The Taser Dream

I was at a huge hotel, the type usual integrated into a convention and shopping complex. Sitting at a spare gray table, I was paying for some transaction. A bald man in a suit added up the charges: $41.

I pulled out my wallet and withdrew a credit card. As I did, I opened my wallet and laid it flat. That showed my retired military ID, and three other documents, including a gift certificate for $1451. I was hoping that he would see my ID and offer a discount or suggest that I could use the gift certificate. As I thought each of these things, I thought, why don’t you just ask?

The man took my credit card and said, “You didn’t take a diamond, did you?”

“A diamond? What did it look like?”

He pulled out a photo of a diamond. “Like this.”

I looked over to the glass exit doors. A large, disheveled man was there. Acting furtive, he carried a case. But on the bottom of the case, which he was inadvertently holding up to the side, was a diamond just like in the photo. I said, “Do you mean a diamond like that?”

The bald man looked over, and then seeing it, stood and began walking to the door. The man hastily walked out the doors. The bald man shouted, “Hey you.” The man with the diamond ran.

The bald man took off running down the length of the hotel. I don’t know what his plan was. I rushed out and saw the man with the diamond getting into a gray car with yellow letter. Part of that lettering was a number, so I memorized that. I figured I could pass the info on and they — police or whatever — could look for that vehicle as a clue to where the man had gone.

The bald man returned. We went back to the table and sat. I told him about the man getting into a gray car and the other details. The man replied, “We use white taxis with blue lettering.”

I shrugged. That’s not what I saw. I repeated all that. The bald man dismissed it.

Returning to my documents, he said, “I can set up your money so that it makes more money.”

The change of topic surprised me. Had we talked about this before? He then went into a spiel about columns and how much I had where. I politely listened, knowing I was turning him down.

A well-dressed blonde woman then approached. The bald man was pleased to see her, exclaiming about how she’d taken his advice and now had so much more. She presented him with a paper similar to what the bald man had written down for me. He enthused about how much my situation was like the blonde woman.

I’d had enough, stood, said, “Thank you,” and “We’ll talk later.”

I moved to the entrance to leave. Workers were there. They had the floor torn up and blocked the exit. Resigned, I went along the hotel to find another exit.

The hotel turned into a Macy’s. I walked through different departments, trying to find an exit. Then I heard an announcement, will the strange man in the hat come to blah blah.

I could hear the woman making the announcement. I was wearing my olive green hat, so I went around the corner and asked, “Do you mean me?”

This was a young, white woman, short, fuzzy blonde hair, dressed in shorts and hiking boots. “Yes,” she said, and the told me I needed to go with her.

I refused, asking, “Why?”

She didn’t explain. Instead, she pulled out a taser and threatened me.

I said, “Go ahead. Use it.” I figured I had a law suit if she did.

A group of her fellow employees had gathered to watch. She used the taser. It shot out wires and attached to me, but there was nothing else. I grabbed the wires and wadded them up in my hand and then took the taser from her. She ordered me to give it back.

I refused, demanded an apology and an admission from her that she’d made assumptions and she was wrong. Then I walked off. She followed, demanding her taser back. I ignored her.

Still looking for an exit, I finally tossed the taser aside and saw her pick it up and leave. I was now in some kind of financial services place. Not wanting to get involved with any of them, I avoided eye contact and walked through, looking for an exit. A young man in a shirt and tie rushed over and offered me a bottle of water. I accepted that, thanked him, drank, and went on.

By now, I was cross with myself. Finding an exit should be easier than this! I decided to retrace my steps, go back and begin again.

I ran into two of my younger sisters. They were waiting to leave so I sat down with them. I wanted to tell the taser story but the ignored me. One of them filled a reuseable water bottle with water from a fountain, and then added sugar. She said something to me but I didn’t catch it.

Dream end

November 9, 2026 0

Friday’s Theme Music — September

Ashland, southern Oregon. Friday, September 11, 2026.

Today it’s 66 in Ashland with rain and a high of 83 F on the way.

It’s the anniversary of 9/11.

Yes, a quarter century has really passed since that day. We had unity in the US for a while after that. Dubya parlayed that unity to into wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. With Dick Cheney as his VP, the intel was constantly skewed to reinforce a drumbeat to war. The intel about WMD was all about stoking fears of greater attacks.

Those paying attention at the time called bullshit. But our voices were often ignored. We’ve learned in drips since that the intel was flawed. We learned that war was a costly and disastrous mistake.

Wreaths will be placed in many places in the US. A moment of silence will be held. Speeches will be made, and people will recall where they were when.

Then we will move on into the divisive era fostered by Trump and the MAGAzens, embraced by the Republicans, fostered by the Roberts Court.

Like many, many others, I will sigh, suck it up, grit my teeth, and go on.

