Do you know what burning desire is? Have you ever wanted something so bad you were in pain? I mean pain in the worst way. Your soul was consumed by a dream. That’s all you ever thought about, it’s all you ever wanted, it’s what you think of when you awaken and it’s what you see when you drift off to sleep.

Walk up to anyone and ask them what their innermost all consuming burning desire is. More than likely all you will get in return is a blank stare. See, most don’t have one. Yea, they have 8 or 9 tiny wishes maybe but they don’t have that BIG ALL CONSUMING DREAM that burns so hard inside them it makes them cry in private moments because they want it so bad. So bad. English words are impossible to use to describe the feeling. There are no words in English to describe it. That all consuming fire, that all consuming desire, that all consuming dream that burns a hole in your heart so big it feels as if you are dying from lack of air.

I think that is the best way to describe it. Imagine if someone held you underwater, they are choking you and holding you down below the surface, with every second a pressure is building up inside you, something so strong that you will do anything and I mean anything to get air.

I remember as a young girl I heard someone say “When you want your dreams as bad as you would want air if held underwater then you will have them”. I didn’t understand that till a little later. But once I got the hang of it I knew it was true. I can’t tell you what your dreams are. If I told you mine you would probably laugh. You see, dreams are only important to the dreamer. I have had dreams come true that took 8 years to happen. And that was one of my dearest dreams. Once I casually mentioned it to a so called friend. She did not know it’s importance to me or how long it took to achieve. Her reaction was like “That’s cool, now what movie should we go see”. EXCUSE ME! Now do you see why you must, YOU MUST, keep your innermost burning desire dream a secret? Other people, even when well meaning, just do not place a high value on yours. Most of the time, if not all the time. Keep it a secret. Keep the fire inside you. When it does come true don’t expect pats on your back.

See, my dream was not done for applause. My dream that I carried for 8 years was done because that’s all I ever wanted. I did not expect applause or public approval. In fact I seriously doubt 98% of the people on this rock would even approve of my dream. But it was what I wanted, not them. I never had a doubt it would come true. I saw it finished every single day in my mind. I saw myself doing it every day when I closed my eyes for a few minutes. It was a fire inside my soul that consumed my very being. I’ll tell you one thing. That burning fire inside sure wasn’t going to happen if I worked inside some crazy office environment with all the petty politics.

I wish there was some way I could reach out and touch you and let you feel for 15 seconds that intensity that drove me. That consumed me. That pushed me on when all others turned back. Have you ever felt it? If you have there is no way to miss it. It’s not something like wanting a pickle from the fridge, it’s more like wanting air when held underwater for 3 minutes. Even then you would have to multiply that by 100 times to even come close to it. Burning desire? Close, but 1,000 times past that. See, in English there is no word for what I am trying to explain. Sure there are a few that kind of come close but the feeling I am describing is beyond words, it’s something else, it comes from somewhere else, some other place I cannot describe, a place where your dream does exist right this second. Is that so strange? Could there be a place that exists right now where your dream has already happened? In that place your dream is living, it’s real, as physical as this world. Yet that dream has not passed into this physical form world yet. Yea, now we are getting into metaphysics, physics and quantum physics. Are you ready?

For advanced as this rock is, or thinks it is, discoveries that stagger the mind have yet to reach physical form in this world yet. Let’s call it at 1/10 of 1% of what so called science has discovered yet. The other 99.9% has yet to be discovered. For all the glitz and glamor of technology this rock is as backwards and unevolved as an amoeba is to a physicist. Oh yes, this rock likes to think of itself as evolved, saintly, kindly with powerful technology. That’s because they cannot see anything else. If you only heard one radio station on a busted radio you would swear only one radio station exists. Anyhoos, this is getting a little deep. Maybe this is one for next time. Most people are not heavy into this. Quantum physics. Those guys are going places. The old guard has left and the new guard is coming up. Are you familiar with quantum physics and the numerous postulations? Can the mere act of observance or thought affect something that is not there? Can your thoughts affect something that you cannot see? Something you cannot bang with a hammer. You know those scientists always want something that they can bang on. If they cannot bang on it then it is not real. It’s only real when you can bang on it or capture it inside a jar. That is where scientists and Little Laurie part ways.

What if your thoughts do affect “something else” “somewhere else”. Is that so hard to see? Does a shortwave released in Texas affect a receiver 8,000 miles away? Think about it.

What will light your fire? What will turn it into an all consuming, raging bonfire deep within your heart? What?? I know what does for me but you must figure what works for you. I can’t tell you. I can’t sell you it. It has no price tag nor a name. It’s something you must look deeply within for. It’s not something that can be bought and traded for at wal-mart. It’s “something” deep, deep inside you waiting to get out, waiting to be released, waiting to take physical form. See, I’ll let you in on a little secret. This was never taught to you in schools or college. You won’t find it on tv or in newspapers. Your friends don’t know about it. Your parents don’t know about it. Very few on this rock do. Ready? Really ready? Then hang on.

