A blog about things.
Have you ever noticed how drug companies will compare their results to a placebo effect. In fact, they actually brag about getting better results than the placebo effect. What they are actually bragging about is that they can actually get a better result (i.e. less pain) than you can if you just believe that you will have less pain. The following video gives a good overview of how our mind works and why drug companies strive to get better results.
And that is: The Bembreneth Way
I have recently been asked two questions. 1. When are you going to write on the blog again? 2. What is”THE BEMBRENETH WAY”.
My answer to the first question is that I have been busy with kids going to college, and reworking my daytime schedule to be able to write consistently. And now that I know some people are actually interested, I have more motivation.
My answer to the second question is this. The bembreneth way is whatever makes you feel good. And by feeling good, I don’t mean a drug induced high or drunken state. I mean when life makes you feel good. It’s those times when you just feel good about something. It is the feeling you get when you take the higher road in life. It is the feeling you get when you do the right thing. It is the feeling you get from the fun things in life. It is laughter. It’s watching a child have pure uninhibited fun, or just acting like a child yourself.
All too often in life, we make things way more difficult than they need to be. Life is only as difficult as we make it or let it becpme. Bad things will happen. But if you focus on the good, more good things will happen than bad things. I believe that in the end, we will all be OK. So relax and create and enjoy. It’s why we are here. If you don’t like the way things are going in your life, then change it. We do have that ability.
And that is: The Bembreneth Way
Remember the Duncan yo-yo champs on Popeye and Pals? Well check this out!
The ultimate goal
In this day and age of the virtual computer world of video games, most “adventures” are relegated to sitting in front of a monitor and manipulating animated characters via some sort of hand held controller. Gone are the days of children playing outside and acting out their fantasies of being a professional athlete, a professional dancer, a super hero, or even a world-famous archeologist. These can now be done indoors, online, and with other people that they never physically interact with.
And while the hand-eye coordination and finger dexterity of these virtual world conquerors makes even a jet fighter pilot green with envy, there is still nothing better than getting outside and seeing, hearing, and feeling the real world.
I re-discovered this point thanks to my 12-year-old daughter Jenna and her friend. While the two of them were walking down our gravel filled lane, Jenna’s friend happened to look down and spot a rock with what appeared to be an impression of a sea shell embedded in it. They brought it to me with great excitement and bewilderment. I stared at it shocked and amazed. This looked like a perfect fan-shaped fossil impression of a clam.
While they ran back outside to look for another one, I looked on the Internet for information about Louisiana fossils. To my surprise, most gravel comes from a huge rock strata formation in upper Louisiana and contains rock that is millions to hundreds of millions of years old. And it contains a variety of fossilized organisms including snails, clams, corals, insects, and my all time favorite, the trilobite.
At this point, I was hooked. The quest for the trilobite was on. When I told the girls about how old the fossils were and what other fossils to look for, their excitement grew even stronger. I told them the ultimate glory would go to the one who found a trilobite.
So there we were. Three of us sitting in the lane feverishly looking through gravel and trying to become a world-famous archeologist by finding a trilobite. At one point, I stopped and remembered my childhood. My friends and I spent many hours and dug many holes underneath our cinder- block raised houses in New Orleans. We wanted to find dinosaur bones and become famous. All we found were bones of recently dead animals. And if we dug too deep, we would hit water. And now, here I was with my daughter and her friend, and we were finding fossils basically in my driveway.
Although we did not find a trilobite, we did find other fossilized shells, corals, and wood. But the quest for the trilobite goes on.
This is a wonderful thing to do ” WITH” your kids. It is fun, interactive, and educational all in one. And you can still include the computer to look up what you find. To recap: fun, time with your kids, educational, outside, and can involve the computer. Parents, you can’t beat that!
Go to this website for more information on Louisiana gravel fossils http://appl027.lsu.edu/MNSEducation/Saturday/Hunting%20for%20Fossils%203.pdf
Though computers are a wonderful thing for all of us, don’t forget there is a whole world outside of the computer also. And it is amazing, especially when you see it through your child’s eyes.
And that is: The Bembreneth Way
For a very long time, scientists have searched for an alternative energy to oil. Every day there are new claims of a free energy involving some new exotic technique. I have followed many different types of claims. They usually end up as a hoax, not able to be duplicated, or end up in the conspiracy theory files because the government and big corporations want to suppress the technology because they fear the loss of oil revenue (whatever).
But there are some promising technologies. Here is one that I think has the best chance of making it.
Andrea Rossi, an Italian scientist, claims to have developed a practical and commercial ready Cold Fusion (Low Energy Nuclear Reaction) technology that could cost around 1 cent per kilowatt hour. It utilizes a nano-nickel powder, hydrogen gas, and an undisclosed (for proprietary reasons) catalysts under pressure to produce large amounts of energy. This energy is in the form of high temperature heat. A successful public demonstration of his technology was held in January. The device is called the E-Cat, short for energy catalyzer. The heat energy is used to boil water and create steam. The steam can be used to turn turbines or directly heat a building. The exciting thing about this is that nickel is very abundant and cheap, and a lot of heat is generated from a small amount. One gram of nickel can produce as much energy as 500 barrels of oil! It is essentially a safe form of nuclear fusion that does not produce any radioactivity.
