Well, we're still working out the kinks of this message board, but in the meantime, here is a place where you can sign our virtual 'guestbook'. You can post a message here (no need to register) and include who you are, how you came to our site, your opinion on the ideas presented here . . . really, anything you'd like.

Thanks for visiting CenterTao.org!

Luke

Hi. i'm Kyle Abbott.

At the moment I?m fourteen and living in Santa Cruz Ca. I've been barefoot for all my life, I hear everyone ask me "aren't your feet cold?" MAN!, I get so sick of it, when people see me barefoot it's like a UFO sighting, little kids say stuff like "hah hah! that kid's not wearing shoes! It's funny because that kid's not wearing shoes!".

I've got some ducks named, Buddy, Maggie, and Ducky.

I?m the main mandolin player of the family, at some gigs I play my mandolin behind my back on some songs. In fact, I'm a Mandolin picking, guitar flatpicking, banjo frailing, bass thumping, Shakuhachi blowing, Koto plucking, Shamisen strumming, semi-singin' Fry Daddy.

One of my favorite hobbies is archery, I like to shoot two arrows at once, and also shoot from our balcony. I don?t practice knife throwing too much any more. I used to do "whip-cracking", in other words, setting up targets and knocking them off one by one with my whip. I stopped for a few months (meaning a few years).

One of my favorite things to do is to fish on the wharf. I mainly catch surfperch (usually walleye perch), Jack-smelt, rock-fish, kingfish, octopus, sand-dab and Sculpin. I don't eat Sculpins 'cause not only are they spiny and bony, they are venomous scorpion fish. I'm hoping to catch a Ling-cod and Halibut.

I am learning Chinese, Mandarin to be specific, my chinese name (Qing-shan)

By the way, you don't have to read this if it's boring for you.

The top three favorite books is Dune, The Dig and Stephen K. Hayes's Ninjitsu books.

I?m great at annoying people too but I only summon that power when only absolutley necessary or if I'm feeling good.

I practice Sumi-e (Japenese brush painting)

Well... I guess that's about it.

Looking to add joy and fulfillment to your dull, dull life? Well look no further! Check out Kyle Abbott's Web Pit Stop!
http://www.playingbyear.com/kyle/

Good choice of smilies! Yes this thread is pretty pathetic but I started it before there was anything on the site.

I can remove it if enough people complain, but I haven't heard anything yet.

Welcome Bao Pu. Alas, we have some unusually hectic circumstances around here this month so haven't keep on top of things as I may do otherwise. Anyway, we're very happy to have a fellow 'path-man' chiming in.

Hello Abbott Family!! This is Kate Currier (I know you know who I am) and Jeff Thompson (I know you know him, too). We have visited your site on your mother's suggestion and love it! Hard to believe you have been designing websites since you were 7, Luke, but we all know you are a smart man. I hope you are all having fun with Vickie, sounds like a good time so far. Looking forward to speaking with all of you once it's all over! Jeff wants to give you a quote, so I am going to turn the reins over to him. In the meantime, have fun, keep breathing, and Kyle, I hate shoes myself, so I would never laugh at you or ask if your feet were cold. Just so's you know. Here's Jeff: Here's a quote for you. "Man takes the simple things in life and tries to complicate them to fit his needs. It is because of this complication that man has turned away from Nature and from spiritual things. That is why we should always seek the simplicity. Simplify, and life becomes real." -Stalking Wolf (as told by Tom Brown Jr.) Be Well.

Luke,
Discourse on the concept of simplicity is intrinsically complicated. That said(!), let me offer this idea: "Your attitude is an aperature for your talent to work through". -Bill Howey
Translated to fit our terms, that essentially means one can do what one sets one's mind to. In other words, simplicity is as "difficult" or "improbable" as one makes it.
I'll leave you with the abridged version of Occam's Razor: Given a list of all possible solutions to a problem, the simplest explanation is probably correct.

To the Abbot Unit:
I hope your week, collectively, was educational and more importantly, tons of fun for all.
All Good Medicine,
Jeff Thompson

Don't sweat it, Jeff.

Re: simplicity is complicated. What is the hardest thing to contemplate? Nothing. Our brains are great at imagining things . . . stuff, action, Something. But we're not biologically set up to think about yin stuff very well. Thus, we can't help but throw complexity into the mix, mmm?

Jeff Thompson:

. . . one can do what one sets one's mind to. In other words, simplicity is as "difficult" or "improbable" as one makes it.

Of course, this doesn't mean that I can 'tackle' simplicity easily by just 'willing' myself to. Sure, it's a function of your attitude, but that's not something you can change on a whim...

Finally, on behalf of the rest of the unit, I can say that it was both those things. Papa calls it an adventure/vacation.

Luke

P.S. - You should register! In fact, both of you should! That'll push our registered user count all the way to 27!

Well keberhardt, I must admit, vid-game does improve hand-eye coordination. . . To a point of course.

Keep on the fiddle and you, Karen (on Dobro), your son and Lloyd can form a band!

Tell Lloyd that Playing By Beer is going strong!

I'm Connie. I got here by following a link posted on a forum talking about your trading spouses thing.

I've read almost everything on your site and am so glad I did. Your family seems so friendly and normal compared to how TS wants to portray it. I would never have thought a reality show could twist reality so drastically. I've decided I don't want to be on their show after all. If they could take a sweet family like yours and convince the public you guys are crazy, I don't want to see what they would do to my family!

