Paul in a Nutshell

These pages contain a history of a wonderful life, mine. I attribute this to attitude and a major decision. I fervently wish that some of the positive energy from this autobio comes into your life.

This web site was primarily created to explain Why Doctors Can't Prescribe the Better Medicine. The rest of the web site, such as this page may be interesting, but they are nowhere near as valuable as my information on alternative cancer treatments and simple prevention.
Sections on This Page

Why I wrote this Autobio | ** My Book **
Raised in New York City | I Learn a Use for Pain
My Mind Turns East | My Family
Saving Lives | My First Car
Education by Independence | I Apply to College
The Swimming Team | Rites of Passage
As Seeker Is Born | Alternative Health
Professional Paths | Panama City Florida
I Settle Down | Tech Writing
My Friends | I Settle Again
My Book | New Careers
Almost the End of Paul
Why I Wrote this Autobiography

I started writing this autobiography because of my alternative health page which contained NCI test results for an alternative cancer treatment. NCI claimed that the results of their test showed that the cancer treatment Cancell had no effect against cancer tumors, but the actual test results showed that they were lying. I wrote about myself so that people seeking information about cancer would realize that I was a real person and that I had thoughts and performed deeds that demonstrated some depth of character. Soon I realized that I was writing this autobiography more for myself. It allowed me to remember the things I had done and encouraged me to contemplate how these things effected who I am.
When the Internet got started, I was most excited about the biographical possibilities, such as the biographies on the Documented Lives web site. The backgrounds of the people I work or play with have often turned out to be fascinating when I manage to pry such information from their reluctant lips. I know that almost everybody had stories about extraordinary things that happened to them. Aren't the people you work and play with more interesting to you than strangers? Whose life would you rather read about, a movie actor who you will never meet or the butcher you see every week who walked a hundred miles across southeast Asia to escape an army that was everywhere?
I hoped the internet would allow people to share their life stories with their friends and the people they meet along they way. The sad reality of course is that people have used the features of the internet to hide who they are. What a tremendous disappointment. If you enjoy reading this autobiography, consider writing your own and send it to me. I would love to read about the people who visit my web site. If you have a web site, consider adding your bio to it and send me the URL. Perhaps my original dream of the internet will come true and the internet will be full of people instead of faceless dot com's and shopping carts.
My Book

For the story behind my book read the paragraphs just below.

To support real cancer research, buy my book; all proceeds go to IPT cancer research.

Click the book for a description and order information.

I have always looked for a better process for solving problems or making decisions. After meditating for 20 years and using the sensitivities that I developed, I eventually found something that completely amazed me. When I had to choose between different selections, I was able to feel the differences between each selection. It turned out to be amazingly accurate. I felt like I had made the find of the century. I figured I could write a book about it and people would flock to my door. My only problem was that writing was my greatest weakness.
In college I was forced to take remedial English. I failed every test including the final exam. After college, I became a field engineer for Hughes aircraft because field engineers work on the aircraft and do not write many reports. Fortunately, I had a number of wonderful friends who were great writers. I decided my fortune lay with my process and not with engineering. I volunteered for a layoff and kissed engineering good bye.
Four months later, I had a manuscript. I took it to Audrey's house in Chico. She was a school psychologist and had the summer off. We spent two weeks, eight hours a day, working on my manuscript and thereby learned how to write. It turned out that when I have an interest in writing, I could write fairly well.
I prepared my much improved manuscript for submittal. This means that I had to do a market analysis and show why my book was different than the other intuition books on the market. It was a huge effort which almost resulted in a contract. But, after three years, close didn't put food on my table.
I decided to combine my engineering and newfound writing skill to become a technical writer. Whenever I met a writer who was interested in my book, I would let them edit it. Ten years later the book was really polished.
I had also discovered how to make web pages and how to place them well in search engine results. I was thrilled by the fact that hundreds of people a day or finally reading my writing although it was not my book.
After my web page became popular, I decided to sell my book as a PDF. I looked for a company to take care of the payments and shipping effort. I found print-on-demand publishers that took payments for PDF versions of books. Unfortunately, they all required both PDF versions and real paper books to sell. Fortunately, this type of publishers did not require the long market analysis. So I found the publisher that paid the highest royalty, took one half hour to fill out a submission form and waited for another rejection. It never came.
How I Came to be a Prolific Web Page Writer

I have consistently rejected the voice of society, but I was raised in a very religious family. Apparently some values of religion rubbed off on me because I came to believe that there is some point to life. To figure out what that point might be I started to have philosophical ideas during my last year in college. This really surprised and delighted me. I wrote those philosophical ideas on small pieces of paper. I found a small table with a hidden drawer to put the slips of paper into. Years later, when I settled down, I wondered if I my travels and adventures had made me somebody special. I thought that if there was an answer, it must be in that drawer. I used a new electronic gadget called a PC to organize those slips of paper. When I was finished, I realized that I had written a philosophy. I loved the experience and it answered my question about being special. It told me that everyone was special to someone and that with the right attitude and courage we can find those people. For those interested, here is another sample of my philosophy.
Who? Me?

Instead of writing about what I do for a living as a way to explain who I am, I would rather write about the things I love. I love thinking. For example, some people make judgments in terms of good and evil, but I ask why. After I started asking myself this simple question why, I stopped seeing things as good and evil and started seeing motivations. Those motivations changed good and evil into something much more important: love and fear. I was thrilled to start seeing motivations based in either love or fear because it not only increases ones understanding of others, but presents a clear path to follow.
Below is a collage of some of the other things I love. From upper left clockwise: a corner of the living room to the apartment I lived in when I first I settled down. Inserted into the living room in surprising synchronicity are my parents. The next photo to the right is an F-15 taken from my backyard in Okinawa, my favorite dog of many, me on my backyard highbar, me windsurfing, me bodysurfing, the house I lived in Germany, the motorcycle I had in Okinawa, a home in the Taiwan countryside. The center picture is from the mountains of the Philippines.

Raised In New York City

I was born just like every one else, very young {:^)

I was raised in New York City by religious Christian parents. I went to church and Sunday school every Sunday. I even remember my first Sunday school class; probably because of this picture. I was sure that the photographer couldn't take your picture if you closed your eyes. (I'm second from the left in the bottom row, David is standing to my left. Last winter David and I slept in a snow cave that we dug after climbing up a mountain on skis. I guess we're still crazy after all these years.)

I also thought I could fly if I ate Jets breakfast cereal. I remember, at age five telling my mother to open the kitchen window real wide right before I took my first bite. Boy was that a disappointment.
We lived in an apartment building with some interesting people. This fellow had a very cool dog names Blackie. This is how men dressed when I was growing up.

I became involved in church activities through my teens. After being exposed to years of Christian thought I became Buddhist. The value I received from going to church for all those years stays with me today. I have a very strong desire to figure out were we came from and the purpose of our lives. I feel I have studied enough information and analysed enough experiences to form a good theory. Parts of my theory change, expand, or get forgotten. That's OK; it is how I can tell if I still have an open mind and how much of it I am losing.
I had great parents. They would take my sister and I to all sorts of cool places. There was usually water at these places and three inches was enough for us to go boating.

