Christmas 2011, Cavemen and Cavewomen

For what might be the last time for a very long time, my cave family gathered near my cave, to celebrate Christmas.

Here we are. From left to right.

Rainbow Wells, Registered Nurse and younger son Daniel Wells, Paramedic.

Terri Wells, Library Aide, Miraleste Intermediate School and me, 'retired from AT&T'.

Elder son David Wells, in employment transition (also continental transition, too) and Pamela Wells, Travel Agent.

Dave and Pamela were married on August 2, 2011, in Fiji and today was the first time all six of us were together since Dave and Pamela left for their year-long, around the world honeymoon, from Fiji.

They have a blog for their travels at: http://pamelaanddavertw.blogspot.com/ Please visit it.

Rainbow and Dan live in Hesperia, California while Dave and Pamela will return home to Australia at the end of their honeymoon.

I like building things and that it definitely true for Daniel and his wife, Rainbow.

For one of my Christmas presents, Terri gave me a pack of 'Nanoblocks' which are micro size versions of other blocks now on the market.

I was fascinated, but I knew my 56-year old-shaky left hand would have difficulty navigating the construction processes, let alone my old eyes trying to follow the instructions.

I knew for a true fact that Daniel, the true caveman that he is, would marvel at the contents of the little packages and he would appreciate the smallness of the building pieces. He has had great adventures with building pieces since he first held a 'Duplo' and he has built countless things with any number of 'Lego' pieces.

What floored me was how much Dan's wife Rainbow also took to the 'Nanoblocks'. She is one who is also the perfect Cave Wife to a true Caveman.

SHE was the one to grab the package and open it. It was wonderful to watch both of them work on trying to figure out what turned out to be very difficult (and incorrect) illustrations.

They both had their hands and fingers working on putting the tiny pieces together to finish an adult and young-looking Emperor penguins.

They seemed to really enjoy their teamed efforts. On my Facebook page I have a photo of the Subaru rally race car they are building in their garage...together.

Here is the result of their quest to put together the penguins according to the photo on the package. On the right is my hand holding three pieces I know for a fact would never get connected together had I attempted to use my old and shaking left hand.

Of course, every Cave-dad who has at least one Cave-son also has to deal with that son's selection of vehicles.

The issue is compounded when that Cave-son marries a real Cavewoman who shares his 'appreciation' of all things cave-like.

Thus, Terri and I, along with birth moms Lori (Dan) and Ziane (Rainbow), now have the 'opportunity' to 'appreciate' Dan's and Rainbow's selection of vehicles.

It's not so much the kids' Infinity G37 or even the Subaru Impresa, WRX rally racer that is still under construction in the garage that we are watching the kids enjoy.

But added to the new cave family's stable is the (dang) Subaru Impresa, WRX, STI Dan and Rainbow bought. (Hey dad, want to go out onto the dry lake and take it for a spin?)

And yes, it is PURPLE! (I had a 1958 Chevrolet Impala that was also purple.)

But no Dan, I've had my cave-racers and it is time for me to slow down as you and Rainbow speed up. I'll be glad to be an active part of their pit crew for the rally car as Terri and I helped and watched Dan and his former partner Bret win a World Championship for Street Dancing by "Energizer", back in 2000.

While Dan and Rainbow stick close to their cave, that is not currently the case with Dave and Pamela.

Both of them, prior to sighting each other on a safari bus in Kenya, had extensive travel stories they gained separately.

**NOTE TO MOMS AND/OR DADS**

If you have a son that looks like he can be on the cover of "G.Q" magazine or a daughter who could be on the cover of "Brides" magazine, DON'T 'help' them with the opportunity to have their eyes meet, on or near a safari bus, or anywhere else on our planet!

Terri and I, along with Jan and Perry Platt didn't get the note, three years ago.

It's would not be a bad thing at all if the kids met each other and ended up married to each other. It's just the added travel expenses required to visit the new family, whever they settle down.

Dave's caveman joys are reflected in his drive to see and explore so many things around the world. He went from eating very selective foods provided by this cave-dad and Lori, to a menu explorer who eats things I would not even like to read about.

Pamela was also a world traveler as a passion and for employment. She is also an accomplished artist, creating works using several different media.

They have plans to live in Australia where they might open a cafe/gallery where folks can eat and shop at a gallery displaying works by Pamela, her 'mum' Jan and others.

Terri and I will still have lots of opportunities to visit with Dan, Rainbow and our three 'grand-dogs' but visiting Dave and Pamela will have to depend on finances and longer blocks of 'free' time, to travel to Australia and back.

So this Christmas was bittersweet for me. But it is also joyous because I get to watch how successful they both my cave-sons have become and how happy they are married to their beautiful, wonderful, intelligent and gifted wives.

We 'scored' two base-clearing home runs with Rainbow and Pamela.

All four are very adventurous in their own ways and all four display vast amounts of courage and wonder no matter where they are or what they are doing.

Please take a look at "Around the World With Pamela and Dave". It is funny and very informative.

Keep checking out your 1998-early 2001 "Lowrider" magazines for photos about Energizer's build, quest, and success at winning a World Championship.

There are so many more adventures ahead for my cave-family, for which I will be eternally grateful.

Happy New Year!

Yes, I'm an Aspie!

This blog was created and driven by an 'Aspie'.

I have moderate asperger's Syndrome.

I have had it all of my life, so far.

It took decades for me to learn about what an Aspie is and how I am affected and how I affect others.

Being an Aspie is not a bad thing at all, ONCE you learn about it and how to live your life while understanding how different you are from others.

Those I find to be normal I call "normals", "the normals" of some other form to note normalcy compared to Aspies.

Everything I am and do is done by an Aspie and it took a whole heck of a lot of learning to understand the differences in me, compared to the normals I encounter daily.

I am a visual and emotional person, as all Aspies are, no matter to what degree they are dealing with.

Aspies are usually more intelligent than similar numbers of normals and Aspies can be confusing to normals as much as normals continue to confuse 'us'.

I am a very verbal person when I wish to be. The counter to that is that I, along with most other Aspies, do not easily or readily understand verbal instructions coming from normals.

Aspies can learn just about anything BUT NOT when we taught things merely through verbal transmissions.

Show and Aspie how to do something and when they have 'got it' they can usually verbally teach it to normals, but not other Aspies.

One of the biggest 'traumas' incurred between Aspies and normals is when a normal will attempt to instruct an Aspie with only verbal communication. Aspies SEE what normals are attempting to teach them and get quite confused by their own interpretation of what they SEE compared to what the normal is trying to convey.

Show and Aspie. Illustrate something to an Aspie. Draw out what you are trying to teach and Aspie, and we will 'get it' far better than just telling us AND it will lead away from on of the most troubling part of communications between a normal and an Aspie.

Since Aspies SEE, visualize and try to receive information so differently than normals, Aspies easily feel and get overloaded in attempts to translate what is stated to what Aspies can understand.

Aspies are usually hyper sensitive to EVERYTHING! No matter which sense is brought up, Aspies have a keener, more emotional, and greater offensiveness to incoming information, no matter what the source is.

"Too much input" is really a watch-phrase associated with Aspies.

When we feel overloaded, unrealized Aspies can only take in so much before they snap in some form.

