I rescued a bunny

I was sitting the living room of the basement of the condo I rent near a window that faces a deep window well. At one point in time it looked like there was something bobbing around the glass behind a vase on the ledge. I got up to investigate and saw a tiny bunny, smaller than the size of my hand. I don't know how long he had been there but I knew he couldn't jump out. He did try jumping a couple times and I was surprised how high he could jump. He is a few inches tall and could easily jump over a foot vertically.

I found a couple trash bags to cover my hands as I was not sure if he would bit me. I crawled down into the well with him and he hid in the corner. I thought I was quick but he ducked out from under my hands when I reached for him. I was surprised by how quick he was and it depressed me as I thought if he can outrun me when I reach for him I may be down here for a while trying to catch him. Luckily he ran to a corner and starting jumping again. I was able to time his landing from the jumps so he fell into my hands and I lifted him out of the well.

He ran off across the lawn of the front of the condos and into some brush. No thank you and no looking back. I just hope if I am ever lost in the woods or hurt that some rabbit or bunny comes to my aid to pay me back.

Another shooting in Colorado

I received a text early around six fifteen that awoke me but I paid no attention to is as I was trying to sleep and upset it awoke me. On the way to work I looked at the text which was from t he campus emergency alert system. It cautioned employees traveling to our Campus in Aurora as there was police activity near campus and they should avoid Peoria (a major street that borders campus). I did not think much of it and shuffled out the door to work. At the bus stop I realized I misplaced my bus pass so I drove to work. My phone began to vibrate and all I can think about is who is calling me this early in the morning? It was a friend from out of state, Tim Chase. Tim asked if I was around the Aurora area as there was a shooting there and he wanted to make sure I was okay.

Tim gave me a bit of an overview of what happened and I caught some on the radio after we talked a bit. By now it has been all over the news and many people have heard of it so I won’t rehash the entire story but for those of you who have not heard, a man took a few guns to a theater in Aurora during their midnight showing of the Bat man movie. He dropped some sort of smoke bomb(s) and entered a theater and began shooting movie patrons twenty to thirty minutes after the movie began. He killed twelve to fourteen people (I keep hearing different numbers when I check the news) and injured fifty some people. Some of the stories coming out are amazing! One is of a guy who took a bullet for his girlfriend, and another is off a sports journalist who avoided a similar shooting in a mall not long ago. One of the wounded survivors has come out as a man of faith who is struggling to deal with all of this but hopes to one day forgive the man who shot him. How cool & amazing are those stories?

One thing Tim said that struck me was not Colorado and not again! For me it is not an event that jars me or upsets me too much but maybe it should. My freshman year of college I left work one night (Chuck E Cheese) twenty minutes before a disgruntled employee robbed the place and shot five employees killing four. I was in state when Columbine happened and every Coloradoan remembers that day.

Shortly after the shooting at Chuck E Cheese, I saw a mugging and called the police and ended up distracting the mugger so his victim could escape on a bus. I testified in court months later and the mugger beat the charges. Delivering pizza I saw more than my fair share of unsavory types and ran into a couple situations that could have been fights, robberies, or worse. I always managed to somehow avoid them or escape. One night I was out for a walk and almost ended up in a fight with four punk kids who wanted to fight but weren’t willing to start it or attack me. I have definitely seen the darker side of humanity. When I say talk about the dark side of humanity I am referring to everyone, other people’s dark humanity as well as my own.

I am not startled by all this as I have gotten past a certain amount of the lies we tell ourselves in society. We believe that other people are evil and not us. I know I was ready to seriously maim those kids who wanted to fight me and I can say to a certain degree I wouldn’t feel much guilt or remorse about it. Doesn’t that mean there is darkness & evil inside me? I will be the first to admit I am no saint. But why does society get evil twisted and forget what evil is? We look at Hitler and think truly evil people are like Hitler. They are well polished, have a tiny mustache, and lead other people to do bad things (I apologize to anyone with a tiny mustache reading this blog. I had to through that in there…there is seriously nothing wrong with having a tiny mustache…unless it smells and things crawl out of it…then it is wrong!). We forget that everyone around Hitler was influenced by him & also participated in kidnappings, and murder, and torture and abuse as well. So the people who worked for Hitler weren’t evil? Of course they were. And society will tend to think the people who said & did nothing while the Jews were killed were good. No those people were evil as well!! They stood by and did nothing to stop evil which makes them accomplices to those crimes.

Society needs to view evil as how the genocide in Rwanda played out. There were very few key players and the evil acts were not done at specific sites, they were done in broad daylight in people’s neighborhoods. Hundreds of soldiers went out and attacked people anywhere they could find them. Those soldiers didn’t have guns so the people they killed did not die quickly. They had machetes and knives and they hacked people to death. It was up close & dirty and took a long time. They did this day in and day out for months and months. That is what evil looks like. It is done by people we see every day and it is up close and personal. It is in all of us and we are all capable of it. Once set off it can go on for months or years or lifetimes.

