the world spinning gently out of time... Blur

This is such a beautiful and yet simple song. We should all listen to this and reflect on the simple message of the lyrics. This is by Blur, from their 2003 album Think Tank.

Where's the love song?
To set us free
Too many people down
Everything turning the wrong way around
And I don't know what love will be
But if we start dreaming now
Lord knows we'll never leave the clouds
And you've been so busy lately
that you haven't found the time
To open up your mind
And watch the world spinning gently out of time
Feel the sunshine on your face
It's in a computer now
Gone are the future, way out in space
Tell me I'm not dreaming but are we out of time?
(We're) out of time
Out of time

Dream of theater and washing a bus

Here's another dream recount from a dream that I had last night.

I dreamed that I was in a large room, which was part of a very large movie theatre complex. It was filled with people, all whom were strangers and I was walking around, looking at all the people, trying to find my friend who seemed to have disapeared. Finally, I just had one more place to check and that was the restroom. So I checked the restroom and from the first stall, I could hear him snoring, so I knocked on the door and asked if everything was ok. He then came out and we started talking about which movie we wanted to watch. As I was standing in the restroom, some people came in and were talking amongst themselves. Then I felt water dripping from me and at first felt a panicky feeling like it was coming from me because I had something physically very wrong. But then I traced the water back to my head and then realized that it was coming from the ceiling and I just happened to be standing underneath it.

So then me and my friend left the restroom and were still discussing which movie we should watch, since we missed the one we were going to watch because he fell asleep in the restroom. Then I said, "Hey, you wanna get popcorn and a drink?" He said he did, so we then started walking along a very long counter, looking at all kinds of snacks, such as candy and chips. I couldn't decide what to get.

Then the dream changed and we were driving a large truck in the country. We decided to stop and try to wash the truck, which seemed to grow in size as we were washing it. We started at the back of the vehicle and as we slowly moved forward, it became more buslike. At first he had the water hose, but I wanted to take over, so I took the water hose and was cleaning under a rear wheel well when I missed a spot and he sort of snapped at me to get that spot! So then I was trying much harder to clean it the best I could, without missing any spots and with paying extra attention to those spots that didn't come off very easily.

Then a small group of people showed up and they seemed to think they were above having to belittle themselves with washing a vehicle. They were mostly standing around, sort of in the way and I was trying to be polite and not get them wet. But as they were standing on the other side of the bus, I was rinsing the roof and one of them got wet and yelled at me. She said "Don't get us wet, we're musicians!" I responded with "So am I!". Then I felt extra peeved so from then on, I made a point to make sure I got them wet when I sprayed the water.

This part of the dream eventually faded, at least faded from my memory, but what I remember next is being in a medium sized retail store, in the back room. A guy, who I was slightly intimidated by, asked me to go out to the floor and get a small sewing kit. He gave specific instructions for exactly what kind of kit he wanted and what he didn't want. I frantically searched for this sewing kit and finally found one that looked like it was the right kind. It was in a small clear bag and contained some small scissors, which was part of the proper description. So I took these and brought them back to him. He told me they weren't the right kind. Then he showed me one of the uses, which was nothing to do with sewing. He demonstrated on a lady who was standing there. She had 3 small protruding bumps on the inside of each eye. The part next to the nose. He took this little device, which was sort of like a small set of eyelash curlers and he grabbed those 3 bumps simultaneously and twitched them up, as they made a snapping into place sound. He then repeated this procedure on the other eye and I sat there thinking what on earth is that all about.

Then someone told me that I needed to make a deposit by 4:00 and it was an hour away. Yet the time was already 3:15 and I didn't know how I would be able to make it on time.

I must have woken up at this point, because this is all I remember of the dream.

Now a few more songs that I like a lot, which have nothing to do with my dream. Just great music!

Waiting for the bus...

Bus station in Nashau, New Hampshire 

I just got back from a business trip to beautiful New Hampshire that I took on a Greyhound. The trip was about 24 hours each way and I was unable to get any sleep on the bus at all. I did enjoy the whole experience and the opportunity to take all these pictures, especially the pictures of people, which I mainly took on my trip home in the Cleveland Greyhound station. This was supposed to be a 5 hour layover, but I missed the Detroit bus along with 4 other nice people, all who were very confident that we were not supposed to get into the Detroit Express line. This taught me to not so blindly trust other people, even if they seem like they know exactly what they are doing! Because of this little mistake, I had to stay in Cleveland for an additional 4 hours, making it a 9 hour layover. I also got no sleep at the station too, but took lots of pictures, ate some fries, M&M's and drank a couple cups of coffee. When I was outside taking pictures of Cleveland from the station at dawn, a young lady started talking to me and she asked me where I was from because my accent had a "twang". Lol, I really thought my accent was relatively neutral, growing up in Florida, the melting pot of cultures. Well that was a nice Greyhound station, but the metal mesh chairs were not comfortable at all and I had to sit on my pillow. The a/c was turned down way to cold and I'm glad to be out of there!

