Well, the non-frosted side of the Mini-Wheat that is my soul - the side that wants to be a cheery, positive person, a good example to the kids, etc. - wants to be able to say that the following news item is just sad, and that there is nothing positive about this, that the poor victims who suffered damage to their property and the poor family and friends of the "perpetrator" will have a hard time coping with the aftermath, and that the poor perpetrator did a foolish thing, etc.
However, the frosted side of the Sam-Mini-Wheat says "ROCK THE !@#$ ON, DUDE!!!"
I am sad that things were destroyed, and I am sad that this man felt that he had to do this and then take his own life, but he didn't hurt anyone else, and you all know how I feel about well-timed self-euthenization*. All that aside, though (and taking into consideration that no one else was hurt, and that - hopefully - nothing too precious was destroyed, this is EXACTLY how I feel sometimes, how a LOT of us feel sometimes. Man, the things I could do with a tank... I wouldn't want real guns, though. Maybe paint balls? But there are definitely some things that HULK WOULD LIKE TO SMASH!
Well, I'll just let you read this yourself, and hope you won't think I'm glorifying bad things. But I will say this - if you think this is a totally bad thing, I'll think you're fibbing.


Grand County Emergency Management Director Jim Holahan confirmed that the driver, identified by the town manager as Marvin Heemeyer, appeared to have shot himself.
Heemeyer plowed the armor-plated bulldozer into the town hall, a former mayor's home and at least five other buildings Friday before the machine ground to a halt in the wreckage of a warehouse.
City officials said he was angry over a zoning dispute and fines from city code violations at his business.
Authorities detonated three explosions and fired at least 200 rounds against the heavy steel plates welded to the bulldozer [whoa!], which looked like an upside down Dumpster. After the third explosion failed, officials cut their way in with a blowtorch, Holahan said.
A statement from Grand County Undersheriff Glen Trainor said the driver was found around 2 a.m.
Holahan said Heemeyer was armed with a .50-caliber weapon but appeared to be deliberately avoiding injuring anyone during the rampage, which began Friday at about 3 p.m. No other injuries were reported.
Trainor said the dozer's armor plates consisted of two sheets of half-inch steel with a layer of concrete between them [Jen, can I have a welding torch for Xmas?!?!].
Grand County Commissioner Duane Daley said Heemeyer apparently used a video camera and two monitors found inside to guide the dozer. Two guns were mounted in front and aimed through portals. Other portals were cut in the back.
It was unclear how many guns were found with Heemeyer. Authorities speculated Heemeyer he may have used a homemade crane found in his garage to lower the armor hull over the dozer and himself.
"Once he tipped that lid shut, he knew he wasn't getting out," Daly said.
Investigators searched the garage where they believe Heemeyer built the vehicle and found cement, armor and steel.
Residents of this mountain tourist town of 2,200 described a bizarre scene as the bulldozer slowly crashed through buildings, trees and lampposts, with dozens of officers walking ahead or behind it, firing into the machine and shouting at townspeople to flee . [you know those cops enjoyed the HELL outta this...]
"It looked like a futuristic tank," said Rod Moore, who watched the dozer rumble past within 15 feet of his auto garage and towing company.
One officer, later identified as Trainor, was perched on top, firing shot after shot into the top and once dropping an explosive down the exhaust pipe.
"He just kept shooting," Moore said. "The dozer was still going. He threw what looked like a flash-bang down the exhaust. It didn't do a thing."
A flash-bang produces a blinding flash and earsplitting boom designed to stun a suspect.
"Gunfire was just ringing out everywhere," said Sandra Tucker, who saw the bulldozer begin the rampage from her office on Main Street. "It sounded to me like an automatic rifle, firing about every second."
At least 40 deputies, Colorado State Patrol officers, federal park and forest rangers and a SWAT team from nearby Jefferson County were at the scene.
Town manager Tom Hale said Heemeyer was angry after losing a zoning dispute that allowed a cement plant to be built near his muffler shop. Heemeyer also was fined $2,500 in a separate case for not having a septic tank and for other city code violations at his business, Hale said [DOWN WITH THE MAN!!!].
When he paid the fine, he enclosed a note with his check saying "Cowards [HELL yeah!]," Hale said.
"We felt he was venting his frustration that he didn't get his way," Hale said of the note. "We didn't think he was going to do something like this."
Trainor said he believes Heemeyer spent months armoring the bulldozer, and investigators were looking into whether he had help.
Hale said owners of all the buildings that were damaged had some connection to Heemeyer's disputes.
The buildings included the cement plant, a utility company, a bank, a newspaper office, a hardware store and warehouse, the home of former Mayor L.R. "Dick" Thompson and the municipal building, which also housed a library [the personal home kinda' sucks, and the library is a bad no-no, but man, haven't you ever wanted to do something like this?!?!].
Crumpled patrol cars and service trucks lay in the dozer's path [WHEEE!!!!]. A pickup was folded nearly in half and had been rammed through the wall of a building [Maybe it was a Ford...].
Gov. Bill Owens traveled Friday night to Granby, about 50 miles west of Denver and 10 miles south of Rocky Mountain National Park.
State aid will be available to help rebuild local government buildings, and state officials will help businesses seek federal help, said Mike Beasley, director of the state Department of Local Affairs.
William Hertel, owner of High Altitude Audio, said the bulldozer drove by his business at mid-afternoon, crushing aspen trees and light poles after the rampage began around 3 p.m.
"I was up on the roof when he came by. I got down and got my wife and kids out of the back of the building," Hertel said. He said he had heard numerous shots.
The scene was reminiscent of a 1998 rampage in Alma, another town in the Colorado Rockies. Authorities said Tom Leask shot a man to death, then used a town-owned front-end loader to heavily damage the town's post office, fire department, water department and town hall."

