Month: March 2014

I’m going to tell you how to learn ANYTHING, but we’re going to start with a discussion of ham radio to begin with.  So if haven’t picked up a ham radio license, pay attention! 

My friends Gaye (survival woman) and Sheldon (survival hubby) up at www.backdoorsurvival.com are planning to pick up their ham radio licenses.  The reason for more focus on this is that this weekend’s outburst of earthquakes (L.A., Yellowstone, and the Oklahoma shimmy) has moved it up their priority list from a “fixing to get ready” to a “time to get ‘er done” item.

They’ve both got the ubiquitous Baofeng UV5RA Ham Two Way Radio 136-174/400-480 MHz Dual-Band Transceiver (Black) radios which are great entry radios.  And programming software and, and…..

The problem is, however, that the programming booklet that comes with the radio is a football-field away from simple.  This is not an uncommon problem with ham radio equipment.

Over the years, admittedly more than 50 of them, I started off on three simple knobs on the radio receiver (volume, Morse code beat note, and tuning) and on my first crystal-controlled (single frequency) radio, there was a tuning knob, loading knob, and an on/off Morse key.  That was it.

Nowadays, the manual for my Kenwood 590S runs about 80-pages and explains how to use umpteen levels of digital signal processing, the radio’s built-in receive and transmit equalizers, shaping of the Morse waveform, which antenna port to use…and loads more.  Nearly 50 controls if you count the push-buttons.  And you should:  Most of them control more than one function on the radio, depending on if you make it a short button press, or hold a button in more than one second to call some other function.

Between her professional commitments (real work) and her web site (more real work) Gaye’s got just about zero time to sit down with a Mojito and just “spin dials” for a few hours to “get the hang” of her radio.  That’s how many people like to learn, but time just doesn’t always show up when needed…

Even if she did have the time, there may not be much “hang-getting” since the quality of manuals on many pieces of imported equipment only make sense if you understand current trends in menu design to control the microprocessors in modern radios.

Incomprehensible manuals are, sorry to say, a plague of life.

Even really great simplifications of the Baofeng manual (like this one) can be daunting.

What to do to speed up the learning process?

I realized (from our chit-chats this weekend) that there may be a lot of people who are in the same boat:  The $30-35 for the radio wasn’t a big deal, but the programming and licensing?  And how much time is this going to take because time ain’t infinite!  .

So I suggested that they (Gaye and Shel) read the outstanding first license study guide by Dan Romanchik, KB6NU, which can be found online here.  Free. 

My son (KF7OCD) has used this with a couple of Technician class license sessions he’s taught and seriously, if you just read the material, your odds of passing are about 90% the first time around.  It isn’t really fast…it just take however long it takes to read 50-pages.

Now let’s talk about learning styles:

As a former postsecondary administrator, the way to learn depends on person.  People who like music, poetry, and are good writers, are called the “right-brain” people.  Theory appeals to them.  They read novels.

The “left-brainers” are people who love math, computer programming, and the hard science of things.  Theory isn’t so interesting as formulas and procedures, to them. They read more nonfiction.

If you’re like Gaye & Shel,  what will likely work best is to sample a little this, a little that. 

To do this, read the study guide, but have the radio nearby so when you get to a concept, you can look at the radio and maybe there will be something about it in the manual. If you don’t feel compelled to pick up the radio, no worries.

Depending on which way your brain works, you may lean a little more toward formula, or a little the other way into theory.  But, the best possible learning is when both sides of the brain have something to work on.  There are tons of learning styles:  Tactile, aural, visual, mixed…pick those that suit you.

Oh, this may be why construction crews listen to country music on the job site:  Feed both sides of brain.

Elaine and I were working on house addition construction again this weekend and putting in furring strips for drywall is brain killing work.  So we fed the other side of the brain (music, light jazz) while working.

Anyone who doesn’t feed both sides ends up being unbalanced, but in some professions that works.  This is where engineers come from.

But at times of peak concentration (landing an airplane, doing brain surgery) music off, total focus of both sides of brain is best.  Banging 2-by-4’s (after you’ve framed a few houses and can eyeball a 5/8th’s inch cut) is less so, hence the music.

Where do you get the incentive?

Set a deadline for yourself.  I won’t tell you when Mr & Mrs Survival will go take their ham test, but you can hit the American Radio Relay League website.  Toss in your Zip code, and you should be able to find something.

If not, look for a local radio club and just show up at one of their meetings.  Ham radio people are warm and friendly.  Ask whatever questions you may have, but bear in mind that because of the hobby, many ham radio types will answer the simplest questions with incredibly long answers.

These will invariably be close to perfect, but they call into the “Ask him what time it is, and he built me a watch factory” category.

Deadline setting is critical.  Every person I know who is successful (annual incomes over $300,000, or so) runs their life to deadlines.  Danger:  You can become a control-freak, but if you have deadlines and meet them, life tends to pay out bigger jackpots.  Because you get stuff done.

What’s Not in the Study Guide

If you’ve completely forgotten high school physics, the part of the study guide that can be most intimidating is the beginning where Ohm’s Law and such are covered.  Here’s my 1-minute workaround for that:

Not in the ham book, but this may help understand electricity:

Think of electricity flow through wire as being like water flowing in a garden hose.

Electromotive force (Volts) is like the pressure in the hose.

Current (the amount of energy flowing)  (measured in Amps) is like the volume of water flowing in the hose.

Volts times Amps = power (in Watts).  Watts is like Work being done. Just like the  water coming out of the end of a hose can do work like turn a water wheel.  More water (current) or more pressure (volts) turns a bigger wheeel doing more work.

The basic equations assume you know:

Volts is abbreviated “E”

Current is abbreviated “I”

Power is abbreviated “P”

And Resistance (in Ohms) is abbreviated “R”

—

The first rule is the rule of P=I*E   (pie)

Power [ P ] equals current [ I ] times voltage [ E ]

You hair dryer  is 120 volts.  We know (from the label)  it is 1,500 watts.  So P/E=I.

By substitution then, 1500/120 =  12.5 amps.  Which is why a 15 amp circuit breaker doesn’t pop when you dry your hair!

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Grady and I don’t usually burden you with mentions of earthquakes, except when I dream about them in advance, and such, as was the case last Thursday preceding the L.A. quake,

But things have become a lot more interesting since in just a few moments ago there was a 4.8 magnitude quake that went off up in the area east-northeast of West Yellowstone, Montana.

1. 37km (23mi) ENE of West Yellowstone, Montana
2. 105km (65mi) SSE of Bozeman, Montana
3. 138km (86mi) NE of Rexburg, Idaho
4. 178km (111mi) NE of Ammon, Idaho
5. 228km (142mi) SSE of Helena, Montana

And just a few minutes earlier, our war-gaming friend “warhammer” had noted the www.spaceweather.com report of an X-class flare that may be earth-impacting:

With all the LA ‘moving and shaking’ going on, it will be interesting to see how this rare electro-magnetic solar event manifests itself on the plate of tectonic spaghetti lying beneath the City of Angels.

I sadly agree.  According to the Solar Influences Data analysis center, the fun began with this series early Saturday…

NOAA AR 2017 produced two M class flares (M2.0 peak 19:18 UT and M2.6 peak 23:51 UT on March 28). The flares were associated with two halo CMEs, the first one with speeds of 412km/s (first seen by LASCO-C2 at 20:00 UT) and the second one 557 km/s (at 23:58 UT).

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This morning’s big headline, other than debris search roulette, may be the Personal Consumption and Expenditures report that was just released.

Personal income increased $47.7 billion, or 0.3 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $42.3 billion, or 0.3 percent, in February, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $30.8 billion, or 0.3 percent. In January, personal income increased $41.3 billion, or 0.3 percent, DPI increased $40.3 billion, or 0.3 percent, and PCE increased $20.0 billion, or 0.2 percent, based on revised estimates.

