.
All these pictures one after another, at graduations, at holidays
I flip through them feeling like it was yesterday, feeling like they should be tomorrow.
Then pictures not taken yet seared in my soul. Your love you showed to all.
The walks we shared and hard talks of discipline deflecting a greater blow.
Stories from others outlining grace, beauty, compassion, peace, without a doubt true.
To see your kids your physical touch is evident. Our pictures say so.
The pain of that short part of the end your life here still stings my soul.
The ravenous venom of human existence is so brutal to the infected and the affected.
The pictures still make me cry.
A photo album wrapped in black still sitting on the coffee table of my heart.
Forced open by the smallest event.
You faced with courage that which all men fear at one time or another…
separation from the evidence of your existence.
Head held high and smile as big as that of your Shirley Temple Days
yet not a curl or even one single hair on your head.
Your pictures are now not so easy to see. They are a mere watermark covering pictures of me.
I don’t see your face on them just in my mind and my heart, but your fingerprints cover every inch.
Selfishly I wish you were here to firsthand fill countless volumes throughout time.
It isn’t so. I must make them on my own.
So that one day mine will be viewed as is your life.
Michael Burge Jan 28, 2010

Cheryl Burge * Oct 10, 1945- Jan 28, 2007

Things I learned in 2009

2010-01-04T14:07:00.003-07:00

What I learned in 2009

• At some time in your life you will be responsible for making your own traditions.
• No matter what you think your kid’s potential is sometimes they will severely underachieve and sometimes severely overachieve.
• Kids are sometimes smarter than adults…not because of what kids know that adults don’t but because of adult thinking that gets in the way of common sense.
• Scouts rocks and I miss it.
• I’m tired of doing life alone…not just my life but taking care of everyone’s life 24/7.
• I say yes too many times to help others but saying no when I can help goes against my nature…unfortunately it leaves me little time for me….Rock meet hard place.
• Change for the sake of change never ends up good….oh hello Mr President.
• Good people and good situations can turn quickly when you add pressure.
• 2100 sucks…so does 72.2
• Kids are your greatest JOY and your greatest MISERY.
• I miss my mother so much.
• Purging the past is a good thing.
• Cruises Rock more than I could have ever imagined.
• Being at sea was really relaxing maybe it was the constant rhythmic swaying or being filled by all the new sensory conditions I don’t know it was ….relaxing.
• I have never had as fun eating for a week in my life as I did on my cruise.
• I ate snails….too hot buttery and garlicky….I guess that makes them palatable.
• Sometimes people come into your life with which you can have a lot of fun with but you know aren’t meant to have staying power for the good in your life.
• Sometimes you have to drop people from your life even when your mind tells you that they are fun and good when your heart tells you it won’t last and you can’t explain it to them.
• There are a lot of emotionally sick people in society and most of them don’t know it.
• No matter how pessimistic you have become love will always prove you wrong.
• July 31st is a red letter day in the life of Michael Burge.
• I hate working on cars but I hate more overpaying someone to work on my cars.
• I’m getting old.
• Alcohol sucks and it would be an insurmountable task were anyone to try and change my mind.
• Some people can only be helped by themselves….no ifs ands or buts.
• People will forever be hurt trying to help addicts thinking they mean more than a hill of beans to the addict.
• Communication is so important in all relationships.
• Starting a new business is fun but there is a lot to do.
• We sometimes make more out of troubles than we should. Making mountains out of mole hills is only a matter of bad communication.
• Old friends are fun to reconnect with.
• It is so important to take time to rejuvenate yourself. I never imagined how good it could feel to be in a place where I could totally relax.
• I really like playing softball…I love coaching more.
• Coaching softball with my daughter was so rewarding.
• I am human and part of that really sucks.
• I didn’t think I would like a remake of star trek as much as I did…
• Global warming…really?
• It is a great thing to see that we can have some diversity in our elected officials. it shows this country is progressing…too bad Obama has to mar it by being a dumb ass.
• My truck is getting older with me. $1500 in repairs in the last 6 months and I did my own work…that sucks.
• I really love taking pictures. (ok so I didn’t just learn this but I every time I go out I realize it more and more.
• Photoshop is so powerful and I shouldn’t even have my learners permit yet I feel like an infant when I use it.
• I can’t wait for it to get warmer I want to have photo shoots all the time.
• Massages are awesome….I was nervous about them but I now know the truth.
• You should drink LOTS of water when getting a massage.
• Even a messed up troll beast can find her mate in this world…..proof there is a match for everyone.
• I still need to write more.
• I was a love pessimist of the most fervent nature…I doubted whenever someone said just everything clicked about someone they met. I see the light.
• I’m a relationship retard.
• I’m not tired of my long hair yet.
• Sometimes you can scream “danger! Danger!” or “Fire! Fire!” or “you will be hurt!” at the top of your lungs and the person in danger will still push forward adjusting their invisible asbestos suit and before long you are helping pick up the pieces.
• Time continues to pass no matter how hard I try to hold onto the past.
• Change sucks but that doesn’t stop it from happening.
• I have the power of 12 chickens.
• The most Christ-like people on earth are most often taken advantage of and know it but it does not alter their course.
• I often catch myself muttering…..”I was NOT this bad when I was a teenager…was I?”
• I do not believe everything happens for a purpose. I do believe that you can find purpose and understanding out of everything that happens, however.

I’m sure I could go on for a long time with this, but life is life…a continual learning experience. We are not here to just exist. We are here to learn and grow and in the days of our advanced age we can look back at our learning like a china cabinet full of knickknacks. We take time to show all who will listen telling the stories and handing them out as our days wind down hoping to send with our family and friends a bit of advice making their journey a little easier.
These few items I share with you and I use to reflect on my upcoming days in 2010. The way will be joyous at times and very sorrowful at others. Take time to help yourselves before you have to suffer consequences…take time to help others so at the end of the day you are headed the right direction. Perfection in this life is impossibility…heading the right direction is not.

Best Wishes for 2010 – Michael Burge

black

2009-12-30T11:06:00.001-07:00

black.
Curled in the darkness of night,
I tighten my body against the black that flows into me
making the absence of light surrounding, bright to me.
Fingers of emotional tar run down the fortress walls of my soul,
weakening, dissolving, removing 2-ton blocks with ease.
Why do I lie here silently watching such destruction?
Your face hovers over me, mouth wide open saying nothing at all.
Silence screaming more than words could ever convey.
Eyes wide, my rage ekes from my pores wanting to strike out.
To put words into your mouth to make the pain and anguish subside.
But I can’t.
It’s your demons providing this endless pit and I am powerless against them.
The last warmth in me says “I love you!” laying as my foundation
bearing more and more weight as the time passes.
Tick tock tick tock I am counting down the seconds.
Curling tighter wishing the dark in my room
would light up my soul.
michael burge ©2009

Franklin and the old Spaniard...

2009-09-21T16:03:00.005-06:00

My mother grew up in a small farming community in southern Idaho right on the Utah boarder called Franklin, Id. There isn’t much in the north end of Cache Valley or all of Cache Valley for that matter but farming and college. It is a beautiful area during the summer and bitterly cold in the winter.

My mother when she passed away 3 years ago was buried in Orem at a beautiful place to visit near the mouth of Provo Canyon. It is about 30 min from my house easy to get to and I visit at least a dozen times a year. The visits don’t last long. I stand reflect momentarily on my loss, on my Mother’s life, on my life now and what she would say about it. What advice she would give me. What I would share with her.

I breathe in the good air that refreshes my lungs and body. I am not convinced it’s the air or the clearing of mind. I leave with a feeling, not so much that my life has been reset but more so that my soul has been blessed with a moment of eternal rest, a little gust of spiritual wind clearing for a time the world from me. It’s a good feeling even if it is only briefly lived.

Back in that little community in the north end of Cache Valley exists a very old cemetery. Huge 100 yr old trees line the driveways the field spotted with headstones new and old. Some worn down to nothing but a barren face of stone with faint impressions where names and dates told a story of a life long ago departed.

In this place lay my grandparents my aunt and many other ancestors of mine. I know them only because the names are shared with those who I do know of.. In the 5 years since my Aunt passed away I have been to this place not once. There are not many reasons to come to here, and honestly it is too far to drive just to visit gravesites.

Yet one beautiful summer Sunday afternoon I found myself on the main street of Franklin standing in front on my grandparent’s house I was in this mix of emotions. Flooding of memories smells and sites overcoming my being deep sadness of the things that had changed. Although my uncle lives in the house I knew nothing familiar was in there. The house was much more a skeleton than anything else.

The weeds were taller than 2 of me, shrubs and wild growing flowers, newly planted and growing trees almost hid the house from the street. I knocked on the front door seemingly never used anymore with stuff piled on the doorstep. When no one answered I made my way around the house to once again see my memories dashed when it bore no resemblance to the backyard of my grandparent.

As I stood there looking around soaking in and reliving the ghosts of my memory appearing and disappearing almost as quickly, I noticed a old man sitting on his porch. I made my way across to his yard not really knowing what I was after. I cordially announced myself as I made my way up his flower-strewn sidewalk.

Once he found out that I was related to Ray, my grandpa, and Lorraine and Rhonda, his eyes lit up. It has been 15 years since my Grandpa has passed but I could see his face express the similar flash of emotion I felt and then he began to recount story after story about Ray and how he was such a storyteller. How My Grandma was such a hard worker and good person. He said several times Rhonda always came to talk to his wife while on her way home from church every Sunday. I felt closer to my grandma and grandpa that I have felt for so long. We talked for 30 min at least. My heart was overflowing for the blessing of this man who embarrassed by his Spanish accented, halting, English had been put in my path to bring the past back to the forefront of my mind. I left him smiling in my heart that day and in a spirit that raised me above my current world for a time.

Mandy and I stopped on our way out of town at the cemetery. The smell of farmland and fields of alfalfa and grain filled the air. The temperature was perfect the sun starting its descent down to the horizon. The cemetery void of people was so peaceful however I think it was peaceful state of my soul that day that was filling and overcoming my senses more than the absence of people.

Quietly Mandy and I discussed family. I shared stories I recalled. For the next 45 min we moved across the cemetery identifying more family members. Seeking out the history of the people who rested here pieced together by the limited bits of information on the headstones. The faded headstones and monuments drawing the most attention. So many born almost 200 years ago, sacrificing to establish the lives we enjoy now. So many children……..So many servicemen some giving their lives in combat on your behalf …..many living a life forever changed by war.

And there was my family….

I know as I drove away as I do even now many days later that our families and loved ones stand at our side when we stop our lives to remember. The seemingly empty monument-filled resting places so quiet are filled with our loved ones still eager to scream peace and enlightenment to our souls if we could shut our thinkers off long enough to let them through.

Don’t mistake the quiet peace the next time you go to the cemetery as a byproduct to great landscapers or proximity to the world that continues to spin outside the cemetery boundaries. Don’t mistake the breeze as just some fluke of nature meant to compliment you trip that day. Give your hand over to those who eagerly wait for you and long for your happiness. And if you get a chance to talk to an old Spaniard who knew your grandpa…talk to him…you wont regret it!

A man's dying is more the survivors' affair than his own. ~Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

For: Ray Morrison, 1900-1992, Lorraine Morrison 1920-1997, Cheryl Burge 1945-2007, Rhonda Morrison 1955-2004

That depends on what the meaning of "is" is....

2009-07-10T12:05:00.002-06:00

Remember that fine line by one of the most notable if not Infamous leaders of the free world? With what has become an automatic, almost required, move the current regime has once again tried to disguise business as usual. That side of the isle spent the last 8 years condemning relentlessly the closed door meetings W and Cheney had during their presidency and pledging to be "transparent" and "Open" in their presidency. In doing so they just added a testament to their naivete and clueless nature.

Although we could hands down together admit that Joe Biden is one of the loosest cannons and most dense political figures in history next to Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reed or Jerry Brown or Bob Kerry or Paul Tsongas....(ok so there are alot of them)

I digress.....he has come into office treating us as dumb as he is. Continually holding open meeting after open meeting in which the media was not allowed.

Now I am not against closed door meetings personally I think there are things presidencies do that we dont need to know about or want to know about. The problem I have is that having meetings you are calling "Open" to meet a campaign promise and then not allowing the press which is the only way 99.999999% of the citizens would ever be exposed to them. Joe we aren't dumb although putting him in office as a nation might not hold up that statement.

The other problem I have is the complete lack of foresight and understanding this administrtation operates under. They were never going to be able to live up to promises like that but it hasnt stopped them from emmitting greenhouse gasses as they speak.

As clear as the "Meaning of Is" was to us back then Your meaning of "No Private meetings", Joe is not even close to what the words say to even a 5th grader. Joe Jeff Foxworthy would own you.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/07/joe-biden-update-1.html

This one is a gem

2009-06-15T10:52:00.005-06:00

From the book of criminals are dumb a$$e$....again...
A man attempting to pull of a signifigant and sophisticated heist walks into the Black Diamonds company and brandishes an ice pick demanding prescious metals and money.

Lets reset this plan a bit....
As a genious master thief you go to the yellow pages and find the first business that looks like it has something extremely valuable and then go to your kitchen cupboard to find a weapon of intimidation to threaten them with. Of course an ice pick is the natural choice. After all you can threaten to whittle their block of ice to nothing making all the milk from the morning milking spoil cuz the icebox is warm.

This would put all the armed guards, a company like that would have, shudder in their boots drop their weapons, hand over their porridge and give up the secret to the special agent decoder rings.

With Your plan in place you walk in and demad that they empty their pockets of the tons of gold bars...something you would definately know they didnt have if you had for even a brief time monitored their business...you know "stake it out"...or did you use those pages of your Armed Robbery for Dummies book as toilet paper? In it there was one of those little targets with an arrow telling you to beware of businesses that have a name with "Diamonds" in it but dont really deal in jewelry.

Im just wondering at what point you as a robber crapped your pants? Was it when the employees started laughing at you hysterically or when you took the pencil cup and post-it notes as a runner up prize and ran out of the High Adventure Equipment business?

Just another witness against any criminal that says they are smart. Have a great day and remember to put your gold bars and your blocks of ice under lock and key for everyones safety.

Schools is out!

2009-06-09T15:37:00.003-06:00

I love this time of year. School is ending annd it is almost a euphoric feeling that I get even now. One dredged up from my adolescence. I am not graduating I dont have a child graduating but they are there burried deep inside your memory. At the mere hint of those rememberances the flood of feelings wells up and we experience the full force even though it has been years.

The excitement of the completion of another year of school. Leaving for months not having to be under the pressure of daily school work. The dread of breaking routine and missing friends yet the freedom of expanding and reaching out. What exactly is so exhillerating about this?

Hope? promise? progress?

I think this is a time of change of regeneration of moving on moving forward. something you only experience when you are in school. Not so much College but definately High School.

I think it is sad that we have to relive this feelings from so long ago. I miss that. I think people in general miss that. Why dont we have something similar thoughout our adult lives? We just churn and churn through life never finding that break to rethink ourselves. Of course we have vacations so generously given by our employers but it isnt the same. We dont even take all our vacation each year on the average in the US.

Norway has it right when they have national holiday during June every year. It's a vacation month. Businesses shut down and people have a summer vacation. That would probably do it I'm thinking. People cant ignore them or never get around to taking them like we do here so many times. Everyone is going. Everyone has the excitement and buildup. Just like laughter it is far more contaigious that it is to create it out of thin air. If everyone is excited then it is much easier to feel that way. The eneergy throughout the school is electric the last 2 weeks.