Partly because of growing up in a big city and mostly due to having supportive parents who would listen to me, I developed independence at an early age. Perhaps the ski trips I started taking by myself when I was only 13 had some effect. On those trips I met a mix of people who found my tough Bronx exterior interesting and they would talk to me. Some of the college girls let me do more than talk. It was heaven on wheels, but I digress.
In my late teens my independent thinking turned towards my philosophy. I have come to believe that our purpose is to fully experience life in order to improve our character. As my character developed, I learned that the most valuable thing in my experience was love. I decided to further my character by learning to love everyone and everything. I try to find something in everything and everyone that I can love and focus on that. This goal creates a special attitude. I credit this attitude for the great life I have had. Not to mention believing in my dreams.
Paul Learns a Use for Pain

My family had long standing friends who ran a top drawer cabinet shop (pun intended). I asked the father if I could use his shop to build furniture, which was one of my interests. He was a very generous man and even allowed the craftsmen to take time to teach me. I couldn't of had better teachers. They made custom furniture for the filthy rich, the kind of stuff you don't think anyone makes any more. Their equipment was the best money could buy; I was in heaven.

The Foreman
One day I was using the table saw to put a groove down the length of a assembled side of a hope chest. Yes, I had been bitten by the love bug. Suddenly all activity in the shop inexplicably stopped and every one turned to me. The Forman came over to me and examined the cut I had just made. Then he pointed to a couple of shinny dots inside the groove. I had left nails in the assembly and just used a very expensive saw blade to cut through them. The blade was probably ruined. I felt like an idiot dope; really terrible. He looked at me and then wacked me on the back pretty hard. He looked at me again and asked in his thick Italian accent, "feel OK now?" I did. I was still sorry about the blade, but I didn't feel terrible. The Forman examined the blade and said it was a good thing I used such thin nails.
My Mind Turns East

I studied Buddhism and soon discovered that Buddhist thinking was common among everyone I knew, they just didn't know it. I figured out a question I could ask that could determine if a person believed in the basic concept of Christianity or believed more along the lines of Buddhist thought. I have asked this question for years and everybody answers it as a Buddhist would, not as a Christian should. Interesting.
My Family

There was five of us. Besides my mother and father,

I had a sister, Alice and a grandfather, Gramps who lived with us. Here's a picture of the whole family and the brother-in-law.

Yes, I cut the forehead off of my brother-in-law. Never liked him, but then again I would judge very few worthy of my sister.
Here is my mother in the kitchen where we usually ran into her:

We always lived in an apartment. At the age of six we moved half a block to another walk-up, where my sister could have her own room.

Above is a picture taken from the corner of the new apartment building we moved to. In front of the blond woman is a stoop. A stoop is an entrance to an apartment building. It is usually just a few steps at the top of which is a door to a small lobby where the doors to the first-floor apartments and the mailboxes were. At the end of the lobby, were the stairs to the rest of the apartments. The third stoop is where we moved from. Distance appears half of real life due to the tele -ens I used.

This picture is taken from the same corner, but looking to the right of the other picture. These are some of the other residences of the new apartment building. The green area is a long park that ran along the top and sides of a very large water main. There were six, outdoor handball courts that started just to the left of the picture.
The new place we moved to required that we climb five flights of stairs instead of three. We all developed strong legs. Despite carrying the groceries up all those stairs, my mother loved to have company. I don't know if her love was based on a mean streak because guests would literally fall into your arms from exhaustion when they arrived after the climb. Here are two guests Betty and Ed. As you can see, Ed has barely recovered from the climb We figure he'll perk up after we get some food in him. I enjoyed Betty and Ed tremendously and was very glad to find this picture.

My mother instilled in me her love for having company. To this day, I would much rather have friends over and cook them a meal than eat out and be served to and surrounded by strangers.
When my sister moved out to go to college, Gramps took her room and I got my own room. It's appearance took on a strange aspect.

I fell in love with antiques at an early age and my folks let me buy this and put it in their living room despite the fact that it didn't go with anything. Later it disintegrated in my uncle's basement where I tried to store it.
At 16, I discovered a refuge, guitars. I still play about everyday and just found the words and cords to a song I've been hearing over the air waves that I fell in love with.
This was my collection at the hight of my guitar lust.

The two 12-strings and mandolin in the foreground are laying on my bed. Mandolins are great for playing with other folks and have the sweetest sound. At night, when something touching comes in from orbit, I pick up my mandolin and play along. If you are wondering what the strange thing is in the middle of the picture, it's my desk. I felt I needed something attractive to entice me to my school books. If I had spent as much effort on my studies as I did building the desk and installing stereo equipment into it, I would have been an A student.

No story about my life would be complete without telling about Gramps. We shared a room until I was sixteen. You couldn't ask for a better room mate. He was a very likable fellow with a barrel chest and arms as thick as a New York phone book. When I introduced my friends to him, he would shake their hands and say something like, "How you doing young fella." My friends always said, "What a cool guy" as they tried to rub life back into their crushed hand. He worked all his life in the warehouse of the same paper company, eventually becoming Forman. If you move paper around all your life, you get very strong. Yes he was short, but very cool. To his left is my grand mother who died before I was born.

Gramps was a great walker. After he retired, he would take at least two long walks everyday. Sometimes I would go with him and be amazed at how many people said hello as we walked the usually unfriendly streets of the Bronx. Years later when I returned to my old neighborhood everybody wanted to talk about him and what a great guy he was. I had traveled all over the world and worked on fighter aircraft, but no one was interested; they wanted to talk about a man who spent his life working in a paper warehouse. I have often been told that I am charming, funny, and a good friend, but I can't compare to Gramps. I have tried to figure out what he had and always come back to his smile and his sparkling eyes. He was always glad to see you and didn't have much to say. Could being loved by so many people be as simple as that?
When he passed away, he left me an antique box full of old coins. Although the box is only six inches long, it's so heavy that most people need two hands to pick it up. Definitely one of Gramps' boxes. This is the top:

My Adventures Start

The city's public transportation afforded a tremendous variety of adventures. I had great parents that were always taking my friends and I to lakes, beaches, and many cool places where a kid could get his sneakers soaking wet. At the age of 12, I became addicted to skiing. My folks allowed me to take ski trips by myself and I was soon an accomplished addict. By the age of 16, I was good enough to instruct, but didn't enjoy standing around yelling at people to bend their knees when there was a whole mountain of snow right under me. I started working during the summers as a lifeguard to help pay for my skiing which my parents had lovingly supported for years.

Besides, guitar and mandolin, body surfing and swimming, gymnastics and skiing, I developed an interest in photography. However, I always had trouble with focus.

Sometimes, I would get the focus right.

Sometimes just close enough.