OK, you may be wondering if personal income was up, how come you didn’t have any more spare coin jingling around.  Damn fine question that…be sure and submit it in advance of our next news conference to see if it gets approved.  Continuing with this bouquet of delights:

Personal current taxes increased $5.3 billion in February, compared with an increase of $1.2 billion in January. Disposable personal income (DPI) — personal income less personal current taxes — increased $42.3 billion, or 0.3 percent, in February, compared with an increase of $40.3 billion, or 0.3 percent, in January.

Personal saving — DPI less personal outlays — was $544.5 billion in February, compared with $535.9 billion in January. The personal saving rate — personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income — was 4.3 percent in February, compared with 4.2 percent in January.

Somewhere about here, we should stop so you can wipe the coffee – which ought to be spewing out your nose – off your face; joining those tears of laughter as you roll helplessly on the floor. 

The Dow is set to open up 35 points and about the only way to improve on this morning’s jovial economic data would be a tooth extraction without anesthetic, as I see it.

Still Searching

Like I said yesterday:  Me? I’m skeptical on this whole search thing going on out in the oceans off pretty much anywhere, now.

Reports that “objects” have been sighted need to be taken with either an aspirin, Adderall, or oxy, depending on what gets you through. I still hold to sobriety, but the headline machine is making that harder every day.  Speaking of which…

Drugs and Death

There’s a report out this morning that “Anti-Anxiety Drugs are tied to higher Mortality.”

Just between you and me, I’ve always been suspicious of “mortality” studied, since everyone is going to die anyway, know what I mean?  Oxy before skydiving doesn’t make sense, but maybe Adderall before brain surgery….well, dead is dead, is all I’m saying.

What helps me most is pretending I’m an extraterrestrial and just showed up with no opinions about nothing and pretending I’m watching an ant farm. Still trying to build the anti-gravity machine to get home…

There, all better now.

More after this……

Zeus on Awakening from “Pet Madness”?

A report this morning that cats can infect humans with tuberculosis could have far-reaching impacts, reports our Senior Editor, Zeus the Cat.

ZtC, who is already on half rations for failing to keep a rat from moving into the air conditioning system of Elaine’s old Lexus, says to keep an eye on the whole pet industry.  “That’s cat food, dog food, veterinarian supplies, the whole lot of it,” he purred.

“People don’t really need pets, when you think about it,” he continued.  “The cats don’t mouse like they did in the good old days when our relationship with humans made more sense.  We domesticated them because most humans are barely house-broken and they attract vermin like nothing else.  Toss in the dangerous disease that pregnant moms can get from the kitty litter and you’ve got an air-tight case.”

“Yes, but if people give up on cats, what about dogs?” Ures truly asked.

“Why would you have other disease risks and the biting issues with dogs, I mean voluntarily,” he meowed.  “And what is the Anchorage Daily News doing reporting on a sharp increase in dog bites in Arizona?  Can’t the locals handle the truth down in the Valley of the Grays?”

“Your job around here is safe, kitty.

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This morning I would like to do something out of the ordinary – at least for me:  Something of a “core dump” listing the various things that occupy our plans around here…

Visually, this is different from the usual headlines, but it’s much closer to how our brains work – a collection of sticky notes in no particular order, but all needing to be dealt with…

Two More Ads Will Appear

I am working at putting a few Google Ads up on my website.  Yes, I know the one at the top of today’s article is too big, and yes, I will get it fixed this weekend.  Reason:  Cost of websites is not going down, looks like.  I’m ridiculously happy with www.emwd.com, but the cost of a virtual private server, extra memory, and so forth, is less than free.  Hence probably two more ads will be getting set this weekend.  I try to keep it down, however.

Speaking of Websites

Is the guy who wanted to buy the www.nationaldreamcenter.come project still interested?  A couple of new dreams have been posted – I need to approve them so check there later today…

Travel Plans

Elaine and I are planning to attend this year’s conference of the American Academy for Anti-Aging Medicine in Orlando May 15-17.  I will be doing a couple of Peoplenomics reports on what goes on there…and yes, now that I’m north of 65 does have something to do with it.  I want to make sure to be a winner, not loser, in Social Security Roulette.