Sadly no one in our society wants to admit that about themselves. We’d all rather be happy believing we are good and there is nothing wrong with ourselves. That is the beauty of blame & delusion. Because when you spend all the time you have pointing the finger at other people’s faults you never look in a mirror and address your own. It is also delusional because I think most people know they have faults, problems, and evil but they don't want to address them. I do not know the reason why people do this but once anyone avoids dealing with issues they have made a choice. They made a decision for whatever reason and are willing to live with their problems, faults, and evil. They will repeat it again and again without finding a way out. Someone once said the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. Maybe that makes most people insane, delusional at least and I am guessing most people who make bad choices and avoid their issues are not insane so I am going to believe they are delusional

Later that day my buddy Tim texted me and asked what caused the guy to snap and start shooting people. I responded with some goofy statement that wasn’t very funny. A few hours later I was reflecting on how impatient I can be and how I can be impulsive and driven by my anger or passion which when unchecked can lead me to do things no one would believe I would do. I thought about the darkness inside me and my faults. I should have told Tim that we all have evil in us and we all have faults we don’t want to address. The guy that shot people at the movie theater that day did not address his faults and it cost other people there lives and it will cost the shooter his freedom (he will be in prison system for a while), his reputation, and maybe even his own life.

It crawled out from the sink...

I got up the other morning and walked into my bathroom and saw a spider on the wall. At that moment I was using the facilities and while I was standing and watching the spider on the wall a flurry of movement in the sink caught my eye. A spider crawled out from the drain in the sink and was trying to climb out of the sink. The walls of the bowl are smooth & slick enough that the spider could not climb out and found a spot to rest while sitting in my sink.

I have heard of spiders crawling out of the sink before and this is first time I have seen it in my house (I saw it once before while I was house sitting at a place in Roxbourgh Park. It is on the south side of town where I see deer, foxes, coyotes. I expect to see wildlife & critters out there and larger critters than what I see in the city or suburbs).

While I was smashing the spiders and giving them a proper burial at sea or burial via the toilet, I was only thinking of one thing. I have lost my spider sense. I use to have a type of sixth sense where I could sense when a spider was in the same room as me. I know this sounds silly but it is true. I use to spend hours in my parent's basement which was littered with spiders and I do have intuitive abilities to a degree. I believe that being around them so often and being aware of them lead to a kind of spider radar which I could detect them near me.

How did my crazy spider radar work? Because it sounds crazy and if you are reading this you are laughing or bookmarking my page under crazy & weird...but I will share anyway. When I was in a room and the image of a spider came to me I knew one was in the room with me. The size of the image was relative to the size of the spider. Larger images meant larger spiders and smaller images meant smaller spiders. The image was usually generic and did not look like the actual spider in the room. The image would come to me and once it did I would start to look around the room and I always found the spider. They were usually sitting somewhere and not moving but occasionally they were on the move. I could do this for years and even the first couple years of living in lakewood with my roommates.

I guess I am loosing my abilities and it does not sadden me or bother me. I guess I have been focusing on other things so my mind and intuitive ability are preoccupied with other things. I also do not see as many spiders in my current location, usually just this time of year so I am sure that is part of it.

I feel like a super hero who is loosing his abilities. Only my ability did not really serve much of a purpose and it was not very cool. If I had the ability to predict winners of games or pick winning lotto numbers...that would be much cooler. It would suck to lose that ability.

Time

Tonight I came home from work and hoped online to play an online PC game for just a few minutes while dinner was cooking. I was telling myself it will only be for half an hour as I had to go shopping for groceries, wanted to run, shower, and take care of some record keeping. Instead some friends ended up online and I ended up playing almost three and half hours and did not get to anything except my shower.

I remember wanting to stop playing but I could not remember why or what I wanted to do. For whatever reason I was not willing to say I had to get off line. The guys weren’t pushy and it was all in fun. The experience reminded me of a book I read recently where the author was talking about making time for yourself and being able to set limits on strong or influential people in your life or they will pull you into what they want to do & how they want their time spent. I would not necessarily say these guys are strong but influential but it was a reminder that I should keep to a schedule if I want to use my time to accomplish what I intended to accomplish this evening. I am usually pretty good about setting boundaries and how I use my time. tonight served as an example of what happens when I don't stick to my boundaries, I will get sucked into what other people want me to do.

Using my curious & spontaneous side...I road trip

I realized this year summer I have lost that spontaneous side that ups and leaves to go somewhere fun or do something interesting. I have wanted to get a way for a couple days to visit some place in state but have not always done it. So I did it last weekend and it was a lot of fun & empowering.

I spent the night in Glenwood Springs. I hiked up to Hanging Lake, visited a couple art galleries, tried out a couple restaurants, visited a historical museum and found a great restaurant called Riviera. I will return to Hanging Lake & the Riviera!!

