Synchronicity in Action

Posted on August 7, 2018 by cdsmiller17

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Timing is Everything

Let’s set the scene, shall we? My wife and I are seniors in our late 60’s. We have a limited budget as we depend on pensions. We do not have a great deal of disposable income. (But, I’m not here to bemoan this fact: it’s just a fact of life, these days: there’s never enough…)

I’m in a bit of a more fortunate situation than most: I lived and worked in the UK for more than 22 years. That means that I contributed as a British taxpayer. When I returned to Canada in 2007, I thought I would get ‘credit’ on the Canada Pension Plan for those years, but it turns out that Canada and the United Kingdom do not have a reciprocal agreement. The positive side of this situation is that at 65 years of age, I applied for and began to receive the UK Pension, in addition to CPP and Old Age Security payments.

In April, I contacted the Newcastle Pension Centre, asking them what money Susan would receive after my death. I was told that when I die, the pension stops. There is no survivor benefit. I thought to myself, “Oh-oh, we need to see if Susan is eligible for a UK Pension in her own right, based upon the amount that I am getting. That way, when I die, she will continue to receive something.”

On the 28th of April, this year, I downloaded the application form and Susan and I filled it in. We sent it off the same day.

Within two weeks, Susan got her original documents back, but no decision.

Fast Forward Three Months

Before I continue with this story, let me backtrack to another sequence that started on the same date: I had a dream that we had ‘lost’ our car of seven years. At the time, I wasn’t sure what had happened to it, but I noted it down in my daily blog.

Then on the 31st of July, our car had a mechanical failure which resulted in the engine catching fire and the car being written off.

Now we were in a slight panic: how can we afford monthly payments for a new car?

That was on the Tuesday, last week. On the following Friday, Susan got notification that her UK Pension application has been successful. Wow, talk about prayers being answered. Now we could get a new car and still be able to afford to live as we have been doing for three years.

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Conclusion

It is still surprising when these things work out. One can have all the faith in the world and still have niggling doubts. The fact that we instituted our own resolution three months ago seem incredible, but I guess that’s what the old saying means when is says:

The Lord helps those who help themselves.

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Hoarding Ideas

Posted on August 6, 2018 by cdsmiller17

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Organized Confusion

Walking the dogs through our neighbourhood this morning, I passed the house of a man who obviously collects bits and pieces of junk. I thought, as you do, that I’m a collector of worthless trivia, in the hopes of finding a ‘pearl’ amongst the dross.

Isn’t that what we all do, in some form or another? His collection is of machinery and electronics; mine is of ideas and concepts. Neither of us will make our fortune, but at the end of the day, we can each look about us and be pleased with what we see.

Conclusion

Don’t underestimate the power of your memories. As a Facebook post stated the other day,

“Photographs have no value, until one day when they are all you have left.” (Paraphrased slightly.)

Hang on to your friends and family for as long as you can. Love is the only thing that truly matters in life, and the only thing that cannot be destroyed by death.

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Bye Bye, Limey

Posted on July 31, 2018 by cdsmiller17

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All We Wanted was a Coffee

I got the bright idea yesterday to suggest going into town for a coffee at Williams today. Susan said, “Sure!”

So we set out this morning, without a clue of what was to occur.

Near our destination, the temperature light came on. So I said, “Let’s stop in at Barrie Ford and get it checked out.”

The car had other plans. Within minutes, we were sparking flames underneath the car, and passing motorists were honking to let us know.

Smoke then started billowing out the back, and I knew we were in trouble.

Then the oil light came on, and the tachometer dial went to zero. I pulled the car over to the side of the 400 southbound (about 200 meters from the Highway 90 turnoff), and turned off the key.

All I said to Susan was, “Get out of the car NOW!”

She didn’t argue.

The car burst into flames and all we could do was watch it burn.

I wonder why I chose today to go out for a coffee…

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Turns out that I’d had a dream on April 28th, 2018 of losing our car, somehow. The premonition proved to be true.

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The Prequel Refines the Character

Posted on July 31, 2018 by cdsmiller17

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Endeavour Morse

John Thaw played the beloved character Inspector Morse for more years than I care to remember. Then Colin Dexter, the author, decided to kill him off in his final book, The Remorseful Day. The television show followed suit. Now ITV had a hole in their TV schedule where “Morse“ used to be.

In an attempt to fill that hole, ITV created “Lewis”, letting Morse’s former Sergeant take over doing essentially the same things, but, unfortunately, without Morse, who was the heart of the show. And then the prospect of competition with reruns of the original show made this sequel awkward at best.

I won’t say it was a desperation move, because in some ways it was inspired, but ITV hit on the idea of a prequel. In it, we would be able to see where all of Morse’s idiosyncrasies come from, including his shy ways with women. Shaun Evans, who plays the young Morse, has just the right balance of youthful enthusiasm and puzzle-solving skills to demonstrate how Thaw’s Morse became the old detective that he was.

It also allows us to see the Oxford City Police before it was combined with Oxfordshire County Police to become the Thames Valley Police that we know and love today.

