Backward Compatible

2007-09-06T07:09:00.001-04:00

I know that many people are looking for legitimate ways to make a living online. The best program I have found is called Blogging To The Bank. I've devoted a whole web site to it here. Or, you can go directly to the source to find out more.

2002-08-20T22:15:00.000-04:00

North Carolina has one of the fastest growing Hispanic populations in the U.S. This surprises many people, but it's true. They come here for the agriculture jobs, or more precisely for the agriculture processing jobs, and many settle down here for good. As you might expect, many of the native North Carolinians (both black and white) don't like this too much. But I think that if southerners took a long, calm look, they would find that they have many affinities with the immigrants -- including characteristics not known to be shared by fellow Americans north of the Mason-Dixon line. These include politeness (which can include a reluctance to say "no" even when "no" is the correct answer), and a mañana attitude that can drive gringos and Yankees absolutely bonkers. One time I was in a copy center in Atlanta with a friend who happened to be from California. My friend struck up a conversation with another customer, who was also from outside the South. This other customer had just asked the manager of copy center if he had finished the job she had left the day before; the manager said he hadn't but would take of it "right now," then he disappeared into the back. The customer turned to my friend and, with an expression of disgust (and not realizing that I was one of "them"), said "They're all like this." "They" meaning southerners, of course. Damn lazy southerners! Damn lazy Mexicans! (At least, like the Hispanics and their "ustedes," we were smart enough to fill in the gap of the missing second-person plural in the English language. Right, ya'll?)

2002-08-14T23:32:00.000-04:00

Nighthawk scoops up bugs,
Vacuuming doomed mosquitoes,
Itself chased by dark.

2002-08-12T23:00:00.000-04:00

Here are some references to CoQ10 and gum disease: Epic 4 Health, Aim 4 Health, and this note: "People with poor gum health have been found to have low levels of coenzyme Q10. Controlled research has determined that supplementation with 60-100 mg/day of CoQ10 helps maintain healthy gums and provides protection against damage to gums" (at Nature's Life). Hmmm ... and here's something really interesting I just noticed from the same Web page as that last reference: "Human sperm fluid (semen) is rich in CoQ10, which appears to provide crucial antioxidant protection, and plays a role in optimum sperm function. Preliminary research suggests that CoQ10 supplementation can increase sperm count and motility and supports optimum male fertility." (Emphasis added.) Ladies with gum disease, take note!

2002-08-12T22:49:00.000-04:00

I'm a great believer in magic pills, and tonight I can report that I've pretty definitely found one. It's Coenzyme Q10 (aka CoQ10, aka Ubiquinone). I started taking it a few months ago because it was being hyped everywhere as an energy booster. Only later did I come across a few scattered references to its potential as a gum disease fighter. I'm one of those people who doesn't floss, who brushes only desultorily, and who gets lectured to every six months by his dentist -- to no avail, of course. Well, today I went for my checkup and the hygienist, followed by the dentist, were astounded. They said I had made an amazing improvement: pink gums, infection gone, no bleeding, reduced pockets. The dentist even said I had made the most improvement in six months of any patient he had ever seen. Truth is, my brushing habits are as lousy as ever. Had to have been the CoQ10. I didn't let him in on my secret, though -- might as well let him believe his hectoring had finally pushed me to shape up in the oral hygiene department.

2002-08-11T20:32:00.000-04:00

"The Common Nighthawk nests in open areas unobstructed by trees or tall shrubs. It will not nest in the seclusion of a forest." (See this site.) Well, there's my problem. I live in one of the most heavily wooded neighborhoods you can imagine. We do have bats that come out chasing the mosquitoes every night. And deer, and an occasional brown hawk, and snakes, and rabbits. And a great blue heron appears at a neighborhood pond every winter to fish for frogs and crawfish.

