Fallen Angel & Other Stuff

http://saintnicksbytes.blogspot.com/2010/12/too-bad-its-monday-jokes-and-humor_20.html This angel is supposed to be on top of our Christmas tree. However, twice I have found her fallen onto the floor:

 

I have the decided that the culprit who sends the angel toppling off her perch is a four-footed little fellow named Alex who, when he leaps from the floor onto the table that holds the tree (and is his new nesting spot) shakes the table and dislodges the poor little angel

Yesterday I found this fun, creative, and informative blog:

Cartoon News

A Few Christmas Cards that Alex and I have received

★Merry★* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★Christmas★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˚* _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•*/______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ｜ 田田｜門｜ ˚And a Happy New Year !

 A Few More Last Minute Christmas Gifts (Get 'Em in 2 Days)

At the end my last two posts I've suggested some Christmas gifts and provided links to them at Amazon.com. My choices have been based upon what I want for Christmas. 

There is also another reason: as you may or not know, if you make a purchase of one of my Amazon.com links, I receive a whopping 4% commission. (How about that!)

 

Zen Keys: A Guide to Zen Practice  

CHAIR-OVERSIZE

 

 

 

 

Little Nuggets of Wisdom

In These Times (Peter, Paul, and Mary)

Datz Allz, Folkz! OK?

Coal Tattoo

Travelin' down that coal town road. Listenin' to my rubber tires whine.
Goodbye to Buckeye and white Sycamore. I'm leavin' you behind.
I've been coal miner all of my life. Layin' down track in the hole.
Gotta back like an ironwood, bit by the wind. Blood veins blue as the coal. Blood veins blue as the coal.

Somebody said, "That's a strange tattoo you have on the side of your head."
I said, "That's the blueprint left by the coal. A little more and I'd been dead.
Well, I love the rumble and I love the dark. I love the cool of the slate,
And it's on down the new road, lookin' for a job. This travelin' nook in my head.

I stood for the union and walked in the line and fought against the company.
I stood for the U. M. W. of A. Now, who's gonna stand for me?
I've got no house and I got no job, just got a worried soul
And a blue tattoo on the side of my head left by the number nine coal. Left by the number nine coal.

Some day when I'm dead and gone to heaven, the land of my dreams.
I won't have to worry on losin' my job, on bad times and big machines.
I ain't gonna pay my money away on dues or hospital plans.
I'm gonna pick coal where the blue heavens roll and sing with the angel band.

~ Coal Tattoo by Billy Edd Wheeler

 


Ever since I first heard of the disaster at the Upper Big Branch coal mine,Bill Ed Wheeler's song, Coal Tattoo, has been going through my mind. As you can perceive from it;s lyrics, it isn't a happy song. I know, have played, and sung 4 or 5 songs about cola mining and miners. None, from 16 Tons to the Spring Hill Disaster, are happy songs.


Coal mining does seem to me to be a very "happy" line of work. It does seem, however, to be an addictive line of work, as the songs indicate. It seems that one can literally "get cola dust in my veins," as one miner said, to the point that one continues mining even knowing the odds that he/she may die in a mine. (See Miner was prepared to die, family says).


El Cabrero, who writes the blog Goat Walk, lives in West Virginia and knows more about coal mines than I shall ever know. In his today's blog post, Follow the Trail, El Cabrero writes that the Massey coal company that owns the Upper Big Branch coal mine  has "a long trail of fatalities and safety violations." I assume that the miners who worked in the Upper Big Branch coal mine were aware of that.


I learned quite a bit about coal mining from the songs and poetry I've heard, sung and read. But links that El Cabrero posted today has taught me more than songs and poetry have:

• Deaths at West Virginia Mine Raise Issues About Safety ~ New York TIMES
• Coal Tattoo Blog ~ The Charleston Gazette
• Lincoln Walks at Midnight blog ~ Lawrence Messina
• Mine owner ran up serious violations ~ MSNBC

I urge you to expand your knowledge of this disaster by reading El Cabrero's blog Goat Walk, following his links, listening to the songs, and hearing the poetry.


I planned on ending this post with the video of me pickin' and singing Coal Tattoo. However, I am certain that most of the regular readers of Nick's Bytes have seen that amateur production more than once. If you haven't or if you really want to again, you can see and hear my guitar and me on YouTube by clicking HERE.


The song with which I have chosen to end this post was written by the grandson of a coal miner, Dwight Yoakam Miner's Prayer:

Thursday Stuff

It's the time of year to light candles:

Blogs that you may have missed:

Nick's Bytes A REAL Artist shares the wonderful paintings of San Merideth.