The conference is where the real docs with real expertise go meet to figure out how to live better and longer.

Quake Spotting

With this week’s earthquake dreams, a number of readers, especially Michael down in the Portland area, have been eyeing Mt. Hood with some suspicion:

George, First I read about the earthquakes on Mt Hood, 60 miles from my home, then I read about your dream of an earthquake.  You didn’t happen to see a mountain also by any chance, did you?

Recall, too, the 6.8 on March 10 off the California coast near the Oregon border (50 or so miles from Eureka, CA).  At that time the webicorders for Mt. Hood and others for the Cascade mountains in OR and WA showed some of the largest events I have ever seen on them.

Not much in the way of action on this – remind people to have three or four weeks of water, two weeks of food…yet no one will listen…

Expanding Planet Theory

“Or, is the decline due to the reduced solar output (..) which slows the planetary expansion, which in turn closes down quake activity when the Sun goes out to lunch.”

A contracting object can get cracks in its surface just as an expanding one can.

Unless you mean there can only ever be expansion, and at this stage there is very little expansion going on?

That, from reader Gary is a good point:  I think that global cooling will cause quakes, too.  But we would be in a “change-over period” where we get a lunch break between too hot (expansion) quakes and too cold (contraction) quakes.  Just thinking out loud.  My degrees in geology seems to be stuck in my printer…

Deep Thinking From Ecuador

It’s always fun to get notes from Bruce down in Ecuador.  He’s got a fine way of looking at the world, including this gem of a synopsis of US foreign policy:

I am always amazed at how Americans so casually believe their deservability to literally spend millions to keep themselves entertained, or should I say distracted while the rest of the world struggles to get a part of the other 40% of the world’s resources not consumed in the USA.

Boomers love to say “well I worked for it and earned it.” That is total bullshit. We created a system in which we became the privileged so we could rip off everybody else in the world.

Tell me one job you had where there was not someone else in the world doing the same thing, working harder than you were, but probably making a tenth of what you were.

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Overs the past few days there has been a real push in the American press to whip up public support for the notion of climate change.  But a more measured report, out this morning from the BBC admits “Dissent among scientists over key climate impact report” which is due next Monday.

Of course, if you’re prepared to swallow “climate change” hook, line, and sinker, you  could no doubt send in links to stories like “Scientists to climate change skeptics: Get real.”

Next week;s report will be of more than passing interest because it may well represent a “tipping point” in the climate dialog.  Whereas the BBC version of what’s coming seems to focus on the adaptation angle, the USA versions is much more likely to pronounce the need for ever-more government (thus taxes) to address climate issues.

The reason, when you zoom out into the American overview is simple:  We have a falling crime rate, yet the hiring of police and security has never been higher.  And with the military winding down some of its spending, we see the need to employ people in an economy that still isn’t talking about the central issue:  The ‘brick wall’ of employment of automated manufacturing is killing off jobs wholesale.

While there has been a major increase (even in Europe) in business services, a lot of that kind of employment will be short-term as businesses get onto effective ERP & document management systems and then begin to really set about more layoffs.  And, of course, all but 10-25% of the consulting positions in business services will be left, and those will be mainly in software  updates and reconfigurations.

So yes, we need a grand new source of employment.  And, if you’ve watched “Inequality for all” you’ll see the problem is that the middle class is shrinking while those at the top just keep on getting richer.

But will climate money impact the middle class?  It’s early in the game, but my inclination is no, it won’t since the jobs there will be highly technical and highly skilled.  Jobs that may keep some of the rollout from business services going – when that begins to falter – but what about the working stiffs with high school and a year or three of college?

I’m only guessing, but a 90% change of a US climate tax, a 50% chance of a global climate tax, and a 3% chance of some meaningful change for the middle class seems about where this one’s going to fall.

Who was it who said “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross”?  Well, climate’s got its own set of wrappings, too.  And it will be carrying a tax.

No Bodies – Just a Media Burial

We have to wonder if the Malaysians have jumped the gun a bit here, declaring the passengers onboard MH370 dead.

