Welcome everyone. Mickey's Sanctorum by the Sea is my little place in the world! I am a 56 year old gay man living in Carolina Beach, NC. I am a family kind of guy with grown children and four young grandchildren. I am proud of who I am and proud of my family. Feel free to join me in sharing a part of my life! Comments always welcome!
At age 4 success is . . . Not peeing in your pants. At age 12 success is . . . Having friends. At age 17 success is . . Having a driver's license. At age 35 success is . . Having money. At age 50 success is . . . Having money. At age 70 success is . ... . Having a drivers license. At age 75 success is . . . Having friends. At age 80 success is . . . Not peeing in your pants.
Tomorrow, January 11 is my 52nd birthday. I found this about success at different times of life and I just had to share it. It sort of puts age into perspective, doesn't it? I hope everyone enjoys!
I love Indian Art. I belong to a group that sends out a lot of fun stuff from India and Pakistan. These are pictures sent to me from that group. I hope you all enjoy them!
Hello all, I love the idea of alien life on alien planets. On another group that I belong to, someone (I do not know who to credit) posted some wonderful photoshopped animals. I enjoy them and I hope you do too! Thank you to their creator!
Note: if anyone can tell me who the creator is, I will be happy to provide credit for the images!
Earlier this week, I saw a whole clip about all of President Bush’s failures.To be honest, it did not bother me at all.I truly see the man as someone who may have made grand contributions somewhere else, but was certainly not presidential material at all.I have made fun of the guy myself on several occasions.And on each and every occasion, I feel he deserved the criticism.However, more recently when the shoe incident occurred with the Muslim journalist things seem to have changed and strangely I now find myself feeling a bit of a need to defend President Bush.
Why do I feel different about this particular incident?For a few reasons, first, even if you don’t like the man in charge you should still respect the office of the president. This man was elected (for better or for worse) as the president of our country.Not just any country, but the country hailed as being the strongest free nation in the entire world.To allow a journalist to commit such an assault against our leader and to subsequently laugh at the leader rather than being insulted as an American that someone would dare to perpetrate such an act on the man holding our highest office speaks loudly about the shape of America today.
As Americans, I believe we should be angered at this outrage and should be backing our president during this time, not humiliating him.Understand, I do not like GW Bush, I do not believe he is competent, but he is my president. And I do not believe that my president should be target of an assault by some garden variety thug, especially when that thug is just a journalist who was allowed access to the man holding the highest political office in the world.
I am also offended that we are taking part in the laughter.Again, we are Americans. Someone has perpetrated a world scale public insult to our president.And what is our reaction?We laugh at the president and make light of the issue.Does anyone understand that this was not just a public humiliation of GW Bush, but a public humiliation of all of America?
I also feel that for whatever reason this particular incident has lead to an open season on GW Bush.Again, don’t like the guy, think he has less political skill than just about anyone on the planet.But again, he is our leader and to humiliate him on such a grand scale is simply not acceptable.What disturbs me the most is the general acceptance of such bad taste on a grand scale.
To me, the reaction around the incident does not feel like the political cartoons of the past or like the funny photo shopped images that we traditionally see.It feels like a case of insult to injury.First our leader is assailed by an angry Muslim militant, then he is publicly assailed by our own journalist and our people.It’s a sad day in America when we give up our dignity and our national pride in the guise of free speech.The Muslim guy was not asserting his right to free speech or intelligently stating his case, he was attacking our president.He was one of a very select few people in the world with access to our president, with access to ask the man questions directly, but instead of taking advantage of that access and doing his job professionally and intelligently, he chose to attack a world leader.In my eyes, that is a problem and he should be imprisoned for decades as an example of what happens to those who would attack the leader of the strongest nation on earth!
And finally, while I myself see the value in sarcasm and I enjoy political cartoons and satire (look on some previous pages and you will find some).I also believe that this kind of humiliation for our president~~ especially from his own people~~ is over the top and just inappropriate.For me, it’s sort of a family attitude.I have two brothers and a sister.Over the years we have had terrible arguments and have been unkind and cruel to each other on more than one occasion.But I pity the fool who would try to hurt one of us or divide us, we may not always agree, we may not always like each other, but we are ALWAYS family and we ALWAYS love each other.That is the attitude that I believe America should have towards this incident.We may not always agree with who is in charge and we may not always like who is in charge, but he is one of our own and he is one of our American family and we have an obligation to always love and protect our own!
