Gaia Community: Andy's Blog

Obama or Clinton

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 04:37:50 GMT

This is a post that really sums up why I like Obama.

Tags: Obama

We're Putting The Band Back Together

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:40:42 GMT

Feb 9, 2008

Tags:

Random Music For Laura

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:58:01 GMT

I wonder if these links will work???? Just wanted to say thanks to Laura for sharing so much great music with us.....and thanks for getting me onto YouTube. I found some songs that I used to like a lot and some other songs that I have been looking for.

Elvis Costello, Viktor Lazlo, Sting, Reverend Horton Heat, The Red Violin, Shine, Color Purple

Tags:

Tagged

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:17:26 GMT

Thanks Laura. I should be doing a home correspondence course but this sounds like much more fun.

THE RULES:
1. Link to the person's blog who tagged you.

2. Post these rules on your blog.

3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.

4. Tag seven random [?] people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

Seven random/weird things about me

1. I like to make lists
2. I like gummy bears,Haribo Gummi Bears,and will eat them by the bagful.
3. I can back a semi trailer like backing a car.
4. I graduated summa cum laude from college.
5. I learned how to snow ski in Austria.
6. I once put a four foot alligator in the back seat of my car.
7. I want to take piano lesson

List seven people to send this to

Susan
Candi
Muir
Jeannie
Praveer
Leigh Anne
Darcy

I don't know how to put links in this post!!!

Tags:

What was the last thing you made from scratch?

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:49:01 GMT

Beef Stew. I got a late start and we didn't eat until 8 that night. When I was married, my family ate together nearly every night. I usually would cook. For sixteen years, that was the routine. After my divorce, my interest in cooking evaporated. When I have my kids, we still have meals together but I have been buying a lot of take out. This past Wednesday, I made the stew and changed the recipe slightly. Its not really that much of a recipe, rather simple. Brown stew meat in oil. Add four cups of water and lipton cup of soup mix. Simmer one hour. Add carrots simmer 15 minutes. Add potatos and an onion and cook for another half an hour. Add butter/flour mixture to thicken . Worchestershire sauce, salt and pepper. This time, I added the butter and flour mixture right after the potatos and let it cook nearly the full half hour. Cooking is a labor of love. The slow rise of anticipation in the family as the smells drift through the house. Is it ready? Is it ready? Set the table. Get out the place mats and napkins. Pour the milk. It's ready....can you pass the rolls.

Tags: QaR, crafting, building, backing, cooking, meal, hands

What is creativity?

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:20:04 GMT

Creativity is a colorform. Taking down the pictures, our experiences and knowledge, from the sticky black background of our established thought, setting them on the floor, and rearranging them in new and different ways.

New creative thought or ideas. A friend told me yesterday of a girl with autism who was being tested. The doctors were debating whether she was retarded or incapable of being tested. One of the doctors was convinced she was not retarded based on a recurring question."What if black is not the darkest color?" While the other doctors dismissed the statement quickly with, "But black is the darkest color." This one doctor said, "Okay, what if black is not the darkest color." To which she replied, "Then we would use it to lighten the room."

Tags: QaR, creativity, creative, life

What is the role of media?

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:53:33 GMT

Air Pudding

"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassinations from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment." Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977)

An informed public is the cornerstone of democracy. However, the mainstream media is more concerned with viewership than their stewardship. There are plenty of news programs but its more a question of what is news. The competition for the public's attention has led to sensationalism and meaningless coverage, impacted the quality of candidates running for public office, and started us down the road of indifference and apathy.

What should the media do? Do their job. Report what SHOULD be reported.

Tags: QaR, news, media, television, tv

What was your favorite childhood story?

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:55:30 GMT

"Miss Twiggley's Tree by Dorothea Warren Fox. " That's how I would start the book each time I read it to my kids. My copy is worn with love. The tape that holds the the pages together is yellowing and evidence of chocholate fingers from my childhood still remain. The author may have also done the illustrations. On the cover, Miss Twiggley and Puss are at play. Miss Twiggley, hurling out from beneath the branches of her willow tree on a single rope, is a girl trapped in a woman's body. Puss is seated in a swing beside her . "Funny Miss Twiggley, Lived in a tree, With a dog named Puss, And a color TV" That's how the story starts. A woman and her dog living life. Miss Twiggley is older, certainly over 30, probably closer to 50, and Puss is a dog who can go grocery shopping. They fly kites and associate with bears. They have a house that....it's a treehouse with all the amenities. It rocks!!! Miss Twiggley and Puss are different though....and people don't like different. The people and dogs in town are mean and critical of their treehouse lifestyle. But when a hurricane causes a flood, Miss Twiggley and Puss open their home to even their most vocal critics. In the process everyone learns that they should be tolerant of each others differences and that despite any differences, there are friendships to be made.

Tags: QaR, stories, storytelling, fables, myths, books, children, childhood

What would you do with all those unused televisions?

