As my lips rest upon the glass’ edge, I feel the cold splash of grand equality rush into my mouth. My taste buds clamor at the invasion, but beg for more. The venom finds passage into my bloodstream, sedating the unruly tantrum of a long lost essence. It grants elusive advocacy to all who partake.

It is my step into reality, and mine alone. Its one sole purpose is to wash away time, placing a mask of supremacy onto the face of those who are allowed a taste. Tonight, the drink belongs to me. As I find clemency in a white wash of tainted bliss, a smile is born.

I feel the fight of the tormentous passion burning within. In an inner struggle there is power, which attempts to find sedation. Sleep I can not, for one weighs heavier than the other. Oh what a glorious event! It is as if Juliet’s poison of sleep met Isolde’s potion of love. They blend nicely, but battle for triumph over one another.

Painfully the surge of valor fades, and all that is left is remorse. As the lustful liquid runs its course and fades, reality snaps back into position, begging to be seen. With this I away to sleep, seeking out only memories of such events. Fair thee well, my venomous cocktail; til we meet again.

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Gluestick comes from Consonance Software, the same company that has released ThemeKit and Catalyst, two Mac theming utilities. Gluestick is a $25.00 shareware application, so I pretty much knew accurate away that I wasn’t a potential customer of Gluestick . I probably “need” to make an icon every few months, so for me a free utility like Viou is good enough. But was Gluestick really that good?

I took a look, and I think that it is.

First, Gluestick isn’t a typical Photoshop style application. It actually does a lot of the same “stuff” that Photoshop does, but doesn’t try to do it all. Gluestick aims at helping Mac users create icons out of already-existing artwork (for instance, the System icons or your iPhoto library). It has some basic tools available, for resizing and rotating images, but appears (to me, at least), designed to be a fast tool to help software developers create custom icons.

When you download a program, you may look (during the installation process), that the disc image, when mounted, has a custom icon matching that of the application. Also, sometimes the new application comes in a folder, which also has a matching custom icon. And if the application saves files to its own format, then those files will also have a custom icon.

Those icons don’t magically appear. Someone had to create them, and that’s where Gluestick comes in quite handy.

In fact, Gluestick actually has templates built into it that make creating those types of standard icons a breeze.

To exhaust Gluestick to create one of those icons, simply originate a new project. By default, each modern project contains the Gluestick icon. Come By rid of that layer, then drag the application whose icon you wish to use into the main window. Gluestick will create a fresh layer and show that icon in the center.

Now for the custom icons. Gluestick supports a Badged Folder, a Disc Image Icon, a Document Icon and a Plugin Icon. To use them, simply select that option from the Templates menu. In seconds, you’ll see your Application icon, weak in each one of those scenarios (you can see examples in my screen shots). Even after using the template, you can unexcited customize it to your liking. Enlarge or shrink the size of the icon, change some text, alter the color or hue of the folder… you can launch with the Gluestick template and modify it to how you want it to look.

As mentioned, Gluestick does more than just custom icons. If you have a couple images you want to combine, simply drag them from the Desktop into the same window, and modify them to your heart’s content. You can rotate, gash, apply pitch and yaw (very helpful for the plugin icon or any image that needs to appear “slanted” in some scheme), and more. Again, it isn’t as powerful as something like Photoshop but it is aimed directly at a specific audience, and in that regard does quite well, stripping out many tools deemed unnecessary for the creation of icons, and putting those the user will actually consume front and center.

If you’d like to try out Gluestick, head over to the Consonance Software home page and download a copy for yourself.

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I was married for 28 years to a woman I worshipped. Worshipped. For the sake of privacy I will call her Maybelline. I raised her onto the highest ideological pedestal my seasoned intelligence and fertile imagination could construct.

We married in September of 1969 as loving enthusiastic teenagers and divorced in March of 1998 as bickering, hating strangers. Years passed between us after I was kicked to the curb and I discovered other things that I’d suspected which poured gasoline and nitro-glycerin on an already raging fire of anger and resentment.

It didn’t help that I was in the arts. I was playing guitar when we met. I’ve since gone on to study classical guitar and that’s how I struggle from month to month and how it’ll be until I nab a new book deal. I published when we were married, but the money was nothing compared to Maybelline’s executive income with bonuses.

She shared the money, financing two sets of recording studios, one costing $8,000 in 1983 and the other about $12,000 when we came into funds resulting from the sale of stocks. She funded trips overseas where I attempted to get breaks in the more liberal European market– there were no takers; I was already too old. I still worked day in day out, night in night out and constantly got ripped of by my partners. That’s how you learn the music business, at least in my day.

There were ruses and subterfuge I wasn’t acquainted with and the field had few choices when it came to hiring independent radio promotion people, who took your money and ran. I had one such partner change the labels on my records. His band went and played my concerts. I shoulda whacked ‘em and the whole band, but I’m no killer.

She played music with me in the early years before she went corporate and we made lots of records together culminating in a major record deal with Polydor which went south when the producers ripped off the budget and invested in cocaine to “turn this money over.” Apparently it was too early in my life for me to be successful in music. The music was killer though. I listen to those old tracks and I’m amazed at the personal industry I put into it.

It was not time. Nothing I did would manifest a break that was permanent and solid, not matter how hard I tried. I was the Invisible Man of Ralph Ellison’s masterwork, tossed about by a fickle fate that always said “No Cigar.”

I even stop the business and went to truck driving school. I lasted only nine months on the road in that rig, because I was living against my nature, punishing myself for being a musician and an apparent failure. I also did it to get away from the arguments Maybelline and I were having weekly, usually beginning Saturday mornings. We fought mostly over principles taught to her by her new counselor that she was trying to integrate into our marriage. I hated that. . .and she hated my responses.

So I never quite came through for us although I managed to bring two or three hundred dollars home per week when I was indeed playing gigs. I was and composed am devoted to my craft. The woman I’m with now, some ten years later said:

“I fell in love with you because you play guitar as expedient as my daddy.”

That’s simple, but sweet, and I accept that reason. If I even think of “getting a job” outside of music, she gives me a patent Puerto Rican fit.
Her daddy is a master guitarist living in Puerto Rico who once had a major deal with United Artists.

My new lady is a gifted artist, photographer and vocalist.
She’s known for her photos, the world over as D. Pineiro.

The contrasts between the demands of Maybelline and the acceptance of the fresh like in my life is plain; so I have no real regrets for the parting though somewhere in my heart, I wish we had never broken up. Such contradictory feelings living together in one heart.

Maybelline had edifying reasons to be angry and resentful as we both committed acts of psychological revenge along the way when I was not in compliance with her quest for “personal growth” as she called it and when she looked at me as being miles below her executive gentlemen peers, actually telling me once that I looked like a bum. I probably did, but I was not.

Fifteen years from the end, she involved herself with a charismatic guru, a female, who we’ll call Martha Prophet. Martha persuaded her to drop everything and move to the mountain commune where they all now live, happily ever after to be excellent from the shore lines changing with the accompanying, floods, droughts, and hurricanes. . .as Maybelline was told by Martha Prophet. who also, I’m told, cured Maybelline of some tumors.

She may have actually done that. I own Martha Prophet is a real witch because while I was intelligent out of the house, Maybelline left some symbolic relics laying about for me to secure and be shocked by. I’d bought her a pot of flowers. When I came back two weeks later to get my final package of things, she’d placed the dead flowers in the den with the stems pointing at the fax machine, which was the only map we were communicating at the time. Chilling.

I was amazed and shocked. when Martha predicted the doom stuff in 1996 and I’m still waiting for that apocalypse, but I haven’t bought a raft. What a crock! That was it for me. The night she told me, Maybelline said:

“Don’t have me choose you, over them,”

That statement rocked me so much, I considered buying an M-!4.. I shot sharpshooter when I was in the army.
I could have picked Martha Prophet off at 500 meters, in the dark. But, shucks, I’m no killer. I’m too soft for prison and I’m not amenable to dying from lethal injection I should have said:

“Choose!”.

There comes a time in some folks lives where they actually feel like they could whack somebody. This was one such time for me, but it wouldn’t have solved a thing. Yes, it is possible to win that angry.

It makes your brain feel like it is swelling up in its case and unless you do something it will explode. That’s how I felt. Now I feel sorry for Maybelline. She institutionalized herself, but that joint didn’t appeal to me at all. They just stay there taking classes based on a book written by Martha Prophet. I know; I went to their website and saw the schedule.

Maybelline was looking for personal growth, I was looking for another wife and confessed doing so when confronted after I returned from a European trip.

She elected not to forgive me and away I went. A former president thinks it’s better to lie, lie, and lie. Someone in the east said “The truth will, set you free,” and indeed it did. I had counted on being forgiven. . .really. I was soooo rotten. I’m glad I fessed up. She should have too.

We both tried desperately to love each other, but we were both looking for love in all the wrong places.and I knew it.

I thought she deserved the truth and I paid a painful price for it which eventually led to homelessness some seven years later, that I’ve since recovered from. I know. . .poor baby, but I am not ashamed of myself. It was inevitable.

That, or I would have assassinated the guru. That’s how &%$# mad I was. My remorse doesn’t immobilize me like it use to, but I do have regrets.

I found one other person whose girlfriend was taken by Martha Prophet.

“She told her to discontinue me or she couldn’t join up.”

This was a feisty southern white guy who wanted to team up with me to go and burn down the whole mountain. He would have done it. I was two years out of my divorce and had calmed down considerably. I’ve often wondered if these people were hypnotized.

A year towards the end of this love affair, I attended a relationship meeting held in Avondale, Georgia terminate to Stone Mountain where I lived at the time. At the meeting Martha asked all of us to make a list (they were always making lists) of things that were significant to them starting with the most important and working down.

I wrote: 1. My Passion for Music, 2. Maybelline, 3. My career 4. What my family thinks about my career
She wrote: 1. Martha Prophet 2, Career 3. Family 4. Zafar (me)

I flipped out. I walked a grueling six miles back to our house from the church they had used for the meeting. We had a great fight and both agreed to a divorce, but we were too chicken to carry it out.

I know Maybelline will read this someday because with all the stuff I have posted on the web, I am easy to track down. I’m sure one of her friends will show this to her and she’ll know my tale is balanced. I’m a writer and my life is an open book as a consequence. I’m writing this because I’ve kept it pent up inside all this time and I need to talk about it, even with the whole world.

My ability to forgive her is an act, a grant, if you will, of Providence. I can’t do it on my own. When I say “I forgive you, I say it, but I keep an eye on the eight ball, and eyes in the abet of my head and ears that travel vast distances without ever leaving my head.

That is not real forgiveness. To tell her “I forgive you” would make no incompatibility to her at all. I’m too lowly for that. The forgiveness has to be witnessed by Providence and felt by my heart of hearts, in this case. She may feel she has nothing to be forgiven for, by me anyway. That matters not to me now.

My ability to forgive comes to me as a gift, an epiphany. You mature and you “hear” the instructions. One spot of instructions told me to isolate our first year together living in Germany, struggling on my PFC’s salary. I closed my eyes and traveled back in time when we were different people, young and not corrupted by the passage of time and introduction of new twists. That was the begin of my healing. Those were two exquisite young people. I miss them.

Maturity helps. I’m learning that people between the ages of 25 and 36 or so, have disdain and disrespect for people my age. I work with a few “playa haters.” They hate, ridicule, and attempt to rule me. . .the old man. if they had their way, they would execute everyone over 40.

Why did I say this. It’s true, but they have no plan that their young minds are still empty and they are as inexperienced as the first shoots of a little plant as it bursts from a seed; so I hang in there until one day they look up and see me as a surrogate of some kind.

