Today is the 7th anniversary of my lovely wife Karyn and mime. I am very deeply in love with her and I am so very lucky that she has been able to put up with my idiosyncrasies. I am somewhat out in left field so I know I can be a handful for anyone.

Karyn is a wonderful person, a fabulous wife, a fantastic friend not only to me but to all of our friends, and if there is such a thing she is 'too good of a mother'. Her sons should praise God every day for the mother that was there for them from day one. Also she is the ultimate daughter that a mother could ask for.

I could shout a thousand times that I love her but that could not come close to expressing the feelings of love that for her I harbor within.

I truly hope that our creator will grant Karyn and I just one eternal hour together. She deserves much much more.

This disastrous oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico by British Petroleum boggles my mind because it just sounds totally negligent that an industry as old and financially successful as the entire oil drilling industry is, WHY WHY WHY have the not seen the need to design and install a Fail-Safe valve placed at the ocean floor at the beginning of the drilling process and that valve remain there until the well is caped off and abandoned.

I keep hearing this '5ooo Foot' excuse, that the depth is too great and the pressure is too great to make a valve work. That is pure 'Bull Shit'. We can put a space station into outer space, send probes to the moon and mars And put up the Hubble Telescope into the universe but we can't design a safety valve to sit 5000 feet below sea level while we drill 10,000 feet or more into the ocean floor. That is absurd.

I am a welder and sculptor and if they gave me a team of engineers and machinists I could develop a functional safety valve that would work (safely and efficiently) and stay at the floor of the ocean until they sucked the last drop of oil out of that well.

It is my belief that they don't want to spend that extra money to develop and install on each and every well in the ocean a valve as such. This one incident aught to, even to idiots, turn on a few lights in their heads. This is not rocket science, it is simply hydraulics and mechanics.

They have made billions and perhaps trillions throughout the years and they have gotten by on a lot of luck until now but its time for them wake up.

How do you define or perceive exactly what constitutes an artist? Do you believe , that if someone knows how to draw, paint or manipulate other materials such as clay, stone or steel or any kind of material in order to reproduce something that already exists in the real world, that that talent makes that person an artist?

I am not sure that talent is the criteria necessary to qualify one as calling themselves an artist. The term 'ARTIST' has been thrown around, in my opinion, just as recklessly as the word 'LOVE'. I don't think that I love popcorn, ice creme or green beans, but I might really love lobster. I think there is much more to the concept of 'LOVE' than the loose way we use it, and likewise I believe that we use the term 'ARTIST' much too loosely.

The 'PASSION FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION' is the crucial element (sine qua non) requisite to qualify yourself as an artist, of course this being my opinion.

We can look at drawings of children, and readily you can see that their drawing talent has yet to be developed. You can, however, if you pay closer attention to the content discover that some of these children possess a greater "FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION' than the majority of the other children. These children, if nurtured in the arts but not harnessed will in my opinion be more likely to develop into potentially great artists.

I do not mean to imply that talent is unimportant to become a successful artist , but to the contrary one needs to develop his skills as much as possible. The more skilled you are in the use of your chosen medium the more freedom you can experience and the more capable and powerful your passions will surface.

I have read a little book call"ART & FEAR" by David Bayles & Ted Orland and I think that it would behoove anyone interested in the arts to pick up a copy and read. I think it would give you a greater insight as to what an artist encounters when his passions compel him or her to produce works that might cause a public or family outcry of dissent and even at times violent outbursts of rage.

It truly is sad that sometimes when an artist finally reaches that point in life that he makes that decision to freely express his true feelings about life and the human condition he finds himself alone because most of his friends and family and society don't want to see or hear about 'His Freely Expressed Feelings'. If a truth does not sound pleasing to some people they don't want anything to do with it.

My new beginning

This is the beginning of my trying to reach out to the world and share the bulk of my thoughts on 'My' blog. I am 63 years of age and I want people to get to know me through my own words. I don't, as any of us, know our last day on this beautiful planet, and I prefer you not getting to know me through the words of possible biographers.

I know that probably sounds a bit hubris to even think that someone would be interested in writing about me someday but, I do believe it will happen and then the biographer can say 'That guy was so hubris', and then write whatever else he or she wishes to say.

Writers are very creative so I don't think that whatever I write about will create too much of a problem for them.

This is only an introduction to say I'm here blogging and I plan to return with much more say in the days to come. I hope you'll get something thoughtful from my blogs.