Music & (Young, Very Young) Women

Slept more than usual last night, which was pretty good. Had to go in to baby sit a fashion show in the Pavilion. It was an easy low maintenance thing, just get the music running or stopped as requested. Did a bit of exercise for the arms and legs before leaving, just trying to use every opportunity that I have to fix this freaking body of mine and get things going back to normal. Spent a bit more than 5 hours doing this and by the end of this I was ready to keel over, had to rest a bit before doing coming back and putting the body in bed so that it could recuperate. I'm probably going to the pool tonight just to keep the working out thing in but also so that I can let it relax while in the water... then again as I see stuff being slid under my door I realize that I have a shitload of stuff to handle and may spend all this time catching up as I don't think that tomorrow I'll be in any condition to think straight... the pool plans just went to hell, I just received about 4 inches of paperwork to be done, of course it's needed to be done in the next day or so. I'll do this and then retire for the rest of the week... yeah right!

Got some new music onto my system. What kind?, all kinds. I have a very eclectic taste in music. On my iTunes library I have little over 12,000 songs. When you do the math, that's a lot of albums, about 800 assuming that each album has 15 songs, yikes!!! I have heavy metal, hip-hop, rap, rock, r&b, Spanish rock, Spanish pop, pop, classical, instrumental, country, you name it. I'll listen to anything and everything and if it's got some artistic value chances are that I'll like it. Lately though I've been listening to more and more hip-hop than ever before. Now that I've been listening and paying more attention to this type of music I am really appreciating it.

Got to say that women know how to manipulate men from an early age. You think I'm exaggerating? No, I'm not. This girl comes where I was working and wants to change the music, even if it is only one song. I still say no. Now that she knows that she failed she points to her friends, triplets of 4 year old, and says to look at them, how cute they are and how can I say no to them. Call me a sucker but I let them have their song.

Kids

I think that kids are the cutest thing in the world and bring tons of fun to those around them. This little ball of joy with me is Richie, my cousin’s son. One of those rare photos where he is actually looking at the camera… Well, maybe not the camera, maybe it’s my wife who is taking the picture. I don’t blame him, I was doing the same thing. The other cutie pie is my other cousin’s daughter, Nerisel. That was the day before having to return to LA and I was asking her to wink at me while taking her picture. Both of these kids are great and are the pride and joy of their parents.

Dealing with kids is easy. I can’t say that I know how to do it on a full time basis since I don’t have any myself but I’ve always have been able to relate to them and work with them. Some years back I was working at the Church’s summer camp. It was my first year doing this and it was a new church for me as it was my girlfriend’s. When the time came to divide up the groups and who would be doing what I was given the youngest ones, ages 5-6. I said sure no problem. Little did I know that these were the kids that no one wanted to handle as they were “difficult to work with” and since I was the new guy in the group they were thrown upon me. Luckily for the kids and me I didn’t have any preconceived ideas of what to expect from them. I can tell you one thing, these kids were amazing. I had 12 kids with me from 8am - 3pm until the parents came by to pick them up. I would greet them when they came in, get them to their assigned activities throughout the morning, take them for lunch and then a few moreAfter the first two weeks I was told the “real scoop” about the youngest kids and that I was really lucky that the kids that year were so well behaved.

Two weeks later circumstances would prove to all of us that the kids were the same kind of kids from previous years and that I had a special understanding with them. While I was on my way back from running a couple of miles on my bike I had an accident, where I hit a car in front of me, went over it and rolled a couple of times on the ground. Don’t worry, I lived, or else I wouldn’t be writing this. Now, what does this have to do with the kids at the summer camp? Well, needless to say that I did not make it there for the next two days. It would have been maybe 3 or 4 but my girlfriend implored for me to come back. The kids were running amok. They would not listen to those who took over while I was gone. Lunch time was a mess with the kids things lost. They wouldn’t stay in line or be quiet while others spoke. It wasn’t until much, much later that I looked at this situation and figured out what happened. The kids were the same, their routine was the same, all their activities were run by the same instructors. I was only their leader, in charge of getting them from place to place and to keep them “in line”. So, what was it? The only thing that I could find out was that I never treated them as kids. For me they were part of the group. In the beginning the rules were set and they knew that good behavior would be noticed and I would work to get them special things, e.g., going early to lunch so we were first, getting extra dessert that we would share afterwards, working it out so that they could do more of things that they liked (painting was very popular). Years later I noticed that others would look down on the kids, whether young or old they were just kids. They would give orders and expect for those orders to followed blindly. I wish I could have put my finger on that and being able to communicate it to those in charge. Kids are people too. They are like you and me. They have feelings and understand what is going on. They may not have the same experiences and knowledge that you have, that is why you are there, to guide them and make sure they do not hurt themselves (too much) while learning about life.

And that my friends is my message to you. So my Way to Happiness includes this point of honoring and caring children, for they are the future and they are the ones that will end up taking care of us. For more info on the Way to Happiness go to www.TWTH.org.

Life Sacrifices

In my future, Earth is not doing well. People migrate to other
planets, in return you work for the government for 10 years.
Everything is heavily regulated and you barter with those in power and
you can acquire things to make life easier or prettier. A friend gave
up having children for a fish tank, I did it for a vacuum cleaner,
everybody does this... It's been years since I saw children playing.
We're just cogs in the machinery of this planet, without them there is
no future worth living for.