A friend here at the office is retiring in a couple weeks. Yesterday he left us with a few words, reflecting on his life experiences, prefacing it all with a tale he read on CNN yesterday as told by Peter Bregman. I enjoyed the quiet truth in it, and I think you will too. It goes like this:
There is a Buddhist story about a poor farmer whose one horse ran away. All his neighbors came to him in sympathy, saying “What bad luck!”
“Maybe,” he responded.
The next day the horse returned with several other wild horses. “What great luck!” his neighbors exclaimed.
“Maybe,” he responded.
A few days later the farmer’s son was trying to tame one of the wild horses when he was thrown off and broke his leg. “What terrible luck!” his neighbors said.
“Maybe,” he responded.
A week later the army came through the village to draft all the young men but seeing the broken leg of the farmer’s son, they left him in peace. “What wonderful luck!” the neighbors said.
Networks of secret passages and tunnels have been built on a giant scale, from components of the Maginot line to the Viet Cong Cu Chi Network. Others perform a peacetime function, such as the half mile tunnel network H.G. Dyar built under his Washington home, as a hobby, the passageways under Disney’s Magic Kingdom, or the unbelievable 5000 year old Lizard People tunnel network under Los Angeles that the L.A. Times published a diagram of during the depression.
Ran into Tim Bryan last weekend for the first time in over twenty years; we lived on the same block from junior high through high school. Still the nut he always was. And whoah, he got tall. 6’6″. Hermosa Beach CA, 05.30.09
With Kona and Vivor on his fourth birthday party. Taking a hike through one of our favorite places, the two ducked into the brush and found a path we hadn’t taken before. Sunset, 06.08.2009.
I’ve been trying to describe this one for a few weeks now, but it’s been difficult to do so without photos and maybe some video. So here goes. The Grotto Cave Bar, down in Ric’s backyard just a stone’s throw away:
The thing’s dug into the hillside, and includes a full kitchen and bathroom. The next project Ric’s gonna do is to install an E-ticket water slide tube, which will begin on the roof, camouflaged by the same rock material, with a few openings to expose the sliders in action on the way down. The idea right now is to have it like a backward S; it’ll come out over the staircase, curve around toward the jacuzzi, and whip you back into the pool.
Some videos. Standing on the roof of the Grotto Cave Bar just before the waterfall gets turned on:
Waterfall hitting the jacuzzi:
Climbing to the roof up the staircase:
Inside:
Not seen in these photos, the off-the-hook taste of the Blended Iced Coffee Martinis:
I recently ran into a car salesman at a party named Adam. Along with his natural affinity for anything car-related, he also carries with him an undying love for his favorite television show of all time, 1982’s Knight Rider.
Out on the street he had his 1992 Camaro with a special light installed on the front grill, just like the on on K.I.T.T. This dude is a FAN.
The light as seen while standing in front of the car:
The accompanying device/controller, mounted inside the car on the dashboard:
Jace D’s Worldwide Website is a completely mental product. It is made from pure lateral thought processes, distilled ideas, and 100% whole natural bits: past, present, and future.