Since every incoming sense or stimulus is hyper, we get overloaded more quickly than normals do.

Aspies must self-realize they are, in fact, Aspies. Nobody can 'tell' us we are. Nobody can use 'teach' us we are. Aspies must learn on their own that they are Aspies and only then can they adapt better to normals.

Aspies are usually 'wallflowers' at parties, for several reasons.

The first really huge reasons is that of constant over stimulation in the 'party' environment that Aspies get confused with. Too much noise, Too many people, The smells. The tastes. The overall considerations that 'we' can deal with what normals naturally deal with at most parties.

However, give us a stage at the party and we are off and running.

We don't interact very well with communications within groups of people. We are better off on a one-on-one situations, except for that stage thing.

Aspies SEE and FEEL everything and our memories are just as emotionally bases as is our visual memories of past events, people situations.

I can tell you exactly what I felt and viewed the instance 'Tish' entered my life. I remember what she was wearing, what I was doing at the time, who followed her in and what that person was doing.

'Tish' entered my life on the very first day of Kindergarten in September, 1960.

I can exactly reveal what I was doing and how I felt the instance I headed up the aisle and opened the lobby door and saw 'Susan' for the very first time.

Along with all visual memories, I remember the feeling of the first glance of my future wife, Lori I had, two years before we actually met. My visual, emotional, and thinking memories of our first real meeting are as fresh as memories I created, just yesterday. My first spoken words between Lori and I occurred in 1975.

Aspies do things like that. We remember feelings and thoughts and visuals for a very long time, should we choose to or should those types of memories simply remain far back in our minds.

This is both a good thing and a bad thing for Aspies. With 'Tish' I also remember the day I received a letter from one of her friends she was camping with. I mailed a letter to 'Tish' and found the reply not from her, but from someone else.

I remember when 'Susan' broke up with me and when Lori said she was done with our marriage.

Aspies have abilities to deal with the most positive and surely most negative moments in their lives and normals need to know this so they can interact better with Aspies they know and love.

Aspies don't appear to be "Type A" folks. This is illustrated by the fact that Aspies can be quite comfortable spending time completely alone. Sometimes normals confuse our ability to be alone as something like a rejection. It is not any rejection of anyone when an Aspie has a wonderful time just being alone and even doing absolutely nothing but pondering.

Rage is a real problem for Aspies. Until each Aspie self-learns what enrages them, only then can they alter their internal mechanisms to avoid or lessen the rages that always come up.

I feel the best an Aspie can learn is that there are real reasons we feel rage and there are many ways to learn how to control the rage that usually comes because of over stimulation.

Aspies, even though it might not seem so, are more sequentially-tasking than multi-tasking.

All through this blog are references to my inability to multi-task. On the other hand, when sequentially tasking, Aspies are about the best that can come around.

Multi-tasking in environmental, social and by other means goes directly against Aspies' hyper sensitivity and rage issues.

Normals can't really TEACH Aspies anything. Aspies must individually learn, on their own, what normals wish to teach them. This is also a region where rage and over stimulation become factors. Too many normals seem unable to understand that Aspies learn differently than they learn. Normals too, get frustrated with this.

It is up to the Aspie to teach the normal about the differences, once the Aspie learns that for himself or herself.

One of the best things to learn about Aspies is that they tend to see EVERYTHING as at least somewhat comical or humorous.

One example of Aspie humor that gives many of us glee revolves around the following innocent sentience: "I haven't seen her yet."

To most normals, the sentence is a statement that the talker has not seen the female, for a certain period of time.

To most Aspies, the sentence comes out as the talker has not seen a part of that a particular body part.

Because Aspies visualize EVERYTHING, we tend to confuse things at first. This is another reason why only-verbal instruction does not work well for Aspies.

Since 'we' see everything differently, we sometimes make comments that normals would never consider or regard. Aspies have a greater ability to translate into normal than normals are attempting to translate into Aspie.

Another recent case in point. In a recent Forbes magazine there appeared an article titles; "America's Fastest Roads"

Most normals would see the title and consider roadways that have fast vehicles racing along them.

To an Aspie who has knowledge of other facts, the title means to us something completely different.

I live on a peninsula where there is a .8 mile stretch of Palos Verdes Drive South that is in constant movement due to land slippage in the Portuguese Bend area.

In fact, that portion of the roadbed physically moves faster than any other road, roadway or roadbed in the Western Hemisphere.

So to me, and Aspie, "America's Fastest Road" is the .8 mile stretch of Palos Verdes Drive South and that is what I visualized when I read the title of the article and not anything about vehicles traveling over any road.

The vast majority of writers don't wish to understand that titles and other wording can be taken in very differently than they intended their words to reflect. This is also why so many Aspies find humor where normals just don't see it.

If I had the money to bet, I bet many of the funniest comics today and for so many yesterdays are or were Aspies. To other Aspies who have good self-knowledge about being an Aspie, we can see these folks particularly funny because we can follow their humor to other levels and almost know what they will say next.

Normals seem to marvel at the 'quick wit' they enjoy from many comics. Normals may not enjoy improvisation as Aspies do better with.

There is a true negative condition Aspies appear to have and it is something that does not look good at all or is taken well by normals.

Aspies appear to have a lack of compassion for events or happenings in the lives of others. It has been tested and demonstrated in brain function that Aspies tend to lack some ability to empathise towards conditions of others. We just don't have the brain connections many normals have with this issue.

It's not that we just don't care. Studies have shown that many Aspies don't have the ability to care about SOME things many normals care about.

This is probably an over stimulation issue that Aspies have. It is probably also the most negative thing Aspies 'suffer' that is so difficult for normals to understand.

Many Aspies also have difficulty feeling remorse and/or gratefulness and/or guilt.

It is likely that Aspies' somewhat lack of the ability to have or feel guilt that is one of the toughest things to deal with, with normals.

Our brains seem to 'not get' many feelings associated with guilt, remorse and/or empathy or sympathy. I'll use this as my one 'brain chemical' excuse, in this post.

In the end, Aspies need to self-learn about life as an Aspie. Aspies need to 'own' how they are different than what is considered 'normal' and that Aspies are not bad folks at all.

A Long Dry Spell Must End For Me

This post is written for several of my blogs because I have taken an extended absence from writing on any of my blogs for quite some time.

So much has happened in our extended communities since I stopped writing on the blogs and I want to get back to pondering, questioning, commenting, arguing, and dealing with many issues common to the communities I live in and events and conditions in and around the communities most of my readers live in.

Nothing is more common in all of the communities we all deal with than John and Muriel Olguin. Right now, nothing is more important for all of us in those communities.

Most of us know that a great gentleman, very long into life and even longer in adventures would pass from us, far too soon.

We all knew the day would come that we would make us sad and drive our memories into overdrive.

We all knew none of us can and could measure up to the personhood we all now honor with the passing of John Olguin.

Muriel was and always will be the 'winner' of my writings about our community members who were closer to being "more like John Olguin" than the rest of us. She is in our hearts as she and the rest of us remember John.

Starting 2011 with the new adventure of working on ways to honor John's memory and try to be more like him in the acts of kindness and teachings he showed us, is a task we need to do. It is the first task of what is going to be one heck of a year for all of us.

