After spending over sixty years on this planet and almost 33 years with my wonderful wife we, like everyone else have suffered our ups and downs. Our good times and our bad times. Times when finances were sufficient and times that destitute would better describe. When we first moved back to Salt Lake City neither of us had a job. Many a night was spent trying to find a safe place to park our Chevy van where we could get a restful nights sleep without worrying of falling victim of the various abundance of criminal elements that this fair city had to offer. Or on the other hand being harassed by one of the over-zealous police departments beating on the door in the middle of the night just to let you know that it was time to move on.

Sleeping in public areas whether in a vehicle, a tent, a sleeping bag, or crouched somewhere wrapped in a mangy old blanket was something that the communities did not want. Under the old Nimby social beliefs. In other words "not in my backyard". Yes we at times found ourselves homeless. Once you find yourself in this position extricating yourself from the mire poses many problems. The good people of the community are the first to say that these homeless people just need to find a job, but that they don't want to. Which is probably farther from the truth than one can imagine. Finding a job is paramount to becoming self sufficient. However, there are many boundaries - actually to call them boundaries is wrong  - they are truly obstacles. As the basic requirements for finding the basic requirement of a job require a permanent address, a telephone, and references. As if the first two were not hard enough, the telephone and the address, you were expected to survive physically once you are fortunate enough to obtain some sort of employment. It is extremely hard to work when you are starving to death. Having no money for food let alone funds to wash clothes or find some place to wash your own body.

With all of the experiences my wife and I have had positive and negative we found that there are not enough positive programs or amenities available to help those who for one reason or another are experiencing a true hardship in their life. I have no answers by myself the answers fall in group efforts. Next time your social group meets whether it be religious or the art and wine appreciation tour or the neighborhood cleanup campaign take part of your time and devote it to thoughts and actions that can help some of the mired of problems that those less fortunate than the rich experience each day. Instead of talking, suggesting, and planning why not apply the novel thought of actually doing something. Whatever you do does not have to be large. The smallest genuine effort can make a large, honest difference. 

God Bless you all,
Ken, the afterlife messenger 

Thank you for your words today.
I will remember you when I bow my head to pray.
I'll thank the Lord for each one of you.
My typist's tired so for tonight this will do.

God Bless you all,
Ken the afterlife messenger

My title says just how I feel today. But I don't need any special day or a square upon the calendar, the hype on the television, in the newspaper ads, and drug store windows to remind me just how fortunate that I am to have known true lasting unconditional love. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have never had this feeling to make my life complete.

I have to thank so many people a lot of whom as recently as yesterday were strangers to me. People that I had never met and know nothing beyond what they have generously shared with me and all of you who visit my website.

When I first started this website I had no idea how it would work. I certainly had no idea about writing. Having no experience beyond greeting cards and resume. And the dreaded incident reports that accompanied each call when I served as a police officer.

I guess what I pictured was success in the one portion of my website that does not seem to have shown the slightest success. I had high hopes and sugar plum dreams of helping people quit smoking. And generating enough money from the membership fee to allow me to add to the donations of charitable organizations like the American Lung Association, the Heart Association, and other associated associations. And perhaps generating a little bit of cash to put in my own pocket to help pay for the expenses associated with the website.  I used the replacement technique to quit smoking, so I was hoping to use the leftover cash for my Jim Beam, and cases of Coors Light and the occasional lap dance. Which proved successful in giving up smoking. The fact that no one out there evidently wanted to quit smoking by joining the Dying Smokers Club, the expected revenue to this day remains $0. With me as the only charter member. Even though I quit years earlier. Which I had to do cold turkey because my ideal replacement method of smoking sestation lacked financial support.

I have so many people to thank for their thoughts, their prayers, their actions, and their love. Again, most of whom were as strange to me as I was to them.

I had a bitter sweet revelation today. I sleep sixteen, eighteen, twenty hours a day, not because I want to but because it happens without my knowledge. I fall asleep in the middle of telephone conversations and when you are on your cell phone it can really make your minutes add up. I fall asleep in the middle of conversations face to face with people including my wife. I even fall asleep while engaged in hot debate with myself no matter which side is winning. It's lucky that I am a skitzoid and I have several different people locked up within my head. Usually by the time one has forgiven me for feeling that my conversation with them was so boring that I would just fall asleep by the time I get around to visiting  and conversing with that particular personality I will have insulted another of my personalities by nodding off on them.  I have one follower that uses Intentional Resting which I appreciate them doing this for me and I was glad to know that what was happening with me was not an affliction but a holistic science that I had already learned somewhere. I am still grateful for all they have done and do for me now.

I started to tell you about a revelation that I had today. It has given me a great insight though not to the same degree as to how Rip Van Winkle felt. I learned today that I was almost 65 years old. Two years older than I thought I was. I am still finding it hard to accept the shock and the bittersweet part is that I am actually only 64 but in a couple of months well, six anyway, I will be eligible for Medicare. Which really does me no good, as the VA is not allowed to accept money from Medicare towards co payment or other VA charges. So I wonder why I paid for Medicare all my life. Now my wife informs me that I took my social security at 62 because all indications including my doctors giving me six months to live indicated that I might not even make it to 62... so I had better take it now because it appeared there would be no way in hell I would be around to collect that extra few dollars by waiting until I was 65. What I find is a terrible thing is my wife doesn't get my social security when I die. She makes or will make more with her own social security therefore making her ineligible to collect the mere pittance I get now. Would you believe I have to pay income tax on 3/4 of the amount I receive from social security? They wonder why old people die, it's because they can't afford to live.

By the way our computer problem is 2/3 functional. Strange how dependent and necessary something that only entered the mainstream of life with the first personal computers made available in 1981. What's next?

God Bless you all,
Ken, the afterlife messenger

I have a confession to all of you who read my blogs. My stories are all inspired by drugs. Thirteen different kinds, a total of twenty two pills a day to be exact. some of them are extremely potent. and I understand demand what some would consider a lot of money on the black market. I originally said the open market, which it might as well be. We've become a country of a pill for this and a pill for that and two pills for something else. We have a pill for when we eat something that tastes so very good. We have a pill for when we drink too much. We have a pill from listening to our mother-in-law too long. We even have a pill that requires that you seek emergency council with your doctor if it works too good and lasts over four hours, We want immediate gratification from everything and we have the mindset that if one is good two is better, I found this to be true especially when it comes to cookies. 

I don't understand what it is these young people achieve or experience from using these pills or medicines, when they have no actual physical need for them. I have yet to feel "high" from any of the medicines that I presently take. Some of which are most sought after by foolish junkies. It seems as though one pill leads to another. If I take a pain pill I then have to take three additional pills, a stool softener and a laxative. Up until the time I became ill I don't think I ever needed a laxative in my life. All I had to do was eat Mexican food., Believe me it was more than sufficient, But it is no longer sufficient. And when I do eat Mexican food I have to take two pills for my heartburn. Thank God for Zantac and Maalox. All I can say is that getting old sucks. And Thank God I can swallow a pill and don't have to take my medications suppository form.

I would like to welcome someone who is a new name and a new face as far as commenter's on my blog., This would be Sylvia. I know that just from her name she is well connected in her life. She has a definite beginning and an end that makes full circle after traveling the gentle loop of her life. Is peaceful, comfortable, and surrounded by wonderful people. Perhaps you would like to know how I come to these conclusions. They come from my childhood. Oh I forgot to mention there is only one like her. The number 22 holds great significance for her. You see I've known the peace, the love and all the rest of the attributes that Sylvia has to offer. Throughout my childhood and until the passing of my mother, I was raised at number 22 Sylvia Drive in Ogden. A wonderful almost complete circled road. This small portion that was not Sylvia Drive was connected together by a beautiful little piece of road called Chimes View Drive. I don't know why.. There were no bells. And the most prominent feature that could be seen both from our big bay window, which faced to the west and Chimes View Drive was the grain mills in Ogden. The large silos. In the younger part of my growing up we were surrounded by orchards. So thank you Sylvia for writing me and for resting for me and for opening the floodgate and allowing a deluge of memory fill my heart and soul today. Thank you for these memories.

As far as the resting goes, I have the resting part down quite pat. I am on fifteen liters of oxygen and I sleep anywhere from eighteen to twenty hours a day. Only now instead of just sleeping because my damaged lungs and heart demand it I will be looking at the world a whole new way and rest with purpose rather than just sleep out of necessity. I think that it is a beautiful idea. And I will be glad to tell people about Dan's website. www.IntentionalResting.com - I will furthermore offer to make a link on my website. I would hope that Dan could do the same for me. After all we are both trying to get our message and enlighten as many souls as we possibly can. Until then the little notebook seems to have saved us for another night. I certainly hope so. 

God Bless you all,
Ken, the afterlife messenger 

Salutations, Greetings, aloha,

It seems like in this world, everything is meant to work out. I believe that writing the blogs and responding to your comments and reading the comments you all send to me has greatly extended my life. It has given me something to look forward to and has definitely helped avoid depression. There are those of you that comment to me almost daily. I cannot thank you all enough for this wellspring of encouragement , sensitivity, and the honor that I feel for all of the caring and genuine love that you give a stranger. And no one is strangest that I.

I have had requests from some of you to pass feelings and messages of caring to both living and departed members of your families of both blood and those of chosen family members (friends). Let me assure you that I will do all I can to pass your feelings on to the proper recipients.  

