THANK YOU, JADE KERRION & FRIENDS! ON TO #ROW80 4TH QTR 2013 - THE DREADED GOALS

I want to thank Jade Kerrion for allowing me to participate in her book launch for the 4th book of her Award-Winning Series, "Double Helix -- Perfection Unleashed!" 

It's easy to do stuff for Jade, because she does all the heavy lifting and besides, she's gorgeous, funny, brilliant and oh, so original. So, she's always welcome here on Nebraska Ave, 33605, 33602, 33604.

Seriously, I just fumble around, do a little HTML code stuff (badly, if you haven't noticed or been blinded by the appearance of my blog) and punch some buttons, and voilà! I'm done. Not that I'm lazy. Much. 

Last year, Jade told me about this little shindig called NaNoWriMo, a festival of finger cramping, where you type 50,000 words during the month of November. I guess you're supposed to have a plot and characters and things. Naturally, I was immediately taken with this concept and got very excited and signed up. I wrote exactly 1737 words in 2012's NaNoWriMo. I hope to best last year's total THIS YEAR; that's all I'm going to say. Life keeps happening. On November 3rd of 2012, my E. T. (Essential Tremor) powered up, or leveled up, for you gamers, or in normal people's jargon, got worse and it was a mess. This not having medical insurance and all back then, was just one disaster after another.

Besides being a first-rate ranter, and an imaginative cuss-word artiste, Andi-roo is one of my first blogging buddies. Truly inspirational as well as ferociously honest and loving, she is my hero! xoxoxo (Andispeak for love and shit)

Andi-roo says calamity now makes for great stories later. She's absolutely right and I have some humdingers. A quick glimpse; I celebrated "Mental Awareness Month" by being committed for most of it, and this wasn't what I had scheduled for March of 2011. Ironically, that St. Patrick's Day in 2011 is one of the few I remember, because throughout my adult life, like all good Scots, I was usually blotto. Let's not even talk about St. Andrew's day (patron saint of Scotland, November 30.) By the way, I quit drinking years and years ago and smoking, too and have the lungs of a coal miner. 

Amazingly, I look pretty good for nigh on 60 and all the self-inflicted damage. There's probably a picture in an attic by now, that is so rotted, it's just a frame. Thanks, Oscar Wilde. 

GINA VALLEY - GLAMEROUS LIFE OF A SOCCER MOM

Gina writes about funny things, or rather, ordinary and sometimes not happy things and makes them. . . hysterical. Posts about trying to find alone time in the bathroom, yet dealing with questions from the "pack;" running the gamut from trivial to existential. Road trips that go on for years, replete with more endless questions from the "pack." Sheer lunacy meets happy impromptu and pointed remarks. I still can't figure out how many 2-legs and 4-legs are in that domicile. But I loved her comment on Facebook, something about it being a long day, as the dog just ran through the door with a couch cushion and jumped into a mud puddle with it. All written with grace, humor and love. Gina is a keeper. I want to thank her for her inspiration and just her presence in my life. I never have a bad day; I just go read something about one of her trips to the E. R. and feel instantly better!

Lynnette Conroy writes with an elegance and a ferocity I haven't read in many a year. And that says a fuck-ton. I am deadly serious.

If you haven't read Lynnette's post, "Open Rant to Congress," please do so immediately. I re-posted in several places, but what I really, really wanted to do was go and throw tea in some harbor, man the ramparts, or fire the "shot heard 'round the world." We need some damn inspiration around here! Where the hell is it? The 60s would have had sit-ins, lie-ins, love-ins, eat-ins, and every other kind of -in you can imagine. Where in the hell is the outrage? We should be outraged. Supposedly, Lenin said that "every society is 3 meals away from anarchy," although it has many attributions. I say, balls. But really, I say, thanks, Lynnette, for getting me fired up again. I just wish it was 1983, so I could go march around the Union in Ann Arbor for Solidarity and give my dad in Los Gatos, California an excuse to call me up and chew me out over the phone, hollering about lists and McCarthy. My mom was the Anarchist in the family.

My own goals for #ROW80 are nebulous. Tenuous, as is the state of my existence in the sense of, I never know what's going on. I can say, "Hey, I think I'm going to write a book. The Title? Fifty Shades of My Little Pony." 

