Charity Wedding Event
I feel like this could be fun if put together correctly...
A charity wedding event!
Here's how it would work...
Just like a normal charity event, you have to get people together that are willing to attend and would also be willing to purchase a ticket to the event.
Now we have our people all buying a ticket. Let's say there are a couple hundred. I'm imagining a scenario where... Let's say it's a wedding between two famous people. Or two historical figures. Or two fictional characters! How cool would that be right?
Now everyone gets assigned roles. Or maybe they put in for a bid to play different people in the wedding. Or to play different guests. Then for the duration of the night, you get to play that person.
Just like a normal wedding there would be a ceremony. Then there would be a cocktail hour. After the cocktail hour there'd be a dinner and then after that there would be a dance with live music.
Obviously the biggest hurdle will be expenses. If everyone pays for a ticket, that money will be the pot of money being donated to whatever cause the money is going towards. So in order to donate the most possible, keeping costs down will be crucial.
Ideally, all of the services would be donated services. So all of the things that go with a wedding would need to be donated... Renting of the facilities, the cake, catering, photography services, DJ or live band services. This is going to be the toughest part as I imagine most of these services that charge, especially at the peak of wedding season might just not be able to donate. It's not that they don't want to... but it just might not be an option. Maybe they aren't super profitable in the first place and giving up a free night just might be really hard for them. They might also be booked up.
For those reasons maybe this event could take place during the wedding off season. Or maybe we could sacrifice some of the official/legitimate things for our own doing. Perhaps instead of a DJ, just have laptop hooked up to a borrowed PA system and we play our own music. Or maybe just try and find someone with a big enough house to host the charity wedding... Or just a church with a rec hall or something. Maybe a community center. It would be sweet to be able to have some kind of snazzy location, but possibly not realistic. As well it would be super cool to have a professional photographer, but we could always just setup a makeshift Photo Booth thing and maybe just have an art student, or a fledgling new photo business that's just starting out that we could pay significantly less to than a big name photographer. Plus it would be a chance for that photographer to get their name out there and for people to see their handy work.
The food could just be something basic. Maybe? We order pizzas. Ok, not THAT basic. But... Perhaps we just go with a local restaurant that's willing to provide some food at a discounted rate.
But I think it could be cool to have one of these events every year. And each year we try to get bigger and better with the donations. We try to get people to pay a little more for the tickets and donate more services so that the total amount of money that could be donated to the charity or cause would continue to increase each year.
If the event got REALLY big, maybe it could get news coverage or something like that to raise awareness for the cause too. I think it would be awesome to have it almost be like a part theatrical production where there is almost a script to follow for each character.
Like that strange uncle, or aunt that tells all sorts of outlandish stories. Or perhaps the bride and groom could be super interesting fictional characters. Like Katniss Everdeen is marrying Harry Potter.
What? I know! Right?
Or someone gets to come as Ben Franklin. Because why not? It would almost be like a halloween costume wedding... Zombies get married. Who wants to be the Zombie bride? Ok, we're going to raffle that spot off to raise even more money. Or maybe one year we recreate a historically significant wedding. Princes and Princesses.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air marries Princess Jasmine.
I can show you the world! With a romantic magic taxi cab ride through the streets of Bel-Air. Complete with dice in the mirror. Or maybe the magic flying carpet has dice in the mirror?
I really think the ideas are endless. Yes, it would be a LOT of work... and there are certainly better ways to raise money for charity.
But come on... wouldn't this be a REALLY fun event? I think it would!
So everyone put your best dressed up outfit on and say "I do" to raising money for a charitable cause with a mock theme wedding.
So What Are You Looking For On This Dating Site?
Ok, so I have this in my dating profile... It's mind boggling how many times I got asked the SAME question over and over again. My thing is, to me at least... I feel like this is really how a relationship should progress. If it's not going according to these 10 steps...
It's not going. And I'm pretty sure it never will.
To me... Both people should be on board at each step. If one person is dragging their feet at any point... something is wrong. Both people should be mutual on board! It shouldn't be one person tugging the other person, yanking them by the wrist into the next step. If someone is hesitant there's a reason why they are and... to me at least? It's time to give up on that person and try with someone that is more willing. And the same goes for me. If I'm hesitant there's a reason. And it just means they weren't the right person.
I decided to post the steps here that I have at the very beginning of my profile so here they are...
I keep getting asked over and over again the same exact question "So what are you looking for on this site".
To save some time I'll break down what I'm looking for in 10 steps:
1.) We start chatting/messaging back and forth on here to see how that goes. If it goes well we proceed to the next step.
2.) A phone call? Or maybe try texting to see how that goes. Or whatever other form on communication you might prefer. Or if we've got a pretty decent connection from just step one we go to step 3.
3.) Start meeting and going on dates. Maybe coffee, maybe tea, maybe some drinks. Maybe we just go to the park... or whatever. Go see a movie, have dinner. You know. Dates. If we like one another, and we REALLY want to spend more time with each other... you guessed it, step 4.
