Bad blogger. No biscuit.

I'm sorry. No idea why I haven't been blogging as of late.

Maybe it's because in our culture a man's career is his identity. So when a man leaves his career, he leaves his identity, and has to find a way to reinvent himself. And that's a personal, private, difficult thing to do, so maybe I'm not in a good place for sharing.

Maybe I've lost my sense of humor. AK feeds me fiber now, I'm losing all sorts of stuff, maybe it's been flushed.

Maybe it's because I am STONED on Benadrool Abbergy 24 hours a day. Really. The second the stuff begins to wear off, my whole face itches, my throat tickles, I sneeze incessantly and produce fountains of muucus like the hotels in Vegas produce fountains of colored, coreographed water.

Oh well, on with life.

Glasses: Finally got to go get my eyes checked, and the fancy doctors in the fancy Optometry mansion who have skinny manicured secretaries in expensive tight business suits (must be good money in eyes!) confirmed my suspicion. Indeed, my lack of periferal vision is caused by my glasses and there don't seem to be any prescription sports glasses or anything that wraps around so that I can see the whole world at once like I did before I wore glasses.

And oh yeah, I need BIFOCALS!!! I'm 36 years old, and they want me to do that old-man thing where I tilt my head up & look down my nose to read, then tilt my head down & look over my specs to talk to people. Nope, not this year, I'll get regular glasses. Maybe I'll buckle and get bifocals (now called "Progressives") when I reach the ripe old age of 37.

Contact lenses were talked up as a cheap alternative that would give me my field of vision back, but I knew there was a reason I had never considered them before. I couldn't remember what the reason was. AK told me with my allergies & severely irritated, swollen eyeballs they'd be a bad idea. Yeah, ok, there's a point. But if they're really cheaper, I'm thinking I should at least try them. I decided to put it out to the blogosphere and ask y'all your experiences and opinions of contacts vs. spectacles. But in time, AK confessed the REAL reason I can't have contacts: she thinks I'm hot with glasses on. :) End of discussion.

So where do I shop for interesting, cool glasses? Maybe ones that will increase my field of vision over the little specs I have now? She won't let me get the Elvis Costello glasses I really want. Even though I do a GREAT Elvis impersonation . . . "Wha's so funny 'bout peace love and understaaaaanding, UUUHAAOOOUH. . . ". There must be more than what I saw at the Optimansion. Or where do I find out what kinds of glasses do well on what types of faces? There must be something like that somewhere on the internet?

RC Max and I had a very nice RC day last weekend. I've been trying to start a spec class with these inexpensive, indestructible little tanks of 4WD buggies, figured if I had one I could let people try it out, and Max could probably drive it better than his 2WD truck. Sure enough, he could control the thing even with the trigger pulled all the way. Flying roost = happy son. For the first time, he actually enjoyed the RC part of our RC day! This has not been important lately, I've focused on just being around and hanging out, but it was nice to share that with him -- really -- for the first time.

Max's new Tamiya Gravel Hound

Max Gladly Participating in Pre-Race Smack Talk

Sold my Gas Truck, so now I'm strictly electric. MUCH simpler to pit for flashlights only and a little cleaner too. Lux Graphics is sponsoring a big charity race in the middle of September and that will be a lot of fun. 3 days & 2 nights of nothing but RC, and lots of my local 'Toona Town homies are going too. I'm hoping we can all stay at the same hotel and terrorize the place with XMODS. XMODS are tiny, 1/28th scale cars that are truly useless, really, unless you've got to get your race on away from home in confined quarters. And are slightly if not completely inebriated.

Flix I've taken in so many movies lately I don't know where to start. 3-part documentary on globalization called "Commanding Heights: Battle for the World Economy". Did you know we started this century with a global economy very much like the one we have now? I love the historical stuff more than the current events, it's just so much easier to wrap my brain around. I finally found all 3 Matrix movies cheap enough to buy the set, so that entertained me for one afternoon of painting. Neeto effects, neeto plot. Has Keanu Reeves ever had a facial expression or variation in voice tone? He'll be the new Gary Sinise if he's not carefull (Forrest Gump excepted). Max of all people pointed out to me that LOTR Priscilla Queen of The Elves (the Head Elf who also starred in the aussie film) plays the important role of Agent Smith in the Matrix films. I'd never made the connection.

I went on a Mars kick recently. I've unknowingly collected films about Mars! Mars by the way IS still a planet (Justin Roberts is going to have to write his song about the NINE planets). I've got Mission to Mars, Red Planet, Total Recall and Ghosts of Mars. Who knew? What Mars movies am I missing? Do some Google Fu?

FOOTBALL is going nicely thanks to Max's new team/coaches. They are really working with him one-on-one and that's not only what he needs it's the way he learns best. Like me, his is a mentor learner, an auditory learner. We learn by talking through what we're learning, and that takes some one-on-one with the teacher. They're showing him a world I was never a part of, the grunting, physical battlefield world of football. And bless them for that! The more I learn about life the more I see it's hard for a man to be a man. The gridiron is a place for him to slay dragons, conquer foes, hunt & gather, protect his pack. I've completely disattached myself from it and become a spectator. This is also good for Max since it takes some pressure off. My football advice: "Coach good. Listen to coach. Do what coach say."

Blog good. Make blog more later.