I NEED A TANK! I wouldn't run over anything important...
HONEST.

FIGHT THE POWER!
-Tank Girl

*at least, I think you do - I'm all for it. I think that Dr. Jack Kervorkian is a saint.

I always wanted a little sister. And then, when I was 16, I got one (just a few days before my birthday), and then almost immediately lost her. It took me years to recover from the anger (and fear) and contact her, and by then I was very afraid that it would take her a long time to get over the anger that I'd night have caused by being absent almost all of her life. I've missed ALL of her important events so far... Even is she can and does forgive me, it may take me the rest of my life. It can certainly be a vicious circle. Parents who put their kids through this kind of shite should be put in some sort of work camp for a while - until they repent and make it all right.
She didn't hate me. I also think that she doesn't really understand all the why's, but that doesn't seem to faze her. Lucky me. Now I just have to hope that I can keep from dropping the ball.
Mandy is 16 years younger than me. She is a beautiful girl, I think we resemble in some small ways - we both look a lot like our dad and our brothers Jeff and Shawn*, but she is a lot different than I am, too. She is very tall, for one thing, and she is extraordinarily fair skinned, and then her hair (which is also thick and curly) and eyes are almost black. She's also really smart (which I think we have in common) and she's a good student and Nice Girl (which I think we don't).
We didn't really grow up together, sadly. For reasons that I won't discuss here (out of common courtesy to her), I was removed from her home before she was even a year old, and it is obvious that I have missed out on a LOT.
Today she sent me a link to her webdiary. It's pretty new, so I will be able to read it from the ground up. The best thing about it (besides being able to read my sissa's diary) is that I am learning little things about her, and finding out that she and I (and the rest of our sibs, Joe, Jeff and Shawn) have lots in common, despite the years apart. She likes hot wings. And good, odd music. And she cusses like a sailor, likes to talk music and film and poetry. She likes to read a lot, and she's boy crazy. She's interested in language, and she digs forensics. She likes to people-watch.
I can't wait to find out more.
I really hope that somehow time and tides conspire to bring us closer together. I want to know her. I want to watch her talk. I want to know what her hands look like. I want to become familiar with her voice. I want to know what she believes in. I want to be someone that she might like and maybe even respect one day.

Each of you that reads this, make a wish for me today, wish that this happens. I like the idea of the five of us being a Family. I want the chance for us to understand each other, and the past, to the best of our ability. I want us to be able to help each other, support each other, believe in each other, and not let the Big Shadows that the previous generation cast over us darken our world and diminish our chances any more.

To the Lovelace Kids - SLAINTE!
:)
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
-sam

*though they all have dark eyes and darker hair and skin, like dad. Joe and I got mom's anglo coloring. pretty too, but different. mom and i are peaches, they are cocoa beans (dad) or brazil nuts (mandy) or hazel nuts (shawn) or just nuts (jeff... :D just kidding... well, sorta! ;)

Rant-o-rama fest, 2004

1. It’s probably pretty damned odd how many times I’ve been told "You know, everybody can’t like you, Sam..."
I’m usually told this when I am telling someone that I was hurt because I was treated badly by another person, and it was only this last time that some helpful soul said this to me that I realized cohesively - and was able to explain coherently - that I really don’t care if people like me or not – AS LONG AS THEY STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY FACE. I mean, if I don’t know, I can’t care. And if I am forced – by work or association (friend of a friend, etc…) – to be around that person, then why can’t they be civilized (like me, of course :) and just be civil and/or ignore me until our necessary transactions are finished. This can go for the smartarses who give me that b.s. about "Everybody can’t like you, Sam..." Gimme some !@#$ credit here, people. I started out my life with my own MOTHER not liking me, everything and everybody after that is just coffee stains on the old sweatshirt of life.