Just last night, a bar manager where I play music, finally lets on that maybe I’m okay, after making a series of homely remarks over several weeks. I know I’m likable, so I unbiased waited, without kissing his Londonderry Air. I forgave him in the beginning because I knew he was ignorant and still in the womb, also, I needed to develop my rent money, regardless of his slings and arrows.

I was never like that. I came up respecting elders and looking to them for advice. So enough of that. I could have left that observation out altogether, but I’m free associating here and you can stop reading whenever you wish. Or course.

“To be or not to be.” In order to “be,” I must duck and play my guitar. Oh how I loathe the politics of the workplace and oh, how I strive for a novel book deal so I can hit the concert stage once more and forever. But, alas, there will be “Toro feculence” there too coming from both youngsters and geezers like myself and geezers older than me. Way of the world.

I’m saying this only to illustrate that my maturity is the reason for me receiving the gift I’m about to section with you. Okay, here we go.

I had an awesome dream awhile back. I dreamt I was with Maybelline and I was crying with her. Both of us realized we’d BOTH made mistakes. . .serious mistakes that we didn’t see as such, when we were making them.

Worship was not and cannot be destroyed, nor can it be ignored, no matter how hard you try to deny it because cherish is of a higher essence and order.

In the dream, the mistakes are “ribbons of darkness” floating above us, acts that were separate from the love. The mistakes were like criminals, though we weren’t the criminals themselves.

In my dream, I could not deny my lament. In waking life, I can ignore the whole thing and continue to “resent” her version of Jim Jones, but now I can’t resent as worthy because love conquers all whether you want it to or not. The dream did it. I refuse to compose the call for any attempt at perfunctory reconciliation. I don’t even contemplate it’s possible except as another gift that happens all by itself.

We are out of touch, we don’t yelp, so we both can depart on. We’ll surely see each other at someone’s funeral, but I don’t go running to the phone because she may not be in sync with how I feel. Best to continue to use Tao and “Do nothing, so nothing will be left undone.” Time and the cosmos will cure it all. It always does.

If we’d been talking, I would not have arrived at forgiving. . .we would have continued to wage war. At least I managed to get some peace in my contain heart and I “intend” that she will, in her absorb way find the absolute truth, beyond either conception.

We have no desire to remarry. I’ve found an angel to guide and love me through the rest of this life of suffering, joy, and confusion. We spent years working out the kinks before becoming physically intimate. We started at the other end. . .the mind and heart, instead of the crotch and body. This is a novel technique, reflecting the wisdom of lessons learnt.

So forgiveness is a gift to you when you learn that you are not a machine, your morals are not noble, and you are far from perfect although in maturity, you have the facts that enable you to hone yourself into something stable, someone you can look at in the mirror as I did this morning and say to yourself: ‘I love you, take care of me okay? ‘ I have some tears welling up as I type this.

My article is not for extreme generation psychos and sociopaths. This article is for the thinking, caring, brooding person who wants the burden of anger, resentment, and hatred lifted from their pathos. Excuse me, I need to pause, go make some hot chocolate and simmer down before I continue.

Okay, I’m befriend. While the Swiss Miss is cooling I’ll continue. Hot chocolate, as opposed to coffee is my new addiction. It tends to soothe and keeps me from eating too many brownies although I’ll get on my bike and go for big one, when I finish this. As I was about to say:

I’m not a preacher, but I’m not and atheist either. I’m a “wonderer.” I accept the conception of Brahmin from the Vedas for now, but I am not leaning on religion here, necessarily. When it comes down to it, these forgiveness issues have to happen in one’s own mind whether stimulated by religion or not.

I’ve read many treatises that I respect, without embracing, such as “Russell on Religion” by Bertrand Russell and The End of Faith by Sam Harris. They have intelligent points. Let me step away from my topic just a cramped. . .I’ll be upright back yet again; I need to tell you this to build what I think is a profound point.

Sam Harris, in a follow up book that I won’t mention, says in essence, God is stupid because He placed the prostate gland around the urinary tract and makes it swell as we age so we have trouble urinating. Egads. This man is angry, but he has a rational point, indeed.

He says he doesn’t bear in God, but shakes his fist at Him. It’s okay. We are humans. We don’t know squat except how to copulate and put capsules into orbit. To Mr. Harris, if you are reading this:

I detached mediate you have splendid arguments, sound empirical thinking. I like your work though I’m not atheist nor am I anti-atheist. I heard an interview you did on Hawaiian Public Radio and you blasted religion, but you had no solution. You squirmed, said we needed dialogue. Whose dialogue? It’s deeper than just a chat here and there.

I forgive you and continue to read your work because we are all limited to having just three brains (per Gurdjieff) that only reach so far. At least my brains close at a point and I know my limitations. Your follow-up book disappointed me. You let ‘em get to you, but so it is with any crusade I disclose. I have a cause too: FREE HAWAII, but this is a different topic and I need to conclude on course.

Now, back to you, dear reader. You don’t have to even believe in God to have this miracle of the ability to forgive, to hit you. Your bear heart will lead you to it, but you must mature first, I feel.

The numbers of your years are relative. I’ve met young people who are way smarter than I was at their age and I attribute that to the higher, advanced quality of humans that are incarnating these days though they have little exercise for those of us who are thirty years their senior.

History shows us that subsequent generations are always more advanced. You can spy that with even with the advent of the computer age where young adults are becoming software engineers, inventing product and running multibillion dollar corporations, laughing at guitar playing geezers like me. I’m referring the “Google” generation and I’m not mad at ‘em at all.

I’m a teacher so my weakness is that I appreciate to praise excellence, progress, and competence. No sour grapes here at all. My life is satisfactory enough for me (to a point because artists are never satisfied) and I don’t wish I were someone else. I like me, artistic penury and all although I could always consume more cash and then more.

It takes maturity to forgive, not an quick-witted notion where you merely let someone off the hook because you need them in your life; or you need a “forgiveness point” to cash in when you find yourself in need of understanding and mercy from your partner.

That kind of thing (untrue give and take) is going to wear out and the relationship will fail because the premise is false, but what else can you do.

That’s the fastest plot to get over an argument; that’s all we can do, but take it from the geezer, that’s not true forgiveness. You don’t have to believe me. I am fallible and may not know what I’m talking about here, but for some reason I’m compelled to write this article.

I’m also working on a book entitled: The Eight Obstacles to Happiness. The absence of the ability to forgive is obstacle number one.

You will go through life, an angry resentful person, and will die with a thousand lines etched in your face, that thousands of people witnessed, as you passed through their lives; wherein they deny you safe haven because they can see what is in your face and shadow–your “Shadow and Act” as my favorite author Ralph Ellison would say.

The arts of mercy and forgiveness are life skills some of us must wait for. Mothers already know how to do it because their admire is like none other in the milky way. We men are in deep anguish, but we were not designed to net pregnant and suffer the pain of childbirth so we frown our contrivance through life, not letting anyone off the hook, feeling ourselves to be so perfect and above reproach.

For that behavior, we shall be thrown from that high horse, with our feet left in the stirrups as our stubborn stead gallops us to the truth, the absolute truth.

To close on a softer note: Forgiveness is sweet. You feel it coming from somewhere in the universe or the mindverse, but it comes to you and tells you about you own ability to miss the mark now and then and again. You can see the mistakes others are making towards you and vice versa. Here’s another case history for you:

There is a certain venue owner here in Hilton Head. I use to work at his venue playing classical guitar. The owner “suspended” me for standing up to his manager, a feisty thirty-something lad trying to assert his power, an attempt to embarrass me in front of clapping fans, who clapped as he admonished me over the applause, for:

“Your high notes, when you sing them, they are too loud.”

“Wha? Don’t do it like this,” I said.

He asked, “Did you know I am the restaurant manager? “

“So now you’re pulling rank on me huh? “

I lost that battle and the gig.

The owner makes a lot of money. He seldom smiles and in his highest dynamic, he treats people like machines. Like machines. He’s in touch with his big money and oblivious to so noteworthy more. It’s a condition not to be envied. He’s rich, but pouts way too much. It’s none of my business unless it stops my business. He needs mood elevator medication.

I don’t know if I can play for his establishment again with him looming around like a buzzard and his lap dog looking to play “blemish games.”

The owner intercepts me in the parking lot the next day as I come in to work, telling me that my response to his lap dog was “unprofessional” without pointing out the manager’s faux pas of dressing me down in front of customers.

“I gotta stand by him, because he stands by me,” he said.

“Then let me work only on the nights when you are there, so you can see for yourself,” I pleaded.

Nope. He’s just clear to get me out of there. Either he’s headed for suicide because he hates himself as noteworthy as he hates other humans or he’ll receive mercy and be knocked from that stallion, upon which he is perched. Which one would you wish upon him?

Wishing the latter is an act of forgiveness. . .in a procedure. You’d probably say “neither.” That is acceptable because it is my “ox who is being gored.” I doubt if he’ll whack himself because he has a new kid. He’s just so dark all the time.

We’ve rather made up since then, so who knows. I just went back in for a glass of Samuel Adams and the manager said:

:”This is good. I’m really glad to scrutinize you and wondered when I’d see you again.”

I use forgiveness as my final weapon. I don’t want the gig back, but I wanted to demonstrate who has the biggest Johnson, who the real man is in this deal. I kept eye contact and just continued the chat as chats go. I’ve been back a few times to also let my fans know I’m still among the living.

Not forgiving will eat your guts out. I’m still mad though, and that’s okay.
I don’t like to be talked down to.

Anyway if you wonder if my music is any good fair keyword:maestroza in Yahoo and you’ll come upon a bunch of my pages to navigate. I have lots of music videos posted, a comedy series, and free guitar lessons. I would post them up here but the files are too big.

Do you know people like the aforementioned? Sure you do. If you don’t, you need to get out more often, penetrate life. Anyway, here comes more personal disclosure.

I had a father once, he died in 2000 and I didn’t find out until eight years later when I checked out ancestry.com a couple of weeks ago and saw the public records. “Shame on you,” you might say as Bill Clinton said to the press.

My paternal father was a perilous man. He was dichotomized into distinct fragments and wreaked pure havoc in my life. I forgave him out of my love at several junctures even after he sent the FBI looking for me. That’s right. One reason I changed my name in 1992 to was to rid myself of being a “Jr.” so he couldn’t say:

“Oh, I’m________Sr. It’s my son you’re looking for.”

The Feds came looking for me at Maybelline’s office, putting an even greater strain on our relationship, jeopardizing her job and of course filling me with a new found paranoia. I was miles away, they never found me. I changed my name for that and spiritual reasons, but it gave me the push I needed to make the change and I’m okay with it. I wanted to change my name when I was 17. Musicians do that, you know. I have about six or seven names I use on the internet. It’s fun.

Anyway, I still don’t know why the Feds were after him. He’d told me a colorful lie about it. I’ll never know and it really doesn’t matter. I’m too extinct to care.

I told this story to a mature person once and he didn’t contain me. He himself is a father and somehow fathers feel they have the divine right to play God over their sons (especially sons).

If you read The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, as I’m doing now, it will elucidate this principle better than any treatise I’ve seen. Don’t take this one to the beach. It’s a hard read, but it is high philosophy in allegory.

A parent can feel like they own you because they “created” you. Some of you, dear readers, understand what I mean. So nevertheless . . .

I forgave my daddy at several junctures, going back to his house in tears, begging his forgiveness because I stayed away so long after he had done these horrible things, not only to hurt me, but my dear departed mother too, as punishment for divorcing him.

Yes, he had fragments I admired. He was a child prodigy on the violin and played blooming recitals at churches. I wish I could have heard him.