As we move forward, please include in your visions and dreams the smiles your remember beaming from John's face as he taught you something you didn't know or how he was so happy when you understood how he regaled in your learning.

Let's work towards a public memorial that includes contributions of whatever you can provide to those in need and a clear demonstration that we all 'got' the fascination, wonder, and joy John offered, all supported by Muriel, a true inspiration, artist, and gift to all of us as she was to John.

One way to honor John and all those who volunteered for us is to volunteer to work on issues and projects that interest you in ways that promote those things that benefit 'community'

Not only are your acts, deeds, thoughts, comments, and wishes important, your means of demonstrating those things are also important on many issues you might want to concern yourself with.

Here is just a partial list of things that I am pondering about and I hope your list is at least as long as mine:

John's public memorial, the U.S.S. Iowa, Charter City status and vote in Rancho Palos Verdes, Ponte Vista, SRHS #15, downtown San Pedro, protecting our environment, Western Avenue, community goals, park lands, politics, arts in communities, good citizenship, the local economy, working for those less fortunate, San Ramon Canyon, Marymount's Expansion Project, educating everyone, recession recovery, working for peace, celebrating, family, neighbors and friends, contentious issues, common goals, fun, faith, play, and experiencing a full and productive life. Grandchildren, perhaps someday.

I hope to get back to writing on a much more regular basis on several of these blogs.

I know Ponte Vista is important and should see posts and comments from others throughout the year.

I live on the eastern side of Rancho Palos Verdes. San Pedro in heart, Rancho Palos Verdes in thought. I feel strongly that residents of Rancho Palos Verdes need to be better informed and more able to deal with and comment on their government and city.

There are "Issues to Ponder" regarding San Pedro. It may have a continuing set of problems in its downtown area but it has a growing vibrant aspect in its arts and entertainment and there will be new things popping up in the future throughout the community.

I know that "R Neighborhoods Are 1" and there is more to be considered in our community, for our community, and with our community.

As I am still a caveman, my 'dairy' needs to be updated with stories and learning this caveman has encountered over the last couple of years.

Whether I can manage to work harder to be more like John is something that I don't yet know, but I really need to try.

I hope readers will learn or argue or agree or disagree or ponder or rant or rave or just read. But with all blogs, it is truly more for the writer to write than the reader to read. If that was not the case, there would be no blogs and just look how many there are now compared to when I first wrote, in September, 2006.

Thank you and please return from time to time.

Mark Wells
aka M Richards
mrichards2@hotmail.com

A New Post, Now At The Beginning

I haven't updated postings on this blog for much of the last year or so. There is no good or profound reason for my tardiness in posting on this blog, either.

This post is like the other more recent post that is out of date sync with the remainder of the blog.

As you may note, almost every other post carries the same date as the first post. I did this to keep most of the postings in order from the true beginning until the more recent observations and comments were created.

I shall digress from that model with this post.

Since getting laid off from the U.S. Census, I have been 'hunting' and 'gathering' looking for an employment opportunity that could last me for at least 12 more years of work life.

Currently I am in the 'nether world' of having accepted a contingent offer from the Transportation Security Administration and now continue the process of trying to figure out how to completely and correctly fill out the monstrous background check documents that I seem to remain slightly and mediumly out of the loop with.

It certainly doesn't help matters that I worked four different assignments for the 2010 Federal Census of the United States, in different times, and out of more than one office.

But as of this morning, I haven't received any new Emails about problems I have been having with those forms, so I am keeping the fingers I don't use typing, crossed.

Uncertain that I will eventually get the call from T.S.A., I am also attending job fairs and 'hunting' for positions, as a caveman can and should do.

Naturally too, being the caveman that I am, allows me to work on my 'hunt' and 'gather' much information about possibilities for me in an economy that continues to stink and does not look to be improving any time soon.

Now that The Marymount Plan's measure on the November 2, 2010 ballot for residents of Rancho Palos Verdes has its own identity, "P" I have been and will continue my quest to offer commentary, facts, figures, and just about every means at my disposal to help voters learn how dangerous I feel having up to 250 college-age students living in on-campus housing at the particular site of Marmount College, would be.

Since I am a true caveman, I have the ability to singularly concentrate on hunting for facts, gathering information, and working hard towards defeating the 'enemy' that is approval of Measure P.

Cavemen are uniquely qualified that, when necessary, we can focus solely on the subject at hand, plan, and then execute means to deliver results that are good for the cave dwellers and good for the community.

Folks like me can concentrate, without distraction, on important matters and leave just about everything else out of the picture, until we decide other things are important.

I call what true cavemen do, sequential tasking and you can read all about that on posts describing the real differences between multi-taskers (mostly females) and sequential taskers (mostly males carrying the caveman genetics in these times).

Since earlier this year, I have been learning more about and finding better relationship to my nature as a caveman and my mediumly affective Asperger's Syndrome. I have found out many fascinating things about how these two seemingly very different things are actually beneficial to each other.

Cavemen, as history notes, were required to remain extremely focused on the two major requirements of their lives; supplying the cave with food and assisting in the creation of more cave-babies.

You see in many persons, mostly males, with Asperger's a view that they are very uncomfortable doing or thinking about more than one thing at a time.

Cavemen were the first and most importantly for the success of the cave, the best sequential taskers.

Try and distract an Asperger's person away from the one thing they are concentrating on and you will quickly notice the frustration and irritability that is caused.

Also, cavemen must also have been extremely aware and keen to their personal surroundings and tactile responses in order to hunt for food or grow and reap foods. We see that many Asperger's persons are extremely sensitive to touch, taste, noise, bright and overly sharp images and everything else that would keep them from complete concentration of whatever task they are performing.

Terri knows this well when I am typing away at a keyboard. She knows that she must do more than a simple verbal request to get me to acknowledge that she is even in the same room as I am.

Terri also knows that when I am in my stream of whatever I am doing, I am unable to concentrate on anything else and nothing is of greater importance than what I am doing at that particular time.

It took quite a long time for me to learn not to erupt with much anxiety when distracted by something other than what I was doing. It is very difficult to get many Asperger's persons to feel any real ease at being distracted and it is hard to teach that to others.

So I pondered and pondered and now I feel that Asperger's Syndrome is a very long and very old established consequence of having more genetic similarities to true cavemen than science has learned, so far.

Maybe someday scientists will finally discover more connection between those with Asperger's Syndrome and those of us who continue the genetic line of true cavemen.

I also have been pondering Autism and I am now thinking that it may be a genetic result of cavemen genetics clashing with newer genetics that still have yet to be discovered.

I shall ponder and write on this blog more, in the nearer future.

A New Post After Some Serious Pondering

Greetings!

Yes, it has been over two years since my last post. I have been learning much and pondering even more and that is why I am now posting this higher than all other posts.

This blog was created to offer humor and insight into men like me....a true caveman.

But I have been doing a lot of thinking and I may have found a real link between the real men who lived in caves and did those things I illustrated in this blog, and what I am and have seen and learned in others.

I think if scientists study people like me, our brains and how we think, they may find the genetic and chemical link that offers the best insight into early mans' history and how people like me can be helped live in this environment better than we do now.