Sadly I dont think our culture in the US could absorb that kind of hit but its a nice thought none-the-less.

Mothers.....

2009-05-10T09:20:00.002-06:00

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. ~Abraham Lincoln

Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together. ~Pearl S. Buck

Women's Liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It's the men who are discriminated against. They can't bear children. And no one's likely to do anything about that. ~Golda Meir

Now, as always, the most automated appliance in a household is the mother. ~Beverly Jones

I miss thee, my Mother! Thy image is still
The deepest impressed on my heart.
~Eliza Cook

It's not easy being a mother. If it were easy, fathers would do it. ~From the television show The Golden Girls

No painter's brush, nor poet's pen
In justice to her fame
Has ever reached half high enough
To write a mother's name.
~Author Unknown

A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest. ~Irish Proverb

Happy Mothers Day!

2009-03-26T16:40:00.000-06:00

It seems life is just one loss after another. I really think the adage about customer service applies here too. For every one good instance of customer service a customer passes along 7 bad ones. In the long run we are in a vacuum…we cannot lose without having first gained. We just happen to remember 7 times more the losses than the gains. I think more so when you string some losses together.

Our losses and hurt can come for many reasons, life situations, fragility of human life, bad or harmful decisions by others or even stupidity or mistakes made by yourself. I’m not sure which situation is most distasteful..

I know I regret my stupidity and the things I have done. Some out of selfishness.. For those of you who deny ever doing anything out of selfishness you are a liar and no I wont take it back! :-P I very rarely do things with the intent to hurt. But I have done many things to hurt others. Not proud…in fact I am probably harder on myself than even those I have hurt.

I think sometimes though the losses that hurt the most are the ones that I have no control over. The ones that I can’t find closure because I cant assign blame even if it is to myself.

How we deal with loss is also very interesting. Sometimes it can be defined and predicted by age or gender or the type of loss. Most often it is experience level that is the most dictating of the behavior.

I have adopted the strategy of moving on and putting it behind you being the best strategy. Most times we don’t have a complete understanding of why something occurred. Once the biologic refuse contacts the mechanical circulation management device free flow of communication shuts down and no longer is it practical or logical in assuming that you will ever know all the information you need to have the type of closure every human would like.

When left to assumptions or speculation we have moved into the realm of writing pure fantasy. There is no way that we author a scenario in our minds that it will be anywhere near as boring or unspectacular as it is in reality. Yet many people run themselves into the ground seeking answers that are unattainable.

Many situations have been made significantly worse by acting on our new found fantasy work or by seeking out answers that you will never be given. Why did my friend or family member have to be taken from me? No answer there. Other times acting out is manifest in striking out.

I think earlier in life I was a bitter and reactive and tough. Much more outwardly emotional. I was in it for paybacks or showing toughness so that it wasn’t clear I was hurting. I gained a poor reputation both in my career as well as my personal life. I reacted to them defiantly accusingly whether it was my fault or not. It was easier to be angry and offensive than to deal with putting the hurt behind me and evaluating what happened for a learning opportunity. Of course this only made it worse for everyone. No it wasn’t pleasant to begin with but when I got done with it everyone was going to have to take 5 times as long to heal.

This was not the product of someone that was a good person, yet I was in my heart. I just refused to behave like a good one. I genuinely did not hate the people around me. There are very few people that have crossed my path that I would consider bad and of the “hate” category. Mostly it was my dislike of their behavior.

When I could clearly see that in my life there was a distinct line between my behavior sometimes and what I really was I learned to draw the line with people in my life too. While this didn’t keep pain away it minimized my suffering time and allowed me to not hate them thus hate myself.

This was also beneficial to those. I can spar and say biting and hurtful things with the best of anyone this would only serve to be fed off of. It was frustrating to those who were trying to get a reaction out of me but since I was no fun it allowed them to move on more quickly.

I may not really understand why I did things I have done in life, likewise others may not know why they have done what they have done to hurt me. Until the day I meet my maker I may not have answers to most of the questions in life. My energy is better spent learning a lesson, asking forgiveness, forgiving others and forgiving myself then moving forward.

Loss and hurt is as much a part of life as laughter, blessings and happiness. Although very hard to do I will continue on my newly defined process battling my old reactionary self because it is what I believe is best for those around me as well as myself. Will I be perfect at it? No way its hard…very hard. I am such an imperfect person I do it mostly as a cry for leniency and mercy when I behave like a butt head.

The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt. ~Max Lerner, The Unfinished Country, 1950

Friday...

2009-01-18T00:54:00.004-07:00

Friday is my birthday.
Now I know many of you will take time and wish me "Happy Birthday" and some would consider getting me something of a gift. Here is what I would ask.

Before you do anything for me this is what I wish for my birthday. Take time out of your week and think of someone that could use kindness. Someone that could use thought. Someone that needs to be thought of...then do it.

Simple huh?

Make is more than something you fill in because you do it anyways. Go out of your way to make them smile.... then tell me about it...you can use generalities its not to bring you praise. If you choose to not tell me by your wishes I will know that you have done so.
I need nothing else but this act from you.

Thank you in advanace. You all mean the world to me.
Mikey

What I learned v2008

2009-01-03T12:13:00.005-07:00

The following are observations or lessons from the last year:

Rediscovery of yourself is generally a much greater task than the initial discovery.
We dont judge one another because the worst can be best and the best can be worst.
We will never see another where they are the at their best or at their worst let alone both.
One year or eight ...sometimes time to heal remains undefined for a lifetime.
It is fun to find people from your past.
It is hard to stand and watch those around you make mistakes.
It is awesome when those you love succeed.
The worth of a true partner is immense even if all they do is save us from ourselves.
Alcohol sucks.
When a loved one goes through devistation it is hardest on those around because we see clearly.
My kids are awesome.
Cancer sucks.
The busier you stay the more you seem to get done but the easier it is to forget the basics of life.
I am pretty good at photography.
I love looking for the photographs nature creates for us every day.
Little kids are the most pure and the most fun.
Good things happen to bad people just as much as bad things happen to good people.
Those people that retain anger and bitterness fail to see human nature stripped bare when they miss anothers repentance.
Those people that have no ambition and settle for mediocrity have no right to condemn others failures while reaching forward.
There is beauty in almost everyone.
No change in a person is greater tha when they realize someone believes in them.
I love gadgets.
I am a geek and proud of it.
There is a big wide world out there that we sometimes miss because our hands are covering our own eyes.
Elders should be learned from and respected..unless they are a 20 year old cat that pees on my clean laundry.
The value of spending time with a good friend is underestimated.
It is not that falling in love is not possible it is that we often get in the way of it.
Some people cannot exist on their own power, knowledge and drive.
I still cannot get enough sleep ever.
I love to excersize I just dont make enough time for it.
kissing rocks.
Having someone creamated and put on your shelf is creepy because they are always watching you (according to mikayla)
Shake and Bake!
Some people are princesses and some are studs most are niether...you should find out early what you are and excel at it.
I may be fierce but I was unable several times to stop a line drive from hitting my body...some things cannot be intimidated.
I dont travel enough.
Cedar City and surrounding areas are beautiful...for many reasons.
I didnt hunt again this year and I miss it. :-(
I have too much stuff.
It is disappointing when those around you that you expect to be most objective are the most obtuse.
Sometimes the people you love have to be let go for the best of everyone involved.
I need to write more, sketch more, practice guitar more, make more knives and on and on..
Some mistakes will be with you for years to come
Smile always especially when you dont feel like it if you bring others around you up they will bring you up.

I will probably add more..it was a long year and lots of lessons in reflection.......

reflection

2008-11-17T00:15:00.002-07:00

So much reflection.....
a microscopic examination of a continent
overwelming.
something out of place or is it no place for anything?
where are the tracks of my life?
directional thoughtlessness.
Where are the ones moving me forward placed by my personal design?
Keeping my occupied, keeping me from abanodoning my goals.
without too much like bovine wandering feeding, drinking, ignoring the long term.
I'm a higher mammal aren't I?
Do I care less about myself than I do my dog which I feed daily?
so much reflection.......

Pictures

2008-10-12T17:17:00.003-06:00

I was sorting through pictures this morning to organize my thousands into something useful. It is a monumental task given the number and previous disorganization that they have endured. I start looking through folders that arent named appropriately..... then I get sucked in.

It is amazing to look at old photos. I just love the power they have to take you back. You know it seems that I see the pictures and instantly everything is as it was back in the day. It's kinda like smelling the smell of a pumpkin pie takes you back to the many Thanksgivings and Christmases before, instantly. Smell is such a strong trigger and it seems that the instant we smell, floods of emotions and visions come crashing down around. But it takes a trigger to unlock those visions and feelings. I can't just sit there and conjure them up. I dont control those triggers on my own but the memories are there and they are vivid they have life just waiting for me to make the right move and then they attack. These pictures were a trigger this morning.

I sat there looking at pictures of family. The huge snowstorm in 01 that left us with over 2 ft of snow. The kids bundled up. Josh the epitomy of bundleup-ness. The kids using a mattress to stop them from hitting the house as they build a makeshift sledding hill. I can feel the bite in the storm and hear the kids cries of joy. Halloween, Christmas, Easter on and on. I step farther and farther back until I hit the oldest digital pictures on my computer.

Where does time go? My kids were so cute, my kids are still so cute but in a different way. They have grown they are simply beautiful. Life is so complex now because they are so different. In ten years I will look back and think how right now was so simple compared to where I will be at that moment.

Life is all about perspective. If we lose it we will fail to take advantage of right now. If we dont learn from hindsight we will miss out on each second that exists going forward. How I am so thankful to God for making this experience available to me. My kids guage and measure my life...and you thought it was the number of gray hairs. Well ok there is that too.

2008-07-28T03:04:00.002-06:00

I have spent alot of time at the ball park recently scoring and watching and playing softball. Inevitably foul balls are hit. Flying fast out of bounds or slow High ones that seem to take forever to come down. As spectators to these foul balls it is a collective breath holding when we know that it is headed towards where groups of people are located.

On instinct 5 people shout out in unison "Heads Up!"

What is up with that anyways? Heads up? No..."Heads DOWN!" It would make more sense to yell "Run for cover!" or "incoming!" but in our sports wisdom we say "Heads up!" It would make more sense for everyone to be told "Heads up!" upon entering the park rather than to wait until it was on its way. This devious verbiage was probably was started historically as a cruel trick to those not paying much attention at the ball park most likely by rogue plastic surgeons. It proves out because immediately following the chorus of the impending death or dismemberment half of the ballpark does what…….looks up.

If anyone were to look around at that point you will most likely find a dark trench coated figure in the shadows carefully taking down names of mangled victims to for local plastic surgeons to prey on.

What gives me hope in society is that there are as many people that put their heads down and throw their arms up over their heads knowing either by past experience or because they were schooled right that despite the mean sneaky trick, calls to put their heads up was actually a bad thing and should not be heeded.

Then there are the instances where people were so oblivious to what is going on as to not hear any of the warnings and take advantage to classify themselves into a mental competency class.
They continue whatever activity they are doing while those spectating the situation watch helplessly as the ball arches toward the unobservant party. Instantly like a herd of mini NORAD trajectory centers each individual calculates the chances of a direct hit. Calculations that happen so fast it would make most high school physics teachers proud.

Inhaling deeply the crowd hushes right before touchdown. Most times the ball impacting within a few feet of the in individual, harmlessly bouncing away. The near bullseye jumping for a brief second then looking around to see how many people witnessed the incident....or it scores a hit. This happens infrequently, I must say, for as much ball as I have seen I see very few hits.

Either way the crowd then breaks out into chatter amongst themselves talking about the close call and how much it did or would have hurt. Some small chuckles making fun of the person being oblivious to the danger.

So is life........how many times are we oblivious to the dangers that happen all around us? High arching softballs headed our direction that people around us can see from their origin yet despite their cries, warnings, statements or questions we remain oblivious. We are so focused on what we think is so important to us that the devistating softball that is about to crack our noggin goes completely unnoticed or ignored.

What is even harder is to be a spectator in this game where you know that a softball the size of a beach ball is on a collision course with a friend that seems to be oblivious and no matter what you say or how you say it you know they are going to stay right in the bull’s eye. At that point you cringe and hope that the damage doesn’t need one of the kniving plastic surgeons.

Don’t let me ignore the softballs headed my way today and I can guarantee that I will be hollering for you just as I do every time...this is your "heads up" as you enter the ball field today.
Smiles!

Things could be worse. Suppose your errors were counted and published every day, like those of a baseball player. ~Author Unknown

Michael Burge * July 08

Direction

2008-04-10T06:16:00.001-06:00

I have so been in the mood over the last couple of weeks to write. I just have not found the right direction. The motivation exists but being so anal about my output demands within me that the direction is right or I don’t create. There have been many times I have started either a poem or satire or sketching a picture and had to stop short of even a good beginning because my heart knew I was headed down the wrong road.

I use writing to vent most times. Often it is about myself. Some days it’s about funny things because I have been known to get carried away in humor or smart alekry. Other times I strike out against others that well deserve my scorn or the scorn of everyone at least in my reading sphere.

I don’t directly spat with people though. I simply do not like open arguments that smack of the best that 3rd grade has to offer. I’m above that kind of display unfortunately most people aren’t. Most times people I beat up don’t even know that I am talking about or to them. I think one of the funniest occurrences is when I have verbally beat down someone in a poem or other writing and they think I was writing about me or something else totally unrelated,. ”If you only knew,” I keep thinking and chuckling under my breath.

So a direction, hmm….How do you all find your direction? What motivates you to create in whatever way you create? I usually start with a general, very general, direction and let the writing come out as it will. It tends to morph several times as I write it anyways my poetry especially. I start writing and the end generally was not seen even half way through.

Sometimes the direction is shaped by the motivation or rather it is at least some way used in forming the direction but most times it is only the vehicle I drive that direction. So here I sit with the motivation still to say certain things still looking for the direction that will communicate ideas sure to define people and their ludicrous behavior in front of their backs……or not.

Its all about the Legos

2008-03-18T01:41:00.002-06:00

It’s all about the Legos.

Remember legos as a kid. They were everywhere almost impossible to keep all in one container. Countless hours would be spent making and remaking robots, planes, trucks as well as recreating the Tower of Babel to reach higher than any man had ever previously built. Never mind that I really did not know the Babel concept at the time. In them contained my ability to create. Imagination was limitless….well that is of course the fact that I only had a certain amount of whatever type I needed. I always seemed one short of the blocks required to finish the Death Star. So much for evil plans being fulfilled. No matter the grand design the real struggle came when my masterpiece was completed in keeping out of the destructive hands of a toddler unknowingly playing Godzilla on my Lego creation.

As I grew older the concept and excitement of legos remained. Now, of course, with the added feature of them being one of the most painful things to step on in the middle of the night. I pass the toy isle and secretly I peek at the assortment of Legos and wonder if I could get the Death Star out of that assortment and how I could keep them out of my kids hands or hidden from company to avoid the embarrassing discussion on how my 6 year old completed a scale version of the Death Star on his own with a complete Tai Fighter squadron. Talk about uncomfortable.