The burning, all consuming intense desire you feel inside you for something IS REALLY THAT OBJECT ITSELF TRYING IT’S BEST TO REACH YOU IN THIS PHYSICAL WORLD. It wants to reach you just as bad as you want it. It just has not “formed” yet into this physical world.

Think about this very seriously. Look all around you right now. Stop reading this right now and look around the room you find yourself in. Look and observe every single object in that room as if it was the very first time you are seeing them. Finished? Good. Everyone single one of those objects you observed in your room moments ago at one time were only an image in someones mind. Every one of them bar none. First the thought or image, then the manifestation into physical. Every inventor in the world knows this simple fact. Now you do too. Every inventor in the world lives in the world I speak of. He or she visits that world in their mind and brings back objects they find. Every inventor. Do you think an inventor first saw a zipper in a store window then he/she invented the zipper?

I wish I could tell you what will create that fire deep within you. I really do. But it’s different for everyone. If I told you what creates my fire you would laugh at me I guarantee it. That’s why I have always kept it a secret. My fire starter will not work for you. You have to, you got to find it on your own. I discovered mine when I was around six or seven. It drove me everyday. I’ve thought about it ever since. It took a long time but it did arrive, when the majority said to forget about it and give up. See, what you will be doing most likely will not win you many votes. It won’t win you applause most likely. It will win your dreams and that matters most. What is your dream? What one thing deep inside your heart do you want to accomplish before you die? What is it that tears your soul apart because it has not happened yet. What do you think about for 18 hours a day? What do you dream about in your private moments when you close your eyes? What makes you cry in your most private moments because it has not happened yet? What is it that you think of the very moment you awaken? What is it that you dream about at night? 7 days a week, 12 months out of the year? What is it? Don’t you know?

My dream came true about 27 years ago. Since then I keep replacing that one all consuming dream with new ones. When those come true I will in turn replace them with others till the day I die. I have lots of little dreams but I always have that one great big dream that is so big it would scare most people. So big that most would laugh it off as ridiculous to even contemplate. Keep your dream to yourself. Nurture it deep inside. Tell no one. Not even your spouse, your parent or your best friend. Surprise them when it happens if you so see fit. But be warned, most will likely yawn when told. That’s why it is so very important to keep it deep within yourself and stoke the fires yourself.

Here’s one of my fighting songs. Who knows, it may fit you. Listen to the lyrics very closely.

Silhouette Of A Dream, Treasured By The Ones Who Hold On To It

L

Somewhere In Lake Chapala

“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”

This post was composed under the magical influence of Sara by Stevie Nicks

Thought For The Day - Who Said This?

“Thoughts mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire are powerful things.”

Do you know the story of the genie in the bottle and the three wishes? I think every kid in every country in the world has heard the story growing up. A person in the story is given three wishes that are fulfilled instantly by the genie. Could you imagine? Having your own genie that granted you wishes for whatever you wanted. I think that dream would be at the top of everyones wishlist in the entire world. Sad to say there are no wish granting genies in a bottle waiting to be discovered by you on a deserted beach.

BUT, there is something 10,000 time better and it is between your two ears right now sleeping. Awaiting your command to bring you whatever your heart’s desire is. You only need to instruct it what you desire. NOT what you do not want, but what you DO want. See, the souls on this rock have it backwards. They concentrate on what they do not want, not what they want. Concentrating on what you do not want is exactly the same as concentrating on what you do want. By concentrating on what you do not want you are telling the genie inside your head to bring those conditions to you.

You see, your subconscious mind does not judge, it only acts. It does not question if what you are concentrating on will be bad or good for you. It only sees you are concentrating on something and obviously you must want it or else you would not concentrate on it, right?

The challenge as we say is to concentrate on what you want, not what you do not want.

Your subconscious mind makes the worlds fastest, most powerful Cray Super Computer look like a broken down abacus missing half the beads. In a split second it has made more decisions than there have been hours since the Earth was created. IN A SPLIT SECOND! Instantly it adjusts heart rate, blood sugar levels, the exact amount of adrenaline needed to inject into your bloodstream to make you jump out of the way of a speeding car, the number of white blood cells needed to attack an infection, and so on. You could not make the decisions needed if your life depended on it. Yet the most important part of you is neglected when it comes to what you want.

Among the billions upon billions of jobs your subconscious mind does tirelessly, one of them is to bring exterior conditions into perfect alignment with images held in the subconscious mind. All day and night long your subconscious mind is working to bring your exterior conditions to perfectly match your subconscious images. If you see yourself as poor no matter if you win the lottery you will shortly again be poor because you hold that image. No amount of money will change that subconscious image. That person’s subconscious mind will do what it takes to turn that lotto winner back into the poor person because that is the image held at a subconscious level.

