The Adventures of Bloggard

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

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…]

Being Happy Today

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Mt. Shasta, CA, June 2010: For several months now I’ve been engineering a secret project.

(Shhh. It’s a secret- Uh, no, wait. It’s not a secret any more. Never mind that hush-hush stuff. You can blab this all over, if you want to, OK?)ears ago, back in San Francisco, and even earlier than that, I did some counseling. I didn’t stick with it, because other things caught my interest. (Mainly women, I can admit it.)

The type of counseling I did was kind of unusual. It uses a very sensitive biofeedback meter. This thing is so sensitive that it reads on your thoughts.

And that’s why it’s so useful. If we’re in a counseling session, I can ask you questions, and then when a resulting thought occurs, no matter how quick it goes by, I can steer you to that thought again. It’s kind of like a compass and a steering wheel right inside the mind. Oh, it’s not perfect. But it’s pretty darn good.

And if that thought that just flashed by just happens to be the answer to why you feel stuck in your job for example, why you feel frustrated and can’t seem to get ahead … well, that’s a pretty handy thought to be able to track down.

And I’m going to let you in on a little secret. [Read more…]

Thanksgiving and Goodbye to an Old Friend

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Network Answering Service, San Francisco, 1984: Way back in the day, many years ago, my wife Lori and I ran an answering service on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco, with hundreds of musicians, actors, small businesses and the like for our clients.

And one day, a young woman came to San Francisco from the East Coast, to make her fortune. Her name was Andrea Lewis.

She showed up, and we gave her work, and the in-house communication training we did, and she became more and more self-confident and took on more and more. At one point, when I was off on some dumb adventure, the whole place was run by three women: my wife, Andrea Lewis, and our manager Mara Kimmel. That round-the-clock staff of 30+ was just humming.

It was sometimes tough times. And it was some really good times.

A VOICE

Andrea Lewis had a voice. A helluva voice.

She got a lot of encouragement from us, and began to sing in gigs, and found a spot on the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. They won four grammies, and performed in Carnegie Hall.

POLITICAL

Alway political as all get out, sometimes she thought I was a warm and kind fellow, and other times she opined that I was a sexist, honky, capitalist pig.

And she’d tell me about it.

I liked her.

A VOICE ON THE AIR

Not long after the end of Network Answering Service, Andrea found her true home, as a co-host on popular San Francisco radio station KPFA, and she’s been a favorite voice on the air ever since.

On November 15, 2009, Andrea Lewis, age 52, died at home of a heart attack.

And I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that she was still on this planet to give me grief like back in those days gone by.

A MEMORIAL

Her parents came in to the San Francisco Bay Area from Florida, because KPFA arranged a memorial service in Oakland.

Some of the old crew from Network Answering Service, including me, went to attend, to remember her and to think back on those days.

THINKING BACK

This woman who had come to San Francisco from Detroit many years ago, and found a home in the community that had arisen around our answering service company on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco.

With us and our gang she got employment, friends, communication training and lots of encouragement.

She went on to become a much-loved radio talk show host on popular radio station KPFA, along with achieving some great results with her music.

WE DIDN’T KNOW

When Andrea died last week, suddenly and unexpected, we were all shocked to hear the news. You see, she seldom said much about herself and we didn’t know she was seriously ill, even though for others, she used her gift at interviewing them, both making them feel at home and also getting them to open up on some of the tough questions.

Here is what her friends at KPFA Radio had to say.

A MEMORIAL

The memorial service was amazing: Attending was the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the local congresswoman, Barbara Lee of Oakland, made arrangements to read Andrea’s name into the Congressional Record, and notable speakers remembering her included a Poet Laureate of California, along with professors from Stanford and University of California praising her journalism and mourning her as a friend.

They played recordings of Andrea singing, blues and jazz. Her former jazz band played, and there was even a performance of dancing girls with huge drums. It was a heck of a send-off. The only one who would have enjoyed it even more, Andrea herself, was unable to attend. Or maybe she did.

