Clarkson Energy Homes

I have been having trouble with my Firefox browser for some time now. It is sluggish and slow and just takes too darn long to do the simplest things. When I upgraded to the latest version I was still disappointed by how slow it seemed. After a particularly slow session this morning I was considering opening a Bugzilla request. Then I had a light bulb moment. Perhaps some add-on I installed was the culprit. So I disabled all my Add-ons and sure enough the sluggishness is gone. Now I just need to turn them back on one at a time to see which one is the problem. I got my inspiration from an old mind trick. When you are not seeing the solution (or all the solutions) distract yourself with something else. Inspiration will sometimes come to you. I do this a lot while programming. When I have a particularly difficult stubborn algorithm problem, I sleep on it. Literally. I go to bed and often find the answer in a few hours. During the summer time I mow the lawn (a lot). I tend more than 8 acres and 20 homes. It’s a mindless task. Even near homes it takes very little mental effort to avoid yard obstacles. Mowing the lawn is my distraction from daily life and allows me to find solutions to a plethora (I like the word) of problems which arise each month. Find something you like to do that can distract you from the stress of your daily problems and you may find solutions popping into your head at some very unusual times. One piece of advice. Do not ever shout out “Eureka,” if your distraction is an intimate encounter with your spouse. I’m not confessing to such example, but I can foresee that as an awkward conversation.

I ran across a reference to this article. Hacking Knowledge: 77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper and Better. I only got about half way down the list. So I added it here to get back to it later.

In fact, it’s been said that the average adult only uses 10% of his/her brain.

I don’t think so. Humans use almost all their brain. We just do not use it all at the same time. We use certain parts of our brains for different tasks. We might use more than one part when doing multiple tasks, but we can’t add more brain power by changing one area to double duty as another area. The article has some great ideas in it, but remember that not everything works for everybody. The Kinesthetic Techniques section doesn’t work if, like me, your hands shake too much to write well. For me, the Kinesthetic exercises only serve to frustrate me, and increase my stress. The same is true of walking. As a younger person I walked a lot. An awful lot. The last foot X-Ray I got was due to some pulled ligaments in my left foot some years ago. The foot doctor (podiatrist?) said I should avoid even low impact exercise like walking. Thankfully, I enjoy bicycling on my stationary bike at home.

My main business is being a landlord of a small mobile home park. It’s just little too tiny to be my sole source of income. So, I also spend time doing affiliate marketing and the occasional web programming project for others. Currently I am committed to three new web sites. One web them is up and running. The second web site, which was originally the first one, is running but has no content. The third web site is currently a site created by an author with one of those web interface tools (Blech!) where the software programmers seem unaware of how page validation works. Last month I had only the second of these projects, but last month my home was a wreck. I have just gotten over a four month funk with my disease and I hadn’t clean much in all that time. I have corrected that now at the risk of not completing my current projects. Do you remember biorhythms? You do? Man, you’re old. I think the theory behind biorhythm was that your emotional and other rhythms were not always up or always down at the same time. That’s how I feel now. My financial life is in the toilet while my health and quality of life seem are on the rise.

I don’t know if it is the first of many or a flash in the pan, but my first article for EzineArticles.com was recently approved.

My plan is for it to be the first of many many articles to drive people to my web sites and Squidoo pages for the express purpose of selling stuff to those visitors. Of course, I have had plans in the past which didn’t work out or more specifically plans in which I lost interest. Hopefully, I can see enough return in the form of money and praise to write more articles.

That is not to say that I am only going to wait for this article to sink or swim, but I know that I can be as much a procrastinator as a hero. At least, that is my track record. The challenge for me has always been to find something I am good at that I want to continue to do with a passion.

At 46 years old, you would think I would have found that something already. That is not the case. I think writing has something to do with my passion, but the few articles I have had published (I was paid to write one) have not sparked me to that passion I know must be inside me somewhere.

I received a bill today for a fine from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The fines total more than $5,000 and it may as well be $5 million. I can’t pay these fines and my creditors. I should be beside myself in stress, but I’m not.

As a small business owner I have learned some pretty important lessons. I have learned to keep a enough food in the pantry to last a month or two without trips to the grocery. I have learned to keep an alternate form of heat and light for the winter if the power goes out. I have learned to survive when the light at the end of the tunnel looks like a memory.

The TCEQ sent a nice big package. It must be 30 or 40 pages of crap telling me about how they are fining me to protect the drinking water supply that I and my customers already drank over 18 months ago. It is upsetting, but it is not an all-consuming financial crisis.

Experience has taught me that there is always some new major financial problem looming just over the horizon. None times out of ten that crisis was created by some well-meaning asshole who thought he was so right that everyone who disagreed with him should be thrown in jail.

As soon as I clear this financial hurdle another will pop up. It’s not the end of the world and I will survive. I know that in some future time I will look back and tell the tale of my heroic struggle against Leviathan. I know it because it has happened before and I am confident it will happen again.

So, if you find yourself in a similar situation where the wolves are barking at the door and all hope seems lost. Cheer up! Every silver lining has a dark cloud. Living through the darkest clouds gives you great stories and prepares you for the next great crisis.

In a previous life I played the part of an employee. I was safe ensconced in my little employed world with its safety nets and its security. When I came to the New World (the business owner world) I had to learn a whole new set of financial tools. Thinking about it now, I think it’s those skills which comfort me most at these dismal times. I have faced the fire in the past and I am confident that I can face the future fires as well.

I have no idea where I am going to come up with the resources Leviathan wants to justify their ill-gotten unethical jobs, but I know I will prevail and succeed where they fail and crumble. I’ll be here tomorrow. My existence is not contingent on the whims of political power. I can survive any where. It’s just who I am.

Underdog was great escapism for me as a young boy. So, I took the opportunity recently to get out of the heat and watch the new movie. In the movie, the dog’s boy says that the dog has a responsibility to others to use his powers for good. If you have a talent or an ability, it is your social responsibility to help others. There is no higher goal than such selfless acts. These selfless acts make the world a better place.

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