Welcome to The Mystical Underground

I had a Blackberry for about five years, through T-Mobile. In the beginning, I loved it. It was a real workhouse, able to accommodate just about anything I asked of it. Except. Whenever I tried to download an app, the download didn’t work. And the apps were nowhere near as extensive or interesting as the apps that Apple offers.

Last year, I got disgusted with T-Mobile. I had called to remove Megan from the account because she’d gotten an iPhone through AT&T. No problem, the tech said, it’s cancelled. But oh, by the way, he said, since your plan has now changed, since it’s just you on the account, we’re extending your contract by two years and charging you the $200 cancellation fee. I told the young man that T-Mobile was making a big mistake by doing this to a customer who had been with them for fifteen years. “You can count on this,” I said. “As soon as I can afford it, I will be breaking my contract with you.”

He sort of laughed.

Fast forward to October 7, 2012. I headed out that morning to the Apple store to do my research on iPhones. I spent a couple of hours in the store, playing with the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5, and decided I was going to switch. But when I finally talked to a tech, he informed me the store was sold out of both phones. “See that line over there?” He pointed across the room. “All those people are waiting to pick up iPhones that they ordered online last night.”

OK. I went home and started calling every AT&T store within ten miles. The story was always the same. We’re sold out. We don’t know when we’re getting another shipment.   Then I found an AT&T store tucked away in a shopping area less than a mile from our house. I called, yes, they were open, and they had iPhones in stock. So at 3:30 that afternoon, I headed over there  and before I’d gone even half a block, my car sounded like the engine was coughing up marbles. Steam billowed from under the hood.

The car had stalled out during Tropical Storm Isaac, which dumped 14 inches of rain on us in about 24 hours. Our neighborhood looked like this (that island out there is our mailbox):

At any rate, the engine was shot and we got the car towed to our local garage.  Once I learned that insurance would pay for a new engine, I finally got to that little AT&T store just as they were closing.  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” the young man said. “Can you come back tomorrow?”

“Just a quick question,” I said, and asked about iPhones 4S, which were then selling for less than a $100. I explained that my daughter already had an iPhone with AT&T and asked what kind of plan they offered for two lines. The upshot was that they were sold out of the iPhone4S but had one iPhone5 left and was I interested?

One iPhone5?  Really? When the Apple store and every other AT&T store in the area were sold out? Synchro? Law of attraction? Interested? “Absolutely.”

“Come on in,” he said, and for the next hour he and another clerk got me set up.

Politically, I’m no fan of AT&T. They donate zillions to the Republicans. But the competition around here is pathetic. And because we already have our Internet landlines,  one cellphone, and TV service with them, the addition of my iPhone5 will save us more than $100 a month.  In addition, these two clerks went the extra mile, showing me the ins and outs, advising me to do this and that to save even more $.  I was impressed. I realized that any company, any corporation, is only as good as its employees and these two guys were stellar.

And hey, I loved the synchro. They’re closed, they have only one iPhone5 left – and were apparently the only store in our corner of Palm Beach County that did – I’d been pursuing this all day. At six PM I walked out with my new iPhone5.

I confess that I love gadgets, I enjoy figuring out how things work, and the iPhone5 may be the coolest thing yet. It’s lightning fast, lightweight and sleek, the apps download, email is flawless. The camera is as good as Rob’s high-end Canon, and I can actually get a signal in the house, which means, eventually, good-bye landline, another savings. I found the onscreen keyboard a bit tight, but then I discovered Siri, the strange female helper who translates your voice commands into text messages and emails and finds you a good restaurant or a gas station regardless of where you are.

Books I have downloaded onto my iPad can be pushed onto any other Apple device, including my new phone. When I got stumped on some facet of the phone, a young woman at the dog park talked me through it. And that’s the thing. If you get stuck on how to do something with this phone, ask anyone under 30 how to solve it. One woman’s husband called her in a panic from an airport about something he couldn’t figure out on his new iPhone5. Karin’s reply? “Warren, find someone under thirty and ask them.” He did and the problem was solved.

