Real history; it makes Game Of Thrones look like a boring birthday party for a three-year-old…

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Don’t get me wrong. I love that show. Yes, the Red Wedding was gruesome and shocking. Do you have any idea how many millions of people were murdered in World War Two? Dragons raining fire and death from the sky. We dropped bombs on Germany and Japan that wiped out cities and started fire storms, and we dropped even more bombs on Vietnam than all the bombs dropped by all the planes of all the forces in World War Two. Napalm and Nukes might just put dragon fire to shame. The Lannister incest was controversial, in a small way, but for most of the last 1,000 years or so, most of European royalty has been marrying their own cousins. That is how Prince Charles got those goofy ears. Inbreeding.

All I am saying is, if knights and swords and brutal battles and steamy love scenes interest you in fiction, read some history. Listen to some historical books. It is all in there.

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Nobody Move!!! Where did my mustache go??? Don’t make me strip-search every last one of… oh… wait… I shaved it off… never mind…

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Oh yeah, there is some skin that hasn’t seen the sun in a while. I have already done posts about why I have kept a mustache since I was 14-years-old. If you are curious, I suggest you do some digging, down in the swamp.

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I met this lovely lady at work the other night…

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I think the tarantula was less scary, even though it was much bigger.

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More ‘wet webs’… and yes, that might be a dog hair stuck to that web, over on the left…

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I had fun taking some photos of those funnel-web spider webs on that misty morning when they were covered with little drops. And I said that when the big garden spiders showed up, I would do the same thing. But they come now, and they aren’t big yet. Also, it is dry in San Diego today, so I broke out the little mister/spray bottle from my camera bag, the one I use to make fake ‘dew’ on flowers, and used it.

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There is a dry orb web.

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A little artificial nature, and you have magic… and a pissed off spider.

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I did not damage the web. He was already repairing it.

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I should have put my macro-photo lens on.

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I will do more of these later, when the webs are bigger. Sooner or later, the camera, the lighting, and the wet webs will come together.

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The perfect shot is always illusive. I am still trying to get that perfect photo of a dog shaking off water, when the sun lights all the drops like diamonds.

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I found a few other webs, and the pictures got better.

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It is actually tricky to focus on a web.

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Sometimes it works.

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And sometimes it is blurry, but still interesting.

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You just never know until you see the pictures big.

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Okay, I leave you with one artificially moistened funnel web, just for old time’s sake.

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History: The longest running soap opera in… uh… history!

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I was trying to explain to my wife and kids why I enjoy listening to hundreds of hours of the history of England podcast by this British guy who records it in his shed. I came up with a good comparison. I asked my wife why she likes watching the soap opera called ‘The Young And The Restless’. She has spent more hours doing that than I have with my podcast at work.

So I tried to put it to her that history is basically just a soap opera that has been on for a long time.  She likes that there are characters on her soap that have been there since she was a kid. Hey, history is full of people who were around for a long time.  But my main point is that history has all the same elements of a soap opera. People screwing one another, literally and figuratively. Businesses rising and falling, family drama, relationship drama, human drama. People coming and going, and doing interesting stuff to and with each other. Murders and back-stabbing, plots and mysteries, who-done-its and psychotic behavior. No writer can make up stuff more filled with vile treachery, lust, revenge, betrayal, power-grabs, and byplay than real history. Throw in the wars, the inventions, the rise and fall of empires, the mass movements of peoples… and people, the exotic locations, the medical advancements, religious fervor, greed and romance, and history makes quite a story. Think about it, all the famous people were there, helping to make history.

I have always been fascinated by history. I wish more people were. Maybe, I they were, history would be even more interesting, because I could talk about history with more of them.

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Imagine a world where everyone was exactly the same…

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Try to picture it, we are all the same color, size, and shape. We all believe in the same giant nonentity. We all eat the same bland porridge. We all do the same things for fun… nothing. The world is a flat, beige/grey landscape. We do not reproduce in a sexual manner.

I admit, for one brief moment, when I had this idea, I liked it. No more racists or religious zealots! Sweet.

But, like most of my ideas, as soon as you look closely at it, it gets deeper and stranger and more complex. No food from other countries? No new experiences? No love? What would you give up for safety, for security? Would you do away with love to end heartache? Would you do away with spices to end heartburn? Every good thing in life comes with the potential for a bad component. That is what life is. Life itself comes with a heavy price at the end… death. Do we give up on life to avoid death?

So what if you hate people that have a sexual orientation that does not conform to yours, and I told you that you could get rid of all of them, but to do so, you have to give up sex yourself? What if I said that you could live where there are only other people of your color, and it was a segregated prison camp? What if I pronounced that we were abolishing all religions… including yours?

What is your feeling of superiority really worth? Why do we dislike those that differ from us? Why is it so easy for us to convince ourselves that what we learned as a child is more true, more right, more moral, than what other people learned?

I don’t have answers. I just want people to think about my questions. I know I will never change a single mind with this blog, but someday, when the Great Orange God/King is no longer on his throne, and history looks back on this period of time, I want it on record which side of the road I was on.

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The rare ‘Eye of Sauron moon-eucalyptus tree’, and some other stuff…

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You gotta admit, that is a pretty good picture I took with my cell phone, even if it doesn’t quite live up to my fancy title for this post.

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But art is art, and Art is Art, and I am both, so to speak. That is some bushes, lit by the lights in the parking lot where I work, with the moon in the background. Art really is all around us.

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Sometimes, a view is just a view…

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Until you wiggle your phone while taking a picture, then, bam, art!

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Just walking around looking for the right angle is art.

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I always think of flowers as art… even though I had nothing to do with creating them.

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Nobody mixes a color palate like good old Mother Nature.

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Two colors of flower on one plant? Now Mother Nature is just showing off.

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I loves me some purples!

 

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Why are white supremacists always the poorest example of the white race that they say is so supreme???

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I guess it is one of those ironies… you know, like how ‘survivalists’ are usually the last people we want continuing the human species after whatever disaster almost ends us.

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I have a vision of the future, which starts next year, so I am calling it my ’20/20 vision’!!!

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Okay, it isn’t a very clear vision. You might even call it a blurry vision. And it has more than one part, so I guess it is a double vision… or maybe a division. I had to fix a bit of it, which makes it a revision, especially if I have it again. Or, I could break it up into more parts, a subdivision. Somebody should check up on me while I am working out the details, because I need supervision. I am telling you about it, so it is a television. It turns out that being a visionary isn’t easy. I need to focus my vision. Try to see if you can envision my vision. I should pack some provisions so I can snack while I work on it. I have initiated some previsions, but it now seems that my vision needs a little more work before I share it with you, so never mind.

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Why my older daughter is justifiably famous for giving the best presents…

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Yeah, that’s right. I am now a pinata! My daughter, Jessica, sent this to me from New York for Father’s Day. She did it all by hand. The tie dye shirt, the tattoo, the graying mustache. She even printed a cover of one of my novels and put it in my hand.

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And I don’t think I have ever posted a photo of what she got me for a birthday present when she was in Spain… or maybe Portugal… with her husband. Oh yeah, a customized stamp for making my initials in wax to seal things.

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This is the same kid who got me made into an actual Scottish Lord. She also set me up with my blacksmithing classes and my glass blowing classes. And she compiles all my novels to send to the printers.

She has given me lots of cool, weird stuff. I have done posts about them. I am a lucky dad.

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