I'm a Greek Orthodox Christian and a homeschool mom. I distrust all branches of government and am afraid of down escalators. I'm a Dallas Cowboys fanatic, and I have all of Mark Chesnutt's CDs.

I checked out your web site Luke, it seems you need help with spelling.
Frusterating is spelled Frustrating. Integrety is spelled Integrity.

Hi, Im Matt, and From Pennsylvania. I am an engineer for a mechanical construction company.....Air Conditioning and Mechanical Controls. Its fun.

My free time is spent hiking in the mountains in the summer and fall, and skiing in the winter...should we get any snow any time soon.

I IM'd Luke and he responded. Pretty exciting.

I hope you guys aren't too fired up over the show....we all know they edit those things to craft a "Reality" that makes for entertaining TV. Both of the families seemed really nice and well centered on what is really important out there. The truth is that makes for boring TV, doesnt it? Fox needs people to keep watching their shows, so obviously they are going to take differences in people, no matter how slight, and exagerate them into "Good TV."

I'll be cruising this website to see what else it has to offer.

unclebob:

btw Kyle .. aren't your feet cold ? LOL I'm a barefooter too and I get that all the time or even better "you know you aren't wearing shoes ??" well duh.

First things first, I'm Evan from Boston MA, 19 years old, came to this site via FOX's site. I went to FOX's community to read reactions on TS and found this site. I read the reactions here, and Luke and Carl's reactions on their site (I was flabbergasted to see that the 'crazy family' has the internet!) and now that I am schooled in the fact that FOX twists what they want, the Abbotts aren't crazy to me anymore!

Anyhoo, Luke and Kyle ... if you lived in Boston, there is no way you would allow yourself to go barefoot in January and February. You could try, but you'd get pneumonia all the time. Be thankful you live in Santa Cruz. I was actually in SC this summer, I went to Anaheim and SF for two weeks and popped into SC for a couple of hours. Yeah, a lot better than Boston ...

I'm happy to have found your site and read a bit more about your family.

I am a bluegrass fan, and I wanted to say that I really enjoyed the scenes on TS where we got to see and hear you play. You can really pick up a storm, and I loved the four-part harmony. I'm just over the hill from you, so I hope we can get to one of your gigs sometime.

I'm also a writer for a reality TV website. We meet to watch and make fun of reality shows on a regular basis. Most of us have heard mountains of stories about reality TV editing, and I can say that most people take the odd spliced sentences with a grain of salt.

It's interesting to me how hard they tried to force a storyline here. But I thought it was very revealing when Vickie could not stand being in the redwoods. To me, someone who can't feel any connection to nature while standing in a forest is more unusual than a family who likes to go around barefoot. Her reaction seemed extreme, and no one was making her scream when a leaf fell on her or anything.

I enjoyed reading your site. Take care, and don't let the TV turkeys get you down.

Thanks, Buddy, that is me. I cover other shows, mostly the Big Brother live feeds in the summer. I was covering My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss but had to give it up due to time constraints. Glad you enjoy the recaps.

To Carl, Luke, Kyle and Leslie, I hope you aren't offended by my recap of the show. I'm obligated to recap what was shown on the show. I try to make up for it by throwing in a few hints about the heavy-handed editing.

Having said that, though, most members of our site have seen enough "reality" shows to know better than to accept what's shown as the unadulterated truth. You would be welcome on our site if you want to visit and give your perspective on the show. We're a PG-13 site, and we don't allow flaming of other members (which would include you, if you register and join) so pretty much we attract good people interested in discussion.

Hi, Luke!

It's a funny thing; some families don't really inspire much interest in finding out the real truth, but it seemed to me that a lot of people were interested in finding out more about your family.

I put a post up pointing to your site, and advised people they can find out more about you here. You would certainly be welcomed over there, but I completely understand if you don't. People can certainly make the effort to click on a link if they want to learn more. (Well, you'd think so, at least!)

When I took on recapping this show, I guess I didn't know what I was getting in to. Personally, the only reality shows I like are the competition ones, like Survivor and Big Brother. I certainly didn't expect that I would care about anyone personally on a reality show - on shows like Survivor, those people definitely want to be there and are competing for money.

But I find myself getting more and more upset with the heavy-handed editing and the way they seek out families they think will be laughed at or thought of as "weird". I made a commitment, so I'm stuck here for now.

I wish you guys all the best, and one of these days I'll walk up to you at a bluegrass gig and say Hi.

Hello Abbotts! I know you all from jamming and such. Being also interested in Taoism, I came to this site as soon as I realized that you and the Taoist center were connected. And yet, it took a silly TV show to actually get me to register and post here. Go figure.

...before he died, that is

another similar one I like: 'Catch the fire before it catch you'-Bob Marley

I'm Buddy1 & I'm a Tao forum addict...

because you might not be around tomorrow to do it
in which case it would be ok to wait if it was something you didn't want to do

I thought it was "Why put off something until tomorrow that you can put off altogether"

that's my motto anyway.....

Here's one. It takes more muscles to frown than to smile. I don't find tthat true 'cause it does take more muscles to smile than to not smile. . . . that's why I don't smile much.

Exactly! Although usually a dumb look involves the mouth agape and I don't gape my mouth. I think it takes more than 17 muscles to smile but I'm not sure.

And besides, sitting doesn't have anything to do with smiling!