Creative Endeavors, The Home of BoxcarOkie.com

June 5, 2009

Milepost

Filed under: Oklahoma,Recent,Uncategorized — ldsrr91 @ 4:06 AM
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Been a tough week here in OKC, the staph infection started on the weekend or beginning of same, and it was touch and go for awhile.  It has finally reached a point where it is livable and the medicine seems to be working just fine, except “the cure is often worse than the disease” and it has made sick as a dog daily.

First of the week found me in a monumental hassle with the folks at the DMV and that emotionally charged encounter could have gone severe at any point in time.  Government in this country, whether it be federal, state, county and or local, is clearly dysfunctional and doesn’t work. 

If it is working it is on a level one wrung up the ladder from absolute failure.

One thing did occur about mid week that I found interesting.  Creative Endeavors turned over 1.1 million in visitors, that would be since March of last year.  1,100,108.  I kind of found that interesting, numbers have been dropping off here lately (mainly because I have not been posting all that much) and the comments section has dried up and withered away.

Here are some facts or thoughts about your webpage you visit each day. 

Mostly read by women, 45% of our readership is male, and 55% of our reader base is female.  A very high percentage of our daily population consists of ladies, and they are 50+ in age.  We have a very high percentage of Black Americans who come to the site each day.

35% of our readers are in the 35-49 range, 22% are 18-24, 11% are 11-17 years old, and 3% of our reader are below the age of 12.  A full 63% of you have no children in the house from age 0-17, and 37% do have children in the home aged 0-17.

71% of the people who come here to read this are Caucasian, 18% are Black Americans, 2% are of Asian orgin, 7% are Latino or Hispanic, and 3% are other, whatever that might be?   23% are in the 0-30K per year in income, 32% are 30-60K, 28% make 60-100K, and 16% or our readership are above 100K per year.

47% have no college, 41% college educated, and 12% have finished grade school.  On average we have 3,354 page views per month here in the USA, globally speaking, that number is 4,050.  Our most popular countries are USA, Canada,  Germany, UK, and Austrailia.  Here in the USA our most popular cities are Washington DC, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles California. 

Our most popular states are Texas, Georgia and Illinois.   When we first started last year our ranking worldwide was 3.4 million or something, and last time I checked we were now down to 500,000+ something … we seem to have held on … We carved our little niche and found a place in the sun.

We recently acquired or were given a website grade of 75/100 for www.boxcarOkie.com that means that of the hundreds of thousands of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 75%, of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data, website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others. The website www.boxcarOkie.com ranks 252,679 of the 1,006,527 websites that have been ranked so far.

Google Indexed Pages: 319  This number is the approximate number of pages on www.boxcarOkie.com that have been stored in the Google index. The Google web crawler will visit the website periodically and look for new content for its index. Generally, the more pages your site has within the Google cache, the better.

Basically we are doing just fine. 

Top 28.11 % according to Alexa which is an online service that measures traffic for millions of sites on the Internet in a similar way to Nielsen television show ratings. Your website has an Alexa rank of 7,870,113 which is in the top 28.11 % of all websites in the world.  Not bad, when you stop to think about this:  “It didn’t even exist a little over a year ago.”   Like the commercial on television says …………. “You have come a long ways baby.”

Thanks gang, we couldn’t have done it without you.

Have a great weekend, we will see y’all (Okie talk) on Monday.

000

May 7, 2009

Rainy Day Blues

Filed under: Oklahoma,Recent — ldsrr91 @ 3:28 AM
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Lot of rain this week, one location received a copious biblical amount of moisture, seven inches of it in six hours, do the math, that is one soggy bottom.  Rainy days have a profound tendency to pull me down and I yearn for sunshine.  With the rain comes lightning and thunder, no internet as the cable service is down.

So I may or may not get this posted, as this is Oklahoma, and when it rains in Oklahoma, the entire world shuts down.  Please do not ask me why, because I have no earthly idea why this state simply cannot function when it rains.  Come to think about it, “it don’t do all that good in the sunshine either.”

Being shut down and locked in doesn’t fair well with me.

As I have mentioned before, I am addicted, hopelessly addicted.  I am dependent on the Internet, I need it, this is the place where I come to vent.  I used to have “Letters to the Editor” in the Daily Disappointment, but I cannot force myself to even purchase a copy of it now, even at the bargain basement price of .50 cents per copy.  Once voted “the absolute worst newspaper in the entire United States” I cannot even to this day force myself to call it by its rightful name, it is that bad.  So I am shut in today, my only avenue of solace is the CMT channel and music videos, this laptop, and a healthy disdain for my station in life, such as it might be.

Thankfully I still have cable.

My electronic salvation is still alive and kicking.  I can keep abreast of what is going on with this Miss California issue where she recently came out of the straight closet and said publicly, “Marriage is for a man and a woman.” And now is being attacked by the gay community and every cheap television critic who happened to make a dime at defending gay rights in this country.

When did it become fashionable to attack people for having an opinion that is contrary to yours?  Personally what I see is basically “tasteless commentary in nature” but not to the point of being persecuted as a lot of folks are saying.  Let’s see, they can fix my hair backstage, but they cannot marry.  I got it.

