My son was sitting in my lap this morning sleepiness in his eyes watching Telletubbies and I was telling him that I love him which I do often because I feel all children accomplish more and are happier when they know they are loved by thier parents. I started to wonder how often is really often enough to tell the ones we loved how we feel. Is there a certian number of times...like say10 or so? can you say it too much? I dont know if there is a certian number of times it should be said. If there is some research that gives a actual number of times it should be said for best results. All I know is I tell my son often dispite his autism and hearing problems he smile each and everytime I say it and I know he knows he is loved :-)

I was just sitting here thinking about reading an article awhile back. It was about this man who one day decided he wanted to take a motorcycle trip around the world and the vehicle he chose to do it on was a Hnda 250 Elite scooter. He has since completed his trip and written a book about it. I will one day get the book and read it as soon as I can remember what the name of it was. I remember I first heard about it when I had had my 250 Elite scooter and I started thinking well why can't I do that. I figured I could at least start off with a trip across the country. I sat down and came up with plans on what to take, how to take it, and my Road atlas became my favorite reading item. I had it all planned out and did I take that trip? Well actually no I didnt. I kept coming up with excuses and reason as to why I had to wait. Then the day came when I sold my scooter, a dark day indeed. Why do I bring this up you ask? Because I got to thinking that had I taken that trip it would have made some major change in my life and I started looking back over my life and I came across a few decisions that had they been made differently would have drastically alterd my life the way it is today. I don't know if it would have been for the better or worse but it would have sent it off in a different direction than it took. Not that my life now is bad. I have a wonderfull son, my health is good, I can still dream the grand dreams, when I play with my son I can still remember what it was like being a child myself, I have wonderful parents and siblings who love me as much as I love them. I just have to wonder what if... It is those what ifs that drive us to try new things, to see what is just over the next hill, to dream and reach for the dreams. I had always planned on taking that trip someday but now I noticed that Honda has the new Silverwing scooter. 600cc fuek injected twin, disk brakes, more room for my knees ( a small complaint about my 250 Elite) slightly larger tires and better suspension travel (escuse me while I take a moment to ponder the possibilities) Now that old dream is stronger then ever. I think I might just have to find a way to afford one of those Silverwings. I havent ridden in quite a while and I feel the need for a road trip ( of course for me the word road tends to mean any surface that is drivable.) so next time you find yourself wondering a big "what if" you just might give some more serious thought to seeing where it takes you. Your life might never be the same. Have a good day everyone.

You know I was over at the river park the other day just enjoying the day when I noticed some nice motorcycles in the parking lot. Now I love motorcycles the feeling you get when your out riding on one is wonderful. One of the riders had a Suzuki Katana 600, it was in very good shape. The rider however was complaining about it. He said he wanted to do a little touring but his bike was too small for it. He wanted a 1000 cc sportbike to tour on. Now here this guy had a nice bike but wasnt happy with it. all he could see was its percieved faults. It reminded me of a motorcycle ride I was on a while back. I was out just enjoying a day of riding on my 86 Honda 250 Elite scooter ( yes I said 250cc and Scooter) I had a big box on back for storage and had gone a little over 200 miles that day. I stopped for a while to rest and have a cold drink. when this guy rode in on a little 180 Yamaha scooter. He had a windshield on it as well as some soft saddlebags and a trunk on the back. Oh did I forget to mention, he had Idaho license plates!!. I had struck up a conversation with this gentleman. He was friendly and happy as most who are in the middle of a nice road trip are. I found that he had indeed ridden the scooter clear from Idaho and was on his way to Washington. to visit family and start collage. He spoke of all the wonderful sites he had seen along the way. the nice people he had met. How the longer he had ridden the more alive and happy he had felt. We both talked about the adventure of a long downhill, a loaded scooter and the little drum brakes they had on them :-) , but you now the one thing he never mentioned was that he wished he had a bigger bike. Instead he focused on the what the bike had to offer rather then what it didnt have, and he was having a great time because of it. Now if more people looked at life that way how much better and friendlier would this world be... I wonder.