It is all about understanding how people like me, mostly males, think and see things and how it must have been for real pre-historic cavemen, so very, very long ago.

I have a form of Asperger's Syndrome which is a mild form of autism. For me it benefits me in many ways and it allows me to consider why I am the way I am and how I might be more genetically closer to pre-historic cavemen that most others are, today.

In going through this blog more, you will read that I am not able to multi-task and I am a great sequential tasker. That type of thinking and working was probably the only way pre-historic families survived and grew in numbers and I explain it all fairly well in the first few other posts on this blog.

I am a visual thinker and take things almost exactly as I see them. This is one trait of someone with Asperger's that is universal between the milder and more harsher forms of Aspergers leading towards autism.

It is now my opinion that truly successful cavemen, the ones who really contributed to the success of the community had to have been almost completely visual in their thought processes and nowhere near as verbal or thoughtful as others, typically women, in the community.

It is because I am and cavemen were almost completely visual in their thinking processes that they were able to hunt and gather better than persons who were more verbal and better at thinking through abstract thoughts.

Since I see what I think and think what I see, I am able to spot things like animals more clearly than many others.

I don't allow distractions to get in the way of a singular vision or thought I am considering and that is also why is takes quite a bit to get my focus off of what I am tending to and on to what someone else wants me to consider or listen to.

I simply do not and cannot focus on more than one thing and a time and that is probably the same genetic trait of so many cavemen back in their day.

They were so keenly focused and single-task oriented that they were able to provide for the cave that which the other cave dwellers needed.

Here is an illustration that people like me see very clearly but is almost impossible to explain to others who do not think and conceive as we do.

Take the following sentence: How to open a bottle of wine with no corkscrew.

Now to most people, that sentence means there will be a lesson in how to open a bottle of wine when there is no corkscrew available.

But to folks like me, I see a bottle of wine and I see another bottle of wine with a corkscrew attached and consider that there can be two different types of bottles, one with a corkscrew attached and one without a corkscrew attached.

Now for almost all of you reading this, the sentence is a no brainer. But for persons with forms of Asperger's we consider two bottles and 'see' both of them and wonder what in the heck the lesson should be about.

For most people who communicate to those having forms of Asperger's Syndrome, I am sure you know what I am trying to get across.

I bet those folks get fairly agitated because their Asperger's person has such a difficult time understanding verbalization that are found perfectly normal and easily understandable to those who don't have Asperger's Syndrome.

I can also imagine the frustration in peoples' faces with they have to repeat their words because whatever they said either doesn't sink in or is misunderstood by people like me.

I think there is a woman with the last name of Grantlin who has Asperger's and goes around lecturing about how she thinks. I think she is off base with her thinking and I feel she could help everyone better if she refocuses her comments to make them better understood by those who are not like she and I.

It looks to me that the genetic makeup of someone with forms of what we call today, Asperger's Syndrome is actually and more factually better considered as how a 'normal' caveman thought and saw things back in pre-historic times.

I now think that the evolution of the brains of humans caused what was 'normal' to become 'abnormal' after so many thousands of generations of peoples.

I would make a perfect caveman if I were to be transported back to the stone age.

I can sit and look for a kill on a hunt for hours and hours.

I can clear my head of just about every thought not necessary to help nourish myself and others.

I can grow things much easier than others I feel because I can be so patient in my work and waiting for foods to grow and get harvested.

I can offer instructions in a step-by-step manner that clears away what I consider as unnecessary wording and items.

Being so visual, I believe I have greater abilities to select a possible mate who could provide the best offspring for the success of the community. It is natural and doesn't require very much thinking-through, perhaps.

I can also some great things, one at a time. If I get requested to do too many things at one time, it is like a circuit overload and I am quite sure many readers have seen or heard what happens when someone with Asperger's feels overloaded.

It is true that when someone asks me to do something or go somewhere, I naturally feel they want me to do or go right then and they have some difficulty if I get frustrated with their request because my thought process allows me to first and foremost accomplishing the request almost immediately.

It is in my nature to listen to one thing at a time, do one step at a time, think about only one thing at any given moment.

I construct blog posts one thought at a time after only considering the overall theme of the post and then include individual words in a step-by-step pattern.

I can concentrate on a maze and get through it probably much quicker than others because I see the route so clearly while blocking out wrong pathways quickly and storing that information so well.

But if you want me to have a conversation with you while I am eating, then we have a problem.

If you want to talk to me about vacation plans while I am driving, please don't waste our time.

If you need to provide me information then just do it as simply as possible and do not add any 'extraneous' wording or non-informative thoughts to me, because I will get confused.

I do get frustrated easily if you don't seem to understand what I am trying to say to you because it is perfectly picture clear in my mind and I have real problems with the concept that you can't 'see' in your mind what I am talking about.

But if we can connect on instructional terms, I am a fantastic teacher with lessons that involve visual topics, including hands-on and practical training.

"What's that! Can't you chew gum and walk at the same time?" Well, for many folks like me, it can become a bit hard to do two very different things at one time. If I am chewing gum and walking, watch my mouth and feet because I will be chewing in time with my steps.

I also can confuse 'normal' people with my comments to their statements and questions. If they are not visual thinkers, it is more likely I will miss what they are trying to tell me unless I can 'see' is easily.

The stock market and most financial matters are far too abstract for me to comprehend. If I can visualize a pattern or something similar to a picture of what is trying to be explained to me, I have a better understanding. These matters seem to have too many multiple layers and different concepts that are not visual and linear.

I can delve into what many feel is abstract thought, but to me, it is not abstract as long as I can 'see' it like matters involving the universes down to single-cell animals and viruses.

I don't feel out of the ordinary in terms of what 'ordinary' Asperger's people have to deal with.

Have you noticed that many people like me can not verbally communicate with other for extended periods of time and feel quite calm and at peace? It's just natural for us.

Our frustration level peaks when a verbal-based person attempts to get their points across to us when we are doing something else or just being our silent, pondering selves.

I can sit and think about nothing for a long time, too.

When I have no opinion about something, I really and truly have no opinion or real consideration of any value for me to communicate.

Terri gets very agitated at times she shops and finds something and then asks my opinion and tell her I don't have one.

However, there are times I will walk into a store to get something for Terri and I will take a quick glance around and if my eye catches something I usually get it because it offers me visual pleasure seeing Terri and only Terri wearing it. I can 'see' Terri wearing it before she sees it and I am usually right on about 90+% of the time, as long as I pick the correct size.

Picking the correct size however, is another abstract that I will always have problems with. I always have to remember what size Terri tells me she is when I shop for something for her to wear. I know what I think I like Terri to look good wearing and she usually agrees. It is another 'natural' trait.

But I will always hate shopping with Terri because she can look at multiples of clothing at the same time and that drives me batty.

I think when you see a group of 'nerds' having a discussion you have no clue to what they are talking about, either they are communicating true abstract concepts or you are not understanding their visual-base communication. That is not all that uncommon.

A comical illustration of that is when Penny has trouble understanding Sheldon on "The Big Bang Theory". Sheldon is not verbal except for his exacting wording that multi-taskers like Penny can't 'see'. Sheldon is trying to verbalize what his mind 'sees' but Penny's mind is not set up to understand Sheldon's mind. That is not necessarily a bad thing, though.

