Charles and Diana did not make it to 34, either

The dirt from my forearm
has stained this desktop into a work patina
Determined years of rest and sweat with
the advancement of scroll finger arthritis
An occasional twinge of notice
there has been nothing from you
on my screen for half of the hours
our battery wires touched before corrosion set in
The acid in the gorge between us damaged any
traditional thirty year pearl past hope of recovery

Your release of a guillotine curtain was the final act
that slammed down any remaining impressions
of whatever joy I kept in a picture frame
Aftershock fragments bounce over the skyline of the city you left
There’s only absence seen through the side mirror
It’s hard to steer away when my hands hurt
Cannot tell if it’s age or road rage
Sympathies never exchanged
after the deaths of relatives, friends
Now we are separated by light years

You constructed the wall you thought I played hide and seek behind
Blocked me out with the skills of the best defensemen
Of course there will not be a gift to celebrate how naive we were
Did we expect anything less from each other
after all this neglect and decay?
When the officiant’s seeing eye dog barked
in the office we all crammed into
I was not listening, always short sighted
Never smelt the fragrance of lilies
on that day we joked about blind justice

Some peace has been added.

Earlier this week I was fed up, and it did not have much to do with the lack of sleep. Tired as fuck of seeing the comments of friends on other posts. Tired of seeing everything they clicked like on. Tired of scrolling past all the shit I do not want to see but cannot control though facebook's lame ass privacy features.

And guess what? I do not want people to see all the crap I comment on or click like on either. We all need options.

Yes, I know when you're not paying for something you are the product, but instead of pulling the plug or being subjected to Zuckerberg's social experiment I took initiative and installed FB Purity as a browser extension. It's a neat feature than allows you to customize your feed right down to words you may or may not want to see when you scroll.

All the warnings about how it might screw up your browser settings seem to be coming from social media apologists so their cred is instantly questioned. As of now there has not been any real problem. Maybe the feed is a bit slower to download, but that's because all the crap I've filtered out is being taken out. And if anything I might want to see is disappearing, so be it. It's social media, I can live with the consequences.

The past few days have been a fresh breeze of usability. I use Chrome.

Look at the signposts.

A few months back I was asked to take part in a local art project called Sign Your Art. This project spans over a good part of Columbus on sign posts with tiles done by 64 local artists from all mediums along with members of the community. A lot of people made their own tiles at the Columbus Arts Festival.

My idea took shape quickly, forming the art took a bit of printing/shaping ability that my skilled Wife completed. The words are all mine.

The tile my work is on can be see at a signpost in front of 601 Chase Ave., on the north side of the city.

Here's a link to where all of the work is located. Columbus Makes Art, and the 64 artists who participated. Sign Your Art.

Congratulations to Stephanie Rond and Catherine Bell Smith, who did the hard work with this incredible installation.

Thank you, Van

One of the great broadcasters, Van Miller, died today aged 87. He was the longtime voice of The Buffalo Bills. His work was terrific. His enthusiasm for the game came across whether the team won or lost. Here are some of his calls for The Comeback Game.



He coined the term 'Fandemonium."

You can listen to more of his calls here.

He retired in 2003, his successor, John Murphy does a fine job as well.

Rest in Peace, Van.

A short poem for Friday

Nixon's Lunch

A simple meal
Plate of pineapple slices
topped with a dollop of cottage cheese
A glass of whole milk
served on a silver tray
Before the day was over
resignation from office
What he had for dinner
is not known

My friend tells me I have a wealth of experience, and that God will bless me

Dear Friend!

This mail may be a surprise to you because you did not give me the permission to do so and neither do you know me but before I tell you about myself I want you to please forgive me for sending this mail without your permission. I am writing this letter in confidence believing that if it is the will of God for you to help me and my family, God almighty will bless and reward you abundantly. I need an honest and trust worthy person like you to entrust this huge transfer project unto.

My name is Mr.Michael Osei, The Branch Manager of a Financial Institution. I got your contact through a reliable source called database through Ghana chamber of commerce. I am a Ghanaian married with 3 kids. I am writing to solicit your assistance in the transfer of US$12,500,000.00 Dollars. This fund is the excess of what my branch in which I am the manager made as profit last year (i.e. 2014 financial year). I have already submitted an annual report for that year to my head office in Accra-Ghana as I have watched with keen interest as they will never know of this excess. I have since, placed this amount of US$12,500,000.00 Dollars on an Escrow Coded account without a beneficiary (Anonymous) to avoid trace.

As an officer of the bank, I cannot be directly connected to this money thus I am impelled to request for your assistance to receive this money into your bank account on my behalf. I agree that 45% of this money will be for you as a foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, and 55% would be for me. I do need to stress that there are practically no risk involved in this. It's going to be a bank-to-bank transfer. All I need from you is to stand as the original depositor of this fund so that the fund can be transferred to your account.

