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Fucking agents really are some greedy fucking sleezeballs. If they can't get in, they'll find a way to ensure the best players buy their 3rd wife fake tits and a Mercedes.

I support paying college athletes. Let them sign deals. And maybe withhold their claim to any financial benefits while playing collegiately. Then when they are no longer enrolled they can claim all the money they've accrued. If the NCAA and Electronic Arts can profit off they're likeness royalties seem reasonable. 

It's 7 in the morning. The hills, mountains, and trees outside my place are covered in thick fog and mist. The old Taoist union of Heaven & Earth. In the foggy hills somewhere are elk. Sometimes you can hear them. Our cars outside are covered in water, as if it rained, even though it didn't. 

I miss Cali though. Little things. Like being able to get a hot bowl of Pho early in the morning, just by driving around the block. Out here, in the rural side of Coastal Oregon, you have to drive 2 hours up to Eugene to get Pho. And oddly, they serve pho after 11AM... maybe that's the time when White people eat pho? We eat pho or hot noodle soup in the early morning. 

Out in Cali, in San Gabriel Valley, there are these traditional Chinese restaurants, hole in the wall places, that serve only rice porridge. They are opened from after dinner time until 1AM in the morning. Our family used to drive to SGV at 12AM to grab a bowl of rice porridge. They serve you a small bowl of the porridge, cooked with some pieces of yam. And along the side, are the foodstuff you eat with the porridge, like veggies cooked in soy sauce, etc. I'll never have that experience again.

I suppose there are pros and cons to living in a small town of 3000 people, out in the beautiful countryside, surrounded by rainforests, lakes, and rivers. Out in Cali, in any city, its easy to order a pizza from Dominos [my favorite]. Out here, in such a small town in the middle of nowhere, there is no Dominos. Oh well.

One thing I find strange about Oregon, at least the parts I have been to, is that there is only one chain of grocery store out here: Safeway. Safeway in Cali is Albertsons. That's it. It's just Safeways everywhere. But there are the Walmarts that sell groceries and a competitor of Walmart called Fred Meyer which also sells groceries [they have the best, plumpest cherries]. 

I've only been here for 3 months, and so I've only experienced one season out here, which is summer. At night, summer temps drop to about 45ish and during the day, temps rarely exceed 70. We live out by the seaside, which gets a lot of marine layer and cool/beautiful fog. There is one town near us called Winchester Bay we make fun of, because its like it always has a dark cloud over it. It's always foggy and cloudy in Winchester Bay.

It's Trump Country out here. 95% of the population is White and Republican. There are Trump flags everywhere. Many cars have stickers and flags that say "Trump Won". 

I saw one Black guy. At first I was shocked to see a Black person out here. He looked really out of place. He works at a local store, I sometimes go to, on my way back home. Nice fella. 

I've seen a few Mexican families here and there. Out here, Mexicans are quite and stick to themselves, and they speak English. I haven't seen any Mexicans into Santeria or any other Afro-Cuban religion. I have a feeling that I'm the only one out here, within a radius of 100 miles that is initiated into Palo Mayombe. 

I told my Palo Godfather about my new hometown, and how its all forest and lakes and rivers. And like how there are deer and elk everywhere. Being a Palo priest, he got excited and said to me: "Wow! Elk. What you do is cut one of their heads off, and cut the top half of their skull off to keep the antlers for your nganga!"

Being in the countryside, we get a lot of roadkill! Mostly deer that got hit by cars. Out in Cali, it's illegal to take roadkill home. Out here, you can take roadkill home. I saw a man dragging a huge dead deer into the back of his pickup truck. We also get raccoons that get run over. And sometimes some crows and hawks and vultures that get smashed by cars. As soon as I get situated, I'll be collecting dead animals like I did out in Cali, for my future nganga. I've learned to cure them so they don't rot. When we moved from Cali to Oregon, I moved all of my dead animal collection with me. I have them stored in a storage unit... it smells inside my storage unit like a bunch of dead animals. 

It's my day off. The three of us are driving way out to Eugene to get some pho. The best pho is at a place called "Pho The Good Times." 

Do you have to compete with mountain folk taxedermists? 



Until this point I was convinced you were a Vietnamese Buddhist.  How'd you end up practicing a West African folk religion/Christianity hybrid? That's a lot of faith in those practices. A lot of Atman-Brahman. A lot of "the voices of the spirits talk to me". 

That's fairly aghori-style Vamachara in any case. Do you fear the locals suddenly thinking and spreading that you're all voodoo witches in legion with Satan? They might still burn you at the stake.  Christians tend to associate anything from the Caribbean as "In legion with Satan". What's your version of Ellegua called? Do you have a "crossroads" entity? A St. Anthony that acts as an emmisary to the world of the dead?  

It's so funny, because the other day, I was driving around and actually saw a shack or small building with the words "Local Taxidermist" painted on it! And there are one or two guys out here who look similar to that Simpsons cartoon character.

I'm a registered Republican and pretty conservative, to an extent. I actually feel more comfortable here; less irked by liberals and leftists. The leftists usually keep themselves concentrated in Portland and Eugene. There is a movement where all of the rural counties in Oregon are wanting to break off of Oregon [the Capital of Portland being a hotbed of insane Leftists and Liberals] to join Idaho. 

I'm not actually Vietnamese. I like Vietnamese food though. My mom is a mix of Thai-Chinese-Indian [Hindi]. My biological dad is Mexican of Portuguese descent. 

There are friends and friends of family on my Mexican side who are into Santeria. I had read about Santeria in a book to learn more about it when I was 16. And I knew a Santero at that age who owned a local Botanica down the block from my old house in The Valley. There was a chapter in one of the books on Santeria I had read that talked about the "Dark Side of Santeria," called Palo Mayombe. And so, ever since then, I wanted to get into Palo. 

I'm not into Santeria myself. It's too new agie and gay these days. Too religious, where everyone constantly talks about the Orishas all day long and worships statues of Los Santos. Santeria originally came from Nigeria, having been brought to Cuba by the Nigerian slaves. 

Palo [properly called Las reglas de Kongo] originally came from the Kingdom of the Congo, having been brought to Cuba 600 years ago by the Kongo slaves. 

And so Santeria [Las reglas de Ocha] and Palo are two different things, different cultures, different religions. There was in very ancient times when Vodu of Western Africa, Orisha-ism of Nigeria, and Nkisi-ism [the ancient ancestor of Palo] of the Congo came out of the same single animistic "religion." I wrote about how modern Vodu, Santeria [and related sects such as Candomble and Umbanda], and Palo are related [distantly like how second cousins are related] to each other HERE & HERE.  

The problem with talking about Palo is that 1) there are 4 major branches [Ramas en espanol; roughly: denominations] where each Branch has its own beliefs, traditions, culture, and practices & 2) The Cubans and Puerto Ricans do their Palo very differently. So different, that Cuban Paleros and Puerto Rican Paleros don't get along and often engage in "spiritual wars" with each other. 

My Godparents are Puerto Ricans. So the way they practice and teach Palo to us is the Puerto Rican way, and not the Cuban way. The Cuban way, is when they mix and merge or blur Congolese Palo with Nigerian Santeria. Generally, in the Puerto Rican way the two are kept separate: Nigeria is Nigeria and Congo is Congo; two different races, two different ancient cultures, two different religions, two different languages. 

Some of the branches of Palo are also mixed. The four main branches [there are a host of small branches] are [from most populous to the one with the least membership population] are 1) Palo Briyumba, 2) Palo Monte, 3) Palo Kimbisa, & 4) Palo Mayombe. Unfortunately in general talk, everyone calls the whole religion of Palo as "Palo Mayombe." This is incorrect and is like calling all of Christianity "Catholicism," or all of Buddhism as "Theravada." 