Saving Lives

The beach were I worked as a life guard attracted suicidal people from all over. Many people would have drown if we didn't perform our jobs well. Talk about pressure, sometimes I was afraid to look at my watch for fear of missing someone going under. On the other hand, all the rescues made being a lifeguard very exciting. Another contributing factor to the high number of required rescues was a sudden drop-off of the bottom that occurred at low tide. After five summers I had saved about eighty people. I become an observer of people in trauma. I discovered that drowning was almost always accompanied by complete panic. Afterwards, people were so devastated that they can't talk. As a result only two out of those eighty people ever thanked me. Those are the only people I remember. Thank you. Sometime I still wonder what that phrase really means and why it has so much power.
During my lifeguard career, my boss approached the Red Cross and offered to produce real drowning rescues for them to film. He promised numerous rescues per afternoon if they would supply a cameraman on certain weekend afternoons when the tide was low. This is when the drop-off is just at the right level for non-swimmers to accidentally get over their heads and panic. At that time there were no live rescues of drowning victims so we were all very excited about being in the film.
Twice the cameraman was filming when I had rescues. I remember thinking how cool it was to be immortalized on film. At the end of the year, the Red Cross came to show us the film. Popcorn in hand I awaited my film debut. I watched rescue after rescue and then the film ended. I soon realized that my debut was on the cutting room floor. I had used a technique that the Red Cross didn't teach, so they cut me. To this day I don’t contribute a dime to the Red Cross who now teaches the technique I used. Ahead of my time once again.
For those of you who like to be prepared and know a little first aid, don't be mislead by Bay Watch; mouth to mouth is the last think to do to someone who is not breathing after being pulled from the water. After drowning, a person's lungs are full of water. If you use mouth to mouth without getting the water out of their lungs, you will only blow air into their stomach and will receive their lunch in your face. You must make sure their lungs are not full of water first:

Place the victim on their stomach, preferably with their head lower than the rest of their body.
Reach under their hips and lift their hips as high as possible, at least a foot off the ground. This allows the water to run out their lungs. In most cases this causes the victim to start coughing and the start breathing on their own.
If they haven’t started breathing on their own, call Bay Watch.

My First Car

The lifeguard job paid very well and I was able to buy my first car. Looking back at that experience is always fun. Everybody I knew would ask me what it was. Now I bet they are thinking. God, Paul had a BMW and we didn't even know what it was.

Yes even the Bronx has it's nice neighborhoods.
The freedom of a car allowed me to find some magic places like an old estate that was sold to the city of Yonkers as a park because the taxes were too much for the family to afford. It had fabulous gardens and pools:

Some places weren't all that normal for a health guy, but in the Bronx I found beauty were ever I could. Woodlawn Cemetery:

Education by Independence

I started school a little younger than most kids. I think my mother had gotten tired of my mouth. I didn't give my teachers much of a break either and my grades suffered due to my lack of respect. I just didn't like the junk they were teaching me. Couldn't we learn about motorcycles and cool stuff? Every year my teachers recommended I be left back because my grades were so poor. But, my mother promised that I would try harder which meant that she would bother me more and that I had to ignore her more. Which was actually no problem for me.
My poor attitude continued until the ninth grade where I ran into Mr Cody. He was wild and his first name was Bill. The first day he said to us, "I have good news and bad news. You can fail every test in this class and still pass. You can pass every test in this class and still fail." We all thought, cool we have a crazy man for an English teacher.
The trick was soon revealed to us. We had to read a thousand pages by the end of the term. I could do some math and soon realized that this meant about eight pages a day everyday. Was this guy totally nuts? Then he said something that started to sound pretty good; we could read any book in the library and some not in the library like Catcher in the Rye which I somehow knew had sex. I knew a little about reading, OK very little, but I knew that it is a lot harder to start a new book than continue reading one where you already knew what was going on. So I went to the library lady (that's what we called her) and said I wanted an exciting, easy to read book that had a lot of pages. I started reading Huck Finn and fell in love with a down a river. Before I knew it, I said good-by to Huck Finn and was looking forward to the next book. I had discovered reading.
Something else happened the same term I had Mr. Cody; I had gotten sick of my parents always bugging me about school work. I told them that they had bugged me for eight years and it didn't do any good I still got all D's except in gym. I asked them to let me do it myself, that for one year they couldn't ask me about any homework or tests no matter if I got all Fs or all As on my report card, they were not to say one word to me about school. They were so desperate and tired that they agreed.
My independence combined with my discovery of reading had a extraordinary effect: straight As on my report card. I decided to let them talk to me about school, but just on that day. Of course they were speechless.
High school combined with hormones reduced my concentration, but a few good grades in math balanced out nearly failing Spanish and I graduated with a B average. I never thought I was very smart and believed that only smart people went to college so I didn't want to bother to apply. This made my mother crazy, but she had agreed not to bug me about school. Poor woman must have been having a stroke, but she was no dummy and decided that I might listen to a man she worked with who had a way with tough guys.
Paul Applies to College

The guy my mother had me talk to was good; I agreed to apply to a couple of colleges. I wonder if he knows how radically he changed my life? I applied to the University of New York because all their colleges were tuition free, but everybody tries to get into them so the competition is a bit high. Often you can get into one of the lesser colleges like Bronx Community college which was walking distance from where we lived, but it was only a two year college; you had to get good enough grades to transfer to a real college and you usually lost many credits during the transfer. One thing academia teaches you is that life isn't fair. Well, perhaps it just teaches you that academia isn't fair.
The application process was pretty simple, you can apply to five colleges at the same time with the same form. Like everybody else, I put the best colleges of the University system at the top of my list. I had some fun with the form because at the top of the list of colleges I put City College, the best college of the City University. Although it has a terrible name it is a well respected school and has a real campus with flying buttresses, gargoyles, and famous alumni. I believed that only eggheads could get into that school, but I had four more places on my list for more realistic colleges for me like Bronx Community.

The guy who designed the Brooklyn bridge went to City College. I remembered riding my bicycle through it a couple of years prior and telling Dave, "yea, this is where the eggheads go." We both new this slightly older guy in my sister's circle of friends, Kenny. Everyone considered Kenny a genuine genius; he went to City College. So I had applied to that college, what a joke.
I finished a couple of other applications and soon graduated high school. Around that time, I got a letter from City college. I remember being very interested in seeing how kindly they would reject me. I read the letter and was very impress at how gentle it was. I thought to myself, hey these guys were so nice I didn't really notice where they rejected me. So I read the letter again searching for some words of rejection. When I had read the letter a second time, I thought it must be some request for more information or something like that. I read it again. Then, and truly only then, did I suspect that it might be an acceptance letter. I checked the return address, yes it said City College. I checked the name of the addressee. Yes, Paul Winter. But, still I couldn't believe it. I searched the letter and found the crucial sentence. I read that sentence over and over again. Yes, it said I was accepted to City College. I read the name on the envelope. Yep, it still had my name on it. My mother was up on the roof hanging clothes to dry. I remember being bare footed, took the steps two at a time, stubbed my toe very badly and limped out onto the roof. My mother read the letter and said the words I would here over and over for the next few months from every one I ran into, "I don't believe it."
I guess I did it to myself. I was one of the smallest guys in my neighborhood. To avoid being beaten up a lot, I took on a tough-guy image. Perhaps it wasn't just attitude because I rarely lost a fight. I credit my mother with most of my victories though. She got me interested in gymnastics at an early age. Besides making you much stronger than kids who don't work out, gymnastics teaches you how to psych-up to increase your strength. I also had the good sense to recognize when a fight is inevitable and would attack my antagonists before most fighters would get going. That aggressiveness gave me a reputation as being crazy in a fight. There is nothing more feared on the streets than a crazy man. Even the guy at school who shot his father was afraid of me.
I told you of that tough-guy image because I think it explains what happened time and time again that summer. I would run into people who knew me and the conversation would proceed as follows and always end the same:
So Paul, you finished with high school?
Yea.
Did you graduate?
Yea.
So what are you going to do?
Go to college.
Really? Have you applied?
Yea, of course (OK, I didn't want to admit I almost didn't apply especially in light of what happened).
Did, you get accepted? (Incredibility starting to creep into their voice.)
Yea.
Really? Were? (Unmistakable disbelief clear in their voice and expression.)
City.
I don’t believe it.
Yea, City.
I don't believe it.
Oh yea? (Unmistakable hostility in my voice and expression.)

