The Adventures of Bloggard

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

Left my Heart

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San Francisco: For the last week, San Francisco has, once again, been my home.

My raison de etre for San Francisco is the ShopBot Jamboree down peninsula way, where I’ve learned things useful for Mobius Megatar, gave a presentation on a novel clamping system that we developed, and had such fun at the Maker Fair, seeing wonderful things.

However, as a thrill and delight, living with a cherished friend from times gone by, San Francisco, opening her Golden Gate just like in the song. A foggy mystery opening into a sun-bathed beauty, both comfortable and known and suddenly new, more exciting than ever. I expected to visit several people I know, but as it turned out, I had my hands full just visiting the places I wanted to see, more than enamored by my time in the city.

Walking the streets, and driving the neighborhoods, dining in the wonderful restaurants, seeing old haunts, haunted by the past and charmed by new vistas, things I’d never seen before. Things I wanted to see for a long time. Beautiful, sensual, familiar and new. A deep sigh of contentment and joy.

Au revoir for now.

I’ll be back.

Bloggard Debut on YouTube

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On the Internet: The Bloggard, in his Traktor Topaz persona, now appearing on a computer near you. In fact, appearing here on this computer right in front of you!

For the Mobius Megatar company, a simple how-to video about modifying guitar straps to make two-handed touchstyle playing easier on a standard guitar.

For future reference, here’s the link. But if YouTube is online, then you should be able to see the video here —

Yow. That’s fun!

Law of Attraction Doesn’t Work?

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[reprinted from my former site How to Tune a Human, May 4, 2007]

Everybody’s talking about the cult-hit movie, “The Secret,” and no wonder. The method promises to give you anything you want.

The movie has a focus on “getting stuff,” which is probably a good thing, because this focus that anyone can understand is probably one of the reasons the movie has been wildfire word-of-mouth and rapidly making its way into mainstream culture. And after all, if you’re just too darned spiritual to want some stuff for yourself, you could always manifest a bunch of stuff and give it to the poor!

For the rest of us, getting some stuff sounds just swell. And just a tiny bit of reflection brings us to the realization that we could use the same method to be, do, or have more of the things that interest and inspire us. Nothing wrong with that.

But what about lazy people?

[Read more…]

What is Brainwave Entrainment?

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[reprinted from my former site How to Tune a Human, May 3, 2007]

As described in the “What are Brainwaves?” article, the popular term “brainwaves” comes from the electrical operation of the brain, which as it operates, causes quick voltage fluctuations in the different parts of the brain.

::: FROM DEEPLY ASLEEP TO WIDE AWAKE

For convenience, brainwaves are described by their frequency, or how fast they’re waving. This is convenient because generally speaking certain frequencies correspond with certain mental states that we know.

  • “Delta“ — Varies from .02 to 4 Hz (cycles per second). This is usually associated with deep sleep.
  • “Theta“ — Varies from 4 Hz up to 8 Hz. This is dreaming sleep, and also when you’re daydreaming, or visualizing, or using the imagination
  • “Alpha“ — 8 Hz up to 13 Hz. When you’re relaxed, but awake.
  • “Beta“ — 13 Hz up to 30 Hz. Your usual waking state.
  • “Gamma“ — 30 Hz up to 60 Hz.

So the simple way to look at this is: Different frequency = Different consciousness.

:: DOES ‘ENTRAINMENT’ MEAN GETTING ON THE TRAIN?

In a manner of speaking, it does mean ‘getting on the train!’

[Read more…]

Spare Change?

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[reprinted from my former site How to Tune a Human, May 2, 2007]

A blog that I enjoy is called “Evolving Times,” and recently the writer described the situation of being “spare-changed,” on the street.

People in my parents generation used the word “beggers” to describe people who beg on the street. Or sometimes “moochers,” “panhandlers,” or “bums.” Of course, in tiny Henrietta, Texas, where I grew up, the town was too small to have an official panhandler, so the town drunk filled in part time.

Friends of mine as I grew up didn’t seem to like the word “Begger,” though it would seem to be accurate. And I guess the phrase, “Buddy, can you spare a dime?” from that older time had mutated into “Spare change?” by the hippie period in the 1960’s.

THE SPARE-CHANGER

The writer in “Evolving Times” was describing what we’ve all felt in that situation. You’re walking along and you are suddenly asked, “Spare change?” Which as we all know, means “Do you have any spare change, that you could give to me?” (I guess those beggers are either very lazy, or they are astonishingly efficient.)

And then what happened?

[Read more…]

Mortality Musings at Ray’s Supermarket

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Mount Shasta, CA March 1 (Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!), 2007, 5:15pm: When I was in the checkout line at Ray’s Supermarket, the serious young man asked me a question:

“Paper or plastic?”

I told him that I would take plastic, because it was very bad for the environment, and I wanted to do my part by helping him to clear out some of it. He looked at me, puzzled.

“It’s a joke, young man,” I said. “It doesn’t actually mean anything at all.”

He became pensive, or maybe he was thinking about something else, or perhaps he was reviewing the multiplication tables or the periodic table, or possibly wondering about dinner.

And so I explained it for him. (It is good to do this for the young people around us, so that we can enrich their lives, and some day they in turn can pass these wisdoms on to those younger still.)

“You see,” I said, “as you grow older, you’ll discover that, more and more things around you seem funny.”

He still looked puzzled, or perhaps concerned. I went on.

“In fact,” I said, “by the time you become very old, nearly all of life seems to be kind of a joke.”

He looked definitely worried now. I summed it up for him.

“That’s one of the reasons people die,” I said. “They just get tired of laughing.”

How to Talk with your Unconscious Mind

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[reprinted from my former site How to Tune a Human, May 1, 2007]

The ‘Non-Conscious’ mind can regulate your body in a thousand ways (all normally below your consciousness), and the ‘Non-Conscious’ mind can automatically serve up learned actions like a tennis-serve or automatically serve up your opinion of the President or automatically make you feel anxious on a date. Some of this is swell, and some of this is occasionally awful, but the Non-Conscious mind is looking out for you as best it can, and everything it does is automatic.

Think of the President. There’s your opinion … automatically.

Go out on a date. There’s your usual feeling … automatically.

Decide to tie your shoe. There go your hands … automatically tying your shoe.

But what if you’d like to do something … different … for a change?

[Read more…]

What is the Unconscious Mind?

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[reprinted from my former site How to Tune a Human, April 28, 2007]

If you listen to Sigmund Freud or some Psychology 101 textbooks, you may quickly form the idea that there is something called either the ‘Unconscious Mind,’ or maybe called the ‘Subconscious Mind.’

Now right there is a poser, because you might think, “Well, if it’s unconscious, then how can it be a mind?”

And if you read up on this, and if you watch dramatic movies about people who have disturbed the ‘Subconscious’ mind, you could easily get the idea that the Subconscious mind is a kind of lunatic stalker which lives inside of us, and given the right situation, it might burst out and *make* you do something … bad.

Scary, huh.

Well, it’s not like that. It’s something far simpler and less mysterious, and you’ve seen it all your life, but you didn’t think about it. Here’s what it is …

[Read more…]

 
 

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