Of the 4 main branches, Palo Monte [the most popular in Cuba] is the one that is the most mixed with Santeria. That's the branch that has a 1 to 1 correspondence of Orishas [Santeria] and Mpungos [Cubanized and Deified Kongo spirits]. Palo Kimbisa is mixed with some Santeria and some Voodoo. Palo Briyumba has very little mixing with Santeria. And Palo Mayombe proper is not mixed with Santeria in anyway; it is considered "pura Kongoria," meaning not mixed with Santeria or Catholicism. 

I got initiated into Palo Mayombe proper. All branches of Palo developed out of Mayombe proper; like how all branches of Buddhism evolved out of Theravada Buddhism. 

And so, because my Palo House and Palo Godparents are 1) Puerto Rican & 2) Mayombe proper; I'm not very savvy savvy with how spirits in Palo correspond with the Orishas and Catholic Saints. 

I think in Palo Monte and Cuban Palo, Eleggua is equated with an Mpungu named "Lucero" in Spanish. 

In Mayombe proper we don't use Spanish, we use Congolese or Bozal which is a slave creole of Congolese and bad Cuban Spanish. We call "Lucero" in Mayombe proper as "Nkuyu."

In Cuba, Lucero, via the branches that are heavily influenced by Santeria, is the pretty much the same as Eleggua, who is the "crossroads" spirit, who is the intermediary between the living and the dead, the gods and the mortals. He's the opener of the Way, the initiator, and so on. 

Nkuyu, traditionally [according to Kongo Culture] is not a crossroads spirit. Nkuyu in Kikongo simply means "phantom/ghost." Nkuyu is said to live in the tree tops and appears as a light that flies around. 

Traditionally, the Mpungu [Kongo word] or Mpungo [Spanish neologism influenced by santeria to mean the same thing as Orisha] are not gods or deities. Although Mpungo today means "deity." 

Traditionally, an "Mpungu" meant two things: 1) a Force of Nature & 2) a Fetish statue of any kind.

Traditionally, the several known Mpungu in Palo actually are not African gods but are instead named Genius Loci of places important to the olden Kongo slaves in the Cuban landscape. 

For example the Mpungu called "Nkuyu" who's name means Phantom, developed his mythos and myths/legends during slave times. Back in those old days, slaves would run away from their plantations. They'd wander in the Cuban forest into the mountains. At night, in those forests they would often see ball lightning and plasma balls around the tree tops. The slaves believed the ball of light was a spirit guiding them to safety and freedom. And so the ball of light was called "Nkuyu" back then, and eventually came to be called Lucero - from the Latin root Luc/Lux meaning Light - by other Kongo tribes. 

Another example is the Mpungu called Nshola Wengue in Kongo or Mama Chola in Spanish. Mama Chola is equated with the Orisha Oshun and has thus been deified into a Goddess of Love and Sex/Sensuality. 

Originally, Nshola Wengue or Mama Nshola was the name of a sacred river important to the runaway slaves back in olden Cuba. Nshola in Congolese means "River."  

You are right though, essentially, Palo has a lot of atman-brahma stuff to its ontology. Brahma/God in Palo/Kikongo is Nzambi. Nzambi is a pantheistic god: everything that exists in Nzami; me, you, dirt, plants, maggots, rocks, clouds, stars, everything. 

In Mayombe proper we pay special respect or homage only to two things: Nzambi and Malongo Yaya [meaning Mother Earth]; which in essense are the same thing, because everything about the earth and physical world is a physical manifestation of Nzambi. 

In Mayombe proper, the actual intermediary between the world of the dead [Kalunga/Mpemba where the bakulu/ancestors live] and the world of the living is the nganga [or actually the spirit that lives in the nganga]. 

So, because everything is Nzambi, you collect stuff like dead animals, rocks, dirt, sticks [palos] and put it into a pot. The pot [the nganga] is the "altar" and presence of Nzambi. The nganga in Mayombe is the center and core of the whole religion and tradition. You feed it animal sacrifice. You initiate people with it. It's such a unique and weird animistic religion that it is beautiful. 

