Spotted Eagle Ray Soars Again

A 55 year old Michigan woman, Judy Kay Zagorski, died of "blunt force craniocerebral trauma" when a Spotted Eagle Ray swooped out of the water and hit her in the head. Not difficult to imagine, when you realize that this animal was a 75-80 pound missile, with a 6 foot wingspan.



Until this story, I had not even heard of a Spotted Eagle StingRay. But as freak accidents go, this was one of the most freaky. It's not the first time, either.

Eighty-one year old James Bertakis survived an almost identical confrontation in October of 2006, when a Spotted Eagle Ray jumped into his boat. In an effort to put it back in the water, he was stung in the chest, but left the barb in as companions rushed him to the hospital.

As most people in America recall, Australian wildlife expert Steve Irwin died from the sting of a Bull Ray while filming an episode of his show. It's not clear whether he really did pull the stinger out, as some contend, and that this was his fatal mistake. Leaving the stinger in or out could make no difference as the damage of a 10 inch barbed spike in the human heart is formidable, in and of itself. In the case of James Bertakis, surgeons performed two operations to remove the stinger from his heart, and his recovery was slow and still not complete.

Aside from a few news outlets, who called the Zagorski incident an "attack", most have dubbed it an accident. The only one that could be considered an attack was Irwin's case. He boxed the ray in between himself and the cameraman, and the instinctive response was to thrash its barbed tail. Most scuba divers and marine biologists understand that Spotted Eagle rays are usually harmless and rarely have direct contact, aggressive or otherwise, with humans.

In a story published by National Geographic, * University of Miami marine biology professor, Bob Cowen, said of Bertakis incident:

As for the likeness that yesterday's event bears to the encounter that felled Irwin, there's nothing to it beyond mere, if somewhat uncanny, happenstance, Cowen said. "...I really think it's a fluke...We're not going to see eagle rays jumping out of the water attacking boaters," he said.
"If it happens a third time then we have to start worrying about it," he added with a laugh.

Third time. Who's laughing now?

Karma often seems void of discernment. Humans are a collective and we suffer as a species, sometimes, regardless of individual acts. But it's important to realize that we continue to ignore the great potential of our oceans, while abusing the life in it.

Another Spotted Eagle Ray in Florida was tortured by several men on Peanut Island last June. The video of this was removed from YouTube and the Fish and Wildlife service is now doing a criminal investigation of the event.

I hope the abusers get tossed into a giant tank filled with Spotted Eagle Rays.


I had to include this photo of the underside of a ray, because it was odd and interesting.

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*http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/061019-stingray.html

Spotted Eagle Ray Soars Again

72 Virgins With a Side of Levity

It is common knowledge that the terrorists who steered the planes into the Twin Towers on September 11th, did so believing that they would be rewarded in the afterlife with 72 Virgins.

Nowhere in the Koran does it say that martyrs will be given 72 virgins in the afterlife. Nor is the Rapture mentioned anywhere in the Christian Bible. The rapture was invented by a preacher in the 19th century, and just became popularized by the nature of Memes* and how they are spread. Just like with fundamentalist Christians, some Muslims have found a way to mistranslate and even invent content for their own religious zealotry.

There are so many flaws in the logic, it's hard to know where to begin, so I'll just say this:

who would want 72 women with absolutely no sexual experience?

Not me. I like a woman to know what she's doing.

That aside, it is obvious that these distortions, and often the religion itself is predicated on catering to men and their particular interests. What about the Muslim women? do they get 72 MALE virgins? (ridiculous, as we know there are none left. )

Do Muslim women get to go to "heaven" at all? Guess not. Can anyone say misogyny?

Even though this is quintessential absurdity and ignorance that has grown into a threat to all of us, and indeed to the very existence of life on this planet, I entreat you to consider my own solution.

Someone please provide 72 virgins right now.
Then they will have their reward without dying and without killing others in the process.


Anyone?

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*Meme--As defined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976): "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation." "Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation."

72 Virgins With a Side of Levity

Irony, thy name is Christian

I found this at the top of the Wikipedia page on Christianity:


This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved.

Irony, thy name is Christian

Celibacy is not hereditary....

...and i have every right to hate it.
celibacy.