A lot of changes happened to me over the last year that left me looking critically at my life and realized that, when the smoke cleared, the angry toddler of fate had teamed up with the angry toddler of life (it must have been a daycare) had gotten a hold of my Death Star leaving it in a heap on the floor. Only the strongest parts left standing some had been taken to another room unceremoniously or became chew toy number 1000, dripping with whatever poisonous venom toddlers produce in their mouth mixed with Nilla Wafers.

Kind of stunned I stood there laughing/crying at what was left. In no way was my life as it had been. No order, no structure just a pile of legos. After the shock had passed I realized that I had to do something…existing as a pile was not prudent nor would it allow me to be productive. Someone would be stepping on pieces walking to the bathroom in the dark of the night and then proceed to curse my mess until their bruised foot healed. I start to gather up the pieces.

My most precious blocks still exist somewhere but the construction must start anew. Do I really even want a Death Star now? I begin to redefine myself picking out pieces of my life that are of value and finding out where they now go to create what I desire in the end. Do they even fit? Piece by piece I reexamine my future Lego masterpiece and find a home for the old parts. The largest strongest pieces being placed back first.

I may never use some blocks again I may need to go out and buy a new assortment to help me find the pieces of life that I want going forward. Some of the pieces will go back in with a different function in a different order. It is interesting what time and experience does to our priorities from years past.

In time, I will be me again but how long will that take? It took years to get it where it was before the destruction. I guess the sooner I realize that my new Death Star will always be under construction the less I will feel panicked about where I am now. No place is safe from “Toddler the Death Star Killer”! Everyone can expect some level of unintended, unplanned for reorganization of assets. My only hope is to carefully asses my design to minimize the amount of pieces that become lost or separated in times of trial. I could ill afford to have my Lego mess mixed with the Lincoln Log Battle Star Gallactica now could I? Who could recover from that?

Beast

2008-03-14T05:54:00.000-06:00

Much damage surrounds, each way that I look
What? Why? Who? I ask
What cause? What ill defined temperament?
Emerging….
A gnarling beast with flowers on its head
singing songs of the brook under feet and the trees overhead.
While smoldering embers still smell of singed hair,
It smiles gaily, letting on no care.
Wanting to be human in the eyes of those
It shaves its back hair and puts on fancy clothes
Hoping internal jurists believe a perjured tale
vindicating its damned past and its hopeless future trail.
The blame of all its daemons reflected in its own eyes
and of its own imagination still hears the constant cries.
Bouncing up and down pointing at what it said
Hoping to draw gaze of those in the sky circling overhead.
Not just one but hundreds coming as they choose
willing to fly close but never want to roost.
A shiny, titanium finish with a copper strength inside
Bending to the will of the world back and forth is slides
Easily rearranging its shape from one moment to the last
like the tides in and out until its broke in half.
Growling with contempt at the wind and the water
to drown the cries out of each.
Ignoring that the world without them would impeach.
Grabbing hold of every passer by to trail behind its grand parade
A fancy flower as the Grand Marshall clumps of back hair line the way
In a daze it marches on from one destruction to the next
Crooked smiles not really believing it’s not just a beast at best.
Michael Burge © 2008

mom

2008-01-29T02:21:00.000-07:00

In honor of what this day is I want to bring forward some blogs that should be read in honor of my mother. 3 particular were written the last month of my mothers life. Dec 28th, Jan 15th and Jan 28th. Look under the Label to the right "Serious like a screen door on a submarine," it will be easier to find them.

One year...nothing is easier about this.
Cheryl Rae Morrison Burge

No Title

2008-01-08T03:30:00.000-07:00

When I realized you were gone my hand slipped away
My eyes were blank with so much left to say.
Like forming mountains you pushed my soul up
Making human what human nature wants to corrupt.
Teaching life’s lessons from each day
By what you did not just what you say.
I knew you as many things along the way;
A saint, a sinner, parent, teacher and sage.
I fought doing the smallest things you asked
But noticed your hours spent doing my tasks.
Growing older I began to appreciate
How much you really cared and gave.
Now steps unsure with you not in my base
Lost guidance realized while I run my life’s race
And I stumble and fall without you close by
To pick me up, dust me off and boost my next try.
learning to make up for your lost physical presence
A transition life forces that I will not relish.
I’ll think of you when I’m needing advice
and try to remember what you said in this life
That will help me conquer my trials and fears
And when I remember my cost will be tears
and a prayer to God for this simple price;
first you gave me my breath then you gave me your life.
When I realized you were gone my heart slipped away
But somehow your return it to me day by day.
Michael Burge © 2007

Merry Holiday season..

2007-12-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

Wow the time is here again when a old year comes to an end and you face squarely the new year, your future, new challenges, scary unknowns and new beginnings.

I began my "Lessons I learned this year" list and it scared me to death. I have been through some heavy heavy things this year and the lessons are at times very condemning of me and what I thought of myself before the events of this year and after. (thats the content of my next blog......)

I reflect on what I feel the importance of this holiday is and in watching people can see that the meaning is so wide spread that the meaning is as individual as anything else. Of course in society we try to direct some overall socially redeeming value set on this season. I think that it is the season that society feel free to express some desire to have some morally driven overlay on society without being condemned for it.

Of course this is also under fire. I guess this is the last bastian for individuals, communities, states and countries to develop, foster or breed ideals that are more concerned for the well being of all people. That does not mean handouts it mens a variety of remedies mean to strengthen society not just bandaid the symptoms.

I think my wishes for everyone on this holiday season is that you look to bring happiness to your life, your family's lives and the lives of everyone in your comunity by working in the following year to effect change. Give of yourselves, step outside of yourself and your world and sometimes your comfort zone to make a difference. I know many of you do that on a regular basis. For those of you that do look for new ways to do so and continue to be stalwart in your efforts. Do not stop Jan 2nd but make this a year long project.

This is true selflessness and you will teach those around you a gift that will bring reciprocol blessings back to everyone for your lifetimes. This is much greater than any toy, plate of cookies or Wii fantasy will accomplish.

I wish upon all a holiday season that will bring reflection, stronger love and change for the better. I care about you all for I cannot care about myself or my family without caring about everyone and wanting better. We are brothers and sisters in humanity.

With love, Michael

Dark

2007-12-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

Dark 12/2007
Head thrown back cold air beating down,
Darkness surrounds my head like a crown
But the dark cold pales to what I emanate,
Like a noon day sun on a hot July day.

Such deep understanding that I know not a thing
And compulsive demand of emotional swings.
Between wanting to know of my parts
that fly lightning fast before they even start.

Confusion drives my complete social drain,
to those not avoiding a ride on my train.
A train with just drive not conductor or track
running amok bellowing smoke thick and black.

Consuming not only those in my ride
But contaminating what passes in my sight.
Leaving sticky soiled film on everything clear,
an unwelcomed calling card that I was once here.

Warmth and compassion, a heart made for men
Comes to those who define themselves good from within
I know this and try to accomplish this place
But my writing inside is quickly erased.

Head thrown back a new cold is reborn,
My darkness surrounds my heart as it’s torn.
For the things that I don’t know about me
And the stains that I leave on everything silently.
Michael Burge 2007

UGH

2007-12-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

Its been a bad day.
Why is it so important that things be difficult?
Do we really learn so much by having so much crap go bad?
Are we so much better when that happens whether or not we make it out clean?
Are we better in the end?
I am just so tired of having stuff be so difficult.
Tired of having people act like total sh_ts.
Hell who knows maybe I am acting that way. probably so I guess.
Maybe what I am getting is a result of all the crap I have handed out.
I think sometimes its a coordinated attack.
People sit in a B_llSh_t chat room somewhere linking up with others that have crap to unload on one person or another.
Hey broken sink you look sexy wanna hook up with me tonight I have
emotional drain for Mike we could be something special.
Maybe its like a personal add.....
Have total load of personal BS for
Michael B. Willing to couple with
drama or sickness. Make offer.
Preferred timeframe within one week.
Call Joe Blow at .....
I think that is only part of the story though....I spend so much time dealing with one crisis after another that important things get left out of the picture.
Total Guilt because I know I should give more there...just don't have cycles.
The things that could help get killed because I am busy bailing or throwing water on fires
or splinting broken bones.
Sometimes irrevocably damaged taking away a valuable resource.
How do you explain this crap to people?
How dare I draw them into my mess?
How fair is that?
So they sit outside looking in helpless and ignorant and I sit back fighting for my life and sanity.
I just want a rest. I want peace.
I want good for those that I now wrong and hell for those that seek to hurt me or my family.
I want that justice to take place without me lifting a finger.
argh! Why do things have to be so hard?
Maybe I just don't want to be that much better.

Marrionette

2007-11-17T23:54:00.000-07:00

Marrionette
My life as a marionette
Strings yanked and jerked around
No rhyme or reason no flowing dance
No magical kingdom is my surround

The movement of a thousand hands
Each taking task on my wanted ways
No asking just dictating
Moving me into their frays

To meet the needs of too many folk
This way or that my limbs directed
To meet some state I know not of
An actor to another's dream subjected

My actions meant to guide are waste
My set a pile in the corner
Becoming unusable by the day
Obsolete am I in my own drama

I know not my final act
Or future scenes that I perform
For which purpose others control
Or someone's meaning I conform

I go on in deep regret
For failing to my own life meet
My life as a marionette
Was never made by my own feet

Michael Burge © 2007

Sleep

2007-10-29T01:11:00.001-06:00

My mind is serene as I wake from deep sleep,
tranquility served out and dreaming I keep.
Providing the stress a vacation from me,
temporary circumcision of emotional creep.
When awaked my defense is drained rather fast
and the saneness of my life once raised to the mast
is lowered the longer I stay awake
until my concerns old position retake.
Driven to distraction my thoughts all consume
'til my concentration itself can no longer bloom,
nor reach bud or even break from the seed,
they sit dry in the ground choked out by the weeds.
All resources taken to feed what is bad
Nothing left to supply what my good thoughts must have.
So while I'm awake I flounder in stress
Plagued by what my troubles want for regress
Paying toll to the things I owe for in my life
Whether just or undeserved strife.
So during the day I long for a nap
Not so much for physical sleep that I lack
But for breaking the mean streak running my day
And to keep my mind from running away.
But sleep comes not easy it battles me off
Keeping me going my mind reckless tossed
Restraining my body from lying to rest
my head flinging thoughts guilt wanting my best.
Nap never taken and sleep time prolonged
Until at the latest my body drops off
Leaving my stress hurting a half conscious fool
No longer recognizing its hurt laden tool
And once again I heal all of me for a time
While my stress and guilt feelings are mere nursery rhyme
and the image of some deranged carnival clown
no longer taken serious or dragging me down.
So for now I look forward to those times far away
In my nocturnal fortress my dragons I slay.
I hope someday soon they die in real life
No longer to haunt me or put up a fight
And the best time if day is not unconscious dreamland
The events of each day are back in my command
So from you and my waking stress I take leave
To head to a place that for now I can please.
michael burge © 2007

Andreia

2007-10-15T20:04:00.000-06:00

You meet many people every day some you may not think of until the next time that you actually see them again and some you carry a thought or 2 around several times a day. Perhaps you see someone that looks like a person you know or something is said that reminds you of this person.

I work in a building of a maybe 1500-2000 people including support staff. Because of my personality type I am always making contact with people around me verbal or non-verbal, wanted or unwanted. I am an equal opportunity offender. If you happen to encourage me enough I will actually start having conversations with you and then you are really in for it.

For the past couple of years there has been a little Brazilian gal named Andreia that worked with the cleaning crew so in the evenings if I happened to drag my butt out of the building around 5:30 she would be there sweeping the floors her starting task each shift in this building. I began talking to her one day while I was waiting in the lobby and from then on I would look to find her to say some word as I was leaving. Her broken English and confused furrowed brow at half of my words seemed charming to me if not entertaining.

We quickly found that we had daughters the same age and that I coached softball. Wanting to find an activity for her daughter to get involved with she requested that I tell her when games were so that she could bring her daughter hoping to get her involved to avoid what all parents are scared of…. too much free time and too much trouble for a young girl.

I would text her game information in case she was free to come with her daughter and without fail her first text response back was, ”Hey. I know you. I know your name.” Being from a very religion driven culture it was easy to know she meant because my name is Michael which was neatly tagged on to each of my texts at the bottom. The archangel, Adam, the first flesh and bone human being. Occasionally she would throw in an “Angel” just to confirm my theory.

Last Wednesday one of the maintenance guys who is also Brazilian stopped me an asked if I had heard about the little gal that sweeps downstairs Andreia. “No what happened?” I asked. “She died Saturday in a car accident….” More details were given but that was hazy as I stood there gasping “No way!” with my chin on the floor glazed over eyes and sorrow in my heart. The details of the accident, her terrible injuries and the details of her funeral are some fog-impaired memory.

I could not find an obituary or any other information other than an “On the record” reference to her name and no more details in the Tribune. I began going over every detail I could remember about her. The pain of so much loss and difficulty in my life this year oozing open like a wound not nearly healed enough to be tearing the bandaid off yet there it was exposed again.

I NEVER saw her without a smile for me and a well wish for my evening. Talking about her work, all 3 jobs. Her desire to complete massage therapy classes. Her daughter that gave her all to familiar stress. I still go back to what she said to me….. ”Hey. I know you. I know your name.”

I will never know if I was actually someone that did bring her some kind of solace as you would think an angel would. It would be totally presumptuous of me to think that yet she said it convincingly and often enough that it gave me a feeling that I was something that she saw as good rather than having her say, “you give the angel Michael a bad name!”

What will people think when they see my name? I know I think often that I want to leave people with a good feeling, a good example in life, a feeling that I respect them and represent what is good about humanity. I think sometimes it is just words in my heart or in a simple discussion amongst acquaintances. There is generally no finality to what we say. People discussed still exist, there is time to redeem past mistakes in this goal but last week I was reminded that sometimes there is no room for error.

Go well on your way and speak kind words of me in heaven Andreia as you brighten other’s days. When you do meet Michael, the real one, I dare you to ask him if he once worked in West Valley.

Colder out....

2007-10-07T17:24:00.000-06:00

The morning’s air begins to show the harsh bite of fall. Not unpleasantly, but still a bite that stings none the less. It is kind of an attention getter letting me know that while I could still enjoy the pleasantries that I have. The cold harsh reality of winter is far closer than I would like. Slowly like the boiled frog analogy my environment is changed to something dark and cold, something that I have trouble surviving in if I do survive at all and for the most part I don’t see the change until it has occurred.

Appropriately this change came to me with a difficult day of the year. My Mother’s birthday occurs this week, the first birthday since she was taken from us. It seems like yesterday but the feelings are still raw. They bite like the crisp temperatures on my bare skin in the morning. Exposed because I have not taken the time to properly protect myself from the cold.

Unlike throwing on an additional jacket or layer of clothing or a blanket I cannot protect myself from the bite of losing my mother. The hole that is left in my soul and in my life that can never be filled or insulated well enough to stop aching when the wind blows through it.

The storms don’t blow through every second or every day but come through with a vengeance bringing back in all the disappointments and stress that I caused my mother in my life, the pain of her absence and the lost potential of new memories that she should have enjoyed. It also brings the pain of the affect that her absence has had on the people around her. It changed everyone including me in ways that I would never have predicted.