That is expected to set loose the dogs of the insurance companies, who are offering initial payments by some reports $5,000 .  But under the Montreal Convention, passenger lives are only worth $150,000 to $175,000…which in today’s world, is a pittance.

Says Wikipedia:

Under the Montreal Convention, air carriers are strictly liable for proven damages up to 113,100 special drawing rights (SDR) (Updated from 100,000 on 31 December 2009), a mix of currency values established by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), approximately $138,000 per passenger at the time of its ratification by the United States in 2003 (as of December 2011, around $175,800). Where damages of more than 113,100 SDR are sought, the airline may avoid liability by proving that the accident which caused the injury or death was not due to their negligence or was attributable to the negligence of a third party. This defence is not available where damages of less than 113,100 SDR are sought. The Convention also amended the jurisdictional provisions of Warsaw and now allows the victim or their families to sue foreign carriers where they maintain their principal residence, and requires all air carriers to carry liability insurance.

The Montreal Convention was brought about mainly to amend liabilities to be paid to families for death or injury whilst on board an aircraft.

For a $30-million jetliner and 150 passengers, care to guess who makes out better?  Not the passengers ($26.2 million in settlement exposure) versus was could be $30-million or more for aircraft hull insurance..something a reporter with more time might want to look into.

A Few Notes on Futuring

You may have noticed last week’s Friday report (here) began with a forecast of a  big disease story this week.  What I said (yes, it’s bad to quote yourself, but I’m making a point, so go with me on this…) 

Looking at the data runs from our www.nostracodeus.com project, the word frequency blip today is “epidemic” which has popped up.  It doesn’t seem to have landed/taken root in a major singular story, unless you consider streaking the ruins at Machu Pichu, Peru major.

A check of the CDC website reveals a measles watch in the Philippines, but that shouldn’t drive things like this.  So we will be in the “unsurprised” category if the CDC or other agency announces something next week about an “epidemic” of something. 

These are low probabilities, but they seem to be peeking out of the noise

OK, that was posted on Friday.

This morning we’re hip deep in headlines :  Canada probes possible Ebola case.

Ebola outbreak in Guinea may spread to Liberia.

Ebola breaks out in West Africa for the first time.

As we move into the second half of the week (slowly, for sure) that leaves expectations for attack on Israel from the north, another accident headline (though the declaration of death for MH370 passengers may suffice) and the Taliban may be expected to pull of a major something.  Between now and Sunday, on this batch.

Grady will have torn down the overnight data run and a report up shortly at the www.nostracodeus.com site.

Mud Search

That huge mudslide up in Washington State (north of Seattle) has 176 people listed as missing although the death toll is expected to be way below that.  Meantime, there is extreme caution involved because of the risk of further sliding in the area.

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Schedule note:  This morning’s report will be shorter than usual because I have a pretty demanding schedule today.  For one, I need to take the old Beechcrate down for service to an airport about 45 miles south of us.  There, Mark the Mechanic will do his magic (mostly paperwork) making sure we’re good for another year of flying by the book.  After that, a couple of subscriber issues to take care of, a conference call this afternoon, and work on Peoplenomics for tomorrow morning.  It will focus on real estate and how much dough to sink into your home; always a delicate balance.

Several comments have come in regarding my wife (Elaine’s) experience with the fleeting “cloud”.  Included were a couple of medical professionals.  So just to make sure we’re on the same page, here, let me describe why she called it a “cloud.”

She was standing in the kitchen, watching television, and this “cloud” the size of a beach ball appeared in front of her.    As she turned her head and eyes to the side, the cloud didn’t move.  This is a key medical note because with a visual hallucination, when you turn your eyes or body parts, the hallucination tends to move with the body.  But this one didn’t.  And when she brushed it away, then turned to the microwave to see if something was on fire, and turned back, there was nothing there.

There were also no feelings (no tingly or anything else) and no emotional reactions (goose bumps, or any of that) and no change in mental state.