And this is why you can take a millionaire’s money away from him, every last cent and within 6 months he will be a millionaire again. Because he or she has an image of a millionaire in his or her subconscious mind. You can read books, take action and spend money till the cows come home but until you change your subconscious image of yourself you will never break out of the old mold.

Can you not see this? Stop what you are doing right now and think about this. Your only job is to give your subconscious mind an image to work from, a road map if you will. Once your subconscious mind accepts that image it is only a matter of time before your subconscious mind will alter your exterior world to bring the exterior world into alignment with it’s/your subconscious image of what the world should look like.

It’s that simple and the process has been going on for thousands upon thousands of years. But it is not taught in schools. It is not taught on TV. There are no elective courses in high school for this subject. Why? Think about it. The most important thing you could ever do in your life yet not a peep about it from hardly anywhere.

I remember as a young child I was always fascinated by this subject. When I was growing up as a child of 8 or 9 I would check out books from the neighborhood library on this subject. I taught myself to do self-hypnosis when I was 10 years old. I have never looked back since. Being able to hypnotize yourself is a fairly easy process to learn. What is harder to do is get the images you truly want into your subconscious mind. Every single idea and image has to go through you conscious mind first. Your conscious mind filters everything. NO! You are not wealthy and it’s stupid to even think you ever will be. NO! You are not smart enough to run your own business. NO! You have to work at a job you hate your entire life from 9-5 for your daily bread. You see how hard it is to get past the conscious mind?

Think back a long time ago when you did not know how to drive and especially when you did not know how to drive a stick shift. You sat on that car seat and every time you let the clutch out the car jerked and died. It took you forever to figure out how to drive that stick shift. BECAUSE in the beginning you were trying to drive it with your conscious mind. It rebelled, it did not know how to coordinate everything smoothly. It was mere rote actions. Once the methods sunk past your conscious mind it began to be easier and easier. Your subconscious mind began to guide you. To help you, to let you drive that car almost blindfolded.

In the same way a concert pianist plays a Steinway, you play your stick shift car after some practice. Perhaps not like someone who has been driving sticks for 30 years but you play none the less with your subconscious mind guiding your hands and feet. It had an image of an exterior world with you in it knowing how to drive a stick. Eventually with some time the exterior world aligned with your subconscious image of knowing how to drive a stick.

Are you beginning to see the possibilities? All you need to do is get that image you want into your subconscious mind. That’s it!! That’s all you need to do! Then your subconscious mind will take over in ways you or I could never and will never understand and ALIGN YOUR EXTERNAL WORLD TO MATCH THE INTERNAL IMAGE. It has to! That is one of it’s jobs among trillions. As surely as water rolls downhill, your subconscious mind will work in mysterious ways to align your exterior world to match it’s image!

Look around you right now. Every single thing you see and I mean EVERYTHING YOU SEE was once only an image in someones mind. Over time and in strange, mysterious ways those images held close were used to align the exterior world to mirror those subconscious images. A mighty bridge, once only in an architects mind slowly over time altered the exterior world to mirror his vision.

So Laurie, how do I program my subconscious mind? How do I get images past my conscious mind into my subconscious mind? I have been using a program I found on the net back in 1994. It let me type in statements and then the program would flash those statements on various positions of my computer screen for a fraction of a second. They flash so fast you cannot even make them out. But your subconscious mind can! Within 6 months of using it I had my first $300 day of profit online. Believe it or not that was one of the things I wrote down that I wanted. To make $300 in profit in one day. I then dreamed bigger. I like to use multiples of three. It’s kind of scary going from $100 a day to $1,000 but it’s not too scary to go from $100 a day to $300 a day. After I hit $300 profit in one day I changed it from $300 a day to $900 a day profit. Within 3 months I hit $900 profit in one day. My income was not a steady $900 a day BUT I hit it and I knew it was possible! The next step up was for $3,000 profit in one day. I entered the new income statement into my program. It took about 12 months or so then I hit that magic day I’ll never forget as long as I live where I was making over $3,000 a day profit. Now it did not continue on and on forever BUT it did prove what is possible. I won’t even go into what happened when I bumped the program from 3K a day profit to 10K a day. Rest assured I hit that too. Not month after month (wouldn’t that be nice!) BUT I DID HIT IT!

In ways I will never understand I was guided to the people and opportunities that allowed me to do that. I don’t know how it works. I just know it DOES WORK! I would sit around and think to myself “There are folks right this very second making $300, $1,000, $10,000 per day on the net but I am just not aware of them or how they are doing it.” That’s all I thought about. I was obsessed. Those people existed, I just was not aware of them or their methods. In time I came to be exposed to people and methods that did work. It was if I was guided. Yea, it sounds “spooky” or “kinda out there” but over time I bumped into people and opportunities that allowed my exterior world to be altered to match my subconscious mind’s image of myself being in that position.

