Read on if you dare.....September 2002

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September 4th, 2002

Well our vacation is over and Derek and I have come to the decision that we are never going to camp again.
Camping sucks.
It isn't a vacation, it's hard work without showers or clean toilets. Its cleaning greasy blackened pans in a bucket of cold water. It's having your raw marinating steak bites leak blood all over your bread and cold cuts in the cooler. It's having to make constant ice runs to keep your food eddible. It's having your intestines grind to a standstill at the first whiff of the outhouse. It's stepping on a slug right outside your tent at three in the morning when you have to get up to pee at the outhouse a mile away through the forest when this is the third trip you have made to the bathroom in one night because your tent is beside a constantly tricking stream. Arrgh! It is like a brilliantly devised form of torture. Thank God for beer. And friends.
This Christmas we are having another vacation. We are going to stay home.
I can't wait.
We visited my Sis, bro-in-law and kids in Grand Forks.
That was fun except for the constant screaming and being forced to watch Fantasia 2000 over and over until our eyes bled. Or was that caused by darling 3 year old Henrys trick of head bashing you in the face that caused our eyeballs to hemorage. Tough to say. Ahhh you cannot know the joy it brings me to know that we are not having children. Listen!.....it's 9 in the morning and it's quiet. It was fun though.
We rode in Nelson. I love it there. I want to go back. Speaking of riding, I found this photo of me riding a jump on Little Mountain. I am getting huge air! I would say maybe 6 feet off the ground! This type of thing is normal for me. 6 feet is nothing!
What? Me use photoshop? Never! Okay okay, I may have added a foot or two.....or three. But you can imagine that I am that cool okay? Well, I gotta get back to workies. Last note; I am starting to feel super creative again. I can't wait to finish the last couple of work projects we have so I can start painting again. Later.

September 8th, 2002

Well, just an ordinary Sunday night. Nothing at all gnawing at the back of my brain driving me crazy. Nothing at all really...... ALRIGHT! GOD DAMNIT!!
REX WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?
I am sitting here thinking 'who do I know that is that witty and funny?'
Despite the low grades, it seems fate has made you a Man of Mystery after all, Rex. It's gotta be Smokie. Smokie is witty and funny and makes me chuckle. Well I am just glad that there are actually people visiting my site.
Ones that I am not paying I mean.
Besides all this, it's been a good weekend. Riding ledge seems simple now after Nelson. Going out for coffee now with Derek and James whom I haven't seen in a year. I can't believe how time flies.
We saw Signs today. Great movie. Sorry for all you people out there who wanted an aliens invading earth movie. It's about faith. Very cool movie.
Not feeling especially brilliant tonight (after 2 glasses of wine) so I am going to stop now and finish tomorrow morning. Bye for now.
PS I think I may add our vacation photos tomorrow. Seeing as our camera is broken and we took none, they will be appearing in the sketches section. Just as soon as I sketch them.

September 10th, 2002

I have been thinking of a few different things lately.
Why are we afraid of spiders?
Arachnophobia is probably one of the most common irrational fears that human beings have. Irrational being the key word. I for one am terrified, petrified by spiders. I hate them. I think those people who say “Spiders are good! Think of how many mosquitos we would have if it weren't for spiders!” are on crack. Frogs would be just fine with me thank you. Spiders are blasphemous abominations in the sight of God. I know. I saw God just this morning with a bottle of Spiderban. All seriousness aside though, there really is no reason for this fear that a large percentage of the population shares. It isn’t just an ordinary fear either, it’s a gross emotional overreaction. Also if you compare frogs to spiders, in appearance, frogs should cause as much of a reaction as spiders but they don’t. Think of HPLovecraft Master of Creepy Stories. The strangely Batrachian people of Innsmouth. Frogs should be creepy to us. They are leathery and slimey looking with large bulbous eyes, a disgustingly long tongue and they can jump 500 times their body length faster than you can blink. But they’re just so darn cuuuute. So what is it about spiders?
Is it an ancestral thing? Instinctive? Something in our genes left over from when giant spiders from outer space roamed the earth preying on humans to take back to the spider goddess’ lair within the pyramids of Egypt? Possibly. But then why don’t other animals share a common phobia of spiders. In fact, humans really are the only creatures I can think of that have irrational phobias. Other animals have rational and healthy fears which generally help their chances of survival. Anyway, enough rambling.
If anyone bothers to read past the first sentence of todays entry without falling asleep or switching to a website about American Idol (oh somebody shoot them now) and you have any theories, please feel free to mention them in my forum. I like reading comments in my forum. It makes me feel like I am far more popular than I actually am. And considering only 3 people have ever commented in there, that’s saying something.
Ha ha no I am kidding.
My dog likes me.
My neighbors like me. Well they wave at me….or they might be making shooing motions….except for one neighbor who doesn’t like me. He yells at me. But that’s just EMS. Evil Mr. Smith. But that’s a whole other entry for a whole other day.
Okay I am done.
Except for one last thing. Speaking of Lovecraft, Derek (Enki creator of Spacemeat) has made a very cool Cthuugle search engine. He is such a smartie pants. Just had to say that :) So go visit it.