So in the end, I feel more comfortable with being a true caveman now. I hope to be able to help others understand why they might be different and how we all can communicate better, together.

Sometimes I use humorous remarks because things can be so darn funny to me that only myself and others like me would understand and the rest of the folks think I am out of my mind.

Actually, I am out of their mind.

Welcome New Visitors!

For those of you visiting for the first time, welcome.

Yes I know that the spelling of the blog's title is troubling to some, but there is a reason for that and it is explained in one of the posts.

This post is here for only a short time. It is out of sequence with the rest of the posts.

I will certainly do a too lengthy post about my roles in "Upton Sinclair's Singing Jailbirds, The Musical" and how it related to my being a true Caveman.

But for those of you who saw the show, thanks for coming and I hoped you enjoyed it!

I was a picketer, The Dominie, and The Bailiff.

This blog may eventually find a way to be published as a series of short stories IF I can find a real editor to deal with my writing.

But for now, I hope you will find some humor and information about Cavemen on this blog.

Heck, if you only learn that it takes just three sentences to provide the difference between most men and most women, then my job is done.

My Caveman Dairy

Howdy,

Welcome to the first post on this blog. I hope you learn a thing or two and when you are done reading each post, I hope you have a smile on your face.

I have written a group of essays detailing how it can be there are still real cavemen among the rest of you. In the essays that I will transform into posts, I will attempt to explain how and why men like us still exist and why we still make contributions to our communities and the world.

I can easily explain the differences between most men and women and when you understand the differences, you might just slap the palm of your hand against your forehead and blurt; "now why didn't I think of that!"

I will let you know why the title of this blog is "Caveman Dairy" and not "Caveman Diary".

I will open up the world to the inner workings of the hunter-gatherer man and how he fits into all the pictures, big or small.

You are finally going to learn, from a real caveman, why we don't talk a whole lot and why we simply can't listen very well. Everything will become so clear through reading the postings that you will come away with a greater understanding of why caveman are the way we are. More importantly, you will see why, once you understand us, we are very important to the society.

And now, without further adoo or adon't, I begin my Caveman Dairy!

I am a caveman, please let me explain...

I am a caveman. You know many guys like me.
I am usually quiet around groups of people.
You think I don't listen to you.
I eat either bland food or bar-b-qued meat.
I can also eat spicy food.
If you put "California Cuisine" in front of me I'll probably ask you, "what's for dinner?"
I work, or I am retired from a job that didn't involve a lot of "group think".
When I watch T.V. that's about all I can do.
I know I know where I am going in my car/truck/suv.
I love to read......westerns, detective stories, military stuff, biographies of other cavemen, porn.
Every green living thing is either a "something kind of tree" or "I don't know the name of that flower".
I can spend hours playing solitare.
I enjoy being around other cavemen.
There will be lots more to learn about me in the future.

Back in the day, cavemen had just two tasks to perform: supply the community with food, and assist in creating more cavebabies. That's it. Those two tasks were the only things we were good at. BUT we HAD to be good at those two things or the community would not survive.

Cavemen supplied the food and assisted in creating more cavebabies. Cavewomen did everything else. We may never know the reason why this was the way it was, but in future posts I will show you why it was so important and how we real cavemen are still pretty much the way we were back then.

The Difference Between Men and Women

So much has been written, studied, argued about, fought over, and every other action concerning this subject, that I thought I would finally reveal the true difference.

Once you internalize the explanation, you will understand. Learning this key difference will aide you in reading and understanding future posts.

I am going to explain the difference between the vast majority of men and the vast majority of women, and I am going to do it with just three sentences. Once you see it, learn it, and realize it, all will be more well in your life, relationships, and future accomplishments.

Are you ready? Please read very carefully the next three sentences.

1. A "something" is any action, emotion, or thought.

2. Most men are "sequential tasking": they do something, THEN they do something else, THEN they do something else.

3 The vast majority of women are "multi-tasking": they do something, AND they do something else, AND they do something else.

See, now wasn't that brilliant! But you always knew it. You just didn't know how to put it into words.

These three differences explain so very much, so very easily. Now that you have read them, you can start seeing those differences in the men and women in your life.

The differences between "THEN" and "AND" are enormous. They were, and still are, life and death differences.

It is now time for you to reflect on this post. You may read the next post which will illuminate you about "sequential tasking" if you like. But I feel that I have given you something you can ponder on before going forward.

The Caveman and "Sequential Tasking"

Remember when I wrote that caveman only had two requirements in the community? I wrote that a caveman's jobs were to supply food to the community and assist in creating more cavebabies. I also wrote about the differences between cavemen and women. Now for a longer explanation.

Cavemen were hunter-gatherers. Their job was to supply the community with food. If the community didn't have food, all would die. So cavemen developed special skills to hunt for and gather the most, and best food for their community.

In the lines below you will see the word, "we". When I write that I am referring to ancient cavemen and modern cavemen, like myself.

Here are some of the traits ancient cavemen had that you still see in us modern cavemen:

Quietness. It's very hard to stalk prey when your conversing with other cavemen. The prey didn't appreciate human voices nearby. Berries, grains, fruits, and vegtables don't have ears, so why talk when you are around them? It just wastes energy need to supply food to the community.

Keen eyesight. Those of us that were the hunters needed to find food sources from great distances.

Sequential task management. Growing food required us to plan, cultivate, gather, and transport food to the community. If we didn't develop the skills needed to grow food, there wouldn't have been a me to write this blog and there wouldn't have been a you to read it.

Concentration on one thing at a time. This trait has gotten us in a whole bunch of trouble with the multi-taskers. They don't understand it. Please let me explain.
When we went out to hunt for prey, we needed total concentration on the task at hand. We HAD to find, kill and transport prey back to the community. So we established plans to seek out, stalk, and kill the food we needed. That concentration required us to sit still for long periods of time, quietly surveying the landscape. We may have had to wait many hours or days to have the opportunity to get the prey. We had to be focused on the task at hand, very focused.
For the gatherers like me, we needed to have a set of guidelines that had to be followed strictly to provide the best food for the community. We had to forego distractions to develop the skills to become farmers and "ranchers".

Engineering skills. To provide food, we had to develope the tools required for the hunt and the sowing. We taught ourselves how to make weapons, not to kill each other, but to kill the prey we needed.

There are more skills we have that are different that cavewomens' skills. More further along in the future.

Why men can't do what women do, part one

I did the best that I could on the title of this post. Probably the more correct title could have been, "Why cavemen can't do what most women do."

I think it is safe to admit that all men are not cavemen. But there sure a heck of a lot of us left on the planet. Most of the cavemen are not gay, BUT I FEEL THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING GAY!!! Most gay men seem to have transformed themselves into "multi-tasking" men who have more opportunities than we cavemen at learning to deal with women.

It can also be acknowledged that not all women would fit the "multi-tasking" abilities that cavewomen had. Let's leave that to someone else's blog.

Cavemen don't do what many women can do, not because they won't try, but they simply CAN'T do those many things.

I am always amazed that my wife can read a book and still understand what is happening on the T.V. My wife can talk with me while she is thinking about her library, at the same time she is ironing her clothes for the next day's work.