Even Brother Al Gore is being roasted over the spit of public opinion, rumored to be making a profit for trying to save the planet.  Isn’t anything sacred anymore, meanwhile the water boarders and the masochistic elected amongst us, sit back and bask in the sunshine of their well endowed government pensions.  Unfortunately the questions remain.  Why do we even bother debating whether torture is right or wrong, when the apparent answer is clear.

tax-havens

The fat cats in the nice suits, continue to gorge themselves at the public’s expense at the federal trough, loyal workers are led to the front gate and let go.  Our children go to bed hungry at night and our elderly dine on dog food because they cannot afford their prescriptions AND food.  And all the while, we worry about Miss California.

It seems to me we are kicking the wrong dogs here.

OOO

Cartoon courtesy of Center for American Progress Online.

January 17, 2009

We Did Good

Filed under: Oklahoma,Recent — ldsrr91 @ 10:10 AM
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“What’s Next?”

One of our regular readers ventured that to me after hitting the one million mark.

What is next?  Good question.


Having hit the magic One Million mark this past week, the question occurs to me what do you do to top that.  Hitting one million visitors in a little over ten months is quite an accomplishment and it certainly is a mile marker in my somewhat limited experience as a writer or a hack.  So having reached the summit of the mountain, what is next?

I have been contemplating it and searching for an answer, and really, I just don’t know.  Never having considered reaching a pinnacle such as this, it is baffling to me as to what I should shoot for now.  Internet Bloggers are a funny bunch, eh?  Out of curiosity mostly, I goggled boxcarokie.com and surprisingly there is a lot of stuff over there about Creative Endeavors.

But one thing out of all of it stuck with me, it said “BoxcarOkie’s site is a lot of fun.”  And that I thought was pretty cool, because that is exactly what it should be, a nice little watering hole that you can come to for a little respite from the lousy news outside your door.  That has always been a major concern here, that and communicating.  Perhaps you can help me out with something else I have on my mind this morning?

They say there are three ways to communicate in this world.

  1. Telephone
  2. Telegraph
  3. Tell a woman

Skyewriter over at NovemberFifth is trying to get this bloggin thing cranked up for but one more time, and it appears she has a good start at it, this is her third attempt at blogging.  She is wanting everyone to send her a comment, just a line, from all of the places in the world that receive her site.

She wants to know what kind of day you are having and what it is like where you are?  Which is commendable, first it shows a genuine interest in the planet and the Internet Community, won’t you please avail yourself of the link on this page, and just take a minute to drop by and encourage her just a tad bit more?

We never seem to understand that when we hit the “publish button” that what it is that you have on the page, goes out ALL OVER THE WORLD and that is something.  When I look at the list of countries that read our stuff, I am bowled over.  Especially the countries that are not English speaking countries, that just kind of mystifies me to no end.  We are now in the following countries:

United States  Canada  United Kingdom  Germany  Australia  Bermuda  Jamaica  Japan  Virgin Islands,  U.S.Netherlands  Mexico  Bahamas  Trinidad and Tobago France  India  Indonesia  Italy  Korea, Republic of Philippines   South Africa  Brazil   Saudi Arabia   Spain  Singapore   Israel   Barbados   Nigeria  Sweden   Norway Belgium  Kuwait   Europe  Iraq   Switzerland   Tanzania, United Republic of Kenya   Puerto Rico  Panama   United Arab Emirates  Finland  Turkey  Poland   Thailand   Greece Denmark Antigua and Barbuda Ghana  New Zealand Ireland Malaysia  Qatar   Austria   Egypt   Netherlands Antilles  Czech Republic   Argentina  Belize Pakistan Romania  Portugal  Hungary   Grenada  Guam   Chile  Oman   Bahrain  Russian Federation   Peru   Costa Rica   Ethiopia   Dominican Republic   Hong Kong  Uganda   Taiwan  Lebanon   Virgin Islands, British   Colombia  Cayman Islands   Serbia   Venezuela   Guyana  Vietnam   Asia/Pacific Region   Dominica   Zambia  Turks and Caicos Islands  Saint Kitts and Nevis    Saint Vincent and the Grenadines  Slovenia   Iran, Islamic Republic of   Lithuania   Anguilla   Afghanistan   Croatia  Jordan  Aruba  Nepal  Estonia   Botswana  Bulgaria  Slovakia   SriLanka  Senegal  Luxembourg   Bangladesh   Morocco   Honduras  Iceland  Haiti  Malta  Brunei Darussalam  Macedonia   Cote D’Ivoire   Ecuador   Latvia   Uruguay  Guadeloupe   Ukraine  Zimbabwe   Namibia   Tunisia  Benin  Algeria

Sierra Leone   Cambodia   Guatemala   Moldova, Republic of   Bosnia and Herzegovina   Bolivia   Mauritius  SyrianArab Republic   El Salvador  Northern Mariana Islands   Fiji   Nicaragua   Yemen   Gambia  China   Macau   Seychelles   Gibraltar   Cyprus Palestinian Territory Liberia Maldives Lesotho Malawi Swaziland Montserrat French Guiana Suriname American Samoa Sudan Armenia Congo British Indian Ocean Territory Rwanda Burundi Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Micronesia, Federated States of Papua New Guinea Angola Albania  The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uzbekistan Mongolia Djibouti — Last count was 170 countries.