Today’s music is “Wake Me Up When September Ends”. The song came out in 2005. Billy Joe Armstrong, Green Day lead guitarist and vocalist, wrote it about his father’s death in 1982. But the song’s sentiments of loss, suffering, and reflections work for anyone’s mourning, including those of us looking back on the 9/11 attacks.

Sample Lyrics

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends

Like my father’s come to pass
Seven years has gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends

Here comes the rain again
Falling from the stars
Drenched in my pain again
Becoming who we are

As my memory rests
But never forgets what I lost
Wake me up when September ends

May we find peace and solace in our lifetimes.

September 11, 2026 0

Sunday’s Theme Music: Plans & Mistakes

Ashland, Oregon — Sunday, March 15, 2026.

It’s 38 F outside with bits of blue sky and an overwhelming gathering of gray clouds. We’ll again see a high in the low 50s as we march on toward Spring.

As I read the news last night and today, I was reminded of President George Dubya Bush’s declaration on an aircraft carrier, “Mission Accomplished”. Oh, what theater as the commander-in-chief landed a jet on an aircraft carrier and emerged in a flight suit. Republicans swooned.

Bush said that he was declaring that the military objectives had been achieved in his invasion of Iraq, and not necessarily that the war was over. His speech came on May 1, 2003, six weeks after the invasion began. The war grew and kept going, with the U.S. in there for eight more years.

I’m thinking about that now because the Trump administration is a diluted version of the Bush/Cheney administration. Bush/Cheney worked in secrecy and cherry-picked intel to support what was happening. One of Bush’s administration compared their plans for war to the marketing campaign for a new product to sell the war. Ignoring what UN weapons inspectors had been saying about Iraq’s weapons, Bush managed to put together a coalition of military forces from allies around the threat of WMDs

Trump did none of that. He just attacked, going in without a plan. Now Trumps thinks he can just declare it over whenever it suits him, just as Bush tried to do.

In the end, the Iraq invasion and war was a costly, disastrous mistake. Less than a quarter century later, and we wonder, how much of what Trump has begun will end with history repeating itself?

In comments on news articles about the war, some were saying, “I’m a Republican and I don’t support this war.” They go on, the timing is wrong, there is no plan, etc.

The thing is, their comments mean little to me at this point. Polls show that Republicans are mostly supporting Trump’s Iranian War. Few Republicans have stood up against anything Trump does, undoing a lot of the checks and balances in our government.

Trump and the MAGA movement co-opted the GOP. But the GOP allowed it to happen. The guiding principles and policies for the GOP are now, “Whatever Trump says.”

I think they made a mistake.

In the same sense, I was thinking of the problems with Mom. We saw what was coming years ago and tried to negotiate with her to improve her situation long before a crisis was reached. She refused, blaming her partner, Frank. But when Frank died, we saw that it was Mom as much as Frank that refused to see the truth and plan for what was happening.

It’s understandable. Many of us go into denial. But looking back, I still shake my head and think, what a mistake.

Not surprising that The Neurons have a song by Men At Work, “It’s A Mistake”, playing in the morning mental music stream. The anti-war song was written during the cold war and reflects worries that nuclear war might erupt.

Hearing it in my head makes me ruefully chuckle. How many times have I told others, “It’s a mistake?” Likewise, I think I was told multiple times, “It’s a mistake, but it’s your life.” I sort of smile because one of them was marrying almost 51 years ago. Dad said, “I think it’s a mistake.”

Sometimes the mistakes work out.

I hope your day goes well, with the mistakes kept to a minimum and of the minor variety, like, “Eating at that restaurant was a mistake. That food just wasn’t very good.”

Onward into another day.

Cheers

March 15, 2026 1

Fridaz Wandering Thoughts

I was at Albertson’s. The people ahead — man, woman, and younger woman — were paying. Setting my items onto the belt, I spotted a tub of deli pasta salad and held it up. “Who does this belong to?”

Attention swiveled. “Whoops,” the man said, laughing.

In the same instant, the young, blond cashier cried out, “Oh, no, I made a mistake, I missed something!”

The woman fluttered a hand. “It’s not a problem. Don’t worry about it.”

The young woman gasped. “Oh, no, we can’t go without that!”

Amused as the error was fixed, I hid a private chuckle, entertained by the reactions.

We’ve all been there.

January 2, 2026 1

WTF, America

It this is Thursday, it must be time for WTF, America, in Trumpland.

Have you heard about Kasper Eriksen? After living here in the United States as a green card holder working to become a U.S. citizen, ICE arrested him. Mr. Eriksen was working as a welder in a small Mississippi town. He emigrated to the U.S. in 2013 and married a woman, an American citizen, in 2014. They have children together. When he went for his naturalization interview on April 15th, 2025, he was arrested for a paperwork error from 2015. He’s been in a Louisianna prison since his arrest for that 2015 paperwork mistake.