One of my issues with Macs is that there’s no good astrology software for the operating system. The only half decent software is clunky and doesn’t do a fraction of what my old Winstar program can do. So the other night I was searching for an astrology app  and found Astro Gold, which I downloaded for $30. This little app does nearly everything my expensive windows astrology program ($300) does. And now I’ve got it on my iPhone and my iPad.

Our daughter, 23,  is still bugging me to trade my 5 for her 4.   Ha. In your dreams.

My phone’s name? Synchronicity.

Spam. It used to be something gross in  a can. I ate my share in college because it was cheap. Now, of course, spam is what comes through your email and in comments on blogs. Ours dwindled for awhile after we found a plugin for  the check box that says, I am human.  But now spammers simply check the box and paste in their message.

Over the nearly four years we’ve had this blog, the tone of the spam messages have changed from hostile to complimentary to quizzical. I’ve collected some of the most amusing.

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This spammer at least has a sense of humor: Hello, i read your blog from time to time and i own a similar one and i was just curious if you get a lot of spam remarks? If so how do you prevent it, any plugin or anything you can recommend? I get so much lately it’s driving me insane so any support is very much appreciated.

This spammer apparently doesn’t realize that Howdy went out with John Wayne and those old westerns from the 1950s. Then again, wordpress must not know that, either. It’s the default for the greeting when you log in: Howdy! This post could not be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my old room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this article to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Many thanks for sharing!

This guy needs some grammar lessons and you have to wonder about his “mission:” I am not sure where you’re getting your info, but good topic. I needs to spend some time learning much more or understanding more. Thanks for magnificent info I was looking for this info for my mission.

It sounds like this spammer was using a translation widget and that he/she may have some issues with a daughter:  You сan get definіtelу a great deal of particulars in thіѕ way tо thіnk about. That cοuld be a great lеνеl to bring uρ. I suρρly the іԁeas abоvе as normаl insρirаtion hoωеvеr сlearly you’ll discover questions just as the one you bring up the place the key factor will likely be getting sincere good faith. I don’t determine if finest practices have emerged around issues of these ranking, however I am sure that your particular job is clearly identified as an excellent game. Both youngsters think the impression of only a moment’s pleasure, for the entire content of their lives.

Another prankster: Hello there! Do you know if they make any plugins to protect against hackers? I’m kinda paranoid about losing everything I’ve worked hard on. Any suggestions.

Ah! An ex-English teacher commenting about spelling issues: Obviously like your web-site however you have to take a look at the spelling on several of your posts. Several of them are rife with spelling issues and I in finding it very troublesome to tell the reality however I will definitely come again again.

This one came from a psychic website and was on a political post. Go figure: WOW just what I was looking for. Came here by searching for tarot readings

This person was advertising  a treatment for panic attacks. I think he/she needs treatment for something. Hi! Quick question that’s entirely off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My blog looks weird when browsing from my apple iphone. I’m trying to find a theme or plugin that might be able to resolve this problem. If you have any recommendations, please share. With thanks!

OK, so who ARE these people?  Rob thinks they get paid a fee for each spam they post. But if the spam is never posted, how can they prove they posted it so they can get paid?  Could they be bots programmed to check the I am human box and paste in a message? Is there a programmer sitting in a dark room somewhere who hits a single button for, oh, say Ugg Boots, and the spam goes out to thousands of websites?

Sometimes, the tone of the spams are so similar I’m prompted to wonder if there’s a spam school these people attend, where spam teachers issue daily or weekly memos to guide their students.  Be kind, be critical, be complimentary, let ‘em rip.  I think there could be a novel somewhere in here.

This story comes from our blogging friend, Terri Patrick. It illustrates how an initial synchronicity can continue to evolve over time.

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In February 2009 I was new to blogging and used the word “synchronicity” in a post. I got a comment from Rob MacGregor that he didn’t see the synchronicity and he wondered why I used that word. He and his wife had recently started a blog on synchronicity because they were writing a book on the topic. Our online relationship has continued and since I was blogging to develop my Author Persona it was influenced by that first contact with Rob & Trish.

