The Adventures of Bloggard

Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.

Phil Groves and the Raskin-Flakkers Ice Cream Store

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Best Ice-Cream in San Francisco!

San Francisco, 1975: Castro Street leaves Market Street and climbs a big hill. Past the top, descending, you come to 24th street. There you’ll find Bud Edlin’s ice cream store. The sign says “Bud’s Ice Cream.”

Fabulously popular. Bud’s secret?

Most ice creams have a butterfat content around 16%. Bud’s ice cream has a butterfat content around 22%.

I learned this from Phil Groves, the first client of Simple Simon Bookkeeping Service, my first business. Phil sold Bud’s ice cream from a shop in the Haight Ashbury area. The name of Phil’s store was “Raskin-Flakker’s Ice Cream”. He thought that was funny.

Of course, the real story is that Bud Edlin refused to permit anybody to sell his ice cream. Approached many times, he always turned it down.

So when Phil Groves decided that he wanted to open a store selling Bud’s ice cream, he didn’t know how to go about it.

Now picture Bud’s store on the corner. The big windows, and the front door, are on Castro, and like most San Francisco shops, the shop was long and narrow. The back room, where the ice cream was made, therefore had a door opening onto 24th street, and in the summertime this door was usually open.

There in that doorway stood Phil Groves.

Age? Perhaps 28-30. Bud Edlin was working there in the back room, making ice cream in big stainless steel machines, and wheeling the packages around. If you’ve never seen one, a commercial container of ice cream is a cylinder about two feet tall and a foot across. That is to say, it’s large and heavy.

Phil was afraid to say anything to Bud Edlin, so he just stood there, paralysed. He couldn’t speak; and he couldn’t leave.

Bud looked up from time to time, but said nothing. It was a hot day and Bud was working hard. This went on for some time. Finally Bud said, “Hand me that container.”

Phil fetched the container. Bud gave him more instructions. Phil did it. The remainder of the afternoon passed in this manner.

Toward the end of the day, Bud said, “What do you want?”

“I want to sell your ice cream,” Phil replied.

Bud nodded. “OK.”

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The Year 2011 … Coming Up!

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January 8, 2011, Weed, California: Time to take stock.

My counseling business grows, slowly. I’ve completed certification as a hypnotherapist, and I’m a certified Tantra Yoga educator now. Still working toward certification in EFT and Focusing.

EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) comprises a large part of my practice these days, because it works so well, but I’m also learning the basics of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and find it easy to use and effective, once I understand it.

I’ve been giving monthly classes in Mount Shasta for four months now, on the subjects of dating and mind stuff. It’s also growing slowly in attendance. This Thursday we had a new record high, with 15 people attending. Cool Beans!

The Megatar touchstyle guitar business dimished for a while when the squabbling heads on television were screaming that the sky was falling, but now has been recovering just fine.

It looked somewhat grim at the time, but I felt in my heart that it was somehow a good thing, and so it was, for during that time I had time to establish my counseling business, and we created an entirely new construction method for two-hand tapping guitars made of metal and composite. A great sound and wonderful price point. Onward and upward with creating more music on this planet!

During the next three months I intend to become proficient at setting up (and doing) radio guest interviews for myself and a few friends who have digital download products for sale. It appears that I happen to have previously learned pretty much everything needed for such an operation including all the internet backend and email follow up. So I’m quite curious to see how it goes.

I’m now the coordinator for the Source School of Tantra events in Ashland Oregon, so if any current reader would like to explore a spiritual practice that generates tremendous intimacy at will, and a totally different approach to sexuality — best I’ve ever experienced in this lifetime, quite life-transforming — then contact me and I’ll get a reservation made for you in the March weekend class, or explain more about it, or both! 🙂

My health has drastically improved.

About nine months ago, I changed to a vegan diet and mild exercise and some mental things, and dropped 70 pounds, only 22 more to go, and I’ll be back at my weight at age 25. Cool beans.

I have more energy and feel better than for the last 20 years, and am again looking for the love of my life. I feel that she is drawing near.

Today and this weekend I have a lot of clean-up to do, clearing my desks, updating bookkeeping, planning the campaign for the Ashland Beginners Tantra Yoga Weekend Workshop, and generally making my plan for 2011.