It’s amazing at how one person can truly affect those around her. She was the baking soda that neutralized the battery acid of her family. She is proof that we all need a ying to our yang making us bearable to the society and animal life alike. She was the counter balance to our ten ton laden side of the see-saw. The true keystone to the family.

I wish right now I could talk with my mother. Talk about all that has gone on in the last 10 months like so many people claim to do. Those things have been huge in my life. A great source of change in me and my family. I guess I don’t seek to find solace that way or maybe that would happen. Someday I may attempt that. I guess I don’t believe that I have to tell her things…she already knows. There is just something about looking at her face and being in the influence of her loving spirit that changes the drama into a lesson. Because of her new understanding I cringe even more at my mistakes and somehow I know that although there is disappointment in my mother’s eyes even now that she understands me more than ever before.

This day will come and go, I will shed tears, contemplate my own existence and likewise worry about my family. The storm will subside. Winter will come outside and I will learn to cover up and protect from its stinging cold far quicker than I will overcome my mother’s absence. What will it take to bring balance back to my life? I think that is everyone’s question, isn’t it?

Pimp My Ride...

2007-09-14T14:53:00.000-06:00

I was channel surfing the other night and came across what turned out to be a hideous display of redneck-ism. Now as far as reality shows go there was only one I ever “HAD TO” watch and that one, long gone now was My Big Fat Fiancé. Next most watched has to be the MTV series with X called Pimp My Ride.

Not sure what appeals but the “Tricking” out of an old clunker in a half hour and the reaction seemed to draw me in. I guess I can never remember the crew pimping out a guy’s car so seeing cute chick go ga-ga over technology they have no idea about may have been part of it. You could have spray painted a Trix box and glued a couple of gum drops on it and I am confident some of these girls wouldn’t care any more or less.

Back to my Channel Surfing incident…..

So I pass GAC or CMT or some country TV station and there is the obvious offshoot/copycat show called Trick my Truck. I guess they thought Pimp my Truck would be too plagiaristic or maybe they don’t call them pimps in Arkansas….Daddy my truck just doesn’t have the same ring to it. In any event the target audience wouldn’t relate to that ghetto reference.

So instead of cute chicks this show taps into the next sexually sought after demographic of society…the Truck Driver. I happened to come in the last 5 min where they bring in the surprised victim to show them how they have made them less of a loser. So if I could take all the stereotypes of truck drivers and combine them into one person then mix that together with a character from Rollie Pollie Ollie and feed them cheerleader for a couple of days you would then know what walked through the door.

Imagine a beach ball 4’tall with legs and arms both extended making it now a whopping 4’3” . Red, White and Blue patriotic flag print suspenders, belt and hat. “Worlds Best Whitetail Hunter” t-shirt neatly tucked into his Wranglers that were, incidentally, hiked up to within 2 inches of his man boobs and the best Starter tennie runners $14.99 can buy from Wal-Mart.

He sees his tricked out truck and starts bouncing around swinging his arms in front of him (occasionally making contact) and showing off that astounding 1-inch vertical leap yelling, over and over again, “Wheeeeeeeeooooooowwwww!” I think I heard that word more in a two min span than I did the F-word in the whole last season of Deadwood.

I felt this was so out of place. This group thought so highly of a show that had succeeded in another segment of society they thought it would also translate to their key demographic. Wrong. The only appeal will be the train wreck instinct and to be honest this was almost too much for me to stomach even to that end and I have spent plenty of time wandering Wal-Mart to build up my tolerances.

Now I am busy looking at my life on the small screen and wondering what am I am trying to be. Am I bouncing off the walls making animal sounds over the new paint job on my rig and a new chrome brake pedal or am I on a hunting show where my man boobs won’t be seen because I’m wearing camo? Am I prancing across the stage staring in Dancing with the Stars wearing hip huggers with my thong indiscreetly exposed or casually (fully) clothed sitting in a la-z-boy sporting chips, salsa and a cold drink as the centerpiece of some Monday night football commercial?

Now, where did I put those suspenders?

emotional odiferrous eminations

2007-09-06T13:59:00.000-06:00

This week has been tough. Not just this week I suppose it has been building. I know, I know, those that know me will say, ”You are always under the gun Michael!” That is most accurate but most days I can handle it. I manage it below the surface releasing pressure away from the view of the common folk. I don’t really think it is beneficial to those around me to transfer anything I am feeling onto them on purpose or unintentionally although some times you do and you don’t care. This is very similar to being in a closed space with other people while experiencing intestinal vaporous pressure. Sometimes laughing occurs that causes involuntary release which most people are terrified of and then other times you just cut loose when you know it will cause others to turn 3 shades of green and then you laugh.

So this week it has been particularly difficult. This is actually the second week that I have reached critical mass in the last couple of months. It’s no surprise to me knowing some of the things I have been going through. I have been pretty successful at keeping emotional gas emissions away from those in my enclosed space until I reach this point.

A couple of days ago at my softball game I went in ornery and during the course of the game I hit a liner to short and began to lumber to first…well the fielder bobbled it made the throw to first and the first baseman bobbled it and I hit the bag safe or so I thought…. the umpire saw fit to exercise a seldom used rule to call me out and it was a marginal call at first base. I was pissed probably excessively over this call. I knew this umpire had been one of the better guys in the game. Very personable and did not have an agenda. Part of me was whatever but there was a demon on my shoulder that wanted to cause problems, be the bad boy, act on the edge,

I turned to him as I started to the dugout and said loud enough looking the umpire’s direction, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Another 5 steps and all of a sudden I felt the gas building in my gut and it had an evil feel to it. At that point I had an out of body experience and knew I was going to drop a cuss word or 2 that was derogatory towards the umpires judgment. I watched myself with a fascinated horror lay down that emotional fart that would offend everyone in my enclosed space. “That’s Bull Shit!”

“Six-seven, what did you say?” I continued walking my back now to the Ump…”I said balloon chips,” I muttered. The rest was what was expected, do you want to sit down? you must watch your mouth! Yadda, yadda!

The entire infield heard me and most of the stands including my friends that knew this was not normal from me. Not that I don’t get chippy at times but that I would so blatantly challenge the umpire who for most accounts didn’t deserve it really. (there are some that deserve it btw)

So all parts of my body reassembled and I anxiously looked around feeling all eyes on me but no one actually looking. I cracked a mischievous smile laughing inside knowing that I had just intentionally cut loose. Was it a cry for help? No not really mostly I think it was a release some sort of self destructive bad boy behavior that only I would recognize other than the smell of the emotional fart to those around me who not so much cared about what was inside that caused the gas buildup but about the smell that filled their nostrils at that moment.

So…yeah….this week was tough and I go back to doing what I do best…finding emotional release in places that only I will be affected. One word of advice….If you decide to jump up and down on my belly be ready to roll down the window quick because it won’t be long before I start laughing.

I'm Tired.

2007-08-13T21:55:00.000-06:00

I'm tired.

Logjam of responsibilities emotions and self-imposed refuse.
Holding my emotional overflow as a farm pond holds the ocean
Not sending the contents to the purifying dirt
To remove the bad, to edify the intended targets
Neither good nor bad moves along,
Only churning together mashing purposes behind the blockade,
Slowly losing identity becoming only a culprit,
A villain, a burglar, a tyrant.
The very reason the containment resolve is so strong.Knowing the eminent, I bail emotion.What seems like buckets, impacts like thimbles.
But even that wears me out quickly.
I fear the worst. I fear these words.The knowledge I both send the tide and hold it back.
The dichotomy of my control
Exponentially increasing until it's existence Makes it disappear.So I bail, thimble after thimble.

I'm tired.

Silence

2007-08-02T16:58:00.000-06:00

The pounding fills my head like a dryer full of shoes
hammering the inside walls whichever way they choose.
It makes me squirm and tremble while awaiting the next blow
reverberating through my bones like a thousand cawing crows.
A sound so loud I cannot sleep or even rest my eyes
like concentrating on a tiny task surrounded by a thousand flies.
There it is! Cant you hear it? in th middle of the last line
like fighting kids in the back seat on a 20 hour drive.
It takes away my eyesight making everything a blur
focusing as easy as a drunken man slurs words
I cant sit, can't stand, can't even lay down
as the arsenol of sound countless beats all around.
but still the source of the onslaught not found.
I stumble, run not looking back quickly covering ground
I run to the closet and shut the door tight
fumbling at the wall I turn off the light.
sealing myself off from the world outside.
This should now stiffle, the bombardment subside.
Oh the peace the dark and isolation brings
my muscles relax my ears now ring
from new absence of that evil foe.
What was I doing when so angrily thrown?
oh yes contemplating my life and times
my mind was working solving my crimes.
AHHHHHHHHHH! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
the pounding fills my head like a dryer full of shoes.....

Christmas...

2007-07-24T01:52:00.000-06:00

*NOTE: this was written at christmas before my mother passed away. If you are interested in chonological order read it before each of the 2 posts about my mother.*

Christmas came and went this year and all the normal activities were to be had. Dinner at Mom and Dad's house. Seeing all the brothers and sisters and families. Kids underfoot and overhead and bouncing off every unprotected surface.

The nativity reenacted with makeshift costumes always making people ponder that great miracle as it really unfolded and where the shepherd in the field actually got a olive green Martha Stewart towel to wrap around his head over 2000 years ago.

The same family get-together fare that usually accompanies these events. The same discussions insert different people. Breakfast Christmas morning. Same Sausage omelet, pancakes and hash browns. Eating until you were simply stuffed. Kids waiting anxiously until the time to open presents and then acting so official and faux grown up as they doled them out and kept order in opening gifts. Looking on with as each gift was opened envying the new recipient yet being super excited for the potential of what could be hidden by that blue holly covered gift wrap tagged with their names.

Feeling satisfied when you leave not upset that this had been as many many other Christmases had but rather pleased that you had once again shared the memory of past Christmases over once again with your family and added another wealth of experience to what Christmas means to everyone.

This year WAS different. Although we carried on with the normal fanfare there was a thousand pound gorilla in the minds and hearts of each of us as we prepared and participated in. In my mind it was punctuated when the prayer on the meal was agreed to and offered by my brother Jason. It was Jason that tried with every attempt to remove himself as far away from anything spiritual as possible. Acting as if it was the water that would melt his wicked witch of the East attitude and persona. As he began you could tell the unpracticed flow but it was not until the 30 second pause that I knew for sure his heart was overflowing just as all of ours were.My heart began to tear up constricting to the point of pain, physical and emotional. I didn't hear any more of the words that he said over the next 2 minutes I just stared at the gentle yet burdened and physically diminished form of my mother sitting in her chair head bowed. A few feet away my father noble, stoic yet face lined with wrinkles defined by the extreme concern he was enduring.

I know that these two fine people had done more praying in the last year than I had for probably many years. The care lines and white hair drawn out one at a time as each child spent one of his/her nine lives. How unfair that we have to go through this. but how much more unfair that my parents have to. 62 Christmases is not enough especially now that the joy of watching 6 children has turned into the joy of watching 20 grandchildren. This cant be real. The feeling at the pit of my stomach.... my internal black hole of loss begins its work sucking me in. Each time I watch her stare off into space I feel it even before I try to imagine what aspect of eternity she is contemplating. What fear she is internalizing and hiding behind her expressionless face. Thoughts betrayed only by the deep exhale a few moments later and that all so brief look of fear or sadness most likely a mix of both.

At that moment the feeling in my stomach makes me ill and explodes to send every cell of my body into panic.The possibility that this may be her last is too real....How is that any different than the chance each of us has every day of having a last anything? I suppose its different in that we have enough information to give her passing far too great odds. We have the luxury of ignoring the everyday chance of fatality in our healthy lives.

The morose nature of the celebration is very apparent to me. I know Mom stayed out with everyone until they left even though she didn't feel well enough to. She was not about to miss this Christmas. Every gift seems so trivial yet you want it to be gift that lasts through the eternities. Of course temporal gifts were given...somethings to make my parents relive the past and enjoy the world as we know it now.......but ....we all gave my parents the gift that was the most important, our presence.

As tough as this Christmas was and as close to ripping one's heart out as it felt this was the most important time in my parents lives....right now...there...in their presence. This is what it is like to be human. When we get past all the frill of living in this century on this continent. We all get to experience this real human realization. We have now.. Don't waste it you don't know if today will be your last. How overused its that cliche?

I quickly realized that I gave my mother just what she wanted and for a brief second I smile. Who knows if this will really be her last but for now I cant afford to act as if it wont be or before I know it the immediacy of little things like time spent with and for her will be gone as will the opportunity. Now I am forced to make up many years of ignoring her of taking her for granted.

So this was anything but normal for a Christmas even though we went through the same motions did the same things and ate the same foods. It was my mother's time. I hope this lesson leaves a lasting impression on me because who knows who is next? Maybe it will be me...maybe I wont know or have a warning like my mother.....so just like my parents..today is the most important day in my life. My heart aches for my mother. I love her so...without her I am nothing.

Food for Thought: All say, "How hard it is that we have to die" - a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live. ~Mark Twain

Falling

2007-07-06T01:18:00.000-06:00

Falling
Wind whipping by, chasing hair around my face
burning it lashes my eyes in a chaotic race.
A thousand stripes taking pittance out of me
for a thousand mistakes, bad choices, drawing blood in glee.
My heart stopping dead with each stripe received
and painfully starting again, crying for reprieve.
lost in the mix are fair and unjust toll
both removing the flesh of my soul.
Rushing past empty outstretched arms
thrown as a token to avoid personal harm
or withdrawn when within saving grasp
when would be judges don their mask
A freefall spinning from my foundation expunged
a product of the crosswind of wagging tongues
of those who seek to build their own design
as if building my own place I've resigned
the speed is blinding, memories whipped and torn
from the grasp of my mind now weary and worn.
I plunge downward of my own accord
from a sure demise this act does ward.
With no tree to catch my tumble with no soft place for me to go
with no way to stop what I have done I fall.......

Michael Burge © 2007

is that a Neon?

2007-05-22T17:03:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I saw something while driving that made me smile then reflect. I love the look of the new Mustangs. Going back the style and paint job that I really liked the most was the blue with the double white racing stripe down the center of the car. It just looks bad. I have seen some of the new mustangs with the same paint job…just sends chills up my spine…not sure why but it does. Not “there goes a hot chick” chills or the “first bite of a melt in your mouth steak” chills or the “ooooh that toilet seat is cold” chills….more like a Tim “the Toolman” Taylor “Uhhh uhhh uhhh!” chills.

I’m driving along the other day and out of the corner of my eye I see the all to familiar blue and white design. I double take it and immediately know something is wrong…it’s the blue and white but painted on a…….a……..a……..Dodge Neon!!

I laughed at first thinking I had been taken by the paint job and how funny it was that the owner could afford a Neon but wanted a Mustang so bad he had the car painted that way….or that the dealership actually thought it would be a great idea to copy this the paint job in order to sell cars….it worked for this buyer.

A poor car devoid of its real identity. No this isn’t a muscle car fit for such a branded paint job. I can hear one group saying “now it’s the attitude that counts. It may be a Neon but it has the heart of a Mustang.” Another group saying “He’s a fake! He thinks he is a Mustang when he is nothing more than a gutless Neon.” And yet another saying “What an affront to true muscle cars to have a Neon disrespect them like that!”