Take a moment out of your day, where-ever you are this day, and drop this girl a line, boost her spirit a little, and add your two cents into the bowl of encouragement.  This is one of those things where you do something really nice for someone else, and just keep it to yourself, revel in the abundant joy of giving.  Even if it is as insignificant as just a moment or two of your time.

You will be surprised on how it makes YOU feel in the end.

Eugene sent me an email this week and he wanted to know “How is it that you get all of these people to come to your site?”  And I suppose there is no pat answer Eugene, but I did throw some things together for you and it is linked here.  Internet Tips. Hopefully this might answer some of your questions.

I want to take this opportunity to once again thank all of you who spread the address around, talked it up and made this happen.  I could not have done it without you.

If you have any idea’s as to where we ought to take this thing next let me know, comments section is always open.  I am going to mull it over and work my way thru it, and when I come up with something, I will let you know.

Right now I am just going to sit back and bask in the sunshine of it all and eat it up a little.  1 million visitors in ten months … That is really something gang, we did good.

See Y’all (Okie Talk), come on back Monday, we are going to kiss Bush good-bye..

000

January 13, 2009

Love Remembers

Filed under: Oklahoma,Recent — ldsrr91 @ 1:18 AM
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wild-flowersDallas is a big city, and they have a lot of places to go shopping.  Fortunately they also have a lot of Wi-Fi hotspots and I am finding it relatively easy to transmit data into cyberspace.

Like Robbin Williams in the movie “RV” all I have to is just stand on top of our trailer … Nah, I am pretty sure you are not buying that are you?

Burger King, Denny’s a lot of places have free Wi-Fi now.  The computer age, isn’t it swell?

For a refreshing change of pace, we went shopping together yesterday, the wife and I.  Strangely we found ourselves with a little extra scrilla in our pockets, we decided that shopping would be the endeavor for the day.  “Yo Mama got mad scrilla.  We’re gonna rock the mall later.” Kids refer to money as scrilla these days, if y’all aint hip, it surely isn’t my fault.

But we are talking shopping here, I digress.

Aspiring to compliment my rather attractive Seductive-Southern-style-wardrobe, I had admitted to wanting a new NASCAR Driver’s jacket, so we set out in quest of one and during the course of the day, ended up walking some five different Malls in search of this somewhat elusive item.

Or as Cup Cake is fond of saying — We Shop Until We Drop — a kind of “take no prisoners attitude that I surely do not adhere to or understand.“

Shopping for me is never that great, and I usually wear out early, the whining factor comes into play much sooner these days than it did in my younger years.  Often in complete desperation I will pull out my cellphone and have “fake very loud conversations with our non-existent children” in order to embarrass her and make her take me home.

I just don’t seem to have the stamina for it, I am not the “shop until you drop” type face it.  I don’t know what it is, but I can never find what it is that I am looking for.  On the other hand, when we do go on these sojourns into the marked down 50%-merchandise world, she will always find several items that catch her fancy.

I will search in complete desperation, every hall, every wing, every level of each mall and never find what it is that I set out to find.  Such is my burden in life to carry.

Never do I stop to realize and admit that, often, the fantasy of something different is a lot better than the reality of something different.  So, we walk and we walk, and we walk some more.  The concrete is mostly unforgiving on an old geezer like myself and late in the afternoon my hips are tired, my back isn’t doing much better and I have “attitude.”

Shopping with Boxcar is not pretty nor is it fun.

One thing amusing did occur and I feel the need to share that with you as we are all grown up now and willing to contribute to the quality of our lives.  We were leaving the first or second mall and Cup Cake looks down and she abruptly pulls me up (sort of like reigning in an old horse or a mule) and says, “Your shoe lace is untied.”

So I look down, and low and behold it is, I dutifully drop to one knee and assume the position, I proceed to put a double loop in it, and fix the errant troublemaker so that I will no longer have this problem.

Having completed my temporary stop for repairs, I start to rise, and she gently places her hand on my shoulder, and pushes down firmly and I look up, “What the —— now?“  She says, rather sternly as if she is talking to a small child, “Now do the other one.“

Which to a man is stoooooopid, why do you have to do the other one, if the other one is okay, and it was.

But doing some quick thinking I remember that I have been here before, and a “wise man never wakes his second sleeping baby just to see it smile.“  So I tie the other shoe, or rather, untie the other shoe, and then re-tie the other shoe. While I am in this position, feeling the familiar pangs of insanity coursing thru my brain, I look up at her, and I say “Darling, will you marry me here, right now at the Mall!”

And she giggles, at the same time, an elderly couple who are walking by and overhear my capricious statement stop.

The wife she smiles real big and kind of laughs and the husband offers up, “I am a preacher son, I can marry you right now on the spot!“  So I say to him, “For real?  You are an honest to goodness preacher, for real?” and again he replies in the affirmative.

I quickly get up from my one knee position and say, “Thanks for the offer Padre, but that is where all my problems began to start with!“

Four malls later, one trip to the Food Court for a round of give it to me quick and make it really greasy, we come home, sans jacket.  She however has found this stainless steel, pressure cooker thingy for the kitchen, or at least I think it is for the kitchen.  All I know it is not my color and it will not fit on the dog, so it must be for the kitchen?

One last thing and then I will leave all of you alone.

Instead of distracting yourself with thoughts of what or who would be better in your life, see if you can find a way to make the relationship you’re already in as good as it can be.