Loathe it. What about you?
There are those who believe that it is somehow more evolved to deny our need for sexual intimacy. Usually, this stance is held by those who can't get laid.
Thus, it's a coping mechanism.

I don't feel more spiritual when i am celibate. I just feel frustrated. I believe that the need for intimacy is not only hard-wired biology, but part of the natural human condition; and it needs to stop being relegated to the lockboxes created by religious zealotry. The Bible is the major culprit for this, along with those who would translate it incorrectly, even when the Bible is making any sense.

Humans are- by design--social creatures, and sexual intimacy is the most profound representation of that. I believe that making love is spiritual. It's a trustplace, a surrender, a joining of essence....Under what other conditions can you become that merged with another soul?

SO celibacy. I'm against it.
Unless you have some disorder that precludes healthy sexual activity. Like, say, being a Catholic Priest.
 

Celibacy is not hereditary....

Occupational Hazard

This one time (not at band camp) I was reaching for my coffee atop my warming plate, and it seems that the usual spillage had created some odd but effective glue, and when i tried to pick it up with my usual amount of confidence, i succeeded in dousing my face and chest with hot coffee.

I'm a writer. Occupational hazards get recorded.

yeah let's have another blog about your freaking love affair with coffee...

Occupational Hazard

Remote Control Yourself

One thing I dislike most about driving an older car, is having no keyless entry anymore.

See if you can fathom it: you actually have to take a key out of your pocket, put it into a slot in the side of the door, turn it, turn it back, pull the key out of the slot, and lift the handle....all this, just so you can get into your car! Absurd.

The only saving grace about keys is that they provide me still another crime-fighting weapon. I can carry those keys between my fingers, sticking out, so that in case i get mugged, i can gouge out the eyes of my assailant. That would be called "Keyful Entry" into the eyeballs. *

I feel that almost everything ought to be remote controlled.

Except sex.

Yet being single, I'd take that, too...and of course there's an exception to avoidance of remote controlled sex, as well...the sex shops now have a wonderful toy. You have your girlfriend insert these little metal spheres inside herself, and you have a remote that turns on the vibration in them.

Then the two of you go to a bar and while she's across the room chatting with someone, just zap her really good. Hysterical. It's one of my favorite things to do.
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*For another blog that came to me today while driving, see my other blog post, Drive-By Writing.
*For an even handier means of self defense with your keys, buy a Stinger, which can be held in your hand and the small protrusion can do great damage to an attacker.

Remote Control Yourself

Texting Texting One, Two, 9...oops

It's not that I don't enjoy getting and sending text messages. I just don't enjoy TYPING them. It reminds me of the days when I had to use a manual typewriter and it took so long, and if you made a mistake, there was no backspace, no delete, no cut and paste, no spell check.

My current cell phone is a Pantech C3b--"the smallest camera phone with a flash on the market." (the perfect thing for an aging writer who over-uses her eyeballs). I do like being able to stick it in my pocket and go, since before I had to have a holster for my cell phone and that could be a little butch. Plus, I kept dropping it out of the holster at odd intervals, and cursing as the faceplate would go whizzing across the floor that was inevitably made of some material like concrete. My Pantech never gets dropped, now. And it takes pretty good pictures. And it also has a flashlight on it. Great for helping other people find their cellphone face plates in dark bar floors.

So while I love my phone for normal phone-like usage, I can't say I enjoy using a minuscule screen with minuscule keys to type a message. It's as frustrating as writing a novel on that Old Royal typewriter I used when I was a beginning writer, still wet behind the adjectives.

This contraption was like trying to compose on a machine gun, and just as noisy. Quaint, But noisy. Lord God, I'm dating myself. (good thing, because no one ELSE will date me. badda bing.)

So, keying in a text message in the modern era takes me back to those good old days. (the Stone Age Era, I believe it was called, but my memory's fuzzy.) The Good Old Days that really weren't all that good. Maybe just charming, but it was damn hard to get anything done.

Text messaging is equally frustrating. Especially since each key holds the image for at least three letters or numbers or symbols. That means that if I don't hit one of them three times instead of two, I will get the wrong letter, and have to start over. And if you have either smaller than normal keys, or fat fingers, you can just forget about it. You have to snag 4th graders to do your text messages for you. I find grocery stores and playgrounds are good spots to get some of that texting done....