Morgan and I were barely acquainted in 2009 when we both attended a workshop on marketing for authors. We both had such a visceral reaction to the presentation we could read the other’s anger from across the room. So we hooked up and decided we’d put together a marketing presentation that was valid. We started meeting monthly and soon presented a short overview of marketing basics to our writing chapter. Attendees (many published authors) were stunned that this was such new information and requested a more in-depth workshop.

As we continued to develop our Author Marketing 101 message we learned the need was great and we should bring a business focus to our workshop so it could be more easily promoted to lots of other chapters and authors. Morgan and I also came to learn we shared a lot of things!

We are both from Cleveland, Ohio and now live in Portland, Oregon because of our professional focus – in the electronics industry. Our approach to business is rooted in the core value of helping others and giving freely. We share an “open hand” approach to life, but we aren’t afraid to close our hand if we feel abused or misused. Both of us were raised in households filled with faith, but also are willing to question and be open to energies and God’s infinite possibilities. Introspective and energy work are critical components of who we are and how we choose to travel through this plane of existence. Our stars complement each other, almost perfectly – kinda scary.

So in March of 2012, Morgan and I have been amazed at how our AM101-Author Persona message is expanding in only a year and has become so fun for us, and beneficial to our author friends. We were at an intimate writer conference in WA and chatting in a parking lot with a literary agent from NJ. She ruffled through the draft of our workbook and stated, “This looks very professional. You two need to build your platform.”

This is so obvious that Morgan and I are stunned. It’s a combination “Aha!”  “Of Course!” AND “How the (expletive) do we do that?” A platform is a Marketing 101 concept required for any professional service business. Our message is that a platform does not apply to Novelists –  they need an Author Persona. But a Platform does apply to us regarding our AM101 message about the Author Persona being the dynamic core of a novelist’s marketing plan.

Morgan and I had created a free blogspot site where we put our 7 primary AM101 points into static pages to reside forever available in cyber space. But we weren’t doing anything with that blog, it was just an electronic handout for our workshop.

But as I was initiating my Author Persona back in 2009, my connection with the MacGregors was because they were blogging to build their platform and write their book. Hence, in May of this year, Morgan and I started blogging 3x a week and that’s when synchronicities seemed to happen every week as we would be inspired for a new post, or recruit a Guest Post. Our workbook will now have better examples and be a greater benefit to authors. We’ll be working on it again after the new year.

Because Morgan and I pay attention to synchronicities beyond the potential for a good parking space, we appreciate being able to see layers of synchronicities that build on each other. And that – to me – is a HUGE deal because though synchronicity is flavored with magic and mystery, it’s also the foundation for what is practical and good business.

And now, our Author Marketing 101 message is just what Trish and Rob need now they are Indie publishing their extensive back list of novels. And I’m thrilled they came to me for advice on their marketing.

This one is great. These dancers range in age from 65 to 96.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=AeyO5m0sM3E&NR=1

Uh, these people don’t mess around!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7N5OhNplEd4#!

I’ve been re-reading The Day After Roswell, Philip J Corso’s riveting account of the government’ coverup of Roswell – and everything else related to UFOs. It was published in 1997, became a  bestseller, and had a huge impact on the UFO field. Corso, after all, was a retired colonel, former Pentagon official, and a member of  Eisenhower’s National Security Council.

One of the chapters in Corso’s book is called “The Strategy.” It’s one of the best explanations we’ve found about how Roswell and everything that has transpired since then has been kept secretive for so long:

“Were you to search through every government document to find the declassified secrets of Roswell and the contact we maintained with the aliens who were visiting us before and have been doing so ever since, you would find code-named project after code-named project, each with its own file, security classification, military or government administration, oversight mechanism, some sort of budget, and even reports of highly classified documents. All of these projects were started to accomplish part of the same task: manage our ongoing relationship with the alien visitors  we discovered at Roswell. However, at each level, once the security had been breached for whatever reason – even by design – part of the secret was disclosed through declassification while the rest was dragged into a new classified project or moved to an existing one that had not been compromised.”