I know the vast majority of souls on this rock are not interested whatsoever in this stuff but my life has revolved around it. I especially am in love with quantum physics. You know schroeder’s cat sort of stuff. Google schroeder’s cat if you do not know what that is. It’s all theoretical at the present time but trust me once you understand the philosophy and science behind it you will be a believer. How can two states exist as one? Can something “invisible” affect something “visible”. I say yes, the majority say no. Well, Little Laurie was never one for popularity contests.

With that said, I have been using a new program in the last year that not only displays the text, it also displays images. Whatever image you put into the program it will flash that image on your screen for a fraction of a second. You can use as many images as you wish. What I do is make some of the images up as text in Microsoft paint (red letters on a white background) and the other images I grab from google images such as the latest Sony SLR digital cam or whatever I want to see in my life. I load those images up and set it to go to work on my screen. I usually set them to flash every 5 seconds. You can set them to flash at whatever interval you choose. If this is something that interests you, watch the video below for an explanation of what this program does and how it works. After watching the video if you like what you see then click on the link below to purchase it. The program is $27. The best $27 you will ever invest in yourself.

Click here to purchase DreamAccelerator

L

Somewhere In Lake Chapala

“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”

This post was composed under the influence of Magic by Olivia Newton-John

Thought For The Day - Who Said This?

“Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives.”

I want to ask you something. Do you know what the Milgram Experiment was? No? Never heard of it huh? Not surprising. Very few have. It’s kind of like when average citizens were shown a blank world map with just country outlines and asked to place a pin on the country Greece. Some put their pin on Australia, some put theirs on Peru, some put it on Japan, others put it on Iceland. Sad and at the same time scary.

The Milgram Experiment was designed to show how everyday ordinary people like the ones that live next to you can be influenced by an authority figure to give out pain/punishment/torture to the point of serious bodily harm/death without so much as even a sliver of guilt or conscience. That innocent looking 30ish librarian with her hair in a bun could be the next Ted Bundy if an authority figure says “just continue”?? To moi that is seriously scary time.

Don’t believe Little Laurie that the innocent looking creature in the next car over could morph into a modern day lizzie Borden on a moments notice? Yea? Watch the 3 videos below and get ready to be very scared.

The original experiment was conducted in 1961 with 2/3’s of the people going all the way to deliver a lethal dose. The scary part is in 2009 the number of people going all the way is even higher. Watch the videos below of an updated 2009 version of the Milgram Experiment done by the BBC.

What could possibly explain why so many were willing to give a fatal dose three times in succession to a fellow human being? Bob Altemeyer (author of “The Authoritarians”) had this to say:

“The bigger reason has to be that the vast majority of us have had practically no training in our lifetimes in openly defying authority. The authorities who brought us up mysteriously forgot to teach that. We may desperately want to say no, but that turns out to be a huge step that most people find impossibly huge – even when the authority is only a psychologist you never heard of running an insane experiment. From our earliest days we are told disobedience is a sin, and obedience is a virtue, the “right” thing to do…

Milgram has shown us how hard it is to say no to malevolent authority, how easy it is to follow the crowd, and how very difficult it is to resist when the crowd is doing the biding of malevolent authority. It’s not that there’s some part of “No” we don’t understand. It’s that situational pressures, often quite unnoticed, temporarily strike the word from our vocabulary.”

I’ve had a distaste for authority figures since I was a wee little one. I don’t need anyone to follow nor listen to for instructions. I’m not looking for a surrogate mommy or daddy. Yes, perhaps the world does need billions of worker bees to blindly follow authority but count Little Laurie out. I suppose that’s why most would rather go on a 7K luxury tour of Europe aboard a 45 passenger motor coach with a tour guide rather than strike out on their own with nothing but a backpack, an outstretched thumb, 12 weeks and a zest for adventure.

Ready to take the red pill? Watch these 3 videos.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

L

Somewhere In Lake Chapala

“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”

This post was composed under the influence of It’s My Life by Talk Talk

Thought For The Day - Who Said This?

Out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital … the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service. There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small business men and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer…

The privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property…. And as a result… the hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor – these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family – other people’s money – these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

Ebay is still a great place for folks looking to make a little money or a lot. The sad thing is most of the get rich on ebay ebooks are nothing more than rehashed BS 3 or 5 years old or ridiculous dropshipping type scammy approaches. I sourced my goods mainly from China starting in 1998. Then around 2000-2002 a lot of the BS “get rich” on Ebay type crappy ebooks started flooding the market. I laughed at most of them. I’d been making good money for a long time so those slick, sterile ebooks just made me laugh. I couldn’t even believe someone would plunk down $97 or $197 for a ebay course. I learned everything on my own, how to automate posting, high bidder emails, end of auction emails, etc…

Those so called courses just cracked me up. Written most of the time by idiots that never had even one $1,000 profit day in their life much less 30 days straight of making $1,000 profit per day. They advertised all kinds of crappy ways. Sell kids underwear you buy for 50 cents for $2 and make 60 cents profit after the smoke clears. That sort of crap.

