A happy Saturday morning to everyone.

For me, these days have become monotonously weary. Wake at odd hours, sleep at even stranger moments (lots of them). Finally an urge to get up, then, crash in mere minutes. It’s been over a week of this nonsense.

“The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.” ~ Winston Churchill

We’re plodding on—still under much reduced power. After all, it’s only a cold ………. right?

Medieval torture – Marcia recollected a solution. She dove into the depths of a closet, and there, taped underneath at the very back of a lower shelf there it was; her ancient secret implement. She had reached her ‘eureka’ moment.

   With a flourish she tossed a box marked “the original & patented Sinus Rinse Kit” onto the kitchen counter. I was staring at a NeilMed Sinus Rinse, and it looked ominous – especially the very severe graphics.

The instructions had lots of red ink (never good), many “mixture” packets (Okay with these), and required me to assume some amazing bodily positions (horrible).

I have never been overly supple. What the kit demanded, any degree of possible suppleness would have been laughable.

Let me just say (basically to not scare the overly squeamish) that afterwards I could not wait to jump into the shower.

Now another Saturday morning and I still struggle to maintain a necessary supply of Kleenex with Aloe & Vitamin E lotion (I do have my standards you know).

As the days moved on – they did so in quietude. I finished a book. Searched out some new Podcasts. Downloaded the audio version of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield into my iTunes.

The David Copperfield book was 8-CDs and 178 files, and I did something wrong.

The resultant file aligned all the chapters in order – by CD number. Just so that I am clear, this meant that to listen I would have chapter one, CD-1 immediately followed by chapter 1 of CD-2, then likewise for CD-3 and so forth. Considering that each CD has about 23 chapters, this meant utter chaos.

In my ‘grippe’ hazed eyes I managed to re-sort sequentially by CD number. Only now I had two copies running in the same iPod folder – even worse. That is when I started to listen to the radio.

On the Radio, 700WLW – came one of my favorite local hosts – Willy Cunningham, the “uncommon voice of the common man”. Just so you can get a feel for the guy, he’s an amazing interviewer. He’s a lawyer and his wife a Federal Judge. Politically he’s an independent conservative, absolutely insane, irreverent, and totally hysterical. And by the way, he has a New York based TV show that equals the ‘crap’ shown on the Jerry Springer Show.

Willy was about to start a 15-minute segment with Buzz Aldrin, former astronaut, and the second man on the moon. At age 86, Buzz is still full of “piss-and-vinegar”. Aldin is one of the few remaining heroes who tread out into basically an unknown and do so by the seat of their pants using a computer that in reality was akin to a Commodore 64. It was a lovely fifteen minutes.

But, I want you to get a feel of just how quick and unflappable Aldrin still is; this a short interview with Sacha Baron Cohen in his boorish Ali G. rapper persona.

Podcasts – I hit the jackpot. I got the latest history series by Dan Carlin entitled King of Kings. The hours of listening provides a Masters level course on the subject.  And so I embarked on the growth of the Persians (modern day Iran) around 400 BC.; leading to how eventually the events contributed to the emergence of Greece and thereby the Western World.

Just in case you view this through the eyes of your early history lessons – you’re dead wrong. I too remember texts where as soon as you finished a paragraph it would fall off the page and scatter like dust – boring and immediately forgotten.

No, this is Hard Core history come to life. History, full of its intrigue and mystery. History, as dissected under a modern microscope and using today’s CSI Crime Scene Investigation style tools. It’s wonderful!

Fini – I think my illness was worse than I first suspected. From last week’s ‘Ramblings’ Donn corrected one item, Kirstin another, and Marcia thinks I should have just taken a break.

Having said all of this, in a while I will bundle up and head out to watch the first games (2) of the Spring outdoor soccer season – Marin and Vai. Between games there will be just enough time to buy some more Kleenex, and yes, it’ll be the kind with aloe and vitamin E.

To everyone, make it a great week and everyone, stay safe.

Cheers.

Dirk