I will use me as a prime example of a "sequential-tasking" modern caveman for the purposes of explaining why cavemen can't do what most women can do.

If I watch T.V., I use my concentration skills genetically implanted in me to concentrate on the T.V. program. When my wife comes up and asks me something, I don't hear her.

I don't hear her because I can't hear her. A "sequential tasker" like myself can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Remember "do something THEN something else"? My brain is not wired to do more than one thing at a time. Please don't get anywhere near me on the road if I have my earpiece in my ear. When talking on the cell phone and driving, we simply don't have the capacity to do both things at the same time very well at all.
That being written, when I am doing a "something" and only that one thing, I am totally dealing with that one thing and foregoing everything else.

While writing the previous post to this blog, my wife tried to talk to me about one of my other blogs. I lost track of what I was writing because she spoke words I had written and I got very confused. I had to stop writing and talk to her. I lost my concentration, and that is very natural for me.

I hope you take what I have written and try to look at the cavemen in your life and how they interact with you. I am very sure you will see some of the same issues in them that I write about.

Why Cavemen are competitive

Think about it. You have to feed your community. You need to bring in the best harvest. If you aren't the best, cavepeople will suffer.

How to you kill the most, find the best, and carry the most? Simple, be the best.

Competition. Originally in my essays I wrote that cavemen weren't necessarily competitive. I changed my point of view will looking closely at "Type A" males, which I am not one of.
I looked particularly at the financial sector in our modern world. I learned about men who use other people's money to make more money for themselves. These cavemen were driven to achieve a simple goal; more is better. These fellas had high levels of concentration about the topic of making money. "The guy who has the most toys, wins."
The hunter who brings in the most food helps his community the best. The farmer who grows the biggest crops is also the hero in the community.

The only way to be the best is to compete. It doesn't matter if your competing to find the next medicine to cure a disease or hitting the most home runs. Cavemen compete to provide the best for themselves and others.

Is competition a major trait a caveman has? I think probably, yes. In early cavedom, cavemen did what they could to provide and assist in creating more cavebabies. With the ever increasing successes of the creating angle came the need to provide more food for the community. More mouths to feed, the more food needed. In time, I feel, cavemen within a community began competing to see who could provide the most food or assist in creating the most cavebabies.

Some competition is more obvious than others. I was never the fastest, best looking, most adroit, or smartest. But I can usually get at least a chuckle out of just about everyone. My competitive trait is to be funnier than the next caveman. I also competed, unknowingly to most others, to be the best technician in the work I do. Did I succeed at either competitions? I can make folks laugh and I can fix communication devices quite well.

So yes, another trait of being a caveman is competition.

Cavemen and Religion

Now here is where I may get into trouble. If you dream about it, you just might see it.

As cavemen progressed, time passed, and skills were honed, communication began.

Picture a group of cavemen walking toward a place they think there will be great prey to hunt. What do you imagine they talked about? They probably talked about life in the community, who was the best hunter, and what should they do when they returned home. (insert create more cavebabies here.)

At some point in the early history, different communities of cavemen began wondering about life and why they thought and communicated differently that other creatures. In there talking they probably learned the each of them had two common questions that all senescent humans have or are told: "Why am I here?" "Is this all there is?"

Religion was invented to answer the two basic questions that humans had when they began to think for themselves, all the way through to every thinking person on the planet, today.

I can imagine that small groups of cavemen began to ponder these questions and try to understand why they all had the same questions. Perhaps a particular caveman came up with answers the other cavemen liked and presto, the first minister is found. I bet that since the other cavemen gave high regard to the caveman that answered the questions that most pleased the others, that caveman was considered more of a leader. When this new leader was acknowledged, then he was given high status in the community and others began to seek his counsel.


"STOP! STOP! STOP, M what about religion and cavewomen?

Remember when I wrote that the difference between cavemen and cavewomen was between "THEN" and "AND"? Cavewomen had to do everything else in the community that Cavemen couldn't or wouldn't do. I don't think cavewomen had the time to consider the two questions, even though, they were probably on the minds of the cavewomen, too
Here is a list of some of the duties of cavewomen that were definitely or probably not shared by cavemen who were out hunting or gathering most of the time:
Bare and raise cavebabies
Provide shelter, clothing, water, and firewood for the community.
prepare and serve the food the cavemen brought to the community.
Learn and share skills with other cavewomen all at the same time they were caring for cavebabies.
Teach the cavedaughters the skills they would need in the community.
Everything else the cavemen didn't do.
Cavewomen did all of this all at the same time.

So you see, cavemen are "sequential tasking": they do something, THEN they do something else, THEN they do something else. Most women are "Multi-tasking": the do something, AND they do something else, AND they do something else. (If you are new to this, look at a post lower on the blog or in archives, please.)

Cavewomen couldn't take the time to ponder religion during their extremely busy day. Cavemen sometimes stayed at the same hunt site for days and had the time to ponder albeit very quietly.

Fashion? You are Kidding?

Cavemen and fashion. Hopefully this is the only time you will ever see those two words so close together.

We have no fashion sense. This one, seemingly small fact, gets us in more trouble than you can imagine.

How many of you have asked a caveman, Do I look fat in this outfit? Did you like the response?
The response was either a lie or a veiled attempt to attract you to the events dealing with the creation of cavebabies. If our answer was the truth, we probably had to spend the next several nights on a couch, far away from the cavebaby creation process.

We have no fashion sense. It is not our fault. We didn't need to care what size you looked to be, we just needed to learn that the bigger prey was the better prey. We are still, pretty much clueless to the specter of fashion. If that is being genetically impaired to you, then, so be it.

We do like colors, though. The more you look like an animal or a plant, the more we are attracted to you. Again, it is in our nature. If you look like the food we want to gather, there is a better chance of attracting us. See how utterly simple we are?
Why do you think Carmen Miranda wore those fruity hats and colorful costumes? You saw a singing and dancing queen. We saw dinner.

One of my two sons is not a caveman. He is a straight male, like many other non-cavemen, who does have a fashion sense. Sometimes when it is time for me to pick clothes other than blue jeans and polo shirts, I take him along to pick out the clothes that he and my wife think I would look good in. I don't particularly care what they pick out, as long as it is comfortable.

My other son is a caveman. He and I share our lack of care in fashion. He is one more reason I think I am a gatherer and not a hunter caveman. I must have passed his color sense down to him. His favorite color is green. He has been attracted to the many shades of green all his life. Above all other colors, the kid picks green. Cave-daughter-in-law now picks his clothes.

Please people, if you ask a caveman their opinion about what you are wearing, accept their comment that they have no opinion. They truly don't care much of the time what your clothes look like or how you fit into them. Unless of course, you look like an animal or plant!

Dairy entry for Sunday October 8, 2006

I've finally been caught.
It took my Uncle Chuck to catch me. He is a caveman. He is of the hunter type. He fishes.
His keen eye and sense of correctness led him to be the first one to post the question; Why "Dairy?'

As I am sure you all know, cavemen don't really care about spelling. We have better things to do than consider whether you can read out writing or not. Have you ever met a caveman who can spell worth a darn without spellcheck? Neither have I.

Of course the more correct name for this blog should be "Caveman Diary" but it is both a play on words and an admonition that we cavemen don't spell very well. We didn't need to back then and I can prove we don't really need to now.

