Just a few words here

I've finally made the leap into 21st century doings by setting up this blog page. I've even crossed over to the wonderful world of "Face-Book" as well.

I've spent the last 19 years in the United Kingdom and have only returned to California in March.

There have been some rather interesting changes to this country in the intervening time that I've been away, although I've manged to come back for short 2 week visits off and on since I moved away from here.

The cost of things, from the perspective of my lving in the UK, is rather cheap; gasoline being the prime example.

Even though gas is $3.89 a gallon at my local station, it's still half of what I've been paying in the UK, at one point, given the Dollar-Pound conversion, I was paying nearly $9.00 a gallon for unleaded. To come from that type of pricing to what is at the pump in California now is rather a jump.

The cars here are larger than in England, a lot of SUVs and Hummers. I still don't understand why my next door neighbor feels the need to drive an assualt vehicle to Albertsons, or to Pizza Hut, but to each his own.

Given the cost of fuel, about $100.00 just to fill up a tank that is a quarter empty, I must confess to being a tad smug with my 2008 1.8 liter engine Toyata!

Now all I've got to do is to pass my Series 6 and 65 Licencing exams, along with my California State Insurance Licencing test, and I can get back to earning an honest buck or three.

But here I am! I'm back in the Land of the Free and the home of the almighty Dodger-Dog! What more can a man need?

I'm still not sure why I've put this blog up. Perhaps it's an alternative to sending mass emails to some of my friend who are back in the UK, or something.

I'll be rather sporadic about this I suppose. Sometimes I'll just "vent" about things, i.e., the heat, petrol/gas, politics, and or religion.

I used to write fiction, but that was over 20 years ago. I had the good luck of taking two classes at El Camino College, in Hawthorne, that dealt with writing fiction. The instructor there was/is a published author so she knew what she was talking about. Sadly her name escapes me, although I do recall that she was from Manchester England, which is a good place to be from.

She helped us find that creative muse that Ray Bradbury has spoken about, and taught us to give this muse a fourm to speak.

Sadly I gagged the muse that I was given, tied her up, stuck her in a KFC Bargan Bucket, and then dumped her in the trash bin.

My fiction writing ended there and then.

Perhaps one day I'll take a trip to the land fill where she's burried, paper buckets with plastic lining don't degrade, and dig her up and attempt to resurrect her ala Frankenstein.

Untill then, the writing that I've done has been confined to the occasional essay or three, some of which I just might inflect here just for the sake of it!

Until next time, keep it real, or at least away from the Botox!