Nowadays since I’m out of the country it makes it difficult for moi to ship physical items to the states. I’m mainly digital products now. BUT, for those in the states or those selling within their home country like Oz or the UK etc.. there is a unique method I stumbled across recently. Not really unique. She basically sells on ebay the same way I did. Using inventory numbers in the titles to keep track of every item sold and she uses my secret sourcing method. No! not China either. I used China and one other secret source. When I read that report and discovered she used the same way I used to do it really blew me away.

Her ebook is 53 pages long with nothing but meat. No BS fairy tale pie in the sky theory here. I read it, I looked up her auctions on ebay and I started my super top secret program I had built just for me that tells me the monthly grosses of any seller on ebay. She is not pulling anyones leg. She is making what she claims. Her website does mention an amount she makes a month. That is spot on but remember that is gross, not net. After reading her book you will know within 5% what her net per month is and let me tell you, her net will still choke you. Her net was around my net when I was pushing out stuff like mad on ebay. She lays all her cards on the table for anyone to examine.

Now most might think she is stupid. If she does that everyone and their grandmother will copy her right?

Hahaha!!

I had a girl working for me. She needed more money. I offered to help her sell on ebay. She saw my whole backend and my daily grosses. She was the one shipping and counting up the day’s checks. (Back when a lot of buyers sent checks) Even though she saw my entire operation, she saw how much I was making, even though I offered to help her, even after all that she never started anything. She was happy to package items and run them to the post office. Go figure.

So, no, most people will buy her report for entertainment only. A Walter Mitty type fantasy in their brain. Read it and forget about it. 99.5% will do nothing.

Plus, her market and the market I was in was so huge there virtually is no competition.

Her method will work with any item. You are not tied down to one type. Later I specialized in items that averaged $1,600 each. My average cost was around $900. So yes, I did very well.

Why work for The Man when you can make $500+ selling just one item?

Watch the video below. Think about it. If this is something for you then click the link below the video to read more.

Here is my special offer to sweeten this deal like there is no tomorrow. If you decide to get her report I will include links to my 2 secret weapons I used to find all the dirt cheap items I could buy until my money ran out. These two secret weapons when combined turned into something ten times greater. They allow you to be johnny on the spot and scoop up all the crazy bargains before others know about them. Within 15 seconds you will know products are available to purchase at the crazy low prices you need to turn an easy $30 to $500 profit. These two secret weapons do cost a little money. I think something like $20 each or so but I made my money back within 5 minutes of running them. I guarantee you very few people know about my two secret weapons. And yes, you can use these two secret weapons to find any hot selling item you wish to sell. I used the 2 weapons to help me locate those $700-$900 items I resold for $1,500 to $1,600. The only limit is your available capital to purchase goods to resell. I had a fat bank account so some days I would buy 5 or 6 of those items for resale.

Watch the video below. If you decide this is for you just email me ( laurie AT laurie-the-traveler.com ) your clickbank receipt. Once I verify your purchase with clickbank I will send you the links to my 2 secret weapons. Combined with the secret weapons Diana reveals in her report you will be ready to break new personal best records of your own. Your only limits will be your imagination and your capitol.

Go here and buy The Selling Queen

L

Somewhere in Lake Chapala

“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”

The year. 1974. The place. Dallas, Texas. The world. One that disappeared a long time ago…

*&!%@*!, how can 35 years go by in a blink of an eye? In my mind I can see every little detail from 74. I close my eyes and I AM THERE! The places I used to hang out, the secret places we would go only myself and and a close friend knew about. The car’s, the shopping centers, the clothes, oh boy the clothes. MG Midgets, MGB’s, Mach 1’s. Parties at Lake Ray Hubbard at the rope swing.

I dunno…do you have a vivid memory? Can you close your eyes and instantly you are transported in some sort of a time machine back to another year? Like a dream that seems so real to you until you wake up. That’s me. Whether it’s a curse or a godsend I’m not sure. I tend to think it’s a godsend in this current George Orwell type of existence.

