Loose Marble

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 Aug 5th 5.2mi

 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 other's perspective my li

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 could be one of our employees?"  Why th

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 describe me growi

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 to leav

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

  What is easier Email or Phone calls?  I'd say email any day but I think I might be in the minority on this question.   I do a lot of marketing.  A lot of that means finding prospects, which requires looking at a lot of websites.  One thing that completely confounds me is a business website that doesn't post their email address.  There are thousands of them.  Then there is the group that try to make it difficult to just click on the email or copy it.  They incorporate spaces like: booncartoons @ comcast . net or this method booncartoons(at)comcast(dot)net, or they use some image file that shows the address. I know why they are doing it.  It's because they don't want "spam" or junk mail.  I get it, it is a pain but is it really that painful that you would risk making it a pain for a potential customer to reach you. Most would justify this lack of an email address on their site by saying I have my phone number, they can call me.  Yea sure they can call you, but

I've been listening to the news stories regarding the recent outbreak of measles.  Most of the commentary seems to be focused on the minority population; for example California says 2.5% opt out, that has decided not to have their kid vaccinated.  What has me stumped is why are there schools shutting down completely?  What you hear is they are attempting to avoid an outbreak of major proportions.  I just don't get it. How could there be an outbreak of any major proportions if the majority of kids have received the vaccination?  It just seems counter intuitive to isolate and effectively quarantine a whole school population who is supposed to be protected because there is a minority population that has foregone the protection. Isn't the potential of getting infected the risk you take if you don't vaccinate?  So the only people getting infected are the ones who took on that risk.  So be it, that is what they signed up for isn't it?  Yes, I've heard their are a

I feel it is time to re-iterate, or explain the realities of my world and how they intersect with your world. Why the need to make this explanation?  Well because there seems to be some misconception, or misunderstanding of what you should expect from this blog.  As I spell out in my masthead, what you will get here is, "doodles and thoughts".   The art will not always, and rarely will match the article, they are doodles and the blog post are random thoughts and ideas.  I don't promise finished, print quality, art work.  I don't promise entire completed ready for the printing press articles.   The reason?  Well, quite frankly, I reserve such for people that pay.  That's right pay.  If you want to see finished, colored cartoons or fully edited and spelling/grammar checked articles, it will cost you.  Unless I post something that someone else paid for when my rights allow it. You see a couple of doodles of that REDDIT mascot.  I thinking that day about doing somethi

For some reason a series of thoughts went through my head the other day in sequential order of what is the worst thing that someone could do to me or happen to me.   I'm sure I was stressing over some late bill. Doodles, random, Boon, Cartoons, cartoonist for hire, boondawgoggle, I could be bankrupt, not so bad many people have been bankrupt and come back.  A little embarrassing, maybe not the thing you want your kids to see, but again, there are a lot of now successful well know businesses that were the second, third or umpteenth try. Take everything I own away, either by theft, foreclosure, fire, basically just think you've got nothing.  Yea a pain in the ass, but really would I miss any of it.  Probably not.  Think minimalist...see earlier post  http://boondawgoggle.blogspot.com/2013/04/what-is-destination-im-i-on-right-path.html . I just don't think it is that big a deal having a bunch of shit. Let me fast forward some.  Prison.  Throw me in prison.  Now that gets me co

Prom dress, model, translation, dick head, Boon, cartoons, cartoonist for hire, one guy drawing, doodles, boondawgoggle On occasion I've seen, well enough times that I can't really remember how long ago I first saw it, but I'm certain the sightings go way back and I saw it again the other day and had to shake my head.  It is the use of toilet paper to create a curtain in a public restroom stall.   See some guys will pull off a six foot long section of toilet paper and drape it in way that it covers the crack that exist on either side of the bathroom stall door, structure and the wall.  This creates a curtain or visual shield.  I have only been able to surmise the purpose of these streaming toilet paper curtains is prevent someone from peeping through the crack.  Now you have to wonder a few things.   Do women do the same thing, has this individual been the victim of a public bathroom peeping Tom, are they doing something illegal in the stall, are they really that bashful, h

I didn't have any intent to blog today.  Then I saw the GOOGLE doodle for today, a set of vertical colored stripes.  Since I use several computers, but only one do I stay logged in on my Google account I figured the other computers were just not showing the image correctly.  This seems to have been the case in the past when these Google doodles have animation.  I went to my computer logged into Google, but no movement when I moved my mouse over the image.  So I clicked on the image.   This led me to all the associated links and discussions of what this doodle was celebrating Agnes Martin. This is some of the first text I read: Agnes Bernice Martin was a Canadian-American abstract painter, often referred to as a minimalist; Martin considered herself an abstract expressionist. She was awarded a National Medal of Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1998" from Wikipedia.  I continued to look at more images.  It seems all this women painted was lines and stripes, verti