Although parts of the conversation varied from person to person, everyone chose the same expression, "I don't believe it." Everyone used the same exact phrase. I remember. It wasn't that they thought I was lying, it was just that they were as shocked as I was; we both believed the tough-guy image didn't mix well with brains.
Getting into City College seemed like the beginning of a warp in the fabric of reality. It was the start of a strange series of events that culminated in my eventual graduation. Every event seemed a miracle especially the last one.
So there I was at City College, clearly over my head. Now what? How about joining the swimming team? Why not the diving team too? And while I'm at it let's not forget the waterpolo team. Why, you might ask. I couldn't tell you except perhaps good instincts. After a few years, I realized the Zen of all those laps kept me sane. No small task.
College didn't seem much different from high school except there was no home room, no central group to belong to except the swimming team. Without the team, college would have seemed pretty intimidating. The guys on the swimming team gave new meaning to the word strange, but I could fit in with them. Strange worked for me back then. It doesn't work so well now, but perhaps it will come back in style. I'll be ready.
The Swimming Team

After all these years it is interesting to realize who is the most memorable character on our team. He didn't say much and wasn't very impressive in the usual way that guys impress, but I bet we all remember him clearly. We called him Suicide. Of course upon reflection, he was an incredible survivor despite being the waterpolo goalie. I remember he told us that somebody tried to mug him down on the south campus. We were all ears because looking at Suicide you would never guess that he was unbelievable strong and had a hair trigger temper. Anybody trying to mug him was likely to be hurt real bad. Apparently this guy got off easy; Suicide only broke his arm.
He received the title of Suicide because of his driving philosophy: drive something big and never look at the other guy. You would think that in New York this philosophy would eventually end in disaster, but Suicide had developed his philosophy to a fine art. For example, when he changed lanes, he would swerve in the direction of the lane he intended to move into but not actually enter the lane right away. If there was a car in that lane, the driver would jam on his or her brakes thinking that Suicide had lost control of his car. Suicide would then casually move into that lane. At no time would he bother to check his mirror or look around. Believe it or not he never had an accident, but he scared the hell out of drivers where ever he went. How can you forget a guy like that? Or these:

Suicide is just to the right of the coach. I am sitting second from the right. I developed a close friendship with the captain of the team, Mike Leen - left end standing. Lean he really wasn't, but dedicated to swimming he really was. Here he is giving us a talk with the coach standing on the side. It was usually like that.

Mike was dependable and true. We have tried to keep in touch, but we have become different people and can barely relate to each other. I became the Californian seeker and he became the family/company man. Take our professional situation as an example, he has worked for the same company since he graduated , I change companies every year. He has more kids than you can shake a stick at and I think there are three times too many people on the planet.
Diving at our pool was very interesting. The ceiling was a bit too low. To prevent divers from hitting it, we had a non-standard diving board known by the other competitors as the plank. This gave me a tremendous advantage, but only at home meets. Here I am diving. This is apparently before someone told me that a dive is made head first. Actually, it is just the entry after a reverse full which explains the good form.

Rites of Passage

The engineering degree I received gave me the independence and confidence to strike out and see the world.
When I finished school, I traveled through the states with a waterpolo teammate, Willy (in the team picture he is on the left end sitting). Willy turned out to be an interesting choice for a travel companion because everybody thought we were twins especially since we both had beards at the time and dark tans from spending half the summer as lifeguards. Here is a picture of Willy climbing up some rocks. I have shown this to my mother projected on a large screen and she swears that it's me no matter what I say.

Our tour plan was simple: head West, and when the country looks interesting, take the back roads. We took Willy's Landcruser up into the Colorado mountains.

Into the real Rockies.

We even drove at night.

We stayed at camp grounds and made friends easily because twins are interesting. The people we met had very different views from the people we left back East. A much simpler lifestyle was revealed to us during conversations in front of evening campfires.
Both Willy and I liked to climb rocks so when we would see something like this:

We would wind up looking down things like this and saying, "So how are we going to get down?"

After uncountable adventures, we discovered California.

Having a surfboard in the mid-west made for interesting conversations.
It was in California, land of making dreams come true, that I turned an old dream into a reality: Years before our trip I watched a TV special about Hearst castle. When I saw the swimming pools I swore I would swim there some day.
When we arrived in California the only place I wanted to go to was Hearst castle. We signed up for a tour. I wore my swimming team bathing suit under my shorts and kept my eye out for my opportunity. The tour finished with the indoor pool so I decided that would be the right time to go for a dip. When we walked into the pool house everyone had the same reaction and took in their breath as one. It was mystical, with salutes all around and a aura of splendor that is not describable.

The tour guide took us around toward the back of the pool building and pointed out a staircase that he said went to the diving platform. I hung around the back of the group and waited till the tour guide had turned around and started walking away. I slipped off my shoes and was pulling my shirt off as I acceded the stairs. But, then a heard the guide's voice, Sir, sir you can't go up there!" Busted, but not slowing down. I had my shorts off by my third step and was running down the hall to the diving platform at full speed. There was a bridge over a small pool alcove, but no step or rail, the hallway just ended in mid air above the pool. I had selected a simple swan dive because I suspected that the perfectly smooth water would act like a mirror and I would see myself dive for the first time. I was right, I watched myself sail out over the pool and start a graceful arch towards the surface.

Have you ever wished that you could just walk into a mirror or better yet fly into mirror world? I flew into myself and the transition was nothing less than Alice in Wonderland revisited. Reality completely shifted. I was in the most beautiful place imaginable. The genius that created the mosaic on the underwater sides of the pool must have taken into account the out of focus effect of the water and created amazing beauty down there. I wanted to stay forever, but I had a couple of pressing matters to deal with. The guide had gone off to get a guard.
I swam a couple of laps or more correctly I flew a couple of laps. When I got out I collected my clothes and wondered where everybody was. I found the bus and was the last to get on, but thee was no sign of the guide. He showed up a minute later with the guard who took one look at me and said, "He's one of the sons". I don't know if he really thought I was one of the Hearst sons or just figured that no harm had been done, but I sure loved his attitude.
I still have an adventure or two on the water. Here is a short story with photos of an '02 adventure.
A Seeker Is Born

In the early '70s I started to meditate daily, a practice which still continues to bolster my awareness and health. From 1973 to 1981 I worked for Hughes Aircraft. I spent most of those years living overseas working on fighter aircraft in every aspect from maintenance to tactics. In 1982, I settled in the San Francisco bay area. The seeking and consciousness expanding atmosphere of local towns like Berkeley and Palo Alto (my neighboring town) soon swept me away on a path of self-exploration that has profoundly changed me. I started writing about the discoveries I was making. Now I can't stop exploring and writing.
Alternative Health

A few minor though stubborn health problems and my sister's early demise caused me to explore alternative health. I found some fascinating information, developed some of my own and beat my problems. As a result I wrote and published four alternative health care booklets that have moderate success in local retail stores.
I love to discover information that can improve my life and present it to others in an entertaining manner.
Professionally Paths