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:39:12 GMT

We could load them onto catapults and launch them at contestants of a new reality show...a techno-refuse gauntlet ... the couch potato challenge. Overweight, soft in the middle Americans huffing and puffing their way through a series of obstacles while TV's crash down upon them.

Tags: QaRs, television, tv, creativity, use, ideas

Make me smile

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:56:23 GMT

babes laughing

This was on a friend's blog. Can't help but smile.

Tags:

Terror of Tulgey Wood

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:46:48 GMT

Terror of Tulgey Wood

Halloween night is full of frightful things. But according to the Advocate, its the one night of the year when an otherwise peaceful rabbit gets a little out of sorts. Be careful out there.

Tags:

What's your favorite inspirational quote?

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 14:14:41 GMT

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly. ~ anonymous

My last couple of years have been spent going through some major life changes ... a metamorphisis occurring in me. After plodding through life in a less than spectacular existence, I now labor to free myself from my protective coccoon and prepare to spread my wings vibrant and colorful. The winds of life gently breathing in my ear, "Fly high....Fly high!"

Tags: QaR, quotes, wisdom, philosophy, inspiration

Hometown Blues

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 03:19:57 GMT

Hometown Blues

I grew up in a small town in Southeast Florida. The interstate stopped at Fort Pierce about 30 miles north and didn't resume again until Palm Beach Gardens 10 miles to south. As a result, Jupiter lagged behind the rest of area in regards to growth. It was my senior year in high school before the first McDonalds opened and shortly after that the interstate was completed. The main drag in town that I remember having only one traffic light is now eight lanes wide. The stores are a homogonized blend of national chains that now define most towns that I visit. Boats clog the sanctuary where I spent most of my youth. Housing developments of cookie cutter homes now occupy the cow pastures and woods that were so familiar. Most of the people I knew from my youth have either died or moved away. I miss my hometown. I don't know who made this video, but I wish I had footage of the bonfires at the football games, the ropeswing, the hundreds of things that made my hometown special.

Tags:

If you could 'uninvent' something, what would it be?

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:19:59 GMT

Cars. I sit at the traffic light watching as they come off the interstate, one after another, big and little, red and green and yellow and one person sitting behind the steering wheel. America's transportation choice. I sit in traffic among them...no better. I think the world would have evolved into a better place without them.

Tags: QaR, inventions, inventing, history, future, technology

A Patient Comb

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:01:41 GMT

A patient comb
Untangles a beard of life
Knotted and gnarled.

Tags:

A Mighty Yawp

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 03:26:02 GMT

I'm not much on word origins, but I'd guess that yawp became a word as a result of someone actually saying it ... yawp. So, tonight as I walked along a ridge at sunset, I contemplated yawp. I had just run across the word again while reading Into the Wild. It's not a commonly used word and if I had ever said it aloud, it was only while reading a passage to myself. A yawp is not softly spoken. So, what does a mighty yawp sound like from my lips. I tried it a number of times while hiking, using slightly different inflections ... but none seemed quite right. Yawp needed volume. I had to wait until I got back to my car...the engine running, windows up, puttering down the road. Yawp! Yawp!! Yawp!!! Yawp!!!! Yawp!!!!

What a colorful word I thought as I finally found it and yawped a mighty yawp.

Tags:

Finish the sentence: "My destiny involves...."

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 12:58:45 GMT

Jump and Dance. What exactly that means I'm not quite sure. As I write my morning pages required of the artist way, there is a recurring urge to write jump and dance. I imagine an artist date of standing in a parking lot jumping, knees high. the crashing of my shoes landing again and again. For an hour... could I last that long, jumping. Jump and Dance. to shake the tethers that hold me down. Jump to break free and then dance the new dance of a happier me. Not a dance of grace, the three beats of waltz ,but a silly free form of kindergarten class robots and shaking and twisting and laughter unbridled.

Tags: QaR, destiny, future, fate

An Office Memo To Myself

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 05:10:34 GMT

I
Wait On Until Lying Dreamy
Reach Across To Hear Effortless Rhyme
Penatonic Licks As Yarn
May Yaw
Gusted Upward In Time And Rhyme

Tags:

Right now, who do you miss the most?

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 14:01:40 GMT

A girl, a feeling.
A hundred things unsaid.
A path not taken, a lifetime ago.

Tags: QaR, missing

What teacher had the most impact on you?

http://crimsonheart.gaia.com — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:19:31 GMT

Life. Everything else is second hand. You can imagine the greatest heights and lows through what someone else writes or says, but none compare to those experiences that you live yourself. We have a tendency to romanticize in our retelling. Fibs... little white lies that decorate the truth... emphasize some elements while disregarding others. The further you get from the source of the experiece the less truthful it becomes. The teachers that have impacted me the most are those that caused me to experience life first hand.

Tags: school, teacher, impact