Now to get back to matters of convenience of things happening when they are suppose to I must point out that we have three computers. My wife's computer has every bell and whistle that you can imagine, my computer which has half as many bells and half as many whistles and works half as well, then my wifes notebook which is not much larger than a paperback book. Even with her dainty hands, the keys are almost impossible to do more than hunt and peck. We have my computer now set up in our bedroom, along with a 42 inch flat screen television. And wifi keyboard and mouse. Inconveniently some of the bells and whistles on my wife's computer broke. We then found some of the bells and whistles that we put on my computer so I could write from my bed did not work as planed. The wifi system does not seem to be able to talk across the room, let alone the two rooms it is suppose to be able to do. Not knowing that my computer was not ongoing to be able to fill the function the computer repairman took my wife's computer to fix the problems it had. After generously putting system 7 on both of our computers and removing the XP operating system which seemed to work just fine on everything we have assuring us how much better Windows 7 would be - my opinion is, it sucks! I was much happier with XP because it worked. So now we find ourselves with one operable computer which happens to be the paperback book that I described earlier. The only thing that it seems to do just happened in the middle of writing all of this it manages to erase everything and replace it with a window that asks, "do you want to take advantage of the automatic updates and restart your computer?" I must say this feature of System 7 just tickled the shit right out of me. As I was trying to say, this small computer is the only one we have that will properly connect to the wifi that the XP System had no problem with for a couple of years.

Now comes the convenience of it all. Three computers, my health being to the point that I don't really feel like writing a blog each day and to use the word write would be a bald faced lie. Because all I do is dictate. And my wife and her infinite patience and occasional interjection causing me to lose my whole train of thought. All of this will be on a very limited basis for at least a week. And knowing our computer repairman who seems to dwell in a parallel universe, will one day in our universe excuse me one day in his universe seems to equate from anywhere near ten days to three weeks. I am not sure but I think his universe uses a variable time rate, something similar to the variable rate interest on our credit cards. One day, a day means a day - at least he tells us that. Usually one week equaling two weeks we find more dependable. So until such time that we have at least one of our real computers back from this repairman. Sharon's crackerjack prize will be used in a minimum capacity. Of course you know I am speaking of computer number three, You know the one with no bells, no whistles, and you have to set it to choke and pull three times on the starter cord to get it up and running. I don't know how long this blog is, things have to be rated by battery longevity. And we are on our forth battery now! We will try to write as much as possible.

Corky my love, Thank you very much for the sprig of what you asked the species of. It is a piece of the most populous tree in the Rocky Mountains and that is the lodgepole pine. I enjoyed its aroma today. thank you.

God Bless you all, I hope there is enough battery power left to run the spell checker,
Ken, the afterlife messenger

I wish to thank you all for helping my days be worth living. There are some days that I really get down and in some ways hope this is the day the doctors said would come. I call these my POOR ME DAYS. I do my best to keep these days to a minimum and under control. But I do have to pick myself up by my bootstraps and go on. I don't know where that saying came from, but I can picture a person picking themselves up by their bootstraps and falling on their face. It is the little things like that which help me slip out of it. They make me wonder whoever came up with that saying, and did they realize how stupid it really was. It would have made more sense to say, "I'll get someone to pick me up by my bootstraps", because I can see where that would actually be possible.

I want to thank all of you that have been with me for around 200 of my stories and ravings. And for over 300 responses that give me a good feeling that there are that many people that give a damn about what I say. When I am not feeling well you end up with short blogs that either ramble or are retrospective like this. So as you all have probably guessed by now I really don't feel well. And I am going to thank you all again for your comments. And knowing how good they make me feel I am going to beg for a whole bunch of them from all of you. Because I really need to feel a lot better than I am right now. Thank you again.

All my best wishes and love to all of you and the world because I have to realize that each time I write to you could very possibly be my very last. And this makes me very sad. So before I depress you or me any more I will say good night,.

God bless you all,
Ken, the afterlife messenger

These things I know to be true.

1. The tree branch Corky sent to me is from a  Lodgepole Pine. (thank you Corky)

2. If Sandra thinks I would get rid of my typist she is crazy

3. It only snows once in Wyoming each year and just blows around for the rest of the winter.

4. 80% of the people that live in Utah and surrounding states wear "funny underwear". Of the other 20%, 10% split between Fruit of the Loom and Haynes, 5% wear none, and 5% wear someone else's.

5. People that are happily married both suffer from amnesia. Except the ones that are happily married.

6. The most fun two people can have in a VW is actually making it to their destination.

7. So far my doctor's prognosis has been wrong (I'm still here, aren't I?) 

8. When it comes to women "Candy's dandy, liquor's quicker and a BMW's a sure thing"

9. Bill Clinton did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Monica Lewinsky. he did however have sex with a whole bunch of them that you don't know about.