4.) We're dating! "Are we dating?" "Yea, I think we're dating." "Should we make it all official?" "Sure." "Cool!" "I guess we're like boyfriend girlfriend right?" "Yeah, I think we are!" "WOW!" "This rocks!" "I'm in like with you." "I'm in like with you too." This is like the handholding phase, we kiss, we hang out at one another's places, watch movies, make dinner together. Etc. etc. Do all the things that boyfriends and girlfriends do. We tell all our friends about each other. You know. And if that goes well... Ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh Step 5, step 5, ahhhh Ahha ahhh haha steeeeepppp fiiiiiiive, step fiiiiiiive... (to the tune of Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees)
5.) We make things totally official. Like Facebook official. We figure out the exact date that we decided to celebrate our 6 month and 1 year anniversary together. We do cute things like go back to the exact place we went on our first date together. Recreate our first kiss. Take cheesy photos for all of our social media and make our profile pictures of us kissing each other to annoy all our friends.
6.) Move in with one another. Perhaps.... Or at least we start considering it. As well there's heavy talk about an engagement. Where to spend our honey moon when we get married. You take me by the ring place to "look" at rings and you "suggest" the ring you want. We start thinking about wedding venues and where we want to get married. Maybe we have a disagreement about the flowers, or the color theme because I want pink and purple and you want blue and green. Or the other way around. Or we want to use blue and pink because we met on OKCupid and we want to give a shoutout to OKC.
7.) Oh my God, we're married! How the? This is amazing! We're newly weds and love birds all in one.
8.) Did we just buy a house? I think we did. I think we just signed the paperwork to buy a house together. WOW, this is all happening so fast. But we're in love and life is great. Maybe there's talk about a baby on the way.
9.) Babies!!!! Or pets. Maybe you don't want kids. Maybe just one? How about two? I'd be good with two. Or just two cats. Or a cat and a dog. Or a cat and a dog and baby. Why not? Oh gosh, I'm just so happy right now. We're living the life, we're working our dream jobs and we've got our dream house and dream cars and a cute little kiddo is roaming around.
10.) Divorce. Just kidding! No... we just celebrated our 10 year anniversary. I can't believe it. 10 years together! And I still love you more every single day. And you love me more every single day. And it's all thanks to OKCupid for bringing us together! Soulmates together at last.
So there you have it. It should be a natural mutual progression to the next step and when each one happens it should be like both of us going... HECK YES... to the next stage of us being together. If one of us is like... "WELL.... I don't know..." or... "maybe we should take a break for a while you know?"
I just feel like one person having to pull the other person into the future is just a bad way to get relationship to progress. It shouldn't be one person ahead of the other... it should be both people skipping/hopping/jumping hand in hand equally into the next phase of dating, the relationship and eventually into marriage.
But hey, I'm still single so what do I know?
Dating Exhaustion/Failadelphia
I'm not sure if that's even a thing. But yeah... if it is... I have it. Dating exhaustion.
I just keep going on dates that seem to lead no where. Or more recently instead of going on dates from dating sites I've been trying to just go out and do things in the hopes of eventually maybe just by luck or chance ended up sitting beside the girl that might eventually be the one I end up with.
No luck though.
Last night I went out to Morgan's Pier.
I did end up sitting beside a girl and chatting... turns out she was waiting for a guy. I kind of... went back to just eating my burger and fries and drinking my beer. But she would kind of chat a little with me every now and then. So I was like... well she seem's friendly. As we kept chatting I learned it was a date... and then a date from OKCupid. She was kind of texting him while talking to me. She was nervous. We kept chatting for a while and then eventually the guy did show. While we were chatting she mentioned a few times "I don't even know if he's going to show up". I reassured her that he would show up and that she just had to have faith.
He did show up and they were really hitting it off. I decided to then move and go read over by the water after I finished eating. It was kind of a sour night though because I got a parking ticket which sucks... On my way down there I was going to park elsewhere, but I got cut off and people were honking like crazy, so I was forced to go over the Ben Franklin Bridge. Then I had to pay a toll to come back over the bridge. So that was Failadelphia number one.
Then I found a spot a little ways down from Dave and Buster's. It was 4 hour parking until 10pm. The current time was just before 7pm. I pumped some quarters into the meter and was going to pay up until 10pm... got to about 1 hour and 40 minutes on the meter when all of a sudden the meter died on me. It started to flash something strange. I was going to just move my car from the spot. When a nice parking attendant guy at the exact same time was coming down the street. I asked him what I should do and he pulled out some sort of paper that he marked up with a penn. Then he stuck it on the meter. He said... "You're good for 4 hours now." I trusted him.
But, I think that's rule number one for cities... be cautious and not trusting. So it was my fault for trusting him. We proceeded to walk down the street and chatting about how busted meters are fairly common. He told me about how the new meters cost 11 grand a piece to put in so it takes a while for them to make their money back. He said how these old meters suck and how much he hates them. The new meters are the ones where they rip out all the little per space ones and just put one or two on the whole block and you can pay with a card and put the little printed slip on your dash. He said that someone on South Street lit one of the 11 thousand dollar new fancy ones on fire.
We both kind of chuckled and said well, that's Philadelphia for you. Which is sad when you basically expect that kind of behavior from the city you live in. He stopped to ticket someone and then I said, "well I'll let you do your job." And I went on my way.
Upon returning to my car I found a ticket of my own for 36 dollars and the sticky thing that he had placed on the defective meter was missing. I tried to browse around http://philapark.org site to see if there is s someone I could contact that I would discuss my predicament with. I actually came upon a 404 error busted page at one point. I keep thinking I should inquire and try to find that parking attendant to see how it would work to have him provide testimony on my behalf to prove that the error wasn't in my incorrectly following the proper parking procedures, but that something happened to the paper he stuck on here. Any number of things could have happened, maybe the wind blew it away, maybe someone just ripped it off the meter and crumpled it up to toss away. But I don't know.
