Gene’s Blog

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Note: To view Gene’s Blogs posted before June 2010, just visit the “Articles” and “Odds ‘N Ends” sections of NuPathz at http://www.nupathz.com/

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Another Note: You can now catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/geneatnupathz  (You may need to copy and paste this into your browser window to actually get there…)  OK, whatever…

Download Free – James Allen’s “AS A MAN THINKETH” See below for info…

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RANDOM THOUGHTS

An assortment of thoughts, observations and opinions developed over dang near seven decades.  In no particular order - or obvious sense of logic for that matter…

Is All of this Real?

I’m not so sure that it is.  When you take all of the things that make up this life down to the bare basics, it’s all just energy.  Including us.  The objects and materials around us look real, feel real and even sound or smell real.  But everything is still just a form of energy.  Are we all living in a giant movie set?  Is this just an artificial environment assembled for our benefit?  Maybe old William Shakespeare knew what he was talking about when he wrote “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”  I wonder…

A Related Thought

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. – Voltaire

I Really Don’t Need to Know…

… that anyone thinks our current President is a sneaky snake-in-the-grass, that we are about to lose our right to bear arms, that our government is trying to completely take over our health care system, that most of our tax money is being spent supporting illegal aliens, that the Muslims will take over the world, that the ACLU is trying to ban crosses from the military cemeteries, and that the words “In God We Trust” is being removed from all our currency.  These “Oh No” e-mails accomplish nothing other than promote the spread of misinformation and/or negativity.  If folks are really concerned about a particular issue, they should send these kinds of e-mails to their congressman.  Send me the jokes instead.  Thank you.

How Ya Doin’?

Super!  Most of the time that’s my answer to the question “How are ya?” or “How are ya doin’?”  Once in a while I’ll toss out “Fantastic!” just to rock folks’ boat, but most of the time I’m “super”.  Why do I answer that way?  Well, because it’s the truth.  Several years ago, I was operating almost entirely in the survival mode.  I’d perform my duties as a husband, father and provider.  Day after day.  Month after month.  Even though I felt I was doing a fairly decent job, I kept wondering – is this as good as it gets?  Isn’t there more to life?  Yep, I was in a rut.  A really deep rut.

Then one day, the light bulb came on.  I was presented with the idea that if I wanted out of my rut, if I wanted to experience more of life I would need to change my thinking.  I would need to change how I thought about myself, about my situation and about my hopes for the future.  I would need to develop a more positive approach to life.  One of my very first changes was to modify my reply to the question “How ya doin’?”  I switched from “Not bad” or “OK” or “Pretty good” to “Super!”  Even though I didn’t completely believe that I was super at first, I noticed that this answer started helping me feel better about myself and the folks around me.  It was my first small step toward a much happier, more enjoyable lifestyle.  And now?  Yep, I really am “super”.  Sure, like everyone else some of my days are better than others.  On the more challenging days, “super” helps me to put things in perspective and get crankin’.  On the better days, “super” helps remind me that it is honestly a really great day.  And yeah, sometimes it’s just fun to see folks’ reaction to my answer.  Sometimes it will even prompt a smile.  Maybe my answer has helped make their day just a little better.  I hope so.

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Note: To view Gene’s Blogs posted before June 2010, just visit the “Articles” and “Odds ‘N Ends” sections of NuPathz at http://www.nupathz.com/

Another Note: You can now catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/geneatnupathz  (You may need to copy and paste this into your browser window to actually get there…)  OK, whatever…

Download Free – James Allen’s “AS A MAN THINKETH” See below for info…

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Priceless

Jack wakes up with a huge hangover after attending a company party. Jack is not normally a drinker, but the drinks didn’t taste like alcohol at all. He didn’t even remember how he got home from the party. As bad as he was feeling, he wondered if he did something wrong. Jack had to force himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he sees is a couple of aspirin next to a glass of water on the side table. And next to them, a single red rose! Jack sits up and sees his clothing in front of him all clean and pressed. He looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotlessly clean.

He takes the aspirin and cringes when he sees that he has a huge black eye when he looks in the bathroom mirror. Then he notices a note hanging on the corner of the mirror written in red with little hearts on it and a kiss mark from his wife in lipstick: “Honey, breakfast is on the stove. I left early to get groceries to make your favorite dinner tonight. I love you, darling! Love, Jillian.”

He stumbles to the kitchen and sure enough, there is hot breakfast, steaming hot coffee and the morning newspaper. His son is also at the table eating. Jack asks, “Son… what happened last night?”

“Well, you came home after 3 A.M., drunk and out of your mind. You fell over the coffee table and broke it, and then you puked in the hallway and got that black eye when you ran into the door “

Confused, he asked his son, “So why is everything in such perfect order and so clean? I have a rose, and breakfast is on the table waiting for me?”

His son replies, “Oh THAT!… Mom dragged you to the bedroom, and when she tried to take your pants off, you screamed, “Leave me alone, I’m married!”

Broken Coffee Table $249.99

Hot Breakfast $5.20

Two Aspirin $.75

Saying the right thing, at the right time: PRICELESS!!!