I brushed the hair from my eyes and it dawned on me I had a new paint job. My long hair, a different attitude, different clothes. What was my covering these days? What was underneath? Was I hiding something old, familiar, rusty, outdated? Was the new me actually me?

Why did these questions even come up? I have always been a confident person. I know what I want, where I will get it from, what my limitations are and who/what/when/where really counts in my life. I am never devoid of an opinion but I find myself all of a sudden in turmoil.

So many changes will do that to you. I feel like I am standing in the surf one minute, feet on the ground providing a footing allowing me to go whither I want my own power, my own will. The next moment a wave dissolving the footing that once provided my foundation. Wild, powerful water whisking my limbs about and throwing my orientation askew.

The panicked moments following each wave spent finding my feet and balance knowing that another wave was headed my way. From one side then the next. I’m more prepared for some and totally surprised by others. Wow this is wearing me down. The constant struggle my life has been has made me weary. Weary of the fight against the waves. I did walk out here why is it not as easy to leave the surf as it was to get in?

So here I sit, the equivalent of a Neon wearing Mustang paint or maybe just Mustang paint waiting for the Neon to grow up.

Mr. Imus Goes to Washington...

2007-04-12T14:30:00.000-06:00

http://www.wten.com/Global/story.asp?S=6361438

Mr. Imus goes to Washington (or is it called the Woodshed?)

I have never been an apologist for Mr Imus...he is generally too pompous, elitist and condescending for me and rather full of himself and not very entertaining to boot....What has kept him afloat is this style of offending without people really not knowing they have been offended and somehow he has been able to generate some clout amongst the Washington elite.

He has been survived many years with this same style living on the edge. He doesnt just generally toe the line...It is common for him to cross it and dare anyone to stop him and his $$ generating contacts in Washington.

So finally he says the wrong thing about the wrong person(s) at the wrong time and gets taken to the wood shed. Yes he deserved to be suspended (probably not cancelled) but it needed to hurt and teach him a lesson. He got that. I'm ok for a reaction of Shock and disbelief by America. We genuinely should be apauled by the reference to the basketball team the way he did as "Nappy headed Ho's". There is no value or humor derived from that reference. It cannot even be misconstrued...It is what it is....and insult devaluing a race and womanhood.

I dont think the term "You People" is the insult that it is made out to be in this case. I commonly refer to groups as "you people" That is too general a reference to be taken as racist. Silly really for the offended parties to be bent over that but I think that this mostly was about people that were not the primary victims assigning themselves victim status and looking for more ammo to throw at Mr I.

The real issue that is bothersome to me which has been brought up time after time, thrown upon deaf ears is the double standard which our country operates. The same group that is acting so victimized (funny enough it isnt the Basketball team which ARE the victims in this case) has absolutely no problem calling hurtful names describing those that do something simple enough as not agreeing with them.

No civil respectful dialog about how you disagree with a person or stance...once it is known that you disagree with some groups regardless of your arguments or disposition you are labeled ugly things...AS UGLY or WORSE than what Mr I used to describe the College basketball teams. Yes you become a Bigot, A Racist, A Sexist.

You may feel angry enough about the other persons argument that you feel justified in using ugly language and labels like that but that does not justify their use. Just because I think we should have never had quotas and that they should be done away with does not make me racist. It means that I believe we can accomplish the same purposes another way or that these practices are more harmful to society than they would be helpful. I don't hate Black people or Mexican people and on and on. I just disagree with the policy.

The most blatent double standard comes in the allowances for certain people to say hateful things or label another in a harmful way whenever they feel like it and condemn with the utmost energy those oposed to you for doing the same or in some cases less. Yes Mr I should never have said those things and should be reprimanded. He should NOT be banished to an isle in the middle of the ocean, stripped of his title of Human Being and flogged within an inch of his life. He should have to apologize to those who he directly offended...The Women's basketball team...Not to Rev. Sharpton or the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. He should then begin censoring his words of hate before letting any words go from his mouth ever again.

Reverend Sharpton should apologize to the Duke Lacrosse players for labeling them racist because they "Allegidly" attacked a black woman when in reality it wasnt true it was a fabrication. Should he have ever used that name? NO. Will he apologize? NO. He is allowed to use Hate freely when it is destructive and innacurate. Even if these playere had actually attacked her they wouldnt be racist necissarily. Stupid, violent and dangerous maybe but not necissarily racist. Rev Sharpton should apologize profusely then begin to censor his words of hate before any words exit HIS mouth. Just because you belong to a Minority does not make you better just as belonging to a Majority doesn't.

I do not Owe Blacks, Mexicans, Homosexuals,Women anything other than what I owe all my fellow human beings. The respect because they are humans. In return, I expect from everyone what I give them. This double standard creates a very unequal playing field which is the cry of the minority...we want equallity when in reality they want the boat to tip the other way. I do not have to make up for anything done to their ancestors. I have to make up for what I do here on earth. I am not required to agree with every piece of legislation that those communities see fit to put forward just to avoid being called a dirogatory name.

If we are to become the society of fairness we must no longer turn a blind eye to any behavior that is racist either against a minority or against the majority. Regardless who is the offender racism and bigotry will still exist.

2007-04-05T12:13:00.000-06:00

April News of the Wild and Whacky....

A 22 Year-old man walking through a art gallery comes across a painting depicting Goliath's severed head in front of David on the ground. Enraged he waits until the guard leaves then puts his foot through the $300,000.00 painting. I know there is alot of art that I really dont care for that much but Im not about to put my foot through a painting of that worth...You can see far worse in your family friendly video game.....50 dollars and you can put your foot through the game CD or break it in half or throw it in the microwave....Leave the art alone....just dont look at it if it bothers you that much.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,264264,00.html

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A 47 year old woman was arrested after hitting two cars in succession. Her blood alcohol was taken and after the police searched all 385,000 breath tests taken in Washington since 1998 the concluded she owns the record. 35 records were above .40 and none above .45 This outstanding woman blew a .47!!! Its a record because all other canidates were dead by the time they hit .47....hello that is 50% of your blood is alcohol. How long do you have to sustain a binge and how much alcohol do you have to consume to get to that point? Unfortunately she still drove better than some sober drivers out there.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=333&sid=1120724

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Several Nassau Politicians began a campaign against sexual preditors recently advertising a toll free line people can call to be notified of any convicted sexual offenders were registered within a block of where they live. Any callers to the line were greeted by:
"Hey there, sexy guy," says the sultry recorded female voice that answers the phone. "Welcome to an exciting new way to go live, one on one, with hot horny girls waiting right now to talk to you."
Apparently 1-800 is not 1-888. and the difference between them was that one was a sex offenders line the other was a Phone Sex line. Hmm they said they hoped no one was offended. The funniest part is that 2 years ago the Justice Department mailed out to Victims service agencies the same wrong phone number. If you dont know your history you are doomes to repeat it!

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A father found his son's MySpace account in which he bragged sbout doing drugs and drinking alcohol. Knowing this was a severe problem for our country that has many challenges and that many conventional ways of combatting this problem just dont faze kids anymore he opted for a creative approach to his childs drug abuse and dealing......
He made him wear a sandwich shop sign standing outside of his Junior High School that said "I Abused and Sold Drugs" while his father sat by his side.
Eventually school administration asked them to stop but by then the lesson had been learned.

Said the Father, "I would like to say that I'm not out here doing this to humiliate my son, I'm doing this because I love him. "

Kudos to you Knoxville Dad!

http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=6390423

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A man gets on a Executive commuter train in Jakarta expected to depart 6 hours later. When he didnt get off at the stop hs family became worried. At the end of the day he traveled back and forth between cities several times before being discovered in a locked restroom dead.
This gives a new meaning to "What died in there?"

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=333&sid=1152939

2007-04-04T15:07:00.000-06:00

For all of you that insist on calling people that do not agree with you, "sheeple" it is getting old. It is my experience that people who point to others as herd animals, usually do so within the safety of their own herd.

Where actors go wrong..

2007-03-26T13:22:00.000-06:00

In the news Sean Penn has recently surfaced like "Nessy" in a verbal diatribe equivalent to a bowel movement after eating a whole bunch of grapes chased by prune juice. Yeah ugly, slimy and with no particular direction. (sorry about the visual but it was accurate to the way I feel whenever he gets the urge to do this)

Now I do give Sean-arrhea credit for something very important that most Hollywood wont even talk about doing let alone actually do it...he will get out and do something even if its as insane as renting a 20 foot boat with a hole in the bottom and attempt to deliver critical supplies to a war torn country of New Orleans. Never mind the fact that he is under equiped, under armed and that niether the looters nor al-Queida could care less that he played a retarded man in I am Sam or dressed in drag as a Nun with Robert DeNiro in Were no Angels. (Im sure he is taking the sinking rescue fleet up the Euphrates next.) Did he really think that his few supplies would make a difference? Regardless he is willing to actually put his beliefs and activism on the line doing something other than using a more than willing bully pulpit like most hollywood cowards do.

That being said, he has some very annoying moments where his mind takes a vacation and he resorts to third grade theatrics to make whatever misguided point he has. I dont agree with him on almost anything but I am more than willing to give credit to someone that has an opposing view that isnt canned and fed to them like creamed corn only to have them regurrgitate it later while in public in an ugly display that has the dogs licking it up and the rest of the crowd dry heaving. Unfortunately, most of Hollywood and most politicians are more concerned with playing the crowd than they are at truely swaying the minds of people, Creating meaningful discourse that causes individuals to think about what they actually believe.

I actually do think Sean-arrhea has some very important self derived opinions and could probably defend his points or at least his reasoning and I believe that for many reasons so it is really sad to see him get in front of the occasional mic and say "Liar Liar Pants on fire!" or some other equally infantile remark meant to get cheers rather than cause discourse or provoking thought.

Mr Penn had one of those moments the other day where he told the President to "shove his war" and said we could better use the money in building levees in New Orleans or Sending food to Africa. Hmm lets think about the Mr. Penn's alternatives here. Why would we rebuild levees in an area so devistated? How about we leave that part of the country as it should have always remained...a swamp. Yeah I said it. We are already know that the local governments have a complete inability to manage their own disaster plans what will they do with new levees that I help them build. Probably underplan and under maintain them just as they did the originals. Put my money back into my vicinity not help others live in a swamp. They choose to live there they can fund the building of their security just as I wouldnt expect people in Seattle to fund Earthquake preventative measure for people living in Utah. We can do that.

Now Africa...why would we feed people in Africa? Probably the same reason we should invade Iraq...help a beleagured people do something they dont have the ability to do on their own. Yes people in Africa are starving for much of the same reason people in Iraq were...Warlords hoarding and stealing and pillaging all the food and other resourses. It doesnt matter if it comes from outside aide organizations or internal the food is still at the mercy of the warlords. Well Sadaam was a big warlord not only letting his people starve but killing them indescrimiately at the clip of 30-50k a year. In addition fighting a war with a faceless enemy in Iraq is much preferable to fighting one on State Street and Main. If we just started sending food to Africa we wouldnt so occupy our enemies. They wont be flocking to Zimbabwe to battle us they would be free to target US targets. Tell me this isnt so.... In addition, we could not keep the corrupt political structure in Africa from funneling the free food right to the warlords anyways without actually doing what he have done in Iraq.

So Mr Penn really is no different than Mr. President they have just chosen different targets and Mr Penn doesnt feel that our security is of paramount concern based on his ability to prioritize targets. The other difference is that Mr President will act with respect when addressing his opponents. You wont hear him refer to Mr Penn in disrespecful playground language. Words of advice to Mr Penn and other Celebrity, wanna-be politico advisers, Have your opinion, back up your opinion with well thought our reasoning, have a replacement plan and for heavens sake please try not to speak about politics when you feel the bad shrimp placing your insides in dire straits...

2007-03-22T16:29:00.000-06:00

I hate moral dilemmas. They suck. Most times because by the mere fact they are a dilemma you don’t want to do what you know is absolutely right for whatever reason. You have, however, your mind and heart testifying against you even before you make the decision for merely feeling like you shouldn’t. Your emotional side or maybe your logical mind is telling you to do the opposite of what you know is right.

You struggle make every justification that makes sense and some that don’t really make sense but in some skewed thinking you have made it seem tight as Faraday's law. You make the “new” decision seem like it is morally justified but somehow the dressing you put on it just won’t hide the fact that it really isn’t.

A couple of weeks ago I hit some little runt of a sports car in a parking lot with the back tire of my truck. Yeah it was shorter than my truck. I didn’t see her park there. I really don’t think she had insurance of her own. She was driving a POS 14 year old vehicle with a 14-year-old paint job. She gave me quotes of $800 just for paint to being the car up to her 14-year-old paint job? Yeah right. It was just the bumper…. I get the feel that she was going to try and fleece my insurance and that pissed me off. Morally I think it is wrong for her to not carry insurance of her own but feel like she can use someone else’s insurance when she is the victim.

All of this is perfectly reasonable justification for me calling her a liar and having my insurance reject her claim after all it is her word against mine. Telling her that I want to file a police report after the fact so they can tag her for not carrying insurance on her car. What if it was her hitting my truck…could she absorb thousands of dollars of damage or would I get screwed? I would get screwed.

I casually avoided the phone call from the claim investigator to get my side of the story. Until this morning…I knew I couldn’t avoid it for the third day.

Ahhhhh my moral dilemma….teach her a lesson…make her feel morally responsible for following laws, save myself the insurance hit for 3 years both which sounds much better for me or do what is right. I had done everything that was right to this point…I stopped went into the store and found the offended party and reported the accident. Helped her make the car safe and drivable. Presented my insurance information and asked for hers. Gave her my contact information and made every attempt to get the process going…do I stop now?

I did what I know was right I admitted guilt and detailed the accident to the investigator. Then I spent the morning being mad at myself…not for admitting guilt and taking the insurance hit or letting her get away with what will indeed be some exaggerated damage to her car or letting her get away with being uninsured…for not paying attention enough to see her car. Yeah I placed the blame where it should be. I did the right thing in handling the situation correctly and freeing myself the guilt that would have gone with me for exacting justice for her decisions.

I didn’t do it without days worth of moral struggle. Each way equally easy to do, in the act, but carrying different long-term costs. Just like the speeding ticket I received one morning at 430am in Wendover, Nevada after driving all night. I felt $90 for 10 over was exorbitant. The quick change from 55 to 30 was not fair..yada…yada..I didn’t pay it. For all the justification not paying a ticket for my action of not obeying the speed limit was not right.

It became a memorable point in my life where I went against what I felt was right. Did that somehow cheapen my ability to make moral decisions for children or myself in the future? I don’t know, I just know that I remember that and I will forever. It sits in my existence like a pebble in my gut weighing me down ever so slightly. I guess I just need to choose to do the right thing as often as possible to keep the pebbles from building me up eventually making it hard for me to live my life the way I want.

I’m still upset I did what I did and that I will be paying for it for a while but in just a short time I will forget about it and move on. Why? Perhaps this situation will be an example to the young girl…. mostly because I will be at peace with myself.

Grrrr Stupid little sports car and moral dilemmas!

We are all in trouble now guys......

2007-03-18T12:34:00.000-06:00

I can feel my testosterone being zapped even as I type.........Maybe just my guilt for all that is bad in society and the world and who knows...the universe...

2007-03-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

THIS IS WHAT LOVE IS ALL ABOUT!