I imagine it being a big headache. I imagine the people that work at Phila Park probably aren't genuinely interested in assisting me. They are probably grumpy. They probably are told to do everything possible to get people to pay the 36 bucks. Obviously they want the money coming in from ticket revenues. So it's more in their interest. Oh well. Plan B.... avoid the city more and more going into the future. Longwood Gardens is a wonderful place that has a HUGE and COMPLETELY free parking lot that stretches for miles. And everyone there... Unlike most of the people I encounter in the City of Philadelphia... are cheerful and happy go lucky. It seems like a lot of work for 36 bucks in the grand scheme of things... So I'll probably just pay it.
But going forward if I park at a meter I'll probably Instagram it so that there is some kind of proof to set things straight. I may just start parking in the 15 or 20 dollar unlimited lots. Less headaches than dealing with street parking. This is one of the reasons why I'm generally not a big fan of cities. I've parked a million times in Wayne, Pa... Or Media. Or Phoenixville and never have a problem. Wayne and Phoenixville and Media all have nice municipal lots/garages where you can park... FREE... after 6pm. And Sundays are free to! Failadelphia... 3? Or maybe 4? I'm a small towner at heart.
I just can't help it. Small towns are just generally much more pleasant experiences verses big cities for me. So there you have that... Small towns: 1 Failadelphia: 0
Well any who yeah so I've just been going out to all these places and last night was just another bad night on top of a ton of disappointing nights going out trying to hopefully finally collide with the girl that I would hopefully one day marry. I keep thinking maybe she just doesn't live in this area? Maybe she lives somewhere completely different like Austin Texas or Seattle Washington? Maybe she's not even from this country? I don't know where she is... or if there even IS a girl out there for me. But I'm just exhausted from the whole dating experience. I feel like it shouldn't be this hard to find companionship. I shouldn't spend 2 months chatting with a girl on a dating site, finally meet up a few times, think it's going ok only to find that she actually hasn't REALLY filed for divorce yet and that she's kind of having second thoughts about it and that she's sorry for wasting my time.
It's just frustrating and exhausting and it's making me cranky at work and around friend's and family. Maybe I should just give up and just be single and just throw my hands up and go about my life. Play more open mics and work on music more. I want to go to the Nightscape thing again and I also want to go to more of the live shows they have on Thursdays. I really like Longwood Gardens a lot. Even if I never end up meeting someone there, or a girl to take there on a date... I enjoy the peacefulness of that. It clears my mind. Well, I'm going to make some lunch.
Have to go back soon to pick my mom up from her Saturday dialysis treatment. I had to get up this morning and drive her over there. Later this afternoon I'm going to check out that Egyptian Festival I was told about a while back. Just going to keep busy and keep doing things and going places... Who knows.... maybe one of these days I'll find my self suddenly in love... For now... I'll just try to avoid Failadelphia as much as possible. I still need to post a blog about my Nightscape experience. So look out for that. I will say that I DO like Morgan's Pier itself. And the people there were friendly. The music was good and the view is fantastic... It's just getting there and stowing my car that seems to be a pain. There is a lot next to them for Dave and Buster's. So I might check to see if I'm allowed to park in that lot and then go over to Morgon's Pier. Hey... Maybe the girl of my dreams has been over at Dave and Buster's when I was over at Morgon's Pier. I actually sat there staring at their big sign wondering that. We just keep almost crossing paths... So close yet so far.
I mean I won't know the girl I end up with will even exist until the day I meet her... So right now I can't even imagine I suppose because i don't know she even exists yet... true story, in like 2006 one of my super close best best best friends from high-school was telling me that she was going to enroll at Eastern University... But she was kind of scared... So she asked me if I would be willing to like come to the library there with her to study... She actually wanted me to take classes with her... I was taking classes at where I work.
I declined... and she never enrolled there. She started doing online classes elsewhere.
I should have accepted her offer though. Who knows...
Little did I know 4 years later I'd totally end up meeting a girl on OKCupid that I thought was the best thing since sliced bread... That girls I met 4 years later was at Eastern in 2006.
Not saying it would have changed things from where they are and how they are today... Or that I would have even run into her in 2006.
I just think it's funny I didn't even know that girl existed until I met her in 2010. So there I was in 2006 saying no to a place where a girl that would later drive me completely wild 4 years later happened to be.
Soooo who knows... maybe there's just a girl that I don't even know exists yet... and we could be super perfect for one another. It's just a matter of saying yes to something new. Maybe even saying yes to the right invite, or just letting someone else take me there... And crossing paths with her.
A lot of dating is about crossing paths. Just letting the world steer you to a place and a person you didn't even know existed.
The plan A could be the wrong plan and maybe it's Plan B that is supposed to be where we're really supposed to be at. No matter what we think, or our hopes or desires are.
Swiss Cheese Model
This isn't a blog post about models from Switzerland that walk with slices of cheese down a catwalk/runway while people snap photos and speak in French accents about how dashing the cheese looks at this year's cheese fashion show.
No, that would be a a Swiss, cheese model.
This blog post is on the topic of... The Swiss Cheese Model.
"Swiss cheese model of accident causation" by Davidmack - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.
The other day I'm on a run listening to some educational content and the person giving this particular talk mentions something called the Swiss Cheese Model of accident causation. I'd never heard of this before! I geek out about learning new things. Give me more!