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*****

Note: To view Gene’s Blogs posted before June 2010, just visit the “Articles” and “Odds ‘N Ends” sections of NuPathz at http://www.nupathz.com/

Another Note: You can now catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/geneatnupathz  (You may need to copy and paste this into your browser window to actually get there…)  OK, whatever…

Download Free – James Allen’s “AS A MAN THINKETH” See below for info…

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Random Thoughts

I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

Bad decisions make good stories.

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don’t want to have to restart my collection…again.

I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

“Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this - ever.

I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.

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Note: To view Gene’s Blogs posted before June 2010, just visit the “Articles” and “Odds ‘N Ends” sections of NuPathz at http://www.nupathz.com/

*****

Another Note: You can now catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/geneatnupathz  (You may need to copy and paste this into your browser window to actually get there…)  OK, whatever…

I’ll get right to the point.  Life is not necessarily what we think it is.  And no, I’m not going to extrapolate this to the extreme to try to convince you that we really exist on some obscure planet in a distant spiral galaxy and that all of this we’re experiencing as “Life” is only a dream.  Of course, it is kind of cool to think that we could waking up any time now, wandering out to the kptfrun to put on the cuggy and then stepping out on the prafo to watch the bos rise and enjoy the sounds of the bilbs as they greet the morning.  We naturally, would be all the more enlightened because of the dream experience of the previous night and could therefore anticipate an even more productive, enjoyable day at the Snark assembly plant.  (Does excessive caffeine intake cause everyone to think weird stuff like that?  Probably just me, huh?)

Where were we?  Oh yeah, the illusion thing… Let’s start with the physical, material stuff.  Everything you see is not as it appears – or as it is interpreted by our little brains.  When we look around, we “see” all kinds of solid forms.  Computers, desks, paper, chairs, walls, books, etc.  These things not only look solid, they feel solid and can be held, moved, sat upon, used to support other solid things - and broken.  So they’re all composed of some densely packed material and therefore are completely “solid”, right? 

No even close, Martha.  When you get down to the itty bitty particles that all of these nice solid objects are made of, you’re gonna find only little teeny tiny bits of energy, specks of particles and a hell of a lot of space between them.  In fact, there’s a bunch more space than there are specks of particles. Here’s one of the analogies I can relate to easily.  If we arbitrarily designated the nucleus of an atom (the combination of the neutrons and protons in the center of an atom that contain just about all of the atom’s mass) as the size of a grapefruit, the rest of the atom that is the electron cloud (little negatively charged particles that are zipping around the nucleus like a bat outta hell) would take up a space equivalent to a large football stadium.  Hmm, let’s see.  Grapefruit is the “solid” stuff – football stadium is the space and energy stuff.  Yeah, there’s a hell of a lot of space inside those little atom guys. 

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Note: To view Gene’s Blogs posted before May 2010, just visit the “Articles” and “Odds ‘N Ends” sections of NuPathz at http://www.nupathz.com/

*****

Another Note: You can now catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/geneatnupathz  (You may need to copy and paste this into your browser window to actually get there…)  OK, whatever…

I thought about the 30 year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter.

I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth (it’s red) phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.

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Note: To view Gene’s Blogs posted before June 2010, just visit the “Articles” and “Odds ‘N Ends” sections of NuPathz at http://www.nupathz.com/

*****

Another Note: You can now catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/geneatnupathz  (You may need to copy and paste this into your browser window to actually get there…)  OK, whatever…

If you sometimes feel as though you’re caught in life’s quicksand, you have a lot of company.  We work, we struggle, we try to do everything we possibly can to move on to a higher level of well-being but it seems like the harder we work, the more stuck we get.  If you’re approaching a Category 5 frustration level, you might give this a try…

Switch your focus from that really nice – but frustrated – person in the mirror to one or more of the other folks who inhabit this good earth.  

I realize that it’s important to watch out for number one – ourselves.  We need to set goals, lay out plans and then do those things we need to do so that we can at least make some progress toward our goals.  We need to demonstrate personal financial responsibility, plan for retirement and frequently just cover our backside so it doesn’t get chewed off by one or more of life’s rodents. 

However, what frequently happens is that we become so over-focused on ourselves and our own personal well-being that we wind up building huge walls.  We lose the ability – or even desire – to see the bigger picture and the possibilities that life presents to us.  We become so focused on “me” that we sometimes begin scrutinizing even the most insignificant events to determine their potential impact on our personal lives.  We become victims to ourselves.  And to be real honest about it, we sometimes just become so busy being busy that we lose track of where we thought we wanted our lives to wind up in the first place.

One possible solution as I mentioned earlier is to change our focus from “me” to “others”.  From being the receiver to being the giver.  And no, I’m not even implying that this requires any major change in the things we do every day.  It may eventually lead to that but it’s not a critical part of the initial process.