I believe my first professional position was my lifeguard job. Not because a lifeguard has to be a professional level swimmer, but because they have to be able to tell the difference between a hundred kids splashing in the water and a tiny runt of a kid drowning in water where everybody else is standing. You need to be able to do this while your eyes are constantly moving. It is a high skill that people's lives depend on. Expereince is required; new lifeguards are never placed on the more crowed sections of the beach and we were always testing each other by sneaking into the water and pretending to drown. I remember one of the guys got hold of a baby hat and would "drown" right near the edge of the water where few of us would look. If we missed him, we were in for a bad time. If we saw him, we never knew how long the "baby" had been "drowning" which would cause an instant panic. How many times a week can you take a maximum adrenaline rush and stay sane?
Don't get me (over on the left there) wrong, saving people is also a high swimming skill and very dangerous. Rescues scared some of the other lifeguards, it even put one in the hospital, but I was on the waterpolo team at my college. We played waterpolo against schools like Army and Yale where everybody was twice my size. The skills I learned in waterpolo made saving people easy, even if I had to pull out two people by myself (people tend to drown in pairs – arms wrapped around the other in blind panic). We didn’t have any buoys for pulling people in. Sometimes I would just let them grab me so I had both hands and arms free for swimming. I would grab some air if I got the chance. If I didn’t, I would just go under water; people almost always let go when you go under. The exception put that one guy in the hospital. When I left that job, I had the satisfaction of knowing that no one had died while I was on duty.
Being a life guard wasn't always high pressure. Sometimes it was a different challenge to stay awake. When I had the early watch on overcast days, I wouldn't see anyone for hours. Sitting in a high chair with nothing to do and nothing to look at but endless water drove some of the other lifeguards crazy. Not me – I loved it – I was getting paid for daydreaming. I would think about my future plans and dreams. By then, I had realized that becoming a jet-fighter pilot was not for me. It was the time of war protests and throwing eggs at ROTC students. Join the military? No way. But, I still dreamed of working on jets.
I learned about being a field engineer. I thought the coolest job would be as a civilian troubleshooter who was called by the Air Force to fix the jets that had special problems. When I learned about this job, I was already three years into college and very pleased to discover that I had been studying the right subjects all along. My beach days were filled with daydreams of being driven up to a torn-apart jet fighter with a bunch of air force types standing around scratching their heads. A few minutes later I would solve the problem to the accompaniment of muttered curses.
Right before I finished school, massive layoffs occurred in the Aerospace industry. Engineers were driving taxi cabs. My school chums were depressed, but it didn't seem to effect my spirits. My favorite daydream was so close to becoming reality that I couldn't stop dreaming it. Failure didn't even occur to me. I set my sights on one company. While my friends sent out hundreds of letters to every company they could think of, I sent one letter. It went to the Hughes Aircraft company. Even though Hughes was 3,000 miles away, I got the job. It definitely wasn't my grades – I graduated by the skin of my teeth. I believe getting that job had to do with something more interesting. Before I finished school a friend taught me something that had a mind-over-matter effect on events. I directed that tool at getting the Hughes Aircraft job. After that success, I continued to use it whenever I wanted to change jobs. It continues to work and give me the most charmed life I have ever heard of, mine.
Working at Hughes started with a six month training course. The course taught the inner workings of the most complicated jet fighter system Hughes every produced, the F-106. Although it was an old fighter, it could do things the new jets can't do. I was so fascinated that I could remember everything taught despite the eight hours of daily instruction. It was serious business and we had periodic tests. For the first time in my life, I knew the subject so well that I didn't need to study and still aced the tests. After years of exam anxiety and poor grades I was an A student without even trying. I was in heaven.
Before I knew it, I was working on jet fighters just like I had dreamer of so often. Of course, life doesn’t always perfectly resemble one’s dreams. I remember cold West German nights walking down the flightline (the area where the jets are parked) with the fog and the blue lights competing to hide or illuminate the maze of taxi ways that lay before me. I would be in a rush to find some obscure revetment (cold, concrete bunkers where some jets are placed) before the Air Force team finished and gets driven back. Oh, there they go. Missed again.
Of course it isn’t always cold on a flightline. I remember one sunny day in the Philippines; it was an even 90 degrees in the shade. Twenty fighter planes, all facing in different directions, were firing up at the same time to join some mass exercise. Once the jets started pulling out and turning around to taxi out, you couldn’t hide from the searing jet exhausts. One of the flightline troops was walking around with a hot-dog on a stick and claiming that it was almost done. The flightline had cooked it. But, in truth, I loved it.
That job was clearly confirmation of the power of dreaming. One evening just past sunset, I made this heart-warming discovery: I was walking up to an F-15 (my favorite fighter) that was sitting alone at the end of the flightline. The belly tank which the F-15 usually flies with, had been removed giving the jet a much sleeker profile. The sky was dark blue and the heat of the day had been replaced by a cool breeze. As I looked at the F-15, I was struck with an amazing recognition. Perhaps it was the flat light and the angle that made the jet seem smoother, more plastic, but I finally realized that the jet I had grown to know and love the most, looked just like one of my favorite toys from my youth.
Panama City Florida

No mention of my travels for Hughes would be complete without a comment about Panama City Florida. This my first assignment for Hughes. I spend a terrifying month as the leaded of a modification team. While three technicians tore into two rooms full of aircraft electronics, I prepared for the day when they would put it back together and I would have to make it work. They replaced over 600 wires and a half dozen electronic boxes. When they had put it back together, we stood around with fire extinguishers waiting for the explosion. I threw the main power breaker. Instant disappointment. There was no explosion, no sparks, no crackle of shorting wires. The cooling fans didn't even turn on; there was no sound at all. Everyone tuned to me. My first real performance as a professional engineer. I picked up a meter and started checking voltages and looking at the wiring diagrams. To my horror, the design engineers had left off one of the four main power input wires. As my technicians built a cable with the proper lugs on each end I wondered how many of the 600 wires the Hughes Aircraft design genius told us to change were also wrong. By the end of the day, I had my answer: there were very few mistakes on the drawings. Also my technicians had done a superb job, only making about one mistake a piece. None of their mistakes were difficult to locate. That night, as I drove to my cabin on the bay, I realized that I was good at my chosen field. What a relief.
This was a perfect ending to a very pleasant time. The area around Panama City Florida have the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen and I have seen many. You can park away from the beach and take a leisurely walk toward the sound of surf:

Nearer the beach many paths branch off to assure you of an isolated spot:

The reward of these walks is invariably a private beach made of sand like sugar:

Everyone in Panama City said that I would return. I assured them that I was just passing though. When I returned four years later, I remembered what they said and bought a house which I rented out for ten years, but never returned a third time.
Chief Master Sargent Frank Briggs