Later he joined the US Army and excelled in the bands playing tenor and baritones saxes and bass fiddle in jazz bands, retiring as a Master Sergeant. There is even a picture of him in an old Downbeat magazine. I looked up to him. At least he was knowing enough to conclude in a actual job and leave with a pension. Me? I’d better strike it rich.

He was a exquisite lady-killer of a man, Italian with roots in Milan, Italy. I don’t hold any of that against him.

He behaved like he was created to behave. That is called existentialism for the uninitiated, meaning the dice are loaded, or you must play the hand you’re dealt, and you have little control over what happens to you unless you happen to be Donald Trump and that crowd. Well, the hand he was dealt came from his daddy too.

Some of us think we have a choice, but until you can screech me where thoughts actually come from, you cannot deny me where my choices originate. At my age, I’ve determined that there’s no such thing as choice. What you choose is inevitable based on who and how you are and how you think. . .which is usually ruled by habit. That is simply my conjecture. I am not attempting to be rhetorical here.

I didn’t plan to write this article this morning. I’d rather be on my bike before it gets dark. I feel like I had no choice. I was compelled to do this article which I will most likely work on all day, for free, as it were.

You don’t have to capture that concept; I’m not selling it. I’m just writing with a stream of consciousness that won’t allow me to edit as I go. I’m just talking to myself, in a way and letting you eavesdrop. This is blatant honesty.

So back to my dad. When I read he had passed away, I knew he was relieved of a tortured, unhappy, anger-laded, unfulfilled life. As I watch at the public record, trying to feel guilty, my mind supplies me with the sight of seeing my picture on the walls in his house with the glass broken and cracked on each one of them. What did he throw at me and why? Does he know I saw that?

I’ll never know what it is to be raised and nurtured by my own flesh and blood father although my stepfather, a former Tuskegee Airman, stepped in and I would say I turned out honest fine, considering the limitations alive to and salient in us all.

I had truly forgiven my paternal father many, many times even after he had my hit record ironically entitled: “Rescue” taken off the air after having a drink or two.

He’d call radio stations telling them offensive things, during a time where I’d made the front page of The Atlanta Journal and Constitution for working with a major artist (Michael Jackson) who was touring through town.

He called the paper and told them that they should be interviewing him instead of me.

My mother called him and said:

“Let’s let our son have his time in the limelight, he earned it, don’t engage his roar.”

She did this gently. I had fits upon fits. I would ultimately be sued for the money I lost in the record status. No airplay means no sales which means I can’t repay the financial backer.

To top it off, the backer gave the promotion money to a known thief who worked in his office who probably kicked some of it back to him. I shoulda whacked ‘em both.

That released more ballast from my marriage because Maybelline had to borrow the money to settle out of court. Whew. Okay, there were other matters, but that’s enough. I’ll save that for my novels. No wonder she dumped me.

It wasn’t all about the money, per se. It was about my livelihood and marriage being directly endangered by my absorb father and yes, two years after that, I still came back to my daddy in tears.

I wanted my daddy and I calm want my daddy. I cherish my daddy; that’s what made it easy to forgive him although he was not around to raise me like my stepfather was.

He didn’t want the responsibility and said so to my dearly departed grandfather. I only remember seeing my father for a week or so, when I was three, then every now and then over the years.

My dad was placed on a New Jersey highway by his mother, to be picked up by a passer-by when he was a baby. Could all of these actions against me be revenge? I took my degree in psychology, counseled patients in outpatient care, I’ve lived 58 years and I can’t respond that. It’s method too liquid. It is real life and some things you just can’t know for sure.

He’d brag about being abandoned, as a badge of pride at times. He still went to see his mother before she died. I wish I could have met her. Do I have her eyes? Who was his father? Do I have his temper? Well, no, I have my mother’s temper and I know it.

He didn’t seem to be angry about this at all, at least in front of me. Most of the time he was well- mannered, sophisticated, and smooth. When he drank. . .watch out.

But there were times we’d cook chicken and drink beer together and it was fun when I’d go to his house to desirable his gutters for him. I can see that now.

No one can fully exclaim the “Ribbon of Darkness” (title of a Gordon Lightfoot song) that looms over a given individual or relationship.

My Pops has gone to another dimension and he takes with him, my eternal forgiveness and undying love. I understand, because all of our feces wreak. Or should I come out and say everyone’s potty melt stinks.

His wife didn’t call me to tell me he’d died. Did he pronounce her not to do so as a final act of revenge or is she hoarding insurance money or things that may have been in a will? I really need to put this in a novel.

This is the father that nature, in its final wisdom assigned to me. This was the hand I was dealt. . .my karma if you will. My dharma is to figure out ways to deal with it and I’m satisfied with my actions.

The gift of forgiveness is keeping me from jumping into the well of regret. I truly hope this gift will land on your windowsill, and when it does you will invite it into your room.

It is extremely difficult, but it’s liberating. It will contribute to an unconditional vault of happiness within your heart that’ll build life behold just a little brighter.

Abuse should not be allowed to continue, even in forgiveness, but it will if you don’t seek to preserve yourself first.

People behave in patterns, sometimes just like the machines I mentioned. Give it time and they are after you with a pitchfork, yet again. With me, it was one time too many and I had to close down the deal on the offenders and move on into my life without wondering when and how they’d strike next.

I’m sure, looking over here from the other side, my daddy is sorry for all of it and I ask the Powers not to hold his trespasses against him because I truly believe he was made to do what he did in life.

I look back into the astral and say: “It’s okay, Pop, peek you later and we’ll play “On Green Dolphin Street” together. I miss you. At times, when I was a kid, you were my hero. Was that you in my dream, during the year you died? You looked like you did in 1953. I was happy to discover you, but I wondered why you never stayed with us. Thanks for the “jamming genes” and the apt looks. Sorry we had such a rough time, but alas, it was our destiny.”

I thought I was going to close, but I kept going. I think I’ve said enough. I hope this has been luscious reading and I sincerely hope it helps you.

As an entertaining addendum I’ve decided to make a list of things I am still having trouble forgiving:

1. The slave traders of the world

2. Queen Ka’ahumanu for abolishing the Hawaiian religion paving the contrivance for the missionaries whose offspring in 1848 grabbed up the land in what was known as the Great Mahele.

3. King Kamehameha III for turning the Hawaiian government over to the conquerers from within

4. King Kalakua for signing the Bayonet treaty ceding the exclusive use of Pearl Harbor to the American Government in 1876

5. President Grover Cleveland’s excuse for not reversing the act of Minister Stevens, Sanford Dole and their gang who arrested Queen Liliuokalani for treason, taking her from her palace and taking over Hawaii on the 16th of January 1893

6. Sanford Dole (founder of Dole pineapple) declaring himself president of Hawaii on July 4th 1894 (I almost spat on his grave)

7. President McKinley for nailing the coffin shut and colonizing the Hawaiians and for the McKinley act itself, which dug the initial grave

5. The USA for taking almost a hundred years after winning the Revolutionary war, in which blacks fought, to free the slaves and then another hundred to secure the civil rights act. How reluctant are these people to share this country with others, as racial discrimination persists on all levels and in all quarters with nooses on high school campuses?

6. The USA for taking this land from my mother’s ancestors (Muskegon Indians), The Trail of Tears, broken treaties, and the massacre at Wounded Knee.

7. Myself, for every stupid thing I’ve ever done, including maybe, writing this article if that’s how it appears to you.

References: “Ribbon of Darkness” by Gordon
Lightfoot

Russell on Religion by Bertrand Russell
2004, Routledge

The End of Faith by Sam Harris
2004, W.W. Norton Company

A Call For Hawaiian Sovereignty
Michael Kioni Dudley, Ph.D
Keoni Kealoha Agard
1990 Na Kane O Ka Mal Press

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Then, The National Enquirer got on the case and began unraveling what could only be described as “sex, lies and videotape” – and then came what was reportedly the largest philosophize in Alaska’s History – Folks, it was an Anti-Palin rally organized by women in front of the Loussac Library in midtown Alaska (that’s a whole chronicle there too – y’all know the almost fired Librarian story by now right? ).

Anywho, according to the information I received, the event was organized by and was titled “The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally. According to descriptions, the Home made signs were encouraged, and the idea was to make a statement that Sarah Palin does not insist for all Alaska women, or men. The rally was organized by a small group of women, talking over coffee. The women apparently hatched the plan, printed up flyers, posted them around town, and sent notices to local media outlets. One of those media outlets was KBYR radio, home of Eddie Burke, who not only announced the rally, but called the people who planned to attend the rally ‘a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots,’ and read the home phone numbers of the organizers aloud over the air, urging listeners to call and tell them what they thought. The women, of course, received some nasty, harassing and threatening messages.

One attendee was quoted, “Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage.” The organizers had someone wobble the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). ” This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn’t honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the stout crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn’t happen here.”

When Eddie Burke showed up and tried to talk to the media, and was instantly surrounded by a group of 20 people who started shouting O-BA-MA so loud he couldn’t be heard. Then passing cars started honking in a rhythmic pattern of 3, like the Obama chant, while the crowd cheered, hooted and waved their signs high.

The email I received included photos from that rally – and I have included these for your perusal – one sign that was of interest ready “Voted for her once – not doing it again.”

Now, the question is – with her approval rating supposedly at 80%, are these protesters the 20% that don’t give their approval to her?

Let me know your thoughts!

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Inside Williamstown, a city in NJ, a house at the edge of Robin Lane sits next to a row of other houses. This development is known as Monroe Village. Each house is mid-suburban size made with a wood frame, insulation, sheet rock, chip board, tar paper, and vinyl siding. There are no bushes in front of the house. Upon the ground, a few shrubs lay at the side of the drive ways. There is also a bush at the corner of the house. The house has a single door garage and an A frame roof. Walking up the slight two-car driveway, one can see the entranceway, the flower bed of roses in front of the two floor house and the front four feet by five feet bedroom window and the four feet by five feet living room window. The front door upon the six feet by four feet entrance way at the end of driveway is a regular rag tag steel door.

Once inside the house, there is a very little foyer. To the right is the living room with a single four person couch against the wall opposite of the door, a lamp with a stand sits to the left of the couch, in the center of the room is a brick fire place, and to the right of the fire place is a forty-inch plasma flat screen TV. There is a pioneer six speaker stereo system with DVD player, VCR player, tape player, CD player, record player, and a loud subwoofer. To the left of the foyer are brown carpeted steps leading upstairs.

At the end of the foyer is a frame way leading into the kitchen, a door connecting the garage, and two closets to the left of the foyer underneath the stairs. Towards the back of the house is a kitchen. Inside the kitchen is a dining room table in front of the window on the back of the house, above the table is an adjustable light with lots of dust collected upon it. To the right of the table is an office room with a computer desk, a computer, an executive leather chair, and a sliding glass door that leads out to the pool room with bathroom, hot tub and underground pool. This office is separated from the dining area of the kitchen by a wall, a frame way, a silver metal rug holder strip, and a green carpet. To the left of the dining area is a floor that leads into the laundry room. Upon the dependable kitchen floor, is white tile as opposed to the brown tile in the dining area. Then there is a stove, a countertop, a double sink, two cabinets, a window above the double sink, and a dishwasher on the right wall. On the left wall is a cabinet, a counter with drawers, a refrigerator, and a pantry. On the ceiling is an overhang with ten smart expensive pots hanging off of it, separating the dining region from the sincere kitchen and upon the ceiling is a bright double fluorescent light.

Now, going up the stairs there is a small bathroom with an old shower, an old-fashioned bath tub, an old sink, and a window on the correct wall after the door. Hanging on the right wall is a towel rack. Hanging above the toilet on the left wall is another towel rack, and finally on the back of the wooden door is another towel rack. All of the towel racks are metal.

