Loose Marble

One of my Facebook "friends" started posting her daily workout status.  She established earlier on that she was going to challenge herself to do some workout every day for 30 days in a row.  The entire month of November.  I followed these post and noticed there were some who would comment the expected comments, "way to go", "keep it up", "whew, you are making me tired"...all well deserved, but no one was giving her the kind of comments that might inspire her to push harder, like: "is that all you got?", "hmm, only 10 miles", "come on get back in the gym and off FB!" There did come a day when she posted she was not able to workout due to some conflict.   And still no real comments to motivate her.  This post got me to thinking, what was the intent behind her post?  Was it to keep herself on track.  Was it to publicly "brag" or "show off" (felt that was unlikely).  Was it hoped to receive some accou...

hiker alone accept the sounds of the dark woods. Boon, Cartoons, cartoonist for hire, boondawgoggle, doodles, One Guy Drawing It is without a doubt my long held aspiration to thru hike the AT (Appalachian Trail).  I wanted to share this one Thru Hiker's Blog. This young lady, trail name Wired, just finished her 2185 mile hike yesterday after 111 days on the trail.  She updated a blog daily with wit, candor, and pictures sharing her day to day trials, tribulations (like her monthly periods) and triumphs along with the characters and players that make an AT thru hike an unique experience.     Yesterday's completion of the AT makes her a triple crown long hiker having previously completed the CDT (Continental Divide Trail) and PCT (Pacific Coast Trail).  I encourage you to start at Day One and make reading her blog the daily start to your day for the next 111 days. Walking With Wired: Day 111: Katahdin Baby! : The Birches Campsite(2180.1)-Mt Katahdin(2185.3) Maine...

We returned to Hawaii several times after that first trip.  Each trip having its own unique twist or dynamic.  We were there when the Brady Bunch filmed their famous Hawaii episodes and played in the waves and sand with the Brady kids behind the historic Royal Hawaiian.  We vacationed with my mom’s mother, sister and my cousin.  At least once we rented a green VW Thing and toured the island, jungles and mountains.  Visited Air Force friends of my parents and my sister and I stayed the night with them and learned about Man O War jelly fish when we had to forego a dip in the ocean.  We stayed on Kauai and Maui and I stupidly passed on one trip to stay home to attend a summer high school class, then stupidly again several years later cut a trip short to return to my college girlfriend.  My last trip to Hawaii was June 1999.   It was my father’s last flight as a commercial pilot.   He was based in Honolulu and was a Captain on the 747.   ...

By this point in my life I’d flown enough to have seen the world through a wider lens than afforded on a car trip.  I’d seen the tree tops, fields and mountains from an airplane window, but flying to an island, looking out the window and seeing effectively what looked like nothing was an eye opening experience.  Water is pretty featureless from 35,000 feet.  Just black as far in all directions as you can see.  It really drove home the reality of how huge the ocean is, and the world by extension and how small we are in comparison.  There is a lot to see out there and I was seeing a small bit of it for the first time. After five hours of the featureless, blackness our destination appeared as a disruption to the nothingness on the horizon.  The earth started to poke its rocky, tree covered dermis forth from the water.  The black water started to turn to dark blue giving away to ever lighter hues of blue.  The outline of the land looked like the pip...

My mother reached down, straightened my tie and told me to go on outside and wait by the car. My sister soon joined me, dressed in a typical 1970’s plaid dress, knee socks and black buckle shoes. The sun had just started to rise on this late summer day in the suburbs of Washington, DC.  Me being all of six years old and my four year old sister, dressed to the nines standing in the driveway next to the family’s light blue Volkswagen Beetle must have been a sight of curiosity for the neighbor out walking his dog before leaving for work.  He must have known, although we were in our Sunday best, church was not our destination. Soon our mother appeared dressed in the latest seasonal fashion and in keeping with mine and my sister’s attire.  She pushed the storm door open and stepped to the side of the small concrete stoop to hold the door open for our father to emerge.  He was in a brownish suit with a perfectly coordinated tie that was classic seventies, ironing boa...

Ralph stares into space. His subconscious is screaming at him,  “How did you get into this situation?  How are you going to fix things?  Why does my life suck so badly?”   The voice is deafening.  His stomach continues to flex and loosen like he is going to vomit all over himself.  He can feel the anxiety deep inside giving him the sensation he has to urinate.  Flash card images pop in and out of his conscious; they show all the decisions he’s made.  One right after the other as if they had all occurred in the same rapid succession, but they didn’t…they occurred over the span of his life. The line from a Led Zeppelin song begins to bounce around in his head…”it’s never to late to change the road you’re on…it’s never to late to change the road you’re on…it’s never to late to change the road you’re on….”  Ralph knew better…he had contemplated getting off his metaphoric road …but he was never able to make the change.  Could Zeppelin ...

BANANA WAITS TO DIE   I’m one banana lying prone I got forgot.  I’m all alone   How did this happen? Why just me? I started life with twenty three   All alone I lie and wait What will be my final fate?   Why do I ask, I really know I saw it happen to Old Joe   The top banana in my bunch Selected for a sailor’s lunch   On the ship from Panama “OH MY GOD,” screamed Grandmamma   “The sailor just set Joey down!” The thought of it just makes me frown   Sitting in the hot sun light A few days passed he died of blight   Once brightly yellow then to black Once stiff and hardy then to slack   His innards oozed, the sight was sad It made my bunch so very mad   Now it’s me here all alone One banana with no phone   I feel as if up in the sky There is one really creepy eye   Looking down upon me here This is what I really fear   I know it gets s...

 This was the start of writing about jumping off the metaphorical hamster wheel of life and sailing the islands...Still debating about finishing the story.  I've made a couple of failed starts sharing this complete story on Facebook and YouTube .  I've never gotten nudged or requested to finish any of them, so figure there is not much interest out there....see what you think. Southern Boy Goes To Sea Rubrum Terra Firma…that was my place and life.   My feet were firmly planted on the red clay soil of Georgia for 56 years until I watched some YouTube videos about people living their lives on the aqua waters of tropical islands.   With each video I became more transfixed at the possibility of a life at sea amongst the perpetually warm, sugar sand trimmed tropical islands.   Thus started my transition from landlubber to sailor. While I’d been to and on many bodies of water; streams, creeks, rivers, small lakes, large lakes, seas and oceans I would have never ...

This was my submission, tryout for some online marketing gig...as best I could tell.  I was a bit suspicious they were just taking submitters ideas and using them later.  But then I generally just don't trust people.  I thought it was a rather good submission. Assessment Assignment Hustler Marketing – EternityModern.com January 17, 2022 Applicant: Boon – David Bunten Email: BoonCartoons@gmail.com   Subject Lines: Your Home Doesn’t Have To Be - YUK! Be Happy In Your Home Dread The Weekends No More Pre-Headers: Living Room Depression?  We have a fix.  Let’s change that now. Put the “SWEET” back into your Home Sweet Home. Is your work place nicer than your home space?  You need some help decorating.  One Liner: Eternity Modern will make your living spaces eternally welcoming. Banner Copy: You should want to come home for an eternity. Image Ideas : First: Shot from the back of room looking towards the entrance door....

The morning after the State of the Union address I overheard this discussion.   An individual referenced a proclamation made by President Biden regarding fossil fuel usage to be net zero emissions by 2050, effectively phasing out oil.  The comment, framed as a question, was; “If you were an executive of an oil company having to make decisions about capital investments today knowing that the future might make your product obsolete what would do?” My first thought was you’d have to assess the potential to be reality.   There is one risk in investing and running a business that you can’t minimize; government risk.   The ability of a government to, in the blink of an eye, change the landscape is forever looming.   If you think the rhetoric is just hot air then I’d say move forward as normal.   Why allow idle boast to drive decisions?   If though, you fear the risk as legit, then you have got to take a completely different tact. What really is the ...

  What is it with humans and their; our, inability to follow rules?   Yesterday, at our community pool we had an incident that has me pondering this larger question.   A group of guys came into the pool area with a cooler.   From the cooler they started pulling out beers in glass bottles, in addition to this they started lighting up cigarettes.   The pool rules state “No Glass Containers in the Pool Area”, “No Smoking”.    Why could they not self-police themselves and just obey the rules?   This is where society starts to breakdown. What transpired later is not relevant to my question so I won’t elaborate further.   The simple question is why could they not just follow the rules? You see it all the time, every day.   Speeding, tossing cigarette butts out windows (littering), using a cell phone while driving, letting kids drive golf carts, parking the wrong direction on the road, leaving a grocery cart in the middle of a parking lot...

 I've got a real strong creative urge going on the last few days.  Which should be a blessing but it is in complete conflict with my stern, task master of practicality...work needs to be done to make money.  Oh, the money thing again.  Yea, the money thing and the creative thing are battling it out.  I'm completely out of sync right now.  Here I am typing away while just off my right shoulder sits my laptop suspended in mid-task, waiting for me to complete something more directly related to financial survival.  All I want to do is paint something, create something.  Anything, I don't care. I used to dream of wealth, and a flamboyant life style I've seen in movies and actually participated in on occasion as being the norm in my life.  But now I can't imagine what it would be like to live that way, how weird it seems, how alien.  I might be caught saying or thinking that things just didn't work out.  I had this thought today that from...

Many times I feel either like I'm the most disconnected, illogical individual in the world or the world is just full of complete idiots.  We have a new public library near my home.  It just opened and I happened to be driving by and thought I'd pop in and check it out.  They have a parking area especially designated, by signage, for low emission, fuel efficient cars.  Cool, I whip my very compliant Fiat into a spot. Upon walking away from my car I notice the car in the space next to me has its engine running.  I step over to the car to investigate.  No one in it, and sure enough the engine is just purring along.  So here is where the world just doesn't make any sense to me.  I get to the main desk and wait for someone to appear.  When they do I share the information about the car running in the low emission parking spot and I thought maybe the owner might want to know.  The only response I get is, "I wonder if it co...

I'm too smart for sales.  Well that is what I've been told more than once in my career.  The first time I heard it was right after I got my test scores for the licenses I have to have to do what I do.  The office manager, the guy who hired me, leaned over my cube wall and said, "You got the highest score anyone in the office has gotten.  There's an inverse relationship between success here and test score."   I kid you not that was my first motivational speech from my leader.  The same sentiment has been shared with me over the years by colleagues or other "supervisors". Hair styles for women.  Be glad I'm not Vidal.  Boon, cartoons, cartoonist for hire, boondawgoggle, doodles Well, here's how stupid I am.  I never listened to any of those observations, and I continue to trudge along after 25 years.  I just can't get my head around the idea of how the hell someone can be too smart for anything?  Smart was never a word used to describ...

life insurance, sales, closing tactic,worse, beaver, machine gun boon, cartoons, cartoonist for hire, boondawgoggle, one  guy drawing, doodles Now on the surface this is going to seem like the most warped thought.  Even as I write this I'm not certain what my train of thought was, but for sure that train has left the tracks.  To paraphrase my internal conversation, "wouldn't it feel good to just wet the bed?"  Yuk! Idea,  relaxed, kids, reflection, Boon, Cartoons, cartoonist for hire, boondawgoggle, one guy drawing, doodles Why on earth would I want to wet the bed?  In order to understand this you are going to have to dig really deep into your childhood mind and recall the pleasurable, relaxing, easy sensation of not having to wake up, drag yourself to the bathroom to pee. It is this memory that somehow popped to the forefront of my mind the other day.   Just a peaceful, ahhhh feeling. I'm not even going to attempt to psychoanalyze this. I'm just going...

All day today I've been saying to myself, "I've lost my passion", "I've lost my imagination", "Damn I really feel depressed."  Then just a minute or two ago I thought maybe I'll post something here, spread the depression and misery around.  Oh, lucky you.  Then it crossed my mind that I seem to do that a lot here, and remembered having similar thoughts and posting similar boring depressing thoughts about monitoring my bio-rhythm.  So I searched my blog post for "bio-rhythm".  Sure enough there are four post where I specifically talk about bio-rhythm and wondering what if I have a pattern or cycle. Well, I'll be damn if I don't have what seems to be a cycle.  Of the four post three are about feeling low, unmotivated, no passion, depressed, etc...two are early August time period and one in April, each from different years.  So assuming that I've actually posted, or at least mentioned the words "bio-rhythm" in a...

Boon Cartoon, boondawgoggle. Doodles. Spy, happy face,  naked legs, gun, thug, jail, girl things and hearts. The odds?  We hear this term tossed about regarding casino's and the the odds are in their favor.  Sports games will  have odds of one team winning.  It also applies to endeavors of life and just about any activity or event where the outcome could be more than one result.  There are no odds that 2 plus 2 is 5.  Just never going to happen.  But the odds of a random coin flip landing on heads is 50%. Now most people don't understand or at least they are not comfortable with statistics, which is the basis for odds.  What I've witnessed is people generally dramatically skew the odds or interpret them to favor their preferred outcome by employing emotion and desire. What has me thinking about this?  Well for one I saw a news story this morning.  Now I've seen a lot of news stories that employ this tactic of big numbers standing al...