Immediately I'm like that's so fascinating. So, after the run I go to the local coffee shop and I read up more about it. Here's a couple of links with some more information...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model
http://patientsafetyed.duhs.duke.edu/module_e/swiss_cheese.html
Basically the idea is that when things go wrong, when big things fail, like a project at a workplace (which was what this guy was mostly discussing), it's not because of one thing. It's lots of little things. The guy in the podcast basically talks about failure in general... anything from large catastrophes to workplace projects not succeeding... He started his talk about airplane incidents and accidents. And how when they dissect what went wrong, usually they find that it wasn't just one thing that failed. It was a whole chain of events leading up to the event.
It's lots of little things that all just happened to line up to fall through all these different layers of holes in a bunch of swiss cheese slices.
I've never heard of this model before, but it's really neat stuff. At least I think it is. It's a good model to try and create layers of accident prevention to prevent things from failing.
The idea is that everything has flaws and errors. People make mistakes, systems have defects, software has bugs... nothing is ever going to be perfect. So failure is going to happen in at least the smallest aspect. But trying to create layers or checkpoints so that a whole entire chain of failures doesn't happen all in a row can be a good way to prevent large scale failures.
So I start thinking about how I can use this model at my own workplace to apply it to the process of how our department is run. My entire job is pretty much failure. People don't usually come to helpdesk in IT when everything is working great. They come when things go wrong. And sometimes we get failures that will be large and small. Sometimes you get a single computer that crashes, or a printer that goes out to lunch, but other times you get things that affect LOTS of people and then you get a million messages all at once because a widely used service that has gone offline.
One of the places where I use this type of model already actually, is in network design and security. One of my job duties is maintaining, deploying, replacing network switching equipment. There are very simple switches that connect up computer devices, but when you get to anything beyond a small business office, you need to start using managed switching devices and routers for more advanced security measures... etc. etc.
That stuff can get rather complicated. Especially when you get beyond the thousands point on your network. All kinds of network nodes all linking up. At each section of the network we have stop points. We have protocols that are programmed into the ports that will cut service to that piece of equipment if something goes funky. If a machine has a bad Network Interface Card... or gets infected with a virus and starts flooding the network... That port, or that switch, or that entire branch of the network will be cut off. Without that stop point eventually the entire network would go down.
It's a very basic networking 101 thing. If you take an ethernet cable and you plug it back into itself it will start to create a feedback loop that can cause the network to become completely unusable. Don't try this at your workplace because your IT admin will get very angry with you, especially if they don't have the proper protocols in place on the networking equipment to stop or cut service to the switch that connects your office to the rest of the network... but, let's say... you wanted to attempt to take things down for a bit so you could go home and nap for the afternoon, or go lounge out by the pool, instead of doing work...
Let's just say hypothetically... So ok, maybe you have two network jacks in your office, a printer and a computer, unplug both. Then take that network cable that plugs the printer and the computer and plug each end into the two jacks. So now instead of it going from the wall to the back of the computer, or from the wall to the back of the printer, it just goes from one wall port right over to another wall port.
Then just wait... Eventually those jacks should both go offline. Depending on how it's all setup you may need to call IT to get them reactivated. Or they may just come back to life on their own after a period of time.
Ours go offline indefinitely until we can fully investigate the situation and why that port shut down.
It's stupidly simple and small... but without it something as simple as plugging a network cable from one jack, right into another to create a loop can take an entire network offline.
I've seen where something can start super small and simple and then cascade to something large. Like for example a very basic basic error is simply having a server run out of disk space. If a server... like a mail server for some reason has some program or service that starts generating log files... And maybe it's just creating little tiny log files very slowly... But let's say it just all of a sudden starts creating a million log files overnight while everyone is home sleeping...
That morning all of a sudden there's no email flowing. Without knowing that the mail server simply ran out of space...
Anyone could guess what sort of issue it could be that is causing this. But then no email flowing could lead to missed appointments or maybe even if there's something else going on like the need to send out an emergency notification about a storm that is rolling in and for everyone to move their cars from a lower parking lot that may flood...
Now all of a sudden some stupid log file that chewed up disk space that took down a mail server that made it so that you couldn't send out emails to everyone warning them to move their cars in the next couple hours...
Leads to a dozen cars being swept away in a river.
Of course this didn't actually happen... But it's the best example I could think of at the moment. We have had log files go out of control though and stop services on servers. But if you have proper monitoring applications that send out warnings when disk space is getting low. Or you have redundant communication systems and ways for people to communicate if one form of communication goes down you can add additional layers to the Swiss Cheese Model.
If you only have two layers until failure and those two holes line up coincidentally... Failure.
But if you have five layers, or ten layers... You can then prevent things better. Of course there's a cost to everything. So it's about weighing the cost to implement and purchase hardware and software. The cost of labor to deploy and maintain things. The cost to the user if added steps take away from workplace productivity.
How many people would shop with a credit card if every single time you tried to buy something swiping the card you had to do more than sign your signature. Fraud prevention could drop to zero if they added enough steps but who's going to wait for a text to be sent to your phone with a key code then have the vendor or place of business call a credit card representative with that key code and price to verify that transaction then have you open an app on your phone to see the verification pop up then have you click approve and accept and wait for a representative to call you back with another approval code and verification of your date of birth, address, and your favorite zoo animal.
I JUST WANT TO PAY FOR THESE FLIP FLOPS!!!!!
"I'm sorry sir. Please hold while we transfer you to the next available purchasing representative. Your call is important to us and we will answer it in the order that is..." click.