My general resolutions for this year are —

1. More money and working easier, more security and fun in my life
2. To create a happy childhood
3. Love in my life, in every direction

My friend, what is *your* plan?

Cookies

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Summer Camp, Somewhere, Sometime: [Author Unknown] —

A small boy at summer camp received a large package of cookies in the mail from his mother. He ate a few, then placed the remainder under his bed. The next day, after lunch, he went to his tent to get a cookie.

The box was gone.

That afternoon a camp counselor, who had been told of the theft, saw another boy sitting behind a tree eating the stolen cookies. “That young man,” he said to himself, “must be taught not to steal.”

He returned to the group and sought out the boy whose cookies had been stolen. “Billy,” he said, “I know who stole your cookies. Will you help me teach him a lesson?” [Read more…]

A Hot Bath in the Cold Rain

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Ben Lomond, CA in the Santa Cruz mountains, November 7, 2010: So I was scheduled to assist at a Tantra Yoga Beginner’s Weekend Workshop with the SourceTantra folks, and therefore on the day after my “How to Feel Good Fast” event, I packed, kissed my dogs good bye, and drove down to the Santa Cruz mountains.

But then, as it turned out, the person with whom I’d volunteered to assist hadn’t passed on the info to the person who passed on the info to the person who coordinates that event, and so … they didn’t need me to assist at all.

But since I’d already blocked off the time in my appointment book, and didn’t want to have wasted the time I spent writing it down and all … [Read more…]

Why Can’t I Own a Canadian?

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Weed, California, on my computer, September 1, 2010: Today I received that led me to a website with the following. This helped me to understand and gain clarity about homosexuality and religion, and I hope that some of my readers will find it equally entertaining- Oops, I mean useful …

Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a radio personality who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. Recently, she said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following is an open letter to Dr. Laura penned by a east coast resident, which was posted online recently …

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination … End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness – Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense. [Read more…]

It’s In The Cards

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Santa Cruz Mountains, August 20 2010: Back at the Tantra Certified Educator’s training, I have been wrecked upon the shoals of Scylla and Charybdis, and as Martha Stewart so often says … that’s a good thing.

Scylla and Charybdis, for inquiring minds that want to know, were the two navigation hazards for Greek ships, at least according to the stories. Charybdis was a female goddess, but also a sea monster with a huge mouth that swallowed vast amounts of water; in other words, a whirlpool. Across from Charybdis was another hazard, a huge rock (Scylla). Thus when a ship had to pass between them, it was “between a rock and a hard place,” as we said in Texas, where as everyone knows, navigating ancient sea vessels is a topic of constant discussion among the town folk.

So what does this have to do with the teacher’s training course in Tantra Yoga?

It’s that I’ve discovered that so much of what I thought I knew about how to learn things .. just doesn’t work here. Bummer. It’s like this .. [Read more…]

Enter Tantra Yoga

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Boulder Creek California (Santa Cruz Mountains), June 25, 2010: For months I’ve been fascinated, excited, and terrified.

It happened like this —

For three years after Adrienne and I parted, I’ve wanted no woman in my life.

And then came a day … that I did.

Well, I know what to do (http://sweetheartreport.com), and so I began the process.

I’m seeking the Love of my Life, my Beloved, my dearest lover and best friend, yet again. I’ve had a few hundred lovers in my life, and been deeply and completely in love three times. I’d like to make it four. I’m ready.

Back in San Francisco days, in addition to picking up women in the supermarket, on the bus, in classes, at a funeral, and on the street, I’d learned to use classified ads. That was the big thing, back then. And twenty-some years later, it’s online dating sites.

I tested two sites, one against the other. (Match.com wins. SeniorPeopleMeet.com works and provides plenty of prospects, but it seems to hand me more women who are being “old people.” While I know how to act my age, I also want the freedom and fun of acting like a kid, and Match.com seems to hand me more creative and vibrant women.)

One of my first dates was a small, delicate, and enthusiastic young lady of about my own age, with an endearing sweet smile, wild auburn hair, and a body that seemed both refined and indecent. And thirty minutes into the conversation she said a particular word. [Read more…]

 
 

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