The Holocrons of Darth Grampus

I'm really grateful for the inspiration to write about one of my very favorite people on earth; my best friend, my lover, my bride and, since May 8th, my nurse and caregiver, too. Gentle reader, please let me tell you about the wonderful, the wise, the kind, dedicated, devoted, intelligent and loving Mrs. Darth Grampus.  If this reads like some unrealistic, overly positive perspective on my wonderful wife, then good. GOOD.  My wife is freakin' awesome from any angle you look at her, and alongside my children (all of them) and my precious grandson, she is the greatest blessing of my life. I want to tell everyone about her because she's not just my bride, she's my hero, too.  My wife is the 2nd of four children in her family. She is Thai-Chinese and both her Mom and Dad's families are of Hakka Chinese descent. Her great-grandparents fled China during the communist revolution with little more than lint in their pockets and the hope it might be easier for them to surviv...

We left the hospital today. As luck would have it, the most comfortable place in my house for me to sit is in the chair I'm typing from right now, so I wanted to provide a quick update.  Surgery went very well and without any complications. Within 18 hours of the repair, I was no longer having muscle spasms when I coughed. I don't think I've slept more than four hours total any night since the accident (May 8th), but getting even close to comfortable seems to be an impossibility at present. I've got bad road rash over my left hip where I fell (good three stinging layers deep), two long and lovely incisions across my guts, and 32 staples keeping them closed. My left home is the host of three new titanium alloy plates and a bunch of surgical screws keeping my ol' bones held together and "stable."  There's a lot to say about all of this, but I want to collect my thoughts and get some pics uploaded so I can post them for reference. A few of them are pretty...

As a youngling I often heard that, to avoid controversy and strife, don't talk about politics and religion. Naturally, Darth Grampus said a whole lot about both. When I started though, social media was becoming a thing. I could pick "friends" by common interest, so most of my "friends" shared my views closely enough that we didn't tend to argue much. So I often engaged in lengthy debates with others about things I cared about. That's where I learned about annoying things like trolling and a funny acronym: FRAT... or F*ck reading all that.  I could get wordy, even as a youngling. Some things never change.  Speaking of politics and religion though, I'm seeing a bunch of posts asking if states within the US should ban Sharia Law. Though the exact percentage (or reliable estimate) isn't available, Pew Research guesses the percentage of Muslims in the US who want Sharia Law is near 0 . Taking that into account, one wonders why the hell it's even ...

We all navigate our trips from the cradle to the grave deaf and blind in important ways. Some of these ways are obvious, if we have some humility. Others require taking a long look into the ugly mirror of human experience.  How do we know? How we do sift truth from narratives and agendas? None of us have enough time to chase down everything, do all the experiments, or check the backgrounds of the talking head we listen to the most. We're all affected by carefully crafted planes of possibility, and we're all conditioned to dismiss claims that venture beyond those planes.  CNN and Fox report on the same incidents, but their rhetoric presents them entirely differently. One says this about the event, the other says that. Both claim to be telling the truth, so... how do we know which is truth and which is lie? We don't. We choose what to believe and commit to it. We commit to it so strongly that we will regurgitate what we hear on our channel of choice as though it's the gos...

Consolidation I've been writing a blog as Darth Grampus for a while now, but not under the Google profile for him. That changes today. From now on I'll be writing and posting all Darth Grampus blogs here. If you'd like to read the earlier content, send me a message or leave a comment and I will send or post a link to all the earlier entries.  I know everything I'm trying to do will be a bit easier if it's all consolidated under the same umbrella. There should also be better continuity and ease for any would-be readers who find their way here from my YouTube channel. Shameless plug:  DarthGrampus on YouTube And if you're a new reader who found their way here by some other means, a very warm and hearty welcome to you! I empathize greatly with people who's feed suggested this to them, or who's search led them here! HA! We are not alone my friends!  Reintroduction I became a grandfather last year. Honestly, the experience affected me in ways I didn't exp...