Happily married couples know that regardless of what happens in life, yesterday, last month, a couple of years ago or what might happen today, tomorrow, or next year — That Now — is the only place where happiness can actually be found and experienced.  And in some cases — it can be found at the Mall bent down on one knee.

I didn’t find the jacket, but I still got the girl, and that is all that really matters.

(If you happen across one of them NASCAR jackets this week, let me know.  I am still in the hunt for one.  Mstate?  If you see the flowers, grab your hankie.)

000

Related: Goldfish

January 10, 2009

Different Strokes

Filed under: Oklahoma,Recent — ldsrr91 @ 5:56 AM
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Please note:  As of today, right now, this moment … We are going to one post per day.

This is today’s post.


Reading the paper and it says that President Shrub and the First Lady are not going home right away after the inauguration.  They are flying to Midland Texas for a “welcome home celebration for Laura” this is her hometown. (You did notice I said it was for “Laura” and not for him)

So the cottage in Dallas is on hold for a little bit.  It is not a moving thing, as after eight years of Bush, there simply cannot be much left in Washington to take home.  It is a decorating issue.  The article goes on to say that they are not ready to move into the new diggs in Dallas as the painters have not finished up on the painting of the new residence.

Which struck me as strange, because you see I have never lived anywhere in my entire life where I had to wait on the movers, the painters, the plumbers or any other service people.  There is a very good reason for this, you see:

I am the painters, the plumber and those other service people.

Much like you, I am a Happy Home Owner and I am in charge of these responsibilities as I am not rich.  Only the wealthy are required to wait on the hired help, the rest of us do not share this luxury of life.

I am not wealthy, do not ever expect to be well-heeled as they say, and that is the name of that tune.  Having no real desire to be stinking rich, I will freely admit to aspiring to not minding smelling bad, but other than winning the lottery, I see no real hope of ever being considered rich and having to wait on a plumber or a painter anywhere at any time.

So you can see why it strikes me as odd, “having to wait on the painters” before moving in.

Same thing with flying, they fly everywhere they go, and to them it is matter of fact, “Old Hat.”  Too me it is a monumental hassle, take off your shoes, remove those nipple rings — bend over something is squeaking down there and setting the wand off!  And all of that is before we leave the house for the airport!

My wife takes this flying business rather seriously these days.

They don’t have to put up with any of that, they just get on the bird and whoosh …. Off they go.  Ah the perks of political importance and being with the in-crowd.  Flying is also very expensive, another pesky little detail that they do not have to put up with, they are flying on the cuff, the taxpayer pays for all their little junkets.

Jim Inhofe a Senator from our state is known for flying all around the world, he did close to $200,000 worth of it last year, he seems to have adopted the continent of Africa.  All of it on the taxpayer accounts and this is all they had documented, a lot of it was using military aircraft and there are no figures available for that.

Face it we are all little fish swimming in a big pond, and they are the big fish.  Well, I need to get off this jag, I am beginning to sound whiny, and I hate that when it happens.

So what is it here that is newsworthy, this Saturday morning?  As many of you know, Hillary Clinton was chosen to operate the apparatus that dropped the ball on New Years eve.  And it occurred to me, who would have been a better choice to have dropped the ball, than a Senate Democrat?

Sarah Palin says Caroline Kennedy is getting a media pass and she is upset with that.  That is news?  Sarah also has a new grandson, Tripp, or as the liberal news media calls him, “Fresh Meat.”

Barack Obama was recently named as “Man of the Year” by Time magazine, but Al Franken in Minnesota claims there might be enough unclaimed votes to support his contention of Man of the Year.

Went to Borders yesterday and picked up some new reading material:  Circumcision by Appointment, Urogential Manipulation — or life in Washington DC on the lobbyist trail.  I suppose when Bush goes home he will write one on Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation numbers or how to Bombproof Your Horse, How to make it in life after squatting down with your spurs on — I can hardly wait.

Big time shaker out on the westcoast yesterday, something like 5.9 on the Richter scale.  It was felt in Los Angeles and all the way up to San Bernardino which is an area of about 55 miles.  They say animals can detect a quake before it hits.  My dad had a weenie dog named Fritz that could do it, he knew when they were coming and he would meet us all at the front door, flashlight in his mouth, and he had already changed the batteries!


Now here is why we are going to one post per day for an indefinite period of time or the end of the world, whichever comes first.


DuckyLast week or awhile back I discovered this little duck in my front yard, don’t have a clue as to where it came from or how it got there.  It wasn’t much of anything really, just this little lost, fluffy orphan, so I brought it inside the house and placed it in the warmth of my office, right next to the computer.

I got to thinking this week, “I bet this duck has never been out of town?” (Not really, I got to thinking it has been a long time since YOU have been out of town)  So I have decided to shut it down some and get out of Dodge for awhile.

Gasoline right now is cheap and I have just sunk my life savings into my truck [My Old Hoopie] to get it in good operating order.  One of the apparent benefits of not being gainfully employed is the ability to load up your favorite duck and head out.  ATM card in hand, full tank of gas and an empty bladder, loose me on humanity and set me free!  I am a fiend for the open road, Radio Girl has been sending me all those “we are having a good time you are not photo’s” back from down south, I am outta here.

Me and the duck, no poopy, we are out on the highway, mile after mile of tortured country music on the stereo westbound with the hammer down.