If anything, this is a better version of policing from the 60’s than “Life on Mars“ was of the 70’s. More realistic, too, than “Heartbeat“.

In my opinion, I loved revisiting a time in England where there were changes happening almost every day, when the old ways were giving way to new methods, when the old soldiers were letting the young lions roar for a time. These were the years of my late teens, and they were the most formative of my life.

We should ‘endeavour’ to hold on to them…

Inspector Morse Theme

 

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The Machine Stops…

Posted on July 30, 2018 by cdsmiller17

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Written in 1909

I want this fact to sink in: 109 years ago, E.M. Forster sat down to write a science fiction short story. In it he envisioned a world of people living underground after ‘something’ makes living above ground unnecessary. We are not told what that something is, but in the present time that could be a nuclear war.

The Machine is their whole world, and in time becomes worshipped for its omnipotence. But some of the residents want to explore the world that exists outside the Machine. They are threatened with ‘homelessness’ if they persist, and the equipment to allow this exploration is abolished. But then the Machine begins to break down.

Technological Dependence

The thing that always amazed me, when I first read this story in 1969, was the vision that Forster had of instant/distant communication. Since the 1990’s when the Internet was ‘invented’ and cell-phone technology became capable of allowing face-to-face conversations between people living in different parts of the world, we have become more connected to others, while becoming more isolated in our little lives.

Just yesterday, I reminded my wife’s grandson that there have been times in the recent past where technology has temporarily failed to delivery its promise of improving our lives. Take the ‘blackout’ of 2003, for example. Due to a series of ‘fails’ a huge area of Ontario and the Northeast States lost all their electrical power for at least 6 hours, some places for far longer.

I suggested to him that a similar breakdown of technology could send us back to an earlier time when we were more self-sufficient. His 20-year-old reaction was typical: we’ll just ride it out until everything is restored. But, I suggested, what if it’s never restored?

World War III

Starting as far back as the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, we have all been under threat of nuclear war. Recently, even North Korea has rattled its missiles at us. And for the first time in all these years, we have at least two very ‘unstable’ individuals with their thumbs on nuclear buttons. It is all very precarious, but most people would prefer to ignore the threat of annihilation so that they can sleep peacefully in their beds at night.

“When The Wind Blows“ showed us that survival of a nuclear war is practically impossible. But Susan’s grandson says that we’ll just go somewhere safe underground until the whole thing blows over. Which brings me back to the point of this post:

Conclusion

We are so programmed into maintaining life, at all costs, that we forget that we are already immortal. We cannot die, but like a gamer in a simulation, we get another life, and another life, and another life, until…

The Machine Stops.

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He Came in Through the Kitchen Window

Posted on July 24, 2018 by cdsmiller17

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In 1983, I experienced what it feels like to be violated.

It had been a hot summer’s day, quite sweltering for North Vancouver. We went to bed, and I left the kitchen window slightly ajar, to let the cooler night air in. It also rained about midnight, and I think that’s when it happened.

Someone broke into our townhouse at 3rd and St Andrews and decided to steal our VCR and the video tape left inside. We didn’t hear a thing!

Blade Runner

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The video tape had been on rental. I also had two VCR’s. Guess what I was doing? Yup, I was copying it to a blank tape. It was my first and only attempt at video piracy. The Universe decided that I needed to be stopped.

Never again would I try to do such a (seemingly) victimless crime. I paid the price: C$125.00 to the video rental shop to replace the video tape.

Crime does not pay. 

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My Beatles’ Record Collection

Posted on July 23, 2018 by cdsmiller17

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The Butcher Cover

The ‘holy grail’ of Beatles’ collections, this album is a much sought after item. Grotesque, to be sure, it also demonstrated the Beatles’ collective sense of humour. They were protesting in a very visible way that Capitol Records were butchering their babies (records) by leaving one or two off earlier albums and then making a ‘new’ album featuring Yesterday and other songs. The “Today” part was the obvious lie.

I got a ‘peeled’ copy in 1980. It was a little patchy, but mostly intact. However, there was no album, so the used record store threw in a mint copy of the “Trunk” cover version to compensate.

Cost: C$200.

Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs Beatles Collection

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This is how this collection looks now, but the original box in 1980 was more like the one that houses the Beatles’ collection in their original EMI album covers, with the top opening out to allow access, instead of the side shown here.

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The long and winding road of how I lost, found and lost this collection again might be a story for another day. I played them once, recording their sound onto a dozen cassettes, which I still possess. My best purchase, ever.

Cost: C$500.

The Beatles’ Christmas Album

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This album isn’t as special now as it seemed at the time in 1970 when it was released. The Beatles used to send out flimsy 45 rpm acetates to their fans every Christmas. Capitol Records just copied them onto a master and issued this album when it appeared that the Beatles gravy train was coming to an end.

Cost: C$10.

The Japanese Box Set

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Let’s face it: I’m a sucker for ‘special’ box sets. This one boasted improved fidelity over our ‘normal’ pressings. I also liked the fact that it was from Japan. I needn’t have bothered.

Cost: C$50.

Por Siempre Beatles

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One of my last albums was this one from Spain. It didn’t have any other value than it was a foreign language title I found in Canada.