This stunning insight into how a government maintains secrets actually makes perfect sense. As a piece of one secret is uncovered, those in the know declassify the documents pertaining to that piece of the secret, then scramble to put the rest of the secret into a new little box with a new name and new classification. “For all the years after Roswell,” Corso wrote, “we weren’t just one step ahead of people wanting to know what really happened, we were a hundred steps ahead, a thousand, or even more. In fact, we never hid the truth from anybody, we just camouflaged it. It  was always there, people just didn’t know what to look for or recognize it for what it was when they found it. And they found it over and over again.”

Corso’s statements, of course, have been refuted by other experts.  John B. Alexander is one of those “experts.” In his book, UFOs: myths, conspiracies, and realities, he has a chapter called “The Corso Conudrum,” in which he details everything that’s wrong with Corso’s version of events. In fact, after the publication of Corso’s book, Alexander  wrote Corso a seven-page letter addressing the errors he’d found in the book. He includes it in an appendix in his book.

“…in The Day After Roswell,” Alexander wrote,  “Corso made many extraordinary claims, especially regarding the use of crashed UFO material in the development of American advanced technology. Unfortunately, none of those claims have been substantiated, and most are directly refuted by known facts.”

But skeptics and debunkers begin with an agenda and then attempt to prove they are right and everyone else is wrong.  But the facts seem to tell us that the official U.S. government MO for the last 65 years has been coverup, denial, and disinformation. If you doubt that the U.S. government has attempted to hide information or deceive the public about UFOs, drop by  a website called The Black Vault. Run by John Greenewald, Jr., The Black Vault includes more than 600,000 pages of declassified material released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

For a government with an official stance that UFOs do not exist, it’s staggering to see how often the topic appears in official documents. In 2009, the CIA released multiple documents after a request was filed with the Defense Intelligence Agency. The 65 pages that were released, says Greenewald, “prove the CIA is still collecting intelligence in regards to UFOs, and that material from just the past few years is considered a threat to our national security.”

One document from the president’s Office of Science and Technology Policy labeled “UFO strategy” discusses efforts to curtail comments of UFO-related technology on so-called ‘open government blog’ sites created to attract ideas from the public. The UFO-related comments are categorized as fringe ideas and they were being removed from the main discussion. The staff members of the office discussed the irony of blocking UFO comments while promoting open public discussion. Even the New York Times had something to say about it.

“The New York Times, however, is reporting that while the Obama administration has asked the public for new ideas with the unveiling of an open-government website, the administration is considering steps to curtain free speech and discussion of the UFO issue on the prejudiced supposition that UFO subjects are somehow ‘fringe’ – the modern term for heresy, which was considered a crime against the church when Galileo published his findings in opposition to the conventional wisdom of his time.”

In browsing documents in The Black Vault, it quickly becomes obvious that the U.S. government is like a huge squid with so many tentacles that no single arm has the full information on UFOs, pretty much what Corso said in his book.  Each agency possesses bits and pieces of the puzzle and appears to be scrambling to uncover what the other agencies know – or don’t know. If that’s the case, and no one group holds all the information, how will disclosure ever happen?

But maybe  we’re reaching a tipping point in all this. A 2012 poll by the National Geographic Society  indicated that 36 percent of Americans – about 80 million people – believe that UFOs exist, 17 percent  don’t believe, and the rest are undecided.  The figure that is really intriguing is that 80 percent of the NGS survey believe the government is hiding information about UFOs. The current population of the U.S. stands at 314,826,000. Do the math.

Yet, even with the math, in the article about the NGS survey, a spokesman from the Skeptical Inquirer – Micheal Sherner – writes it all off as people like to believe in “weird things.”  Flippant. And not so different, really, from the way the government has handled things for all these decades. Hallucinations, weather balloons, the planet Venus. Uh-huh. Tell that to an abductee.