Cue up Bennie and The Jets…

About 10 days ago I started having vivid dreams of my mother. I mean vivid. I mean going back way before 1974. It was as if I was 8 years old all over again. The old house, the old pets, the old friends, the old teachers, the old bicycle ride home from school. But most of all I would dream about those old days growing up with my mother. I don’t know why. The dreams started hitting me hard over a period of a few days. So vivid it’s indescribable. Do you dream in color? I do. Color that puts any Hollywood big screen to shame. The dream seems 100 times even more real than when you are awake. They were taking place somewhere, somehow in a manner I cannot explain.

Well, I did not think much of them at the time. Just another vivid dream for little ol Laurie. One of many.

A few days later I received word that my mother passed away.

Between the several recurring dreams and her passing a few days later I did not have the opportunity to speak to her. It’s not like I call my mother every couple days. We each had our own views on life which were vastly different, yet at the same time she was my mother and did her very best to raise me into a smart young woman ready to take on the world.

Cue up Rock Your Baby by George McCrae…..

So I have sort of spent the last few days thinking about those dreams. I will always wonder if maybe, somehow it was sort of a goodbye. Even though I fought with my mother growing up like cats and dogs and had basically totally opposite views on everything I respect her as a mother doing a difficult job with the materials given her. Most of you reading this probably had great parents growing up. I never went to bed hungry, I never went to school in rags, I always had presents under the tree. But I never had that deep relationship that most children had with their mother growing up. My relationship could more be likened to sparring partners than mother-daughter.

Later we mended things up a bit. But there was still that tiny bit of edginess. That tiny bit of disapproval that seeped into her tone of words. I guess she always wanted me to be a normal daughter that married the first guy that asked her, popped three or four kids out and settle down with a big shot Dallas lawyer. I’d throw up if I had to live that life. I’m happy the way I live right now thank-you very much. That’s the part I am sure irked her her entire life. She never came right out and said it but you could feel it if you know what I mean.

Cue up Black and White by Three Dog Night….

So here I sit remembering the dreams I had of her a few days ago and her passing following those dreams. For all I know I might have been dreaming when she passed away. They occurred over several days near and at the date she passed away. I really don’t believe in all this hocus pocus ouija board type of stuff but I did have a girlfriend that told me what happened at her brother’s bedside when he passed away. It gave me goosebumps hearing it. If what she saw and if what she told me was a figment of her imagination or if it really did happen is hard to say.

I will say this. A 26 year old man was tragically killed by gunshots inside a bar. He was an innocent patron that did not know the gunman. The 3 year old son of the man that was killed woke up 6 hours later and was crying to his mother that he was mad at his dad. His mother asked him why. He said because he will never be able to talk to him again. His mother asked him how did he know that? The little boy said because Daddy came by last night and told him that.

Cue up Alone Again Naturally by Gilbert O’Sullivan……

Were the dreams a sort of final goodbye? Did two minds meet over 7,000 miles apart? Is there something more to us than this spacesuit we put on for 70+ years? Who’s to say. Even though we did not have the best relationship growing up what I regret the most is not getting a chance to say goodbye. Maybe those vivid beyond words dreams were somehow her way of saying goodbye. I got a chance to see her again in a way that is impossible to describe. Something so real it’s beyond words to describe the experience.

I was in that old house of ours, I was sitting at the breakfast table eating cheerios. My mother was across the bar from me making pancakes. Dressed in her favorite robe. There was a stack of 8 or 9 pieces of toast, some scrambled eggs and sausage and the paper opened to the comics section. The washing machine was going. I was so small I had to jump on top of the counter to reach the top of the fridge. My brother was watching the morning cartoons on the 21″ B&W with the funny rabbit ears. I swear I am not making this stuff up. I was really there. Yeah, my body may have been in a bed somewhere sleeping but “I” was somewhere else. A place so real you cannot explain it. A place where others upon hearing about it say “don’t worry hon, it was just a dream”. Well, I have a question for you. Is a dream just a dream? Is it just brain neurons firing off the imagination cells in your brain to concoct an experience that seems real OR is it possible, just maybe, for just a little while you are taken to another “place”, perhaps in a place that is yet understood by this civilization that is basically still at the savage level.

Did you ever see the movie by Jodie Foster called Contact?

In that movie Jodie Foster in a way I will not spoil for those that have not seen it, got a chance to visit her father who had passed away a long time ago. It was real beyond words to her, but to those others watching her, the experience lasted all of one or two seconds. So, the question is, did it really happen or was Jodie Foster just imagining things?

Were my dreams just a coincidence or was there something more to them?

Coincidence is a funny word. Circumstances that should not happen but somehow do. Multiple coincidences. The odds of that happening are astronomical yet they occur. Not once but multiple times. Beyond all odds of randomness. So far beyond randomness you have to ask yourself did something else have a hand?

I leave you with this set of coincidences and let you ponder the mysteries of the universe where no man has gone before.