You see, if you can raed tihs snetnece esaliy, tehn you can udnresantd how we can raed whtiuot hvanig all the ltetres in the crorcet oeedr. We olny need the frist and lsat ltetres crorcet and we can raed fialry wlel. So selplnig is not so ipmrotnat to us.

I did a good Caveman deed today. After we took the girls for a walk along the coast, I went with my wife to the Southcoast Botanical Gardens. She marveled at all the plants and was curius about their names. I suggested to her that they were either members of the greenleafy boringus family, or the colori flowerus group. If the trees didn't have fruit in them they were all tallus-trunki boringus.

During this visit to the gardens there was a Jaguar car show on the lawn area. You wouldn't believe all the rich cavemen strutting their stuff and their cars named after very fast prey. Think about it,some of the most popular cars are named after animals/food. Cougar, Jaquar, Ram, Ramcharger, Viper, Cobra, Mustang, Firebird, and a host of others. All the cavemen who brought also wore very colorless clothes, and they all pretty much looked alike.

I have been thinking about all the things cavemen cannot do very well. I think I will include items as I ponder them, further along this blog-path. Being close to plants and flowers today, I thought of a thing that a caveman is not fit to do. We can't arrange flowers or plants. To us, they are food. To non-cavepeople, arranged flowers and plants are wonderfull to look at and pleasant to the emotions, I think. If I can't eat it, why arrange it?

The Cave, Part One

Every Caveman needs a cave. This is an undeniable fact. It is as true as any other fact you know.

The sun is the center of our solar system. Cavemen need caves.

One plus One equals Two. A Caveman must have a cave. Get the picture?

Of course you do. All of your life around a caveman, you have witnessed his efforts to find and keep at least one cave wherever he lives.

A cave is where a caveman goes to relax and contemplate the day's hunt or the harvest he works hare to gather. The cave is where a caveman is most comfortable. His cave must not be shared by non-cavemen or most women in his life, (unless that caveman and the woman are dealing with aspects of his assistance in creating cavebabies).

Our cave is the center of our world. We must return to our cave to refresh our spirit and gather the strength for future hunts, more cultivation, and entertaining thoughts and plans to assist in the creation of more cavebabies.

Growing up, my caveman-dad had his cave. It was a vinyl recliner that sat in the corner of the living room. It was his one spot in the entire world that he could just relax and deal with life. As the years went by, his cave would need replacing. Replacing caves is one of the few area where men actually enjoy shopping. I think "Archie Bunker's" cave is still in the Smithsonian.

Other cavemen have caves with four wheels, more or less. Sometimes they spend tremendous amounts of money purchasing, restoring, and showing them. This is another aspect of cavemen in competition.

My cave is the same room I grew up in for 12 years. When I was nine, our house got an addition and I got my own bedroom. Cave-dad had his chair, I got my room. When I moved back into the house at the age of 43, I naturally put my cave-stuff in the same room. I didn't even think of putting in the larger of the two front bedrooms.

My wife has learned what all wives of cavemen learn: don't mess with a cave. A caveman need complete control of his cave. Wives can have almost the entire rest of the house, just don't mess with the cave. Unless the caveman grants you access to or use of part of the cave, please, for the sake of lessening the amount of stress in the family, leave his cave alone.

A garage or workshop is most certainly the cave of many cavemen. While walking our dogs around the neighborhood, we always see the same caveman in his garage, every single night. The garage door is always open and the caveman is doing nothing or doing something or conversing with other caveman neighbors.

Cavemen are more comfortable sharing their cave with another caveman or cavebaby.

My Caveson had his cave in any tree he could climb. When he was little he had to share his home and bedroom with my non-caveson. So caveson could usually be found in a tree, contemplating things or just watching the world go by.

Caves can be places or things. I am sure many of you who know cavemen know that a particularly wonderful cave has usually a white ceramic stool-like structure that contains water and can be flushed. Many, many cavemen consider this place to be their secret, or hide-a-way cave. Let the world rush forward as a caveman takes his time in that type of cave.

All of you who know real cavemen inherently know about their caves. You have had to deal with them, and support their need for their cave.

I shall ponder more and write about this most important topic in the future.

On The Telephone

Cavemen can work on the telephone, but most of us hate being on the telephone.
Sure, when we were younger we may have spent many hours talking on the phone to females in our unending attempts to assist in the creation of cavebabies.

I have worked in the communications industry for almost 26 years. In the U.S.A.F., I spent my enlistment dealing with communication devises. I just hate using them.

I think I hate the phone bell more than I hate the alarm to get up. The alarm lets me know that it is time to begin my hunt or my gathering. Didn't you cavemen just love the sound of the alarm when it was time to get out of bed to go fishing, hunting, or camping. The added benefit to that alarm also meant, in the old days, your best excuse to get away from the phone.

I'd rather climb a pole or go down into a manhole than talk to someone on the phone about climbing up a pole or down into a manhole.

After I secured the affections of my wife, the telephone became an anchor to the progress of attempting to assist in the creation of cavebabies. We have all had experiences where we were involved in the assistance processes and then "ring, ring, ring". The telephone would usually sound the end of our efforts, many times, for the entire evening.

Of course, there is something worse than the telephone....the doorbell!

My Father's Caves

My dad had many caves. In his youth, and trying to avoid being around his own cavedad, my father found comfort with cars and motorcycles. He often spoke about the cars he would some how acquire, beginning when he was about 14-years old. Whether running or not, cars were my dad's first caves.

Marriage to my mom brought my dad to the facts that dealing with a cave-car usually meant that he had to be apart from the assisting in the creating cavebabies thing. Hence, the reclining chair, in the corner of the living room, of his then-two bedroom home. It was probably much more comfortable than any car or motorcycle seat, and in close proximity to my parents bedroom and...

After the accomplishments of my father's attempts at assisting in the creation of cavebabies, he once again returned to vehicles to possibly avoid the requirements implied on him by my mother to assist in raising the cavebabies he assisted in the creation of. Lots of true cavemen try for some time to avoid the raising of the cavebabies. In my case is worked pretty darn well for my father as you will read further down. I never really felt the way my father felt and I was, and still very much involved with my, extremely brilliant, wonderfully talented, ridiculously good looking, and very loving sons.

When I was about 5-years old, my dad brought home a 1935 Ford Pick-up truck. For the next several years my father accomplished what is called a "frame-off" restoration. There is a picture of my sister and I standing in the middle of the freshly painted frame setting on our driveway.
When my dad wasn't at work, in his recliner, pouring the concrete for the many slabs in our backyard, or attempting to assist, you know what I mean, he was working on the truck.

My dad did take us camping while he did the other things. That is a perfectly normal thing for a real caveman to do. He also fished, so he gathered.

During the time of the 1935 Ford, my dad used a variety of cars to get to and from work. My mom had a used 1955 Ford station wagon, until she got our first brand car. It was a 1962, baby blue, four door, Ford Falcon. She got the new car because she was starting her student teaching a school some distance away from our home AND she did an unthinkable thing shortly before we got the new car.

