Sometimes I Wonder Why?

1. Sometimes I wonder why we haven't been back to Moon since 1972?
2. Sometimes I wonder why since I been more in tuned with nature, animals tend to come my way, especially birds?
3. Sometimes I wonder how much stored data is there on Internet, and how much is generated everyday?
4. Sometimes I wonder why rain falls after every time I wash my car?
5. Sometimes I wonder why people have pets and they do not take care of them?
6. Sometimes I wonder why when I am really hungry, the food delivery takes forever?
7. Sometimes I wonder why I like graphed paper over lined paper?
8. Sometimes I wonder why when I am in the rush to get somewhere, there is always extra traffic on the road?
9. Sometimes I wonder why when I need help in return there is no body around?
10. Sometimes I wonder why when someone else is yawning, I start to yawn also?
11. Sometimes I wonder why I am more efficient when I am organized, and others are more efficient when they are not organized?
12. Sometimes I wonder how can one remember exact location of each object on one's study desk?
13. Sometimes I wonder why crying generates tears?
14. Sometimes I wonder why I dream every single day - its my second life?
15. Sometimes I wonder what kind of technology will be in the world 100 years from now?
16. Sometimes I wonder will I ever finish the Internet?
17. Sometimes I wonder why now that I am older the life seems to be zooming by?
18. Sometimes I wonder why I like number 11?
19. Sometimes I wonder why I get many encounters with number 11?
20. Sometimes I wonder why I cannot let go my fears - swimming and ghosts?
21. Sometimes I wonder why I love what I do....yeah sometimes I wonder?

The Silent Couple

When we started to mountain bike, it was all about the fitness, and as we biked more and more, it was more about self discovery - the appreciation for nature and people. The more we appreciated, and pay more attention the the surroundings - the more birds would come to us, the more animals be around us and the more interesting people would stop us on the side of the road to talk. And for those who passed us in silence, their silence gave us a sense of unprecedented calmness and peace, and happiness. If I talked about every person we met when biking this would be a long story to tell - but there is someone I want to talk about. Firstly what are the chances that you will see the same person every time you go biking. The only explanation is that since we bike only once a week in the morning that person must walk everyday in order for us to meet at almost the same location. So I don't really see coincidence in this encounter, but the coincidence was that we had the same routine.
It was one very beautiful summer day. Just by accident we decided to take a quick stop in that one location to get a drink. People were passing us by bikes, and by walking, and it was that one old couple that passed us. Both were tiny and fragile boned individuals due to their age, but beautiful. They were a long time friends, husband and wife. She was helping him to walk, as he looked much older and more fragile. She was a strong woman and he appreciated. They walked slowly, they did not talk nor say hello - but they were happy. They were happy that they were still together, they were happy that they lived that long, and even we don't know anything about their life - their face expressions told the story of their life - the love for each other. They were the silent people, but their silence was telling the story of their lives and was saying hello to us.
As the summer almost passed by, the birds continue to come to us, more animals race us through narrow bike trails everytime, and we continue to meet interesting people, and we continue to see the silent beautiful old lady - but she was alone. As we may physically perceive that she was alone, she was not. Her face expression told the story of her life - she is happy to celebrate her husband's life and continues to walk the same path with gentle smile on her face.
There will be a time that she will be gone one day too, but as we will continue this bike path of wisdom and to self discovery, the silent presence of a beautiful couple will always be there.

[TRUE STORY]

The Internet I Never Left

I finished the Internet. I am done. There is nothing else for me to do. Can you imagine if you really did finish the Internet. No, no one can imagine that. Internet is like the spider web, as a matter of fact that how the world wide web was named. If you look at the spider web, what do you see? What I see is no way out. That's right, no way out. Or you can say I see many ways to get somewhere, but there is no way out. If I recall my first experience on the web, it was during my university time, back in 1995. I was sitting in the computer room, full of the Unix stations and one big dot matrix printer making lot of noise. Aside, I got in trouble once from the administrator for printing too much, but he was nice and gave me just friendly reminder. Going back to my story, I was sitting front of the Unix station, and I don't know how I exactly was introduced to the net, but I was browsing through whole bunch of text with hyperlinks. From one hyperlink to another, I found myself in the United States White House. How cool was that? Yes, my blood pressure went up, excitement hit my face - I am in the White House. And all it was a picture of the White House dressed up with text. That was my first picture enhanced web site I visited, and that is how I entered the Internet space and never left.

