Fencing-Film-Newsletter---CARUSO-AND-THE-SWORD

This is the latest film I am working on that we are working on getting funding to produce it.
Feel free to donate to the cause!

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Fencing-Film-Newsletter---CARUSO-AND-THE-SWORD.html?soid=1102699471521&aid=I_borhj5E3A

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Don't chose me for your symbol

I have been monitored and watched all my life.

I have only recently shaken off the burden of being it.

It is not my goal

My life is my mine

Let me live.

Public scrutiny is worse than an audit.

Does your support of me allow you

The right to tell me how to live.

Do I count.

Yes you created me and this I am thankful for

But now you want to control me

This can never happen.

If I lose me

You lose me

If I am lost

You lose too

If This is Our Future I Need to Stay Sharp!

Am I the only person who thinks the younger people who are growing up in this digital age are totally clueless when it comes to practical skills?   Remember in the past we talked book smart vs. street smart or plain old common sense.  We, as the “older” generation learned how to use the web, blog, web design and scramble our brains to keep up.  My crystal ball tells me there will be more searches on How to Use a Hammer,  How to Change a Light Bulb, How to Change a Tire and "The Top 10 Things to Do During An Internet Outage.

A shelf fell in the kitchen and I watched one of these digital wizards struggle to figure out how to fix it and try to save the dishes that were falling.  After a couple of clicks and no success  came a desperate alt shift delete and reset. Meaning give up, walk away and leave it for tech support.  I swooped down like a super hero and saved the dishes and fixed the broken shelf.  But then again, I like thinking and problem solving and the hands-on process of fixing my cabinet or putting a table together.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not handy by any means, when I hammer a nail to hang a picture and I am umber pleased with myself. 

You can’t fault anyone for not knowing how or not knowing the answer but please try before you ask.  I laughed to myself when I had to explain how to use a cassette player. Not to record something on the cassette but to play a cassette.   Not one student thought to try to figure it out before asking me how to play the cassette?  Come on people a 4 year-old would have tried to stick the cassette somewhere in the player.  Where’s the curiosity gone?

There are so many advantages to this digital coming of age but it is up to us as parents and adults to make sure we are teaching the practical things that will help them to use their greatest resource - their minds.  We have done so much for our kids we have forgotten to teach them how to be independent adults.  Everything is not a point, click, and submit button away.  Sometimes they need to get out of the chair and DO something.

We need to do a better job of making sure our kids become more self-reliant so they do not depend on us to wipe their noses at 25.  Wait, I mean find the tissue for them to wipe their nose.  They can wipe their nose, if, we give them the tissue.

Text me! Really?

With all the technologies and knowledge at our fingertips we should have some great debates.

All the places we can visit with the stroke or strokes of a few keys.

The beauty of places we long to visit and the horrific histories of war and man’s inhumanity to man or society, all of it limited only by your desire to seek and time available.

I love looking up anything that pops in my head. Sometimes the journey to the information is more fun then finding out the benign factoid. To resist that urge to do a little more digging and fail as one another trivial fact catches my tongue. I am on another hunt for information.

That makes going out and socializing so much more fun because I will be such a well informed, up to date, in the know dinner guest, movie gore, city explorer ready to add to the conversation we all will be having at the event.   But…

What do I find, there is no conversation on current, past, future or even guess what just happened to me on the way here stories.  I get the glow of cell phones and fingers moving over the keyboards sending and receiving messages the whole time I am there.  I used to think those communications were important and once the situation was handled it would be better.   I do not have a problem if someone has to take a call they tend to excuse themselves for privacy reasons and such. 

Due to the economy I will understand someone calling to pass on a job lead and having the person take the call. But lately, we all are privy to conversations that start like this: “I am here at dinner with so and so” then they precede to have a conversation as if the rest of us are not there.  Why is that?  Have we gotten so used to having these gadgets that we forget the human contact is very important too.

People text messages of breaking up and bad news. Really?!   As if the person does not deserve the smallest of kindness of a human voice and comforting words in a time of pain and sorrow.  I have been guilty of the bad news delivery but I have left a voice mail first to say please call me.   If after many attempts at personal contact and or if the situation gets worse I will resort to a voice mail message prefaced with an apology. 

Lets face it, those messages are not easy to leave because you want or need human contact at those trying times. Texting has made us self-serving cowards.  I have heard people say I did not want to hear your voice because it was going to make me sad. Man up people.  When did we stop acting like grown ups.

It is easy to hide behind emails and text rather than focus on the person you are having a conversation. Engagement means you now have a stake or some responsibility for the conversation.

We are missing the responsibility piece in our dealings with people.  Saying I sent you a message is the new “the check is in the mail” cop out.   As if saying I only send text messages makes it ok. Text only feels like being that person who is only on the Christmas card list. If all you have is a text for me, DON’T!

Don’t get me wrong, I am not 100 years-old and I do text my friends and family but I also speak to them and see them on a regular basis too.  Love love love love technology, love it! Only it has enhanced, not taken over my communications with world.

A Poem from Loves Journey

It's TIme

Capitulating is not change

Fear is not love

Silence is not harmony

Humiliation is not revenge

Forgiveness is not conditional

Desperation is not sexy

Misplaced anger is not fair

Love is not a puzzle piece

Begging is not understanding

Instability is not a reason

Loves victims do end up in graves

Rules of love are unpredictable

Being respectful is not

Cowardice is an excuse

Cowardice is no excuse

Actions overrode your words

You did not have my back

Now you only see my back

What is your Journey

What has your Journey been?

Where has it taken you?

ABS"s

Watching a cop show dealing with drunk drivers.  They always ask the person to say the alphabet without singing it.

I tried this at home sober and by the letter D I was humming in my head and began to sing the alphabet song.  I realized I cannot do it without singing the song. Unless I do it very very slowly which is probably a sign for being drunk.  Now I am afraid to get pulled over. Will I be arrested and  go to jail?

What if they choose Mississippi? I learned how to spell that word from the little bouncing ball and cannot spell it without singing it.  So if that was the choice well……..

Clink clink    off to the slammer

Excuse me officer,  I get to make a phone call..  A  B    C   D      E