10. Number 9 is a bald faced lie. He rode that gal like 50 miles of bad road. And there ain't nobody can convince me different.

There - somebody had to say it. We've all been faking it. Of course then again what the hell does my opinion matter?

God Bless you all,
Ken, the afterlife messenger and that's the truth

Now that's a lighthearted blog - is this the kind you want to hear?

Welcome to my new technology. It's actually not that new. It's a computer we've had for many years, but we had a fellow do everything you can do. It's got the dual core processor and 500megs of memory. It's got that new Windows 7 but most important is it is sitting on the shelf right next to my 42 inch television hooked up to the hdmi and gives me wireless connection to our other computer and the printer. I have a wireless mouse and a wireless keyboard, and this time a wireless brain. Absolutely amazing where technology has gone. When I started in computers it was back in the 1950's.

The first real computers I worked on were top secret part of the Minute Man Guidance System. That's what the air force first trained me to do was to repair minute man missile guidance systems. When they realized the mistake they had made that they were going to phase out the silos, and the minute man missile had no place in Viet Nam. Since I had a top secret clearance with crypto and Q access (about as high as you could get) they decided not to waste the cost of all those background checks and psychological evaluations they put me thorough to see if I was a threat to our country. They decided to train me in repairing tele-type and cryptographic equipment. We even fixed the neatest little do-dad called the teleautograph. It was a pad that used a stylus like a pen and whatever you wrote on the pad would appear in the command centers or wherever they had it going to. That way they could instant message in authenticated handwriting.

The main reason I ended up in Viet Nam was because they decided to phase out the Minute Man Missie and they didn't have any missile silos in Viet Nam anyway. Ergo no holes in the ground filled with rockets, no technicians to fix said rockets.  But they did need people to fix super secret code machines. Super mechanic to the rescue! If you have read some of my previous blogs you'll know what a wonderful position this was. I lived in officers quarters, ate in the officers mess, drank in the officers club, flew in the F4 Phantom jets, or flew in the bellies of the fastest jet that was going in the direction that had a broken code machine. I was one of the happiest guys in the world every time something broke down. That meant I got to put on a flight suit and nine times out of ten climb into the back seat of an F4 Phantom they call a jet. I called it a "rocket". That was the funest thing I have ever ridden in. And I have ridden in them a couple hundred times.

Well, not to bore you. Oh yeah, the great thing about this new computer is when I am not feeling well I can still write to you because it has a wireless keyboard and mouse and this great big tv screen. It talks to our wireless hub router and I could write on this computer with my head on my pillow. Talk about the epitome of laziness. Of course I have a feeling that even though my wife has her own computer in the office here in the house she is going to be enjoying the advantages of snuggling to my sleeping body and doing a lot of her computer work from a more comfortable position. Snuggled up to that wonderful me. Pretty neat huh?

Thank you all - God Bless - tell your friends to tell their friends to visit. We get new folks every day. To me it takes a brave soul to carry on a conversation and actually put it on paper for others to see. After all I am sure if they got their chance the shrinks would have a hey day with me. My only excuse is life should be fun. And happy. And fair. And shared with someone who shares their love with you.

God Bless you all,
Ken, the afterlife messenger

I would like to welcome Corky  to our growing group of frequent commenters. Not being the gentleman that i am i will not divulge her age that is sumpin that this Cajun can let the world know if she wants but you know since its coming from a woman there may and probably will be some discrepancy. .

sumpthing i need to remind those of you out there is that any comments or emails or guest book comments are published  UNLESS YOU REQUEST THAT SPECIFIC COMMENT NOT BE SHARED WITH THE THE REST OF THE WORLD AND THEY WILL REMAIN IN MY PERSONAL FILE AND NO ONE ELSE EXCEPT MY WIFE SHARON WHO USUALLY TYPES AND HANDLES THE KEYBOARD PORTION OF OUR WEB SITE.  AND WE WANT TO REMIND YOU ALL THAT THIS IS EVERYONES WEBSITE/BLOG AND IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SHARE WITH EVERY ONE  IT IS OK.

If you don't want your comments published please type "NOT FOR PUBLICATION" at the top of your comment.

Note: Ken started to write this earlier today, but wasn't able to finish it himself. He asked me to send it out tonight with his love to everyone.

God Bless you all,
Ken, the afterlife messenger

Ken says hello to everyone. He has not been out of bed at all today and wanted everyone to know he hopes to write tomorrow. He is just tired, tired, tired and can't stay awake. So send a prayer or two his way and comment on the older blogs so he will have something to read when he gets up.

Thank you all for being a friend to my sweet husband.
I love you all for your dedication to keeping the dialogs going.

Love and Blessings,
Sharon (the real life wife)