[TRUE STORY]

Accelerated Life

Today is August 23, 2007, and I am 319740 hours old, and I am planning to live hopefully up to 876 000 hours. For every passing day there are 24 hours. So if you ask me why am I suddenly into hours. Well life is too short to live day by day, I want to live hour by hour. I enjoy what I do and I enjoy every minute of that hour to the fullest. The life can completely change in one hour, and even in one minute. However, what I wanted to emphasize is that when I was young, and I was 61 320 hours old, life felt really long. What I mean by long? - It felt like we had so much time. Felt like minutes, hours and days were very long, and we were able to do so much, and remember so much. But then at 219 000 hours, life started to accelerate, and it is still. Minutes feel like seconds, hours feel like minutes, days feel like hours, and months feel like days. To add one more line to it - years feel like months. And when I was 61 320 hours, all that was in reverse. If I had special power, I slow down everything by decelerating life, but then I am asking for impossible.

[MY THOUGHTS]

Reaching Out

Sometimes I feel like reaching out to others, but this is a different type of reaching out. Today I wanted to reach out and close the gasoline tank of the car passing by. I wished that one day someone reached out to me for all the gasoline caps I lost. I actually left mine on the roof of the car. Other times I want to reach out and properly close the driver's side door, or passenger's side door, and other times I want to reach out and open driver's door to put the seat belt where it belongs. May be I should get a set of signs that I can wave by the drivers saying 'Close Your Gasoline Tank', 'Close Your Door' or 'Pull Your Seat Belt In'. So the lesson of this story is - please close your tank, properly close the car door and always and always carry extra windshield washer with you, because cleaning windshield with your sleeve or a suck is fun to watch on my side, but not on yours.

[TRUE STORY, MY THOUGHTS]

Kids Speak

This weekend my 6 year old nephew and 3 year old niece were visiting my parents, to them they were visiting grandparents. We don't see them too much because of where we live and where they live, however, when we see them we always have so much fun. I usually take tons of pictures every time. They know now, and seems like they don't mind the paparazzi aunt.
After going home, we always laugh at things kids usually say. One of the funny episodes were with my husband and nephew, and my niece joining in. Just to explain couple of things, we are called teta and wujko. Teta is Ukrainian word for aunt and wujko for uncle. So it all started with my nephew pointing out - wujko you have a bad breath! My husband reacted by making a face, so my nephew continued, that is okay I have bad breath too sometimes. The game continues until, my nephew points out again - wujko you have big nipples, and my niece on the background laughs with screaming big nipples, big nipples, ha ha ha. Yes it was a bit cold outside.

[TRUE STORY]

Hwy 401 Observations

To point out I see my husband almost 24/7. We work together, and we go everywhere together. I have one day off work, but lately he has been taking days off with me because of his accumulated vacation days. However, we never run of things to talk about, even if something we see to criticize. Sometimes when we drive, we criticize others for their driving, or make fun of others. Don't you worry, nothing offending, just two people hanging out for too long with each other and starving for excitement.
This time we are driving on Hwy 401 and there is this guy driving red Jeep with no passenger side door. Okay, safety first, I don't think it is wise. But then we just envision this guy driving on the desert with his Jeep in Africa and this lion jumps in for a free ride. That would be fun to watch - may be someone can use this for movie set. So as we pass him and leave him behind and out of our sight, we finally reach Hwy 403, and we notice this piece of rolled paper swatting around the car and out the window. It turned out that a wasp jumped in for a free ride with this other guy. So our wish came true, lion - wasp, close enough, jumping for a free ride. It was funny to see, and hope everything turned out okay on the end. I tell you its not fun to ride with a wasp hovering over your head.

[TRUE STORY, MY THOUGHTS]

How Much I Know About Fishing

Its all started with 'angling'. What is angling? - I asked when watching fishing show on early Sunday morning. According to wikipedia - 'angling is a method of fishing, specifically the practice of catching fish by means of an "angle" (hook). The hook is usually attached by a line to a fishing rod.' Now we both know what angling is, and after all this explanation I rather use word fishing.

Now that I am blobbing about fishing, this brings some old childhood memories about my early fishing days. I was only five years or seven years old, if I recall. My fishing was called dry fishing. I would take a long 1 meter stick, attach this heavy thread to it, bent nail, and some bait like piece of dry bread. I would clime on top of the old table or tree log to get some height so it looked like my thread was suspended in the water. What happened next - I would sit and hope for fish, the fish that I could only catch in my dreams.