Cost: C$15.

Hey Jude/The Beatles Again

 

This one was a surprise find. Hey Jude came out on Capitol Records around the same time that the Beatles were breaking up. They must have changed their minds about the title because the LP inside was labeled The Beatles Again. These songs were essentially issued on 45s only by EMI. Again, Capitol was capitalizing on the public’s insatiable need for ‘new’ records, by recycling old ones.

Cost: C$8.

The Day the Music Died

When John Lennon was assassinated in 1980, I stopped collecting Beatles’ albums. But of my more than 500 albums that I had in my collection at that time, 125 were Beatles’ albums. This seems impossible since they only released 13 original albums (and a load of 45s) with EMI

But I first collected their albums as they were released by Capitol Records here in Canada. Then I got the American versions. Finally, I bought the imported EMI ones. It doesn’t take long to amass a fair number over a span of 15 years or so.

Do you need proof?

Audiophile

My daughter Rosanna, as a young audiophile

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Life Could Be A Dream

Posted on July 22, 2018 by cdsmiller17

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Reverie

There’s a new show on television, one that I had been avoiding for some reason. It stars Sarah Shahi, of Person of Interest fame. And it is a very slick but entertaining programme.

The concept isn’t new: a computer-generated ‘holiday’ from life first presented in Total Recall in 1990. The idea that it could be an extension of one’s life after death was shown to us in Vanilla Sky in 2001. But as a vehicle of a former police hostage negotiator, this makes it a more ‘feel-good’ television show.

Sarah Shahi

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I knew her face looked familiar, but I didn’t recognize from where, right away, because she smiled a number of times, and she never seemed to do that as Shaw on PoI. And is it possible that she’s also looking younger these days? Being a descendant of the Shah of Iran has given her some very good genes.

She is also showing vulnerability in this show, so we are seeing Sarah as a more likeable person. She’s human, after all.

Conclusion

I always have a point about these reviews, and this one will not come as a surprise to those readers who have followed my blogs.

The tag line, shown in the show’s poster (above), is:

Sometimes we all need help finding our way home.

This show is an allegory for what happens when we get trapped in this physical (holographic) world. We forget that it’s not real, and we get caught up in the machinations of living here.

We need to wake up from our coma and reconnect with those that we left behind on the ‘other side of life’. There, that’s the point of the show.

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Was Hillary Right?

Posted on July 21, 2018 by cdsmiller17

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“You’re a Puppet”

During the third Presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016, their words became focused on the matter of one (or the other) being a ‘puppet’. After watching the video again last night and I feel it all seems very prophetic.

 

Those of us, here in Canada, have a different point of view from the American public, mainly because we aren’t caught up in their bi-partisan politics. (We have our own, three-way fight, instead.) My own personal opinion, at the time, was that Trump was a nonsense candidate in order to make it easy for Clinton to win. In fact, his role was to knock out all credible opposition from the Republican Party, thereby ensuring history would be made with the first female President.

A Bridge Too Far

Obviously, the American people had a different idea, and they voted against Hillary strategically, so that even though she got three million votes more than Trump, the Electoral College chose Trump because of which states he won.

Didn’t you always wonder when Trump claimed that ‘the fix was in’ why he said that? I suspect he didn’t expect to win, and he was making excuses for his probable loss. His ego, being what it is, couldn’t abide the idea of losing.

But now the spectre of the idea that he won because of something the Russians did on his behalf has made him state out loud, “No collusion!” This he has done at every opportunity. Otherwise, his Presidency will seem illegitimate.

QAnon

David Wilcock keeps coming to a conclusion that seems a little far-fetched about Trump: he’s a good guy working with the military and other world allies to take down the Deep State, and lock the bad guys up. In fact, David has almost gone as far as speculating that QAnon might be the President himself. At any rate, it bears reminding that all may not be as it seems.

Maybe the job of Mueller’s Special Investigation is to target those Deep State operatives, and the Russian investigation is just a cover. We may never know.

Conclusion

In the meantime, the American Media has decided that Trump is a ‘clear and present danger’ and they are determined to undermine his Presidency.

The real divide in the United States is not just between Republicans and Democrats, but the White House and everyone else. (Doesn’t that ring a few Nixon bells?)

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Divide

Posted on July 20, 2018 by cdsmiller17
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Courtesy of Ed Sheeran’s album

Have you ever looked, really looked, at the mathematical symbol for ‘divide‘? Taken from above, it appears to be of the heads of two people with an obstacle between them. Wow!

I was recently witness to an exchange on a Facebook ‘spiritual’ page. The words got heated because one person was expressing concerns about the ‘slickness’ of a film production and another decided that his hesitancy showed he lacked a certain passion about the subject matter. However, in calling him out, she used a common acronym which is a rude phrase (which I won’t repeat here).

The first individual wrote that she didn’t need to be rude, and the second individual wrote that his original words were rude.

Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, but it does point out that the only way spiritual work can be derailed is if and when we fight amongst ourselves.

Gentle reminder: We are all in this together; united we stand, divided we fall.

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