On the second floor are three bedrooms, one master, one medium, and one small. The master is at the support of the house with a window facing the backyard; it is also next to the bathroom. The medium bedroom is the window above the living room window. The cramped bedroom is the one above the entrance way.

Meanwhile, in the master bedroom, a married couple is present. A man named Kyle Western Popper is lying down in his bed room. He is part of the elite US military unit known as the Paragonial Elites. Beside him lays his wife Terra Myra Popper. They lay on a king size bed holding each other tightly whispering sweet things in each other’s ear. They unprejudiced finished having relations. They were husband and wife marital relations. As they lye on the bed, Terra turns on their twenty bound Television.

“Honey you are the best wife I ever had.” “I am the only wife you had.” “I know, but you are better than anyone else.” “I gotta accumulate up and go to work.” “Okay, I love you honey.”

Kyle then walks to the shower sweatier than ever and gets washed up. As he is in the shower, he brushes his teeth, clips his toe nails, washes his hair, and scrubs his face and body down. While washing up, he feels a metal prong upon his neck. He then has a flashback to when he was inducted into the elite program. A bright and wonderful day it was when he entered the military full of promise. Then he was found to have a genetic make that made him immune to most diseases. With this discovery, he was quickly brought to Williamstown, NJ and tested in the unique facility that was built back in 2010, and it was constructed underneath the wooded area in Monroe Village.

All throughout New Jersey, elite compounds, corporations, power plants, training bases, towns, apartments, forts, and labs were secretly created to aide in biological warfare. They were also to aid in anti-terrorism measures. The elites had become a force of 100,000 deep. In Trenton, NJ there was an elite Corporation building with reinforced steel doors the only plan to enter and leave was by helicopter from the roof. The building was 50 stories tall, and it was thirteen floors of desirable heat proofed, blast strengthened, and heavily reinforced 30 feet thick stainless steel. Next to this building was the elite apartment complex. The complex contained the same type of material, it was about 100 stories high, and it had three underground floors. This building was also tunneled to the corporation building. The apartment complex held 20,000 elites, and the corporation contained a workforce of 2,000 on any given shift; the four shifts were A, B, C, and D. A worked for 12 hours on Sunday and Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday belonged to B shift. Thursday and Friday was owned by C shift. D worked on Saturday only. Only 8,000 men manned the corporation. These 8,000 men were structured militaristically. The first ranks of the elite guard were the officers. There was one commander, eight shift colonels, sixteen circulating majors, twenty-four squad captains, thirty-two lieutenant assistants, forty group lieutenants, and forty-eight cadets. Of the enlisted ranks of elites, there was one chief, eight seniors, sixteen skillets, twenty-four technical zealots, thirty-two sergeants, forty vice-sergeants, forty-eight elite hunters, fifty-six pack raiders, and 64 grunts. The other 7,542 men were rookies or novel inductees. Each had to travel through the ranks. This corporation was the beginning of ones career; it was the well protected training ground. This place was also the communications and internet command. The other 12,000 elites guard the apartments and control the maintenance of the double building.

In Hamilton, NJ the Blue Berry Crossing mall was bought out by the government, and they surrounded it with a five feet reinforced steel wall. In the center of the walls is a helicopter pad and a command center. Next to the walls are stairs that lead up to heavy gun towers and guard mounts. This fort is also self-contained with a farm and so much more. It is manned by 10,000 men. This is the elite localized convey unit. It commands the entire elite force. This is where officers are trained. Once a chief has been one for one year they are shipped to this facility to retrieve officer training.

In Atlantic City, the entire Air Force Base was reinforced with the same type of walls that the Hamilton fort was surrounded by. Here is now a privatized Disagreeable. Only reserve, guard, and civilians stay here. A tour here is self contained and those stationed here are not allowed to leave except for emergencies that affect the entire nation. Everyone here is issued a gun of some sort. This cross is self sufficient and para-drops supplies to the other bases from its other elite base locations. The men stationed here are in position for thirty years and paid very well. Forces of 50,000 men/women assist here and 10,000 elites guard the base. Unlike most bases this base has a vehicle manufacturing plant. They create chemical protected humvees that disperse nano-cells that auto recharge and attack all chemical infections without killing people. It also has a flame field called the fire storm system. The flames cover an site of three feet outside the humvees, and they incinerate anything that comes approach the vehicle. F-16s here possess fire and water bombs as well as nano-cell sprayers. They also carry anti-air missiles to defend the substandard.

At McGuire AFB, it also has the same type of wall as Atlantic City around its perimeter. However, the atrocious contains a gigantic amount of mobility aircraft, F-15s, and prick planes that disperse nano-cells. This base is larger than Atlantic City and holds 100,000 men/women who serve the civilian sector. This base has farms and so much more; in fact, it’s like a mini city. Here 30,000 elites succor here as mobility forces. The major contrast between McGuire and other bases is that it has a door and entry control point that is always closed and heavily watched. On top of the walls near the door is a heavy duty automated gun turret. In front of the door are fifty automated turrets with infinite ammunition technology designed to constantly fire in off sequences to avoid overheating.

In Camden, NJ, there is a compound, training facility, power plant, and major lab combined into one inferior located in the center of the city which is also walled in like the other elite areas. This compound holds 20,000 elites and 3,000 Marines. This is where the elites go to school. The Marines guard the base and the elites defend, train, and assist in crime fighting. Here is the air rescue, sniper, and special ops division. Top notch elites are sent here to be trained by the 1,000 Navy Seals stationed here. Once again, only those meant to stay for a long time are sent here. They can only travel to other elite bases all in New Jersey.

As for Cherry Hill, the mall was commandeered and reformed into the elite medical facility. Here 5,000 medics work around the clock. There are 9,500 elites stationed here. This is where a mixture of elites stay at. This facility is also walled in like other elite facilities. Elites from the Camden base often waft in here with their injured from all over NJ. The base is also guarded by 6,000 army infantry belonging to the New Jersey National Guard and Reserve forces.

Last, but not least are the 500 elites in Williamstown, New Jersey. These are all high ranking elites that are stationed around the lab underground in the wooded area next to Monroe Village. This is where Captain Kyle Western Popper is stationed at. Here is an observation lab that is designed to evacuate normal citizens incase of a biological emergency. Above the lab is a four story pillar with a special entry control point. The only design to enter this point is if someone inside the complex opens the door for you. The road to the lab is hidden next to the Wild Hairs Salon on highway 322. Inside the lab, 1,000 well trained combat scientists are inside cohabitating and 450 higher ranking elites are in charge of the security for the lab. Fifty elites stay outside the lab doing sweeps, and they hold their gear inside their house. If an emergency happens, then the fifty elite are to meet at Williamstown High and set up a garrison there. From here other elites will deploy to cleanse the city. As soon as an emergency happens, 6,000 androids built during 2008, when the elite force was started, are to activate from the automated robotic facility garage located in the woods next to Tuckahoe Road and the High School, and they are to head over to the school and pick it over cleansing any that are infected the best way possible.

These were the normal days. The one hundred elites were able to patrol and nothing happened. Captain Kyle and his forty-nine elites were able to patrol and gawk a peaceful city. However, this was the last of the clear days.

Chapter Two: The Mad Doctor’s Lab

This is rabies. Here is a synopsis of how rabies works. When the infection begins, the virus grows in muscle tissue and can be undetected for a few days or maybe even months. During the incubation period, the victim appears healthy and demonstrates no heed of infection. Within about 1 to 3 months, the virus migrates to the nerves closest to the site of the initial infection and expands to the spinal cord and brain using the central nervous system. From 12 to 180 days it spreads through out the peripheral nerves to the central nervous system. Then the disease rapidly progresses, and the infected individual starts to show the classic behavioral signs of rabies. The virus spreads to the saliva, tears, breast milk, and urine. The person usually dies in 4 or 5 days. The infection progresses in a predictable manner, from the initial pre-dormant phase to the angry phase to the final paralytic phase. The first sign usually is a change in behavior. Cohabitants should be aware that behavioral changes can occur as a result of many conditions, from digestive disorders to poisoning. Some people stop eating and drinking, and may appear to want to be left alone. After the initial beginning of the symptoms, the individual may become vicious or initiate to explain signs of paralysis. Some people bite at the slightest provoking and others may be somnolent and difficult to arouse. Once the individual shows signs of paralysis, the disease progresses very quickly and they die.

During pre-dormant phase, the early symptoms of rabies tend to be subtle, and last for two to three days, and include the following symptoms: change in tone of the individual’s grunt, scratching or picking at the bite plot, fever, loss of appetite, and subtle changes in behavior. During the excited phase: the infection usually lasts 2 to 4 days and not all people experience it. Those that enter immediately into the final paralytic phase are sometimes said to have dumb or paralytic rabies. Those that spend most of their diseased state in the excited phase are sometimes said to have excited rabies. An infected person may viciously attack any moving object, person, or animal; a caged person will chew the wire, crash their teeth, and try to bite a hand moving in front of the cage. Some people will attack suddenly, biting and scratching. Others will invade yards and attack anything present and living. They may point to the following signs: a desire to eat anything, constant growling and screaming, dilated pupils, disorientation, erratic behavior, acts of aggression, facial expression showing anxiety and hyperactivity, irritability, no fear of natural enemies, restlessness, roaming, seizures, trembling, and muscle disorientation. The paralytic phase is the final phase of the infection usually lasting for 2 to 4 days. Initial symptoms include the appearance of choking, dropping of the lower jaw, an inability to swallow leading to drooling and foaming of saliva, and paralysis of jaw, throat, and chewing muscles. The paralysis then spreads to other parts of the body; the individual becomes depressed, rapidly enters a coma and dies.

Accelerated Syphilis can also make a person develop mental disorder and is highly infectious. Some hallucinogens can be found in plants. Mescaline comes from a cactus called peyote. Doctor Grimm Dean Boggles has found a way to combine these three things into one cell with a gene restructuring virus called protein regenerator II. This is called the regeneration disease. The virus replenishes all cells damaged by Syphilis, Rabies, and hallucinogens. It also makes people attack others and regenerates the three major components of the cell. The cell also recreates itself through cellular reproduction. The infected person instinctively attacks any living object and attacks the said object. The attacked victim then becomes infected with the disease. Then the victim, after a period of three days becomes just like the attacker. If the disease can be cured within the period of three days, then the infection is stopped. However, if the disease is not cured before the window is up, then the infected person is no longer able to be cured and their mind is gone. Essentially, all they have is the protein regenerator II increasing their speed, increasing their muscle, and moving them while the diseases make them constantly attack others to instinctively spread the disease.

This happened around 14 January 2009. Dr. Boggles was so loved by the Al Quaeda forces. His first target was always planned to be Novel Jersey. The CIA hidden amongst the ranks of the Al Quaeda saw this disease and the elites were trained to combat this specific disease. However, is their training enough? Can they combat a force of diseased men?

Chapter 3: The Elite Training Facility

Kyle walks into a locked down facility located underneath the entire wooded area next to Monroe Village. No one knows about this facility but a few individuals. It is now 16 April 2010. Today the elites are training to improve target practice. Captain Kyle reports to the installation commander Brahman Strom Razz. Commander Razz is a sunless man from Camden, NJ. He has been with the elites since the beginning. His face is scarred, and he has cybernetic arms that were ripped off during a battle in Palestine. During the war of 2009, around March, Razz was under advise of the original elite General Moggles and his two Lieutenant Generals Crispy and Cornelius. These men hunted down Dr. Boggles and killed him. Sadly, the CIA could not sustain track of the Syphlrabialmesc Protein Regenrous Virus. They could only create a cure call the nano-cell. Those too far gone would have to be killed, and those under the condition for only three days could be cured. On the fourth day, however, the victim would be totally turned by the virus.

Captain Kyle walks into Commander Razz’s quarters. “Sir, I must report another clear and sunny day,” Kyle says with a smile. Razz then looks at Kyle.

“This may be the last peaceful day, for each day is a blessing for you son…” “Why so gloom, sir? ” “My unit had failed this generation.” “But how? ” “We were in charge of stopping Dr. Boggles and his infection, yet we succeeded in killing him, but we did not stopping the virus from escaping our hands…” “It wasn’t your fault.” “But it was… Dismissed.”

Kyle walks out of the facility and starts to go home to Monroe Village.

Chapter 4: The Night Fall

Kyle returns to his home. He opens his door and holds his wife. He walks up to his bed room and puts his guns on his night stand. One gun is a white gun with infinite ammo technology. This gun is impartial like a video game gun with the exception that it is real. This gun is adjustable by his voice command to shoot out automatic, spreader, dependable, piercing, and rocket fire. The other gun is a 9-MM with infinite ammo technology. His wife takes off his top bullet proof vest and places it on a hanger in the closet. He takes off his chain mail neck guard and top and takes off his white camouflaged BDU top blouse and his black T-shirt. Kyle unties his steel toe combat boots and removes his double layered black socks. He then takes off his white camouflaged cargo pants that are on top of his chain mail armor that is on top of his black thin skin pants which cover his underwear. Kyle and his wife then head to the bathroom. In the shower, they make angry passionate love.

As they head back to the room, enjoying each other’s company, he stares at her red flowing hair. Her brown eyes glisten across the room, and he falls in love all over again. Kyle and his wife then make love like never before again. They are youthful and happy. Later on, hours later, they take a shower. Kyle then starts to fall asleep. His wife goes downstairs to go for a hurry.

As Mrs. Popper runs on the Williamstown outside track near the high school, she sees a man on the ground grumbling as if he is seriously hurt. She runs up to him to see what is going on. Meanwhile, assist at the house Kyle gets a call from Razz. Kyle picks up the phone, “Hello…” “Captain turn on the news and achieve your gear on now, while you watch the news.” As he turns on the news, he hangs up the phone and starts to put on his gear and holsters. The news reports, “On further news, an entire population of citizens in the Newark air port area have apparently gone insane. Cops have shot the people in the bodies, but the wounds just regenerated and they kept coming up until one exciting shooter had shot a person in the head. Sadly, this was the only way to stop the deranged people who were biting and scratching others. A pile of ambulances on the path to a Newark hospital was found to be turned over. Apparently the bite victims were gone, but they did not leave without attacking the ambulance crews. That crazy #$%! They bit me. We were honest trying to help her, one injured driver reports. This man was later taken to the hospital as his wounds had become well-known. This is Jane Woodall signing off,” the on sight reporter says. Then anchorman John Balooey goes to Chris Ives who is live at Atlantic City. Chris reports, “I must also record that there are also deranged people that were seen earlier here at Atlantic City airport.” Kyle turns off the TV. Finally, he puts his communications headset on, and he throws his metallic cushioned hat on with his computer data visors.

As Kyle heads downstairs, his wife walks in the house. She is infuriated. “That bastard, he bit me when I just asked him what was wrong.” Kyle quickly pulls a needle from his utility belt and injects it into his wife. Kyle says, “This will sustain the bite from spreading, but you must come with me and here catch my second set of armor and weapons. You will need them. Terra then runs upstairs and grabs Kyle’s second plot of armor and weapons without question. Kyle then latches his Katana swords onto his help, and he puts on his energy force field, which is located on his survey, while showing his wife how to use her watch and gear. He explains that the force field will burn any that are infected and get within a three foot radius, and he tells her that it has an infinite charge just like their weapons. It is now 6:36 AM…

Chapter 5: Day Break

It is now daytime, about 8:00AM, Kyle and his wife now open their door and head to their car since it is light outside now. Upon the streets, there is total chaos. People who are infected are attacking other living targets that are uninfected. There are cars crashing, and infected people surrounding Kyle and his wife. Kyle then says to his wife, we must go forward and get to the high school in back of this development. Kyle’s wife then gets next to Kyle and holds his arm as they press on towards the back houses of the development.

As they head to the encourage of the development, infected people continue to surround them. But they stop as if they can feel the force field around their bodies. Kyle then starts to launch fire on the infected people and instructs his wife to urge just away and keep up with him. They both keep up with each other. They then eventually arrive at the high school. Upon arrival an android team of ten meets them on the bike trail and escorts them to the school.

Inside the school, Kyle uses the pay phone to call Razz up at the lab. “Razz, speak to me why aren’t my men here yet.” Razz then says, “Your men are stuck on main street. Forty of them made it there and are holding their position at the St. Mary’s Church. They are also aiding those who are injured. The problem, however, is that the disease is mutating, and it is becoming faster and faster. Now it only takes one day for a person to turn. Pretty soon it will be one hour, and then five minutes. With each infected person it starts to spread faster through the bite. We did not expect this. As for the other nine, they are trapped in the woods outside the lab in the robotics garage. They were grabbing surplus weapons and medical kits. Of course, there is some good news. The infection can actually be cured within five days. The problem is that it is hard to inject someone who is infected for that long directly in the neck. As for those infected for only three to four days, they can be injected anywhere. You are your men’s leader so figure out what you must do. I must go, for there is more data retrieved from my androids and my self-sustained automated army that I must transmit to the other elite facilities.

Chapter 6: Atlantic City Airbase

The infection spreads all over New Jersey like wild fire. The Air National Guard gathers its pilots and orders them to net into their jets and destroy all of the bridges leading out of New Jersey. The pilots gather their wits and launch off of the ground loaded with air to ground missiles (AGM-130). They succeed in destroying the bridges before any infected individual could leave the state. As the time goes by, however, even more people are infected.

Atlantic City then becomes heavily entrenched with the infected. As Atlantic City becomes inflicted with the diseased attacking other citizens, the Airbase deploys twenty humvees each holding six elite soldiers. The team of one hundred twenty elites was the Bronze Cross Division. The Bronze Cross also had eight Apaches; the Apache team is called the Crimson Tide Shift. Only one Apache flies at a time, for these others rest. The AH-64A is a quick-reacting, airborne weapon system that can fight close and deep to destroy, disrupt, or delay enemy forces. The Apache is designed to fight and survive during the day, night, and in adverse weather throughout the world. However, this Apache was a modified one. The Apache faded has 30 nano-cell cluster rockets on the left wing inboard, 30 shrapnel grenades on the center of the left sail, 30 acid rockets on the left wing outboard, 30 fire dispersal rockets on the right wing inboard, 30 signal command smoke rockets on the center of the right sail, 30 illumination rockets on the right wing outboard, and two 30 MM guns on the right and left front sides of the apaches. There is also a flame thrower at the bottom of the Apache nose. With all of these weapons, the helicopters have only room for one pilot. Each pilot has a neuron-hack jack in the back of their neck connected to their spinal cord, nerves, and brain. This jack allows for the helicopters to react fast to these men’s reactions. The Apaches hold division officers. Their job is to cover the hummers with air fire power and commands while also providing reconnaissance of the ground and surveying the area of operation (AO). Sadly, the hummer force is stuck inside the air ventilated hummers for days at a time. Each hummer holds a vice-sergeant.

Flying beside the Apaches is the Tow Helicopter Recovery Circulators. Only two circulators fly at a time. Their job is to wench any of the hummers, needing evacuation, with the four electro-charged magnets at the bottom of the helicopters. Each copter is manned by one major, one skillet, and fourteen enlisted elites. The major is the pilot and tactician. The skillet is the co-commander and the ship task leader. Four men man the four M-60 ports, four men man the magnetic arms, two men man the ammo-crates, one man mans the radar, one man is the sniper, and two men enjoy the copter. These tow copters carry up to four hummers at a time.

Next is the Burning Fury Squadron. There are twenty-four Shaded Hawks. However, only three fly at one time. Each helicopter holds one captain as a pilot, and two assistant lieutenants. One lieutenant is the co-pilot and the other follows the captain’s orders and leads his squad of ten men connected to their individual Gloomy Hawk. On each black hawk is one elite hunter sniper/ Black Hawk Field crew chief. These men are rescue squads. Their job is to garrison buildings and gain medical stations. They are also given cures. As they build an evacuation point, the Black Horse Transportation Group flies in with five MH-53 Pavelows out of the forty in total in the group. One group lieutenant with thirty-seven men and one whisper per Pavelow land with supplies and ammo to reinforce the evacuation position and assist with medical evacuation.

Finally, there is the command post inside the Atlantic City Air Base. The snort post holds the quarters for the one chief, the two seniors, and the one commander. Each shift holds six cadets, one senior, three technical zealots, four sergeants, seven raiders, thirty rookies. The Commander mans day shift (900-1200), the chief mans afternoon shift (1000-1300). The post noon shift (1200-1600), night shift (1700-1900), mid-night (1800-2330), early morning (2300-200), second morning (100-600), and the morning (400-1000) is manned by the regular men. The shriek post gives out commands to every shift. The division commander also uses a jet called the Master Mind. The Master Mind holds a crew of three hundred men and eight enlisted pilots. The Master Mind is a saturation bomber, and it travels at 500 MPH. It has back -up boosters to travel to a locked down base in Washington DC that now surrounds the Pentagon.

While on patrol, Vice-sergeant Joseph L. Crowe’s hummer is separated from the Bronze Cross Division’s Green Wolf Hummer Team. These hummers have a modified dual-turret M-60 gun. He is being attacked his hummer has attracted the populace of the infected men on to his hummer. About one thousand people surround him. While Joseph drives fast trying to evade the infected people, a squad of infected people approaches. These people were different from the others however. Their bodies bonded with the disease. The people were still mad; however, they were organized and not half dead. If they received the cure at any-time they would be able to be cleaned and immune to further infection. The problem is that in their insanity and rage, they would attack the uninfected and the diseases made them collected want to kill, attack, or infect all of the uninfected. These men were called Class B. The half lifeless were classed as Zombies. The Class B group of fifty attacked the hummer with acquired weapons. These weapons were shot guns and rifles.

Crowe’s hummer was fired upon and his tires were blown out. Eventually, the zombies tipped over the humvees, and the class B group assisted in ripping off the hummer’s doors. Crowe and his men jumped out firing and slashing as their armor protected them from any scratches or bites. They form a circle and start to fight their way through the zombies with their guns and katanas. As they fight, the class B group starts to chase after them, but the Black Hawk holding Capt. Luis B. Willy spots the hummer crew in duress. So the sniper El G. Padre takes his rifle and starts to fire at the class B group. He shoots everyone with the cure darts accurate in the neck. The Colonel Jovial F. Cruise then fires a nano-cell cluster rocket over the crowd. Some of the zombies start to die, but the others become cured. Unfortunately, more zombies come back and re-infect those that were cured. Only this time, they are all now in worse condition. Fortunately, there was enough confusion for Crowe’s team to race into an abandoned casino.

Chapter 7: Camden Special Ops Elite Division

“All fun and games boys and girls,” Commander Brig D. Jones says. He sits inside a huge robotic suit with arms, legs, and specialized weapons. Outside the Camden fort, police, S.W.A.T. Team members, FBI, Fire men, Medics, and sheriffs have created a barricade around the entrance of the fort. Inside the apartment complexes, gang members and citizens have formed lock downs and garrisons. This is the only city that is well protected and garrisoned. It is also now under martial law.