But yes, many spiritual beliefs of Palo, whatever branch does not go well with Buddhism. My Godparents said it was okay and encouraged me to retain my ancestral religion [Buddhism]. 

Buddhism is cool, as a school and culture of thought and articulation, but many aspects of it are crazy. Like for example, there is a story in the Tipitaka that talks about how the Buddha built a magical stairway made of 33 steps that linked the earth with the upper realm and so on. 

Both Buddhism and Palo are cool in their own ways, but they also both have their large share of superstitious beliefs and practices. As a Traditionalist and Culturalist, I see such things like Buddhism and Palo as living Traditions that should be conserved and preserved as is, even if there are elements to them which I disagree with. They each have interesting and useful aspects. 

The locals here don't know I'm into Palo or even Buddhism. I don't wear anything to display my religious affiliations; except my ONA rings. But you're right, everyone here would think it was voodoo.

Yeah, Wikipedia paints it as a West African diasporic religion akin to Santaria. I just assumed it was a similar lineage and hybridization to all the New Orleans and Domincan Repulic ones.  And now I've learned otherwise. 

I don't how you do it. It's awesome that your way is so rich with tradition but my mind would implode to try so myself. 

An example would be: 

Person wants seemingly impossible occurrence to happen. The type reserved for the select few who become famous. A lofty unrealistic goal. 

I can't get that extra confidence from a magical cauldron.  I could get it more from a crowdsourcing site or go fund my project type page. Real things that produce real results. I have tried adding that extra bit but it raises the blood pressure to use any thing spiritual. And I can't get myself to think it gains power from an "unseen controlled influence". I know I miss out on EVERY occult thing you can initiated into, but it's completely inauthentic to pretend it doesn't just piss me off. Seriously, even the act of thinking it might be beneficial to use superstition crosses wires and makes me go all Rainman missing pancakes on Tuesday. 

Even the craziest thing I ever thought was based on getting a real life confirmation way out of coincidental chance to occur. One so unlikely I fell or an obvious, and pretty damn good trick. And I will hand it to that person for their unorthodox tactics.  Still at no point could I make a determination beyond "someone" was putting me on. And even something like faith (with flimsy things to go on) still ended in burnout. So that's over and now I'm in "consequence of irresponsible stupidity recovery mode".  Sigh. 

I've always liked culture, always been interested and fascinated with other people's cultural observances. Culture is what makes us actually human in two ways: 1) consider feral children & 2) Culture influences genes.

And so, I like having a lot of different cultures and traditions in my brain. They often conflict an contradict each other. My Palo Godfather explans this phenomenon best, since he is both a Santero and a Palero. He said to me: "Santeria is Santeria. Palo is Palo. Two different things. Palo has nothing to do with saints and deities. You got your Santeria hat and your Palo hat. When you wear your Santeria hat: you're a fucking Santero, you do Santeria shit, you see the world with Santeria lenses. When you wear your Palo hate: you are a Palero, you do Palo shit, you see and understand the world from a Palo perspective. But don't ever wear all those hats at the same time: or you will look fucking crazy! If you wear your Buddha hat: you are a Buddhist, and when you wear your Palo hat you are Palo. Don't mix the two or you will get confused."

So it's like having different pairs of shoes: hiking shoes, steel-toe boots, and high heels. They are different and contradict each other in function and look, but you don't wear all of them at once. If you want to go hiking: you wear your hiking shoes. If you going out for the evening: you wear your heels. 

Having different religions inside your brain helps you see and understand the objective world from actual different angles and with different cultural and memetic lenses. You can look at one Thing from a Buddhist perspective, then switch your mind and see that same thing from a Satanic point of view, then switch your mind and apprehend that same thing from a Palo view point. And you use what insights and data you gather to gain a bigger picture of how Reality works: because those of us who are intelligent understand that Reality [the world] existed long before humanity invented religion and gods. 