Oh, screw it, I'll just go barefoot on my vacation.
It's a balance. Enough layers of security and prevention without hindering performance.
But anyways check out the Swiss Cheese Model. I think it's pretty neat stuff.
I’m Just Going To Say What Everyone Is Thinking…
I'm tired... REALY tired... of never finishing my bag of lettuce before it goes bad.
Seriously. I just don't get why they can't make half size bags! I mean... I get it... there are people out there that love their lettuce... But some of us don't want a salad with breakfast, lunch, and dinner! I mean... It's just too much lettuce.
Lettuce have less lettuce!
I mean who's with me? Does anyone else actually finish their bags of lettuce? I feel like I've finished a bag of lettuce that I've bought maybe a half dozen times in my entire life. It just seems like it would make sense though for them to sell like 2 ounce bags instead of the standard 4 ounce! I'd love to see that product on the shelves for sure.
Now... Since we don't have that option at our local super market, my alternative option that seems to be working out pretty well is that I take half the lettuce right off the bat and freeze that in a container. I just put it in one of those little Rubbermaid containers and stick it in the freezer. Then I use the other half of the lettuce on my sandwiches for work, or for dinners and such.
So what do I do with the second half that's frozen? Well, as everyone knows, lettuce doesn't exactly thaw out too pretty. It thaws out... well... it's... I don't even know how to describe it. It's like just not the same after it gets frozen... That's for sure!
Obviously I can't make a salad out of it, or put it on my sandwich. It's just a sad little piece of lettuce after. Super sad. Sad lettuce.
Instead though, to make that sad lettuce happy again, I've found a new use for it! Lettuce be happy!
I take the frozen lettuce and throw it in the blender along with my other shake ingredients when I make a fruit and veggie shake. When I first tried it I was a bit unsure of how it would turn out, but it's fine. It's great even. I don't even know it's there! I just blend it right along my other fruits and veggies and such. And sip away.
So until the bagged lettuce producers can get on board with half size bags of lettuce this is my next best solution to not let all that lettuce go to waste.
If you're into smoothies and you buy bagged lettuce and you always seem to end up tossing away some of the bagged lettuce instead of tossing it all in a salad before finishing it... try it out! I mean worst case, you do end up tasting the lettuce in your shake or you don't like the consistency it adds... Oh well... make sure to have a friend nearby that you can give the shake to so as not to waste it. Or maybe ask a friend to try out out first. But the frozen leafy greens instead of the fresh leafy greens, which some shake recipes do actually call for, seem to be just as good either way. Plus you can keep them frozen for a while until you do have a chance to shake things up!
But seriously... Can we just have half size bags of bagged lettuce already? Someone get on that.
Dream House Decor
File this one under dream house decor.
I found this article via someone I follow on Twitter...
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/09/david-c-roy-kinetic-sculptures/
Now THAT is some nifty art! I'd love to have this hanging during a dinner party. I feel like it would be a great conversation piece when people come over. Either that or we'd all just end up sitting around staring at it zoned out and hypnotized... but hopefully not.
Still I think these are mega cool and in my future living space one day, I'd just love to have one of those mounted on the wall! How cool right? So cool.
Here's the dude's website: http://www.woodthatworks.com
And here's his YouTube chan: https://www.youtube.com/user/davcroy/videos
I'm SUPER into these and I only just found out about them like an hour ago. I've been completely captivated by the YouTube videos and have watched nearly every single one.
This is probably my favorite of the bunch...
Longwood Gardens
Today I checked Longwood Gardens off from my "Never Have I Ever" list of places to go on my quest to find love. It actually all just came out of a random thought, but now it kind of fits. The idea is... Never have I ever found love. So what better way to attempt to find love than to apply the same logic to a quest for it.
Maybe quest isn't the right word to use. I feel like that's a bit like I'm conquering something which then leads down the terrible pathway of misogyny and that crap everyone hates, myself included.
But the idea is that I'm trying to piece together a puzzle of which I don't have all the pieces nor do I even know what the puzzle is even supposed to look like, and each of the puzzle pieces is constantly changing.
I'm just looking for love. Although apparently in all the wrong places it seems, as I haven't found it yet.
Anyways, back to the L-Wood G-dens (as the cool kids say).
The entrance was a bit like what I would imagine the entrance to Jurassic Park/Jurassic World might look like. From the spacious parking lot--you know how I feel about parking lots--I entered into a very welcoming... welcome center, of sorts.
I bought a ticket for $20 at the late hour of 4pm. The place closed at 6pm. I ended up sleeping the day away and then had to do a few things about the house before I could be on my way. Since it's about an hour away from my house I didn't arrive until 4pm.
Back to the welcome center... Bought a ticket, then went through another set of external glass doors into the wild kingdom of kind plants and pretty pathways, though for all I know there could have been a velociraptor or two hiding in the hedges.
I wandered about and decided that since I hadn't eaten lunch yet it might be best to grab a quick snack. They had beer too. Crazy. I snacked down a half a sandwich, a banana, and a Yards Brawler outside just enjoying the cool temps and the view. I sat next to a mother and her 3 kids which had some... interesting and imaginative things to say about "What if animals grew on trees". I laughed at the thought. Kids say the darnedest things right?
After a few minutes I wandered more. The next building a I happened upon I first thought looked a lot like the side or back entrance to the Upton Fink mansion from my current Twitter story titled "Lady Dragon Gold's Cosmo Girl Fan Club". It's a working title.