Those other cities are just not all infected. Finally, from the far east of Trenton to the far west of Trenton leading down towards the beaches a wall of barriers had been assign into place. As for Newark, the infection in that set had been fully contained and subdued. Only South of Trenton was left infected.

As time progressed, the special ops elite division, otherwise known as the Devout Paragons, takes off. Commander Jones then leads his five hundred power suited men to the front lines in Atlantic City to attack the infected from the rear. As he enters the city, he sees a variety of infected animals and much more. Commander Jones fears that he is too unhurried.

While scouting the city, Jones bumps into the Hummer patrol. The hummer patrol’s numbers had drastically dwindled. Only one hummer remained intact, yet the men were all ripped to shreds. Jones feared the worst, but this was merely a small amount of the damage done to Atlantic City. The city was even more awful the deeper the group had penetrated into the city.

Jones then makes it to the Atlantic City Airbase. The base walls are still up, but none respond to his radio communiqué. His men then jump the wall. Upon jumping the wall, Jones sees slow bodies everywhere. The entire Bronze Cross Division was destroyed. Dismembered body parts were lying on the ground, zombies swept the base’s inner core, class Bs controlled the articulate center, infected animals patrolled the outer perimeters, and over 70,000 people were dead or infected. The city was destroyed.

After further scouting excursions, Jones finds that the infection reached inside the base by a class B. It had allowed itself to be rescued and pretended to not be infected. There was no visible sign of infection either. He was escorted to the hospital, and from then on he had started to infect people starting from the hospital and working outward. As Jones scouted further on the base, he is led off of the base only to see the commander’s jet crashed ten miles away from the base. Even further, in an unpopulated area, he reads six life signs inside a casino. He rips off the door and sees six elites holding guns towards his men. Luckily, his men had six extra power suits, so he equips Crowe’s hummer crew with suits. He then receives a transmission from Williamstown, NJ. However, it is faint at best.

“Commander Jones… Our forces have secured Williamstown; we have contained the infection. Eleven thousand in the town are dumb only four thousand are left alive.” “Who is this that I am talking to? ” “This is Commander Razz of the underground fortress.” “Do you have contact with the other bases? ” “No sir, I was hoping you did. Your signature reads that you are in Atlantic City. Why? ” “There was a duress call from the base. It has fallen…” “What of the Northern Bases? ” “The road from Trenton to Belmar was barricaded with concrete and metal walls.” “According to SATSTARS (Satellite Acquisitions Televising Supposition Tracking Alliance Relay Station), the infection is mostly in South Jersey it appears to be trying to mutate and spread. It is like the disease has its own intelligence. We did not expect this. The disease is trying to inject itself in the American populace.” “This is not righteous. That means that this is just the beginning.” “Jones, the Bronze cross calm has remnants on Ocean One Mall. Willy’s Black Hawk team and Jovial’s Apache team has taken over the board walk area. The coast guard has ships just off the shore with rescue teams holding ground. We are not sure how long the boats will hold off shore. Commander Rose D. Luc is still alive with his chief, Chief Goldberg. Hamilton is still intact as well. In fact, they have sweep teams going through the town and controlling the infection.” “I guess that means my force will have to move onward to meet Commander Luc.” “That would be wise sir. By the way, stay alive faded buddy. We fought too many wars to die here in this incident.” “No spot Razz. By the way what type of force numbers are you looking at down there? ” “We are one hundred percent.” “Well I want to take back the Atlantic City Airbase, yet I want to investigate it more.” “God speed veteran friend.”

Chapter 8: Ocean One Mall

Commander Luc sits in an abandoned pizza shop where his new shriek post is. “This disgusts me. Those things have taken my base and they don’t even know how to work the equipment. They are trapped in the walls, and we kill all of those people out here, but we did nothing to those in the wicked. This sucks,” Luc says. As Luc sits moping around, he has a flash back from Atlantic City Airbase.

Jovial’s men had stopped the main attack on Atlantic City, or so he view. Sadly, however, the hummer team was destroyed. Willy reported that Crowe’s team was separated from the fray. Yet, they remain unseen. Meanwhile, the tow team had picked up a lady running from a crowd of zombies. After killing the zombies, a Unlit Hawk team swoops down to save her. She seems to be in perfect shape and rather attractive. So she is wrapped in a blanket and taken to the Atlantic City Airbase. Upon arrival, she is taken to the hospital to be observed. She was found to have no defects. Later that day she awoke only to find herself in the hospital room. She then walks up to the doctor and asked him to come into her room in the hospital. The doctor walks in, and she starts flirting with him. She then tongue kisses the doctor. As she is kissing the doctor, strength in her arms forces the doctor against her lips, and he can’t escape. The disease at this point had mutated to be able to spread by fluid transfer, and it can stay alive outside the body underneath the nails of an infected person. In any case, the disease went through the doctor’s mouth and spread through his body like wild fire. The two infected persons had then continued to spread the disease through kissing, biting, scratching, intercourse, and needle injection. Eventually, the entire base was taken over and infected. Recent Jersey had fallen…

Chapter 9: Epilogue

Today is a day of beauty so says the United States. Sadness of New Jersey’s destruction has wrecked the nation emotionally. Unfortunately, nothing could have been done. The beauty of the day is that the US has stopped this nasty virus from spreading. So the Soar Guard decides to visit the shores of New Jersey with an elite squad that retreated to Washington DC. As they approach the land, all seems clear. Finally, they dock at Ocean One Mall. As the squads exit their boars, birds swoop down from the skies. All of these birds carry the disease further into the states. The end this was not, for it was merely the beginning.

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WE WERE SOMEWHERE through the darkness and several kilometres from the apartment complex of a neo-Nazi store owner who was fighting what he felt to be the – good – fight against public homosexual culture displayed on the sidewalk of the night club Synergies’ in downtown Macon. The air was beating into my ear creating a loud off-white noise, and the sheer erratic nature of his driving was creating lumps on my head as well as uneasiness in my stomach. Dr. Finch began to mutter something about the southern Mexican mafia and potato chips, and cannot say that I ever saw him blink once the entire time he drove. I learned long ago to not ponder his actions to a colossal degree. It will only cause ulcers and brain tumours, and no one wants that for something as cheap as trying to figure out someone’s intentions.

I was on an assignment to camouflage a man protesting at a local event. I arrived by plot of cab, and was greeted by the same white noise that the “First Fridays” crowd brings of drunken stupors and screams. It was always the same group; every scaly face was nearly the same it seemed; all smiling, all falling, all profoundly uninteresting, and near the breaking point of stupidity. The only relevant moments within the crowd were those rare little moments when there was someone in the group that as actually worth having a conversation with. These moments were quite rare, and most of the time you can go an entire evening without any evidence that such beings even existed.

I was somewhere on cherry street on my scheme to Synergies’ when a dingy grey-blue Nissan screeched on to the sidewalk next to me causing everyone else to leap for their respective lives. The driver side door flew open in a fury; Dr. Finch leaped out, and climbed across the hood. He was under the influence of some upper, downer or a new direction I had never comprehended, and most likely some form of caffeine spliced with cherry Kool-Aid. His eyes were wide, and cracked looking, both identical in stress colouring. An odd moment for his eyes because growing up Samuel Finch had several surgeries on his left eye giving it scare that gave him a permanent blood shot look in that one eye. He jumped on to me telling me to report on his next ‘mission’ deep in the back woods of the Georgia forests.

“I have to report on a redneck protest!” I yelled pushing him off of me. “I can’t just follow you in to the dim woods that reeked of raped travellers. This is famous damn it!”

“You’re better than this!” he yelled in a whisper gesturing towards the sycophants of the street. “This mission will blow the protest story out of the water. It’ll accept you out of this low bit paper, and into the real news.” He began to go and chant something in Texan Spanglish. Then he jumped on top of his car, and began to perform a speech about how worthy of a failure I was. “Derive people and witness your king!” he said to the crowd, “all who know him know that behind his crewel cover that he calls his pen he is nothing but a lizard.”

“You god damn jackass, get down before I beat you with your fill leg!” I yelled grabbing his ankles and pulling in a hard jolt that took his scrawny body down. “Get in the damn car I’ll go damn it, just shut the hell up. Don’t dare to do anything I will regret later. I want to come out of this with the least amount of mental scars as I can.” He leaped with joy and proceeded into the car then sped off into the night at high speeds all the while trying to hook his safety belt, and in doing so made him completely oblivious to the road for that short time; his own perfected style of driving.

He took me into the deep forest, and quickly began to have evil Deliverance-like horrors going through my mind. About an hour into the drive he began to slow the vehicle, and look intently for some sort of marker. We bumped over a gargantuan wire causing my head to be assaulted by the ceiling when suddenly there were burning bright spot lights aimed straight into our pupils. I felt like a French revolutionary on gun happy day, and just as dangerous. They came out and took us from the car, “what is this holy unjust treatment? ” I yelled “I’m a damn journalist!” After some time I gave up trying to kick them away, and I decided to just walk. It was much easier to walk, and they weren’t looking to retort any of my questions. I was on their turf now, and I had no rights at all.

Inside an underground bunker deep within the property protected by an electrified fence; there was an enormous meeting hall with a two thousand name strong list hanging. Throughout the hallways there were words printed on the walls, and from what I could screech they all said the word “human” in various languages. The whole building had a musky dirt smell to it, and I almost expected to find a dead body around any corner. The whole scene had a bad feeling to it, and the only reason I was not afraid for my life was the fact that I was slow to comprehension of near death experiences.

We were taken into an office at the end of the long ‘human’ hallway, made to sit in two chairs identical to the hallway, and then we were told to wait. After about fifteen minutes of bland mind chatter a man with a hanging belly, a polo shirt, and a crew slash walked in and sat at the desk facing us.

“Call me Graves, Bartholomew Graves, that is not my fair name but for purposes of the public; that is my identification as of now. If I told you my right name, you would observe it up and not absorb me. It is not important anyway. You, Mr. Wilker have been chosen exclusively to document our cause and engage it to the general public. This is mostly due to your friendship with Mr. Finch. That and I devour your writing in the pink press. I wanted to meet you and test your humanity. Now that I am sure you are one of us, I want you to mask my election campaign. Approach back in one week and I will grant you an interview, and then a week after that, we will begin the coverage of the campaign. This will get our cause into the spot light, and hopefully change the world someday.
 
Part Two: Dissolution of the Greatest.

[The following is a transcription directly from the audio recording of the interview with Mr. Graves that took position on the 9th of November 2007.]

[WILKER] Hello sir and thank you for speaking with me.

[GRAVES] “You are welcome, and let me warn you a head of time, if we find that you are associated with any Grays and/or Reptoids I will bring the full fury of our organization upon you, and you will not survive. Are we clear? “

[WILKER] “Yes sir, it is understood sir. Could we please start by you stating your name and the overall goals and political affiliation of you and your organization? “

[GRAVES] “I am Bartholomew Graves, the leader of the Terran Political Party, we are Humanistic Socialists, and our overall goal is to rid the planet, or at least the country, of all Extra Terrestrial Alien presence. We want to restore the planet to Human rule.”

[WILKER] “What do you feel is the greatest threat to American life today, and what do you conception to do to help the planet? “

[GRAVES] “The man problem facing American… well facing the World, is this alien presence on Earth. They are the cause of every modern threat, as well as through history. Every aspect of life is under their control, from secret societies to government. Builderburg is their main staple on earth, and through that they control the world with a ‘Human’ face. We at the organization aim to stop them. We are revolutionaries trying to get back what is rightfully ours.”

