teflon ghost

On July 1st, 2016, I wrote about the little town of Burns Lake, BC and how the provincial 50/50 lottery was being won by its residents at over 100 times the rate it should, based on population.  In June the town won over $20,000 on 13 individual wins, a staggering amount for a town with 0.05% of the provincial population.  Since the previous story, “What’s Going on in Burns Lake?” goes into more detail about the statistics, I will simply give you the facts on how the town made out in the remainder of 2016.

July               5 wins       $9861.50

August          3 wins       $4552

September   3 wins       $4043

October        9 wins     $23,179

November   8 wins      $39,839.50

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Total, last 184 days of 2016:  33 wins,  $89,413.50

Ave win, month:  $14,902.25

Ave win amount:  $2709.50

Ave won per day, including days with no win:  $486

These numbers are slightly skewed by the fact that the largest prize awarded during that six months was won in Burns Lake on Grey Cup Sunday, November 27 – $28,523.  In the first six months, their average win was around $1600.

The BC Lottery Corporation prints the picture of all winners over $10,000, so I was excited to see who won the $28 k. A week or so after the win a picture showed up.  It shows a young man and woman, and they look very happy.  I don’t have any rights over their names or photo, but you can go to bclc.com and see them if you’re curious.  I would be interested to know how much of the town’s winning they are responsible for, and how much they spend to make it happen.

Hello reader, today I am going to muse about my working life and you can read along and provide me a therapeutic ear.
You know? I’m a pretty loyal employee. I take my jobs seriously. I am punctual, and I take great care to do a good job and act in a way that reflects nicely on my corporate masters. Which is why I feel sort of crappy today. You see I have been contacted by another potential employer who may want to hire me, and now I feel like a disloyal traitor. I guess I should forgive myself, at least partially, as they contacted me, and it is a better deal than what I have now.
Looking back I sure have had an easy time finding work. My first job was working in a little mill and it was set up by my mother. Easy peasy. After college I got a job in another mill which hired me on the spot because of the other mill experience. When that company went tits up another mill called a bunch of us for a meeting and hired us. More easy peasy. They turned out to be a band of crooks so I got out of there. I went to the employment agency and read the job board. The process was you found a job that interested you then you filled out a card and went home and waited for a call. That seemed inefficient, so I got the phone number of the place, found it in the phone book and went there. They would have hired me on the spot but I didn’t have a lunch and agreed to start the next day. That was making spiral staircases. When they got slow I found another mill and they hired me. I really like that job and the owners, but I got into an argument with a supervisor about taking a day off to play in a chess tournament, so I stormed home, printed one resume and took it to another mill who said they weren’t hiring. By the time I got home the owner of that mill had called to hire me. I worked there for 10 years and had a great time.  Along came the part time gig reading water meters which has turned into 16 years with the same little group of people. And now the city has reached out to me, saying they are looking for my resume and it might be wise to submit it. Ultimate easy peasy, except for the nagging feelings of sadness and betrayal.
Many medical professionals believe that exercise is low price levitra also coupled with a good diet. Statistics have shown that almost 50% males in the world combat with the condition viagra sales uk bought that and Kamagra is the choice for you. We at Hypnotherapy Sydney cure depression by consultation, levitra generika meditation and hypnotism. If you are experienced in order viagra from canada a certain aspect of Internet Marketing and you download and buy information about that expertise that allows you to move forward. Is it some stupid ego thing, where I think I’m so valuable that it will hurt the company? That probably isn’t it. There are better people at doing maintenance than me. Do I think I’m so popular everyone will be crying when I go? Pretty sure that isn’t it! I guess part of it is comfort – just knowing where I am and what my parameters are.  After all these years I just blend into the background and have no one checking up on me.
I haven’t even been offered anything yet so I might as well relax until that happens. The big dangling carrot in this upcoming job is it comes with a pension. At my age, knowing someone is going to send me a monthly cheque to keep the fridge full is a really big deal.
Thanks for the therapy! (If you’re still reading) I feel strangely better having written that out.

There’s something L Ron Hubbard-ish about announcing you think there ought to be a new religion.  Maybe religion is a little harsh.  Maybe it would be more of a philosophy with moral implications.  The fact is, if I was serious about getting a religion started, I would do it some other way.   It’s just that the old established religions are mostly outdated and full of localized tribal thinking, and it might be time to step things up to reflect the smallness of mankind and the fragility of our extistence and the fragility of our environment.

I took religion in school for 12 years.  I had a lot of time to think this stuff over, and I apologize if any of it sounds preachy, because that isn’t my intention at all.  I am not a church goer, and I never raised my kids to be religious either.  It’s out there if you want it, and there are plenty of eager beavers ready to reel you in.