Add this issue to the fact that sometimes I'm DRIVING when I get a text message, and right there you have a recipe for disaster. I can't even READ the messages I get when I drive because I usually wear my contacts when I leave the house, and they simply aren't calibrated to view close up; especially not suited to the magnification I need to even read my cell phone screen.

Sometimes wish I had a cell phone the size of my PC keyboard. That way I could text mesage without having a wreck or getting eyestrain. But I would no longer be able to carry it in my pocket, and that would cause some concern with secuurity guards at malls everywhere.

Alas, technology always has a down side.

Excuse me, I have to answer my keyboard.
Hello?

Texting Texting One, Two, 9...oops

Nerdy by Necessity--JavaScript Hell

Over the last couple of weeks I have been in JavaScript Hell. While i have full faith and confidence that Blogger will become the preeminent blogging site on the web, having been bought by Google, it is still fraught with some glitches that need attention. But everything that Google touches turns to gold, and years ago when Google began as an upstart search engine, I saw the possibilities, i just didn't have the funds to invest in the stock. But I wanted to. And while I don't really kick myself, I sort of kick the universe, for that little bit of misfortune. I'd be a rich freaker right now. So I am left with my odd obsession with collecting Google Logos...

Anyway, back to Dante's 13th Ring of Hell known as JavaScript. I wanted to add random quotes to my blogs, and I must have looked at and tried some 30 different scripts, all of which failed miserably for some indefinable reason. And when I wrote to the authors or hosts of those scripts, I was met with blinding silence.

This led me to researching the specifics of JavaScript coding, and that alone, was like learning a foreign language. I am Nerdy by Necessity. It's not my natural state of being, but I will become obsessed with anything that might solve a problem i need solved. It's why I have built or rebuilt almost every computer I've owned. I call them my Frankenstein models. I take from everywhere and try to make things function. It's all just a means to an end for me, so that I can get my various creative endeavors out there into the societal and Internet ether. After staggering disappointments, I finally did find a random text script that worked, and lo and behold, the author of that script actually answered my inquiry promptly and solved the problem and I have since been impressed by his career. In his own words, David, of Spider Webmaster Tools, said,

Dear Jae,

I developed SpiderWebmasterTools many, many years ago and I have since moved on to bigger and better Internet arenas. Web developing and Internet Marketing (SEO/SEM) has become my forte.

I still dabble in Java Script, but I've moved on to mastering PHP and MySQL. Two sites that I showcase this in is Form Genics and CSS-Generator where I mix JS and PHP together.

Some of my work has been included in such major projects such as Mambo and Joomla. Another one of my sites, Free-Color-Picker has scripts that I developed and they have been downloaded over 50,000 times.

I also run a web hosting company http://www.ANetworkCompany.net and a very popular manual web directory service, PageRankSubmit.

On top of all this, I do I.T. consulting - setting up corporate servers, Intranet web servers, MX (email) servers and filtering.

So, I am quite busy at times, to say the least. But, I will always try to help those in need as my time will allow.

You may drop me a question anytime...

David

What an accomplished, stand-up guy. And I was sure to tell him so. That's why you'll see his links on my site. In another post, I will cover some of the things I've learned in this script-search and tweak process so that any of the bloggers out there who are having the same vexation I was, with finding a working Random Text JavaScript, will enjoy the satisfying solution I did.

Nerdy by Necessity--JavaScript Hell

Coffee, Stupidity, Insanity & Germs

Amazing, how she can write so much about coffee and the mundane moments within her domestic trivia. Go ahead and say it now and get it over with. I know you want to... Domestica ^(tm) is one of my subjects, because I'm a domestic sort. Or domesticated. In my domicile, independent and cut off from the outside world. Except for the Internet, which IS the world, really, so...notsamuch.

Anyhoo, moving on...My first sip of coffee today was too hot. I just burned the hair off my tongue. I hear you saying, "There is no hair on your tongue."

To which i respond, "Not Now!"