In the meantime, we will try our level best to post at least one item per day (not the usual two or three) and answer comments as we can.  As we are not traveling in a multi-million dollar motorhome Like Celine Dion or Cher, with a sat. dish on top, internet service will be sporadic at best and at times, non existent.

But where there is a will there is a way.

Please play fair amongst yourselves and try not to kill anyone while I am gone.

000

January 9, 2009

Chilled Out

Filed under: Oklahoma,Recent,Uncategorized — ldsrr91 @ 1:53 AM
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waterfallto7iw2

Here is one that I evidently forgot to post, so in the Spirit of Christmas ………

Freezing cold here, if you are somewhere with “bone chilling cold” stare deep into the above picture, click your heels together three times …. Oh, hahahahaha.  What a sick puppy I seem to be early in the morn.

This morning I once again awoke to “pressing serious issues.”  Such as:  Is Paula Abdul going to be back for another year of American Idol?  And the answer is yes!   Which should relieve the fears and anxiety of about five Americans all total.

The rumors of her leaving are not true, they say she will be with the show until it’s eventual end which should be in 2012 when the Mayan Calendar runs out.  Kelly Clarkson another Idol graduate, has a new CD coming out, the title cut, “My life sucks without you.”

Now isn’t that special?  If she will cut one for George Bush that says, “How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?” I will be down there today, cash in hand to purchase it.

Here is a good read for a cold day.

The Urban Hermit (St. Martin’s Press, $24.95), Sam MacDonald, 36, reveals how he paid off $15,000 in debt, stopped boozing and lost 160 pounds.   How about a life of only consuming 800 calories a day – not exactly overdoing it in the snack department.  It’s not something people should do. They could get hurt. I believe that was the quote.  And I could have lost just as much weight on 1,600 calories a day. I had to cut everything out because give me an inch and I’ll take a case of beers.

Explaining what drove him to become an “urban hermit”?  Bills. They were driving him insane.  Don’t think you have the Lone Ranger Syndrome on that one Sam.

So how does a guy who had great parents and a wonderful education. (He graduated from Yale in 1995.) find himself living on the ragged edge of life.  When your life goes screwy, I guess there is a tendency to want to explain it.

Which brings me to this, how come I am not selling something at $24.95 at Barnes & Nobles or jumping on Oprah’s couch.  Now here is one that is really sad, “you take an extended holiday, so you ask a friend to write your blog while you are gone.  No problem, except one, “the blog actually gets better with the guest host while you are away.”  Now “that” is sad eh?

Oh well, drink a Coke and have a smile.  Anyone seen the new Coke bottles they introduced over the holidays?  Pretty cool. I can no longer drink Coke, as I am diabetic, but I bought a couple of bottles to photograph just for you … because you are sooooooo special.

dsc00183Did you know that 63% of all shopping mall Santa’s have a college degree and 29% of them are fluent in sign language.  Yeppers, it is true.  It has to be, I read it on the internet.

Here is something else that is Christmas related.  The #1 googled item on Google Christmas morning …. IHOP … International House Of Pancakes, seems no one was cooking breakfast on Christmas morning, everyone was going to IHOP, I have forgotten how many millions of hits they got, but it was considerable.

Man, I just love stooooopid criminals!

Los Angeles – A graffiti artist who posted incriminating videos of himself on YouTube has pleaded guilty to felony vandalism. CyrusYazdani, 25, was recorded spraying his moniker “Buket” on buses, bridges and overpasses. He pleaded guilty to 32 counts of vandalism and was sentenced to 314 days in county jail, 256 hours of graffiti removal and five years of probation.

Talk about a traumatic youthful experience.

Columbia South Carolina – Police said two robbers shoved an 8-year-old inside his home at gunpoint and stole his Christmas presents. The boy’s mother said the men grabbed her son as he walked to his bus stop, pushed him inside their home and took his PlayStation and four games. She said they also took her wallet and cellphone, her uncle’s wallet and a pair of pants.

All the news is not bad, there is a ray of hope in all of this.

Joplin Missouri – An anonymous donor dropped five cashier’s checks for $10,000 each into Salvation Army kettles at two Wal-Mart stores. It’s the fifth straight year someone has given $50,000 to the Salvation Army without taking credit. The remitter identified the giver as “Santa Claus.” Capt. Jason Poff called the contributions “tremendous” in light of the economic downturn.

Say what you want, but it appears that Arizona is truly a fun place to live.

Tempe – A group of Santa impersonators are on the naughty list of law enforcement officials. A YouTube video shows four people dressed as Kris Kringle, white beards and red hats included, covering speed and red light enforcement cameras with boxes and decorating them with Christmas wrap.

At the end of the video is the message: “Ho, ho, ho! Death to the surveillance state! Free movement for all people!”

If and when I ever decide to move from OKC, I am heading for Arizona.

000

I Have Issues

Filed under: Oklahoma,Recent — ldsrr91 @ 12:03 AM
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I have issues — You’ve got issues —

We’ve all got issues.

No one is “normal.”  If you know someone who is normal, then most likely that “normal” person is the most boring person on the face of the earth.  They probably watch a lot of CSPAN2 and listen to Creed when they want to rock out.  And, they probably have more issues hidden away than anyone.

