• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to footer

The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

  • About Jack
    • Other Places You Can Find Me
  • Contact Me
    • Disclosure
  • About Jack
    • Other Places You Can Find Me
  • Contact Me
    • Disclosure

Archives for July 2008

What Makes You Happy

July 28, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Today was a day filled with a number of highs and lows. It was the day in which we threw a birthday party for my daughter. She was so excited. All morning long she bounced off of the walls asking if it was time for her party.

I looked down into a pair of dark piercing eyes and promised that I would let her know when it was time to leave. She put a hand on her hip and admonished me not to be late. “Don’t get stuck on the computer, the telephone or doing push ups.”

(Side note: Her comment shows that I am doing a good job of being dedicated to my exercise program. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

I promised that I wouldn’t and set about to take care of a couple of chores. Soon enough the party girl was in her party dress and we were off. In a short time the guests arrived and four year-olds briefly took over the world. At least some of them did, there were several that never showed.

It irked me. I don’t care or expect every kid to show up. Don’t need to have a million kids to make my children feel loved. But I expect the courtesy of an R.S.V.P or a telephone call to say that you can’t make it.

Her big brother surprised me by noticing that some of these kids hadn’t made it. He made me smile because he was upset. When I asked why he told me that he was afraid that his sister’s feelings would be hurt. I told him that he was a good big brother and that we need to focus on the important things.

That led to a discussion of what makes you happy. It seems to me like a bunch of his friends don’t really know what makes them happy. They expect their parents to take care of everything. They can’t play by themselves because without mom or dad they don’t know what to do.

Inside this house that dog don’t hunt. I can’t tolerate raising children to be incapable of taking care of themselves. It is important and necessary to let them fail a time or two so that they learn how to deal with it at an early age. If you don’t teach them how to cope the day will come when they will find themselves in hell.

The question of what makes you happy is one that I periodically ask myself. Every now and then I consider where I am heading and try to make sure that it corresponds with what makes me happy. Life is too short, too fragile and too hard not to. I try not to live in the past or focus on regrets.

But sometimes I find myself thinking about the road I didn’t take. Sometimes I think back to that January day in Jerusalem. It is pouring rain and I am soaked, but I don’t care. I am walking aimlessly through the city, but it doesn’t matter. I have made the decision to go back to the states long enough to pack up my stuff and move back.

It didn’t happen, for a whole host of reasons. It is bootless to cry about it. Can’t say exactly what would have happened, but I have my ideas. I like to think that destiny brought me back. I like to think that something bigger is behind this, but I don’t really know.

If you are wondering I didn’t get into the deeper end with my son, but I did speak with him about how life doesn’t always go the direction you think or want it to and why it is important to figure out what makes you happy.

Because if you know what makes you happy than you can act upon it. There are moments when it is cool to be spontaneous and to let the current take you where it will. But there are also times for action. I told him that when he gets older he’ll understand some of this better and that there will be moments when it will pay to be bold.

Perhaps I’ll share more on this later.

Filed Under: Children

The Fight To Express Myself- Stories To Tell

July 28, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Sometimes I feel like communicating my thoughts and feelings is an enormous struggle that is more trouble than it is worth. If you have spent any time reading the blog you know that this isn’t a new thing. I like to think of it as being part and parcel of being a tortured artist.

However it seems to me that in order to be a tortured artist one must first be an artist. So I suppose that I should try and figure out how to pass myself off as an artist. We’ll start with singing in which case torture is probably an appropriate description. If I were to sing you might feel as if you were being tortured.

On a serious tack there are a whole host of things that I wish that I could do that I am not real good at now. Singing is one of those things. I’d like to have the kind of voice that enabled me to sing songs that would make your heart feel like it was going to burst from your chest.

Better yet give me the voice and make me a piano virtuoso. Give me the skills to play/write songs that make the whole world sing. And yes I know who I am referencing.

But chances are that I am not suddenly going to gain either skill. The voice I have works well for a lot of things, but song is not one of them. At 39 it is unlikely that I am going to discover that I am an incredible musician. Not impossible, but not likely.

If I were a sullen, morose and bitter man I might spend time lamenting how unfair life is. Because let’s face it, sometimes life sucks. In the movies the good guys almost always win, but that is why they are movies. In the real world the good guy watches as the love of his life shacks up with his nemesis and then discovers that he has some obscure cancer that ravages his body.

But since I am not that sullen, morose and bitter man I do my best to devise alternatives. I have stories to tell. My head is filled with images, movies of people, places and things that I want to share.

When I was younger I used to kid around with friends about writing a book and or producing a movie. But suddenly I find myself taking a harder look at this. Who says that I can’t do these things. What is to prevent me.

If I can chase the Ironman, then I can chase after these things too. If you asked me what set me on this path I could point to a bunch of different things. I could share the story of the friend who watched the love of his life walk away. I can recite more stories than I care to admit about friends who died tragic young deaths as well as those who were a bit older, but not quite old enough to be spoken of as having lived a full life.