It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when a gentleman in his 80's, arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am.

I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would to able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was
not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound.

On exam, it was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and re-dress his wound.

While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor's appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the
nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife

I inquired as to her health. He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer's Disease. As we talked, I asked if she would be upset if he was
a bit late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five years now.

I was surprised, and asked him, "And you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are?"

He smiled as he patted my hand and said, "She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is."

I had to hold back tears as he left, I had goose bumps on my arm, and thought, "That is the kind of love I want in my life."

True love is neither physical, nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be.

The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have. (Amen to that!)

2007-03-06T10:28:00.000-07:00

More News of the Wild and Wacky....

It seems Global warming is the latest whipping dog.
Brothel owners in Bulgaria blame global warming on the loss of Working Girls....Ski resorts having less snow now need to provide other means of entertainment for visitors.
Maybe they should check out myspace for fresh talent or maybe even pay them more to stay at the brothels. Free market applies to the working girl segment of society too!
I am working on formulating a plausible blame story for all my mistakes in life on Global warming and George W. Bush as that seems the posh thing to do these days.

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=39945&in_page_id=2

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Santa Monica has too many squirrels in the city park.
This is classic.....too many squirrels so you are going to WHAT? you are going to implement birth control? For some reason I have this vision of some tiny squirrel condom dispenser when I hear the words squirrel Birth Control.
There are 1000 squirrels in the park and they have been cited by LA County because of the problem twice. Does that make Santa Monica the old cat lady of California?
It costs between 2 and 10 dollars a shot. Somewhere there is an anti-military liberal saying I'm glad we cut defense spending so that we could take care of important issues at home......like sterilizing squirrels? Dang! Just find a city with a cat problem and ship their cats in for a few weeks to the city park. Wahlah! Squirrel problem solved...now what to feed the cats to?

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=333&sid=953599

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True Love....
Apparently this man and woman were married in Las Vegas a week ago. Today the man sits in jail charged with attempted murder or assault or something similar after getting into an argument and attempting to run his new bride over. Most guys carry their brides across the thresh hold not run them under the tire. They are both model citizens now after spending time being rehabilitated in jail her getting out the day before the wedding him spending more than50 stints in fun filled penal institutions. I'm thinking we need to save society from these two bright ideas...can we dress them as squirrels and ship them off to the Santa Monica Park? At least we know they wont have kids.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660201250,00.html

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Bovine Adventures......
A farmer noticed that the chickens he was raising began to disappear. Fearing some wild dogs, or other harmful predator was feasting on his animals he watched for several days until one morning to his surprise he caught one of his calves carrying a chicken in its mouth and then eating it. Yes the cow was eating the chicken!! SO much for fattening the calf...the calf may just be fattening the other livestock.
I wonder if the cow would eat the cats? I hear they taste like chicken.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=333&sid=965343

Have a great day!

2007-02-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

Ive decided that the thrill of doing crazy stuff is really...umm.....crazy. So climbing Everest isnt good enough...try taking a paraglider to elevations above Everest. So a couple paragliders got caught in a storm. One perished, one reached over 32000 feet, passed out for 30 minutes and woke up "just in time" at 1500 feet to land safely suffering frostbite on the face and ice in the suit. Yeah when you have been to 32000 feet 1500 feet is just in time to wake up. And how about that para glider flying on auto pilot? The dude was asleep at the wheel for 30 MINUTES!!! Another para glider died in the same storm body found 47 Miles from his launch point.
This stuff is CRAZY! Any storm that can carry you to 32000 feet at which point you pass out then carry you 47 miles away is something you should stay away from I'm thinking. Isn't there a point at which you say.."Hey this is getting a little high I think I'm going back down." Maybe when you think you are going to pass out?
Makes me glad I play golf as a hobby and yes I know enough to get the hell off the course when the storm comes up.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,252405,00.html

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From the desk of our moral depravity.......

This Brother and sister want incest bills in Germany repealed so they can continue their relationship...oh yeah they have 4 KIDS!!

My favorite line of the article is "Two of the children have disabilities although it is not known if these are due to inbreeding or because they were born prematurely." Let's think about this one.......

Somewhere in their lineage do they have Tennessee forefathers? (excluding readers from Tennessee, of course, after all you are reading this so you are excluded)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,254943,00.html

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Now I'm not one to lightly throw around fat smak mostly because I resemble it.....
If your son looks like a 16 year old and weighs as much as a larger adult but is 8 you should stop feeding him the table scraps, put away the Nintendo, sell your stock in Nabisco and walk daily with him...one...or....two...... hours until he can step on the playground without scaring the monkey bars and swing set. This isn't Child abuse necessarily...just total parental stupidity.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,254901,00.html

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Article in the local online News Site today:

Eisenhower Junior High School Locked Down This Afternoon
Eisenhower Junior High School in Taylorsville was locked down after students reported seeing weapons inside. Investigators did not found a gun. There are no reports of any injuries.

Maybe if they had looked in the English department.......

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How dare you bring a sword to a....ummm...sword fight?
A man brings a sword as he breaks into the house of a sword collector in order to rob him. shouldn't you bring a greater weapon than that of the victim? You know he has a sword or 2, he's a collector for heck sake. The funniest part is that the robber was disarmed, humiliated and also cut his arm on the broken glass from the window he broke to get in. Thanks for this one Mr. Mensa!

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=333&sid=944929

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Expecting parts of a table to be delivered but DHL Express, Ludivine Larmande began unwrapping the bubble wrapped packages. It was clear the first one opened was a mistake when it didn't look like table parts ...it looked like a liver. Ludivine stopped opening the second of the packages when he saw the ear. Apparently, parts meant for a medical research lab were incorrectly delivered instead to the Larmonde residence. The Liver and partial skull while not harmful were definitely disturbing.

28 more packages were believed to be potentially scattered across the country. The company is reevaluating whether it should have even shipped the packages and how the packages got misdirected.
I'm sure theres a DHL manager somewhere muttering.."someone's going to lose their head over this!!"

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=333&sid=948247

2007-02-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

Third Day - The Mountain of God

Thought that I was all alone
Broken and afraid
But You were there with me
Yes, You were there with me

And I didn’t even know
That I had lost my way
But You were there with me
Yes, You were there with me

‘Til You opened up my eyes
I never knew
That I couldn’t ever make it
Without You

Even though the journey’s long
And I know the road is hard
Well, the One who’s gone before me
He will help me carry on

After all that I’ve been through
Now I realize the truth
That I must go through the valley
To stand upon the mountain of God

As I travel on the road
That You have lead me down
You are here with me
Yes, You are here with me

I have need for nothing more
Oh, now that I have found
That You are here with me
Yes, You are here with me

I confess from time to time
I lose my way
But You are always there
To bring me back again

Sometimes I think
of where it is I’ve come from
And the things I’ve left behind
But of all I’ve had,
what I possessed
Nothing can quite compare
With what’s in front of me
With what’s in front of me

2007-02-06T14:23:00.000-07:00

How would I live not in her arms?
with her pain clouding my favored charms.

The words of a million crawling bugs,
I grew from infancy to seasoned thugs.

Now eating the good that fills our space,
not all are aware just to see my face.

Destined to exterminate by mine own hand,
problems stretching like grains of sand.

It must be.... there is no doubt.
or the vermin will eat us into drought.

When will I pry from my soul the life,
an ante for my game of strife

to be expended when healing starts
of indelibly linked, breaking hearts.

But healing can and must be reached
the whole of us, the words we preached.

On this rests our singular fate
innocence punished by a weakened state.

On mine and hers the villain and saint,
reconciliation makes the strongest faint.

I bow my heart to pay my cost,
bare my soul to avoid great loss.

Praying, begging, lashing myself,
knowing the payment may mean my health.

It must be done right here and now
It's Right to myself I vow.

No more weakness, No more time to waste
forward I step to advance my fate.

Inhaling deeply as that alone
will stem the bug tide on my home.

eyes wide open to not intake
my doom as closed eyes see my fate.

yet my feet are set to avoid that harm
saying, "How would I live not in her arms?"
Michael Burge 2007

2007-02-06T14:20:00.000-07:00

Im pulling some of my poetry out of the closet.....

On This Day...
My heart and thoughts are years away,
defining me now by my long past.
resembling nothing even 1 year gone,
but a compilation begin to last.

The lessons learned in school and life
from many ones who labored, or not.
big and small, old and young, close or far,
building flower beds or ugly scars.

Experience gathered I must be thankful
to know what beauty to propagate.
Avoiding things that harm and betray
to live a life others would recreate.

Hard lessons learned when I fail
Pain stacked like blocks at my feet.
Causing extra effort to overcome
reminders to help my promises keep.

Looking past my pile of blocks
discouraged there seems to be no end
daily picking away trials to clear the path
to this price I bend.

When I hear a distance scrape
stones being moved from my pile
Others clearing ones not owned
toiling to remove my trials

my mothers smiling tears
fill my line of sight.
A brother, sister and many friends
helping with their might.

then the faces I do not know
but still have joined the fray.
"Who are you? Why are you here?"
he replies," You helped me on my way."

Just like the tree having depth below
that people see above.
For all the trials I've created,
good deeds are left in trove.

the smiles I offered without cause,
Kind words I said one day,
A child taught a simple skill
or lions kept at bay.

They've done as much to build both up
as my failing tore me down
and brought with me to my defense
the souls who might have drowned.

My life is filled with good and bad
Its true I've done my best
To know what my dreams should be
and fulfill them like the rest.
I've so much living left to do,
undiscovered still to find.
many dreams are left undone
so many not yet defined.

So on this day, one year wiser,
I rejoice in who I am.
mistakes made and learned from
and trials I overcame.

smiles from those I saved
and for those who saved me too.
Finished dreams surround me now
that strengthen those to do.

Rolling up my sleeves
and with a smile I say,
"I begin another year of life
right here on this day."
Michael Burge Oct 2006

2007-02-06T10:11:00.001-07:00

So I am reading this story today: http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007020419,00.html Apparently, some thieves formed a gang that used high tech gadgets to watch cards and relay information to fellow conspirators at a casino allowing them to unfairly win against the house in games of chance. When sentanced the judge rebuked them stating "The result gave the gang a “virtually foolproof advantage” to walk away with thousands of pounds." In addition, “The offence you committed was obviously a carefully planned and executed crime..." Wow!! I am thinking what are casinos in the first place but "carefully planned and excuted opportunities" aimed at parting people with thier money using many high tech gadgets and signifigant profiling so that the casinos have “virtually foolproof advantage.” Hello Pot meet Kettle.......
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In the department of how morally depraved can we become..... http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/16/070116173159.3yvt2yr3.html A statue approved of by the local government in Amsteradam will glorify and honor the "Working Girls" accross the land. Umm yeah...What next you moral geniuses a museum to the poppy?
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Just before 2am Sunday morning neighbors in the in the Draper South Mountain area noticed smoke and flames coming from a newly constructed city building. They banged on the garage doors and were just abut to break some windows when the inhabitants opened the door and realized they were on fire. They worked harrowingly to remove the vehicles from the structure and saved all but 2. The Fire Chief noted one of his fire fighters dressed only in a tshirt used a hose to fight the fire in 3 degree temperatures. Neighbors were impressed. The Fire chief also noted that the reason the Fire Station bay didnt have fire alarms was that the exhaust from the trucks would constantly set it off....hmmm everyone has an excuse for not having working fire alrams...even the fire fighters.
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Talk about being efficient.... http://www.nbc10.com/news/10761790/detail.html A 49 year old lawywer was caught naked with a 14 year old girl in the courthouse conference room. At least he wont have to go far to be sentanced for this one.
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Jaws 5.......or should it be Nose 1 http://www.local6.com/news/10942485/detail.html Are you kidding me? What would make several Bull Sharks do this? Then again what would allow a turkey to look up in the rain until its beak filled with water and drowned itself?

2007-02-05T15:11:00.001-07:00

This article hits common sense right on the noggin.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm

2007-01-29T01:38:00.000-07:00

Alone
Empty heart, cold, alone.
Exposed to all elements by mine own hand.
Chill reception for redemtion.
Knowing where the warmth lies to salve my wound
Out of my reach.
Bound by chains I hammer and saw.
Until then,I hang my head as icicles form on my soul.
Alone.

Michael Burge ©2007

God can heal a broken heart, but He has to have all the pieces. ~Author Unknown

2007-01-28T23:19:00.000-07:00

The Day
As if the day had not been long enough or rather since yesterday really hadn’t ended for me the phone call at 7:56 didn’t do much to startle me but I knew before I even looked at the caller ID that this was it. Stumbling to the phone across the room I reached it as the voice mail picked it up. There in the call log was my Father’s number. I recalled the conversation hours before with my brother in which he said, “I will call if anything changes with Mom’s condition.” My heart rose to my throat as I redialed. I could feel it pounding my head and neck as a blacksmith’s hammer in preparation of hearing the words. Indeed it was time to attend to my mother’s last few hours on earth.

I hurriedly got dressed and made a few phone calls then headed to Riverton. I walked in and most of my siblings were already there. Although I was in morose spirits for many reasons I felt peace in the house. I felt peace from my brothers and sisters. As much as we grate against each other at times I believe we are all unified in spirit this day and with this situation. I felt a spirit of comfort and understanding.

My mother was breathing heavily, struggling to draw each breath almost to a point that I want to draw in breath heavily myself as if I can somehow help her efforts. Her skin translucent it is very evident that she will not be long for this world.

I think back to the last conversation I had with her. Friday night I attended her needs and sat at her feet for a couple of hours while she struggled to drink Sunkist soda and eat italian ice. I watched as she attempted to eat and drink still wanting to do this on her own.

Friday was the day she realized that she was really really sick. As she was bathed she looked down and realized that she was yellow. She asked what was the cause and my sisters told her that it was because her organs had shut down. At that point, more as a statement than a question, she asked, “I’m sicker than I think I am, aren’t I?”

I sat at her feet on the couch and talked to her as much as I could. Her attention was at times exclusive to the task of feeding herself. It was really important to her that she was not seen as giving up. This is so like her….very independent and proud of her abilities to fight through. She was not a fighter outright with people but in her own convictions. In fact, she strongly discouraged me in fighting anyone at all growing up. She later regretted that, not understanding, at first, that you cannot grow up without being able to deal with conflict. I still think she avoided confrontation if at all possible.

As I sat at her feet, one point my emotions caught me as I had my hand on her leg and she looked into my eyes. I softly said “I Love You Mom.” She mouthed “I love you.” back to me and I felt my eyes begin leaking.

As time wound down for my Mother this day I watched he body struggle with death. Heavy breathing, a constant chant against that cruel disease that has attacked her body. My Father sitting stoic…being brave. A man that has spent most of the last 40 years with this fine woman. He sat there as what he has known as life slips into the next world in a series of heavy breaths. His eyes staring into eternity possibly for his own mortality, or for what lies ahead for my Mother.

We sat and watched slideshows of pictures from happier times. We joked and laughed and told stories and cried. We cried tears for lost experiences, lost opportunities that the future might have held and we smiled at what we did live. All the while the body of my mother fought a tough battle.

Her breaths changed, her body slowed, her soul long gone, we waited and held our breath for that moment when she was finished. When the time did come my brothers and sisters and Father were surrounding her reaching out to touch her for that one last token of love. One last gesture thanking her for being the example, the strength and the foundation of our lives.

