Something Funny

Something funny happened to me the other day. I was in a wine store and choose two regular size bottles of fine grapes. As I approached the counter to pay for the wine, the cashier pulled out a stretchy piece of plastic and pulled over one bottle, so the two bottles would not crash together. I commented on the cool looking piece of stretchy plastic. The cashier stated that it was not plastic it was made from some sort of organic stuff, it was biodegradable, environmentally friendly, also it falls apart if it is pulled on, yet strong enough to keep the bottles from breaking. I’m thinking wow a really great idea, as I comment on the gizmo, the cashier reaches under the counter and pulls out two plastic bags and states I better double bag this.
Sifu Hayes www.silentriverkungfu.com Stony Plain Alberta Canada

Quote

All human beings, though they may seem to be walking on different paths, are all marching to one goal, and that goal is Self-realization. The Bhagavad-Gita
Sifu Hayes www.silentriverkungfu.com Stony Plain Alberta Canada

Trip

Traveled to Bullhead City Arizona Saturday Sunday and Monday on the Interstate 15 highway, you can drive from Edmonton Alberta to Las Vegas Nevada on four lane highway. It is a long drive, but the country is beautiful. In Alberta farmers were combining fields of wheat, canola, barley and what have you for grain crops. Then there were fields of the famous Tabor corn their brown silk tassels and green leaves and stalks blowing in the breeze looked like they were dancing a slow waltz.
As we dropped down into Montana it looked like most of the crops were taken off already. There were still corn crops left but I believe it was to be used as feed for corn silage. We seen huge windmills standing majestically on the hills. These giants at two hundred feet high, with their three sixty foot long blades slowly turning, these monsters are producing, the clean electricity. The farther south we went the drier, browner and shorter the vegetation became.
Moving into Idaho, we seen potatoes being harvested, tractors pulling harvesters with tons of potatoes rolling off the tip of the harvester into the trucks. The trucks hauling potatoes to be sorted and stored in low roofed, partly underground dirt covered buildings.
We crossed into Utah then to Salt Lake City. The wind was blowing fifty miles an hour temperature thirty seven Celsius and raining, you could cut the humid air with a knife. That city is busy, four and six lane highways crisscrossing over and under each other, the cement highways were like spaghetti sitting on posts hanging in the air. We drove over mountain passes at six thousand feet, the vegetation would be greener at that altitude but still short. There was more signs of irrigation, with large circles maybe two hundred yards across of absolutely stunning color of green set in a sea of brown sun baked grass and other vegetation. Other farmers pumping water through pipes that are arched between rubber tired drive systems spraying water gracefully on the land in all directions onto freshly seeded, golden stubble.
Then into Nevada where the rocks became reddish brown, the short vegetation forcing is way with crooked short trunks and small green leaves between rocks that look like there should be no reason for anything to be growing there. Also prickly little cactus and plants that resembled short little palm trees looking out of place in the baron landscape. Las Vegas pops up out of nowhere, the land turns from everything struggling to grow, to a bustling city with water, greenery, tall palm trees and traffic going in all directions with tourists and local people going about their day. Down through to a town called Cal Nev Ar where the three states meet approximately there. Into Laughlin and across the Colorado river into Bullhead City. The desert is full of beauty as long as you can look deep into it and appreciate the struggle for life that the plants and animals go through, which for them is just another day of that's the way it is.
Sifu Hayes silentriverkungfu.com Stony Plain Alberta Canada

Our comfort zone

How many times a day or week, do you step out of your comfort zone? When you are young, if you step out of that zone more often that not, by the time you are older your comfort zone will become very large. Thus making your non-comfortable zone smaller. The more you step out of your comfort zone when you are young, your confidence becomes better, and you become more assertive. But you do have to control yourself not to become so aggressive that you dominate every one you meet. Otherwise you are not teaching the martial arts. Being out spoken is fine, as long as you take the time to pay attention and actually listen to what another person is saying. A person can dominate a conversation, and are so into him or herself, concentrating on what they are going to say next. That when you are speaking! Their eyes wonder, look at themselves in a mirror maybe fix their hair, look around the room, waiting for you to hurry up and finish talking, so they can make their statement that must be way more important than what you are saying. What is trying to be said here is at least give the person that is talking to you the time of day and courtesy to what they are saying by looking at them, at least pretend you are interested. Wow quite a rant.
Sifu Hayes www.silentriverkungfu.com Stony Plain Alberta Canada