Today I got my message board up and running ( yeah!!) now if I can just get the link to it to appear on my blog you can get to it ;-). Hopefully the changes I have made to my sites template will load up soon if not then you will probably have no idea what I am talking about and might hink I am imagining things. If that turns out to be the case just remember this blog is titled Rambling and put it down as just me rambling on about something you cant see ;-) if it does post the changes hey go to my message board let me know. Talk to me people :-) If you have autism or know of someone with autism or have an autistic child just pop in and say hi. Well I do believe I have rambled on enough here. My son is at school and I am feelign the need for a little "me" time. So i'm off to do a little reading, play a few rounds of Half-life Team fortress and generally just sit and think. have a good day all. :-)

Hello there. If you have read this for awhile or read the archieves you know I have a Autistic son. He is a beautiful happy healthy 3 year old boy. I love my son. He means the world to me. Since he's been diagnosed as being autistic I have heard a lot of negative statements such as he will probably never show much affection and he wont be able to communicate with you, and we were even told he might not even walk well if at all. you see he was originally considered as severely autistic and in the beggining he didnt do any of those things and if the negative statements were believed he probably still wouldnt. Today my son is very active; runs ( well walks really quickly :-) ) plays, is quite affectionate and even though he still doesnt talk ( a few words) he still manages to get his point across. I still hear that he will never be normal. He was born with missing brain tissue, doesnt hear much at all, and theres something going on with his feet that he is wearing special shoes hoping it will correct itself as he grows; so no he will never be normal, but who is? I personally really hate the word "normal" when it 's applied to people. in my 35 years on this planet I have yet to see a "normal" person. I have seen many many people with similiar behavior traits that could collectively be called "average" but not one single "normal" person. So my son will never be average. My son ,in my opinion, is far beyond average; he is exceptional. I have seen many "average" children get frustrated quite quickly when trying to do something for the first time and scream and cry for mommy and daddy to do it for them; not my son. He tries and tries and he usually succeeds in accomplishing the task at hand. I have seen many "average" children and adults who come up with many reasons why they cant do something. My son who was born with much against him doesn't give up and just sit on the floor and wait for things to be done for him. You might be saying I am biased, well obviously he IS my son. A fact I am quite proud of. I have learned many things about life by watching and interacting with him. Seeing him ,who has many more things to overcome than I, keep trying to learn and accomplish things usually without complaint ( usually he IS only three), and I think about that whenever I try and do something and think about giving up saying its too hard or I can't do it. My son; he's had many challenges put in his life and still he goes about life living, learning, happy and active... average? I dont think so.

Hey all its me again :-) of course who else would it be it's MY blog :-) Well its going to be another hot one today it was 113 yesterday and it is suppose to be hotter today. You know what I dont get and I am sure many of you probably have experianced the same thing; people complaining about the weather. Now why do you suppose that is. Is it because (1) they don't remember the way it was the year before? (2) Mabey they live in a totally sealed enviroment ( a sealed habitat for example) which is supposed to have controlled weather, or (3) mabey they just like to complain. So for those people I say in order...take some vitamins it will improve your memory, get your equipment fixed so it will regulate correctly ,and, get a life and stop complaining we dont want to hear it :-) Personally I think it is a bit too warm for my personal taste lately and my son does not handle the heat well at all, but will me complaining help..no it won't. I just except the fact it is hot here in the summer and cold in the winter and thats just the way it is. Well talk to you all later. Hope your having a great day. :-)

So here we are again hmmm. Do any of you out there play any of the online fps ( first person shooter) style of games? I know I do and I LOVE the Half-life games and thier mods; particularly Team fortress. I like the team aspect of it and the different classes with thier own unique skills. I tend to prefer the engineer,demo or medic classes myself, cant snipe to save my life and the heavy machine gun class is just way to slow. pyro is ok as well as the soilder class but I have my three favorites and tend to play as them mainly. I saw a talk on T.V ( thats the other glowing box in the house for all you hardcore webaholics out there :-) ) wanting to know if computer games were getting to violent and if violence in the games can cause violence in real life. My personal opinion is unless your a bit unstable and are prone to that sort of violence in the first place then anything can probably set you off, but as for the rest of us I say a resounding NO!!!! I mean look at the old cartoons like the bugs bunny roadrunner shows. Now dont get me wrong I enjoyed watching them too so I'm not bashing them in any way but in them I have seen charectors shoot each other with shotguns but tht isnt considered too violent. and what about Tom and Jerry I was watching it with my young son yesterday and Tom clobbered Jerry over the head with a hammer. Now wht do you think would be easier for a child to get ahold of a phase induction plasma cannon or a Hammer? Yes I think children should be a little older before they are allowed to play some of the more graphic ganes out there and I personally think all games should come with settings to adjust the gore content to suit personal taste and the childrens age and emotional development but do violence in games cause violence in real life? NO!!!
Now having said that I feel much better and can get down off this soapbox and go play some games. have a good day everyone.