I love these two images of an albino peacock. You see, I am different and I have always been different. I am gay, I am a big chubby man and I think differently than almost anyone I know. I look different, I talk different, I act different and I think different. In fact, I have often thought of myself as a freak of nature. Someone who does not quite fit, someone different, so different I stand out. But then I look at these pictures and I am reminded that even freaks of nature have their own unique beauty and their own place in the world. If I must be different, I hope that someone sees me as this peacock, definitely not the usual, but something that the world could use more of!
Hi again all, I love these pictures, they were sent to me from a fun group that I belong to. They are titled Catch the Moon. I love them for two reasons! First the creativity, I wish I had been the first to try out this idea with family and friends. These are just too cool to look at. Second, I love the idea, Catch the Moon, like it is yours to tame. Imagine being big enough, powerful enough and strong enough to harness the moon for your own! Anyway, it's just a fun thought and a couple of fun pictures to share.
Cartoon Used with Permission from Randy Glasbergen
As some of you know, I work in a call center doing tech support for a cellular provider.Today, I was lucky enough to get another shining example of stupidity in America on my line.My company is going through a major transition right now and as a consequence it is sometimes hard to find a customer’s records in the normal manner.A male customer called in literally shouting at me from the start of the call.He was angry that he had been transferred to me and he was angry that he was put on hold until he could reach me.I tried to be polite as I realized he had gone through a long wait and frustration was certainly to be expected.When the man provided his number, I could not find it in the system.I suspected that he had been transferred to me because other groups involved in the transition also could not find his records and I did not want to upset the customer further.So, being a dutiful employee and trying to do the right thing, I asked the customer if he was new to my company.The reason I asked was because sometimes new customer’s records take several hours to show up in our system but there is a way to retrieve them.The man immediately escalated and started shouting at me about what kind of moron he considered me to be and how stupid could I be to ask such a question.He swore and screamed and shouted in such a way that you would have thought I had breeched national security.I let him vent than tried to explain what I was trying to accomplish, to no avail, the man simply started screaming again and would not allow me even a sentence to explain my position or simply change to another strategy to correct the problem and find his account.Finally, after allowing the man to cuss in my ear for another five minutes and seeing no end to his venting in site I put on my most commanding voice and interrupted the man.I said Sir, I simply asked about your account to service your needs better. I did not say we do not have your account, I did not say you are a new customer, I simply asked for information to assist me to locate your account so I can help you better.Again, the man escalated and hung up.During his tantrum, I checked his notes and discovered that he had done the same behavior to other representatives earlier in the day.Oddly enough, even with his tantrum and cussing directly in my ear at top volume and verbally degrading me for several minutes, I found his account just as he hung up.The guy only accomplished one thing on that call, he proved himself a total fool.Had he been polite and considerate, I could have found his account much sooner and his issue would have been resolved.Instead he threw a tantrum like a child and now he is in a position to have to call back in and wait in a queue that was much, much larger than usual and go through it all over again.According to the records, he had done this to two other reps earlier in the day, I was the third rep he assailed and our call volume was so high with waiting as long as an hour (very rare for us, but because of the transition a necessary evil).The guy probably spent at least 2-4 hours on hold just to throw tantrums in representative’s ears.If he had listened and worked with us, we could have resolved his issues in moments and he would have been spared the wait time and calling back, serves him right.We are open 24/7 and somehow I imagine he is still calling in trying to bully reps into ‘better’ service.Geeze guy, it’s a cell phone, not rocket science, get some perspective!
I recently saw an article about a girl who was suspended for several days here in Virginia.What was her crime?She had a bottle of Midol in her purse.You see, the girl went to a school where they have a no tolerance policy for drugs.She had trouble with cramping and kept a bottle of Midol in her purse and forgot to remove it before going to school.When she had realized what she had done, she reported it to a teacher who promptly reported it to the school authorities and made an example of her.Now, someone please explain to me why this could not have been handled in a civil and reasonable manner?It seems to be that a reasonable solution would have been to take the item from the girl and return it at the end of the day, or maybe call the girls parents and ask them to come and pick up the item, but to suspend an honor student over a mistake is a huge miscarriage of justice.
When I lived in Colorado, a similar experience happened in Colorado Springs.Again, the student was a victim of another 0 tolerance policy.What was this student’s crime?A teenage girl with a car that had a broken trunk had a butter knife in the car that she used to pry open the trunk when she needed to access it.The school got her for carrying a weapon and made an example of her suspending her for several days and labeling her as a trouble maker on her permanent record.But some moron teacher got to say they saved the school and the day by getting menacing weapons out of the hands of a derelict student (a 16 or 17 year old female honor student).Imagine the shock and horror in fellow students’ eyes as this girl pried open her trunk to get her math book out!