The second return introduced me to the most amazing individual I met during eight years of working with the Air Force. He was a Chief Master Sargent. This is the highest rank a non-officer can achieve and it deserves serious respect. His name was Frank Briggs. He worked the flightline where the jets were repaired, but he was getting tired of the pressure of that job and decided to create his own. He found a room in a building near the beach that had a tower that looked out on a flying test range. He put some desks and empty main frame computer cabinets into the room, had his friends in the sheet metal shop build him one quarter of the front of an F-15 - the part that holds the radar equipment. Then he called a friend in the aircraft grave yard and asked if he could have some of the old radar units from the first test F-15 which had exceeded their stress limits a few too many time during the development days.
These radar units were useless because the system had changed so much from the development days, but they looked like they would actually work. Then, the chief had his friends on the flightline and test squadron build a new radar wire harness. Turning power to this mess would have resulted in a good fire, but the Chief didn't need to turn it on. he already had a room that looked like a radar development lab complete with a tower outside to remote the radar antenna to look out over the test range.
The Chief invited a couple of General friends down to view his effort. At this point he told them that all he needed was a couple million and a Hughes radar engineer to starting ECM testing of the F-15 radar. Something that had not been done on a real flight range.
He got the money, transferred himself and a couple friends into the lab. One of his friends was a Captain - the figure head of the operation. I got the assignment as the Hughes radar engineer and so started the most bizarre four month assignment of my career.
I learned a lot from the Chief that had more to do with living and making things happen than with aircraft. He like to tell parables. For example, rock soup: A bum comes to the kitchen door of a large house. The cook answers and the bum claims that he is on his last leg and before he goes, he would like to make his favorite dish rock soup. The cook is interested because she has never heard of rock soup and asks what ingredients he needs. He replies, "just a pot of boiling water and this rock." Which he lovingly displays. She relents and soon the rock is merrily boiling. The bum is happy as a clam and offhandedly mentions that rock soup is really special with just an onion added. Not thinking much about one onion, the cook lets him cut up and add the onion. "You know" says the bum dreamily "One or two carrots really make rock soup a rare treat." Before long "rock soup" is starting to look more like beef stew. The bum removed the rock and exclaims with a big smile and an elegant flourish, "rock soup."
After telling me the rock soup story the Chief waved his hand in direction of the now functioning radar system and declared, "rock soup."
The chief would drive up in one his vintage cars with a screech of tires and a big smile. He was a big smiler, but he never smiled as big as when he told of his F-15 ride. On the wall behind the Chief's desk is a picture of three F-15 flying formation through the Grand Canyon. The Chief would proudly point to the rear pilot in the two seater and ask, with a big smile, if the profile looks familiar. If you want the greatest speed rush that a high speed aircraft can deliver, fly it through the Grand Canyon. Way to go Chief!
Paul Settles Down

When I stopped traveling for Hughes Aircraft, I became a systems engineer developing avionic systems for Litton and GTE. During my ten years as a systems engineer, I meditated daily and developed sensitivity to many things. When the bottom fell out of the defense industry, I quit engineering to write a book on intuition - one of the things I had developed a sensitivity to. This was extremely challenging because my writing skills were so poor that I failed the remedial English final in college; I had to learn how to write. With the help of some wonderful friends I learned how to write. When the book was finished, I discovered that I now love writing. I wrote and published alternative health literature for a couple of years and then started a career as a contract technical writing.
Tech Writing

As a contract worker, I change companies often, about once a year. I enjoy this because I get to know so many people. In the area I live, there are people from many parts of the world. They are often the "cream of the crop" and very bright. I have made many friends and heard many stories of far away places. Usually, I work with software developers. Some are very strange people and some are very kind. My most favorite developer came to this country three years ago from St. Petersburg, Russia.
She has a marvelous way of speaking. For example, I asked her how to pronounce her last name, she said, "Oh it's impossible. In English it pronounces different every time." The beauty of this sentence may need to be explained. If you examine the sentence, you see that she has implied that even she can't pronounce it correctly, but she used "it" and thereby removed any responsibility for mispronouncing it. Here is a great picture of her and daughter taken by her husband:

My Friends

Friends have brought me the sweetest things life. I know I'm supposed to say lovers, but there are always some expectations with one's lovers that go unfulfilled. We don't expect as much from friends. Actually, a lot of the kindness we receive from friends is unexpected and that makes it all the more sweet.

At the workplace, people hang pictures of their kids and spouse, but I have pictures of these guys. From upper left clockwise: Laura(20), Andy(9), Audrey(16), Coleen(15), Larry(13), Nyna(16), Charles(6), David (forever), Larry(9), Patty(12), inner upper: Amy(10), Karen(14). The number in parentheses represents the years of friendship as of 1998. Yes, David in the Sunday school picture has grown. I feel it is important to mention that these are all platonic friends. Although there have been a number of wonderful lovers in my life, I feel that displaying a collection of such would demean me and them.
Laura

Laura changed her name from Bonnie to the utter confusion of all her friends. Here's some now: One of my favorite stories is how Bonnie and Roi met. Bonnie was over in Germany working as a teacher. One weekend she decided to help pick grapes at a local vineyard. While she was picking she met an American engineer, Roi. They started talking and it turned out that she had spent a year in Okinawa. When Roi heard "Okinawa", he jokingly said, "Then you must have met my old buddy, Paul Winter."
In shock, Bonnie responded, "Not only are we friends, but I just got a letter from him".
Andy

Andy and I worked together when I was a system's engineer. He got interested in gymnastics at a late age and accepted my invitation to try my high bar which he had so kindly helped install. He was a good student, but I'm afraid that he mostly learned that gymnastics was hard.
Audrey

One wonderful woman. A decade or two ago, I went to an amateur musicians get together. It was a large group of people who wanted to make music for the pure joy of it and not hassle with starting a band. Before we broke into groups to play, I noticed an attractive young lady and struck up a conversation. She was amazingly friendly and open, but she wasn't coming on to me. After ten minutes, she proposed we write a book together. It sounded like a good combination of skills, my imagination and her writing. We started to write a book together, but she moved about four hours away and we had to give up the project. Eventually, she gave me two weeks of her vacation (she is a school psychologist) and taught me how to write. I now make a living out of that skill.
Coleen

As I write this section, I just got back from a good motorcycle ride with Coleen. Her motorcycle is Pink. She hates the color, but I think it's cool. Coleen is one hell of a woman. Besides being an avid runner and bicycle rider, she raises horses in her spare time besides having a full time job. Her horses are amazing, they radiate love. Once, we went to visit a ranch that she had one of her horses. She only sells her super trained animals to good homes. Suddenly a horse came running down the dirt road towards us. I called out to Coleen, "A horse is loose." She said, "Relax, it's Snickers, they let her run loose." The horse she had raised loved people so much that it would just follow them around the ranch or run out to greet cars that came onto the ranch.
Larry Castel

I guess Larry is my gymnastics coach although I'm not sure I am going to build my gym in my new backyard. Spinning around with twenty rose bushes in close proximity doesn't bode well.
A couple of years ago Larry asked me to teach him to windsurf. Considering how much he had helped my gymnastics, I couldn't turn him down. Larry wanted to jump right into high wind sailing which requires a completely different and more difficult set of skills than those required by low wind sailing - how most people start off. Being an excellent gymnast helped a lot, but he took many many hard falls. Sometimes I would lose site of him out on the bay, but then I would notice a tremendous splash as if a cannon ball had hit the water and I would know that I had found him. Since then, he has become an excellent sailor and is now faster than I am. Curses.
Nyna
After 13 years of very hard work Nyna earned the right to be called Doctor of clinical psychology. Yep, Nyna is crazy. However, Nyna is a great friend. Near the end of her educational ordeal she called and said, "Paul I wanted to call you first because you helped me the most. I just finished the last sentence in my theses." I felt tremendously honored. Although, she worked full time while taking classes and went through a divorce at the same time, she still had time to care for her friends: Once in my life I was fired, for what I would call horsing around. My contract was up in only two days so it was actually more like a slap on the wrist, but it upset me none the less. Nyna called me everyday for a week to see if I was all right.
Once Nyna said, "Paul, you are the best friend I have ever had." I don’t think there is anything anyone could say to me that would make me feel better than those words.
Charles