Later in life I learned more about fishing. This was recently and it was about sports fishing. Firstly, I think it is very cruel, but that is my opinion, and I enjoy my dry fishing better. To continue with the fishing story, our biking path is usually along the river where many people enjoy the 'cruelty to animal game' - I mean sports fishing. However, before then I did not of such thing. Again, continuing with my story, we hit the end of the trail, and we see this man fishing. I look at the water flowing through the dam, and I tell you it is dirty. How can you catch fish in here, so I asked the man: What do you catch in here? The man replies with a strong Russian accent, some carrrp, may be some catfish. And before he can finish his list, I asked - and you eat this fish? No - the man replied - and turned away. So this is how I found out what sport fishing was.

[TRUE STORY]

What Vista and Jesus have in Common?

They both appeared at the same time on the Ads by Google banner on top my Story Blob page. If you religious do not take this seriously, it is a fact, and its possible with Google ads, and watch because of my post Jesus will lead, and who wants Vista.

[TRUE STORY]

Cooking With Love

Today I am going to BBQ chicken breasts - lets add lots of salt, black pepper and fine ground hot chili pepper, and baste it with olive oil. Salt give us high blood pressure, black pepper is hard for digestion, and fine ground hot chili pepper - like Germans say put lots of toilet paper in the fridge because you will need it for next day. Is this what we call cooking with love - yes I added some olive oil.

[MY THOUGHTS]

Backyard Birding Surprise

This is one of my birding stories. Its real, short and sweet if you not into long reading...

Today, I was not able to go birding (because we are renovating, actually my husband is working hard and I am here blogging). However, I was very fortunate to see something cool. So I am sitting on the Muskoka chair and eating breakfast outside. I looked up and I see this bird going head on, towards me. First I thought that it was a Rock Pigeon, yeah I really thought that. But then the flight pattern was different. As this bird flies towards me and got closer, it finally hit me that this was either an osprey or one of the hawks (not sure which one, or even Melrin), and this bird was holding something in his claws, fish or mouse, or even bird (sad). He flew over my head, just about 3 feet. It was a smooth and very quiet glide. And how cool this is, now that I am heavily involved in birding, birds come to me. Or may be it was my breakfast. lol.

So I get excited and called my husband to tell him the story.... So now we both standing and talking about it and I kept repeating 'wow'. Then suddenly both of us looked up and there is this Great Blue Heron flying over, unusually low, just cleared the house.

This is just within 5 minutes - two big birds just like that...must say it was fun morning. And where was my camera in moment like that - I guess I will have to remember it.

[TRUE STORY]

A Supervisor's Prayer by John Luther

It was a coincidence, I opened the quotation book and on this page was this prayer. I like it. It reminded me some of my bosses. Read on.

Dear Lord, please help me

To accept human beings as they are -

not yearn for perfect creatures;

To recognize ability - and encourage it;

To understand shortcomings and make

allowance for them;

To work patiently for improvement

and not expect too much too quickly;

To appreciate what people do right -

not just criticize what they do wrong;

To be slow to anger and hard to

discourage;

To have the hide of an elephant and

the patience of Job;

In short, Lord, please help me be a

better boss!

[NOT SURE WHAT IT IS]

My Only Photo: The Humor In The Sign

I published some non artistic but worth of smile signs on my other blog, enjoy: My Only Photo: The Humor In The Sign

[REAL PHOTOGRAPHS]

Installations

Yesterday we started to do two things, installing windows and installing security. The windows installation started just fine. The installation guy showed up earlier than I thought - I guess had to get up earlier than usual. The boxes were unpacked and straps removed. But before installing windows, we had to uninstall the old one. Messy job, but the guy did good job to cover his tracks - oh boy he talked a lot. While installing windows, why not install the security at the same time. The Internet security expired so we needed to install new version - and this is where all the mess started - I mean real mess started, not physically, but computer wise. I rather have messy house when installing windows, and not messy computer, because things can be lost. Well the real issue we had started with the order of three licenses, and every license needed to be downloaded from the site. I thing its stupid, but then we don't have much to say, just do as they say, and we still did our way thinking whatever we downloaded first time would still work. I guess not. Well then the security lady from India, and I am here in Canada, is taking over my computer. Should I trust her, god knows what they can do to your computer and disappear from face of this Earth, and I wouldn't even know where to look. She is in. Eight hours later, the scan still doesn't work, got the blue screen of death twice, she kept repeating like a broken record its not them, and the window guy is about to leave having all the windows in.