The second day I had a massage & visited a memorial for Doc Holiday. I spent quite a bit of time reading up on Doc Holiday and it appears he was truly a victim of circumstance. Anyhow…while driving home I was taken back by the beauty of Colorado's mountain country off I-70 on a sunny day. I love the open road and need to have more day trips in Colorado.

I also rediscovered I enjoy the outdoors and I would rather be outdoors then inside chilling, reading, watching movies, surfing the net, or playing PC games. I plan to spend as much time as possible outdoors this summer!! I plan to do another road trip soon!

Nature

When I let the home I am house sitting mid morning I was started by a rustling noise as I was opening the front door. Once the door was open wide enough I could see the front yard I noticed a large colored shape retreating out of the front yard. At first I thought it could be a mountain lion but it was a deer. It crossed the street and ran into an open field quickly, before I got into my car.

While leaving a friend's house after dinner we were looking up at what we thought were tiny birds flying over head. Then they began to jerk more and we noticed how their wings had a angled shape and jutted forward not behind the body of the animal. When they got close enough we could see ears protruding from the head and realized they were not birds. We were watching Bats fly around in a suburban neighborhood.

It was a great day for viewing wild life.

I am an outdoor hippie at heart

This week I rediscovered I enjoy the outdoors and I would rather be outdoors then inside chilling, reading, watching movies, surfing the net, or playing PC games. I was sitting downstairs at my PC checking out movie times or email and looked over to a window well bathed in golden sunlight. I not only knew I needed to be outside enjoying that sunshine but I felt it deep down inside. Like the first time I tasted chocolate and realized it was special or knowing when I really like spending time with friends or when I first fell in love. Certain things you know by feeling and I know by how I feel that being outdoors in the summer time is an experience I enjoy & can't quite put into words. I plan to spend as much time as possible outdoors this summer!!

Don't worry I will still blog every now & then.

My unexplosive July 4th

I was house sitting for friends who have this amazing home on top of a hill on the south side of town. When I am on their back deck I can see most of the south side of Denver, from the East side to the West side.

While house sitting there over July 4th I thought I would spend it on the back deck. Since I can see most of Denver I reasoned I could see all the various Firework displays that are going off all over town.

I forgot that there would not be as many fire work shows this year due to the fire bans and restrictions on burning anything in the state (There are close to 13 fires burning in Colorado so it is no surprise most officials are limiting anything involving fire of any kind as they want to limit the possibility of another fire starting). There were huge clouds of smoke blowing across town which also cut down on visibility so I could not see as much of Denver as I thought. I saw one fireworks display on miles away on the far west side of town. My finger nails looked larger then the fireworks going off so I called it a night.

This year July 4th was a reminder that not every holiday is a memorable event.

Movies

Over the last week I have taken in a couple of the new movies coming out and I was disappointed with a couple.

TED - It looked promising & funny, Seth McFarland is hilarious on family guy & Mark Wahlberg playing the part of an adult with a talking degenerate Teddy Bear looked hilarious. The story had a weak plot and the gag got old (The Teddy Bear is a bad influence on Wahlberg’s character). Some of the lines were funny but the humor seemed so crude it was offensive and not funny. I cannot recommend going to see this film.

Moonrise Kingdom - I have thoroughly enjoyed all of Wes Anderson movies I have seen (Bottle Rocket, Royal Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Darjeeling Limited, & The Fantastic Mr Fox.) Moonrise Kingdom is the first Wes Anderson movie I did not enjoy. Wes is true to form by creating a world of quirky characters in that end up in a very unique story. The actors all gave great performances but I did not get into the story. The main characters where two teens and I did not recognize them so that may have been part of the problem. The joy of his movies is watching well-known actors pull of odd characters. I can say I was disappointed and will not watch this one again!

I have one good movie recommendation from this last week & it is for Larry Crown. I was bored on July 4th as my plans did not pan out so I stayed in to watch movies and Larry Crown was on so I thought I would give it a watch and it was wonderful. The actors all nailed their parts, and the story is not predictable as it follows Larry life after losing his job and going to college. There is care free angle to the film that reminds me of many 80’s films. While this is not academy award type material or acting it is a fun feel good movie. After being disappointed by TED & Moonrise Kingdom I needed to feel good! I recommend Larry Crown.

Discovery

For those of you who need to know or where curious: Vanilla waffers do not go well with Budwieser.

For those of you who did not need to know or where disappointed with this post: I am sorry & hope to have better posts in the future.

Days off

I took a couple days off last week. One day I met a friend for an early lunch, then worked out, watched a movie, then went for a walk & hung out at a Starbucks near the park I was hiking around.

The other day off I spent it hanging around the house until noon. I went for a run, spent most of the afternoon running errands, then played PC games for a while. It was a long day but a fun day.

I am finally getting use to using my leave and taking some time off. Last week I worked two days and next week will be a four day work week which will take some adjusting to but at the same time not as rough as when I have to go back to a five day workweek. The cool thing about having so much leave is I can start having a couple four day work weeks every month. The tough part is motivating myself to going back to work!