the bitter cold has moved out !!!
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Iâm in Georgia and Iâm sick of this cold. The last two days we got up to 50 F and we went hiking in a state park yesterday. Iâm so looking forward to the warmth.
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Very interesting outlook muth (and well stated)!
Soooo, Iâm curious though.
How do you reconcile the imbalance (huge gap) between the minority with all the control over the majority who remain largely subservient to the rules created by those in power?
Were they âsaintsâ in their prior life (to achieve such levels of power)? And they swung the other way on the pendulum?
Or are they destined to become the soles of a pair of shoes (so that they are the ones getting walked on) in their next life? 
Interesting things to ponder. Or, at the very least, entertaining! chuckles 
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consider yourself lucky. if i could, i would move far away from here (Shitcago area). i have never been to florida, but i think i would like it there.
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Being on that lake has got to suck in the winter. In Florida youâd only have to deal with gators. When we went hiking we took two teenage nieces who have never done anything like that. I told them there are poisonous snakes in the park but they didnât believe that. Then they saw the 6ft sign stating this is prime Timber Rattlesnake territory and to stay on the trails. The looks on their faces was priceless. There are some nasty things down South. 
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it doesnât effect me much, iâm about 30 miles from it as the crow/snow flies.
as long as they donât attack, no problem. i would be more worried about bugs, i donât like bugs. not afraid of them, but they can be pesky. and sink holes 
, iâm not interested in having the earth eat me.
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Oh man, I came 1.5ft from falling into a sinkhole as it opened upâŚin my backyard. It was 15 meters deep. Iâll try to find the pics.
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how about that one guy that got eatân by the earth 
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Here we go. Indulge me as I donât get to tell this story often. This is in Al Ain, UAE which is an oasis and has been inhabited for thousands of years. The water runs down from the mountains in Oman into Al Ain. I was in the backyard building a playhouse for my boys one beautiful winter day. I heard a gurgling sound like water and looked over to the wall then walked to it. As I got to the end of the bricks, the ground started collapsing and I backpedaled. This is what it looked like.
This was about an hour after it happened. The compound maintenance men were getting ready to go down in it, check out their ropes. The guys in the dress shirts were from the management company.
The next day some guys from the Municipality came down to see it. The next day they came back with an old Emirati.
Heâs the smaller local on the right end. The guy was into his 80âs and one tough bastard as they all tended to be back then. They brought him down because he was from that area of town known as Kuwaitat. As a young man he had worked on building the underground system which is called a Falaj. It has been used in Al Ain for over 2,000 years. Itâs a series of undergound channels which direct the water. Every so often, they dug out large cisterns, or basically holding tanks, from which theyâd draw water. This man dug those things 60 years ago when Sheikh Zayed had upgraded the system. Supposedly, he was one of the few people left who remembered where the cisterns were located.
Thatâs where this hole goes, 15 meters down. My wife went down there and took this picture.
Now, most Americans when they think of the UAE think of Dubai with its soaring skyscrapers and 7 star hotels. Well, Dubai is just a very small slice of the UAE. The power, money and people are located in Abu Dhabi and this is how they fixed the hole. It took two guys 6 weeks to fix.
It was a very nice neighborhoodâŚI miss it.
The end productâŚI think it says, âStay the fuck away!â
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Talking about this has made me smile today. 
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very interesting. so, what is that, a vent stack ?
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Congrats on being clear of the Hep C virus. That is a HUGE deal. We are the lucky ones, to have overcome some tough life challenges.
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WOW !! Just WOWâŚthanks for sharing this with us.
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Same!! I do this all the time. Iâve got carts everywhere! Lol.
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Itâs an access shaft. The Municipality wanted to retain access to it as runs for miles. Years later I heard about a similar collapse.
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Very intriguing and important questions you ask, not unlike the commonly asked, âWhy me?â or âWhy do bad things happen to good people?â
Danteâs Inferno offers up a dramatic imagery of âthe punishment fitting the crimeâ. Hereâs just one example of many:
Bolgia 2: Flatterers are steeped in human excrement. This is because their flatteries on earth were nothing but a
âload of excrementâ (Canto XVIII). 
Buddhism offers a more complex explanation of cause and effect and how it underpins the foundation of our lives. Westerners fling around the word karma loosely but itâs more complicated than that. The word karma translates to action. If you believe that the essence of our lives can not be destroyed then causes youâve made in the distant past, beyond the reach of your conscious mind, can manifest their effects in the present. This causes us to question why certain things happen to us and others.
This is just some of my understanding and I tried to be entertaining 
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I canât believe you almost got swallowed up by the earth! Omergawd, Natbone! Thanks for the story, loved it.
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Iâd be more than happy to cheaply rent you our house in Ft. Lauderdale but my sister decided to move inâŚpermanently 
Yup, I got family problems, too.
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Thatâs true, Cary1, Iâm very grateful for everything. I started losing friends beginning way back in high school.
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