The Objective World can only be indirectly known and understood by our human mind through Language/Thought. And unfortunately, our memes, beliefs, gods, culture, etc influences and colors our language and defines our words and thoughts. 

I wish people in general had a habit of tracing the origin of things, like ideas, words, myths, legends, gods, and so on. It would make thing a lot better, where people would come to understand thing more objectively. 

For example, if we pray and sacrifice animals to Mama Chola [the Cuban Palo goddess of love, sex, and sensuality], and we ask Mama Chola o bring us a person we desire, will our magic or prayers work? Would a spirit named Mama Chola give us what we ask for? 

The simple answer to that question is in the Ontological Premise: the premise is that it is believed that Mama Chola is a spirit being. Therefore: praying to and appeasing that spirit being with blood sacrifice may encourage her to give you her favor. But if the premise is incorrect, then the "Therefore" part of that equation is also incorrect.

The actual truth and historical evolution of Mama Chola is that she is not a spirit being. She began as a river in Cuba. How did Mama Chola end up becoming a Goddess of love, sex, and sensuality? Simple:

In ancient times, before bathtubs and indoor plumbing were invented, people bathed themselves in rivers. It's humanly universal in all human cultures [besides Eskimo culture] that we bathe, and in ancient times we all bathed in rivers. 

And so, young guys, would hide behind bushes and peek at girls bathing. Hence the ancient association of rivers with sensuality, femininity, nudity, and sexual desire. European nymphs: 

If magic doesn't work, its because the ontological premise is wrong. And so, praying and sacrificing animals to a magic pot of dirt and sticks might not actually do anything. And, just as you said, approaching something from a spiritual position may not work beyond statistical chance. I would agree with you. Because in most cases, people who believe in magic 1) don't understand how Nature functions fundamentally & 2) are working with fallacious ontological premises.   

Personally, I dislike "Magical Thinking." I know you know what that phrase means. It's basically when a person has the belief [conjectural belief] that if they pray or perform acts of appeasement to a spirit that such spirit with give you its favor and gift you with what you desire. Magical Thinking simple defies a simple rule in Nature of the Economic Exchange of supply and demand/need. You get shit from spirits, but the spirit gets what in return? 

And the existence of spirits implies that there is then a spirit world/realm. This causes to arise the questions: where is this spirit world and how did it come into existence? 

What I'm interested in is what might be behind both the coincidences that happens when we do magic and what is behind some divination methods: such as your experiment of randomness being able to make predictions. 

I think everyone does that. I fucking nitpicked the world. The universal truths from buddhism lensed through nihilism. I feel they are quite compatible doing it my own way. And psychology (mainly animal empathy) to fill in all "meaning to life" questions. 

An example would be folks who think they can literally "feel the lord". They see everything but the pleasure chemicals the idea caused their brain to release.  Like they've tapped into some wave from above when really it's a social somewhat subliminal suggestion coming from within.  

You can do it other ways. I can sit in a meditative state and try to to communicate with telepathic extraterestrials. 

I just imagine I have a beam going up my spine out the crown of my head like a telepathic transmitter. And wouldn't you know it, even though I know it's psychosomatic it still feels like a beam is projecting out my body into space. 

There is even actual lore you can cause actual aliens to appear if you do this. 

It's all on the spiritual family.

You can give a posthypnotic suggestion to a person to feel "loving warmth" when concepts like "God's love" is brought up. You can literally brainwash a person to feel the spirit of the lord. 

That's where psychology fills in the questions for me. 

I'm actually considering starting a totally rational psychology based religion called  "Scientism". And I could fucking do it way better than fucking DC-8's. 

LensIng spiritual things like feeling the Lord through rational psychsomtic chemical releases. And then argue for it as a "religious" apprehension. 

Personally, I dislike "Magical Thinking." I know you know what that phrase means. It's basically when a person has the belief [conjectural belief] that if they pray or perform acts of appeasement to a spirit that such spirit with give you its favor and gift you with what you desire. Magical Thinking simple defies a simple rule in Nature of the Economic Exchange of supply and demand/need. You get shit from spirits, but the spirit gets what in return? 