Actually, I have and have had enough material to polish and publish a book about my experiences in music and in the computer industry, as well as the interesting and very broadening experience of losing a house, becoming homeless and sick and ending up here in this chair. Or, I could just end with this:

 Source: Huffington Post                                 

A Silver Lining, of a Very Dark Cloud

Maybe I'm just a one-liner, lookin' for a stage.

After further reflection, I have started a "goals page" as a way of keeping track of what I hope to accomplish during Round 4. I feel good and I am ready to take on some new things and re-establish some great old habits! 

Based on Raising Happiness, a New Theory of Elite Performance, it's actually part of a very old practice that I inculcated during my days in music school and repeated when I took 4 years of college Calculus, Trig and Computer Science in 2. I am gifted in music. I am not gifted in Maths by any means, but I had a 4.0. Unreal. I still wonder who was driving. Anyway, this is where you can read about my goals: DELIBERATE GOALS OF VIOLA FURY

Good luck everyone! It's going to be great and we shall sing the song of our peoples togethers, (sic) as they once did in old country!   

                        ♯ ♫ ♪ ♭ ♩ ♬                   

BEGINNING 09/23/2013 - PERFECTION CHALLENGED BOOK PROMOTION

There are some reasons I have this picture of the beautiful Jade Kerrion and her books where I would normally display #ROW80. First, there's no #ROW80 going on, although when I first started #ROW80, I just kept on going. Second, when I uploaded the HTML code, for the images you see to the right there, I found this peculiar box, that could mean any sorts of things, and being me, I began to play, um fix. I discovered that the reason the picture does not display is that that is the equivalent of a “404, not found.” Rather like my head. I isolated the part of the code that was throwing the “404” error, and pasted that link into a new browser window. The picture you see up there is what came up, along with the “404” error. I made a note and emailed Jade. When the Magic Blog Fairy sets things a-right, it will be fixed. It wasn't the code; Jade sent me EARLIER a copy of the the book cover reveal she wished to be used in place of “404. Page Not Found." So, yeah, let's call it a "404-PEBCAK error. Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard.” I will honestly look for any pretext no matter how slight to get under the hood, when it comes to anything regarding systems, networking, applications and programming. Just keep the hardware away from me. I did make a copy and paste of the URL to get the image you see above; I would NEVER under any circumstances, touch anyone's code without their permission.

This is the scroll and serif of my viola, Wolf. Wolf was "born" in 1836, just 10 years after the death of Beethoven. I've had him since I was 19 and have never played another viola since, unless it was upon invitation of another player, who wanted to play Wolf. He was made by Guidantus Florenus and is of the Bolognese school of fiddle makers, not the Stradivari and Amati and Guarneri houses. At 15 7/8" which is small for a viola, he's got a huge sound. He was named by a luthier up in Royal Oak Michigan when I had work done on him. Nobody touches him but me, capisce? It's like computers, or workmen and their tools, ask first. I wouldn't have cared if it had been freakin' Jascha Heifitz; ask first.

It is axiomatic among musicians, computer engineers, writers, that OTHER PEOPLE KEEP THEIR GODDAMNED MITTS OFF MY STUFF! I came out of the ladies' room, during a break when I was in one of the nameless thousands of symphony orchestras I played in, to find a Russian woman, who had played in the first violin section of the Cleveland Orchestra, playing Wolf. I almost punched her in the eye. I don't get on other people's computers unless I've been given permission and only for repairs. I don't change what people write; that is the intellectual property of someone else. I certainly don't play other people's instruments, unless invited to do so.

The other reason, I must admit, is I am lazy and as per usual, it got hectic around here; when doesn't it? JC was supposed to have his wrist operated on for squamous cell cancer on Thursday, and the supplemental insurance company that provides the rides, never showed up. So, we have to reschedule that, which is so hard on him. He hates the waiting and is understandably frightened. He has a low pain threshold, but he wants it over with as well. We called 3 times, and no one ever showed up. I hate this. When did the world become so careless? After 7 weeks of wrangling with my psychiatrist's office, supplemental insurance office, pharmacy and drug-maker, I am finally back on my anti-depressant, Cymbalta, since Friday. I hope it works because, Damn! I am sick and tired of crying all the time over what seems to be nothing.

I understand that no one has a perfect life, that there are always bumps and stumbles and just plain driving off cliffs, intentionally or not. But there have been times recently, when just every stupid, malicious, mendacious and cowardly act has come back to haunt me. Is it because I've been depressed? Probably. Is it helping me now? Not one bit. Fuck guilt. At some point, after all the maudlin wallowing and all the mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, you have to suck it up and get back up on that horse.