Finally she was done, I sighed with relief that my prayers had finally been answered. For the last few hours I had begged for a reprieve for my mother, a release for her body and soul, a release for us. I talked to her through prayer. I pleaded with her to let go and be at peace. At last we all were.

We wept.

The next few days will be all about my mother, her memories, her legacy, her example.
I only hope to not waste that in my life and to live up to the standard that she had set for me.

Cheryl Rae Morrison Burge 1945-2007

2007-01-18T17:05:00.000-07:00

I walked in from the frigid temperatures one afternoon not to long ago and as I laid my jacket across the couch the phone rang. Just like clockwork I was hip deep in the bi-monthly call from TrendWest resorts. "Michael I am calling about the drawing for the super duper massively tricked out tonka truck you put your name in for at the sportsman's expo...." (Never mind that this was about a year ago.) "Yes Ma'am I remember. Did I win? Where can I pick it up at?" She hesitantly replies, "No sir you haven't won it yet.....ummm....but you are still in the running for this wonderful prize."

She handled that far better than some minimum wage phone jockey. At this point I imagine a room full of people being trained for the phones at Trendwest....Whip cracking in the air, dozens of wannabe workers reciting over and over the carefully formulated words. Key words, meant to lull someone into believing that this was the best thing since sliced bread. Each being trained to hit the same phrases and keywords in the correct order made to roll off the tongue as if what they were saying was second nature. One miscue brings the whip down or a verbal tongue lashing at the least. Beginning again like verbally writing the words a thousand times on the virtual chalkboard the recite the mantra. "One more screw up and you go to the corner of the room for a 15 min timeout....yeah we will be calling that your break for the morning!"

Next comes the obligatory "But in the mean time....We have now drawn your name for the prized getaway to your choice of Las Vegas, Anaheim or Reno." Yay! These drawings are much more like the family reunion bingo games where everyone wins ;)

Its at this point I usually decline gracefully no matter how much I am annoyed at the time...good mikey! But as I was listening or rather reciting the words in my mind as the TrendWestie pummeled my willpower with the spiel, my mind wandered to the near zero temps outside my window and I thought about how I never get away it seems. "Why not?" I tempt myself. It's been several years since my last visit to their quaint office. Ninety minutes of intense sales pitch can be tolerated for a few days in California.

So I relent and schedule the appointment for 5:30 the following Tuesday. Can't help but check my shirt for a red bulls eye or that heinous piece of paper taped to my back proclaiming Mike season open with your foot as the weapon of choice. It has been a while, however, since the infamous "Kick me" shenanigan has gotten over on the old Mikester.

The following Tuesday I show up early sitting in my truck talking on the phone right up til 5:30 just so that I don't have to be exposed to the extreme marketing virus and artificial atmosphere I know I will encounter and why should I feel uncomfortable longer than I really need to? I stroll in at 5:31 and walk up to the counter stating to the 20-something receptionist that I had a 5:30 appointment..."Well sir is actually starts at 6." Now I know that 3 times I was told 5:30.
FREAK!!!

My ploy to avoid unnecessary exposure was thwarted by the company compensating for a lack of punctuality by society. Now I'm pissed. Not a good way to start out the visit. She points out the refreshment counter with soda machine albertson's cookies and hot coffee. I look around for the soda cups and all I see are the small 10 oz Styrofoam hot liquid cups. Freak!! (again) How am I supposed to get any refreshment from that. That is like 3 swallows and to top it off there is no ice available.

I can now see that I am immersed in all the psychological research even at the refreshment counter. Small cups means that people don't consume this perk. No consuming too much liquid necessitating a bathroom break. No ice means no one will be crunching ice to stay awake during the 90 minutes of meaningless blah blah. I picked up a couple of cookies and made some hot chocolate...all 3 swallows of it....then headed to the movie room.

I watched about 40 min of documentary on surfing. A totally insane sport where you throw yourself into a wave with little control over where you are going and how fast on a stick. Add in razor sharp coral oh yeah and SHARKS. They had people surfing all over the world including Ireland. Yes Ireland. I cant imagine too many times when you bask in the sun there and frankly the waves looked quite unimpressive. That so made me want to pick up a surf board and....hehe ok no it didn't.

So the presentation FINALLY starts and you can pick out the TrendWesties...not a wrinkle on any of their clothes, fresh makeup, painted on smile. Contrast that with the tired, nervous, or rather wary individuals that slinked into the presentation with that slightly "deer in the headlights" look on their faces knowing that they might be getting into a train wreck of an experience...but not really knowing.

Argh the schmoozing and sucking up during the sales presentation created a vacuum that started pulling my eyeballs from their sockets. We sit through this "rah rah"-"state the obvious" session softening up our resolve for the real sales pitch. Yeah none of us vacation enough, yeah traditional timeshare sucks, yeah we are going to spend money on vacations anyways. Please let me get on to my "Real" salesman so that I can say no thank you and be on my way with my ticket to California.

Finally Mr Plastic Man finished speaking and sends us off to our "Personal Coordinator"(PC for short). In the 75 feet to my table my PC pointed to just about EVERY picture lining the walls showing this room here and there...after about the...oh.....first room they all looked the same. We sit down and he asks a few questions and then goes on about how similar his family is to mine. Now I don't really want to make assumptions that he actually had a family or a soul for that matter but for now I will give him the benefit of the doubt. Still it makes me wonder.

Then begins level one...the details of the worst case scenario. Package deal functionality, facilities and then cost. Yeah it was obviously not good. Then comes level 2...buy now and this is what you get...bells and whistles and a pink tutu to match it all. All the extras for the same price of the standard package. Now this is what they want you to fall all over yourself to buy. I am sure this is market studied, psychology evaluated and fiscally optimized.

I decline stating that I don't buy things on impulse. The salesman almost pleading with me to state what was really the holdup. "Dude I don't buy things this expensive..."Right Now."" Its just not in my makeup. Why don't you understand?
All the while there are additional Mr Plastic Men and Women not assigned as a PC wandering the field of customer tables. If you look at them for more than a glimpse or act as if you aren't listening to the PC they attack..."Are we treating you ok tonight?" "No Damnit! get me a big cup with ice to crunch"

Once it is clear to the PC and after he had reiterated the keywords for the 3rd time in the conversation and circled, diagrammed, written, drawn connecting lines to declared his undying love for me on paper he calls over one of the wandering sharks for level 3.

Shark then asks you again the same questions about your reluctance to spend thousands of dollars over a decade after the first time hearing the details. "Ill tell you the same thing I told my twin over here. I don't buy on impulse like this for amounts like this." His voice becoming more pleading as it becomes more apparent that I really mean it and that the magic spell from his wrinkle free shirt has no effect on me. He leaves and they send me onto levels 4-6 disguised as an exit interview.

So Mr Corporate Representative (CR) wants to just make sure I was treated well by my PC and Shark. He reviews all the scribbles and notes and once again asks me what was so wrong with buying tonight. *SIGH*

Then I blink and am hammered with a plan that is" little known", a "new concept plan I will be a guinea pig for" and a "try it now" for the "least amount of money I can possibly take from you to pay for the 3 sips of hot chocolate and cookies." Levels 4, 5 and 6 in rapid succession. By this time I had had enough and wanted my trip. Just give me the ticket gosh darnit!! I would hate to have Mr CR review my work because he looked as though he was grading a test by the way he was marking up the diagram sheet my PC had so beautifully designed for me.

My 90 min had turned into 2 hours I want out. Finally he releases me and points me down a hallway. Its empty and quiet apparently I am the first out the door. I walk up to the ticket guy sitting quietly at his desk playing spider solitaire no doubt and tell him my name. He hands me the papers and explains them to me but at this point I feel like one more drop of information poured into my brain and I will spill out onto the floor so I force myself to just hear, blah blah...blah blah blah blah.

Out in the cool crisp air I remember quickly why I even placed myself in harms way like that...I pulled my coat tight around me and made a bee line for my truck. The pressure went away as did the traumatic memory of the visit the farther I drove until all I had left was the folder filled neatly with my ticket information to San Diego. I chuckled as drove thinking to myself...."San Diego was founded by the Germans in 1903..." got to love that Ron Burgundy.

2007-01-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

I grew up in the 50's with practical parents. A mother, God love her, who washed aluminum foil after she cooked in it, then reused it. She was the original recycle queen, before they had a Name for it... A father who was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones.
Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away. I can see them now, Dad in trousers, tee shirt and a hat and Mom in a house dress, lawn mower in one hand, and dish-towel in the other. It was the time for fixing things. A curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, the hem in a dress Things we keep.

It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, eating, renewing, I wanted just once to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant you knew there'd always be more.
But then my mother died, and on that clear summer's night, in the warmth of the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any more.
Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away...never to return. So... While we have it... it's best we love it... And care for it.... And fix it when it's broken..... And heal it when it's sick.
This is true... For marriage.... And old cars.... And children with bad report cards..... Dogs and cats with bad hips.... And aging parents.... And grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it, because we are worth it. Some things we keep. Like a best friend that moved away or a classmate we grew up with.
There are just some things that make life important, like people we know who are special.... And so, we keep them close!

Author unknown

2007-01-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

No sound comes from the mostly closed door as I approach. Dimness of light pales in comparison to the blaring illumination of the hospital hallway. I tap on the door with my knuckle and press it open slowly peeking around for the form of family in the darkend room.

The minimal light of a reading lamp that my father was using lit the space next to my mother right underneath the window. He places it down as I entered and plopped down next to him. My mother now having a tube in her nose sleeping more peacefully than she has for many nights. The pain medication and the stomach pump removing artificially everything she had been constantly throwing up for the last 6 weeks. Ahh it was peaceful to see her rest the hour that I sat there.

We sat in silence for long periods of time not being able to take my eyes off of her pale white wrinkled skin. The deep breaths in and out, in and out, in and out.....in melody with the beeping and pulsing of the pumps and monitors that document this tough time in her life....prehaps her last few days.

I listen to my Father talk about small things. "How are things going at work?""Did you work because of the holiday?""It sure is cold outside right now." His normal tone one of concern and interest then when the questions come up about Mom.......the fear and pain and broken resolve surface. I know what is in his heart. I feel it. I recognize it as what I have as well.

I see a world of life in the reflection of her face. I think back on the times I have seen others come to this place. My grandparents, Rhonda ..... it is like looking into eternity. There is nothing to hide they are close to what brought them to this earth. There are no pretenses, no underlying motives, no faking it. For the time that we attend to this state we glipmse what we really should be in life. What should really be important.

I think back to my last conversation. What if that were the last time I saw her? Yes I said "I love you Mom." (Thanks Susan) and I kissed her on the forehead.. The last time I talked to her on the phone....She was most concerned with how I was doing. That was normal. Yes I said " I Love You Mom!" (thanks again Susan)

How does this happen to someone who spent her life tirelessly serving others?
Is this what kind of paybacks you get for being good?

Naa I dont believe it. I know that it doesnt work that way. There is nothing the still born child has done to deserve that fate and there is no preference given to those who get cancer. They are the unlucky ones. The ones that have life cut short for some unknown reason.

On I think........
Countless haircuts given, the skill taught to my mother by another cancer victim Carol Morgan.
Birthday cakes of all sizes and shapes but always the best.
A new recipie each week some not so memorable.
Spahetti squash pizza.
Frozen fresh corn, bottle peaches and beans.
Pot Roast and mashed potatoes.
Sweet and Sour spare ribs and rice.
Walking at night day after day with Judy Allen.
Baked potato and applesauce diets.
National Semiconductor.
Medical Transctription homework.
Overly loud converted sports fan thanks to high school sports.
Piping names on chocolate easter eggs.
Sunday Pie.

Yeah my mind will be abuzz this night as it has been for weeks now. The terrifying news passed from my Father that it was indeed time to make her comfortable. A time I thought was miles away but was swept down on me quickly this cold day both outside and in my heart and soul. I leave longing for a release, for a relief, for a numbness, for a forgetting....yet I really dont want that. I want to feel it all. At least this is real. It is my Mother. All I have left for now that isnt just a memory is the pain of the impending loss.

Mom I love you!

2007-01-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

So this is how it is with the democrats...like we really expected better.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01122007/postopinion/editorials/boxers_low_blow_editorials_.htm?page=0

2006-12-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

Christmas came and went this year and all the normal activities were to be had. Dinner at Mom and Dad's house. Seeing all the brothers and sisters and families. Kids underfoot and overhead and bouncing off every unprotected surface. The nativity reenacted with makeshift costumes always making people ponder that great miracle as it really unfolded and where the shepherd in the field actually got a olive green Martha Stewart towel to wrap around his head over 2000 years ago.

The same family get-together fare that usually accompanies these events. The same discussions insert different people. Breakfast Christmas morning. Same Sausage omelet, pancakes and hash browns. Eating until you were simply stuffed.

Kids waiting anxiously until the time to open presents and then acting so official and faux grown up as they doled them out and kept order in opening gifts. Looking on with as each gift was opened envying the new recipient yet being super excited for the potential of what could be hidden by that blue holly covered gift wrap tagged with their names.

Feeling satisfied when you leave not upset that this had been as many many other Christmases had but rather pleased that you had once again shared the memory of past Christmases over once again with your family and added another wealth of experience to what Christmas means to everyone.

This year WAS different. Although we carried on with the normal fanfare there was a thousand pound gorilla in the minds and hearts of each of us as we prepared and participated in. In my mind it was punctuated when the prayer on the meal was agreed to and offered by my brother Jason. It was Jason that tried with every attempt to remove himself as far away from anything spiritual as possible. Acting as if it was the water that would melt his wicked witch of the East attitude and persona. As he began you could tell the unpracticed flow but it was not until the 30 second pause that I knew for sure his heart was overflowing just as all of ours were.

My heart began to tear up constricting to the point of pain, physical and emotional. I didn't hear any more of the words that he said over the next 2 minutes I just stared at the gentle yet burdened and physically diminished form of my mother sitting in her chair head bowed. A few feet away my father noble, stoic yet face lined with wrinkles defined by the extreme concern he was enduring.

I know that these two fine people had done more praying in the last year than I had for probably many years. The care lines and white hair drawn out one at a time as each child spent one of his/her nine lives. How unfair that we have to go through this. but how much more unfair that my parents have to.

62 Christmases is not enough especially now that the joy of watching 6 children has turned into the joy of watching 20 grandchildren. This cant be real. The feeling at the pit of my stomach.... my internal black hole of loss begins its work sucking me in. Each time I watch her stare off into space I feel it even before I try to imagine what aspect of eternity she is contemplating. What fear she is internalizing and hiding behind her expressionless face. Thoughts betrayed only by the deep exhale a few moments later and that all so brief look of fear or sadness most likely a mix of both. At that moment the feeling in my stomach makes me ill and explodes to send every cell of my body into panic.

The possibility that this may be her last is too real....How is that any different than the chance each of us has every day of having a last anything? I suppose its different in that we have enough information to give her passing far too great odds. We have the luxury of ignoring the everyday chance of fatality in our healthy lives.

The morose nature of the celebration is very apparent to me. I know Mom stayed out with everyone until they left even though she didn't feel well enough to. She was not about to miss this Christmas. Every gift seems so trivial yet you want it to be gift that lasts through the eternities. Of course temporal gifts were given...somethings to make my parents relive the past and enjoy the world as we know it now.......but ....we all gave my parents the gift that was the most important, our presence.

