Ocean-wet woolly mammoth slumbers soundly.

A bit of an odd thing to say maybe, but thanks to the rain 'my' park, the Verulamium Park, is green and lush. A joy to walk in. Today it wasn't too busy which made it an even more enjoyable experience.

Verulamium was the name of my adopted home town back in the Roman times.


Three wise trees


A spot perfect for contemplation


A watering hole


A piece of the Roman wall


Unfortunately not for swimming


If it wasn't for the Icream van...quite Robin Hoodesque. Btw, in the background is part of the roof of the Cathedral

I tend to walk slowly while not looking at much in particular. So my eyes are often cast downward. Perhaps for this reason, I am skilled at spotting nails, small pieces of broken glass, etc. on the ground. It gives me great pleasure to pick these up and dispose of them properly.

This is a view not only of the harvest but out the window is the garden. Yeah I was standing on a stool to get the shot, funky angle but I like it...
I might have to take some tomatoes over too the playground for a food fight. :)

We dry/roast/can, make sauce, salsa, soups, juice and whatever else we can find to do with all the tomatoes.... BLT's are a common lunch these days... I like the turkey bacon but I found you can fry up tempeh to taste like bacon.

This is a place where free beer flows continuously. A place where guys and gals meet up in the background of live sports events. Burping is not looked down upon, but applauded and rewarded with nibbles.

The US version. Whatever that means... :)

A product of the Swedish music industry. I saw them live at a Robbie Williams gig in Stockholm back in 2003. I can't remember the reason, maybe he had been in a fight, but the singer had a black eye the size of...

I had a 'Matrix moment' when I watched this video.

Tonight I ate microwaved cheese-lump enchiladas.

I'm testing a new media upload and management system. I'm not going to tell you how to use it yet. ;) But soon!

In connecting with my First Nations heritage, I found haphazardly this artist, Native American artist, called Brulé... and instantly fell in love with his music. I actually found him while on a Vision Quest in the hills of Sedona, Arizona...

With this music and words - he transported me back to a place and time that wasn't of this world. At least, not in this life time. It reconnected me with my past and the spirit that lives within these veins, reconnecting me with my roots and Mother Nature.

His story is a powerful one and his mission is to Unite, band together, spread understanding and growth for First Nations/Native Americans.

Here is one of this songs - performed live. His daughter is the flutist. It is a family affair... and a beautiful one at it.

Vision Quest ~ Brulé & AIRO

I've always loved this song... so simple... but hey... Life is Life - the one hit wonder???!

Especially to Mark who had this Buddha Bar as his favorite music on his facebook page...

This video is from an album release party that I went to in March. The album is "Let's Connect" by Jesse Allen Cooper released under the Cooper Sound Waves label. The music was excellent and my bro GQ got up on the stage and freestyled. I remember feeling like I was on stage too, that's how much I love these guys.

In Jesse's words:

The song is "Heavens Dance" and features a guest performance by GQ of the Q Brothers. All the members of the band and crew were great. GQ wrote the words and I wrote the music to the song, which appears without vocals on my "Sound Travels" record. The full video with 3 other videos is available on DVD at moviebaby.com/Jessie Allen Cooper. It just so happens that he had on his Obama t-shirt and the rest is history.

I thought I'd treat myself to some take away sushi tonight.

Soft shell crab roll and salmon, eel, and mackerel nigiri's. Yuuummmmmm!!!





The eel nigiri reminds me of my trip to Tokyo back in '92. We were wined and dined every evening by the Japanese and had a good time. One evening I was sitting next to a girl who was doing her best to explain the different dishes that was being served. At one point we were served a type nigiri with a grilled peace of something on top of it. I asked the girl what it was and she said 'snake'. Snake!?!!! I have never been too adventurous about my food but back in those days it was even worse. Eating snake!!? I later found out it was eel... It had just been a vocabulary thing. :)

..Though I wonder if it was the same thing when I first met my female counterpart at the Tokyo HQ. I was wearing the corporate suit and high heals. I'm 170cm tall without heals, and even without the heals I was very much taller than most Japanese women. Upon being intr









...

I found out on Thursday evening that my mother passed away. We did not have any type of relationship and had not since I was a teenager. She suffered from mental illness and I could not be around her. I had not had any contact with her in three years and had not been in the same room with her in five. I did not know she was ill, and certainly was not expecting her to die at the age of 62.

I had been thinking about her a lot lately. Not completely uncommon, but not typical either. I even went so far as to look up her name in the phone book last month. She wasn’t listed. Now I know that she was already dying at that time, and had just received the diagnosis of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). I didn’t know it then though, and I didn’t follow through with any of my random musings about her. Now it is too late.