Despite this party animal's Christmas card that Charles made, lower-right corner, with the simple caption read "Christmas Spirits," I am proud to know this fine young man. It would be hard to explain Charles' integrity if he wasn't a Big Brother. I am never impressed with the commitment people make to their children because that is a need they made for themselves. Charles is someone who realized the real needs that exist and extended his helping hand. Bravo Charles.
David
I met David when we were both wearing the same thing, dippers. We had all sorts of adventures as we grew. David is a great swimmer and bodysurfer so you know we almost drowned together on numerous occasions. We both became lifeguards at the same time, but went to different beaches. David's beach was more cool, but mine was closer. That difference may have set the stage for the differences in the rest of our lives.
We still get together once a year and climb something just like the old days. We did have a parting for a few years. He was living in a tent in the woods for most of that time and I thought that he was wasting his life. I don’t understand why I thought that except perhaps I was secretly jealous. He didn’t work, didn't have bills to pay. He just rock climbed. He eventually came in from the cold when he met Maureen. He lived with her without working for years. What a man! Maureen explains the experience. She would leave her house for work. David would still be in bed. She would return after a hard days work to find David still in bed. "So what did you do today David?" "Thinking."
Eventually Maureen got David a job at the company where she is an executive. David replaced the warehouse man. You must understand that David is an artist and loves large works. He hired two other guys to do the warehouse work and started on some huge paintings using the forklift to reach the upper sections. What a man!
Larry Graves
AKA Mr. Fly guy. I met Larry when I was working on an aircraft project for GTE. I had been on the project from the beginning and Larry joined about three years into it. At first he had a lot of questions. Three months later, I was coming to him with questions. He loves flying and became an instructor pilot when the bottom fell out of the defense industry. Unfortunately, it didn't pay very well so he went into the corporate world where I imagine he scared the pants off his bosses who were sure he would have their job in another three months. The only thing I don’t like about Larry is he can be modest. At his house, I noticed two plaques that read, National AAU Flying Champions. "What the hell is this Larry?" I exploded. "Oh, I coached the San Jose State flying team for a couple of years, no bigee." "Oh?" says I, "And did they ever win the Nationals before that?" "No." said Larry sheepishly. In October 2003, Larry sent me the following photo.

The subject of the e-mail was "Why I Fly" I guess that says it all.
Patty (stirring the pot)
You got to love Patty. I don't know why. OK OK, maybe its the care she displays or the great story telling. How about her stories of being in the Peace Core in the middle east where women are not allowed to show their legs and all she had was some rain gear. Yep, it's 110 in the shade and Patty is wearing a rain coat and boots. If you don’t want to laugh till you cry, forget Patty. But, if you want one of the sweetest and concerned friends, Patty is the best.
Amy (white sweater)
Amy claims that I was her first engineering boss. This might explain why she left engineering. About a week after she started working for me, she came into my office and said that she hear that I had volunteered for the crummy job she was doing and wanted to know why she was doing it instead of me. I explained that if you want control over something, you volunteer to do it then claim that you need help. When the help comes, you explain what they need to do and of course it is your way. She said, "Oh." A few days later a young guy came into my office and asked me how I wanted some detail handled on that project. That afternoon, I saw Amy in the hall. "Amy, I talked to Dan this morning." "Oh." replied Amy cautiously. "You learn fast" I told her. "I had a good teacher" she replied.
Amy left engineering to get her MBA from Stanford and never looked back. After spending some time in Poland trying to help bring capitalism to that poor country, she started her own company which she sold to some big conglomerate and is now a management consultant making way too much money. All inspired by her first boss. OK, the truth is that nobody tells Amy what to do since her first boss did once, just once.
Karen (SCUBA babe)
Karen is a bit of a super nerd. The problem is she has with a Ph.D. in superconductivity. You would think that such a person would have their head so full of equitions that she wouldn't know what day it was. But, Karen is the most dependable person I have ever known. If she can't keep a date and can't get a hold of you, someone one will show up at the meeting place and ask if you're Paul Winter, then tell you why Karen can't make it. My favorite story about Karen relates to the two years it took for her to find that she had Giardia. The doctors at Kaiser had her do the Giardia test the wrong way so they eliminated that possibility. When Karen went to a chiropractor she learned the correct way to perform the test and learned the truth. She told a friend that she had been struggling with, Giardia. " Giardia?" he exclaimed, "I had that once and it wiped me out. How come you aren't flat on your back?" To which Karen answered with her incredible accuracy and brevity, "too stubborn."
Karen and I are swimming buddies. Every week for the past 14 years we swim together at a local pool, have dinner, and take a walk. After all those dinners and walks we still have tons of stuff to talk about. Perhaps it's because Karen is a walking encyclopedia. For example, Charles started dating a Hmong woman who descended from a little known ethnic group located in China. I tried to locate some information about them on the web. I found Hmong clubs, but no history or background of any kind. I called up Karen, "Oh yes, very interesting people. Most of them settled in Wyoming or some God forsaken place like that. There were a number of suicides relating to their excessive superstitions."
Newer Friends

Since that group graphic didn't capture all of my friends.....
Steve Hay
Here is the man's man. Steve has some how continued to maintain his youthful toughness by working out consistantly and remaining very active dispite having a family and a business to run. Here he is on a "Steve" vacation (one where he leaves that family behind).

My Book

As a result of my seeking, I discovered a technique that allows almost anyone to access their intuition. I left engineering to write the book. I found a publisher for my book, but we soon had a falling out. I now understand why everyone says, "don;t get a publisher get an agent." I reorganized the book based on suggestions from that publisher's editors and had some friends give it a few more edits. My move of '98 really set back the publication process, but I hope to get back on that road soon.
New Careers

After my discoveries had stimulated my writing, I realized that I needed more time to write. I decided to change my profession again.
Hypnotherapy
I took some classes and became a certified hypnotherapist. The classes and the practice were fascinating and gave me more material to write about, but it was difficult to make a living with hypnotherapy.
Writing for Money
I decided to turn my passion into a pay check and started contract technical writing. The contract style of working usually required less than 40 hours a week and gave me a couple of months off a year. I wound up with more money and more time to work on my own writing projects. Can you tell I love to write? Can you tell I need practice?
Dancing
Although this is not any way to make money, I love to dance. This love was instilled in me at an early age when my parents would go dancing three or four times a week. They would leave my sister and I with my grandfather who was way cool and let us stay up and watch TV shows we didn't even know existed. I stared loving dance even before my first steps.
As I grew, I started going to the local youth dances. I still remember my face being stuck to the hair stray of some complete stranger while other parts were stuck to other parts for different reasons. My God what those girls had in mind, I was all for.
In New York, you could get into a bar at 18. I found some no-nonsense bars that had dancing in the back. These rooms were usually for banquets so they could hold a ton of girls. Funny, I never noticed the guys. Once, that messed up my jaw for a while.
As I matured, the music seemed to get lauder and lauder. Eventually, I couldn't stand the clubs. No room to move and so laud, my shirt would vibrate to the bass notes. I stopped dancing in public and pretty much all together.
Then one day, years latter, everything changed. A friend told me about barefoot boogies. Uncoupled freestyle dancing to world rhythms and reasonable volume. I was hooked from the first night. I invited friends, but they had trouble dancing this style. I showed them a few moves and they kept saying how well I explained things.
I had a place to dance on Monday night, but one a week wasn't enough. I found a small barefoot boogie on Friday nights, but they didn't attach enough people to keep going. I volunteered to help attract people and before I knew it, I was instructing the new folks. Eventually. I became a DJ, but I really just want to dance in this free style. Now I teach it and call it Energy Dance.
I never understood how DJs can watch people dance and not want to join in. They stand up there and just go through their CDs and almost never dance a step. I soon realized that a lot of DJs don't dance. How can they know what to play if they don't dance? I want to dance all the time so I put my mix onto CDs at home. At the dance, I just let the music roll.
I Settle Down Again

After twenty five years of energy work and 15 years of writing about alternative health, I decided to go to the source and flee the insanity. In 2007, I moved to the Sedona area of Arizona, the energy capital of the US. It has been an amazing time. I felt like I had come home, but there was another reason to leave California. It has to due with the fact that global warming is a misnomer. It is solar system warming.