Mom drove herself to Cal State Long Beach to finish her classes that led to her teaching credential. On day my dad came home from work and found the front fender and grill dented on the old 1955 station wagon. My dad learned that my mom had did the unthinkable...she hit a beer truck. Cavemen drink beer. It probably would have been less troublesome to my father if my mother had driven into a Sunday school classroom, filled with kids and parents. But she hit a beer truck. Oh my!

With that incident finally cleared, my dad finished his truck and let it sit in our one-car garage while the brand new Ford rested in the driveway. Then, the pick-up was sold and my dad bought a used 1962 Ford Econoline van he painted.....green.

The van was then his ultimate escape vehicle to visit what was to become his largest cave. As a boy my cavedad would take his caveson on trips to the desert for many reasons. He was able to get away from the house on his day off, usually a Thursday when I was "sick". from school. He was also taking the trip to scope out locations for a new cave. He was also able to drink beer during his drive. On one of these trips, my dad decided Lucerne Valley, in the Mojave Desert might be a good place of a new cave. First he bought 10 acres that he contemplated building a house on. After some years of no progress, he found and bought a house on three acres of land just off the main road.

The Lucerne Valley cave was bigger than our regular home that had grown to three-bedrooms when I was nine-years old. The L.V. house had three bedrooms, too. But it also had a fireplace in the living room, a dining room, a den with another fireplace, and it all came with a concrete pool behind the home. This cave would become my fathers cave for the next decade and a half.
My dad would go to his giant cave three our of four sets of off days he had from work. In time, the old recliner in our living room vanished and my dad got a new recliner for his ultimate cave.

After my dad retired from work, he sold his Lucerne Valley cave and moved to Mexico. He had long since given up on dealing with his cavekids and he no longer seemed interested in assisting in anything, more or less. He seemed very happy first in one of those converted trailers, placed in an all-American enclave, along the coast of Baja. His final Mexico cave what the brightest yellow house on a hill just before you drove south into Ensanada, on the Cota Road. Folks could see that thing for miles. It stood out like a ripe banana surrounded by bunches of blackened fruit and sage brush.

I brought my cavedad home, with the assistance of my own caveson in about 1998. Dad was injecting Insulin and not getting along too well south of the border. My wife and I took him to our local furniture store for him to pick out the brand new furniture for his apartment in town.
He walked around the store and pointed at almost ever piece of furniture he wanted purchased, without so much as a second glance. Tables, sofas, a bed, dining furniture, lamps, T.V. stand, all were selected almost instantly.

But you already know that one piece of furniture selected needed to be tried out, carefully selected, color coordinated, easily workable, and ultimately, the most comfortable. Go ahead, say it....I don't need to.

Cavemen and Written Instructions

Bicycles, cribs, swing sets, cameras, computer systems, hobby items, and cavemen "toys." They all have one thing in common...written instructions.

Do cavemen follow the written instructions? I just left the area blank because you filled in the answer in your head.

Cavemen know that written instructions for things were written by other cavemen who used their high level of sequential tasking to write a step-by-step set of instruction to be followed in order to assemble or use the item the written instructions were packaged with.

Cavemen, being inherently sequential-tasking themselves, find it naturally needless to follow instruction written by other cavemen. Our mind tells us that written instructions are meant for multi-taskers to use to understand how something should be assembled or used.

Cavemen simply think they see the finished item fully assembled and take it apart in their mind until it looks like the many pieces just removed from the packaging. Once disassembled in their mind, they simply try to put it back together. One of the problems is is that we cavemen tend to only see the big pieces and forgo thought of the little things like nuts, bolts, and washers.

Does not reading instructions lead to problems? Again, I need not waste keystrokes to put your answer on this blog.

When I was a young father, I used to build radio controlled vehicles for myself and my sons. Once I was able to put the things together, we had a great time running them around our neighborhood and crashing into things. I usually tried to pick the easiest models to build because it meant I didn't need to use the instruction books. I was pretty good until I got a mid-engine, four-wheel drive model. That one stayed in the box for quite some time before I let caveson build it. Reading instructions are such a bore.

When Caveson was eleven, and we had wrecked, very happily I might add, just about every radio controlled vehicle we played with, he came to me with the desire to built an electric radio controlled helicopter. Now this was testing time for me. We got the "Whisper" helicopter with the notion that we would work on it together. And we did. I tried my darnedest to help him build his project by using written instructions as little as possible. I didn't do so well. Caveson knew at his young age that he didn't have the knowledge at the time to ignore the instructions, like I thought I had. He read the instructions and completed his helicopter. It flew. Just a little. But it flew long enough and high enough for caveson to be happy and me to be so proud of him. He quickly tired of his finished helicopter and moved on to other projects.

My caveson and my non-caveson tried to teach me a valuable lesson. Read the instructions. Alas I am still a caveman. Cavemen write instructions for non-cavemen. Now how do I get the video I recorded on my still camera to play back? Oh-oh, I might have to read the instructions.

Sometimes a Caveman's Mind Wanders

Many cavemen can sit for hours just thinking. Many of our thoughts are not understandable by non-cavemen, and most certainly by most women.

For me, I call it "pondering." Perhaps I see something that makes me think about things. Sometimes I finally grasp a bizarre concept and try to see if it relates to reality.

I am going to share an example how this particular Caveman can view something so seemingly natural and common, but with pondering, find it completely foreign and not-understandable.

My wife and I were a Costco, a giant warehouse type store, and we wandered through the newly placed Christmas stuff and toys. As I pass a small plastic Santa Claus, a song came out of him:

"Dashing through the snow,
in a one-horse open sleigh.
O'er the fields we go,
laughing all the way.
Bells on bobbed tails ring,
making spirits bright.
Oh, what fun it is to sing
a sleighing song tonight."

You all should know the song; "Jingle Bells."

As I heard the song coming out of the plastic, jiggling Santa, I stopped.
"Wait a minute." I said to my wife. I again went back to the jolly looking doll to watch it wiggle and have that song coming from it. Something was very wrong about Santa singing "Jingle Bells."

I pondered. When I got home, I pondered more. Santa Claus has no business singing "Jingle Bells." It is a song that the "right jolly old elf" has anything to do with. Please consider the following;
Santa doesn't "dash through snow", he flies over it.
No "one horse" can pull his sleigh. He needs eight trained Reindeer.
I will admit Santa does go "o'er the fields", but he is usually alone when he flies over them.
I hope Santa is always in a good mood on Christmas Eve and he laughs a lot. But I don't imagine he laughs "all the way."
It is much easier, I believe, to bob a horse's tail than a reindeer's tail, and there has never been an illustration of any bells on any bobbed tails of Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, or Blitzen.
Yes, it might be fun for folks to sing sleighing songs, but according to "A Visit From Saint Nick",
Santa was not witnessed singing anything.

So to me, the idea of Santa Claus riding with another person, in a one-horse sleigh, making lots of noise by singing and having bells on the horse's tail ring doesn't seem plausible. Sure he may do it on another night other than Christmas Eve, but to have anyone believe that "Jingle Bells" has anything to do with Santa Claus, is not reasonable, in my opinion.

I'm still pondering on a more proper song for a wiggling, singing, plastic Santa to have come out of it. Perhaps it should transmit "Frosty the Snowman", but there too, I can't connect the two individuals together.

This calls for lots more pondering.