Face it … We’re all freaks with issues.

The trick is finding that special someone whose issues compliment your own.  I have more issues than I know what to do with.  I have to keep my issues filed alphabetically in a giant, metal cabinet in one corner of the garage just to keep track.  I have issues with WordPress.com and some of the features not working.  Their apparent reluctance to fix some glitches in this new stuff.  Not answering email or inquiries.

Like I said, “I have a system to deal with all this.”  Unfortunately, this system doesn’t always work though.  Often I forget I have a fear of commitment and actually get a email from someone who genuinely likes me, only to be reminded of it when updating my files.

Oh there’s more.  I often feel the need to make a joke out of everything.  I was once was escorted out of a theater during a screening of “Shindlers List.  I really laughed hard when the Brontosaur’s Rex or whatever it was ate the lawyer who was sitting in the outhouse in Jurassic Park.”  I am sorry I just found that so amusing. Just like this, I saw this and I just cracked up, but my wife says it is not funny.

Overcoming Social Shyness.

(Thanks to Bits & Pieces.com who often brighten my day)

Terminally emotionally afflicted, I am kind of insecure, yet at the same time I think I am the coolest thing in the room.  I’d think that even if Beck and/or Ashley Judd were in the room too.  Also, I am addicted to “talk show” television and rarely go without one day without my Oprah or Dr. Phil and my other favorites.

To be totally fair, I am not all that sure that this isn’t more of an addiction than an issue.  Take George Dubya Bush, I don’t believe I am ever going to like that guy and I know I am never going to leave him alone.

We can be sure there are probably more serious issues than Bush and WordPress.com that I could be divulging, like the fact that I am willing to share my issues on some stupid webpage for the entire world to see.  Freely willing to spring them on the next unsuspecting poor soul that happens to wander over here.

From what has been transpiring around the nation here lately, it appears that a lot of people are truly experiencing pain dealing with their issues.  And unfortunately the media gleefully has no problem showing the rest of us, all of them, secret or not, embarrassing or not.

“Can you tell me Senator, why it is you have controlling-mother issues and therefore find yourself tapping your feet in the bathroom stall?”

“Why is it after making your first movie you decided to tell the rest of the country that you are a chronic bed-wetter and have a serious aversion to Grey Poupon?”

“Madam Speaker … How can you describe something as fake, silicon, saline, or otherwise augmented as air bags?”

People are so prone to just putting their issues out there and allowing the rest of us to deal with them.  For instance a T-shirt that reads, “Wanna score with an old geezer?  Ask me how.” I am sorry, but that is an issue I would rather not deal with.

And then there is the “entitlement issue” that seems so prevalent in today’s society.  I cannot stand people who think their issues entitle them to some sort of special treatment.  I am not talking about serious psychological conditions that require medication like Prozac to deal with life.  I am not suggesting that people with multiple personality disorders or manic depression just need to “deal with it.”

What we are describing here is all these stupid issues we all carry around like insecurity, fear of commitment, daddy-never-loved-me-so-I-irritate people on the Internet a lot, and so on.    It’s so unfair!  I didn’t get the job because I am not pretty … C’mon.

What I am saying is we all have issues, so we can’t really expect everyone to adjust to our issues.  No one is going to walk up and say, “Do you need some help carrying that emotional baggage?” because most of us are too overloaded with our own.

Everyone needs to deal with his/her own issues, which in many cases, aren’t really that damn important in the long run. A great many folks experiencing issues with Mr. Obama right now … Before him it was Hillary … Before that … Bob Hope, Reagan, The Beatles, Tom Cruise and Britney’s underwear … It is always something.

We, as a society need to rub some dirt on it, take a breath, and walk it off.  Like me for instance, “I seriously need to learn how to deal with this wordpress.com crap and spare the rest of you the details.”

My, my, look at the time.

Once again gang … It is time to close, thank you for allowing me to share this time of semi-hysterical consciousness, this irritating period between naps, with all of you.

Hope it wasn’t too awfully painful.

000

January 1, 2009

Outside the box

Filed under: Oklahoma,Recent — ldsrr91 @ 12:16 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

new-year

Two-Thousand and Nine

I never thought I would live this long, yet alone, be here to see it happen. It came like a thief in the night, and because I am an old geezer, I slept right thru it. So I now have my disposal, a completely new year (which is better than last year, all I got last year was less than nine months) to devote to the ever-evolving bastardization of the written and spoken language and cultural idolization of celebrities and politicians in America.

Yes, it is a tough job, but someone has to do it.

A totally New Year … I am as always over joyed. I can now make fun of people who use expressions such as “Aw, snap, son. Check ou the fine-ass sho-tee rockin’ all dat ice.” Which translates to: “Hello, my good sir. Take a gander at the beautiful woman wearing the expensive jewels.”

I can continue to cover the political scene as it unravels the fabric of American Society with such wonderful quotes as: “It’s time to put on the brakes and move ahead.” Iowa Democratic primary gubernatorial hopeful Michael Blouin, during a debate. Dan Quayle may be gone, but the fields are still ripe and the glean is good.

Believe it or not, you are currently reading one of the “fastest growing wordpress.com blogs” there are. And by the grace of Father Time and a paid up subscription to WordPress.com/Internet providers, we have been allowed 12 more months for our particular brand of insanity. Who says there isn’t a God? Now we can continue the practice of giving you all the latest statistic’s on the not so important things in life.

