This image has always appealed to me. Unfortunately I can't find a high-resolution copy worth printing and framing.
Manyyears ago I had a past life regression. The vision that came to me was stepping off an egg-shaped shuttlecraft into a deserted field of waist-high grass. In the distance there was a single tree, and beyond that, rolling, forested hills. I was part of a galactic survey team and we'd just touched down on a previously unmapped planet. It was my first surface recon mission and what struck me was how green everything was—because apparently wherever I'd called home the vegetation wasn't green. I was dressed in some sort of white leather-like suit with a simple breathing apparatus attached to my face. As far as I could tell, I was human (or at least very human-like). I didn't actually see my face at any point, but I had two arms, two legs, and five fingers on each hand. I got nothing more from the regression than that, but it kind of shook me nonetheless.
I interpret this picture as the crew of just such a mission aboard their main starship.
If Iranian hackers want to pull off some big-dick energy shit, they should wipe out US Student Loan debt. Poof! Make it disappear. If the debt disappears, the US will lose this debt as leverage to recruit for the military." ~ Unknown
The words of a president matter. And from the moment President Trump came down that escalator, he has used his to degrade people and sow division. It's not who we are.
Back in November of 2018, about six months after acquiring a set of the classic Technics Micro Series components, I wrote of my frustration in locating the special connector that came with the preamp back in 1979 that was used to elegantly connect the preamp with the power amp and the tuner. It was, of course, possible to use regular RCA connector cables, but it was messy in comparison.
Back in 2007 when I sold my last set of Micro Series components to my buddy John, the set included one of these connectors. (If I ever thought I'd own another set of these components, I would've held onto it, knowing even then how rare these things were, but I was enamored of the behemoth Kenwood receiver I'd acquired a couple years earlier and could never see myself getting rid of it.)
A year ago John casually mentioned that he wasn't using the tuner any more—much less the connector, so I immediately asked if I could buy the connector back from him.
"Sure," he said. "If I knew where it was."
He had recently moved to a new condo and much of his "junk" as he called it, was still in boxes. I asked him every few months if he'd run across it, but he was still unpacking and hadn't seen it.
Then out of the blue last week I got a text from him that said, "Found it," and a picture:
I asked how much he wanted for this piece of Unobtainium and he replied, "Just cover the shipping."
It arrived today, and I am one happy guy.
BeforeAfter
Elegant. (I consider Technics the Apple of its day.)
This was probably the third disco album I bought after venturing out to my first gay club. (The first being Thelma Houston's Any Way You Like It and the second, Cerrone's Love in C Minor.) I'd never heard music like this before, and I was hooked.
In many ways it seems like only yesterday, and yet…a lifetime ago.
I was listening to the news this week and one of the anchors said that we needed to put the 137,000 people dead in four months into a context people can understand.
He said to imagine those 137,000 dead people were airline passengers. Losing 137,000 people in four months would be equivalent to 50 planes a week crashing, for four months, with all on board dying.
50 PLANE CRASHES A WEEK. For four months. All on board, DEAD. He said if planes were falling out of the sky at a rate of 50 per week, not only would people be horrified, but they would expect something to be done. The government wouldn't be shrugging their shoulders and acting like it was no big deal.
I thought this was a great way to put it. No one would or could ignore that. No one would call it a hoax. No one would question the "science". No one would ignore it for four months. People would want answers and they would be afraid to get on a plane until something was done.
Planes are crashing around us and no one is taking it seriously.
Grand Gallery, Great Pyramid (Pyramid of Khufu)Queen's Chamber, Great Pyramid
Grand Gallery, Great Pyramid (Pyramid of Khufu)
Entrance to corridor leading to Queen's Chamber, Grand Gallery, Great Pyramid (Pyramid of Khufu)
King's Chamber, Great Pyramid (Pyramid of Khufu)Great Sphinx and the Pyramid of KhafrePyramid of Khefre from the top of the Great Pyramid (Pyramid of Khufu)
Since I was a child, I have always been fascinated by ancient Egypt. It started one summer while at my grandparents' house when looking through an issue of National Geographic. In that issue, the disassembly and relocation of the Temple of Abu Simbel was documented, prompted by the rising waters of the Nile after the creation of the Aswan Dam. It was probably the greatest archeological preservation in history and I was captivated. I took the magazine to my mom and showed her, asking, "When did we go here?"
She tried to tell me that we had never been to Egypt, yet I remained convinced that I had visited the temple at some point. (One of the many things that have happened over the course of my life that—despite my professed atheism—makes me remain a closet believer in reincarnation).
My interest never really waned, and in fact in the mid 80s I fantasized about visiting in this life. I said I wanted to be able to see the Great Pyramid while I was still young enough and nimble enough to able to crawl around inside. I never got around to it for a multitude of reasons (most notably the unrest in the middle east and more importantly a simple lack of funds) and now, sadly, that time has long passed.
Since the height of my interest in the 80s, many new discoveries have been made, and I am now among those who believe that because of water erosion present on the Giza plateau, both the Sphinx and the great pyramids located there are much older than traditional dating would have you believe. Combined with the knowledge being gleaned of the Younger Dryas event (a meteorite swarm that hit Earth approximately 12,000 years ago) I'd go so far as to say they date from that period, if not earlier.
Furthermore, it is postulated that there was a worldwide civilization in existence prior to the impacts; a civilization as advanced as our own, yet one built on a technology that it shared many aspects of modern civilization, also possessed some wholly different and as yet un-discovered.
I mean, are we to believe the precision rock cutting and finishing found in Egypt—seen in several of the photos above (and in fact across the world, all dating from essentially the same period) was done with copper chisels?
If you're interested in going down this particular rabbit hole, all you need to do is Google Younger-Dryas and pack a lunch.
All I know for sure is that these images elicit something on a very gut level. The meanings (and I'm not just referring to the individual hieroglyphs) of all these things is so close—and yet just out of reach. We'll probably never fully understand what motivated the Egyptians, so instead we're simply left appreciating their incredible art.
If Iranian hackers want to pull off some big-dick energy shit, they should wipe out US Student Loan debt. Poof! Make it disappear. If the debt disappears, the US will lose this debt as leverage to recruit for the military." ~ Unknown