Alex tells the true story of how he almost died when  he was a very little kitten in Alexicon's I Sayz Lotz Boutz Kold

Nick's Pics has photographs of a surprise Sunday visit by his grandchildren in A Sunday Surprise.

Christmas stuff

The Christmas season is fully upon us and my caregiver finally has hepled me get my Christmas deocrations down from the top of the closet. Noe they sit in my spare bedroom with everthing else that I don't know where to store:

Before I can set up my Christmas tree, I must move this table from my library to the living room, which is something else that I can' do alone (although at one time I could):\

The only thing that I have taken from the Christmas boxes thus far is Alex's stocking:

Speaking of Alex, he has added something new to his catting around outside routine. As soon as he comes back inside the house, he leaps upn my desk where he now expects to find kitty cat treats waiting for him:

I really enjoy watching the furball eat!

A REAL Artist

Meditating Furball

I created the "painting" above and the one in Nick's Bytes header from photographs using the program Corel Paint. They required absolutely no artistic talent. I simply played around with the images until I decided that I liked what the program had created.

A few days ago I was thinking about my "art" as I visited the blog (A Life With A View) of a real artist, San Merideth. She is a real-life artist and art gallery owner who lives with her husband, Bennie, in the magical city of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Often San includes one of her paintings in her blog posts. Her creations awe and amaze me. Below are a few recent works by San that have appeared in her blog. (You may obtain a larger view of the painting by clicking on it with your mouse; you may access the blog post in which it appeared by clicking on the painting's title below each image).

My Forgotten City

Canyon Spirits

Travels with the Magician

A Good Omen 

In One Dream and Out the Other

You may also desire to visit San's website (different from her blog) to view much more of her work:

And, if you are so lucky as to be in Santa Fe, New Mexico, may I suggest that you visit San's Convergence Gallery at 219 West San Franciso Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501:

http://convergencegallery.com/index.htmll

Thank you, San, my dear friend, for bringing so much creative beauty into my life through the years.

I Did It!

I've been threatening to begin an all-graphics blog for a couple of years. Well, it is up! May I introduce Nick's Pics!

I was able to create the blog primarily because my mobility has been hampered due to the swelling of my left leg. It seems to be getting better since I've spent the last 16 hours with my leg elevated as well as following my doc's instrustions to increase the dosage of the medication I have for congestive heart failure.

I have also made some changes in Alex's blog, Alexicon, and I have plans for rejuvinating Nick's Bytes.

I am glad that my creative muse awakened just when my mobility became hampered. However, I am not happy that it took all of the leg pain to awken my mischievous muse.

Sunday Mishmash

November 22, 1963:

A young man rode with his head held high,
Under the Texas sun,
And no one guessed,
That a man so blessed,
Would perish by the gun,
Lord, would perish by the gun.

A shot rang out like a Southern shout,
And Heaven held its breath,
For a man shot down,
In a Southern town,
In the summer of his years,
Yes, the summer of his years.

A Blessing for Thanksgiving Week

May the blessing of light be on you - light without and light within.

May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire, so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it.

And may light shine out of the two eyes of you, like a candle set in the window of a house, bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm.

And may the blessing of the rain be on you, may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean, and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines, and sometimes a star.

And may the blessing of the earth be on you, soft under your feet as you pass along the roads, soft under you as you lie out on it, tired at the end of day; and may it rest easy over you when, at last, you lie out under it.

May it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be out from under it quickly; up and off and on its way to God.

And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly. Amen.

~An Ancient Scottish Blessing

The other day I promised to create some "artsy" pictures from Alex's photographs just as I did with mine. The job is finished! Alex and I have uploaded them onto his blog, where you may peruse them. However, Alex is not happy that I screwed with his handsome image.

Alexicon: A Kitty Katz Life wiff hiz Hoomin Bean

As I mentioned a few days ago, I'm developing my 5th blog. It's working title is Nick's Pics and it will be all photos and graphics that I've created. I had planned to have at least its header to show you today, but I'm not satisfied with any that I've created thus far!


Yesterday's Nick's Bytes post had few visitors and few comments. I wonder if it was too serious -- or, too crazy!

Peace, Freedom, Justice

Shall I close with some (previously posted) KATZ ?

Aint nobody clicked in a very long time

Please take a moment to
Click for Nick
You may also Click for Alex
OK?