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Note: To view Gene’s Blogs posted before June 2010, just visit the “Articles” and “Odds ‘N Ends” sections of NuPathz at http://www.nupathz.com/

*****

Another Note: You can now catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/geneatnupathz  (You may need to copy and paste this into your browser window to actually get there…)  OK, whatever…

It’s an extra-warm afternoon in the Ozarks so rather than be productive, I’m gonna just pass this along:

NATURAL HIGHS FOR WOMEN

1.  Falling in love.

2.  Laughing so hard your face hurts.

3.  A hot shower.

4.  No lines at the supermarket.

5.  A special glance.

6.  Getting mail.

7.  Taking a drive on a pretty road.

8.  Hearing your favorite song on the radio.

9.  Lying in bed listening to the rain outside.

10.  Hot towels fresh out of the dryer.

11.  Chocolate milkshake (vanilla or strawberry).

12.  A bubble bath.

13.  Giggling.

14.  A good conversation.

15.  The beach.

16.  Finding a 20 dollar bill in your coat from last winter.

17.  Laughing at yourself.

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Note: To view Gene’s Blogs posted before May 2010, just visit the “Articles” and “Odds ‘N Ends” sections of NuPathz at http://www.nupathz.com/

*****

Another Note: You can now catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/geneatnupathz  (You may need to copy and paste this into your browser window to actually get there…)  OK, whatever…

A clean desk is a sign of a cluttered drawer.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.

Treat each day as your last; one day you will be right.

A fool and his money can throw one hell of a party.

When blondes have more fun, do they know it?

Am I ambivalent? Well, yes and no.

I like cats too. Let’s exchange recipes.

If you think there is good in everybody then you obviously haven’t met everybody.

Confession is good for the soul but bad for your career.

Gargling is a good way to see if your throat leaks.

Gun Control: Use both hands.

If at first you don’t succeed, redefine success.

Xerox and Wurlitzer will merge to market reproductive organs.

The problem with sex in the movies is the popcorn usually spills.

I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.

Time is a great healer, but a terrible beautician.

Capital punishment isn’t for making examples, it’s for making bad people dead.

Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.

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*****

Note: To view Gene’s Blogs posted before May 2010, just visit the “Articles” and “Odds ‘N Ends” sections of NuPathz at http://www.nupathz.com/

*****

Another Note: You can now catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/geneatnupathz  (You may need to copy and paste this into your browser window to actually get there…)  OK, whatever…

RANDOM THOUGHTS

An assortment of thoughts, observations and opinions developed over dang near seven decades.  In no particular order - or obvious sense of logic for that matter…

A Few Sounds I Remember

Sounds from a loooooong time ago.  The whoosh… whoosh… whoosh… of the Union Pacific Railroad steam engine as it started to move down the tracks.  Its whistle in the distance.  The sound of coyotes howling from over by the creek.  Frogs croaking down in the pond.  The clanging of the school bell to let us know recess was over.  The rhythmic beat of the old John Deere tractor.  A chicken house room filled with baby chicks.  The morning crow of the roosters.  Whooping cranes as they flew over the house on their migration.  Mom playing the piano on Sunday afternoons.  The crunch of footsteps on crusty snow.

Old People

An observation… there are definitely fewer really old people around now than when I was a very young boy.  (I really don’t need to explain this do I?  Nah, I didn’t think so…)

Pretty Ladies

Another observation… there are a lot more pretty ladies in the world now than when I was a very young boy.  (Good, you do have the concept…)  This particular viewpoint is definitely working to my advantage.  Life is good…

A Frequently Asked Question

… of any male.  “What is the first thing you notice about a female?”  The only 100 percent truthful answer is “It all depends on whether she’s walking toward me or away from me.”  All other answers are total BS.

My First Dirty Joke

No, I’ll not repeat it here mainly because it’s really dumb.  It was about a young boy who was sent by his mother to the grocery store and he kept repeating the three items he needed to purchase.  He falls down, gets pissed and skips off now saying a couple of inappropriate words.  It was a stupid joke when I was about six years old.  It’s still stupid.  I wish I could forget it.

A Quick Question

What do you call a fish with no eyes?  A fsh.

(Sorry.  I really need to cut back on the caffeine…)

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*****

Note: To view Gene’s Blogs posted before May 2010, just visit the “Articles” and “Odds ‘N Ends” sections of NuPathz at http://www.nupathz.com/

*****

Another Note: You can now catch me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/geneatnupathz  (You may need to copy and paste this into your browser window to actually get there…)  OK, whatever…

OK, it’s time to take a break!  So just for the heck of it, let’s see how smart y’are…

1. Do they have a 4th of July in England?

2. How many birthdays does the average man have?

3. Some months have 31 days. How many have 28?

4. A woman gives a beggar 50 cents. The woman is the beggar’s sister, but the beggar is not the woman’s brother. Why?

5. Why can’t a man living in the U.S. be buried in Canada?

6. How many outs are there in a baseball inning?

7. Is it legal for a man in California to marry his widow’s sister? Why?

8. Two men play five games of checkers. Each man wins the same number of games. There are no ties. Explain this.

9. Divide 30 by 1/2 and add 10. What is the answer?

10. A man builds a house, rectangular in shape. All sides have southern exposure. A big bear walks by, what color is the bear? Why?

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