Though it may look like the Fink mansion... It's called The Conservatory in actuality.
Wow. It's mind boggling botanical beauty inside. They had a flower show of some sort going on. I have my favorites. Upon leaving The Conservatory I strolled on over through a few gardens sitting just below. They are currently doing construction to restore one of the gardens to it's great grandeur so that pathway was blocked off. I felt a bit like I was in the queen's royal gardens, minus the painting the roses red part. Lucky for me I get to keep my head. The various gardens really were quite breath taking...
My next new and nifty experience was an old estate grounds looking house. It's called the Peirce-Du Pont House. I was running short on time so I did not go inside. That will be an adventure for another time. I sat on the porch for a hot minute. Or a cool minute, since the temps outside were drastically different from what we've been experiencing up here in Philadelphia.
I loved this porch. It's my dream house porch. Maybe not exactly, but in the moment... I was quite taken with it. I sat and watched across the way as a very young, and very much so in love couple had engagement photos taken. The photographer had them dance, without any sort of music, as though there were a grand gala happening. They each clasped one of their hands tight, fingers interlaced and held it out before them. The other arm wrapped tightly around each other's backs. They swayed and synced stares as she snapped photos in succession with her very high powered professional camera. The lens capturing smiles from each of their faces forever digitized in very precisely placed pixels.
The time was getting late so I decided to move along. I meandered my way back past the mysteriously empty T-Rex cages thinking nothing of it, and found the doorway back to the welcome center. Just before the entrance there was a sign with upcoming shows and events. One of the artists I'd met while playing open mics at The Gryphon cafe back in the day is playing on Thursday. I decided that maybe I might come back again to see that. I asked at the information desk about how that worked and if I'd have to buy tickets. As it turns out it's part of the admission fee, but the admission is actually more money ($27) because it's a Nightscape experience night. But I was also informed that if I wanted to come that night, I could use my current ticket as a credit towards a member ticket. A member ticket is $65 and it lasts one year from the date of purchase. You can come as often as you like. In addition by purchasing a member ticket you get a $10 discount for new members which brings it down to $55 PLUS the credit from my ticket for today... $35. But wait there's more! I would also get two complimentary tickets for anyone to use at any time. So basically it's a no brainer. If I wanted to come back Thursday I had to pay $35 and I could come back as many times thereafter for one year. Or I could pay $27 once. I'm now a member. I had to do a reservation for the show and Nightscapes. Looks like my Thursday night is planned. So I left Longwood and went to my favorite winery for a few to relax and write. I got a bottle of white wine and had a glass. I corked the rest and I'll sip it throughout the week. I've found it's a better deal to get a bottle and then take home a doggie wine bag, or "a winey bag" instead of just one glass. I'm a regular little deal hunter. Or I'm getting swindled. I like to think I'm getting deals though. Let's just go with the first one.
A photo posted by Kenny (@kennywest82) on
Well, no love was found today. But I did have a nice time and I even had a couple of creative inspirations for writing and for music. As I sat in the car after I used my iPhone to record a little snippet of a new song idea that I had while walking around. And I jotted down some notes for books.
So add this to my list of places I didn't find love. Or maybe it's because I'm actively looking... everyone says that I'll find it when I stop looking. But I had a nice time anyway. And I'm excited to go back on Thursday to sip on a Longwood Gardens only Victory Brewing brewed beer while I watch some nice music and wander through the lit up at night time Nightscape garden experience.
Something Funny
This evening's post is short and sweet.
Enjoy.
Guitar Solo Faces Make A Lot More Sense When Guitars Are Replaced With Giant Slugs
Mala Mala
Last night I went to see Mala Mala. Mala Mala is a documentary by one of my close family friends, Dan Sickles. Dan worked REALLY hard on this film along with many other people. It was powerful and thought provoking. It really is a documentary about breaking down barriers that exist currently in our world. About progressively making change to bring the world closer to a dream where we are ACTUALLY all equal.
Sadly, and currently, as Mala Mala brings to the viewer's attention this is not the case. We are not all equal at all. But there are some very hard working people trying to change that.
I'm not going to talk so much about the film as how it made me think and feel. The movie comes out November 10th I believe on Netflix (or somewhere around there). So feel free to watch it yourself and have your own unique experience and reaction.
I think I'm going to just reflect on the film a bit and let my fingers do some typing... So... we'll see where this goes...
Let's see.. So, the way that I view the whole concept of someone wanting to change the sex they were born into is about being given a car when you get your drivers license. But that car doesn't fit your personality type. Some people like eco friendly little cars. Some people like vintage cars. Some people like fast cars with big engines. Some people like cars that go off road...
If you're given a car say, that's an eco friendly little city car, but you want a 4 wheel off-road car... You can do one of two things...
Change your views and wants. Convert your desires to match what you've been given. Or you can save up money, sell the car you have and buy the one you want.
I guess it makes sense to most people to keep the intrinsic personal preference and make the external changes.
But it's not always as easy as that. Maybe the car you really want isn't available at the time. Maybe the funds aren't there.
But you work towards what you desire. But life is tough. It's not linear. And there are a million things to go wrong. You could save up for years and finally get what you want only to have someone sideswipe you because they just mistake the brake for the gas... or maybe the sun was in their eyes.
All that hard work... All that time and effort... And now you're left with a clunker again that isn't your dream car.