We used to joke often about what Panama called “the companions” who he and a friend of his experienced while looking after the house for us, once upon a time.  It was a series of distinct footsteps going through the house and freaked them out, but this cloud thing was different.

There also don’t seem to be any lingering effects.  As we talked about it Monday afternoon, it didn’t have any of the “creeped out” feeling that she {still} has from her ‘teleported at nighty’ experience.  That was the one where she went to sleep on the sofa (watching TV) a few months back, and found herself awake and in bed…with no recall of how she got there.  Yeah, not that is a strange one.

The Headache Questions Explained

Thank you for all the answers to the headache questions.   My reason for asking will now be explained and why I wanted to collect some baseline answers before I rolled out the background of a rather amazing story.

The first thing I need to do is put out a disclaimer:  The following deals with religious matters and I don’t make any claims, except that I report things that come my way because I think they are of general interest.  I know a lot of people (all over the world) who are in – how to say this? – the field of light working.  So with that in mind, here’s the tale and I’ll keep this as short as I can….

The world as we know it seems to exist on two levels. There is the hard and fast Newtonian level where apples and gravity get along fine.  And then there is a not-so-firm level where intent makes things occur, where subtle energy, emotions, religions and all that “other” live.

The tale that came my way from a light worker recently comes from someone I would consider a trusted spiritual advisor.  Although this person has a different worldview/belief set than I do, I trust their integrity completely.

What the person explained, in so many words, is that over the past couple of months, they had run into 3 cases where women were beset with headaches (top/back of head) that were similar to, but different than the ‘conventional’ kinds of demonic possessions this person has dealt with many times in the past.

The assertion was that there was an alliance between certain people/humans with non-human/alien/etheric entities that had developed tools for monitoring humans that crossed the bounds of conventional physics as we know them.

In the this worldview, there was a new kind of ‘thing’ out and about that was sort of crab-like in appearance and which would wrap itself around the back of a person’s etheric head and could be used to monitor or suggest thoughts without a person being aware of it.

A quick Wikipedia quote here, since none of this etheric stuff is made up on my part:

The etheric body, ether-body, æther body, a name given by neo-Theosophy to a vital body or subtle body propounded in esoteric philosophies as the first or lowest layer in the “human energy field” or aura.^[1] It is said to be in immediate contact with the physical body, to sustain it and connect it with “higher” bodies.

The English term “etheric” in this context seems to derive from the Theosophical writings of Madame Blavatsky, but its use was formalised by C.W. Leadbeater^[2] and Annie Besant^[3] due to the elimination of Hindu terminology from the system of seven planes and bodies. (Adyar School of Theosophy).

The term gained some general popularity after the 1914-18 war, Dr.Walter John Kilner having adopted it for a layer of the “human atmosphere” which, as he claimed in a popular book, could be rendered visible to the naked eye by means of certain exercises.^[4]

The classical element Aether of Platonic and Aristotlean physics continued in Victorian scientific proposals of a Luminiferous ether as well as the cognate chemical substance ether. According to Theosophists and Alice Bailey the etheric body inhabits an etheric plane which corresponds to the four higher subplanes of the physical plane. The intended reference is therefore to some extremely rarefied matter, analogous in usage to the word “spirit” (originally “breath”). In selecting it as the term for a clearly defined concept in an Indian-derived metaphysical system, the Theosophists aligned it with ideas such as the prana-maya-kosha (sheath made of prana, subtle breath or life-force) of Vedantic thought.

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We begin the week with a very sequence of report, event, and dream that reaches out fetchingly from the World of Woo-Woo to begin the week.  Between them all, it is a most savory and piquant mix to stir the non-rational side of thought.

The Report

If you’re a woman, and in the past 3-4 months you’ve had a strange headache, please let me know.  But only if the headache was in an odd place:  At the top, center, back-of-head area.  I won’t go into the reasons just yet, because I don’t want the inquiry to  be colored by suggestibility.   BUT, if you have had an odd headache, a feeling of heaviness, a headache of 1-3 days around the top/back/center of your head, please let me know via email.