[TRUE STORY]

My New Friend - the Neighbours Cat

This has been one of those days that I just don't have creative juices flowing - and I say at all. I usually have good imagination, and since I don't have any good writing ideas for today, and as you noticed for few days now, I will blob about my day. So to start, I had to abandon the Story Blob blog for a while, and one of the reason was I was chasing meteor shower. That took some of my time, first prepping all my cameras, to ensure I am not to miss anything and then trying my cameras on the dark sky, because I never taken any photos of the dark sky. Well after all, the whole event turn out pretty good, got some shots of Perseid's Meteors, and some satellites hovering around. But this is not what I want to talk about today, therefore, to know more and to see more about meteors you can check my photo work on my myonlyphoto blog. So today we are replacing windows in the house - how exciting. Not to mention this week is my time off from work - how exciting. Not that exciting, but I will make it exciting - I will definitely find something to do - or may be I write more stories. Lets get back to what I was going to write today. Knowing that we cannot go back in time, once the windows are replaced - the old windows are history. Guess what - I am taking photos of the windows to have that snap shot for my personal historical reasons, and just in case if something goes wrong, I have a proof how good the windows were - no really, the old one may have been good, and we just getting something we may not like. Will see. Going back to my story again. I took shots inside the house and outside the house. While taking shots outside I met up with this cat. The cat I always told to leave my front yard. So the cat is trying to make friends with me, and I am photographing the cat - the windows are pushed aside for a bit. So this cat is going away, I guess is not liking the photo shoot. Well, some how I sensed that he wants to be friends, and this is the time I let the cat into my territory. On the side note, I am not a person that likes animals that much, but I know once the cat or dog warms up to me or any other animal (not sure what), I wished I had one of those. I sense wonderful feeling, giving this nice little neck rub and knowing that it is appreciated. Anyway, enough of this romantic talk, and the cat is now in my territory. I took finger off my trigger and looked what is going to happened. Next thing this cat is rubbing against my leg, and I am getting lots of hairs on my black pants, but I do not care. I am sensing gentleness and friendship, and peace. The cat moves away into shadow and is being playful. I give him nice rub. Then the cat takes a little break and goes and rests under my car, and I move on with my window photo shoot. The cat follows. Follows me all the way on the back of the house. I know we are friends now. The cat enters my backyard very cautious. Observes. I continue with my photo shoot, and sometimes I sneak that one photo of the cat between. I am done with photo shoot, the cat leaves the backyard first, but stays very close to me and walks with me. The spiritual time is coming to end, I give a cat good bye rub, and the cat purrs and rubs the wall and starting to be playful again. I play, and its fun. Time to go, so I say 'go on' and I will see you again. The cat with sad face now, moves on, he or she knows. This was very peaceful, spiritual and friendly time with this cat. I think I will see him or her again. Now to give you some background, this same cat one day, may be 5-6 years ago, showed up at my footsteps. The cat wanted to come in, but then when I showed my face cat recognized that I wasn't the owner - to cat's surprise. The cat said something and left the steps, and few years later here he or she is.

[TRUE STORY, REAL PHOTOGRAPHS]

They Make Us Say It

Day started up with calling my husband by my maiden name. It happens a lot, but it is solely my fault. I wanted to keep my maiden name, but I also wanted my husbands last name - talking about greed here. On the end I ended up with two part last name, and no hyphen. Things I did to remove that hyphen. If there is no hyphen on the credit card application form filled by me, there is none, why do people still added. Everyone likes to assume. Many times cards had to be re-issued, many corrections had to be made, and they still would put that damn hyphen. Well to avoid that I got into habit using my maiden name and if my husband is with me then he gets nailed with it. Sound kind of funny, because no body is called by my maiden name except my father.

So far morning is good. We had a good laugh about the name. That kind of brightens the whole day if you start on the right foot. Got hungry laughing. Next we are driving thru A&W. We like A&W and we had some coupons. Now comes another wave of laughs - ham'n'egger. Why do they do that to us, this just doesn't seem right - its too funny to say it. Try it. Repeat very fast few times, sound like some hanging egg header. Now the debate starts, how we are going to order this ham'n'egger, so I said - they don't know ya, just say it in a funny way, they will have fun listening. It was fun debating, until - can I take your order please? and my husband answers, I have a coupon for 2 ham and egg sandwiches for 4 dollars. Ohhhh, he was just embarrassed to say it. So I made him to pay in lot of change, like 24 x 1 cent. After all the fuss it wasn't so bad - they lady said I will take your word for it and she took all the change.