I feel like this is how it is with making anything creative too. Most content creators, myself included, have the intent of making things for a positive impact. Or maybe we're just inspired and we just kind of let things happen how they do. Like, sometimes it's tough, it just kind of comes out. I just kind of make what I make. Either here on my blog or tweets or the music I make... I don't make things to try and be negative on purpose... I guess sometimes yes it comes out that way. But my goal is to mostly just try and turn maybe bad situations into humor filled ones.
Perception is tough. Like for example if you drive around beeping your horn because you mean for it to be friendly and you want people to wave back. You want to smile and wave at people...
Maybe a few people will understand. Especially if you know the person. If you beep at someone you know an wave they will be like... "HEY!!!!"
But if you beep at someone you don't know... they might be like "Hi?" But they might be like "DA FREAKING HECK YOU WANT?!?!?!?! WHAT ARE YOU BEEPING AT!?!?!?"
It's a tough life and it makes it even harder that we don't automatically go...
They are beeping just to be friendly. They just want to say hello.
I for one have lots of pretty major stuff going on around me... And I'm sure everyone has it hard. Art, creativity, it just makes the bumpy ride a little easier, at least for me it does. As creative types we try to look at things with a different perspective. We try to change and challenge how everyone see's things.
But it's supposed to be a friendly beep of the car horn to try and lift the mood.
Maybe it goes awry... but it's not meant to. At least that's how I think of it. There were a couple things in the movie that I really found interesting...
One was this idea that what you are on the inside doesn't always reflect what's on the outside. And that it's easier to change the outside than to try to change the inside. But by changing the outside... it doesn't fit what is "normal" and acceptable. But who's to say what's "normal and acceptable". Is that such a novel idea that we can't just accept everyone for how they are? I mean ok, so we all want to be perfect and fit in... Which is great in theory, but isn't that why we admire and love people in the first place? Because of their unique qualities? Because they aren't cookie cutter?
Every car on the road is different. And that's what makes the drive interesting.
That's probably what I admire about people the most. When someone has a trait or characteristic that's super unique. I love that. It really grabs me. It makes me go wait a minute. This person... I like this person... I like that interesting or different thing that they do that no one else does.
Another theme in the documentary is about we are all equal... or we should be considered equals. That through history no matter what point in history there's always been some individual or some group of individuals that has been outcast and hated. But what does that solve? How is that constructive? How does the world benefit by casting someone out and being cruel to them?
Isn't that exactly what every church on the planet is trying to fix? To include everyone? To accept them as they are. To work for tolerance?
I feel like we're all just really unfair to each other...
If you're driving a V8 sports car and you just want to slam on the gas and zoom up the onramp to the highway because you're just trying to get to a party somewhere, or you bet your other sports car friend a cool grand you can get there first because you both have massive amounts of cash to burn... and the person in front of you getting on the highway is driving an old 4 cylinder clunker... They just want to get to work. Because they have kids at home to feed.
There's no easy solution to that. You as the sports car better are going to get mad at the person in front of you that prays every night before bed that they have enough money just to make rent and buy groceries.
I mean, everyone has things about themselves that they wish they could change... and maybe they work to change that... But everyone has things about themselves that they can't change too.
I mean a lot of where we are in the world can be things beyond our control. Yes... we can try and change things... but sometimes even if you try every door... sometimes they are all locked.
Here's what I often consider...
Two people have five rooms to get through... All five rooms are connected by two doors. Both of those two doors lead to the same next room in line. One door is locked and one is unlocked.
We'll use a point system to see who gets the lowest points. The lowest points will be considered "the winner". Each door try counts as a point.
So... The first person goes in and tries the left door. It opens. They move to the next room. Then they try the left door again, it's locked. So they have to choose the right. That's two points. This keeps going until they moved to the final room.
Let's just say that their total point tally was the following
1) First try
2) Second try
3) First try
4) First try
5) First try
Look at that "skill"! The person got only ONE door wrong. They made it through in 6 points.
Now the second person goes through and let's say it's reversed.
1) Second try
2) First try
3) Second try
4) Second try
5) Second try
Wow. They really "stink" at choosing doors. They got 9 points. They lose.
Everyone praises the first person. Look at how awesome they are doing...
Really... that whole game is just dumb luck. No one knows which door to try.
And let's make it even more complicated and say that the doors are always switching. Maybe in number 3 if you try the left door you go back to 1. Then you know.... Ok, if I try the left door... on 3 again I'll go back to 1 so I'll try the right door.
But now it's reversed.
Life is crazy like that. People can "think" they are on the right path... but it leads them back tracking.
But everyone kind of looks at life like the person that makes it furthest through the door maze the fastest is doing the best...
I don't think that's a good way to look at it. I think everyone can only be compared to themselves. There are so many twists and turns. No one can really make a truly correct and informed decision. You just go with the best you can. And even two people that both make the same decision...
One could lead them up in the world and the other can take them back.
Here's a real life example...
I was recently doing stock research and one of the CEO's that I read about... She worked for the accounting firm that was responsible for Enron's books being cooked. She worked hard. She started at the bottom and stuck with that firm. She kept choosing the right doors. But then...
She got caught up in the Enron scandal and collapse and had to start all over again... she lost most of her personal wealth. She lost reputation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Good
Good became an auditor at the Cleveland branch of Arthur Andersen & Co. while at Andersen Good "broke the barrier to females playing major roles in auditing when she participated in the audit of Andersen's most prestigious account, Cincinnati Gas & Electric. Good rose to supervise that audit, and in 1992 she became one of Andersen's few women partners. She was also a partner for a time at Deloitte.
But then... not because she made a bad decision... not because she knowingly opened the "wrong" door. She opened the wrong door thinking all was well...
The US Justice Department indicted Arthur Andersen for its role in the collapse of Enron in 2002. As a result almost all of Good's savings were lost. In 2003 Good joined Andersen's old audit client, now called Cinergy, for half the salary she took at Andersen.
But she kept opening more doors... right or wrong ones... sure... but she also got lucky too after getting unlucky... The company she worked for Cinergy could have one out of business. They could have gone bankrupt. Or they could have just stayed the course slow and steady... Instead they were bought by Duke Energy. That had NOTHING to do with her skill. That was just a door that opened. But now it was up to her to keep opening more doors and move up in the company.
In 2006 Duke Energy purchased Cinergy, and Good went on to head the unregulated commercial business. Good was named Duke's executive vice president and chief financial officer as of July 2009. She began to make large investments in renewable energy such as wind and solar facilities that sell their power to utilities and towns.
Now she's the CEO.
I think that's the key here is to keep opening doors. But keep in mind that one person could open a thousand doors that could ALL be the wrong ones...
and another can open just one door that could lead to the right one.
It's just not fair to compare or judge anyone. We're all trying. And that's what counts.
Hmmm I think a lot. I'm fairly overreactive and emotional. But it's also where a lot of my creativity comes from and maybe I create some things that go wrong, but I also create stuff that people like.
We are all different. This is fundamentally very problematic... but it's also the source of many great things.
I can't choose when things break. Or go wrong. I can't choose how I act...
I mean, for example on my way home tonight I shared the road with many motorists. I stopped at the store and shared a line with other people. None of us chose to end up at that very spot in line before or after one another, and none of us chose to end up on the road with each other... But we did... and the experience was all about how we acted towards one another.
When I was getting on the highway I slowed to let someone in as the lane merged. I could have just kept going. I could have maybe gotten mad at them or honked at them. I could have said well it's their fault for not going fast enough to zoom ahead of me. I could have... But instead... I just tapped my breaks and let them get over.
And a short while later when construction closed some lanes and we had reverse where we were on the road... they returned the favor.
Tables are always turning. If I had sat there and honked at them and told them how much they sucked and run them off the road...
How do you think they would have acted later on when they were the one to let me over?
I don't know. I guess... sometimes... and as I was watching the movie too... Just thinking...
I feel like none of us are intentionally being mean to one another. It's just complicated with history. It's complicated with all of us having this perception that each other has done something to one another and then this need to return it back.
We all just hurt each other by mistake maybe... but instead of letting each other correct things and get over to the right lane, we are quick to honk. Quick to zoom ahead on the road of life... but then down the road... We're back sharing lanes again and maybe the roles have changed.
I wish we could really achieve that ideal that we are all equal... we're all just trying to use the same roads to get places... I know sometimes I make a mistake when driving... and I don't mean to upset the other people on the road, and I know they make mistakes too.
Soooo... life is long. The road twists and turns. We all start out with different cars... some of us are handed brand new expensive cars that run flawlessly, some of us are handed ones that need a lot of work. But we all share the same road. Eventually we all run into the same potholes, or construction sites no matter what cars we're driving. And someone might need to get over on mile marker 10, and then at mile marker 20 the person that was sitting pretty might suddenly need to get over.
This post, like most of my posts has been a bit meandering. But my point... just like the point of the documentary is...
We're all different but we're still equal. Everyone doesn't have their own road to drive their own car on. We share common space. We share this planet. Each one of us drives a slightly different car, and we drive it a slightly different way. But when I get in my car to drive I don't just go out there trying to bump or crash into other people... I'm just trying to get from point A to point B the same as anyone else. I just want to be able to do that... just as anyone else.
Accidents are going to happen. Weather will get bad. People make wrong turns. Some people drive cars with advanced features to help warn them and stop suddenly. Some people drive old cars that don't have those advantages.
I've rambled on here. Sorry... anyways... Yeah. So check out the movie... keep an open mind. And just... drive the best you can in life. And take what comes your way...
Dan didn't actually set out to make Mala Mala... they were out one night in Austin, Texas and just happened upon a drag show while at a bar. It all took off from there.
A lot of life is just... getting hit with things. Two doors... and you just happen to stumble into the right one.
This Little Piggy…
Sooo it's 2am and I just woke up to brush my teeth and change into my PJs. I came home and passed out hardcore around 11:30pm. Since I can't really write a proper blog at this hour and in this clouded sleepy mental state that will do it justice... I'm going to postpone the blog I was going to write tonight....
Till tomorrow night.
In the mean time, enjoy this photo I snapped of a photo of a pig in the bar that we ended up in tonight...
In the last 10 ish days, I've been to, not one, not two, not THREE, and not FOUR, but FIVE, yes FIVE different places ALL having either photos, or statues, or paintings of pigs. What is it with the pig theme?!?!?! Strange. Maybe there's always been pig paraphernalia wherever I've gone but for some reason I'm just noticing it? Or maybe there's just a lot of pig stuff randomly?
OK well it's back to sleep... I'll post the blog tomorrow night when I have more mental clarity to think straight.
UPDATE: it's now 5am. I feel asleep again right before I could hit the publish button. I did brush my teeth and get my PJs on before passing out the second time at least!
Time to sleep, again.