The Event

So there were Mr. and Mrs. Ure last night, about 7:15 PM, watching television.  We were looking at “Inequality for All” which I hadn’t had time to watch and Elaine wanted to watch again.

I was sprawled out in my recliner and Elaine was munching on a snack in the kitchen warming up something in the microwave…

“Can I tell you something odd?” she asked from the kitchen.  I immediately hit pause on the video because Elaine never makes remarks like that.  “Sure, what?”

“I just had the strangest experience!  I was watching the television when all of a sudden I saw a white cloud.  It wasn’t a mist…it was like a white cloud, right down to the scalloped edges.  I though ‘Smoke!’ and so I turned around to look at the microwave…thinking it was a fire, or something….and when I looked back — IT WAS GONE!”

Needless to say, we talked about it and it was definitely not smoke, Elaine’s eyes are fine, the effect was binocular, fleeting, not headaches, body ache, and no drugs, hypertension, stroke, or anything odd like that. 

Just a solid-looking “cloud” – that was white, opaque, and about as big as a beach ball at half an arm’s length.

Preceding this, I had been working on a Linux server project on one of our laptops and we had been discussing a house-sitting opportunity next month up in the northwest (which was scuttled because of long range weather charts, which was disappointing for both of us…).

But I was left to wonder about whether the “cloud” had something to do with emotional release or leftover “energy” floating around.  There was no darkness to it – pure white – so I don’t know whether it held meaning (good call on the questionable flying weather, or what?) or whether it was some other [more rational] event.

A call to a trusted spiritual advisor suggested that it was just “one of those things” but didn’t seem to have any malice associated with it and nothing similar in his experience.  I made a note to pass it along to Dr. Rob the eye doc to see if he’s heard of anything like it before, either…so we shall see…

The Dream

And then I awoke this morning from another one of my super-lucid dreams which related to an all-night debate over whether I should mention any of this weird/woo-woo stuff in the column this morning at all.

The waking image in the dream was that of watching a containership, loaded high with containers on deck, swinging its stern in toward a dock, obviously where it was supposed to unload.

Was this a metaphor?  So I decided to share this rather odd sequence of events and see what you might make of it.

If anything…but disappearing clouds are not a common occurrence in Elaine’s like, or mine.  I did suggest next time one appears that she inquire about lottery numbers.

Oh…and one more odd little coincidence:  When I had that odd/strange dream on our last trip (about the road being closed and the detour and having it all come true three hours later…)  I had some of the most delicious-tasting ham in my life for breakfast. 

So good, in fact, that I inquired and was told it was “apple wood smoked ham” and so I had Elaine pick some up at the store when she made a supply run to town a few days ago.

And what was the only “new” food that we have eaten lately?  Yes…apple wood smoked ham.

And that opens up a whole discussion on a long discussion about whether ancient food prohibitions were pure religious, or because of a lack of refrigeration (which is where I have always leaned), or now – because of events in my own life – whether certain foods, at certain points of evolution in one’s life – can encourage the kind of experience which might  freak some people out.

I may have to find some lobster and crab to continue the experiment.  I keep wondering “Is there some secret food chemistry that I might have stumbled over accidentally on our Arizona trip?  I mean I’d had lobster a day and a half earlier, before the apple wood smoked ham.  Say, you don’t suppose there are biochemical locks to higher realms that might be picked, do you?

Especially since we have been working so diligently on getting out vitamins dialed in just so….

Financial Woo for April

As long as we are running off into the Twilight Zone this morning, a note from my friend Robin Handler (Options Signal Service) about the upcoming astrological outlook is worth a look:

Hi George,

Thought you might like to share this with your readers.

As we enter April, we face the Cardinal Cross aspect I’ve written about I previous issues. Also, while calculating the cyclical reversal date for next week, I saw something that has never happened before: within a few days of the Cardinal Cross, there a multiple cyclical reversal, and one with a value of 26. I have never seen one with a value greater than 22.

Uranus S

The Cardinal Cross brings Uranus influence to a possible once in a life-time event. Uranus rules technology and aerospace. It is also associated with earthquake.

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