LARGE NUMBERS INCITE FEAR AND DRAMA Let me add to that, Large numbers incite fear and drama for the ignorant.  Surely it can only be the dumb masses that don't see through the use of big numbers or don't question the relative importance. super hero, dad, witch, idiot drooling, boon, cartoons, cartoonist  for hire, one guy drawing, doodles, boondawgoggle Jeff Rosen from NBC was on the Today Show with this new big number, 4700.  Supposedly this is the number of teens that die each year from drinking alcohol.  When  I first heard this I immediately had to ask; "Is that a lot or little?"  Well as it turns out it is 1 tenth of 1 percent or .00011905 of the teens in the United States.  So I concluded it is a little. This number is so small it doesn't even worry me  and shouldn't worry you.  What worries me is  this has to be a blatant lie with other motivations.  Let's break this down.  According to the CDC just over 16,000 teens die per year and 48% of these de

Real quick here, I'm waiting for a call from someone who said they wanted to talk to me and we agreed he'd call me Monday at noon.  It is 12:09pm right now.  So let's see how much I can knock out before he calls or I run out of things to write, as I anticipate he won't be calling. Men like women to shave,  but not their heads. Boon, cartoons, boondawgoggle,cartoonist for hire, doodles I watched the recently completed 2014 Winter Olympics.  Congrats to all the medal winners and back to the training regime for the rest of you.  That is if you want to be in South Korea in 2018. A thought crossed my mind while watching, could I train to be an Olympic class athlete in four years if money weren't an issue?  Why would or should money be an issue...well I need someway to support my family as things stand now, but let's pretend for a  moment I'm single. If for the next four years I could focus all my attention on just one thing could I become an elite athlete?  Let&#

Women with huge foreheads, and cute creatures, Boon cartoons, cartoonist for hire, boondawgoggle  Maybe the idea that women rule the economy is not such a secret but I've begun to think about the significance of this truth.  I'm not in the mood to provide a lot of direct quotes of studies and quantitative analysis on the matter, but I've read plenty that support this fact.  For the moment I'll help you (mostly men because I think women know this to be true) accept this fact by focusing your attention on a mall.  How many stores are men only?  Even the stores that have things men would buy they usually have things women would buy and still the men's section is substantially smaller than the women's.   Another antidotal observation, I've had the opportunity to accompany my wife to the Atlanta Merchandise Mart.  This is one of America's largest markets where retailers come to buy the stuff they put in their stores.  Kind of a shopping mall for retailers.  I

No drugs behind this doodle....not sure how it all started but it is weird.  Boon cartoons, Boondawgoggle, cartoonist for hire. Wow!  Tomorrow is the last day of January.  Only 92% of the year left.  So let's take inventory.  If the rest of the year continues as this month has unfolded what will things look like in December?  Ah? No, I'm not going to go through that exercise.  It's too damn depressing.  And besides, one month does not a trend make.  Now I just want to cry.  The only aspect of January I can  think of that I hope projects  the balance of the year is that I'm alive.  How's that for positive thinking. Surely I've done something this month that warrants it as not being a complete waste of 8% of the time I have available this year.   I'm kind of feeling a bit like what a farmer must feel like.  He plows the field, sows the seed and waits,and waits and waits for several months to see if what he had done provides the expected results, but it is not

 I've got multiple balls in the air right now and not really in the mood to wow you with my stinging wit and deep insights.  So enjoy these couple of pages from my sketch pad. Who am I kidding?  I'm the only one reading this.  I don't get the impression, hell evidence, that anyone else is reading my blog.  It is like what I do most of the time when I'm by myself...I talk and carry on elaborate conversations...just with me.  That's what this blog has become, just more of me talking to myself.  I see so many other blogs out there that have engaged followers.   One's that comment and add to the blogger's dialog.  A lot of the comments that have been posted on my blog are posted by me. So I guess if I don't want to talk to myself or if myself doesn't want to hear from me, it is up to me to Shut the Fuck UP!!!! Myself starts whispering in the back of my head, " then just shut up ." "Okay, Okay...I hear you loud and clear.  It's not like

It's a numbers game.  That is what you hear all the time in most sales literature and training.  Basically, it means there is no real way to determine who is going to buy and who isn't so you just need to keep looking, and asking, and eventually you'll find the one that will buy.  Quite frankly I find that idea an insult to intelligence.  Yea I understand the logic it just seems more like something the upper level executives of an organization say to keep the idiot sales force plodding along.  It's the same logic used by Generals in the military.  Throw enough troops at the problem and surely enough will survive to achieve the objective.  Sales is the only aspect of an organization where failure on such a large scale is tolerated.  Think about it.  In the manufacturing side, would they ever accept a 20% success ratio where 80% of the things you made were defective?  Would even the mail room accept that only 20% of the mail they send out gets to its intended target.  Eno