In the context of my proposed new “religion,” people could still have Bar Mitzvahs and Ramadans and Buddhist prayer wheels and pope-mobiles.  Have at ‘er!  Take a break on Sunday or Saturday or Tuesday morning, it doesn’t matter.  It’s just time to lose the dark ages thinking associated with cheering on the bearded guy in the clouds while hating the tribe next door doing the same thing slightly differently.  If he is up there running the universe, he better not be spending precious time worrying about what it is I’m doing.  I hope He’s keeping both hands on the cosmic steering wheel and giving my existence the zero attention it deserves.  And if He really is desperate for our love and adoration, He probably likes all the existing religions about equally.  Why would He only like the adoration from Muslims or Baptists or whoever?

The main tenet of the new “religion” would be that humanity is a single organism, constantly being reborn and renewed, and you are but one cell in its body.  Suddenly hating other people wouldn’t be as appealing.  There is some scientific merit to this point of view, too.  Divided, we all have our own beat, but when people are together, their  heart beats, breathing, walking strides, menstrual cycles etc all synchronize.  Like little cells in a petrie dish, our metabolisms connect, and connecting with others is hugely important to health and happiness.

The next big idea that would maybe get religious people to stop bickering would be if we assumed that mankind was going off to be judged on our morality after we die, just not as individuals, but as a whole.  That is, Bearded Dude makes one judgement that covers his overall impression of the human organism’s morality.  That would make charity and helping others very appealing.  Besides, it would be helping yourself in a roundabout way.  As a side note, if this is what anyone’s God had in mind, I’d hazard a guess that humanity is in enormous trouble so far.

Of course, some people would take all this charity and abuse it and laugh at it.  Murders would still happen, rapes and robberies would continue.  Assholes would continue to enslave others and wreak havoc on the environment to line their own pockets.  The perpetrators of such behaviour would be akin to cancer cells in the new model.  Their removal from society would be a form of quarantine.

Since all people from all times are connected gentically, time could be seen as a complex illusion in which we are present in the past and the future.  I am a middle aged man, my body no longer contains any of the cells I was born with, but they were the cells whose division and renewal begat me as I am today, and as I will be for a short time to come.  Slight alterations in the straight continuity of time seems likely anyway.  It would explain a lot of premonition-psychic-remembering the future stuff.  I vaguely remember reading something about DNA transferring memories, but I could be mistaken and I frankly don’t feel like doing the research to find it.
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Our modern DNA is passed down from a tiny sample size of people – maybe as few as 20.  Every person on earth has the DNA of kings, queens, murderers, saints, artists and madmen.  We are all relatives.  I guess what I’m driving at, time-wise, is that although my actual cells may come and go, my DNA is eternal.  It is the same genetic lego blocks the cavemen were passing around.  Although I have shuffled off a few mortal coils since, my DNA, and yours, was right there building the pyramids.

Just something to think about.

 

 

 

 

I have been told that I should write a post about some of the silly dreams I have.  Quite often I wake up laughing in the middle of the night about something crazy I have dreamt.  Other times I do odd things while I’m alseep.  One time I crawled along the bed and quickly snatched the pillow out from under my partner’s head.  She just told me calmly to give it back, at which point I woke up.  Another night I had a dream I was tossing a football around the backyard, and in reality I had my partner’s elbow in my hand and I threw it like a football which woke both of us up.  In a dream not long ago, I got to laughing when someone in my dream said something was as impossible as “farting oneself to the moon.”  A couple nights ago in a dream I watched a boyishly dressed woman go into a store called “Western Lesbian Outfitters” to go buy some more butchy clothes.  Mostly vulgar, usually dumb.

This post is going to deal with three dreams which are pretty similar in some ways.  They all involve female singers who are not exactly attractive.  Why?  Who knows?  If Dr. Freud was still alive, maybe I could get a little insight into what the connection is, but for now I’ll just have to guess.

Dream One:  Mama Cass Elliot

In this dream I met Cass Elliot on a bus.  We got to talking and we were getting along really well.  I could tell she was interested in having things go a little further, and I was looking for a graceful way out without doing anything to hurt her feelings.  My great line to get out of an awkward situation?  “It’ll never work out, you’ve been dead for 40 years.”

Dream Two:  Rita MacNeil

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This dream was similar to the Cass Elliot dream in that we were chatting and the singer in question was becoming interested in me.  Here I never got a chance to escape the situation.  Rita was getting pretty worked up, so she unbuttoned her blouse and showed me a boob.  Trouble is, the boob had four nipples like an udder.

Dream Three:  Adele

Well that’s about it for romance.  In this dream I was moving along a buffet smorgasbord in a restaurant.  I was plopping dollops of this and that on my plate, getting together a nice dinner.  I came up to the lasagna tray, and there in the steaming metal table under the hot lights was the very last square of lasagna.  I put it on my plate and started to head to my table, when all of a sudden there was a snorting commotion as Adele rushed me with nostrils flaring, in a frenzy about that final piece of lasagna.  She full on tackled me, and my dinner went flying.   I have been traumatized, as I bring this up every time I see lasagna.

