Jamie Wakefield

You would think the Onion had a time machine when it posted this at the begining of the Bush Presidency. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784 Some priceless snippets. - "You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?" On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further. Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military...

Rick, Thanks for the feedback. It is a great fear of mine that my writing will get worse not better. I've seen it happen to writers who become complacent. I greatly appreciate the feedback and the thoughts you shared and especially devoured the praise. It was great to read what you wrote about Marilyn's story because that is approaching book form. The text is done and I have sent it out to four readers to ask their thoughts on what parts are slow or need to be changed or even which work well. It was an incredibly amount of work turning a blog into a memoir. How Marilyn and I met, daily routines, the Magic and MMORPG years, the discovery of the Cancer and the aftermath are all included and fleshed out. All it needs now is feedback and final editing. I don't quite know how to address the passion part in my writing. Right now, I am traveling, writing, and trying to learn Spanish. It is much harder to convey passion about Spanish class than it is to convey passion about the str...

Can't help it. When we were home this summer one of the things my folks most wanted to show us was a tribute to Leonard Cohen on DVD. Many artists think he "stands above." That he is something special and amazing. The tribute was many artists playing his songs and talking about how great and amazing he was. Including Bono who clearly had a massive man crush on Leonard Cohen. I think this is wonderful to give honor to someone before they die. To let them know how much you appreciate their work before they pass on and can no longer (in conventional terms) hear your words of praise. When first introduced to him, I found his lyrics shallow and annoying. On my second exposure, I found him captivating. He's not a singer but a songwriter but people pressure him to sing, so, sometimes he does. I found many of the singers in the tribute to be amazing, but one really shocked me. Impressed me. Startled me. Touched me? "Show me on the doll where Antony touched you." And...

Don’t you hate it when websites don’t get updated? I mean seriously, I have been waiting weeks for Aikida to be updated and that guy is just slacking off. What is up with that? Can you tell that I’m back in Spanish class? Hence the lack of updates. Yeah. Sorry about that. Class is still about as good as it can get right now. Montse is a fantastic teacher and the students are pretty good. The best I could reasonably hope for really. ZERO Italians. Many Germans. A couple of Americans. Sitting next to me is Auralie, an attractive eighteen year old girl who gets grossed out anytime we talk about where food comes from. She used to be a vegetarian but eats meat now. That was until class last week when we started talking about blood sausage, fried pig ears, callos (intestines) and calf brains. She was seriously getting sick so I kept trying to steer the conversation to another subject but the class was having none of it. Being Spanish (read, not politically correct at all) Montse thought it...