Dr. Zauis, talk to The Swami

(I’m working on a nice tan there, eh?)

I’m reaching out to you, Zaius. The Swami (shown center) simply refuses to fly out to LA on March 29th to see the exhibition between the Red Sox and the Dodgers at the Coliseum. What gives? He’s giving me all the excuses: I’m 73, I want to be able to watch in my living room where I can get a martini or go to the bathroom unimpeded…blah, blah, blah. Perhaps you can reach him. I’m about given up. And the game is a Saturday and the Dodgers open at Chavez Ravine on Monday vs the Giants and the Pods are even home vs the Astros that same Monday. It’s a no brainer; you shoot out there on Fri night and you’re back on Tue or Wed. Sunday, maybe you drive up to San Simeon and take a tour. Kayak dot com has flights as low as $350. Is it ME?

Most Famous Hands (All Wood)

Here they are. This has kept me busy for 4 days now and the left hand was done last year! I never want to see hands again. Not even Barry Bonds’ hands (oops! Did I say too much?)

One strange thing about how you get from here to there. This is the sawing in two, of a $100.00 Babe Ruth 1935 model from Hillerich & Bradsby. It makes you want to cry to cut into that wood. A guy like Tony Gwynn WOULD have cried. Although I’ve done this before, it never gets easier.

The end result is an expensive bat with no handle. It’s destined for those hands, taking shape on the floor of course.

And here is where I spent the last two or three days–with my head in the hood, mask on; headphones and glasses and headlamp on–bleah~ Tonight was the almost the end of this phase–the last big fabrication item (Did I just SAY “fabrication”?  Watching too much Orange County Chopper…).

The last real tricky part is yet to come: carving out the fore arms and attaching them to the hands and then fitting the whole assembly into the upper arms, which are part of the main statue now.  But not before the underlying stuff beneath them is squared away. Once you get that piece on, you see the figure absolutely come alive. And then it doesn’t change anymore after that, but you are headed downhill and the realism increases.

I could write a lot more but I am shot and need to go to bed. Ask me the questions.

Last item: Tonight, my nephew made his club team and I am psyched! I worked very hard getting as much information as possible and taking him to hit and do grounders against the big wall for all these tryouts. I think we have a winner. And you know what? It wasn’t who we thought and we never would have found this guy if we weren’t out there networking and keeping our ear to the ground. So much of this stuff is dotted line it’s ridiculous. In this case, it all ended perfectly and I think our team will be a special thing for a few years. We’re in on the ground floor. Someday, when my nephew is older, I will maybe try and explain how much energy went into something he might think was a fluke. –Fog

How does this come to be?

Click here:  Absolutely a must read.  Beautiful.

 

and top it off with this one.  Also a gem: Click here 

Rusty can do stuff too, you know

This story was emailed to me and some had heard of it, so it obviously made the rounds recently. It concerns a cat in a nursing home that sits with patients who will expire within 4 hours. The accuracy of the cat is stunning. The question is, why?

Overstimulation

I really like the Clarinet (Bassinet) that Mrs. Pinetar bought (or was given) for the Tomster. It has these little controls on the side and it will play a little music (something they played at our wedding but I didn’t know that-was told) and it has a little “activity center” for Tommy’s “activity time”.

Anyway, it has these bears that hang on a little dry-cleaning rack and you press a button and the bears spin around over Tommy.

But you have to swing it into position first.

 So I’m admiring the thing and we put him down and I swing the thing into position and Mrs. Pinetar says, “…Wait! You can’t do that yet.”

“Why?”, I say.

“You’ll overstimulate him. It’s too much for him”, She replied.

“Oh”, I said.

How cute is it, that the three little flying stuffed bears will overstimulate him?

***

This clarinet has one other thing that I really, really love. The vibration button. You can even adjust the frequency (although not as low as I would like, but I’ll take it). It is like Tommy is at the belly of a big cat that is purring. It’s very soothing and pacifying.

There is some newer research that indicates that the vibrations that cats produce is very, very healing and beneficial to the cats themselves. They actually have been shown to HEAL faster from wounds for purring. This is verifiable data, not the global warming hooey that you see on CNN.