I found the juxtaposition of the stuck in the 19'th century devout religious Amish people with the modern, hedonistic, colorful and high tech 21'st century society, which is full of sin and technological advancements quite interesting, as well as the lobby full of people who probably didn't seem very happy to this Amish family,  even with all these worldly objects surrounding them. Scroll down to see a few of these pictures.

I also learned that Worcester is pronounced Wooster and that a 24 hour bus ride is way more grueling than it seems like it would be, however the opportunities this gives to take pictures of people is priceless.

In some future blog posts, I will share the beauty of New Hampshire and maybe a few other places I also saw on this trip. Scroll all the way down to listen to some groovy music that I listened to a lot on this trip if you want to totally immerse yourself in this experience.

The first bus ride of return trip. This driver amusingly told me Worcester is pronounced "Woosta"

Man and his seeing eye dog in Hartford, Connecticut

Sitting in the back

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Worcester, Massachusetts Union Station w/ Christopher Columbus statue on lookout

Worcester, Massachusetts Union Station at dusk

NYC through the bus window with lens reflection over city

An Orthodox Jewish man catching sleep late at night, with his bike next to him

Floor reflecting the Arrivals doors in Cleveland Greyhound station

Cleveland, Ohio Greyhound station at dawn

Cleveland, Ohio Greyhound station at dawn

College kids in sleeping bags at Cleveland, Ohio

The sun is coming up in Cleveland, Ohio

Amish couple waiting for the bus in Cleveland, Ohio

Amish family waiting for the bus in Cleveland, Ohio

Amish man walking around the station

Behind the Cleveland Greyhound station in the smokers area at Dawn

Waiting patiently at Cleveland station

Cleveland at Dawn from the front of the Greyhound station

In front of the Cleveland Greyhound station in smokers area at dawn

People watching the Olympics in Cleveland , Ohio at dawn

Waiting patiently at Cleveland station

Bus parked at loading bay behind Cleveland Greyhound station through dirty bus window

Emergency Exit

The sky up there, through bus window

The lovely Detroit City through bus window

Detroit Motor City modern art deco building

Here's a little soundtrack to these pictures...
I listened to many of these songs on repeat during this trip.

OCD'ing on the music of Smashing Pumpkins!

A collection of some of my favorite Smashing Pumpkins songs.

Dream of Albert Einstein's office and working as a janitor and running naked through an office

I've been having some really crazy and vivid dreams lately. Most are drawn out adventurous sagas. This is a dream I had last night.

I was with my cousin at a place like Disney. Not sure if it really was Disney, or just another them park like Disney, but we were walking around looking for a place to get a drink. I remember feeling like having a good drink was all I could think about. Maybe I just felt like getting a buzz, maybe it was a form of escape or maybe I just needed something to take the edge off the stress of life. In real life, I don't usually drink very much or very often too. I'm also not sure who this person was that was supposed to be my female cousin in this dream.

So we finally found a single $5 mixed icy alcoholic girly drink. We seemed to finish it off immediately and then I was on the hunt for more. I was very conscious that I didn't have very much money to get a drink with and was a little hesitant, since we were at Disney and everything there was totally over priced, but I really wanted a drink! After walking around a bit, looking for a suitable place to get a drink, we wandered into a casual restaurant and we each got a $5 small glass of beer. Mine was dark, stout and very tasty too. Then we walked further into this restaurant and ended up in some small attraction that showcased Albert Einstein and this particular room was a set up reenactment of his office, including his desk and everything else he had in his office. I was fascinated by this and just quietly studied his entire setup, every object on his desk too. I remember feeling like I wasn't supposed to just hover there for too long and should be moving on to the next exhibit, but I couldn't help but just stand there and absorb as much as I could of this wonderful opportunity that lay before me in this exhibit. Then a lady who was in charge of the exhibit came up to me with a little Albert Einstein doll and some other nick knacks that were part of the exhibit and she told me I could have them cause I really seemed sincerely interested. At first I wasn't sure if she was joking or if there was some kind of catch to this, but I realized that she was being completely serious, so I took those items and held on to them really tightly, as I sat there and watched a very long presentation in this room with maybe a dozen or so other people. Some of these people seemed jealous that I had these items and they seemed like they would try to take them from me if I set them down. I remember this Einstein doll sort of morphed into something that was electronic and more complicated during the course of my dream.

When this presentation was over, I took a walk down a long hall that seemed like it was part of an office. Then someone who was in charge of that office, asked me to run the vacuum cleaner real quick, before I left. I obliged and as I was vacuuming, noticed that the floor had a lot of little objects like pencils and other graffiti that I wasn't able to vacuum up and was trying to vacuum around. I finally decided I needed to stop running the vacuum and actually pick up this stuff and put into the trash, then also take care of the trash as well, before I resumed vacuuming. I also realized that this was no longer going to be just a simple and quick little job but that it would take a lot more effort and time to do it right.

