Category: Thoughts

Jan 14 2011

Dusting at Sunset

I would NEVER recommend dusting at sunset.   The effect of the sunset seems to amplify and highlight dust, hair, crumbs almost anything close to the surface.

When finishing a plane, I always shine light parallel to the surface to highlight imperfection in my finish work, and just noticed at sunset the angle of the sun has the same effect.   If you ever want to find a nut, washer or an earring just shine a flashlight parellel to the floor and you’ll instantly spot the item.

As I was cleaning tonight with the sun setting, I found those prolific dust bunnies have been breeding everywhere!   Where do these dam dust bunnies come from?

Sadly, my dust bonny killer was Rosie (the Rooba iRobot ) died on me.  She did a fabulous job sweeping under everythings whacking those bunnies into submission.  Her ticker finally (battery) gave out.

The good news is I found a replacement robotic floor vac which is supposed to be even better than the Rosie!    NEW Technology too!   This one uses lasers to map a room out and then cleans in straight line grid pattern.   VERY efficient and fast.   It even remembers rooms layouts too!     Rosie would just randomly run around bumping into everything with no plan like some women do.   This new vac is definitely a mans, man vac.

Better get back to rooting out those bunnies.  They are mating as I write and the sound is deafening.

Sep 11 2003

Secrets of Men

Secrets of Men

  • Learn to work the toilet seat.  You’re a big girl.  If it’s up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down.  You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.
  • Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 days.
  • Shopping is NOT a sport.  And no, we are never going to think of it that way.
  • Crying is blackmail.
  • Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work!  Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!
  • Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
  • Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That’s what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.
  • A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.
  • If you won’t dress like the Victoria’s Secret girls, don’t expect us to act like soap opera guys.
  • If you think you’re fat, you probably are. Don’t ask us.
  • If something we said could be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.
  • You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done.  Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.
  • Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
  • Christopher Columbus did not need directions and neither do we.
  • ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.
  • If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.
  • If we ask what is wrong and you say “nothing,” we will act like nothing’s wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.
  • If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, expect an answer you don’t want to hear.
  • When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine. Really.
  • Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball, the shotgun formation, or monster trucks.
  • You have enough clothes.
  • You have too many shoes.
  • Sunday = sports. It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides.  Let it be.
  • I am in shape. Round is a shape.
Mar 05 2003

Flying

Flying

 Remembering first rays of the sun in the morning, lighting the clouds from below,
Or observing the world from above, slowly changing from day to night,  

You can not imagine what I have seen.

The tantalizing cool blue water of the Keys,
The ground, white like snow, with flowering dogwoods in the Atlanta spring, 
The sparkling emerald green of fish farms in Mississippi,
The outline of the hazy Smokey Mountains from a mile high.

The thrill of flying above a beach with strangers waving hello.

You can not imagine what I have seen.

The pleasure of leaving the dreary, rainy surface and discovering a gloriously clear blue sky lies above a sea of soft white clouds,
The beauty of a clouds outlined in the brightest silver,
Clouds streaming beams of light, gently touching the earth, the fingers of God.
The gental softness of clouds as you dip your wings in them,
or flying between angry layers of clouds fleeing a hurricane.

Single rainbows, double rainbows, circular rainbows with a silhouette of my plane in the center.

Blood red sunsets that last for just a few short minutes and are gone forever in a blink of an eye.

Year around, cities and towns are dressed for Christmas at night,
The thrill, the beauty, the terror of helpless racing toward lightening at night,
Shooting stars as they fall from heaven.

As the earth slowly revolves under my floating eyes,

I thank God for giving me wings to fly and allowing me to see what he only shares with a few.

Nick Ugolini
Mar 2003

Jul 16 2002

Life Is A Journey

LIFE’S JOURNEY

Your life’s journey has an outer purpose and an inner purpose.

 The outer purpose is to arrive at your goal or destination, to accomplish what you set out to do, to achieve this or that, which of course implies future.

But if your destination, or the steps you are going to take in the future take up so much of your attention that they become more important to you than the step you are taking now, then you completely miss the journey’s inner purpose, which has nothing to do with where you are going or what you are doing, but everything to do with how.

 It has nothing to do with future but everything to do with the quality of your consciousness at this moment.  

  • The outer purpose belongs to the horizontal dimension of space and time
  • The inner purpose concerns the deepening of your being in the vertical dimension of the timeless now.

 Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey has only one: the step you are taking right now.

 As you become more deeply aware of this one step, you realize that it already contains within itself all the other steps as well as the destination.

Nick Ugolini

Jul 09 2002

The Delusion Of Time

END THE DELUSION OF TIME

Time and mind are inseparable.
Remove time from mind and it stops – unless you choose to use it.

To be identified with your mind (believe that you are your mind) is to be trapped in time: The compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation.

This creates and endless pre-occupation with past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be.

The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of happiness, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.

Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the NOW!

Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the NOW!

Nick Ugolini

Jun 16 2000

Not Easily Amazed

This was written to a wonderful woman I met at an airport.  The words speak for themselves.

Not Easily Amazed

My life has been full of wonder and experiences.  I have seen incredible sights and been everywhere I wanted to go.  From the far east to central Asia, sailed the Bahamas, skied the Alps, traveled to the depths of the Grand Canyon.   Done everything you could imagine and then some.  Found unimaginable love only to lose it, growing from the pain.  Life’s experiences can be a demanding teacher.  I have learned well.

I am not easily amazed.

People don’t impress me.  Closed minded, no drive for the satisfaction of accomplishment, no interest in self development or expanding their experiences.   Control, personal safety, no risk, no excitement.  Standing in a crowd, they fade away part of the masses that come and go and leave nothing behind.

I am not easily amazed.

Then I met a pilot.  Intelligent, humorous, articulate, attractive, exciting.  Ideas, thoughts, drive, a curiosity few share. Theater, art, blue men flying in dark clouds to the beat of a drum.  Oshkosh, tri-motors, roasted corn, sushi.  Strange planes few have ever heard of. The thrill of IFR where only self confidence stands between you and the end.  A risk taker, living life to the fullest. One in a thousand, one in a million, one of a kind.

So many of my interests I see reflected in her.  When I thought life had no more delights to unfold, I am impressed.

This woman truly amazes me……

Mar 21 1981

Moving forward

The storm is all around me, the white crest waves, the rain, the cold, the wind.

How I long for the warm days of spring when the wind is steady and warm.  The seas smooth.  Those days seem long and distant. 

Too long I have been at sea.  I want to go home, but I have lost the maps that lead me to the old familiar ports.  I must keep sailing on to other places.

May be tomorrow, maybe next week or maybe a year I will find that port.  Unless I keep moving forward I will never find it.  Unless I keep trying, I will never know.

Nick Ugolini