So it is really a number of things that are driving me. Is any of this significant. Is any of this meaningful. Well, I don’t know if you’ll relate to this or not. If you’re making checklists of my pros and cons I can’t say if this is going to add or subtract from your report.

I just know that life is short and that your job is to figure out what makes you happy. It is not something that anyone else can do. Not everyone figures it out, but if you do…

Filed Under: Things About Jack

Using Art To Speak

July 28, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

So I decided to try using Wordle to provide a graphic rundown of some of the posts from this blog. I have done my best to provide links to the stories above the image.

It is an experiment of sorts. Let’s see how it works out.
A Story Using Song Lyrics Revisited
A Story Using Song Lyrics Revisited Continued
the 
Johnny and June- A Rough Draft 
June 
Whether The Storm or Weather The Storm 
Notes For June- Fragments of Fiction 
More about JohnnyA Boy Named MookieThe Bearer of Bad Tidings- One Less Set of Footsteps

Filed Under: Stories, Wordle

What Not to Do-Snakebites

July 28, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Here at The Shack we appreciate stories about all kinds of animals. So when we find interesting news we like to share it. This afternoon we stumbled onto what not to do about snakebites.

Here is an excerpt that is worth a look.

“After 23 years as an emergency room physician, Dr. Mark Rabold still takes his business seriously but can’t help but wonder in amusement about some of the situations he’s encountered involving rattlesnake bites.

One of his favorite stories involves an anesthesiologist who had just recently moved to Montana. The guy ran over a rattler with his dirt bike, but the tire spun up the snake, which hit the biker in the stomach and bit him.

Then there’s the one — Rabold’s had so many patients he can’t remember if he treated this guy or just read about it —where a man was struck by a rattlesnake, and the guy’s buddy tried a home remedy to treat the wound.

“His buddy got the jumper cables and hooked him up to a giant battery for his semi, then fired up the engine. He probably had to put down his beer first to put the clamps on each side of the snake bite,” Rabold said, laughing. “The guy is screaming, yelling and seizing from this treatment; they thought it would somehow break the venom down.

“Someone actually did a study, and found that electric therapy doesn’t work. It’s just an interesting layman’s myth. This guy ended up with third-degree electrical burns.”

The reality of rattlesnakes is that they do cause a painful bite and their venom can kill a person, although that’s rare. But for every true aspect of rattlers, there are also plenty of tall tales.”

From a slightly different angle The Week has a review of a book called The Snake Charmer. It shares the tale of Joe Slowinski’s encounter with a venomous krait. According to the review a bite from this particular snake causes your nervous system to shut down and death within four hours.

“For all its high drama,” said Eric Ormsby in The New York Sun, The Snake Charmer is at heart “a book about strangeness.” The snakes that Slowinski and his colleagues pursue are rare specimens, yet the scientists themselves are James’ most exotic subjects of all. “They have their own lingo, their own customs, their private codes,” as well as astonishing tenacity. When Slowinski stops breathing, his peers keep him alive for 24 hours with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as they wait in vain for a helicopter rescue. Slowinski, meanwhile, calmly details the nature of his symptoms to his anguished friends. By dedicating his final hours to his chosen field, said People, he earned the “remarkable tribute” James has written.”

And that leads to an off color joke that you may have heard.

Two friends go on a camping trip together. A short time after dark one of them has to urinate. So he goes over to the bush pulls down his pants and then he screams. He runs over to his friend and says, “Man I’ve been bitten by a snake on my penis call for help.”

So his friend runs off to the car to call poison control to ask what to do to help his friend.

The doctor offers the following instructions, “You take a knife and make an x on the spot where he was bit, then you suck out the venom.”

The friend thanks the doctor and runs back to his friend who looks up and asks, “What did the doctor say?”

His friend looks down and says ” I am very sorry, the doctor says you’re gonna die!”

Filed Under: animals, Useful Information

Haveil Havalim #175 — Through the Eyes of Frume Sarah

July 27, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Come one, come all to read Haveil Havalim #175 — Through the Eyes of Frume Sarah . If you want a preview just take a look at the Wordle below.

Filed Under: Haveil Havalim

Bollywood

July 27, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

I rather enjoy many of the Bollywood productions. There is something quite enjoyable about watching the song and dance routines. Of course I haven’t the foggiest idea what they are saying. One of these days I may create my own subtitles to go along with the videos, but for now…

And now we present Another Bollywood dance by Aishwarya Rai from the movie Nimbooda – Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.

and The video below is from: Bride and Prejudice – Punjabi Wedding Song

Filed Under: Movies

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • Page 4
  • Page 5
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 16
  • Go to Next Page »

Footer

Things Someone Wrote

The Fabulous Archives

Copyright © 2025 · Jack Steiner

 

Loading Comments...