2002-08-09T13:55:00.000-04:00

How's this for serendipity? I was just now randomly surfing "recently published" blogs from Blogger.com, and hit on a blog about birdwatching. And what do you know, I found this entry about the disappearance of nighthawks. Seems I'm not the only one missing the little guys these summer nights. (See my previous posts for July 26 and especially July 24 somewhere on this page.)

2002-07-24T01:24:00.000-04:00

An Appreciation of Nighthawks
During my walk last night it occurred to me that I don't see nighthawks anymore. In the neighborhood where I grew up, you could see them at dusk, swooping and darting around the street lamps in drunken-looking flight. What they were doing was feasting on mosquitoes and other insects, but of course you couldn't see that -- that fact came from my Little Golden Guide to Birds. What you could see was their silhouettes, the dark little bodies set off by white bars on the undersides of their swift-like wings. I miss them. They seemed like visitors from some secret world, popping into ours at one of the gaps -- the interstice between day and night in this case -- and then popping out again, having quickly and efficiently done what they had come for. Nighthawks are not hawks, of course; they are members of the goatsucker family of birds and, indeed, are related to the swifts. I'm going to be keeping an eye out for them on my walks now, though I think my present neighborhood environment is not conducive to the thriving of nighthawks ... too many damned trees. Intuition tells me they prefer areas that are more open. Perhaps I'll have to go nighthawk hunting in a likelier area one of these twilights. If I don't end up getting arrested for wandering around other people's neighborhoods at nightfall, peering oddly at the streetlights, maybe I'll manage to start a fad for nighthawk spotting.

2002-07-23T23:45:00.000-04:00

I'm Turning 18, I Really Think So God my life is so boring!!! and everything truly sucks right now, you know? I mean I thought Heather wanted to be my girlfriend the way she was always acting so hot for me and all OR SO I THOUGHT!!! well, OK, I acted like a 1st-class asshole that night over at Brenda and Eric's especially with me pretending to come on so heavy to Rhonda, but I assumed that Heather knew it was all a big joke ... didn't she??!!?? well, now even Tom is acting like a shit head to me. Well fuck 'em all is what I say. I have my own life -- lame and screwed up as it might royally be -- so I'll just sit here watching these stupid reruns of "Friends" (just kidding about the "stupid" -- that show really rocks!) and wasting hours of valuable time checking out other peoples' Blogs and seeing if anyone else out there is as screwed up and miserable as I am at the moment. And I've decided that if Heather calls me now (yeah I know, that's a truly big IF, I tell my idiot self), then I'll just ... uh, wait ... hold on a moment. ... Sorry about that. No, I'm not really 18, or anywhere near it. And I don't write like that. And my life is fine. But I guess I did read one too many Weblogs tonight and they were starting to affect me. Whew. I'll try not to do that again.

2002-07-21T23:59:00.000-04:00

When I was a boy, the stretch of hours between midnight and about 5 a.m. seemed to be mysterious, forbidden territory. Staying up to watch the local Friday night fright movie on TV ... backyard campouts ... reading beneath the covers with a flashlight ... these activities pushed back the black wall a bit, but couldn't bring it completely down, not as long as I continued to fall asleep at some point long before dawn. Then one night at the age of 13 or so I went to an all-night ham radio DX-pedition (think that's what they called it). It was at a local armory, and my friend and I, both of us aspiring to get our ham licenses, hung out there with a roomful of older guys who sat at tables piled high with marvelous radio equipment and spent hour after hour calling into their microphones, trying to see how many contacts with other hams they could make in the time allotted for the event. We were even allowed to take the mic ourselves once or twice, and I managed to make contact with a ham who had set up a rig on the Battleship Texas down in Houston. When we finally left the building to be picked up by one of our parents it was almost 8 in the morning. We had pushed right through the wall of night and emerged into the brightness on the other side, and I knew that something had been gained ... and something else lost forever.

2002-06-07T03:45:00.000-04:00

I've been forcing myself to peek at other people's Weblogs, a mostly dreary undertaking.

As someone said ... C'est la vie!