Yeah, I am so so sorry, I smoked for about 30 years, but I am not nearly as bad off as my mom. Could I have done things differently? Why even ask. Everyone has things they wish they hadn't done. What I have to do now, is to keep going. And that has been the biggest hurdle for me, over the last 1 and 1/2 years. Since I have my psychotic break, and had to deal with tremors and weird sensations, numbness, loss of sense of smell, drooling. I've been legally blind for almost 10 years now and I don't even count that a deficit anymore. It's the recent stuff. The stuff that's slippery and hard to define.

I have horrible problems with my sugar dropping quickly, precipitously and within 20 minutes, to the point of dementia. One night I was here blogging, and I looked at Gina Valley's smiling face and saw God. For real. I knew it was time for some OJ. I know how to keep it from dropping, but now it spikes high, higher than it ever has been. 335, 158, 150, 168. WTF? What do I do to counteract that? Eat salt? Buy a salt lick? A bit more sinister, my white blood cell count is high, not high enough to think leukemia, or non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but something else. Having worked in a teaching hospital 35 years ago gives one just enough knowledge to put me firmly in the trenches with all the other hypochondriacs.

Comparing my past blood tests with ABC blood test Company (highly researched) all of my -cytes and various -leukos and trilobytes are just a teeny hair off, until we run into eosiniphils. Oops. I guess I've spent wayyy too much time out of country. Of course, RBC is practically in the negative range, because, redheads are almost always anemic and I have fought that since forever. Scratching around in my chart, which is conveniently online (what asshole thought that was a good idea? Oh! I know! Someone who clearly has no idea about how computers and networking works, and that people like me exist) I also discovered that I carry the diagnosis: childhood failure to thrive.

That has got to be the single most depressing thing I've ever read about myself. Maybe that will teach people like me to keep my nose out of places it doesn't belong. It is true; I was a preemie, in the days that few survived, but not by much. I spent 2 weeks in an egg crate I guess, before my dad took me home, as my mother went back to work. He took me to class, the bar (where I learned to walk) and took good care for me. He was the ever-patient father. If I started to fuss and squawl during his studying, he just fired up the record player, either some Big Band stuff, or more likely, Beethoven and an-ever growing list of classical music from Johann Strauss to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. A lot of you know the rest, so maybe I should just be damned glad I've had the life I've had, and shut up already. I've got the coolest friends on the planet, so, I know I still have lots to do yet. My bucket list is to visit these mega-talented people, in no particular order, ANDI-ROO, GINA VALLEY, AMBERR MEADOWS, AARON BRINKER, NEYSKA, CATERUSSELL-COLE, ALBERTA ROSS, ROBERT LEE HAYCOCK, Baking-in-a-Tornado, Sundae Rye, YumaBev, Nancy Cooper, Cyndee Bowen, That DJPARIS guy, (who has apparently been booted from some kind of men's support group--sounds like me) and a bunch of other people that I just can't think of right now. They are probably heaving a sigh of relief. A visit from me is like a visit from a batch of confused Mongols, only slightly more polite; emphasis on the slightly. Nancy is about the only one of this fine batch of folks who blog and write books for a living who does not have a blog, but she is a first-rate writer and a wonderful, dear friend.

Anyway, while I was tap-dancing through whatever that was, Jade and I were emailing back and forth madly (okay, it was one email and an answer.) She had already sent me a picture of PERFECTION UNLEASHED. I uploaded it and away it went! Her books are awesome. She is awesome! For the next week, starting tomorrow, to help Jade Kerrion celebrate and launch the release of the FOURTH book in her DOUBLE HELIX SERIES, I will be posting a couple of the interviews that she put together. One is with the author, Jade, and the other is with Zara Itani, one of the stars of the DOUBLE HELIX series.

When I read the interviews, I was originally asked to choose one, but was so taken with both, I asked Jade if I may run them both. She readily agreed and for more than one or two days. I hope you have as much fun reading them as I did, and don't hesitate to leave comments for her. All of her contact info is to the right of this post – I've “tailored,” (read mutilated) this template so many times, we're lucky to have words to read. You also have the chance to purchase her e-books .99 (discounted from 2.99.)

Congratulations and kudos are due Jade. She is a marvelous writer and a wonderful person and I wish her every success in her book launch and subsequent blog and book tours.