On the huge wall above the stage in this large church, bigger than life, they showed a montage of photographs, including several dozen from our Network Answering Service days together. Eight of us Network folk had come, some for hundreds of miles, to be there. To say good bye and remember her.

The large church was so packed that many had to sit on the floor, along the walls, and stand in the lobby outside.

THANKSGIVING

And what does this tell us?

It tells us to cherish our friends.

It tells us .. not to let them slip away.

November celebrates Thanksgiving in the U.S., but there’s no reason it can’t be day of “thanks” everywhere in the world.

So I wanted to say “thank you” to all of you who have been a part of my life and times I’ve seen, down through all the years.

I just wanted to let you know I’m grateful.

Thank you for being here, on this planet, in these times.

Mental Health Made Easy

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[reprinted from my former site How to Tune a Human, August 17, 2008]

What is it about taking a shower that causes new ideas to pop into your head?

Is it the invigorating ions that are caused by splitting water droplets?

Or is it a simple as Murphy’s law triggered because you will never have pencil and paper in the shower?

I don’t know the answer to this time-proven rule, but as of this morning’s shower, I do know a super-simple way to look at mental health, a simple way to be happier and more productive.

It’s simply this —

[Read more…]

Tiny Flowers

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Weed, California, Saturday May 10, 2008: Usually around mid-day, the dogs and I like to take a little walk around the house and the very large vacant lot next door. It’s mostly an open field, with some tall and graceful trees at the far end.

If we have walked to the end, and walked around one or more of the trees … well, we know we’ve been somewhere.

Today, the air was cool, but the sun was warm on us, and I plodded along after Charlie the dashing young boy, and I was lost in thought, watching my feet, for the now fast-growing grasses can hide gopher holes.

And I saw …

Tiny little flowers, a pale lavender color, just tiny little things.

And I remembered … back when I was four and five and seven and nine, and visiting my grandmother’s farmhouse, and how along the paved walkway to the chicken yard and the barns beyond … on the left she kept bushy thick plants with a million tiny little flowers, in yellow and blue and purple and white.

I don’t know what they were called. I had forgotten them.

And now, those tiny, tiny flowers came back, over the years. And as I walked here in the now, I realized they were everywhere at my feet, the tiny purple flowers. Everywhere. I smiled.

“Hello,” I said, “Hello, Grandmother.”

I walked on through those tiny galaxies, and once again I felt loved.

I realize: the flowers are everywhere, if you look.

The world is filled with twilight and memories and shifting shapes, if you look. The ones who have gone have left ripples, and sometimes we feel them eddy around us. And within us as well.

Tiny flowers. Filling the world.

New Mobius Megatar Digs in Weed, California

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Weed, California, January 27, 2008 — In November the Bloggard moved into new property in the historic logging town of Weed, California, and we began moving the Mobius Megatar company into the new shop building.

After setting up the spraybooth, we tested and got it working, then got the place painted, and moved the office and essential computers. All OK?

OK.

In December, disassembling the computer-controlled cutting machinery — 800 pounds! — this was a good opportunity to upgrade some electronics — and the two hired guys flaked out on moving day, so Patrick (shop foreman) and Bloggard moved it … very, very carefully. After reassembly, with the upgraded electronics it runs faster and better. [Make Tim Allen Tool Time ape noises here.]

In January, we hired a truck and two burly fellows, and ‘Everything Must Go!’ by golly! Everything moved. Now all the essential systems are re-assembled, and Weed, California is the world headquarters for Mobius Megatar.

Whew!
—

Before the move —

After the move —


[Parts Store A]


[The Bloggard makes tuning adjustments]


[Patrick the shop foreman works on a fretboard]


[Computer-controlled cutting machinery carves Megatars from wood]


[New-cut instruments on the right; finished and assembled on the left]


[Shipping station, and two boxed Megatars on the right head for Cleveland and the UK]

If you’d like to see the entire photo essay of the building of the new factory shop, just go to the Mobius Megatar News section and click on “Open the Mobius MegaBlog.”

And now, with all the moving done … we’re happy to be here!

 
 

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