And the existence of spirits implies that there is then a spirit world/realm. This causes to arise the questions: where is this spirit world and how did it come into existence? 

Scientism has an answer.

The mind. It was born from the mind and exists within the mind. Scientism incorporates the work CG Jung and recognizes the "collective unconscious", the idea of "the conscious web" which states every idea spread goes into a world wide web that then influences the shadow of an individual where exposure the idea is present. 

Take for example the spiritual idea of "spirit possession".

A scientism view would state. The ideas of spirit possession itself causes the mind to play along.  A person can readily convince themselves they are communing with anything they want. Whether they want to or not. If they imagine an archetype the "possession" will carry with it the values of the character. And all takes is documented story of that character's traits existing in an encyclopedic collective reference.  

No alien souls supplanting psychology because you don't like what your shrink told you about your mom. 

Think I'd get sued?

I remember '96 very well. I was an awkward little middle schooler living in Georgetown. That very year, Georgetown College won the national title in their division, Scott Co. High School won the state championship, and UK won the NCAA tournament. It's safe to say I was in basketball country.

But at least you reel the recruits in like no other.  You beat us out on TyTy Washington, and many other West coast recruits. And your going to go 2/2 this year vs us head to head when Sharpe commits in a few days. He will choose you over Arizona, Kansas, and The G League.  That will mean you have 3 top 15 (5 star recruits) coming in.  You don't have to rebuild with Europeans and open transfers. 

The quality hasn't fallen, the game changed to being a temporary stepping stone to professional basketball. What's retained is the same 15 programs will act as the semi-pro minor leagues. 

It will be a lot of year-in year-out resets and vicious recruiting closely watched by the FBI..

@CM. Pro ball is not nearly as exciting. College ball rocked the 80s and 90s.

March Madness and placing bets is the most exciting point in college ball now. I did in fact, win a bracket tournament 2 years ago. Quite a bit of moola, too, since it was with several large businesses downtown and affiliates and friends. Private invitation only. My secret - scattering in upsets that have a slightly lower rank. If it's within 1-3 difference, choose the least favored. :)

She knew what she was doing though, and she worked it well until it caught up with her...

Out here in Oregon, it seems we get all 4 seasons. I moved out here in May, and so, I've only experienced 1 full season here, which was summer. 

Autumn - my favorite season - has come. The leaves in the hills and mountains are chaining colors slowly. The nights drop down to about 45ish degrees. The mornings are the most spectacular! Every morning the clouds, fog, and mist, dance and roll around the thick forested mountains. All the rivers and lakes get covered in fog. Our costal region is an actual rainforest. This rainforest stretches up into Washington and through parts of British Columbia, up to Alaska. 

I used to never like waking up in the mornings in California. But here, in the coastal countryside, amidst thick rainforest wrapped in fog and clouds, I wake up as soon as the sun is rising, get in the car with my cup of coffee, drive around the highways, and take pictures, or just watch the scenery. I upload some of the pictures I take to my tumblr [ https://0x87.tumblr.com/ ]. I also take short video clips of places I go to. 

This part of Oregon is so picturesque, that it makes you want to spend all day outside, hiking, exploring, driving around. The entire place here is surrounded by huge rivers and dozens and dozens of lakes. There is one part of our place called "Ten Miles," meaning that for 10 whole miles, there are nothing but lakes of different sizes.  

I told all my cousins how pretty it is out here, and that they should move here. They came to visit and didn't like it. They said it felt like a "prison" out here, because there is nothing but trees and cows and sheep, and so there was nothing for them to do and nowhere for them to go? I always felt that southern Cali was like a prison. I love it out here, where you are surrounded by the living hieroglyphs of the Book of Nature.