Stuff like: “According to a survey, 85% of men admit they surf the Internet wearing nothing but their underwear. 63% percent state that is how they lost their last job.” Or comments such as “Thanks to the Internet, I had my identity stolen a few months back, but I didn’t notify anyone about it, as the Cyber Criminals were spending less on my Credit Cards than my wife.“

12 more months of giving you an alternative to the news. “Here are ten more things that are really going to upset you and p*** you off … film at eleven!” Live, Local, Late Breaking …. And it is not going to be good. The news in 2008 was so downright bad, it made me so paranoid, I actually installed a rear-view-blind-spot- mirror on my stationary bike.

If it were not for the comments section of Margaret & Helen I would have most likely went completely bonkers.

I just finished reading another email missive on the banking crisis and once again the news is dismal, very dire, and I find myself perplexed, and anxious.

New Year or not. I just wish it would all go away, I feel as if I am being sucked into it, I did not create this mess, I am not responsible for it, and I should not have to cope with it on a daily basis. That is how I feel about it.

A New Year to talk about the current state of things in the economy which always has me deeply concerned. I used to laugh and make fun of old age, saying things such as “Be kind to your kids, they are the one’s that pick out your Rest Home” and making light of it all. But it has gotten so damn bad in this country, now it is looking like “Hey, let’s drive Grandpa down the Interstate a ways, and leave him in the rest area.”

Not very encouraging any more y’know it.

It would be much better for me, my life in general that is, if I could just come in here early in the morning, sit down with my fresh cup of coffee and my little pile of banana chips, and write about having a nice day. But the well-known “Have A Nice Day” has just died off, it has been replaced with “Hope You Have A Good One?” — “Ýou don’t like the price. Go somewhere else.” – “You owe me two more pennies.” — or something like that.

Just like finding a good Home Depot or Star Bucks that is still open — There aren’t many nice days around anymore, face it.

Happy New Years … Here we go, 1 million hits by March 12th, 2009 … Tell all your friends, I have already told mine, all three of ‘em.

000

December 6, 2008

I Don’t Get It

Filed under: Oklahoma,random,Recent,Uncategorized — ldsrr91 @ 4:40 AM
Tags: , , , , ,

bloggerbuttonsHaving just finished, no correction, “having just tried” to read 7,864 words on “Why John McCain, having been born in Panama is considered a U.S. Citizen”

I have to admit.  I just don’t get it.

Why does anyone in their right mind devote some 8,000 words to a subject as benign as this, and why does anyone bother to attempt to read it?

On top of that, this site receives all these awards for “being the best of the best” blah, blah, blah in 2008.

I mean really.

What is with this almost maniacal obsession with links or hits, it really doesn’t necessarily transcend to “good reading” (if you don’t believe that, then look at what you are reading right now, this very moment … I rest my case.) and often despite this hit count, there isn’t much there.

Most of the opinions I have been reading here lately, frankly, lack any sort of justification at all.  Almost as if it has reverted to “school yard bullying” or something like that.  Naner, naner naner, I have anon email, you can’t touch me.

Why anyone would attempt to do this (blog on a regular basis) is beyond me to begin with.  It is simply too big, too impersonal and it lacks any kind of intimacy or friendship potential in most cases.  The pressure of trying to claw your way to “the top” or get the maximum number of hits possible in a given time period is daunting to say the least.

Word to the wise:  “If you want to be miserable and unhappy doing this, just set your goals so impossibly high that you will never achieve them.”  That should do it.

Yesterday I received for instance, 19 messages from a girl wanting me to link her to this site.  She said that she had been reading it for quite sometime and finally had gotten up the courage to comment on it and went on and on.  But she never had commented anywhere that I know of. I get emails every day, people wanting to latch onto my star, link my blog to your blog, and together we will change the world sort of thing.

Because of the high visitor count.

But it doesn’t work that way, and b’sides if you are a regular reader, you would notice that I don’t do the blogroll thing anyway. It takes more than just suiting up for the game, showing up, it takes an incredible amount of time and energy to do this, most people would not want to even try.

Sitting in the garage, doesn’t make you a car … This takes a lot of work.  Linking up with someone else is fine,  and you might be successful in getting people to come to your site for the first time initial visit, but you have better have something there for them to read, when they do get there.

In my neck of the woods, you don’t invite folks over to supper, without having something on the table for them to eat, it just isn’t done.

As I stumble around in the mornings, fully charged with my daily ration of caffeine and read the blogs that are out there, it seems to me that most of them are so polarized and so filled with haters hating everyone and everything, that is hardly worth the trip on most days.

My circumstance may or may not be different; I didn’t set out to write a blog.  I set out to find a place to store my stuff, writing each day I had to find a place to put it and this seemed liked the right choice at the time.  At that juncture in time, I was literally choking too death, my high school alumni page at MyFamily.com and something had to give.  So I brought it over here to WordPress.

And the Creative Endeavors portion of it sort of morphed itself into a blog.  Writing for some 4 years a Union Paper I felt a void in my life, when I retired and that I needed to continue to write, so this was born.  Here it be in all its splendid glory, as they say in the Blogsphere or whatever catch-phrase they are using this week:  “Updated 24/7 a week.  Visit us daily at www.boxcarOkie.com” or something like that.