If you accept this offer, I will appreciate your timely response to me. This is why and only reason why I contacted you, I am willing to go into partnership investment with you owing to your wealth of experience, So please if you are interested to assist on this venture kindly contact me back for a brief discussion contact me back through this address { michael.osei53@yahoo.com }

Watching Jeni's meltdown

It’s very cool to watch a business rise out of nothing but a small storefront on High Street when no one gave a shit about what went in there. The success achieved when the business expanded locally and got plenty of acclaim was amazing to watch. A business that had an A+++ rating of quality and authenticity,

This is why it is so painful to watch the horrible times that Jeni’s Ice Creams has had the past few months. I do not know if it is a fall, failure, hubris or just plain bad luck. It was a batch of listeria that was found in the manufacturing plant that was the first blow. All shops were immediately closed, hundreds of thousands of dollars in inventory was thrown out. This came right at the beginning of the warm weather season, when the business makes most of its income.

Soon after, the problem was said to have been taken care of and business resumed, albeit slowly. Pints and special flavors were not available. It was a slow buildup in inventory, we were told. But then disaster struck again, another batch of listeria was found and all the stores were shut again.

Now the company has outsourced production to Smith’s Ice Cream in Ohio, but many flavors are still not available. Scoop shops still have no pints and the company is resorting to unlimited toppings to drum up some business. And the company still cannot say when the Columbus plant will resume operations.

Another report has revealed that the FDA has found a number of sanitation issues in the plant on several occasions.

So what has happened to a brand that had everything going for it?

Did it expand too fast? Jeni’s has moved fast in Chicago, Nashville and several other markets. Have they taken on more than they can handle, and ignored the base which brought them their success? Have they gone for the brand establish and celebrity cult status in hiring a CEO instead of taking care of the basics - like properly cleaning its manufacturing plant on a regular basis? These are hard questions to ask. Having been a part of a business that was in complete turmoil I know there are a lot of sleepless nights happening. Have they lost track of their roots?

What happens next for the company? Will they rise out of the ashes of listeria and get the plant cleaned so it can stay that way? Obviously their arrangement with Smith’s will not be sustainable in the long run, there’s no innovation in that relationship. What happens when Smith’s says we have to stop this and the Columbus plant is still not functional?

Does the business shut down? There are probable layoffs happening now in the plant as employees are either being shifted to the scoop shops or terminated. Does the business get sold? A tough sell with it’s current reputation. Does the business leave Columbus, where it all started, and start fresh in another city with a clean plant?

We’re in the peak of summer season and they’re not selling chocolate. I’d say it’s a dire situation that I hope can be resolved positively, but it’s in a rough place now. I wish them all the best, but there’s a rocky road ahead.

Do my crying and my sighing laugh at yesterday

In preparation for potential changes in our living situation, my Wife has been doing a massive amount of work on the house and is to be highly commended for it. Me? I get stressed when things are moved around and cans of paint are opened. A brush in my hand is a bad idea. She painted the walls of my son's room and we tore up the nasty rugs that were in there for God knows how long.

We looked at some remnants so he can have something in there besides an ugly old blue painted floor and she'll measure for the size the room needs. We'll put a small rug in there soon.

Hard to tell his reaction to the change but it has not been horrible. His keyboard is off the floor and he's been playing with it. When I say playing I mean he puts one of the auto-rhythms on and moved back and forth to it in an A-shape.

Earlier, we danced for awhile. Really. At first I grabbed his hands and we moved back and forth, then he grabbed my wrists. When the song ended he held on to one of my arms with one hand and replayed the song with the other.

He wanted me to dance with him.

When he played another song, he started jumping up and down and I joined him in doing some light pogoing. I did not want to jump high as I know the floor leaks since the top of the refrigerator got wet when my Wife mopped the floor.

So we moved around the room, and I hung up a couple of mini hockey sticks on his wall along with his school pennant. He watched me close as I had a mini Blue Jackets pennant and was looking for a place to put it.

He helped put it up.

The weird area of social media

Yesterday I received a friend request from a person with whom I had one mutual friend. Did a little vetting on the person's page and added back. You never know what to expect when a complete stranger adds you, with no obvious reason for them to do so. It is on me that I added this person with little hesitation.

The next thing I knew I got a like on a link I posted over a week ago. I guess that's what we do when we add someone, go back a bit in their timeline to see who they are. To get a small picture of what they do. This is understandable.

Right after that the person's cover photo was changed into one of my vacation pictures. There was no thank you, no introduction, no credit given for the picture. But this person got a couple of likes, so that makes it ok, right? The person had to go into my photo albums then dig through a couple of recent ones to find that picture.

It's not like the picture is a work of art, it's not. It's not a picture worthy of monetizing, ever. I have no intention of attempting to copyright the photo. It's a Bukowski quote that is painted on the wall of a bar in Glasgow.



I recommend Chinaski's they have a great selection of bourbon, and a sweet patio in the back which is where that picture was taken.

In the past I've posted a few pictures on this blog with no credit, which is wrong and I try not to do that anymore. It does bug me that a complete stranger adds me on Facebook then takes one of my pictures with no hello or credit. If I say something directly does it make me a bad person?