This is typical of the clumsy, heavy-handed, Trump Regime, a group of people selected for their lack of empathy and intelligence, just like their Dear Leader. They’re sloppy and incompetent, and it’s trending upward. And as in the case of wayward children or mistakes-prone staff, if they’re not held to fix things, to correct their behavior, it’ll only get worse.

Green Card Holder Detained by ICE at Immigration Appointment, Wife Says

Danish man living in Mississippi detained by ICE at naturalization meeting

May 22, 2025 2

I Might Just Be Bossy

I believe I am a leader. But then, I’m biased. I could just be full of myself. Arrogant. Too ignorant to realize that I’m not a leader, that others are blowing smoke when they tell me, or when they told me, I was a leader.

From my perspective, I’ve always been a ‘big-picture’ person. I like organization and decisiveness. I like decisions to be made quickly. I despise people and organizations who dither while trying to create a perfect plan, a perfect solution. No plans or solutions are perfect. But then, most of it can be modified later. Sometimes the modification will be harder.

That’s the way it goes.

I have been in formal positions of leaderships for several teams, in the military, in startup businesses, and in the Fortune 500 world. In surveys and assessments, I was identified as ‘authoritarian’.

That startled me the first time. I try to be inclusive. Try to coach up by inviting my team members to participate in decision making. But then, a decision is needed. I’ll ask them to vote. It seemed like many people did not want to vote, worrying that they’d make a mistake or reveal themselves in some way that they found uncomfortable. I don’t know. I’m guessing.

I already knew that I would make mistakes. That happens. Mistakes are good, as long as people aren’t hurt, killed, or traumatized. That’s part of the equation when decisions are made. Safety first. Almost always. But not necessarily always. Prioritization is and was needed about what is going on. The other facet of that is, learn from your mistakes. Internalize them and avoid repeating them.

And I have been criticized for assuming leadership. People asked, “Who put you in charge?” Fair enough. I don’t care. Who is in charge? What are we doing? Is there a plan? What’s the objective? Why are we all standing (or sitting) around doing nothing?

There was once an adhoc project established in the command section of a military unit. I walked in and was ‘volunteered’ to be part of it. I was a senior NCO at that point. Inside were several junior NCOs and junior-grade officers. One NCO later told me that a captain said, “Master Sergeant Seidel is joining us.”

And another said, “Oh, good. He’ll organize us and make a plan.”

Because that’s just who the hell I am. A bossy guy.

May 15, 2025 4

April 1, 2025 0

Learnin’ to Walk

Daily writing prompt

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?

View all responses

I’m one of those people who believe and practice, you must be willing to take risks and face failure if you want to succeed. The classic example is learning to walk: we all must accept trying to take those first steps and risk falling in order to stay upright and put one foot in front of the other to cross a room and get where we want to go.

In my case, I’ve succeeded many times when I’ve tried. My failures have been as a sales person. I’m talking about goin’ door to door. Selling vacuum cleaners. Knife sets. Cookware. Hey, I was desperate to improve our situation and increase our income.

But I learned that I’m not a person who wants to pressure people into buying things like that. First, the products were overpriced. Second, they weren’t the greatest invention in the world, which was basically the line I was to spin. I didn’t believe it, and I didn’t accept it, and I couldn’t say it. I felt like a hypocrite and a fraud when I did.

I later learned, yes, I can sell things. I’m pretty successful at selling ideas. And I’ve sold tangible products, like coronary angioplasty products. But to succeed in that arena, I had to believe in what I was saying. And to believe, I couldn’t ignore my principles.

Understanding grew from those failures and setbacks. I learned: don’t ignore your principles. And I became known as a dependable person, trustworthy, responsible, reliable. I probably would have learned those lessons without my salesman failures but going through it helped me cement my understanding of who I am, who I’m willing to be, and what I will do to make a dollar.

In the end, I believe I’m a better person because of my failures.

March 5, 2025 0

The Writing Moment

A mental mistake. Revising today, the draft surprised me; things I thought I’d changed yesterday weren’t changed. WTH, over? Didn’t I change that? And that? Was that all a mirage, a dream, work done in a different reality.

Realization came belatedly, no, I was in the wrong draft. While working on the latest draft yesterday, I’d opened a previous draft to look something up. Well, it was the last doc closed yesterday, so it went to the top of the document list. Without thinking today, I opened it up, went to where the doc said I left off, and commenced revision. Wasn’t until I glanced at the page number and realized I was twenty pages behind that I finally seriously applied critical thinking to the moment and understood what happened.

What a rube. What a mistake. No harm; just time. But damn, I thought I did some good revising today. Hope I’ve learned a lesson and don’t do that again.