I went through a phase a few years ago where I read anything I could get my hands on re ‘after death experiences’ or, NDE (Near Death Experiences). They have gone on for all history but are more prevalent now due to advancing medical technology (the same amazing medical discovery and technology that Al Gore and Hillary say isn’t fair and needs to be curtailed by government intervention). What’s even more true today is that with medical tech being what it is, people are simply more inclined to entertain the POSSIBILITY that these folks come by some information that they really don’t or shouldn’t have access to, if you discount the “experience”.

The books are fascinating reading and they make you think plenty, especially about some of our downright silly religious customs and institutionalized hokum. The book, “Embraced by the Light” by Betty J. Eadie, is by far, the best book I’ve ever read in my life. I’ve read it over 10 times and it has influenced me far more than any other book, no question. There is a bookend book to it that is also amazing: “Beyond the Darkness” by Angie Fenimore. They compliment each other and should be read together, and read in the order listed. They are quite different so don’t assume…

Anyway, in the dozens of books I’ve read on this topic, one of the things that strikes you about these experiences is their diversity. All are different and highly personal. However, there are still many similarities. One is that many of these folks report on the “music” or “vibrations” that run through and permeate EVERYTHING on the spiritual side. Everything vibrates and resonates and all things are in vibrational/musical harmony “over there”. In this other dimension, these vibrations are described as “healing” and “loving” and “containing great intelligence”.

It is interesting that we are finding out that cats’ purring heals wounds. I predict that in the future, more money and effort will be spent looking into the effect of vibrations on living tissue. I don’t think enough is being done but the vibration gizmo on the clarinet is a good start.

***

We had Tommy outside a lot yesterday and like rookie parents, got him a little too warm in his fleece swaddling blanket. But on day 4, the jaundice is at maximun, so I insisted that we get him some light (indirect) to break down that bad old Billy Rueben. I also decided it was time to fly the Bunker Hill flag. You don’t see many outside of New England.

And this morning he was opening his eyes more than usual. I used a no-flash setting and it was dark so don’t worry about his color there. He is looking great. It’s just hard to get him to open the eyes. A lot of the time, he just opens one eye. It’s funny to see him fall off the feeding spout and then get mad. Unfortunately, it’s a family trait to quickly get pretty mad at something very simple in the scheme of things. Oh well.

We are baptizing him at about 1 month. This shocked the church down the street. They grilled my wife about it. That’s how it was done in the old days (25 years ago and before) but now it is wigging them out. Almost any time I have “official dealings” of any sort with a member of the church, I walk away shaking my head. I’m trying.

Since Mrs. Pinetar may not be able to make the baptism class, I will have to go alone. I told Mrs. Pinetar, “…wait until they get a load of me…”

And she basically said, “Don’t get excommunicated again!”

And that would be the second time this year! The odds on excommunication are currently running about 7-1. We’ll see.

***

For the record, Julio Franco is now 1 for 12 with the Atlanta Braves. I’ll say it again: Somewhere out there, there is a golf-course missing a guy. –fog

This is what it’s all about…

A lamb chop, Cowboy Charcoal and the Navy Jack. Kind of gets you right there, doesn’t it?

Actually, it can get better. Here is the finished product of dad’s evaporator this Spring. He made a few quarts of real maple syrup by tapping his Maple trees right in his yard and boiling it down himself. It is very tasty with the pancakes and the Hasselnuss coffee there in my souvenir mug from the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. You should start every day with home made syrup and Nixon. –fog

AP picks up story from The Pinetar Rag

The Pinetar Rag has shaken the world media industry. Ok, here’s how it went: My wife’s cousin, married a guy who happens to be Japanese. They moved to Japan after living in the USA for over 10 years. My wife’s cousin works for the AP in Japan. Recently, I became fascinated by this new Pepsi Cucumber softdrink. I asked Mrs. Pinetar to ask her cousin if they had it in the stores in Japan where it is being marketed. Here is that section of my wife’s email to her couz: “[Foggy] saw Pepsi iced Cucumber soda on the internet but it is only available in Japan. He wanted to know if you ever had any and what did it taste like? Is it big there? Don’t worry if you don’t know, I just needed to ask.“

So today, she gets the reply:

Hello,

I’m glad to hear you’re feeling good. I thought you’d get a kick out of this- I was telling my co-workers about the cumber pepsi and our writing staff decided to do a small story on it. I’ve attached a copy of our picture that went with it:

 
TOKYO (AP) _ Japanese are staying cool as a cucumber this summer with “Pepsi Ice Cucumber” _ a new soda based on the crisp green gourd.
¶ The soft drink, which hit stores here on Tuesday, doesn’t actually have any cucumber in it _ but has been artificially flavored to resemble “the refreshing taste of a fresh cucumber,” said Aya Takemoto, spokeswoman of Japan’s Pepsi distributor, Suntory Ltd.
¶ “We wanted a flavor that makes people think of keeping cool in the summer heat,” Takemoto said. “We thought the cucumber was just perfect.”
¶ The mint-colored soda is on sale just for the summer and only in Japan, Takemoto said. She said initial sales were brisk, and Suntory aims to sell 200,000 cases over the next three months.
¶ Pepsi trails behind industry leaders Coca Cola (Japan) Company, with about 15 percent of the Japanese cola market, and also faces stiff competition from non-fizzy bottled drinks like green tea and coffee, which are popular here.
¶ Suntory said it sold 20.5 million cases of Pepsi brand drinks in 2006, including its popular Pepsi NEX zero-calorie soda.

 

So you can tell [Foggy] he officially led to the tip on our story. Things are good on this end. I’m gonig to bring a ton of pictures on stuff we’ve done since we’ve been here so you’ll get to see all our crazy wedding pics and some cute ones of Mimi also.

I can’t wait to see everyone

**********

We are movers and shakers here at The PineTar Rag. Cutting edge.

***

In other news, this morning in Franklin Lakes, NJ, my parents were awakened to a Bear in their garden. The bear was rooting through dad’s strawberries. He got tangled in the net and got freaked out and walked away. My dad said the bear was limping. And as always, there was obligitory: “…well, you could aways gut-shoot him, and he would go off and die somewhere else…”

***

Pool with Ciro saw my first ever “defeat” in Rotation. It’s in quotes. First of all, I was completely exhausted and my knee was killing me. But that was ok. Then, in game one, I got 60 and Ciro made the last ball and also made 60, so he won on the 2nd-guy-to-60-rule-in-Rotation. Phooey. I thought that 60 to 60 ties were rare but apparently not. Maybe I should buy lotto tickets.

In the second game, Ciro cheated. He had a shot where the 1 ball was partially eclipsed by a pocket-hanging 3 ball. I went over and stood over it and said, “…I’m reffing this one, you better hit the 1 first…”, to discourage him from doing what I knew he would do–pocket the 3 and claim that the 1 was first contact. He did exactly as I expected and 4 balls total fell on that shot. I objected, saying that he hit the 3 first (he did) and he was not going to admit to it. It wasn’t an accident. I take it as a compliment and figure if he wants to beat me that bad, then fine.

I also use these little events to galvanize my concentration and try to spank him. And it usually works great only this time, I guess I was tired and the balls were not falling, so he won. I was quiet after that shot for the rest of the night and left early so I think he “gets” it but that doesn’t stop him. All will be forgotten but I owe him one baaaad night on the table. I’m laying in the tall weeds for him. Next time. And I guess the softball game was part of it. And I guess my taunting him all night about the softball and looking out the window and saying, “…isn’t that your wife?” every couple minutes didn’t help.

***
Yankee fans are all out of breath that they wooped up on the Pirates. I think ARod and Giambi combined make more than the Pirates whole squad. Oh boy.

***
On one of my favorite blogs (deadspin? thebiglead?) they had a great story of the one year anniversary of Ben Rothilsberger’s motorcycle accident. Did you know that Steeler fans actually COOKED OUT outside the hospital when he was having his operation? My goodness, only in America. –fog

Contaminated with Poodles and Lap Dogs

Click: Troop, the most famous coon-hound ever, is laid to rest here

“When I buried Troop, I had no intention of establishing a coon dog cemetery,” says Underwood. “I merely wanted to do something special for a special coon dog.”

When columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson interviewed Underwood in 1985, he told her that a woman from California wrote him wanting to know why he didn’t allow other kinds of dogs to be buried at the coon dog cemetery.

“You must not know much about coon hunters and their dogs, if you think we would contaminate this burial place with poodles and lap dogs,” he responded.