See, this happens frequently. You'd think I'd learn. The definition of stupidity is doing something the same way and expecting a different result. . .some say that's the definition of insanity, but I think it fits stupidity better. Insane people do much more interesting things, and sometimes I write about that too. But I don't consider myself either stupid or insane, so there has to be some other reason why I have burned my tongue on coffee more than once.

Masochism?
No. I don't like pain. I don't even like spankings when they're sexual. (Freak! stop hitting me! You're supposed to be trying to bring pleasure, fer chrissakes!!)

So the best explanation I can come up with, is that I'm forgetful. I think i wrote a blog about that before, but....not sure. Note to self: take more Ginkgo Biloba.

I'm uncertain as to how this current burning happened though. Maybe it had something to do with the release of heat from my cup since I put it in the microwave, because I cleaned the skin off the inside of it (residue from yesterday), and then imagined all the germs one can get from swishing around a sponge on a stick, after it has been swishing all over everything else in the kitchen...I was reminded of that compelling and oddly disturbing commercial where the housewife (sorry, Domestic Engineer) was gleefully wiping down her kitchen with a raw hindquarter of a chicken. Point taken. (Who says we are immune to advertising?)

So I put the mug in the microwave, soon followed by the sponge-on-a-stick and the dishcloth... because I read on Web M.D. that nuking wet sponges and dishcloths in the microwave for two minutes, destroys almost every germ known to woman--99%, according to the study. So of course, I had to put the coffee cup in the microwave too, since it had been contaminated by the germy dish- sponge- on- a-handle-acting as-a-raw-chicken-leg.

I swear my coffee tastes a little different than normal.
Less germy, maybe.

Still, my cup runneth over...into my mouth. Or onto the floor. I'm always spilling it...either way, time for refill. Or as I prefer to call it, another brain infusion.

----------------------
*Domestica ^(tm) is one of my past websites, which i intend to resurrect at some point in the near future.

Coffee, Stupidity, Insanity & Germs

Birthday Blows

(I wrote this on my birthday, yesterday, but didn't get it posted in time, as i was busy writing other posts and trying to get that random-text JavaScript to work. I welcome any JavaScript Gurus who might be able to tell me how to fix it. But here is the post, belated, as birthday recognition seems always to be):

I woke to the sound of leaf blowers, realizing March Madness, for me, isn't a basketball tournament, but a month signifying the beginning of the Condo Association's launch into landscaping and general outside maintenance.

So, the first leaf blowers have arrived. There were 6 of them. Like a posse. Those leaves had to go, and they were armed and already at it, summarily disrupting my common daytime slumber. What happened to the good old days of raking?

There are better uses for a leaf blower. I think prisoners ought to be punished by being put on crews that blow leaves, except don't give them a blower. They have to do it manually-- or...mouthily. That'll teach 'em to be lawbreakers! They'll be so dizzy, they won't be able to commit another crime.

So I'm up, now, ready to bitch-slap the Help.
Happy birthday to me.

Birthday Blows

Impatience, M-Theory & the Nihilistic Abyss

It's a true sign of the times--the impatience that has us standing in front of the countdown of a microwave, shouting "Hurry up!"

Another version of this is jerking the coffee carafe out before brewing is complete, so you can just get some in a cup.

For a while now, this societal impatience has been recognized by java Research and Development teams worldwide. One feature we enjoy in modern life is a coffeemaker with a stop-flow gadget so the coffee won't drip down onto the warming plate, like little hissing H-bombs in a very tropical Lilliputian¹ village. It bakes in a coffee stain. Unsightly.

As lifestyles have changed to reflect the ever-growing age of technology and convenience, we have ironically become more and more inconvenienced by more and more things. We, as a species, are" running out of time." Or at least that's how it feels, even to me. I'm always saying "There isn't enough time" though we all enjoy the same 24 hours, and they all still last 60 minutes each. The only exception to this might be M-Theory which postulates that there are other membranes next to us that we can't see, but are nonetheless there, and include variations on the existence we experience in our own time-space continuum. (You might visit this blog for an interesting presentation of this from an interesting doctor).