2. Perfume in public... PEOPLE, if it makes YOUR OWN EYES WATER, then you probably shouldn’t wear it around OTHER INNOCENT BY-SMELLERS!
(sorry, this is a very current - as of RIGHT THIS SMELLY MOMENT - rant. RAAR! *snork!kerchoo!*)

3. Floods. *sigh* My washer did it again last night. I’d repaired the busted pipe (how smart is X?* to bugger off to work while I’m doing these projects, anyway? ;) but then the damned run-off pipe busted, too. Raar. Well, not much more was ruined, as that pipe was in the bathroom – and I got my bathroom clean.
I’ve lost a lot of stuff in all of this - books, mags photos, art and art supplies, etc., and the deeper issue is raised now, that I need to get rid of the things that are holding me back emotionally and physically. It feels cathartic to even think about this – to even try... more about this in a bit.

Here’s something else I wonder. A lot of you read my page, and I am grateful. As I said before, it’s nice to think that someone thinks I have something word spending a few minutes considering, or is at least amused by me. But do y’all also think I am just sad? Do y’all read this stuff and think, "Man, she is just pathetic!" I hope not, but there are definitely some days when I couldn’t blame anyone for thinking that. As I said earlier, it doesn’t matter if people like me, or like my words, but it DOES matter if I do, and the world is a mirror.

On that note - and this ties in to my issues of loss and acceptance - "Amama", thank you. It is an honor to be loved and heard by you. Your attention and consideration of my words and beliefs as wisdom is an astounding honor.

You see, "Amama" was having a mother's very natural fears - especially at a time when the world seems to be a powder keg - about something happening to her beloved girl. I told her what I'd discovered through my own personal 'Iditarod' of loss and grief that began a couple of years before (and led up to) my moving here. What I am learning is that if you love someone or something so much that you fear losing it or them, then you will cling too tightly (which is a crushing, suffocating thing) and you will live in fear and dread. That automatically diminishes your ability to love, because so much of your energy is taken up with this bad stuff. Coming to the realization that life is really all about loss, that eventually you will absolutely lose everything is actually a good thing, because once you realize it, then you can accept it, get past it, and then you can love without any reservation. This is a basic zen principle, I believe, but it was the wonderful writer, Marge Piercy who first opened my eyes, in her poem:

To Have Without Holding

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

-MP

The greatest gift that I can be given is to be told that I have made a significant and positive difference in someone else's life. This little webspot may be pathetic sometimes. It may be shallow (01/31/03) or sad and hurt (12/03/03) or just plain mad and silly (11/12/03), but it is ME, nonetheless. I told Chris last night that I might be a "motor mouth"**, but I honestly feel that I don't say anything that I don't mean, and that I don't think is important. He said that he agreed - and he listens to me a lot.

"Amama", for you to say what you did in my guestbook is worth all the sparkly shiny things, all the trips to Tristan de Cunha, all the be-wife-beatered bohunks and all the Godiva truffles in the world, and THEN some. To think that I may have helped you and your little Ama (and of course my Bribro too) to have a closer bond, to have a bigger love, to have more peaceful days - there is NO greater joy. None***. You have honored me beyond the possibilities of even my preposterous imagination****. My prayer to our Big Mama in the Sky is that I just be worthy of such honor, and that I be given the grace and strength to keep trying.

Wishing you all Grace and Strength, folks - not to mention Hope and Honor,
-s

*and how CUTE, too. He cut his hair all off, and it is GORGEOUS. He was pretty damned nice to look at before, but he is just... phwoa! with this new short, messy, fancy rock-star do. It’s like having a brand-new boyfriend (in more ways than one, he looks younger, too) without having to go to all the trouble of GETTING one. This morning he went to the Bakery to get me a cuppa (decaf, of !@#$ course) and before he got back, my friend that works there called me and said "This REALLY cute guy came in to get coffee, and I was just talking to him (she was FLIRTIN’, y’all KNOW it! :) and then he said ‘Sam said to put this on her tab.’, and I thought ‘Oh yeah, I KNEW I’d seen him somewhere before!’ Man! (etc.)" Yeah, I gotta cute beau... who gets me coffee (and does a million other nice things too). YAY, ME!

**yet another $#*!!% thing my mother used to call me...

***I also believe with all my heart that your little girl will grow up and be a force for change and peace and inspiration, too. She already is, but I believe that she will be a right active little "Sunshine Soldier" all of her life. She will take all that rich unlimited love that you (and every single person that meets her) give her, that joy of being alive that shines out of her sweet little face (man, I wish I could post one of those new pics of her here!), and turn it into the energy that will hopefully help to keep this big old creaky machine-planet going. I HAVE to believe that (to stay sane), and I am doubly (ok, quadzooply) honored to think that I might be one of the tiny quantum forces that will inspire her. moo.

****this from the person who is still hoping for a spot in People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful" issue someday... :D