There are Pros & Cons to living out in Rural Oregon; so I've learned. Every week, I spend $60 just on gas. That's $240 per month! This is because, you have to drive outside of your little town in the forest to go to those "big" cities to shop for groceries and stuff. "Big" city is a relative term here, since the biggest city out here is Coos Bay which actually only has 16,000 people. Another Con is that the nearest place to get good Pho or good Asian or Mexican food is in the city of Eugene, which is a 2 hour drive one way.  

The big Pros are the scenic environment: forests, mountains, rivers, lakes, sand dunes; the small towns are unspoiled [its people] by the outside modern world; and the people here. Life out here is not stressful, and so people out here, being unstressed by society and work and traffic are naturally friendly and nice. Even the Bikers and neo-nazis out here are friendly: they smile and wave and say "hi" to you as you walk by. 

I was walking down a street in Coos Bay a few weeks ago, and there were these guys remodeling a motel. The dozen guys remodeling the motel all had tats and beards which made them look big biker gang members. They were playing very loud music as they were working. I had to stop walking because the music they were bumping was Enya! I was going to say something humorous, but they all waves at me and smiled, and so, I didn't want to hurt their feelings and talk about their odd choice in work music. 

Another Pro to living out here in Rural Oregon is that there are no such things as street gangs! People out here don't even have tagger crews. When you do see vandalism, it's just people writing their names. But there are biker gangs that ride the highways. 

Another Pro to living out here is that all the Cops are nice and friendly. I drive around these cities with out wearing my seatbelt, and sometimes a Cop would drive past me, look at me, and wave with a smile, and they would keep driving. 

Another Pro is that you don't get a lot of homeless people out here in the Rural towns. A Con is that in the "big" cities of Coos Bay and North Bend, in the poor areas, you do see a drug problem. Meth is their drug of choice. 

We've been debating about what kind of house to buy here. Houses here are very affordable. A home that would cost generally 1-2 million in southern Cali, only ranges around $500,000 +/- $100,000. The debate we have is: Should be get a home loan for that amount and 1) buy a nice house in one of those "big" cities... or 2) spend the same amount of loan money to buy a farm/rural house with a lot of acres and open fields surrounded by hills, rivers, and forests? We're all thinking of the second option. 

And so, I've been exploring and driving around to small towns and rural sections, looking at the houses to try and figure which area would be the best to own a home. I've been so busy exploring and searching for nice places to buy a home, that this years issue of nexion zine is going to be very slim with perhaps under 100 pages; as opposed to 1000. My brain hasn't really been in writing mode, and I haven't had time to sit down and go into those spaced out trance states to writing much. My Muse/Tulpa is giving me a vacation, to enjoy the amazing environment. Otherwise, I get crippled with these episodes where I  lock myself in my room and compulsively/obsessively write and mumble to myself for 12 hours without eating; which is how I end up writing thousands of pages. 

I bought a new phone with a 48 mp camera and it takes great quality video. We drove 2 hours to Cape Sebastian the other day, and I took a short video with the phone camera, and the quality came out amazing. 

Pretty soon, I'll go dark from here until next year, and vanish into the silence to finish up nexion zine. The pull of the Muse is getting stronger. The Tulpa is chattering in my mind. 

I started life in Rochester, NY. So that amount of green reminds me of lake effect snow in the winter that traps you indoors, and 99% humidity of an August heatwave. It may say only 88 degrees, but it is a heat index nightmare of houses without air conditioning. And that's why we swam in the canal, which was close enough to walk to.  Makes you prefer a dry desert heat and late October Santa Ana after a drier summer.  Especially because every 10 to 15 years it massively catches fire and turns into a war zone. 

I also like earthquakes. I am hoping with the early warning system will send me an SMS message in time to catch the big one. Which leads me to the question so this isn't just rambling about myself. 

Coastal Oregon runs adjacent to the Cascadia Subduction Zone, so I'm curious, how the earthquakes are in Southwestern Oregon.  You're not that far from the Mendoncino Triple Juction, and I would like to know if you feel the ground move more or less?