Dr Sallie Baliunas at the Harvard College Observatory in Massachusetts, concluded that during the 20th century, earth went through a cycle of natural climatic change. According to her data, from 1900 to 1940 the planet warmed slightly, then cooled from 1940 until 1970, then warmed up again from 1970 onwards. Given that 80% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions have been produced since 1940, the expected effect, if carbon dioxide was causing global warming, would be higher temperatures not lower, she said.

Dr Baliunas's data also concluded that the period of warming between 1900 and 1940 must have been due to natural causes, most likely increased sunlight hitting the earth's surface, since carbon dioxide emissions were negligible at the time. The evidence, she said, pointed to variations in the sun's brightness being the cause of the planet's warming up, not carbon dioxide.

If you have read the most important page on this web site, The Sun Is Freaking Out
and Now More Cosmic Dust, you know that during the period 2003 to 2013, our solar system is entering a more and more dense could of cosmic dust. This will cause the sun to become increasingly dynamic and cause severe weather and increases in earthquakes and volcanoes. The severe weather is my major concern. The levees in northern California could not handle must abuse. If they break in a couple of spots, drinking water could disappear.

Almost the End of Paul

In November of 1997, Steve, Charles, and I headed down La Honda way to catch some waves. Steve and Charles had those foam boogie boards. I was the fins-only bodysurfing representative. As a bodysurfer I can get out through surf faster because I can go under waves and actually ride the undertow. Boogieboarders can’t get very deep so every wave pushes them a bit back. They do have the major advantage of flotation and can usually grab air to breathe even in the white water.

The Power of the Northern California Coast
When we got to the coast, the waves looked big. I've gotten out through bigger although I was in better shape then. We suited up and thanked El Nyno for warm water. I picked a perfect time to swim out and everything went well. I dove deep under the first few waves and rode the undertow that runs about a foot off the bottom. When I got past the foam (about 250 yards out), I thought I was past the impact zone and started catching my breath. To my utter anguish, I saw a huge wall of water (7' front) appear out of nowhere about 200 feet further out. I swam toward it as fast as I could, but it broke about 50 feet in front of me. I dove down, but not far enough and it grabbed me. It wasn’t much of a tumble, but when I broke the surface, the water was too turbulent to get any purchase. I was in the impact zone and a huge set was lining up.
I thought, OK stay calm you can take a couple of these monsters, just go deep right before they hit to reduce your time in the white water. A bodysurfer can’t get to the air in the white water. Things got really rough after that first wave. I just couldn't get out of the impact zone before another huge wave tumbled me and pushed me back across the few yards I had fought for. When the forth wave came, I didn't think I could take another. Already my involuntary reflexes were pumping air up from my stomach. That isn't great stuff to breath :) but it does have some oxygen content.
When I finally broke the surface after the forth wave, gasping and trying to hyperventilate, I expected to see a flat ocean. Most big sets are only three waves. No such luck. There was a fifth wave and it was even bigger. This picture (unknown photographer) captures the power that these waves were letting me sample:

I really thought that was it. I distinctly remembering that it wasn’t so bad dyeing with my swim fins on instead of in a nursing home. I thought of the great life I had and all the wonderful people I had known and I was at peace.
Just before the fifth wave was on me, I once again went deep. Passing out from lack of oxygen is much more pleasant than having your back broken. Weak from effort and lack of oxygen, I didn't have much change of getting very far under such a large wall of white water. The higher the wall above the water line, the deeper the turbulent white water penetrates. Underwater, I heard the wave thunderous impact and then it had me. I pulled into a ball to reduce the wave's ability to carry me along in the white water. This wave had so much energy that I was being bounced up and down like a ball.
There are surfers that will tell you that when things get rough, they can't tell which way the surface is. I guess they don't enjoy breathing as much as I do. I always know which way the surface is. And it paid off. One of the up bounces was extremely powerful and even though the water was still very turbulent (to make an understatement) I decided to come out of my ball and try for a gulp of air. At the apex of the bounce, I cuped my hands over my mouth to filter out any water and tried for a breath. I got it. It was only one gasp and it had some salt water in it, but I wasn't going to cough one molecule of that most wonderful breath. Anyway what is a little water in my lungs when I already had about a quart in my sinuses.
When most swimmers go up-side-down in the water, they blow air out of their noses to prevent water from getting in. When bodysurfing, you can't spare the air so you must allow the water to go into your nose and not gag or sneeze. So now you have some idea of how incredible it feels to drop down the face of a wall of water and master such violence. We put up with a lot for that thrill and it always seems worth it.
Getting through that huge fifth wave gave me the impetus to get through the sixth and as unbelievable as it may sound the seventh and final wave of the set. I could barely move, but I knew I had to get out of the impact zone before another big set hit. Normally, I would swim out till I was sure I was out past any breaking waves, but I had been fooled once. I made the wrong decision. With arms of lead and no oxygen reserve I swam for shore. Even though it was technically the wrong decision, I got lucky. The waves I had to swim through remained small. I took the pounding of these smaller wave with disdain. I called them wimps and continued to swim through their white water, but they too deprive me of air for surprising long periods. My fear returned more than once on that long swim in, but then I realized I was no longer in water over my head.
When I finally reached the shallows, I could hardly stand. Steve and Charles were nowhere around. As I rose up from a foot of water the blood rushed to my feet. I thought, stupid blood my lungs and brain are up here. I felt like I might pass out and drowned right there in a foot of water. I had to get to high ground and fast, but my legs were so weak that walking the slight incline felt like climbing Mt. Everest. The seas were so high that the entire beach was being washed with water from the larger waves. There really wasn't any beach and I was feeling very dizzy. I saw a big log and headed in its direction.
When I sat down, I felt for sure I would pass out, fall off the log and drown in six inches of water. Instead, I sat there and thought how effective a brush with death is in getting one's perspective back on track. I have a great life and friends I love. I thought I should tell them how wonderful they make me feel every time I almost kill myself. So I did. The above story went out to my friends by email and post. It caused wonderful responses of "welcome back to the living," and "we would miss you dearly, cut that out!"
Despite the heartfelt requests, I'm still riding the waves, but I heard of a new technique for catching waves after they break - new tricks for old dogs. I like that.
One Final Mystery Uncovered
I don't sell anything, but I found black and white proof that the National Cancer Institute (NCI)) falsified their test results of a safe cancer/viral treatment. NCI gets $2 billion of our tax money each year until they find a cure for cancer, so finding the cure would be the end of their comfortable jobs. That might explain their duplicity. If you:

Have trouble getting rid of any kind of viral infection (like I used to)

Want to be safe from cancer

Want to treat cancer

this may be the most valuable information you ever read:
The Alternative Cancer Treatment Comparison and Testing web site.

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