Brother Blue

“Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.”
-Albert Einstein

When we are faced with a situation or circumstance we don’t like, we have two options.
One, we can complain about were we are.
Two, we can use it as a moment to understand what we don’t want. It provides contrast to where we would like to be. We are where we are. The thing we can do next is ask the questions, “What am I going to do about it?” and “How can I start moving towards what I want?”

There have been a number of requests (and at least one one google search) for the decoding of “Mr. Morton seeks Atalanta”.
Answers found below. (You are going to have to wait 1:17 on the first video for the “Tale of Mr. Morton”.)
The tale of Mr. Morton:

Atatlanta (I never knew this cartoon version existed. I know this story from the record.):

My mother, sister, bother-in-law and myself were driving to Christmas Eve Mass to save seats for the 11 of us (mom, dad, bother, sister-in-law, nephew, sister, brother-in-law, a polish social worker, two polish college students, and myself).
I had mixed feelings about saving seats until I heard the story of our neighbors a few years earlier at the same mass.
An alter boy was lighting the candles on the alter. Some how one of the candles caught some of the other decorations on fire.
Our friends were seated in the front row and sprung into action. They dashed to the alter with coats in had to smother the fire.
After the fire was put out and order restored, they returned to their seats, to only find someone has taken them.

Phone message I left yesterday morning, “Sorry I missed your calls. I was out feeding the horses.”
My mother volunteers with an organization that provides, “improving the overall health, well-being and quality of life of differently-abled children and adults in our community. We achieve our mission by providing meaningful opportunities for participation in remedial and therapeutic, equine assisted activities and events.”
Reach 4A Star Riding Academy has seven horses. Twice a week in the winter my mother goes out feeds them and cleans the stalls.
Yesterday I joined her.
It was a perfect Wyoming winter day. 15 degree. Slight breeze. A few clouds. Visibility 40 miles. Outside with a bunch of horses.
The work warmed us up in a hurry.
Also, when you are shoveling stalls at 15 degrees, everything is nice and hard with little smell.
I am not a pet person. It is not that I dislike animals, but pets have never been my thing.
Horses are a different thing all together. They are just magical creatures.
I love horses.
The only place that I would like to be more than the road is on the back of a horse. One of the “3 irrational qualities in women” I look for is ability to ride a horse. [details here]
To be with family and horses on a beautiful Wyoming day, to quote a beer commercial from my youth, “I just doesn’t get any better than this.”

I am sure you have see the pictures. Colorado is a mess.
In this part of the country we are used to getting snow. We can get 6 or 8 inches in the morning and it won’t slow us down.
But, two feet in one day? That is crippling for anyone (except penguins).
There are lots of consequence that comes along with a snow like this. Loss of power. People stuck in homes. Cars driving off the road. But one has a new twist.
Less than a week before Christmas 1000 flights were canceled. That is tens of thousands of people stuck half way between here and here.
More flights to be canceled today as they dig out (with only 3 inches expected today).
The holidays can be stressful enough for families, and now this.
Please keep all of those stuck between here and there in your prayers today.
[ other suggestions]

Sunday night late, my plane touched down in Casper, WY. At baggage claim I ran into a number of old friends. One asked, “Is it good to be home? Or here? Or whatever you call this place?”
I explained, “When ever anyone asked me where I am from, I say, ‘I currently live in Baltimore, but I am from Wyoming.”
It is so good to be here.
My family (all of which will be home by Friday).
Dinner last night with good friends.
20 degree weather that is crisp, and clean. Nothing like the bone chilling cold of the East Cost. At 20 the only reason I needed gloves was to hold the even colder steering wheel. It is 20 degrees and it didn’t matter that my jacket has lost all of its buttons.
Fresh dusting of snow.
Antelope grazing in the field.
Something in my chest clenching in the open space.
Sunsets that stretch all the way around the horizon.
Stars that you can see right in front of you.

I received a number of very funny e-mails in response to my last post. Included dating advice when it comes to dating gnomes and twin sisters fighting in the comment section of my myspace blog. Thanks! (But, no marriage proposals.)
Most webpages (mine included) have some software running in the back ground which keep tracks of visitors stats. What time people visit, for how long they stay, and where they are visiting from.
If someone follows a link to my page from another site, it tells me that as well. From times to times people make it to my site from other peoples “what I am reading” links. About once a week someone makes it to the page through the google.com image search. (Oddly enough, the are generally going to this picture.)
Occasionally, someone will visit from a link inside an e-mail (meaning someone e-mailed a link to something I wrote to one of there friends.
Friday, someone visited the “Single in Baltimore” story from a link inside of an e-mail. The person who made the visit was sitting at a computer in Urmia, Iran.
Someone is checking out my description from Iran.
???

Baltimore Magazine published it annual 30 Hot Singles. Some how I was over looked.
I must have been out of town.
Here is the correction to the oversight.
Gene Monterastelli (32)
Writer/Juggling Itinerate Preacher/EFT practitioner, single, no kids
Favorite book? The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho Celebrity lookalike? Melissa Etheridge Favorite breakfast cereal? Cinnamon Life, if I could get all my nutrition needs met from cereal I would eat it every meal. Not because I am lazy, but because I love it. When I’m not working, learning something new. Are you on a diet? I try and eat three times a day. If there’s no chemistry on the first date I am happy to be out of the house. What’s your least appealing quality? My penchant for chewing my toe nails. Okay, what’s your most appealing quality? Acting with great passion. Favorite Christmas movie? Reservoir Dogs If all your exes could give you a nickname, what would it be? No idea, but my exes’ mother’s would call me “That nice boy.” Favorite film? Touch of Evil Celebrity dream date? Debra Gibson or Pax Vega Favorite CD? Ceili Rain, Ceili Rain What’s your ringtone? Phone on vibrate, ALWAYS! Who’s the funniest human being alive? Steve Martin (look at his writing, please ignore his recent movies). Favorite vacation spot? Iceland, my spiritual homeland. What’s your phobia? That no one is following me. Do you have a MySpace account? Where else would I put my senior picture and my pictures of me curling? Best gift you ever gave? 777 Hershey Kisses By the third date, I am amazed there isn’t a restraining order. If you could have dinner with any three living people, who would they be? Karen Armstrong, Malcom Gladwell, and Sr. Helen Prejean How many people would you date at the same time? Two in the same calendar year would be an exciting improvement Love me, love my tendency to get lost in what is right in front of me. Do you consider yourself a grownup? It beats the alternative.

This contains my favorite line from the 80’s

Vader Dad