I received a message from a police officer on Thursday evening. He said he had some information for me and needed me to call him back. After racking my brain, trying to com



...

In response to Google's Chrome launch, Microsoft says...

"The browser landscape is highly competitive, but people will choose Internet Explorer 8 for the way it puts the services they want right at their fingertips ... and, more than any other browsing technology, puts them in control of their personal data online,"

I believe they'll find themselves highly mistaken.

From Wikipedia: A matryoshka doll or a Russian nested doll, also called a stacking doll, is a set of dolls of decreasing sizes placed one inside the other. "Matryoshka" (Матрёшка) is a derivative of the Russian female first name "Matryona", which is traditionally associated with a fat, robust Russian woman. (More info at the bottom of this post).



I remember my paternal grandmother owned one. And as a kid I loved to play with it. I was only allowed to do so at special occasions though and under supervision. At least that is what it seemed like at the time. The doll was stored in a huge wooden cabinet which belonged with a dining table and chairs of the chunkier kind, placed in my grandparent's lounge. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to play with the doll at my leisure. Now I do. It wasn’t a doll to play with really, but my grandmother was kind enough to let us anyway. I have no idea where she got it from. I don’t think they ever travelled east. They werenâ€



...

"With Every Heartbeat" ~ Robyn

Another one from the lustrous musical year 1985. I had one more year in school before I would graduate. I had promised my mum I would try and quit smoking (for the third time).

One World, One Love. :) I'm in that kind of mood today. :)

The year was 1985... :)

Carmelina created Benny while being tortured. She used excruciating physical pain to retreat deep into an imaginary world in which she could control her experiences and sensations. Because she was the author.

She used an imagined quill and ink to write Benny’s story. And wrote it on an imagined desk in an imagined library while feeling the touch of an imagined sea breeze drifting through opened stained glass windows... also imagined.

She had no expectations about how Benny’s character would form. He began, simply, as an idea. After a few chapters, the idea took the shape of a person: an Algerian torturer... a Peruvian freedom fighter... a subplot to an ancient Greek love story.

*****

Carmelina looked forward to torture because she didn’t value the physical world. It wasn’t real or productive for her. It wasn’t the way she preferred to exist. She valued, instead, her authorship. Because she could control the direction of her characters.

She tried to tor









...

Well ... it was a long journey from This [which ended as - Sid cant fight alone ... story ends?]to this sweet and lovely poem ... which says story is yet not over ... and Sid is not alone ...

--------------
Love is more than words can say
Love is more than games people play
Love is the thought of you whole night long
Love is that stays with me all day long
Love is your smile on mine &
Love is your eyes stuck on mine
Love is being on cloud nine
Love is being far yet so close
Love is the sunshine, moonlight all in one
Love is that special someone
Love for me is you and its in the air....
----------------

I am happy for Sid, that he is blessed with somebody who loves him so much ... :) Best wishes for the journey ahead ... :)

I'm going to Power To the Peaceful on Sunday - yoga and Michael Franti (from Spearhead) and just got invited to the after party on Saturday night. Who could ask for more?

This is a great song for the 'Noo.

To get a true German experience one must visit a Brauhaus (brewpub). It is quite basic in style and menu but the food is delish (typically German) and the beer is tantalisingly tasty. Needless to say me and my friends spent many an evenings indulging in this local speciality.

On the way home after a night out one could delve in different kinds of fast food, like pommes-rot-weiss or brötchen with some sort of roasted meat. Pommes-rot-weiss is french fries with ketchup and mayo and was usually my choice. :)



Düsseldorfer Altbier

This image makes my mouth water...

Information gathered on Wikipedia.

At present, there are four brewpubs in Düsseldorf which brew Altbier on premises. These beers have greater character than those brewed by larger breweries, and are worthwhile seeking out during a visit to Düsseldorf. The brewpubs are (alphabetically):

* Füchschen
* Schumacher
* Schlüssel
* Uerige

Three of the four are located in the Old Town (Alt


















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Donate now: https://www.standup2cancer.org/donate_splash.asp

Behold, clouds on Mars. Imagine lying back in the dusty, cold, lonely, red regolith, gazing up at these wispy beauties floating across the pink Martian sky. You can't tell me this isn't cool. Ok, you can, but I think it's pretty d@ng interesting.

This is a series of 10 frames taken across 10 minutes by the Phoenix Mars Lander. I found the image here.

Daisy just prompted me to rename IE "Darth Browser".

But seriously, who is your favourite Star Wars character, and why?