This is all I remember of this dream. I may have woken up about then. Many of the small details of this dream have already faded, but I have enough of the basic story to be able to recount the main thrust of this dream.

Another night I dreamed of being in a capsule sitting back facing the sky, watching a bunch of symbols, numbers and code flashing before my eyes. I asked the pilot who was sitting next to me, what was happening. He told me it was a time machine. Just then the capsule turned to the right and we took off, flying around just above the ground and apparently trying to dodge the fire from other strange looking crafts and vehicles, some were friendly, some were enemies and I just wanted to get out of there. The next thing I remember was landing back inside the building where we started, which was apparently a place I was working. I got out and right then I saw my boss through a window looking into some kind of sauna. He was in the room with a bunch of other people and he was also totally naked. I remember thinking how on earth could he be doing that! Then I realized I was naked and my clothes were no where near me, but on the other side of the building. So I ran through the building into a room that had my clothes and slipped them on, with thankfully no one seeing me naked. This is all I can remember of this dream.

I don't know who this boss was because I am currently looking for a job. Maybe this was a bit of peering into the future? The office setting was very modern and yet was unlike any place I've ever worked before too.

Please feel free to interpret either of these 2 dreams as best you can, even if you aren't an expert dream interpreter. :) If you leave your interpretation as a comment, I will publish it, unless it's full of hate and venom, then I will delete it of course. lol thanks for reading!

Here's a nice little song from Red Hot Chili Peppers from their Californication album called "Parallel Universe". It's not only one of my fave RHCP songs, but seems to sort of fit with the theme of this post as well. Enjoy!

Saturday Morning in Mt. Clemens, Michigan

I took a walk around downtown Mt. Clemens this morning on my way to the library. It was a very warm and muggy day and I was glad I made this walk in the early morning instead of waiting til later. One thing I noticed today with all the people I saw is that everyone seems to be in a trance. No one was smiling or even seemed happy at all. Is life really this miserable for so many people? At least they have a lovely little town to live in. In the near future I hope to take a much longer photo walk around Mt. Clemens, including some of the very quaint residential areas too. All these pictures were taken with a little Sony Cybershot "point and shoot" camera, which does just that. I hold it up and press the button and that is all I do. No messing with settings such as F-Stops, aperture, ISO, color temperature, exposure or shutter speed to worry about. I do miss my big, heavy Nikon D90 that really served me well for almost 4 years, but I don't miss lugging such a beast around whenever I wanted to take pictures. So it's a give and take, much like life in general. It seems everything we do has that aspect to it and if you don't think so, then you probably aren't fully experiencing your life. Not that I am fully experiencing it, don't get me wrong. This is just my observation and nothing more. Well, enjoy these pics of this lovely little town. I briefly thought about embedding the Chicago song, Saturday in the Park, but that would be a slight cheese overload. There's already enough cheese in this blog post and just in my life in general, so...instead here is Bush "Prizefighter" from the great album "The Science of Things". This is one of my favorite songs off this album. Just to avoid confusion, this band has nothing to do with either of our former Presidents!

One of the Administration buildings in Mt. Clemens from the River Park

The old Macomb County Administration Building

Mt. Clemens Clinton River Park

JFK overlooking the city of Mt. Clemens

One of the courtyards in downtown Mt. Clemens

This one looks like he really means business!

Sculpture outside of Coney Island

I wonder what they do at the Masonic Temple?

Quiet downtown on a Saturday morning

Anton Art Center - Downtown Mt. Clemens

Pictures from the river today and a beautiful Rush song too....

I spent some time with nature and the skeeters today out by the river and snapped a few pictures too. Of course I was also listening to my iPod. Today's music was the Rush  "Snakes and Arrows" album, which is a newer one of theirs. 

A beautiful song that I really enjoyed was "Faithless". 
Here's the lyrics... 

I've got my own moral compass to steer by
A guiding star beats a spirit in the sky
And all the preaching voices -
Empty vessels ring so loud
As they move among the crowd
Fools and thieves are well disguised
In the temple and market place

Like a stone in the river
Against the floods of spring
I will quietly resist

Like the willows in the wind
Or the cliffs along the ocean
I will quietly resist

I don't have faith in faith
I don't believe in belief
You can call me faithless
I still cling to hope
And I believe in love
And that's faith enough for me

I've got my own spirit level for balance
To tell if my choice is leaning up or down
And all the shouting voices
Try to throw me off my course
Some by sermon, some by force
Fools and thieves are dangerous
In the temple and market place

Like a forest bows to winter
Beneath the deep white silence
I will quietly resist

Like a flower in the desert
That only blooms at night
I will quietly resist 

Here are a few pics that I took while listening to this deep and powerful album, which made a perfect soundtrack today.