Cue up Magic by Olivia Newton-John

The stories of identical twins’ nearly identical lives are often astonishing, but perhaps none more so than those of identical twins born in Ohio. The twin boys were separated at birth, being adopted by different families. Unknown to each other, both families named the boys James. And here the coincidences just begin. Both James grew up not even knowing of the other, yet both sought law-enforcement training, both had abilities in mechanical drawing and carpentry, and each had married women named Linda. They both had sons whom one named James Alan and the other named James Allan. The twin brothers also divorced their wives and married other women - both named Betty. And they both owned dogs which they named Toy. Forty years after their childhood separation, the two men were reunited to share their amazingly similar lives. (Source: Reader’s Digest, January 1980)

NOTE: our reader Linus wrote us after reading local newspaper Helsingin Sanomat: “Your story about the Finnish twins is missing some details: The first brother was killed by a lorry while riding his bike and crossing highway 8. He apparently didn’t notice the lorry in the snow blizzard. The second brother was killed by a lorry only two hours later while riding his bike and crossing highway 8. The second brother couldn’t have been aware of the first brother’s death, as the police was still trying to identify the victim.”

Twin brothers, killed on the same road, two hours apart

On 2002, Seventy-year-old twin brothers have died within hours of one another after separate accidents on the same road in northern Finland. The first of the twins died when he was hit by a lorry while riding his bike in Raahe, 600 kilometres north of the capital, Helsinki. He died just 1.5km from the spot where his brother was killed. “This is simply a historic coincidence. Although the road is a busy one, accidents don’t occur every day,” police officer Marja-Leena Huhtala told Reuters. “It made my hair stand on end when I heard the two were brothers, and identical twins at that. It came to mind that perhaps someone from upstairs had a say in this,” she said. (Source: BBC News)

P.S. I guess I am just too sentimental for my own good. I have a box of items that to most would be meaningless junk. A bunch of assorted odds and ends that would not bring $5 on Ebay. Yet a few times a year I will open that box, hold each one of those items in my hand then close my eyes and drift back. You ever do stuff like that? It’s funny how a 30 year old napkin with some scribbled writing on it will make you feel. It’s like a sweet mixture of pain, sadness, happiness, joy and regret all mixed together in a way that mere words lack to explain. You know?

I suppose that is one of the curses or blessings of a photographic memory depending on your view. My memory is so acute I can remember being in that tiny baby bathtub that fits in a baby changing table. I remember my mother bathing me when I must have been 9 months old or so. I remember being so small I could not even pull myself up in the crib using the bars. I remember dragging my little legs along the wooden floor getting burn marks on my tiny legs. That’s how acute my memory is. I remember what my mother’s face looked like when she was 23 bathing me. I dunno. I think most folks remember only going back to 4 or 5. I can go a lot further than that. Vivid photographic memories. Memories that hold meaning only to myself. I wish I could hold your cheek and those years of memories would flash in all their 3-D glory through your mind in a split second. Yea, since they are mine they would hold little for you but I’d love to show you what I can see so clearly in my mind as if they happened yesterday.

Now what I am going to tell you now you have heard a million times. I heard it too. And did not pay attention until it was too late. If your parents or parent is still alive drop what you are doing right now and call them. Now. Not tomorrow. Tell them you appreciate all the things they went through. Tell them no matter what happened in the past you know they always had your best interests in mind. Ask them to tell you some story about yourself that you have forgotten. Just listen to their voice. Take in their voice and let yourself drift back in time with them. Ask them to tell you another story and another. They may ask you what has gotten in you. Just tell them Laurie has gotten into you.

L

Somewhere In Texas

“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”

This post was composed under the influence of the above 6 songs

My original post about Laurie

June 7 1984 - March 2 2005

Barb K’s Blog - Laurie’s Mother

Barb K’s First Post On March 18, 2005

BarbK’s Cardinal Story March 11, 2005 - Bring A Kleenex

L

Somewhere In Lake Chapala

“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”

This post was composed under the influence of I Can’t Get It Out Of My Head by ELO

Probably Not…Take a Look: This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, Kansas. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, Kansas and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, Kansas - 1895 Examination Graduation Questions of Saline County, Kansas

April 13, 1895

J.W. Armstrong, County Superintendent.

Examinations at Salina, New Cambria, Gypsum City, Assaria, Falun, Bavaria and District No. 74 (in Glendale Twp.)

Reading and Penmanship - The Examination will be oral and the Penmanship of Applicants will be graded from the manuscripts.

GRAMMAR (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define, Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case. Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

ARITHMETIC (Time 1 1/2 hours)

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cents per bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6,720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per in.?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (go grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. HISTORY (Time, 45 minutes)

1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849 and 1865. ORTHOGRAPHY (time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret “u”.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final “e”. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

GEOGRAPHY (time, one hour)

1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of N.A.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Heela, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall, and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.

