Moments in time...

This moment may be brief, but it can be so bright...
Reflected in another source of light.
When the moment dies, the spark still flies...
Reflected in another pair of eyes.

I was sitting at a red light today. I was the first in line waiting to turn left. My mind was replaying the events of the day and what I needed to do once I got home. One of my favorite U2 songs came on the radio, "Where the Streets Have No Name." I turned it up and forgot about all I had going on in my world.

As the light changed for the other traffic at the intersection, I noticed a car turning to it's right on my left, heading the way I had just come from. It was a woman and as she was turning and passing by, I saw her mouth the words: "I want to run... I want to hide... I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside." I know that's what she was saying since it was the lyrics to the very song I was listening to.

The exact same experience at the exact same time... in two different worlds heading in opposite directions.

What do you make of that?

Write your own caption...

Victor Wooten

Good times last night with Kyle and Rob and the Victor Wooten show. I was truly amazed at the guy's ability as a bass player. He must have been born with the thing around his neck. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I tired a little of the continual progressive acid, "hey we all in different time" jazz type ballyhoo and Tom Foolery, however, the guy can play a bass. The whole band was superior on their instruments. Mr. Futureman drummer guy was even chewing gum! A no-no for drummers since it throws them off. Not Futerman man, though.

Here's a short clip:

Forty

"I can see myself, it's a golden sunrise, young boy, open up your eyes. It's supposed to be your day… and somewhere on your path to glory you will write your story of a life." -Harry Chapin

I’m forty years old today. I feel blessed that my age is the only number in the English language that, spelled out, is in alphabetical order. That has to count for something. I don’t feel forty. I guess since when you are young, forty seems old and I don’t feel old. I feel like I did when I was 30... or 20. It stands to reason that when I’m 50 or 60 I’ll feel like I do now… and did then. That’s weird.

I have noticed some “old” signs popping up in my life. I think some young people are stupid. I don’t like “the new music.” I dress like its still 1992. Stuff like that.

Remember when you were young and Christmas couldn’t get here fast enough? Now I think if I only had a couple more weeks I could get everything done. Funny. Time has a way of moving very, very fast without really speeding up at all. In a blink of an eye I’ve gone from being young and immortal to older and needing to have tests done. Time watches us like a cat will watch a mouse.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.

I've spent most of this week awaiting the impending doom of the proverbial 40 years old. But I think I'll change my tune. Billy Graham said to plan your life like you'll live forever but live it like you'll die tomorrow.

The "Tag, Your It!" Book Thing

There's these posts floating around on monster blogs (such as George, Charlotte, Rick & Kyle's) about opening a book to a certain page and sentence and seeing what you get. I assume it has something to do with Synchronicity or Serendipity or something cool like that.

Here are the rules:

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.

I've broken two rules. I'm not tagging 5 people, since they are all here, and I cheated. Not on purpose, mind you, but the first book to my right is the "Adobe Acrobat 5 Bible" and page 123 is no good. A chapter heading for Chapter 4, I think. After a quick spin around hoping my eyes would fall on something cool I ended up at Michael Crichton's "The Andromeda Strain."

"Take up a harmless bacteria - such as the organism that causes pimples, or sore throats - and bring it back in a new form, virulent and unexpected. It might do anything. It might show a preference for the aqueous humor of the inner eye, and invade the eyeball."

So... there it is.

Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds

I remember when I was young, maybe 12 to 14 years old, my Mom ended up with a bunch of 8-tracks from her cousin Ricky. Among the various selections including things I didn't know then or now was one titled: Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of War of the Worlds. I was immediately drawn to the cover depicting the Martian tripod blasting it's Heat Ray upon the battleship Thunderchild. Bows and arrows against the lightning was all Thunderchild could muster.

It was the H.G. Wells classic story set to music and I loved it. I ended up with the LP version for Christmas one year. That was great. I guess I still have it, somewhere. Flash forward to college and I remember telling my buddy George about it. He got the CD and we enjoyed it again. Flash forward to last weekend and the same buddy George gave it to me for my birthday.

Over the past several days I've been listening to it and oh how it has brought me back to that time when I first heard it. Regular readers of this blog, both of you, know that I often mention wormholes. Well, this was a good one. Thanks buddy George!

I figured why not look it up on the internet, expecting to find nothing much but used copies. Turns out it's going through a remake right now. The guy Jeff Wayne, who apparently hasn't done much else, had it on a stage tour last year overseas. They have a website. There's even a DVD release of the live show, which I wouldn't mind having. Funny: 8-track, LP, CD, DVD.... what's next? Maybe I'll share it with my son in what ever format comes next. Here's a clip: