It's A Small World #2

I graduated from high school in May of 1980, just over a whopping 27 years ago.

I worked at a couple of jobs, and to make things shorter, by 1986 Lovely Wife and I and Number One Daughter moved to the Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas area.

We lived there from 1986-1989 and I was working for Delta Air Lines.

I can't tell you how much I loved that job and that company, but in the beginning it was pretty hard. The work was very physically demanding and the heat in Texas in the summer can be quite incredible. Add to the heat having to work outside on concrete and it was a wonder that we didn't all end up with heat exhaustion.

At the time, Delta hired all employees as temporary part-time employees. After a couple of years, they would generally offer you a position that was "permanent full-time" with all benefits and a small raise, etc. Becoming "permanent" was the holy grail of all temporary part-time employees.

In February of 1988, several of us tpt's with the most seniority were told that we would be moved into Cabin Service in March of 1988 and made permanent employees.

On one of my last days as a tpt, temporary part-time, I had worked a day shift on the ramp. We would work our shift on one gate and unload and then reload cargo and luggage on the plane and send it out on it's next leg. In an 8 hour shift, we would typically work five flights on our gate.

Anyway, on this one day, as I was leaving to go home after work, I decided to cut through the flight attendants staging area and break room to get to the air trans that would take me out to the employee parking lot we had to park in.

Just a few days before, in addition to finding out that I was to finally become a permanent employee (with health insurance!), Lovely Wife had found out she was pregnant with Number Two Daughter. So I was pretty happy, things were looking up.

I opened the door to the flight attendants big break room where they waited for their next flight and as I cut through the room, a young lady stood up and stepped toward me.

Could have knocked me over with a feather. It was a girl that I had graduated from Neville High School in Monroe, Louisiana with.

She had seen me walking toward their break room through the windows and had recognized me.

We stood and talked for ten minutes or so, catching up. I hadn't seen her since the night we graduated from high school almost eight years earlier.

See, Linda was one of the beautiful people in high school. Very sweet, but way up the social scale from me. Dance team, gorgeous, the total package. (That's a pic of her from our high school days.)

After we caught up with one another's lives, I went on my way.

In thinking on things, I was totally amazed that two people from another state crossed one another's paths years later and in such a strange location.

Linda had been a flight attendant for Delta for a number of years, and was still single.

If I remember correctly, she wasn't even based in Dallas, which made our encounter even more unlikely.

I know that stranger things have happened, and that stranger meetings happen all the time, just not to me.

A few years later, when talking to another friend who had attended my graduating class's tenth reunion, he told me that Linda had attended and that she was living in California and was married.

So I hope that Linda has had a good life. I remember being amazed at all the time had passed since graduation, but my chance encounter with her in the bowels of DFW Airport was NINETEEN YEARS ago now.

Incredible.

Well, that's my story. It was just one of those rare "It's a small world" things that actually happened to me. Like I said, I was reeling from the thought of eight years having gone by since I had last seen her, and now nineteen years has gone by since then.

Have you ever chanced upon someone you once knew, years later, and in an unlikely location?

Why I Blog

Twice in the past couple of weeks, and several times over the life of this blog, folks have left comments wondering about my claim to want to be invisible, yet having this blog out there, and putting personal things on it.

Over time, I've pretty much bared my soul on this blog. I've talked about the dichotomy of wanting to be an invisible wall flower, yet putting some very personal things on a blog for all the world to see. But like I said recently, I think that even the most introverted poeple in the world, at some level, want to have something out there that says, "I lived!" or "I was here, and my name ain't Killroy!"

But most of the time, I just want to put down some stories of my life. When the family is all together and say, watching TV, that's not the time to relate to them a story from my past. The right time for certain stories never seems to come around, yet the original reason for this blog, for me, was to put some things down in writing so that if I got hit by a bus or something, at least some of my thoughts and some of the things I have experienced in my life would be there for my family to read.

I'm shy about opening up, even to, and sometimes especially to, the ones I love the most.

A moment may appear, a metaphorical parting of the clouds, and instead of taking advantage, I keep my trap shut, and the moment passes. I've missed my opportunity to share something of my life. That not only hurts me, but it leaves my family with less of me than they could have.

If I could state one and only one reason for having this blog, I'd say it was because of something Don C. (my father) once said to me.

See, he was a quiet man too. And he died in October of 1994.

Many, many times over the years since his death, I've not only had lots of things I wish I could tell him; a joke, something one of the girls did, etc., but I also have had so many questions come up that I'd like to ask him about his life.

Once, years ago, this would have been in the early 1990s when the Summer Olympics were held in Barcelona, Spain, Lovely Wife, Numbers One and Two Daughters and I had come to Louisiana from Georgia to visit with both of our families.

When we were at my parents house, I was telling Don C. about some of the funny things that a room full of men at work yells at the TV during the Olympics. It was like being around teenage boys again, everyone feeding of each other, trying to "out funny" each other.

For example, one guy turned the air in the break room blue with his cussing when he was told that the man on TV right now was the King of Spain. He didn't believe it. "Where's his ^*&%^*$&&^ crown?! I want to see his %^##(_)*) crown!"

Anyway, so Don C. and I were talking about the Olympics, and they were showing various parts of the city of Barcelona on TV.

That sparked something in Don C. and he started talking about Barcelona. Turns out that when he was in the US Navy in the mid 1950s, the destroyer that he was on was one of the first US ships allowed into a Spanish port in X number of years.

He began to talk about what it was like for a country boy from Louisiana to be in the Mediterranean and what Barcelona was like from his point of view.

There was a story that he used to tell us from time to time about something funny that happened between he and some ship mates and some British seamen aboard an adjacently moored ship.

Turns out that story happened in port in Barcelona.

Anyway, I don't remember a whole lot of detail about what he said about his experiences in Barcelona, I was just revelling in the fact that Don C. had opened up and talked to me about some things in his past. A rare occurrence, believe me.

I know that I don't open up and unload all of my memories on my family, the time is rarely right, but by putting myself and my stories out here on this blog, which I eventually told my family about having started, they can come here and read what I've said about things that are important, funny, sad, and personal to me.

Yeah, it's 180 degrees out of phase with my desire to be anonymous, but I don't want my wife and daughters to not have many of my childhood memories and thoughts on important subjects just because I couldn't open up to them.

And that, my friends, is why I do this.

It ain't easy. And I don't care if my spelling is perfect, or if I want to use no-no words like ain't or to spell something phonetically instead of correctly. In the end, grammar and spelling matter so little when compared to truly important things in life, that it's hard for me to believe anyone cares about them. At least where blogging is concerned; it's easy to miss a mistake with things like affect vs effect and things like that, so I just do my best, and don't worry about the mistakes I miss.

I'm hoping that, one day when I'm gone, that my family will appreciate the fact that I just wrote this stuff out at all, and will forgive me the occasional misspelled word or grammar mistake. Heck, language changes all the time anyway, so why get riled up about something with so little meaning?

Plus, what one person in this world doesn't have things going on within them that are at odds with one another?

The answer is, there isn't a person like that.

WE ALL HAVE THINGS OPERATING IN OUR LIVES THAT ARE OPPOSED TO ONE ANOTHER. ALL OF US.

Thursday Thirteen #40

13 Top Google Searches For "John Needs _____" Idea shamelessly stolen from Our Seven Qtpies. Go to Google, type in "your first name needs" and report the results. The meme is supposed to be the first 10 results, but I'm making it a Thursday Thirteen by taking the first 13 results. 1. Strange News: 'John' Needs Operation After Hooker Bites Penis For Non-Payment. It wasn't me. I swear. 2. John needs your bone marrow. I hate vampires. Blood is never enough for those suckers. 3. John nees to get his patootie back here. From a forum post. I hate the word "patootie." It's forever linked with Rosie O'Donnell, and therefore stained. 4. My Life's Work: John needs… Another blog doing this very meme. Go figure. 5. John Needs Help: AnimeNation Anime Forums A guy named John who has a Ask John thingy on an anime forum, is himself asking for help. Even egg heads need help now and then. 6. Vimeo / John Needs More Paper. A video of a guy trying to use newspaper and duct tape to cover his patio table. Oooo-kay. 7. Sex, Lies, and Scandals, The Private Life Of John C. Wu: Some guys old blog. No recent entries. 8. See Me As Your Brother…John Needs Your Help Please: Kind of like the Nigerian Lottery Email Scam, only different. A dying man wants you to help him distribute his fortune. 9. Flickr: Photos from John Needs New Ideas. A guy's Flickr photo site. I'm not a big fan of Flickr, the pics are too small. 10. OH-16: John Boccieri Called To Service Again / Buckey State Blog: Best I can tell, an Ohio state senator being put forward to run for US Senate. Snore. 11. 'John' Needs Operation After Hoooker Bites Penis For Non-Payment: Same story as #1, on a different site. It still wasn't me. I swear. 12. Late For The Sky, John Needs, John Wants, John Gets: A guy named John's blog post about this very meme. 13. Berwick Today News - John needs help to find late mother's ring: Cool story. A guy in England buries his mother's ring in the place where she used to love to sit and enjoy a view. Apparently someone with a metal detector found it an dug it up, he went to the place and there were holes dug all around, and the ring was gone. He appeals to have it returned. Yeah, that'll happen. The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

8 Things Meme

I was tagged by Lady G at A Glance Into My World to do the 8 Things About Me meme. I do memes in my own way.

I recently did one of 7 things, but here goes.

Here how this works:
1-Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.

2- People who are tagged, write a blog spot about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.

3- At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.

4- Don't forget to leave a comment and tell them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

Remember how I said I do memes in my own way? Well, I don't tag people. If you want to do this one, consider yourself tagged and have at it, OK?

1. I think pineapple on pizza is an abomination.

2. I hate it when I answer the phone, and a computer tells me I'm on hold because all of their telemarketers are busy. OK, moron, YOU called ME. Yeah, like I'm gonna hang on hold for that. I hate talking on the phone anyway.

3. I try to always chew with my mouth shut. If alone, I sometimes break this rule. I then punish myself with something difficult like taking a nap, or…

4. I still like to open the car door for my wife, IF she doesn't beat me to it. (She's quicker than me.)

5. I make it a point to leave the toilet seat down when I'm through. I'm not perfect about this, but darn close. But I've always wondered, what's the big deal? One flick of your finger and gravity will do it for you if you happen to find a toilet seat up. How hard is that? And it only takes about 3/4 of a second.

6. When I was young, I liked to draw, and could copy things really well, but couldn't make the leap to, say, drawing a real person's face.

7. I have to use Sensodyne toothpaste for my cold/hot sensitive teeth. Even though the other brands supposedly have the same active ingredient, Sensodyne is the ONLY one that works for me. Every time I've tried other brands, my sensitivity comes back within two weeks. Grrr.

8. My paternal grandmother, whom we called Mamaw Eunice, loved to eat calf brains in eggs, and also ate squirrel brains. Hence, I NEVER, EVER, EVER ate eggs at her house.

If you want to do this, then you're tagged. Blame me. I'm used to it.

A Sleep Report

Warning: Boring Sleep Number bed report.

It's still too early to declare total victory, but Lovley Wife and I are loving our sleep number bed.

We usually only spend that kind of money on luxuries instead of something useful, we're true Americans in that regard, but Lovely Wife keeps saying while laying there, "This bed is SO comfortable." I feel the same way, and for the first time in several years look forward to going to bed.

One of the main reasons we chose this bed is it's ability to be two beds in one, I can dial in my side to be pretty firm, "80" is my setting so far, and Lovely Wife can have her side softer, "55" is her number so far.

We chose the middle-of-the-line 5000 series, and it has a pillow top, something we've never had in a mattress.

I can have my side nice and firm, and yet feel like I'm laying on a cloud as well. Kind of a wierd thing, but true.

I usually feel pressure on my hips and shoulders but I don't with this bed. I think I sleep much longer in certain positions because of this. Before, pain in my hips or shoulders would wake me and I'd turn over, and although I still turn some at night, it seems to be because I want to, and not because my hips or shoulders demand it.

Because of my back, the only ways I can sleep are on my left or right side, not on stomach or back. So not having pressure point pain wake me up to turn over is nice.

I think I'm sleeping a bit better overall too. I definitely feel more rested, though I still don't want to get up in the morning. That may be due to other issues though. I think I have sleep apnea and by the end of the day I'm dragging.

When we first got the bed, after only three nights of sleep on it, I could definitely tell that the nerve damage pain I usually feel in my left leg was greatly diminished. I just realized that I was walking more normally, and not limping nearly as much. Then we went out of town for a couple of nights, and the hotel bed had my back aching and my leg hurting with each step again.

Now that I've had another three consecutive nights on the bed again, I noticed much less leg pain again, and I can only guess it's the bed. It's the only thing different in my life right now, and otherwise the shooting leg pain was pretty much a constant thing, with every step.

I'll shut up about this now, but I hope that as time progresses, that I'll have at least a bit more improvement in my back and leg pain due to the bed. I'll let y'all know more as time goes on.

I thought about this bed for several years, but the price tag put us off. But like one mattress commercial says, you spend a third of your life in bed, so buy a good one. We finally have done that and are cautiously optimistic that it will have even more benefits for us in the long run.

For now, it's just nice to hurt less and enjoy how darn comfortable this bed is, oh, and to be off the floor after three years of sleeping there.

Memorial Day 2007

I've been going through one of those periods of life where I seem to be hanging on by my fingernails.

One day after another, just gettin' by.

The Bible has a verse which, when I was a kid confused me and never could figure out what it was trying to say. Jesus said, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

When I was older, it hit me. "Each day has enough evil of it's own. Don't waste time worrying about yesterday or tomorrow." (John's Louisiana Public School Literal Translation)

So here I am to try to write a Memorial Day post without having thought for even two seconds about what I was going to write. Instead of stressing and freaking out, this is one of my shoot-from-the-hip posts I've been having to do lately.

If you serve in the US military, or are in the family of one or more of our brave service men and women serving right now. God bless you, and thank you for your service and sacrifice for our country.

If you have served in the past or know or have a family member who was injured or died in service to America in the military, God bless you and thanks for your service and may God comfort you for your lost friends or loved ones.

God Bless America!

Photo: That picture up top is a slide I took in The National Cememtery Of The Pacific, in Punchbowl Crater above Honolulu in November of 1987. A very humbling day.

Picture Post, Sunday May 27, 2007

Love bugs are out in force in central Florida. Like the killer bees, they've slowly made their way from central America to cover the entire US Gulf (of Mexico) Coast. This was our windshield as Lovely Wife and I were returning from Zephyrhills to Palm Bay. I cleaned it before we left Zephyrhills. They are so sticky that the stuff in your windshield washer tank and your wipers are woefully inadequate to clean them off. Only scrubbing will do.


Love bugs on the front of our Camry after we arrived home yesterday (Saturday) evening. In some patches of highway, the love bugs were so plentiful that it sounded like it was raining on the car. An added bonus is that if you slap one that is on your clothes you will be rewarded with a really excellent black smear. I HATE these things.


Yellow water lotus as far as the eye could see in Lake Tohopekaliga in Kissimmee as Lovely Wife and I were making our way home (among the love bugs). I know what you're thinking, how in the HECK do you pronounce Lake Tohopekaliga. I have no idea. I follow everyone else's lead and just call it Lake Toho. That's a lot easier for my drawling southern accent to handle.


Another shot of the lotus in Lake Toho. Trying to show how many there were. This is just a portion.


One of the small palm trees up against the front of our house had bloomed and I took a photo. It's pretty when they do this; I like the shade of yellow they become. The blooms are green when they open up, but become yellow after a couple of days.


The night before our new Sleep Number bed arrived. We had cleaned out 2/3 of our bedroom and this was my last night on the floor (hopefully). So far so good on the Sleep Number bed. (My two nights in a hotel bed in Zephyrhills, Fl just about killed me though.)

Saturday Afternoon Update

Sorry I didn't post anything. I've been out of town since Thursday night.

Lovely Wife and I were over in Zephyrhills, Florida until now (Sat. evening).

Life intervenes, ya know?

Star Wars (the first movie, episode IV)

Jeesh.

Time flies doesn’t it?

On May 25th, 1977, Star Wars made it’s debut. Um. That’s THIRTY YEARS ago, people!

Hard to believe.

I didn’t see it when it first came out. But almost immediately I started seeing news reports about this movie that people in L.A. and New York were standing in line for hours to see. And when they showed some clips from the film, and then I started seeing the real commercial for it, I wanted to go see it.

So sometime during the summer of 1977, my good friend Glenn B. (lived across the street) and I rode our bikes up to the old mall in Monroe, La. that was at the corner of Louisville Avenue and Oliver Road.

There was a two-screen theater there called The Plaza (I think that’s what it was called) where Star Wars was playing.

I certainly remember us riding our bikes to go and see it, but I don’t remember sitting in the theater and watching it. Bummer.

I do remember that after it became such a hit, that people were already beginning to speak of sequels that were supposed to come out approximately every three years.

EVERY THREE YEARS?!

Three years is an eternity when you’re fourteen. As in, “Holy cow! I’ll be SEVENTEEN when the next one comes out! And then TWENTY when the one after that comes out! Heck, I won’t care about them by then.”

Yeah, I was wrong. I cared.

I’ve never been a huge science fiction fan, but I have become more and more so as I’ve grown older. I’ve even branched out and read a few science fiction books.

But I still remember seeing those commercials for Star Wars and then Glenn and I riding up there to see it. Oh, to be fourteen again. Sigh.

Our other Orleans Street buddy, Wes R. was our group’s cynic. Wes was (and probably still is) the person in our group of friends that argued about everything. Even if he totally agreed with you on a position, he would often play devil’s advocate and argue the other side of an issue, just to get you all riled up and for the sake of getting into an argument. The boy loved to argue. Some people lift weights and run marathons and such; Wes exercised his argument muscles and he was the best.

So when everyone was loving and talking about and repeatedly going to see Star Wars (Held over for the 14th big week!), Wes, being Wes, decided that he was going to be the only person in America to NOT see Star Wars.

Wes made the following statement to Glenn and me, “I’ll see it when it comes on HBO.” Wes’s parents were the first people I knew that had HBO.

And Wes stuck by his story, and over time it even became a joke among us, because years and years went by before it was finally shown on HBO. That was around 1983 or so, I remember it being not very long before I got married and left home (1984). Being stubborn is a necessary trait for loving to argue.

I do remember specifically sitting in the theater and seeing Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Jedi, and who I went with, but I still cannot dredge up any specific memories of Glenn and I sitting in there and watching Star Wars.

Oh well. I’ve seen it a squillion times since then anyway, and at least I remember going to see it.

(I know that's Dark Helmet up there, but although I loved Star Wars, I think "Spaceballs" is one of the great movie spoofs of all time. I loved Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet.)

Thursday Thirteen #39

13 Questions and Answers About Me I've been pathetic, and having trouble coming up with ideas for Thursday Thirteen. Thanks to all who chimed in last week and gave me ideas. What I'm going to go with for a few weeks is to break up one of those "100 Questions" memes. Take the lazy man's way out. That's me. Here's 13, and my answers. 1. Have you ever been arrested? Nope. I admit that I have done a couple of things in my wild youth that could have resulted in my arrest, had I been caught. Not proud of that. No. No details forthcoming. 2. Have you ever been on t.v.? No. One of my main goals in life is to be invisible. Kind of contradictory with me being as big as I am, but I guarantee you that I'm one of the quietest moving big guys you'll ever see, or not see as the case may be. 3. Do you like to travel? Yes. I haven't been to a lot of places, any money we might use to travel always seemed to be needed for new car brakes, doctor's visits, etc. I have been to Hawaii once, and Yellowstone. Those are the two biggies in my travelling life. 4. Do you usually eat dinner as a family? Not much any more. Number One Daughter lives a block away from us with her Aunt Lydia, and although Number Two Daughter is still at home, our schedules usually conspire for us to NOT eat together. Another problem is that Lovely Wife would make a good European and likes to eat late, and I like to eat a good while before I go to bed. So I'd rather make a sandwich early than to wait for a cooked meal later, and closer to my bed time. 5. Do you sing in the shower? Sometimes. It's painful, even to me though. --5a. Do you sing in the car? Yeah, a lot. I can turn the CD up loud enough to drown myself out. 6. Do you wear a watch most days? Yes. I feel completely naked without a watch. I'll drive all the way back home at lunch if I've forgotten my watch. Plus, I'm one of those people that can never remember what day and/or what day of the week it is. My Casio watch has an analog face, but also a small digital one that shows month/date/day of week. Love it. 7. Do you brush your teeth EVERY night before bed? No, not EVERY night. I'm lazy like that sometimes. 8. Have you ever had a professional massage? No. My work sometimes pays for us to have the ability to go and have one during times they're crushing us with workload, but I never go. I don't like touching and being touched by people I don't know. 9. Do you ever say things you don't mean just to be nice? Absolutely. 10. Have you ever dumped someone over something small (Like Seinfeld, man hands, close talker, etc.)? Me? Mr. I-Long-To-Be-Invisible? Are you kidding? I've only seriously dated two people in my life, and I've been married to the second of those two for 22 years. 11. Have you ever bought anything off of an infomercial? Yes. A memory enhancing program. Although it didn't make me the genius I hoped it would, I still use many of the memory techniques from that program to this day, 15 years later. 12. Have you ever been in a long distance relationship? No. I got married before Al Gore invented the internet. 13. Have you ever driven across America? No. But I have a fantasy of riding a bicycle across America. Seriously. I have a whole shelf of bicycle touring books where people have written out their stories of those kinds of tours. I'm even a card-carrying member of the Adventure Cycling Association, just to help keep hope alive. I would love to take a long driving trip with Lovely Wife too. The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Select Comfort Sleep Number Bed

Bad health can sure separate you from your money.

Folks will try most anything to get better with the least amount of effort. That includes spending huge amounts of money to have surgeries or to try the latest "cure" for whatever ails them.

In my case, I just have a bad back. And in 2003 I screwed up an iffy back quite thoroughly, resulting in two, count 'em, two, back surgeries in 2004.

In desperation, I tried different sleeping arrangements. I've spent more nights in my recliner than I can count. Nights where I would spend a couple of hours in the bed, then the recliner, the couch, the floor.

Whew!

But since 2003, the most consistently amenable sleeping arrangement for me is to make a "pallet" on the floor.

So at night, I roll out a layered set of pads and blankets next to our bed and sleep on that. And have for several years now.

Sometimes I would get optimistic and try sleeping in the bed again but after two or three nights, my back would get worse. So, back on the floor I would go.

We finally decided to try to buy a fine quality bed, but which one to buy?

To make a long story longer, we decided to look at, and ended up ordering a Sleep Number bed, if for no other reason than it gives me an infinite number of beds to try out. If I buy, say, a nice Sealy or Stearns and Foster, well, that bed is what it is. It's a single roll of the dice and if I can't sleep on it, then that's an expensive mistake.

Our choice of the Sleep Number bed was basically to have a great quality bed, but it adjusts, and therefore gives me many different settings to try. And if I can find a setting that allows me to sleep in bed as decent as I do on the floor, then that's money well spent.

But my hope is that I can eventually adjust it so that I can sleep all night, in bed, and sleep well. If I could start getting a decent night's sleep after 3 years, I think it would change my life and then the exorbitant price of the thing will have been justified.

Another good reason for this bed is that each side allows that person to set the firmness level of that side of the bed. Lovely Wife has always much preferred a soft bed, but had just dealt with having rock hard beds because of me.

I also hope that in addition to me finding a better way to sleep, that Lovely Wife can have her side of the bed softer and that she will sleep better too.

Last night was our first night on the bed, and she had her side set at #55. That's the number the person in the Select Comfort store helped her determine by laying on the beds in the showroom.

I slept pretty good. For one thing, I just lay there for a while, luxuriating in the softness of the pillow top and the nice sheets. I'm a simple guy, and clean set of nice sheets is a pleasure. I started out with my side of the bed set at 55, as determined in the store, but I quickly reset it up to 65.

After laying there a while, I still felt as if the bed was still a little too soft and bumped it up to 75, and that's how I spent the night.

One nice thing is that I slept through the night, and didn't have to get up and move to my recliner. That's a common night for me to have to do that.

I was sleeping well enough that I just turned off my alarm and kept sleeping for a little while longer.

Lovely Wife said she slept ok too, when she got up to let the dogs out, but she's still in there sleeping, so I can't give you a detailed report.

So, my first night in the new bed is a big "thumbs up."

I'm optimistic and hopeful that after time, we can dial in a level that will give us better sleep. Something we haven't had in a long, long, long time. Sure did have to write a big check to try this.

If it helps, it will have been worth the price though.

I'll keep y'all posted on any progress (or regress as the case may be).

No. This isn't a pay per post thingy. I was just giving y'all a report on how we slept for the first night in this hideously expensive bed.

It's a big deal to me.

Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll

Well, not really. I lied.

See, I decided that this lack of desire to write lately is getting a bit tedious. I hate it. I feel compelled to write, but I'm in a funk in which, even though I have some good ideas on what to write about, I don't care enough to even write.

Does that make any sense? I have subjects, but just don't feel like writing. But if I write about something that happened when I was a kid, or whatever, I at least want to inject a little bit of life into it, you know?

So what I decided to do this morning is to just sit down and start typing words without any real point, without any specific destination; sort of a timed writing deal. You know, where I tell myself I'm going to sit here and type something, anything for, say, ten minutes, and regardless of how stupid or boring it is, post it.

I came up with the title that has absolutely nothing to do with anything I'm writing, but hey, it just might get my blog a few more hits. Now I'm probably the least comment hungry person you ever, or never, as the case may be, actually met, but it is a little gratifying to know that there are a handful of people with bad enough taste to actually check in here from time to time and read whatever swill I've served up for you on any given day.

Long gone are the days when I had many childhood stories or remembrances of things from my family's past to type out and try to capture some of the laughter or pain or whatever emotion the story would naturally convey.

But as I said, I do have some stories, but my attitude hasn't been such that I felt I could do the stories justice. I cannot bring myself to write something about my Father or Big Brother if I'm feeling pretty dead on the inside. I want to write their stories when I'm inspired. Literally. Inspired means "in spirit." The best writing, and therefore the best things to read are when the author has put down words that were inspired by his or her innermost being.

The best writings are always from the heart, or spirit. Pain is a detriment to this process. In my case, back pain.

So here I sit, putting down words with not one iota of spirit in them, but boy is that second hand on the clock moving!

See, at top speed, I type about 30 words per minute. I'm not one of those people, like Big Sis, who can disengage their minds from their fingers and let them fly. I cripple my own typing ability by having to think about each and every letter that I put down. That slows my typing to pitiful speeds. Big Sis is one of those people that makes a keyboard sound like a high rate machine gun she can type so fast. Not me.

OK. I see that that at this point I’ve been typing for almost twenty minutes, so I need to wind this down.

I wish I had a point with this post, but I don’t. Sorry. But if I do this each and every day, regardless of how lame the posts are, I hope that eventually the inspiration will come back.

How's about an abrupt subject change? Cool, let's do it.

I have had very few good night’s sleeps in the past three or so years, and last night was no exception. Makes it hard to think meaningful thoughts and to write meaningful posts.

Lovely Wife and I are supposed to have our new Select Comfort Sleep Number Bed delivered today, so it is my sincere wish to be able to, in the near future, sit here and write meaningful, inspired posts because I’ve started to sleep well.

It's amazing just how bad my mind works on little sleep.

I had better sleep better on that new bed! Darn thing cost as much as a used car.

Ding! This egg is done. See y'all tomorrow.

Fred Thompson On Michael Moore

Fred Thompson is more elloquent in thirty-eight seconds than Michael "Don't Bother Me With The Facts" Moore will be throughout the course of his entire life.



I love this guy. Fred Thompson that is, not Michael Moore. Because I don't really care for Michael Moore.

Picture Post, Sunday May 20, 2007

Number Two Daughter graduated from Bayside High School Saturday morning.

It was sunny, windy, and in the low 80s. We all have the intense sunburn on our arms, faces, and legs to prove it. Sunburns of love.

There were well over 500 graduates and the ceremony was held on the football field. If it weren't for the wind, it would have been unbearable sitting in that sun while five hundred and some-odd yunguns strolled across the stage for their diplomas.

Afterwards we went and had some really good seafood at Shell's.

Congratulations Rachel, we love you!






And they even had a student lead a prayer at the beginning of the ceremony! No ACLU led morons to stop it like they tried to do in my home town of Monroe, LA last week.

Some Things Are Hard To Take

I cannot truly relate to y'all just how incredibly blessed my life has been.

Now that I'm in my mid forties, I can look back with my 20/20 hindsight and see just how good I've had it.

My parents were crazy in love until my Dad's death in 1994, 42 years of marriage. They started "going together" when they were in seventh grade. How blessed is a kid's life whose parents are like one?

I had good childhood and teenage friends.

I was healthy.

But one thing that I always thought helped make it seem as if I'd lived a charmed life, was that I knew all four of my grandparents. The first one to pass away did so when I was 20 years old.

I had the blessing of knowing all four of my grandparents while I was an adult. Looking back, and after knowing all the people I've known through the years, I see how great a blessing that was.

And over the years as things have happened, as our daughters have said and done incredibly cute things, there have been many, many times I wished that one or another of my loved ones who have passed away were still here so that I could tell them about it.

That's one of the hardest things in life to me. Compared to what many have had to deal with in their lives, and maybe still have to deal with, things like my chronic pain pretty much pale in comparison.

I try not to let my hurt and my bouts of depression affect those around me, but I sometimes wonder how much I hurt them with my withdrawal from life from time to time.

I do know that if I summed up my life in a big ol' list of things good and bad, my life has been and is still better than many millions, maybe even billions of people on this planet.

But in this man's world, the one wish I would love to have granted would be to have an opportunity to spend some more time with my Dad, Father In Law, Mother In Law, Big Brother, Grandparents, who have passed away. Just to sit and talk a while, maybe have some good food together. Give them all a hug.

I miss them.

No Amnesty

I agree with whomever wrote this underneath this bridge.

No Thursday Thirteen, but...

I could sure use your help for ideas.

Seriously, I'm thinking of stopping my participation in Thursday Thirteen though I like it a lot.

I just can't think of any ideas that inspire me enough to even write about, so if any of y'all have some good ideas, leave them for me in the comments.

I would appreciate it a lot. I don't want to quit, but like this week, I could only come up with a partial list of random things. Not even 13.

Thanks.

Boring Computer Stuff / Ty Tabor of King's X

The computer we use at our home is a four year old Dell. It does it's job well, but it's a bit long in the tooth for handling the massive files generated when I scan 35mm slides. In other words, my computer does what I want it to, it's just old and slow by computer time.

The computer came with a 120GibaByte hard drive.

When I started scanning my slides in earnest over a year ago, I quickly started to fill that up.

I got another hard drive for Christmas 2006, a 160GigaByte internal one that I added into the computer. But it being an older computer, not top of the line, the two hard drives were on the same internal cable to the motherboard.

In other words, the computer had much more room for my slide scanning and digital photos, but it was now slower due to two hard drives trying to use the same "highway."

And recently, I saw that I had almost filled both the 120GB and 160GB hard drives with my stuff. And to add insult to injury, most of my photos were not backed up. Anywhere.

So I was just trucking along with my head in the sand, ignoring the fact that computers eventually break down, they are ultimately mechanical devices, and that I was way past the point of buying a ton of blank DVDs to back up roughly 270GB of photos. That would take about 70 DVDs holding 4GB each.

I started looking at external hard drives, expecting that a 500GB external hard drive would cost me about $100 per 100GigaByte.

I found an external, 500GB, USB 2.0, hard drive at Best Buy on sale for $150!

Yeah, I can hear the sharp intakes of breath, the hands placed over the mouths, OMG (Oh My Goodness) being wispered aloud. "A 500GB external hard drive for a mere $150? Why that's, that's, that's, HALF A TERRABYTE!"

I hear the scratching around as you pull a solar calculator out of the computer's desk drawer, or as you pull up the Windows XP calculizer. I hear the click of the buttons as you divide 150/500 and look up at the wall, stunned at the realization that your old internet pal John, of Least Significant Bits fame, just paid a mere $30 per 100GB for a brand new, 7200rpm, 16MB cache, USB 2.0, external hard drive.

I hear the wind wistle past your nose as you shake your head back and forth in absolute disbelief/wonder.

"Hey! Wait a minute. Who makes this hard drive? Probably some cheap piece of garbage, made by somebody I've never heard of and that will break down two days after the warranty expires and leaves you worse off than when you started. Ha! See!? It's NOT such a great deal after all!"

"Oh contrare," says I. "This, my too quick to disbelieve me friends, is a Western Digital MyBook hard drive. And if you have any computer knowledge at all, you know that Western Digital is a well-known and well-accepted brand of computer hard drive. And though it's impossible for you to know this, one of my friends that I went through Louisiana Tech's electical engineering program with went to work for Western Digital in the Dallas area after we graduated. I'm also helping a friend by buying a Western Digital hard drive. It's a Win-Win situation like that 7 Habits of Highly Successful People book writer likes to go on about."

It' OK. I'm not offended, I almost didn't believe it myself until I had that hard drive in my hot little hand and then hooked that baby up to my computer last night.

It's a real deal, I tell ya.

So, after reformatting it from FAT32 file scheme to NTFS, I was left with 465 glorious GigaBytes of free hard drive space. As I left for work this morning, my computer's new symbiote was busilly (is that a word? well, it is now) accepting the 270GB or so of digital images. So when I get home this evening, I'll have a back up to each and every digital photo, PLUS a couple hundred more GigaBytes for more!

My back hurts, but life is good!

And to place a cherry on top of this sweet deal, Best Buy had a copy of Ty Tabor's latest CD, Rock Garden.

"Who the heck is Ty Tabor, you ask?"

Ty Tabor is none other than one of the two guitarists whose work inspired me to pick up a guitar and begin to learn to play several years ago. Ty Tabor is the long-time guitarist for the rock group King's X, one of my top three all-time favorite bands.

Ty also puts out solo ablums, as do the other members of King's X, and the one I bought yesterday, Rock Garden is his third solo CD, and it is very, very good.

Lots and lots of tasty guitar playing and SOLOs thoughout.

Modern rock music guitarists don't play guitar leads any more. I don't know if they're all sucky players like me, or if they think themselves above playing guitar solos.

But I for one LOVE guitar solos, and think that almost every rock song could be bettered by a soulful guitar lead.

Again, through all the pain, life is good. A massive hard drive for my peace of mind and some unexpected new rock from one of my favorite musicians.

Yesterday wasn't a bad day at all.

(Note: Despite the photo of Ty on the front of the CD, he's right handed, it's a reversed photo. That drives me nuts when they do that. Unless of course he's even more talented than I thought and can play left handed too. Now that I think of it, the bassist and lead singer for King's X is left handed and Ty might be playing one of Doug's guitars in the photo. Hmmm. A mystery.)

Lookin' For Angels

When I was growing up, from time to time I would hear folks tell stories about angels. Or what they were convinced were angels.

There's a verse in the Bible that says something along the lines of, "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it."

These stories usually are in the form of stopping to pick up a stranger, giving the stranger a ride, and when dropping the person off and driving away, there's no one in the rear view mirror. The stranger was gone. Like God was testing them or something.

I always kept that in my mind, and from time to time I have tried to help folks when I could. This has been tempered however by the dangers of stopping and picking up strangers, you know?

But years ago, when I was in college for the first time in Monroe, Louisiana, I was heading north on Forsythe Avenue one day. I saw ahead of me on a corner on my side of the road, an elderly black man with two paper sacks of groceries. It was brutally hot, humidity making you sweat just to look outside.

And I get this super strong feeling in my gut that I MUST stop and offer to help this man.

So, I turn on my blinker, turn just past him, and pull as close to him as I can in the parking lot beside him.

"Sir? Can I give you a ride somewhere?"

"Yes, and I sho 'preciate it."

He gets in the passenger side of the 75 Ford pickup I was driving back then, and ask him where he needs to go. He tells me a place about three miles away, where his grandson is, and that he was trying to walk there, but just ran out of energy in the heat.

This was when Ol' Blue, my pickup truck, still had a working air conditioner. I cranked that baby up on high, and the old guy just breathed a sigh of relief.

I got to where he wanted out, and he thanked me about 20 times for giving him a lift and sharing my air conditioner.

I must admit, that I looked back, almost hoping that he had disappeared, but he was there, walking toward the building where his grandson worked.

Then about a month later, I saw him again, just a bit farther up the road from where I had seen him and picked him up the first time. I pulled over right in front of where he was walking, got out and waved him to come get in the truck.

He just smiled and got in with his grocery bags again.

He wanted to go to the same place, but he had been determined to make it this time, but I had seen him, recognized him, and stopped for him again.

I dropped him off where his grandson worked, or so he said.

But this time I didn't look back; I didn't need to have an experience with an angel to know that I had done the right thing.

Meme Monday

I was tagged for two different memes on the same day late last week, one by Babystepper on this blog, and another by CG on my photography blog.

Being the world-class meme killer and chain letter killer that I am, I decided to try to answer these. But I'm not going to tag anybody else.

If you think this is a meme you can do easily, consider yourself tagged and use the idea for a post one day. I know. I suck at this, but hey, it's not like you're gonna track me down and beat me up, right?.... RIGHT?!

Here’s how it works: Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. You need to tag 7 others and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

1. I like soggy cookies. Did you forget and leave the Oreos open and they got all soft and mushy? Send 'em to me. That's how I like them best.

2. Related to #1. If the Oreos are brand new and crunchy as potato chips, I'll hold them under a slow running water tap for about five seconds on each side and then eat them. It's quick way to sog 'em up the way I like them. My wife is still horrified when seeing me do this, even after 22 years of marriage. The water softens them up and yet I still have that full Oreo flavor, unadulterated by the taste of milk or something like that that normal people use.

3. Related to #1 and #2 above. I've never, ever told anyone outside my immediate family that I do this with Oreos. I KNOW it's weird, and I don't want to freak people out. I feel free now that it's out there.

4. I'm reading my first Oprah Book Club book. I LOVE post-apocalyptic books. End of the world and just a handful of survivors? I love them. My favorites are Long Voyage Back by Luke Rhinehart, and Swan Song by Robert McCammon (which I liked better than The Stand). The other night I wanted to buy and picked up a copy of Cormack McCarthy's latest, The Road and it had a big ol' Oprah Book Club sticker on it. It's a post-apocalyptic book. So, for the first time in my life, I'm reading an Oprah Book Club selection. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet.

5. I didn't go to kindergarten. My parents put me into the first grade when I was five. I never had any problems in school though.

6. I'm not into sports cars. Most men love them, but I can see a fine exotic sports car and almost tear my TMJ joint yawning so big. I value cars for their practicality. My dream "car" right now is a fully decked out Honda Odyssey or a Honda Pilot. Boring, huh? I want a car based on how to get out of the way of a hurricane, and in good times to carry our brood and to carry my guitars/amps or cameras in the air conditioned part of the vehicle. The ONLY exception to the sports car thing is that I would love to have a Shelby Cobra, even a kit car version. The blue on with white stripes.

7. My hearing is getting really bad. It seems that I hear fine, music in the car for instance, but I constantly ask people to repeat themselves or to speak louder.

Again, this was an easy enough meme that even I could do it, so if you want to do this one, have at it.