PHYSIOLOGY (Time, 45 minutes)

1. Where are the saliva, gastric juice, and bile secreted? What is the use of each in digestion?
2. How does nutrition reach the circulation?
3. What is the function of the liver? Of the kidneys?
4. How would you stop the flow of blood from an artery in case of laceration?
5. Give some general directions that you think would be beneficial to preserve the human body in a state of health.

— Imagine a college student who went to public school trying to pass this test, even if the few outdated questions were modernized. Imagine their professors even being able to pass the 8th Grade. Can Americans, student and professor alike, get back up to the 8th Grade level of 1895? I seriously doubt it but stranger things have happened.

L

Somewhere In Ko Samui

“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”

www.mypetitemort.com

This post was composed under the influence of Tracks of my Tears by Linda Ronstadt

1. Teaching Math In 1960
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
It takes 4 men 2 hours to cut down the timber.
It takes 8 men 1 hour to split the timber.
Each man is paid $5 per hour.
What is his profit?

2. Teaching Math In 1970
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price.
What is his profit?

3. Teaching Math In 1980
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80.
What is his profit?

4. Teaching Math In 1990
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
His cost of production is $80.
Did he make a profit?

5. Teaching Math In 2000
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20.
Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

6. Teaching Math In 2008
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands.
He does this so he can make a profit of $20.
What do you think of this way of making a living?
Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers. )

L

Somewhere In Ko Samui

“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”

www.mypetitemort.com

This post was composed under the influence of The Loco-Motion by Little Eva

Over the last 4-5 days I have been in a gigantic nostalgic mood. (actually it’s called a saudade mood but there are no words in the English language to describe saudade. Google saudade and read up.)

Sometimes it just happens. Flood after flood of old memories assault me. Both good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant. Is this what happens when you grow older? After I watched Cinema Paradiso over the weekend I was reflecting on why so many take so much for granted. No one fully appreciates anything until it is gone. With that in mind I want to introduce you to someone you don’t know. She has the same name as little ol me. Laurie. Laurie Boncimino.

Laurie was born right around the same time when I first started working for myself. She was wearing diapers when I was making my first few independent dollars. She was learning to ride a bike when I first started to get heavy into computers. She was 10 years old when I made my frst sale on the internet. She was 11 when I spent the summer in Russia. She was 13 when I started to sell on Ebay. She was 16 when I spent the winter in Nepal. She was 19 when I spent the summer in Egypt. She was almost 21 when I was in England. When I was in Chicago in 2002 I probably passed within half a mile of her yet we never met. Why you ask. You see, I never even knew about Laurie until this weekend. I don’t even remember how the links took me to her website Laurie Boncimino but I ended up there and read all about Laurie and I read her mother’s blog Barb K that speaks of the last 3 years.

You see, Laurie took her own life 3 years ago. March 2, 2005. At a spot I was visiting 3 years previous almost to the day. There’s just something about this story that hit me hard. Real hard. Her mom has posted many pics of Laurie. Here’s one.

And another.

And another.

What could have driven Laurie to take her own life? This is the part that kills me. By all accounts she was happy, in college, engaged, employed. Her mother spoke of some journals they received later from the police that were in her car when it was impounded. Her mom said there were some pages written 3 weeks before to her fiancee and there were a few “darker” pages that Laurie wrote later that evidently went on to explain a little what she was feeling.

“…she is sorry, she is sorry, the pain, no way out, her pride, “I can not handle the stresses of this world…its not made for me.”

Quote from Laurie’s mother: “She left the house that day, saying, “Mom, have a great day. See you tonight. I love you.” Did she have her plan in mind then? It does not seem likely to me. What broke her spirit and her mind? Will I ever have all the pieces? Probably not…”

She had studied the last 3 days for a test she was having later that day. She met with her fiance that morning for coffee around 9am. She left a little later for school and her fiance got a text message in the afternoon around 3pm that she was studying for the 6pm exam. She never showed up for the exam. Her mother knew something was definitely wrong when she did not show up at 5am to open the Starbucks she managed.

2 days later police discovered her Jeep near the Art Institute. They discovered her jacket, shoes, keys and cellphone behind Adler Planetarium later Friday. On Saturday they recovered her body from the lake not too far away from where her personal items were found. It was 27 degrees that day. The water temperature was 33 degrees. Life expectancy in the freezing water was about 15-30 minutes. In her notes Laurie wrote she waited until dark.

In my mind I go back to when I was there. I remember how freezing cold and windy it was. I try imagine what it was like that evening as the sun set. More than likely in that secluded area behind the planetarium Laurie was all alone with her thoughts. Sunset that day was at 5:41pm. By 6:30pm all remaining sunlight would have been gone. Darkness and a starry sky above were left. I am left with the thoughts how long did Laurie sit there before making that fateful decision.

Wings Of Desire