I think the Rita dream was sort of sexist and vulgar, comparing poor old Ms MacNeil to a cow.  Likewise, the Adele dream was cruel as it depicts the ‘big boned’ Adele as a food-crazed eating maniac.  Do I really think these things?  I don’t think so, but those ideas are lurking in my sleeping mind, ready to become crazy little movies when I least expect it.

Ok, I’ve been putting this blog off for a long time, mostly because it’s bound to be a dull topic for most people.  I can see that it needs to be written to get it out of the way so my life can continue without its presence, so bear with me.

For most of my life I have loved chess.  I was fascinated as a kid by the shapes of the pieces and the unique properties they all had.  I read a book or two on the subject and I became an adequate player.  On rainy days, me and my little neighbourhood buddies would play each other for hours.  Aside from my family – among whom I am the only player – I really grew up believing most people could play chess.  As a teen I came 2nd in a tournament held in my high school, and I won a prize playing a master who was travelling around shopping malls playing simultaneous games with 20+ opponents at a time.  In my early 20’s I joined the Langley Chess Club, and over the years I have represented it in club matches many times, have been its secretary, treasurer, tournament director and seven time champion.  I have travelled far and wide in this country, playing in the national championships, usually finishing right around the middle of the pack.  In the past half a decade or so I have been directing larger tournaments with 50 or 60 players, and I’ve even been written to by the national chess federation to be thanked for my “contribution to chess in Canada.”

Meanwhile, my feelings for the game have been changing.

I used to be excited to play other players.  It was my version of the gun slinger’s showdown, and I know my opponents felt the same way.   There was respect and comradery and occaisonally hard feelings, but nothing that lasted long.  In the same way that many kids I had fistfights with became my friends, so did many of my toughest opponents become friends.  Once you’ve taken a measure of your adversary, fought against his strength whether in the school yard or over a chess board, respect came naturally.  That’s how it was.
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Now, I play against opponents who are prepared with computer analysis of my games, who know exactly where my dark squared bishop is going on move 6 of the Trompovski Attack, who know how to exploit the subtle weakness it creates, whose coaches have shown them the best long range plan in that position.  They are usually kids with their parents watching intently, armed with granola bars and juice boxes.  It isn’t a battle of gun slingers in the dusty streets any more.  It has turned into an impersonal battle of computer preparation and coaches.  Rarely do we sit afterward and talk through the games, and even rarer do we leave feeling any respect or warmth toward the human being we just tangled with.  The families are often involved heavily in the chess careers of the children who play, but they seem only to learn moves and positions, not the good stuff about giving and gaining respect or friendships.  Or maybe I’m a cranky old man who imagines things were better years ago?

Maybe among the kids who have taken over the tournaments and their hovering families there is respect and personal feelings.  I’m not in a position to know.  Another thing that bruises my ego is that after some kid, his family, his coach and his computer have beaten me, I get the I’m-smarter-than-you look.  I have to remind myself that being classy is another lesson they will hopefully learn one day, but it isn’t the first step they take.  Of course, I mentally float away to an alternate reality in which I am kicking the kid over a fence into a yard full of hungry dogs, and it helps a little.

If I quit playing, and I might, it will be a sad end to one of my favourite things.

Well I guess that’s about it for another summer.  I know a lot of people enjoy the fall, and they are getting all excited about cool mornings and sweaters and snuggling on the couch, making stew for suppers and watching the trees turn colour.  Not me so much.  I work outside, and even though summer can be a lot of sweating in the sun, it’s still prefferable to squishing around in the rain.  I like the freedom of summer – of plunking down in the grass any old place I want and wearing minimal clothes, eating lots of barbecued stuff.  I love the fact that nature is in full bloom, all the fruit being in season and fresh, all the flowers and birds brightening up the world.  Fall for me is about watching all the warmth slowly seep away and watching all the colour and vividness of the world droop and fade.  Fall is the old age and death of the calendar year.  Worst of all?  My frickin lawn starts growing again.

Winter is much better than fall in my mind.  I don’t mind the occaisonal snow fall, and winter tends to be less rainy and windy than fall.  Also hockey is in full swing by winter, so if you’re stuck indoors – again – at least there is entertainment to be had on the tube.  I also find it psychologically pleasing to know that when winter starts, the days start getting incrementally longer, brighter and warmer.  It’s always exciting the first time you notice the sun rising earlier and setting later; but the big thrill is the first sunny day that gets into the 14 or 15 C range when you can open the window in the car and let the breeze blow through your hair.  Next thing you know it’s spring.  It’s a magical time when we start the barbecue up and see the blizzards back east on the news.  The weather starts behaving itself and the hockey playoffs get going.  Of course all my teams are usually offed immediately in the playoffs, and the frickin lawn starts growing again, so spring does have a few shortcomings.
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Not good old summer.  The weather is typically great, and everyone you talk to is going on a trip or camping or kayaking on some lake.  Everybody is having a nice time, and the long evenings on the porch with friends, family and a couple beers and the music playing really can’t be beat.  Well I’m going outside now for a barefoot stroll in the grass while I still can, time is quickly running out on another summer.