As tough as this Christmas was and as close to ripping one's heart out as it felt this was the most important time in my parents lives....right now...there...in their presence. This is what it is like to be human. When we get past all the frill of living in this century on this continent. We all get to experience this real human realization. We have now.. Don't waste it you don't know if today will be your last. How overused its that cliche?

I quickly realized that I gave my mother just what she wanted and for a brief second I smile. Who knows if this will really be her last but for now I cant afford to act as if it wont be or before I know it the immediacy of little things like time spent with and for her will be gone as will the opportunity. Now I am forced to make up many years of ignoring her of taking her for granted.

So this was anything but normal for a Christmas even though we went through the same motions did the same things and ate the same foods. It was my mother's time. I hope this lesson leaves a lasting impression on me because who knows who is next? Maybe it will be me...maybe I wont know or have a warning like my mother.....so just like my parents..today is the most important day in my life. My heart aches for my mother. I love her so...without her I am nothing.

Food for Thought: All say, "How hard it is that we have to die" - a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live. ~Mark Twain

2006-12-04T17:52:00.001-07:00

I have been preoccupied lately with a human factor that has been my bane recently and I know it to be the bane of most humans.

We go through life learning and developing habits, attitudes, tendencies and behaviors based on our experience. Early on these are more transferred by, from our parents. As parents we have the responsibility in developing the behaviors and habits and understandings in our youth that we believe to be true. Then as they mature into young adults we must teach them more of how we reached these decisions for ourselves. Thus the importance of family in society. As young adults we test these things our parents have taught us that previously we have taken on blind faith. Really this testing will happen the rest of our lives to one degree or another. We will hit a spot where we test, stretch, push, pull and otherwise mangle these teachings trying to find an identity in our lives. Some of these we verify, some we don't find out one way or the other and can drop or pick them up and then there are a few we just blow away.

This is all natural and expected.Every degree of this could be considered a rebellion. To one degree or another we rebel against our world. So I cruise along in life defining myself. I am pretty good at that being so stubborn, hard headed and very anal about details and definitions. I feel pretty good about things overall. I have never lived much of a wild life either because of choice or lack of opportunity. I don't really mind that all that much given that I am a creature of habit. Any disruptions in the force and well I flip out in a worrisome tornado.

I do notice at times that I decide to let something slide here and there, not major but it is in a way rebelling against my tried and true routine. I like it. I keep doing it and even take it to another level. It becomes easier and easier to make a move to the next step. All the while I keep my eye firmly on where I should be, knowing it is lurking back there like a hungry wiener dog whining away and waiting for ham scraps to fall within 3 inches of the ground.

I am not rebelling against my parents teachings anymore. I have had plenty of time to write the book on my life. I don't really feel by any stretch that I have lived everything in my life but rather that I have found a zone in which I can function. I rebel against myself....how psychotic is that? I may be told by someone else that I need to reform and fall back into line...not a fact I think I have missed. I know that wiener dog is back there..I don't need to look to know. Its whining is screeching in my mind having almost a nails on chalkboard affect on my conscience. But I don't. I stay my course enjoying the deviation from what is norm. Why do I do this? Why do I hold on tighter to a practice which I feel is not what I should be doing especially when having the riot order recited to me by someone else?

Pride.

We are told time and again that what I am going through now precedes the downfall. But I still do it. I think at times I have swallowed the real Mike and I wont let him out. I can hear my voice down inside hollering at me to let him go. "Mike you are acting silly. You don't doubt the validity of the behavior which you are taunting!! Grow up and get over it!!" I feel that battle wearing me down because it is a constant battle. It always exists in your conscience going back and forth never giving your thoughts a rest. Why do I do this to myself? To prove I have control over ...what? Dang! It sounds silly just typing it. Maybe I just like it.

For most of my adult life I have had my hair moderate (comb able) length. Not particularly long anywhere and tapered on the sides and up the back. A very conservative haircut for the most part. Then about 2 years ago I made a bet with some scouts. Earn 36 merit badges at camp and you can shave my head. Shortly thereafter I shaved it down to a 2...ok well the scouts did. I had been itching to try it but this was an excuse to get it done. I loved it. For most of the last couple of years I have kept it short. Its conservative, clean looking appropriate for my job and many other aspects of my life. Short clean cut fits....well.....me...my personality and disposition.

I just decided I was tired of being clean cut and having my hair fit me. So I just let it grow out. Some things about this are annoying but I am letting it grow out with only minor trims. Is this really about hair? Is it more about me being tired of me with the hair being an outward safe rebellion? Is the military branch of my personal government staging a coup? I don't really see this as pride with the hair thing more of trying something different....but is my pushing the envelope rebellion against normalcy (my normalcy)?

How long does my pride act as earplugs to that whimpering wiener dog? Does the new place become my normal? Sometimes I worry about that because I know that the wiener dog was healthy and that is where I existed in comfort for so long.

I'm not so naive to think that my wiener dog place is the only good place to be but in my existence I think it is better than the steps I take outside of the box. If not better safer in that is is not leading me to take another step and another and another. The wiener dog shrinks in my view really quickly when I start taking steps away and its whining while more persistent fades quickly as well.

I cant help having a foreboding thought in the back of my head. By nature stepping outside of my box has to have some risk or its intrigue isn't motivation enough to take the steps in the first place. The more my wiener dog fades into my background the closer I get to the German Shepherd of risk standing squarely in my path. He's not going to want table scraps I'm thinking.

2006-11-28T17:10:00.000-07:00

What am I?
flesh and blood, bone and energy,
millions of cells defining synergy.

actions of being involuntary,
helpings of movement not sedentary.

taking and giving from all that surrounds,
not always thought of how it rebounds.

but more than the physical one am I.
My emotion and moral driven coach defines

what that gives to my sphere
to demands of existence adhere.

It can be positive or drain away good
the balance of actions being withstood.

My palace viewed as hero and champion
or cursed as a dreaded infectious lession.

who am I is not just how I am seen,
the eye forgets and lives in dreams.

It's how I'm felt to last through time,
endelibly etched into ones mind.

did I give and take from them
the right things, how and when?

one slip of give and take
will determine legacy in my wake.

Mistakes without fail will come
draging my influence into scrum.

against the charity I have shed
and times I for others bled.

So fight I must to stay above
all the failures of my love.

Fight when I get in the hole
to not take discouragement's pole.

defined by the battle I wage
and for which side of the page.

so who I am and how I'm seen
is how your heart remembers me.

Michael Burge 2006

2006-11-10T16:33:00.000-07:00

Have you ever sleep driven to work? I have on occasion however not recently.

You know its when you wake in the morning barely feel like running a comb through your hair let alone actually fix breakfast or care that your clothes selection is clean and wrinkle free. Occasionally mixing in a mismatched pair of shoes but always mismatched socks.

Stumbling out the door on autopilot...literally. Turn the ignition and although the car doesn’t need warming up you sit with your hands on the wheel and head back against the headrest, eyes closed, mouth wide open and engine running not even feeling the energy to depress the gas pedal.

This lasts for at a minimum 3 minutes and as long as 20 min the time in direct proportion the amount of trouble your instincts tell you will get into by being x minutes late.

You reach deep down inside your very depths to draw strength. This strength is possibly the only redeeming factor of the grab bag of cheetos you ate at 2am before falling asleep on the couch watching horrific infomercials. Back to digging out energy, with every fiber of your being you find enough to get you started on your journey...a trick you picked up watching Rocky 1 through 3. Stallone never threw a fake punch that looked like it took less than a nuclear reaction to get out of his body.

The next thing you know you are coming to the realization that you are in parking lot to your place of employment with your hands on the wheel, head against the headrest, eyes closed, mouth wide open and engine running. No recollection of the trip. No idea what carnage you left strewn along the way.

Instantly you are wide-awake trying desperately to recall something...anything to prove that you hadn't been abducted by aliens or something far worse like your manager.
Brushing the cheeto crumbs off that are still stuck to your cheek and adjusting your pants to hide your mis-matched socks and checking for alien placed access ports at the base of your skull, you wander in to work. You spend the morning telling yourself it wouldn’t be that bad to be abducted if you remembered as little as you do now about this mornings trip to work.

This all came to mind a week ago while heading to work... I pull on to Redwood Road and fall into the line of cars headed north that were waiting for a train to pass. As the traffic started moving I noticed a car about 4 back in line headed the other direction just not moving. It was a newer car so I didn’t really think it was having problems but there it was at a stand still. Cars and trucks moving out around it, the drivers giving crusty looks at the stalled driver as they passed.
I got closer and looked to see if the driver was having problems.
There he was, hands on the wheel, head against the headrest, eyes closed, mouth wide open and engine running. Dead to the world as it existed that morning. I watched in my side mirror his solid taillights for the next half mile laughing uncontrollably yet wondering if I really should go back and help him brush off the cheeto crumbs from the side of his face.

2006-11-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

If anyone really need to know what the results of this last election mean just look at the fruits of it!!
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2006-11-10T140135Z_01_L10266591_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-ELECTIONS-IRAN.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

When Iran, Al Qiada, Russia and France claim Victory and see the election results of the election as in their favor then we did something wrong as a nation. Heaven Help us!!

2006-10-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

Longing for release,longing to join my dreams

my heart cries like tortured fabric being unwound

struggle to move along from this mud puddle

Looking back at dark overgrown footsteps

hearing the wails of the past

crying to hold on, cursing my absence

mixed with what keeps me tied in.

Moving one foot an inch at a time.

Fighting with all strength, closer, yet forever away.

Tasting sweetness that awaits knowing a thousand points binds me

thick mud stalls me, mud I made.

It cant be easy, I know that,

but why so high a cost to my being?

2006-10-30T13:48:00.000-07:00

HEADLINES FROM THE YEAR: 2029
Ozone created by electric cars now killing millions in the seventh largest country in the world, Mexifornia , formerly known as California. White minorities still trying to have English recognized as Mexifornia's third language.

Spotted Owl plague threatens northwestern United States crops and livestock.

Baby conceived naturally. Scientists stumped.

Couple petitions court to reinstate heterosexual marriage.

Last remaining Fundamentalist Muslim dies in the American Territory of the Middle East (formerly known as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Lebanon).

Iran still closed off; physicists estimate it will take at least 10 more years before radioactivity decreases to safe levels.

France pleads for global help after being taken over by Jamaica.

Castro finally dies at age 112; Cuban cigars can now be imported legally, but President Chelsea Clinton has banned all smoking.

George Z. Bush says he will run for President in 2036.

Postal Service raises price of first class stamp to $17.89 and reduces mail delivery to Wednesdays only.

85-year $75.8 billion study: Diet and Exercise is the key to weight loss.

Average weight of Americans drops to 250 lbs.

Japanese scientists have created a camera with such a fast shutter speed, they now can photograph a woman with her mouth shut.

Massachusetts executes last remaining conservative.

Supreme Court rules punishment of criminals violates their civil rights.

Average height of NBA players is now nine feet, seven inches.

New federal law requires that all nail clippers, screwdrivers, fly swatters and rolled-up newspapers must be registered by January 2036.

Congress authorizes direct deposit of formerly illegal political contributions to campaign accounts.

IRS sets lowest tax rate at 75 percent.

Florida voters still having trouble with voting machines.

2006-10-24T10:38:00.000-06:00

Odds and ends...
I was in mall the other day which I rarely do and had to visit the little boys room. I looked around and the food court was forever away especially given he fact that I was in flood season. I actually felt the early warning system firing up the EBS over my bladder state before I even started shopping an hour prior. Me having the bladder of steel or maybye just urinary bravado continued on my shopping tasks. The polite store clerk who wanted me to return to her business as soon as possible pointed out Dillards across the atrium and said just past mens casual is a rest room.
Off I go. Im bombarded as I walk into the Dillards by the overwelming olfactory assault of the perfume counter. Now one would think that this area would be one big conglomeration of smell like a perfume goulash but as I walked through in my distracted state I was finding myself picking out one individual smell after another and fell prey to the location marketing and all the psycological product placement that stores go through and for a brief second I felt more inclined to enjoy the fragrances than to answer nature's call. Smell being so powerful I noticed my minds flipping through memories like a rolodex as I encountered each smell. Very pleasant actually. Inhaling deeply on a rather unpleasant smell brought me back to my biological reality....now, where was that restroom? Men's casual to the right...commencing bee line head down as to not fall prey to any more Dillards shenanigans.

I enter the bathroom, upscale, very quiet I almost expected to see some attendant standing next to a jar of combs in blue sanitizer. No one in the room but me , however, so I walk up to my urinal of choice and begin my Bizness.

Now when you have been flexing your urinary muscle like I had this task takes alot of concentration or maybe its just that the feeling of evacuation is just so relieving that you tend to concentrate on it rather than your surroundings. My state of bathroom hypnosis is instantly shattered by a woman's voice right behind me.

Argh!!! My head swivels back and forth, my heart leaps in my chest , my mind begins asking, "are the walls pink?", "Is that really a urinal in front of me?", "Did I accidentally bring any product in here with me.", "Has the swedish bikini team followed me into the empty mens bathroom?........" *sigh i digress*

My heart finished bouncing around my chest cavity with a resounding thud as I realized that it was the intercom being piped into the bathroom but it was very unintercom-like sound. Who pipes the intercom into the bathroom? I check out the urinal to make sure that in my panic that my aim held true for fear of incurring the wrath of women and janitors the world over. Fortunately this time it had . The feeling of pressured euphoric release was gone like a yawn interrupted.

Hands washed, pants zipped and checked for unflattering wet spots I took a deep breath and cast a menacing glance at the speaker above the urinal as if I could get some kind of payback, I left the room .

Who would have thought that such a great adventure could come in a mall setting? Walmart maybe but the mall? The really dangerous stuff like the saleswoman I returned to (not becaause she was physiocally scary btw) and the fact that the Sees store is a money trap Humans cannot resist the sirens call of CHOCOLATE! Now thats scary....umm....and good....but scary too!

The mall won't probably see me again...well until I get drug in there by someone I care more about being with than the real entertainment value of what I am doing or potentially the procurement of phlange enhancement equipment. Especially now that the dangers of the mall are fresh in my mind.

2006-10-18T18:06:00.000-06:00

Wrinkles
There are no carefree lines in a mother’s face,
she cares too much to not be the case.
The lonely nights guarding a child’s soul,
one ignorant to the obstacles lying in their road.
Awake minute for minute with one infirmed,
not willing to surrender to natures curse.
Meeting out justice by day,
to inflict penalty of responsibility’s way.
Then crying at night for the pain of that task,
knowing that this time will not be the last.
Grand smiles, a veneer, as milestones are met,
knowing the next load will weigh down the best.
Watching as responsibility is heaped on top,
of shoulders too weak to bear the cost.
The threats and danger from friend and foe,
shielding the blows, some not ever known.
With strength on the verge of empty, gone,
but when called, standing somehow strong.
When years have passed and wrinkles grow,
deep and defined from chin to brow.
A child all grown begins to know their cost,
a quip may be thrown but the meaning not lost.
She picks up the makup to cover those lines,
then thinks of her child and smiles devine.
Sets it back down on the table untouched,
determined to display the signs of her love.
There are no carefree lines in a mother’s face,
she cares too much to not be the case.

Michael Burge 2006