September 10th, 2002 second thought for today

Second thought of the day.
Coincidences.
I was sent an interesting e-mail some time ago. It requires you to click a button and read a bit on another page for a bit and click the back button but it is bizarre and worth the extra finger exercise I think, Here it is in my oddities section. Now I am quite sure that there wasn't a brilliantly devised plan to come up with both assassinations with so many bizarre connections between them but it makes you wonder. I mean, it's pretty weird, you gotta admit.
So my question is, perhaps you only see these bizarre coincidences when you look for them. Perhaps they are everywhere. Perhaps there are far too many connections between events than randomness should bring about but we only notice the ones that happen when we need to find extra meaning in a situation. The thing is if things are random there shouldn't be so many coincidences and connections. So why do they happen and is there a pattern and can we use this pattern to rule the world and plan a locust infestation on the site of American Idol right before the last show?
I don't know!
But never fear, I am on a quest.

September 10th, 2002 Okay, third and final entry for the day

This is the last journal entry today I promise.
Just wanted to mention again that there are a lot of new things in my forum.
So, here I go. I will mention it now.
There are a lot of new things in my forum.
Thank you.

September 12th, 2002

I'm awfully sorry people, but I just have to mention coincidences again today. I don't really know why I say things in here like I'm sorry 'people'. Really I should say "I am sorry person" or "Helen" or "Imaginary people in Helen's head" but regardless I am sorry to have to bring this up again, but bring it up I must. Coincidences. Chance. Luck.
Is it all completely random?
Well, a bit of research has been going on at MIT by some very bright individuals. I believe they may be trying to discover a way to increase their odds at winning blackjack or something, but regardless of their motives they discovered something quite interesting. I believe they used cards. They compared the bell curve results from games played without an observer to those played with an observer. They discovered that "luck" or "chance" increased in favor of the observer, when there was an observer. Hmmmm very interesting. How could this happen?
People who know me have heard me talk about faith. I believe that faith works somehow. I have seen examples of it working before. Time for the skeptics to roll their eyes. Really though, you have to start paying attention when scientists begin to discover things like this. Religious people have a lot of faith because they have something outside of themselves to have faith in. Something omnipotent. But I have been thinking lately that the significant thing is the faith itself. Somehow, if you desire something strongly and believe or hope, you can affect the outcome of events. I believe this is why the researchers at MIT came up with these results. The observers don't have to be religious, they just need to hope or have faith. The reason I am discussing all this now is because I read a very interesting story on CNN this morning. Sort of backs my theory.
Here is the article header:
ALBANY, New York (AP) -- On the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks, a date known as 9-11, the evening numbers drawn in the New York Lottery were 9-1-1.
Incredible, and highly unlikely. Coincidence? Pretty amazing coincidence. Think of how many people chose the numbers 911 on the anniversary of this day. Think of how many people where unitedly hoping for those numbers.
In a typical a lottery on a typical day the outcome is going to be fairly random becasue you have all kinds of people hoping or having faith in all kinds of numbers, but this was a large number of people for the same number.
They haven't released how many people the prize is going to be split between yet but you can imagine that it will be a lot more than the usual one or two. I know I am jumping at conclusions, I know that the levels of dopamine in my brain are rising the more I convince myself that there is meaning here but you have to admit it does seem significant. That is my bit of wierdness for today.

September 24th, 2002

Sorry about my long absence. I was dead you see, just for a bit though, but due to a few glitches in the paper work and discrepancies in the records, they can't work out whether I am bound for Hell or Heaven. They have sent me back here for 2 or 3 hundred years at which time they are hoping that they will have this embarrassment worked out.
Actually no I am on drugs.
Seriously.
I ruptured disks in my spine and I have been flat on my back for 2 insanely long weeks. This is the longest I have been upright since. Good thing about it is that I have had a lot of time to think. In this thinking time I have devised many new and bizzarre theories about how the universe works. I have also decided that I want to write a book. I have come to realize that I have survived far too many attempts on my life to not write one. Nobody I know has had so many plots on his or her life so that must mean something right? Or perhaps it is the drugs talking. Anyhow, more later, my back is killing me.