[TRUE STORY, MY THOUGHTS]

George the Duct Cleaner

Now with the telephone call display technology everything is just not right, yes not right. It is so chaotic. The telephone companies gave so much flexibility that I have no idea what I am looking at when someone is calling. Some of the numbers on call display are 1111, 222-2222 or 000-000-0000. What kind of number is that, I cannot even call back. The marketing companies finally learnt how to block the calls, so only some digits shows or sometime just Private Number. So to make this long blobbing story short, I get a call today. Guess who's calling. Its George from duct cleaning, and they are in the area and they will give me a free estimate. I am so amazed that estimates are free, what exactly am I getting that they really emphasize the 'free estimates' for. Can you imagine, estimates were not free, and then the estimate would include estimate price on top of the estimated price, if you know what I mean. So this man on the other side of the phone answers the phone. Yes, he answers the phone. He dials and then makes me wait and then he says hello. So he finally introduces himself, hi, I am George and I am calling from duct cleaning company. We are in the area and we are giving free estimates. The free estimate gets me every time as you know. So I interrupted George, and said: George my ducts are clean and they are clean as they can be. George I will not be needing any duct cleaning. George laughs on the other side of the phone, and answers that it's fine madam, you have yourself a good night. I hang up with a thought - what a pleasant marketing call for change.

[TRUE STORY]

My Happiness Expressions

[Aug 03, 2007] Happiness cannot be described. [Aug 08, 2007] Happiness can be experienced by everyone, and not just humans. Animals can be happy, and plants can be happy. [Aug 09, 2007] Can you be happy during rainy day, of course you can. Any external forces should never disturb your happiness. [Aug 10, 2007] Happiness is when you make others job easier even when they screwed up with you order. [Aug 12, 2007] There are two kinds of happiness, internal and external - and I prefer internal. [Aug 13, 2007] I wish I was always happy - the life sometimes takes unexpected route. [Aug 14, 2007] Today I saw happiness in cat's eyes. [Aug 16, 2007] Happiness is independent of frustration, like frustration with your Internet security provider. [Aug 19, 2007] Yesterday I was happy, today I am happy, and tomorrow I will be happy. [Aug 22, 2007] I am happy when I meet new people, even if it is through a blog, or through a discussion board. [Aug 23, 2007] Your soul will always seek happiness.

[MY HAPPINESS THOUGHTS]

A Home He Always Dreamed Of

This is a story that I been told when I was young. However, I don't remember all, so I added my own twist. There was a town once, and in this town there was a grassland, and on this grassland there was a small forest. In the middle of the forest there was a small house. And the house had four windows. There was light coming out of these windows. Inside the house there was a family. And there was a table in the middle of the kitchen where the family would gather and eat dinner every night. On the table there was food, and in the middle of the table there was a pot full of mashed potatoes. And every one had its own spoon, and glass of sour milk. And everyone would dig into the mashed potatoes pot. The family would eat like that every night after hard work in the field. One day there was a homeless person walking from town to town. And this person walked into the town where the family lived. The person walked through the grassland and saw people working in the field, but he did not stop and kept walking towards the forest. He walked through the forest and found this most beautiful little house that he always dreamed of. The sun would shine and create most amazing view of the little house in the forest. He knocked on the door, there was no answer, however, the door opened. He walked into the house, and he sensed the most tasty aroma of baked bread. He looked at the kitchen table. There were four chairs around, four spoons and four glasses on the table. In the middle there was a loaf of bread, the bread he always dreamed of. He looked around, and he saw this one chair, a broken chair in the corner leaning against the wall. He looked around for some tools. He took the chair and slowly fixed one leg and then second leg. The chair was all good now. He pushed one chair beside the table and placed his chair beside. He noticed some wood in the corner, so he carved the spoon. He looked around and he found clay cup full of dust on top of the wooden shelf, he washed it, and now its all good now. He sat at the table. He waited. It was getting dark, and when it was completely dark the family came home. The father arrived through the door first, then mother, and then son and daughter. Father lit candles in the kitchen and then he noticed a motionless shadow of man sitting at the table. The family did not move, but there was no fear. The man looked at the family with no fear either and no words were exchanged. The father noticed that his daughter chair was moved, and old broken chair now fixed was standing beside. And he also noticed a wooden spoon and the clay cup that once belonged to his long time gone mother. The family sat by the kitchen table, reached out to each other to say the prayer not omitting the homeless man. The prayer was long and thankful, and the man was thankful too. He knew he found a home he always dreamed of - and he was not going anywhere.

[FICTION]