Another case here in Virginia, Virginia Beach-maybe Norfolk (I can not remember which city) involved men urinating on the side of buildings near the beach.It seems that several men were relieving themselves on the side of a 7-11 store that was located right on the water.Oddly enough, the issue here was not public sanitation regarding people urinating in places that others might walk through.It was not concern for disease or odor.Instead, the issue came out on the news that vile men were exposing themselves in the presence of children (half of which were male and had the same need.)While I understand that it is in bad taste to just whip out the unit and go at will in public, I also think it is in bad taste for two cities that have massive waterfront and beach areas to only have 2-3 facilities along the entire beachfront area.These men were not exposing themselves with any kind of intent to attract anyone of any age or kind sexually and should not have been treated as if they were.But now, because of the poor judgment of an officer issuing tickets and because of pressure put on local law enforcement by right wing idiots, these men have a permanent record that makes them look like some kind of pervert.
And finally, in another case that I am aware of, a group of teenage boys were skinny dipping in a river (local to their area, I can not remember where the article came from).The boys were rounded up and ticketed for public indecency.Again, their actions were maybe in poor taste, being so close to a bridge that they could be seen by those who pass by.But they had no sexual intent and were not exposing themselves for any kind of sexual gratification.They were just boys taking a swim on a hot summer day.In my day, the cop may have told us to get dressed and go home, he may have told us to move further down the river so we could not be seen, but he would never have ticketed us like a group of perverts and stuck us in the court system as if we were some kind of criminal.
Some time back, I had a similar experience of my own.I was coming home from a gathering with friends.It was a long drive and nature called.As I got closer to home, I realized there was no way I could wait any longer.I stopped at a local store and asked to use their rest room; I was told that it was out of order.So I went out of my way to drive by a local factory that I knew was closed on weekends, a place where I knew nobody would be nearby.I pulled my car behind the facility and parked the car behind me.I moved into a corner by a loading dock where I was protected by the building on two sides, by the loading dock on another side and by my car behind me.I did my business and started to leave.
As I was about to leave a police car pulled up.The cop flashed his lights and ordered me out of my car.When I got out, the first words out of this guy’s mouth were “aren’t you ashamed of yourself”.I looked at him, a kid about half my age and I am sure the shock I was feeling registered. I am not always known to hold my temper when provoked and this was one of those times.I asked him what I had to be ashamed of.He said you know what you were doing!I looked back at him and said who is the pervert here? The guy who goes out of his way to hide himself so he can urinate privately or the guy who hides himself turning off his lights, quietly stalking someone hoping to get a look at his penis to see if he measures up?I was angry and said are you going to ticket me or not.In his best cop voice he said no, but don’t do it again.I thought, what a moron.
In each and every one of these cases innocent people were treated as criminals and paid serious consequences for non existent crimes.While I understand that the public has to be protected from people who would do them harm, I also understand that people deserve the right to live unbothered when they are committing no crime. I truly believe that if our police and educators spent more time and effort stopping real crimes and wasted less time harassing innocent people they might actually solve some crimes.Instead they waste expensive resources harassing innocent people then brag about what they have accomplished.Such a waste.
Why Do I Blog???I was talking with a friend the other day about my blog.I mentioned that I have a blog, it’s no big success, but I love writing it.My friend asked me why I bother if nobody really notices.I had to think about it a bit, but now I really do know why.
I think we are the first generation where the common every day guy can record his life for everyone to see.In years past, only the wealthy could have education and access to publishers.Over the years it got better with newspapers, we could even write letters to the editor and express who we are and what we feel.But today, anyone with a computer at their finger tips, which is almost everyone in the known first world nations and growing numbers in other nations, can record their lives.
We can talk about what we like and don’t like.We can write about the things that we believe, whether those beliefs are religious, political or just our simple opinions.We can record what we think is funny or sad or what angers us.We can tell the world about our special events, the birth of a child, a wedding, the death of a loved one, the fear we feel over a disease that we have to live with.
I like to imagine a world where my descendants will not only be able to know about Napoleon and George Washington, but they will be able to read about their great, great, great grand dad and get a sense about who and what he was.I would love to know that generations from now, those in our family line can have a good sense about who they are and where they came from.
So why do I do it, because it’s fun and because we can leave our families the opportunity to get to know us long after we are gone.