[WILKER] “On the walls of your grand meeting hall, you have a rather enormous list of names, same in red and some in blue. What is this list? “

[GRAVES] “This list you speak of, is a list of know and suspected Reptoid Aliens with in government, business, and entertainment. The ones in red are confirmed and the ones in blue are under investigation.”

[WILKER] “Please do not take this in any offence, but for integrity I must ask for your name, if you do not want it disclosed I will strike it from the final copy”

[GRAVES] “It is alright, I simply did not tell you because it’s improbable, and you will most likely not believe when you look me up on the internet. My real name is Phil Schneider, and I died several years ago of a stroke. You can disclose it within the article, no one will believe you.

[WILKER] “Thank you sir, I will most likely not, but let objective let the future happen as it will. Now, what made you want to start this organization? I assume you had some kind of encounter.”

[GRAVES] “Yes, about fourteen years ago, in late nineteen ninety four, I was working on a government contract to build an underground bunker. I was a contractor; this was a simple job, just a lot of work. I had government contracts before so it was a simple ‘get it done quickly and do not ask any questions’ kind of job. As we were digging to site the support pillars for the bunker we hit something. It was the hull of another building. Clouds of burnt and rotting smoke came out. It smelled of sulphur and death. We all had environment suits ready for pockets and caves because down that far in the earth there is such low oxygen it’s impossible to work without an oxygen tank. My co-workers lowered me down on a cable to investigate. I was in my environment suit and as always I had my pistol. After I got about twelve feet below this hull I saw them. Two Grays, about sixteen feet tall, out of fear I quickly reached for my gun. I rang the pull bell and fired as they tugged me up, I killed the two there and as I went up I saw four more walk up. That is why I began my research and my mission. In the year twenty twelve we will begin to move forward, well… more forward than we already have.”

[WILKER] “Why twenty twelve, what is the significance? “

[GRAVES] “In the year twenty twelve the planet Nibiru will be visible due to specific positioning of the planets. Nibiru is an uninhabitable planet that is used as a military depraved by another species on another planet. In twenty twelve they will be close enough to strike. They will most likely get into a war with the Reptoid, who glorious much own this planet, and have integrated into the gene pool. This will be our chance to take it back; they will weaken each other, and we must be stronger!”

[WILKER] “If you are not moving forward until twenty twelve or sixteen, what do you want me to shroud? “

[GRAVES] “I would like to cover my re-election to the presidency of this organization. I am the founding member it is only natural I continue to lead these fair people. Some of my lesser followers believe I have lost sight of our goal, and should step down. But I will not leave! Not until I extinguish those green bastards and every one understand just how serious I am!”

[WILKER] “Thank you for your time sir and I will search for you on the campaign trail.”

[GRAVES] “Thank you, young man.”
 
Part Three: A jam of the loudest kind.

The Humanist Socialists

The morning stated with a daily ritual, I was not allowed to survey it but the curious sounds coming from his room cause the most hellish nightmares in any normal man. I was told that the sounds I heard were from a recording from Siberia, they were supposed to be the sounds of hell. Mr. Graves listened to this recording on rotund blast every day to “remind him why he is on this world, and what all he must do for mankind.” He busted out of his office completely naked and went into another room where his men deloused him, and then he insisted that I do the same.

The first end on the hasten was a small vow platform that was no longer in use, but was a well known stomping ground E.T. Conspiracy Theorists, whom most conception that Mr. Grave was a joke, but they always excepted him as one of their own. He gave a speech that would rock any respective boat, if any such boat decided to anchor near enough to him to hear. After about an hour into the speech his fury broke the levies of his sinuses and tears ran down his face like waterfalls shielding the flames of his eyes. His rage had an ominous glow of dark red that seemed like it could crack at any given moment. What a sight that would have been, the hope for all my kind spilling his blood in almost a Christ like manner.

The next day we went to several parks, always in the deep wood of them, finding all the sycophants and broken minded homeless men that would give him a listen. The speech was the same of the speech given at the platform, but less emotion. The crowd actually seemed to care but none of them seemed to have any effect on anything outside of the wood. “Is this the great organization? ” I thought, “Bands of homeless sycophants and angry prigs that most likely will never have any great impact on any society outside of their enjoy.” It is not my job to judge, I am merely a humble journalist, so I kept my opinions to myself.

The following days were about the same, the daily ritual, delousing, nonstop speeches within the van as we travelled from place to place. He gave the same speech every day, but to all new sycophants with all novel faces. The faces were always new, because one man out of his mind always has different scars left on the brain his mind left behind. These were all people who knew exactly where the edge was; because they had gone over so many times that the edge to them was miles behind them at this point. I’ve always pitied men who came to their senses, mostly because it means they lost.
 
Part Four: The Resulting Mad Man.

On the eve of the election Bartholomew did not sleep he spent the night in the trees that hung over compound. The night prior he took me aside and told me: “the fate of the world rested on this election, and I cannot let it fall to a lesser man, if it does the human species is re-defined as the doomed.” The sun slowly lifted that morning, and slit its light throughout the trees.

The results came in from the country, hundreds of ballads every hour. I had no idea the organization was this big across the country, and I had seriously underestimated their passion. These are people, nothing more nothing less. They are no different from anyone else they just believe the world is a little different than other people tend to gain. Nothing more than fatalists with a cause, and all the followers anyone needs. Anyone within the organization knew that there was something truly special about where and what they are.

After a long night and a morning that for some came far too soon; the votes were counted, and the results were concluded. Bartholomew Graves, also known as Phil Schneider, the man who founded the Terran Party was no longer the president. In his eyes the planet was doomed and Mankind’s future, if any, was of slavery come the next five years. In his eyes the mission was over and he had failed, no more work, no more sailors, no more cause, the dream was differed as was the man.

A week after the results I arrived at the head quarters of the organization one last time to conduct my post election interview with the now Ex-President Graves. After the long screening process and delousing, I was finally informed by the new president, a younger man by the name of Edward Torrez, that Mr. Graves had taken his own life shortly after he moved his office out. President Torrez then handed me a hand written note signed by Mr. Graves, and addressed to me.

“The end is not completely over my friend, but the beginning of the end is well underway. It has been many years since I have even trusted myself, the game is no longer fun, but tranquil just as serious. My mission is far from over but I have been retarded into uselessness and I can’t sit idly and watch the world burn again. Thank you for keeping my last moments from becoming lonely ones.”
–President Phil Schneider

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Using the public bus system is infinitely cheaper than taking taxis everywhere. If you are looking for cheaper transportation to and from the airport, grasp the bus to downtown Playa del Carmen or Cancun. It is easy and the bus stations are centrally located in both cities. You can decide to ride an air-conditioned bus for a small amount more than the non air-conditioned bus. I would use either, whichever left soonest. There are bus schedules posted for local travel or throughout the country. The nicest buses when I was there were the plush tour buses for longer trips, called ADO. Really nice buses that cost more but are worth it.

If you need to make phone calls in Mexico, pick a phone card there and exhaust them from any pay phone. They can be broken-down to call internationally as well. The locals, many of which do not have phones in their homes, use them all the time. You can buy them in the Casas de Cambio (places where you can exchange your money into Mexican pesos). A note on exchanging your money, check around, to look for the best exchange rates as they may vary place to place.

Those who don’t scuba can enjoy the beauty of the underwater coral gardens and scenery by snorkeling. Go to the scuba shops and inquire about what excursions they offer for snorkelers, or ask your resort’s front desk if you can sign up for snorkeling tours there at the hotel. Wear sunscreen while doing this daytrip, don’t expect a white t-shirt to protect you, because it won’t. If you don’t consume sun protection, you will near befriend lobster-red, trust me.

A word about avoiding Turista (Montezuma’s Revenge, the Tourist Trots). These very unpleasant bacterial infections happen, frequently, to travellers. To avoid spending most of your vacation in the bathroom recuperating, I suggest you don’t eat raw fruit (unless it’s already peeled), and don’t drink drinks that have ice that isn’t round, with a hole in it (purified water ice cubes). The large resorts’ food is generally safe, as far as I have experienced. I’ve stayed in a few before moving to Mexico and never got sick by eating or drinking their food. Big resorts take precautions against contaminated foods and drink. But, out on the street, those bacteria can freely float into the food offered at taco stands (and I love those, by the way), and wherever fruit is sold. If you buy fruit, peel before eating it. If it isn’t peelable, then forget it. Drink purified, bottled water at all times. If you go to day-long trips out in the heat, bring a gallon jug of water, you will need it.

Hire only qualified tour guides through reputable agencies (usually found through the hotels or your recede agent). Don’t use freelance tour guides because I was told when living there that some will make information up as they go along. Independent tour guides will approach you at places like the ruins of Coba, Chichen Itza and Tulum, for example. Go with a tour group to these places. I liked the Apple tours, but there are many others that are good, too. Ask around to see who are most highly recommended. Chichen Itza is a big site, worthy of seeing, if you are going to choose a sight to see. The pyramid there, called El Castillo, is spectacular. I have been inside it (very, incredibly claustrophobic if you decide to brave it up the narrow stairway inside) and on top of it (steep stairs lead up to a few small rooms on the top, where nobility would perform rituals, etc.) Take a camera and stop at the nearby hotel for lunch if you have the chance. There was a show there where dancers in Mayan dress entertained us as our group had lunch there. It was a honorable break from the heat of sightseeing this faded city. Word to the wise, bringing a family-size vat of sunscreen wouldn’t be a bad idea. And as noteworthy water as possible. Walking around the site all day will dehydrate and bake you if you aren’t careful.

Check out the cenotes (lakes of brackish water in the jungle), accessed by taking buses or taxi, along the Playa del Carmen-Tulum corridor. I liked going to the Cenote Azul or the Cenote Dos Ojos. Cenotes attract nature, and while visiting them, I saw a variety of gripping flora and fauna from basilisk lizards to a diving duck. Cenotes are the entrance points to underwater caves, which are only safe to go to with certified dive experts. Underneath the Yucatan peninsula there are a large network of underground caves that expert divers like to explore. Do not attempt to dive these on your own, because it is dangerous. If you want to see what an underground cave is like, go nearby to the nature park of Xcaret, where there are underwater caves for the public to swim in.

Speaking of Xcaret, it is a must to visit if you love nature. It is full of educational activities and fun things to do for the whole family. Interrogate to spend an entire day there. There is swimming with dolphins, horseback riding, exploring an extinct Mayan village, seeing Mayan dancing shows, snorkeling in a large lagoon, all built into the jungles. It is a top-class place, and even has its believe small zoo, butterfly garden and aviary. I know, I used to work for the park years ago. The restaurants are atmospheric and the food is good. Don’t forget to peek the Mayan musicians do their flying pole exhibition, which is done all day long. They start on top of a pole, and “fly” down, while playing their instruments, while hanging from ropes by their ankles. You won’t see anything quite like it out of this region. Xcaret has a variety of natural history exhibits near their large gift shop. It is a “must” for all.

If you want a fun trip by boat, go to Playa Linda (in the Hotel Zone of Cancun) and hop a boat over to Isla Mujeres. Aqua Tours has a big, luxurious yacht that goes over there a few times a day. On the way to the island, you are served drinks, are entertained by the staff and get a great view of the Cancun coastline. Once at Isla Mujeres, you are taken on excursions to places like Tortugranja (a sea turtle farm, where they raise endangered sea turtles from small to large), or Hacienda Mundaca (a supposed former estate of an ex-pirate, who built it for his love interest, according to local legend). They offer snorkeling, too. It’s a fun day trip, and the shopping is pretty good on the island, too.