Production is underway in the United States and Greece. By the end of the year, we should hear more about this in the press. The hope is to have one in every household.
And that is: The Bembreneth Way
Here is another TED moment that I think most of you will enjoy. We will be seeing more of these virtual choirs in the future. In fact, you can bet we will be seeing virtual bands with members that have never met but will produce hit after hit pop songs. In a strange way, the virtual world is uniting the real world in a way that no war could ever accomplish. And when the world is united, great things can happen. Can we say, “What is going on in the Middle East”?
The digital world is here to stay. It will change everything we know and hopefully make it better.
And that is: The Bembreneth Way
Do you really you know how to tie your shoes?
Have a look at this video from one of my favorite sites, http://www.ted.com, to see if you do tie them correctly or knot (pun intended). TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. It is a wonderful site with a main goal of spreading ideas around the world.
If you change the way you initially cross the laces, you will get the same result.
And that is: The Bembreneth Way
Buddies to the end they were. That’s right, never apart. They were always together, always. They walked along the banks of the Mississippi river
together. They hung out on the side of the road together. They sat outside of the college
classrooms together hoping to get the attention of cute girls, even barked at
a few. If you saw one, the other was sure to be around somewhere.
Dogs they were. Real live canines, with four paws and a tail. They were mutts, one brown and one black. They liked to chase the Shetland ponies on a pasture where I worked. I let them do it. Sometimes I would even join in on the chase. It was fun for us all, but I tired easily. Not them. After they wore
us out, they would cross the street and chase the birds along the river. They were always together, always.
They were always together, never one without the other, always. They enjoyed each others company. No, they relished it. Sometimes they would just stand by the side of the road and watch the world go by, one looking this way, the other looking that way. Life was good, and they would always be together, always.
I saw them every day for about a year and a half. I was in college and
worked for veterinary science. We were in charge of a few pastures, and I
would go out and check them in the mornings. And always, there were the
buddies, my buddies. They were usually standing on the side of the road,
river road it was called, making sure the day started off in the correct way. They were always together, always.
One day as I drove into the pasture, I noticed only one standing, the
black one. And he was more in the road than on the side of it. Well, I guessed, the other one must be close by. After ten minutes, I still did not see the brown one. I went over to investigate. As I got closer, I realized that the brown dog was there. But he was lying in the street. He’d been hit by a car. It looked like he was dead, but I couldn’t tell for sure. As I got closer, I realized he was dead. The black dog tore after me and would not let me get any nearer to them. He was protecting his buddy, as always.
All day and night he stayed with his buddy. He would not leave his side. And he would not let anyone near him. When cars drove around them, they got barked at and chased. People that knew them and tried to help also got barked at and chased. So we stood by, helpless and in awe. They were always together, always.
The next morning I drove out to check on them. I could still see them. But apparently a car driving in the night could not. It looked like the black one had gotten hit, but he was alive long enough to drag himself back to his
buddy. And there they lay together forever…still. They would always be together, always.
I’ll never forget my “buddies” for as long as I live. The lessons learned from this experience are many. Humans do not have exclusive rights to “Best Friends For Life” status. And we need to learn more about our role in this world. People talk of discovering intelligent life on other planets. I say we also need to discover the “other” intelligent life that is on this planet. Who knows, we may learn about sticking together.
Ever since the beginning, we are now, and ever shall be always together, always.
And that is: The Bembreneth Way
Many of you have seen the video of the father and his handicapped son running in the different triathlon events. Here is a brief interview with them.
Sometimes as adults we forget what we learned as kids. We make up our own rules and forget the basics we were taught in school.
I recently had to attend a weekly meeting at my job. I work in a big hospital department, and we need these weekly meetings to be able to get out information to the whole group at once. This particular meeting was about how to get along with each other. The meeting was definitely needed, but it was so hard, at least for me, to attend. The fact that grown adults need to be taught how to get along disturbs me to the quantum level (I love quantum physics) of my very existence and any alternate realities that I may exist in. Here is how I would do the meeting.
I would like to thank everyone for coming to our meeting today. This meeting is embarrassingly titled, ” How to get along with other adults”. I have brought in a guest speaker for this event. Please welcome the best-selling author of eight books and a spoken word Grammy nominee, Mr. Robert Fulghum. The floor is yours Mr. Fulghum.
Thank you, thank you very much Mr. Harvey. Good morning everyone. This won’t take very long. Here it is in its simplest form.
All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.
Thank you very much for having me. I brought cookies and milk, please share them with everyone. Have a good day.
And that ladies and gentleman is: The Bembreneth Way.
The Bembreneth Way 