I explore some of these ideas in a novella I am currently writing (among others) called Quintessence. I am fascinated by the idea that there could be other realities we are not privy to, nor have the capacity to comprehend. As Shakespeare, my favorite bard, said, "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Thus, in the only reality we know, our time-space continuum is for all intents and purposes, fixed, and so anytime a solution for time-wasting is developed, everyone has to have it. This is so that we can go about the business of living our lives with a self-serving delusion in place that will keep us from spiraling into the nihilistic abyss.

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¹The Lilliputians, for those of you who missed that Lit class, were miniature people who lived in a village called Lilliput. I recommend this book by Jonathan Swift highly, as well as his story A Modest Proposal, which is a satirical solution to Ireland's famine in the 18th Century.

Impatience, M-Theory & the Nihilistic Abyss

Google Whore

I get around.
But only on the Internet. I assure you I am pure as the driven snow...and you know how pristine snow is, after it's been driven...

Periodically i do a Google on myself to see where I'm showing up and what my placement is for my books, and blogs and my various pages on jaebaeli.com. Today, my name appeared on 2,980 pages. Encouraging.

On one site, they were giving away my articles and short pieces, and i had to contact them and tell them to stop. I generally want to get paid for reprints. Every now and then my name will end up on a site, and i have no idea why. I wasn't sure what this was about until i noticed the name. On a sports-talk site, one of my novels got mentioned...I wasn't sure why, until i realized that one of my characters shares a name with a hockey player, Dominic Fontaine.

This is one of the kickers. aIt was on some French site for a singer named Patricia Kaas. It's obviously gibberish, but i never thought of my name as GIBBERISH. Maybe someone out there can edify me about what the deal is with stuff like that.

Je te di vous | Patricia Kaas http://www. Amazing-cover-letters. Sometimes a can wait their turn Kelli Jae Baeli a variety of reasons. Story is best told Je te di vous | Patricia Kaas

This one was entertaining, but i think it was more gibberish.

Got a mention on Blogsbywomen.org:



And there's this one:

Look at that. I'm famous and i didn't even know!




And here was a pic of me i didn't even know existed--i was playing at my Guitar Bar "event" during Eureka Pride a few years ago.

Shiny.







And one of my books was on a wishlist by some chick in Trinidad.

Wonder if she's cute?

And this was on a Paramedic Insurance site. My book Achilles Forjan has two lead characters who are paramedics...

• Press Release Tips and Template - PRWeb - Auto-Owners Insurance and the Demmer Corporation first Mid-Michigan organizations accepted into Scanlon Leadership Network ... Kelli Jae Baeli Announces Release of Genre-Bending Suspense Novel, "Achilles Forjan" A troubled paramedic struggles with ...

My article "Being Fully Human" was reprinted on Selfimprovementadvice website, too. They didn't think to ask for my permission either.

Ah well, as they say, all publicity is good publicity.

Google Whore

Coffee Skin

My coffee has a skin again.

I keep my mug on an old coffeemaker masquerading as a hot plate because I like my coffee to remain highly warm while I sip it throughout my morning. And afternoon. And sometimes evening...depending on when i get up. Which is always a malleable enterprise for those with Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. I also have Coining Of Nomenclature Syndrome (C.O.N.S.), except this time I'm not guilty of it. DSPS really exists. Although when i first saw the abbreviation, i thought it stood for -Dating & Sex Postal Service --this is how i intend to find my next girlfriend. When you are at home as much as i am, that's your only hope of seeing another human being. When she absolutely, positively, has to stay here overnight.
Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Skin.

If my coffee cup stays on the hot plate too long, (as it should, since i am a serious writer who spends many hours slaving away at my clickety clacking)....then it inevitably gets a skin on it. Then I have to take a piece of coffee filter and dig the skin out before I refill.

If I were to visit a coffee shop and say "Give me a hazelnut with skin."

They would say "Skim milk?"

"No," I'd say. "Not SKIM. . ..SKIN."

They would, rightfully so, put me in the crazy category. Been there before, so it wouldn't be a stretch. I can do crazy very well, thank you.

I thought about trying to put something on top of that skin one time, to see how strong it was. . ..a paper clip, maybe. . ..wonder if it would sink, or ride there? Then I could drink, while staring at a buoyant paper clip. There would be no reason for this, other than my own twisted and absurd entertainment.

I refuse to let myself get bored.

Coffee Skin