Another interesting dwelling to visit is Merida, the capital city of the state of Quintana Roo (where Cancun is located). It reminded me of Europe, with its lovely, mountainous mansions,outdoor cafes and stately buildings. There, you will score the United States embassy, among others. If you need to replace a lost passport or talk to embassy officials, this is where you want to go. It is a very international place, worth the very long bus ride from Cancun.

Downtown Cancun has a few involving places to shop. There are authentic food and crafts at Plaza 2000, or glance Chedraui (a department/ grocery store), or Pelicano (another general merchandise store). I haven’t been to Cancun since the devastating hurricane there, so check to stare if these places are still in operation, if so, they are definitely worth going to. Hold a bus or taxi to these places, to get a more “authentic” Mexican experience. Staying just in the Hotel Zone is fun, but not a carve of everyday Mexican life. Try some of the gargantuan food stands where the locals go. I love the chicken cooked on spits everywhere, called “Pollo Rojo” (red chicken) due to the spices used. It is to die for and incredibly cheap. If you scrutinize people on the street selling tamales, try them, they are honorable and really cheap. I could easily eat my way through Mexico by living on tamales (meat inside a corn-based “cake”) and empanadas (meat turnovers) alone. If you buy bakery items in Mexico at the grocery stores, bear in mind that they use mighty less sugar than Americans are archaic to having, in their recipes. I like the Conchitas, breads shaped like shells. If you want sweets, retract the cakes sold under the brand name
“Bimbo” (yes, that is the name of it). It is a major bread and snack food producer in Mexico, and when I was there, its logo was a cute microscopic teddy bear.

Enjoy your stay in the lovely Mayan Riviera. Walk the beaches and admire that stunningly turquoise water, it is truly paradise. Enjoy the hospitality of the fine and helpful Mexican nationals. Remember to have fun, but remember, it is a foreign country, so obey their laws and be respectful of the differences in culture. If you go, you’ll want to go wait on again and again. I know I did. The more you go, the more you know. Living in the Yucatan was an unforgettable experience, visiting there is too, so make it a memorable streak for yourself by seeing as much of it as you can. You won’t be disappointed.

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Who doesn’t want to be healthy?

Of course when it comes to junk food everyone likes but they tend to ignore the after effects of it. Don’t you want to live long with agreeable health? If you can follow some simple tips then life is made.

As soon as you get up brush your teeth and have at least 500 ml of water. This will remove the toxins in the body. Always avoid bed tea or bed coffee.

For breakfast eat high protein food, as you need to support your energy till the end of the day. Eat corn flakes, chapathi, bread with a light dose of banana or grapes. Have your breakfast at around 8 AM

At around 11 AM you can have lemon tea with sugarfree or have a cup of green tea.

For Lunch either eat chapathi or rice. Please do not eat both.

If you are eating rice eat with playa with least oil and more vegetable. Then you can have rasam prepared of pepper and jeera. Then it is advised to have a curry with more vegetables again with least oil and preferably prepared with more dhal and less coconut.

If you are having chapathi then have with side dish with more vegetable and less oil. Eat more of salads.

Around 4 PM have a cup of tea (again preferably black tea or green tea).

Have Dinner at night 8 30 PM. For Dinner use more of salads and less oily food. Preferably do not eat rice at night. Eat three Chapathi without oil with more of vegetable and remember – No oil!

After Dinner have some fruits like grapes, banana, papaya, strawberry in small cup.

Wait for half an hour and take a small walk around the garden for ten minutes. Come back and sleep and you will just feel so light and get a pleasant sleep.

In your busy schedule of work you may not pick up time to walk or take some rest. In the office itself walk as much as possible. Get up from the chair and walk to get your printouts. Doesn’t matter even if you are walking to your assistant. Don’t have any ego disclose. It is in your interest you are walking!!. Climb stairs. Expend lift as least as possible.

Do not sit in front of computer for more than one hour. Take at least 5 minutes break per hour. Stretch your body even when you are working. May be sometimes even when you stand practice to stretch various parts of your body. By this the blood circulation improves and helps getting fresh. Stretch your hands and wrists while working on computer. Always wear plain glasses to protect your eyes from continuous radiation from the computer.

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June 29, 1950 was a chill, overcast day in the Estadia Independencia in the small Brazilian mining town of Belo Horizonte, reminiscent of a spring afternoon along the Eastern Seaboard. Eleven American amateurs lined up in white shirts with a red sash to face the finest soccer team in the world in the first round of the World Cup finals. Only one of the Americans, the Scottish-born Ed McIlvenny, had ever played professional soccer before. His teammates included a meatpacker, a schoolteacher, a knitting machinest, a paper stripper and two mailmen, all selected from low-budget try-outs in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Chicago and New York. They were outsiders in every sense of the word. In their last seven international matches, they had lost by a combined acquire of 45 goals to 2 and were 500-1 rank outsiders to win the World Cup.

“We didn’t regain considerable respect from any status,” remembers Bahr, now 73. To the rest of the world, especially the British tabloids, the motley crew were painted as amusing caricatures. “The Americans came strolling into the dressing rooms, surely the strangest team ever to be seen at a World Cup,” reported the Belfast Telegram. “Some wore Stetsons, some smoked big cigars, and some were still in the delighted, early stages of hangovers . . .” Bahr laughs off the report: “Half the players didn’t drink at all. And we only ever smoked cigars after dinner.”

The luminous characters understandably presented an irresistible target to the world press: Frank Borghi, the big-handed goalkeeper, was a former minor league baseball catcher who drove a hearse for his uncle’s St. Louis funeral parlor. The foul-mouthed and intimidating defender, Charley “Gloves” Columbo, inexplicably wore a pair of stained leather boxing mittens in every game and was known to play a little dirty.

Joe Gaetjens, the dishwasher and Columbia University accounting student, constantly smiled into the faces of his opponents and played soccer like his life depended on it. John “Clarkie” Sousa, a skillful dribbler who could, reportedly, bounce the ball on his bald head while brushing past opponents, wasn’t even a U.S. citizen yet. And neither were two of his teammates. The world snickered at them while their own newly-hired coach, Bill Jeffrey, quietly admitted to British reporters, “We don’t have a chance.”

They were the sons of Ellis Island and Fishtown and Dago Hill. They played like guerillas, not gentlemen, honing their talents on neighborhood teams with names like Uhrik Truckers and Zenthofer Furs. They had to request time off from their “real” jobs to compete in the World Cup, and each received a letter from the U.S. Soccer Federation gently reminding him to bring his hold equipment. They played only two games together before traveling to the finals, were paid $100 a week during the tournament, and each had to do his own laundry after the game. They were a bunch of ordinary working men in their twenties on vacation in South America, with no ambitions beyond playing a game they loved.

In contrast, the English were the epitome of soccer professionals, hailed by the Brazilian papers as the “Reyes de Futbol,” the Kings of Soccer. “I don’t know of any game where there was such a disparity between the two teams,” notes Harry Keogh, the U.S. right-back. The English had recently demolished a Rest-of-Europe team 6-1, had beaten Italy 4-0 in Turin and Portugal 10-0 in Lisbon. They were expected to beat the Americans by at least 8 to 12 goals. “People forget how distinguished of a power England were,” says Bahr. “They were clear-cut favorites to meet Brazil in the final.”

In fact, the English were so confident of victory that they put their star player on the bench: the legendary Stanley Matthews was considered the greatest player in the world at the time. But they still had such world-renowned figures as record goal-scorer Tom Finney, captain Billy Wright and Alf Ramsey. All well-groomed, well-mannered and, perhaps, a little unprepared for the rebellious onslaught that faced them that day.

Five minutes from the end of the first half, Walter Bahr, a stocky 23 year-old physical education teacher from Philadelphia, slipped past a couple of English defenders and, from about 25 yards out, let flee with a stinging right-footed drive. The ball zipped past the royal blue shirts of the opposition and was met by the diving head of teammate Joseph Gaetjens, a Haitian-born accounting student and part-time dishwasher from New York City. His elegant header whistled past the outstretched fingertips of the English goalkeeper and tore into the back of the score.

After the miraculous goal, Coach Jeffrey anxiously paced up and down the touchline, willing the half-time whistle to blow. He was an affable, mild-mannered Scotsman who had been given the job just six weeks before the tournament kicked off. “He knew he didn’t have time to change the way we played. He just saw himself as a cheerleader, a morale builder,” says Keough. “I think that’s one of the reasons we did as well as we did.”

The American amateurs never expected to contain England to 1-0 for the next 45 minutes. And to their credit, they didn’t try. They played the second half unprejudiced as they had the first, by attacking. And it nearly paid off with a second goal late in the game. Frank “Pee Wee” Wallace’s swerving shot beat the English goalie, only to be agonizingly cleared off the line by an English defender. But then Wallace, a Missouri liquor truck driver, knew all about discontinuance calls. As a member of the 191st Tank Battalion, he was involved in the Normandy landings of WWII. His tank was hit by a German shell at the famous Anzio beachhead and he was captured and confined to a German POW camp for 15 months.

But if there were to be one hero singled out that day, it would be Frank Borghi. The U.S. goalkeeper had seen his own allotment of battles before he faced the English, earning a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and a case of shellshock for his heroics as a combat medic in WWII. He proved unbeatable between the posts. The English players fired in shot after shot, only to see Borghi deflect every single one.

Then, with just 8 minutes left, American hearts stopped. The speedy English forward Stan Mortensen broke free from the uninteresting U.S. aid line. Borghi was the only obstacle between him and the goal. “Barring a miracle, that would’ve been a goal,” admits Keough.

That miracle came in the snarling form of Gloves Colombo. Hopelessly outrun, he made a desperate lunge for Mortensen with his arms. He flung himself at the astonished Englishman’s waist, upending the helpless player by the penalty status. “It had nothing to do with a tackle in soccer,” says Keough. “It was straight out of American football.” When the English missed the resulting free kick, the spirit seemed to drain from them. As McIlvenney told Keough afterwards, “It was a play that you and I would never have made. But there’s no doubt it saved the game.”

The final whistled rang out in the packed stadium and 30,000 stunned Brazilians ran on to the field to hail the Americans as heroes. Gaetjens and Borghi were carried off the field on the fans’ shoulders. “They were really cheering because they knew Brazil wouldn’t have to face England now,” smiles Bahr.

The travesty was that there were so few Americans to glimpse the historic result. The single American reporter show, Dent McSkimming of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was there only because it coincided with his summer vacation. There were, however, a group of American GIs stationed in the area, and the soldiers helped the heroic American soccer team celebrate their victory in true American style: they played a game of softball.

When the BBC announced the news back in England, most listeners assumed there was an error. The New York Times received the wire report and suspected it was a hoax so didn’t even print the anecdote. Not that anyone in America cared. On the day the story would have been published – June 30, 1950 – the US went to war with Korea and American thoughts were with their servicemen, not their obscure soccer players. The GIs stationed in Brazil shipped out the same day.

Though their paths would occasionally cross through the years, the eleven teammates never again played together. Tragically, in Haiti, 1964, the ever-smiling scorer of the goal that beat England – Joe Gaetjens – was accused of subversive activity and executed by the special death squads of dictator Papa Doc Duvalier. “Joe was such a carefree, likeable guy,” reflects Bahr. “Probably the least political person you could meet.” The goalkeeper/hearse driver, Frank Borghi – “El Magnifico” to the Brazilians that day – earned a new nickname, “The Merry Mortician,” along with the dubious honor of transporting both Charley Colombo and Pee Wee Wallace to their graves.

For the five of the eleven players still living, the game remains a bright memory even fifty years later, an achievement without easy comparison in modern sport. “The nearest I can think of,” says Keough, “would be if Angola had beaten the U.S. Basketball Dream Team in the ‘92 Olympics. And England was even better than that.”

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