I am not good at maintaing a Facebook profile, I don’t know how to manage MySpace and other social networks, so I do this.  Recently a friend of mine invited me to do the “twitter thing” and I went over there, and just like the piece is entitled … I just didn’t get it.

I am going to bed now … I am back from the bathroom now … I just finished picking my nose ….. Huh?

The need to recreate the raw, immediate and intimate feelings of my life, are just not there.  If I have a Twitter it is because something is wrong in my medicine or I need to turn up the heater.  I am also by nature, not a mean, spiteful, vindictive sort of individual so a lot of places I just flat out, don’t fit in.  I mean I can be a “real sweet man, or an awful mean baby” but do you really need to sit through 7,400 words to find that out?

Does that complete your life … I-don’t-think-so-dot.com

Nearly every newspaper, radio and television channel now runs blogs and updates them faster than any individual blogger ever could. I recently started posting on an outfit called Allvoices.com in order to reach a bigger audience.  Instant news.  Over 100,000 links.  Look at Margaret & Helen, a site that virtually talks about “nothing” most of the time, but incredibly has over 52,000 links.

Amazing.  Both filling a need, and a niche.

So I guess that blogging is useful and versatile. In some cases extreme social interactions also occur.  Which is the part I am not all that fond of personally, the hate speech, the vitriol.  But as I said before, I don’t have all the answers, and most of the time I have forgotten the questions.

As my wife would be quick to tell you … Half the time, (a good 50% or better) I just don’t get it.

000

November 12, 2008

Eight Months

Filed under: Oklahoma,random,Recent,Uncategorized,writing — ldsrr91 @ 4:38 AM
Tags: , , ,

EIGHT MONTHS – 60,000 HITS

As Jackie Gleason used to say …. How sweet it is!

Today is our 8 month of putting out this sorry little rag … How about that.  Strangely, it is kind of ironic, the first post I put up on WordPress was after I had read some “English Professors” blog somewhere back east.  He was all hopped up about his hitting the 50,000 mark and I foolishly made this rather glib comment about it in an article.  Then ever more foolishly, not really knowing what I was doing, I published it.

Boldly I asserted, it is not in the numbers of viewers but the quality or the article that is important.  Because you see, on my first day of doing this, as is today, “I just knew it all.”  And I had no earthly idea as to where this all went, how it went, and who saw it.  Well … He saw it, Mr. Professor Man, and he came back looking for you know who.

Soon there after, I got a rather terse message on my site that said ……… “Now that was depressing.”  I had just posted it, he had read it, and I was taken to task about it. I learned rather quickly how things work, and of course, how to “edit.”

We hit a milestone today, this is our eight month, devoted to this wacky world of what have you, fun and designed mayhem.  It has been enjoyable, frustrating, tiring and believe it or not, worthwhile.

It has been a good run and I am optimistic about the future.  There remain all manner of areas, issues, avenues for us to explore.  If you cannot find something to comment about (talk about) on this site, then I don’t know what to tell you.  We box the compass on this rag, we take a poke at it all.

Eight months ago, I cautiously walked through the front doors of this joint, registered and went after it.  (Electronically speaking of course)

I was quickly introduced to the world of widgets, sticky pages, categories, tags, you name it.  Like some kind of street urchin, I stumbled around and eventually found my way.  With a lot of help along the way, it sort of came together, this thing we call Creative Endeavors.

Remarkably, despite it all, we survived and have thrived, grown, we are coming of age in this new internet world.  In this short time span Creative Endeavors has put out a considerable library of items, some amusing, some soulful and heart rendering, some them outright just hack you off.

(I like those, they are my favorites)

Every now and then, we ring the  bell, we hit the home run.  Kind of like my dentist, he gets this special thrill out of hitting the nerve with the Novocain needle.  When he does that, and I like to come out of the seat, he laughs and says “Oh, I got it!” As if he had just won a blue ribbon at the county fair for his hog or won the lottery.

17,485 visitors yesterday, an all time high record day.  60,000+ viewers as of this morning and they are not all just flocking to Baracks House, some are sticking around, browsing the archives and reading the stuff.  Which is encouraging, ’cause we put out a lot of stuff.

533 total posts so far, an 83% website grader score out of a possible 100.  Approximately 3,000 links each day, and we are all around the globe.  Which is great … This way the WHOLE WORLD can see that all of America is NOT like Bush & Cheney, that we still have some fun people, honest people left here.

Out of all this we have garnered 500 comments, actually 533 but some were deleted because they lived too far away for me to drive over and spank them.  All and all, most everyone has been congenial, warm and friendly, and that is our goal, that is what we strive for.  So in a nutshell here is how it breaks down:

Google Page Rank: 5 <><><> Inbound Links: approximately 3,300 <><><> Numerous RSS feeds <><><> Google Indexed Pages: 746 <><><> Traffic Rank: Top 11.41 %

Alexa is an online service that measures traffic for millions of sites on the Internet in a similar way to Nielsen television show ratings.  Creative Endeavors has an Alexa rank of 3,504,552. which is in the top 11.41 % of all websites.  We started out at 5 million and some change.

Not too shabby for something that could be considered an infant in the space of website time something that did not even exist a mere 8 months ago.

Thanks gang, I could not have done any of this without you.

000

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