2009/12/31 12:00 Today is the last day of the year. Today is the last day of the decade. Tomorrow is the first day of our new lives. You’ve got to love this whole convention with the calendar and the New Year. It’s a fresh start every 365 days. A clean slate. A blank canvas. There are so many possibilities. The horizon is endless. I’ve been listening to “Radio Free Bakersfield” a lot of late. It’s a podcast that I catch on my computer. Sometimes I listen at home but more often at work. I’ve been turned on to a lot of new music. It’s a great show. I got turned onto the show by a calendar. Since the Hukilau in June I have been a big Marina the Fire Eating Mermaid fan. Marina is Miss March on the Radio Free Bakersfield’s 2010 calendar. I got the calendar and I listened to the show. Like I said I’ve gotten turned on to a lot of new music and artists. I really like Eilen Jewell. On her MySpace page you should check out the song “Where They Never Say Your Name”. Eilen Jewell is going to be coming to Syracuse on January 21st and performing at 2ndStory, which I understand is a coffee house up on the SU hill. I’d like to catch that show. I also like the “Bloodshot Gamblers”, a band out of Tombstone, Arizona, or maybe Las Vegas, I don’t know. Their CD is called “Pain and Other Pleasures”. I love a good song with a lot of angst. Add a hint of mental instability and you’ve got a hit like their song “Start Again”:

She says she’d like to get to know me

She wants a space inside my heart

I explain – Girl you may not like it

‘Cause my walls were haunted from the start

If you were to step inside this is what you’d find

It’s broken down dilapidated

Tattered, torn, completely faded

No one’s been around this place for years

It’s time to swing the wrecking ball

Smash the roof and break the walls

Raze it to the ground and start again

So she leaves

A dusty little corner

She knows

There isn’t room for two

It’s not sane but I’ve deteriorated

It’s chipped away

There’s nothing left for you

My heart is boarded up with lies

I feel the nails behind my eyes

2009/12/28 16:00 The decade of the double naughts is coming to a close. Only a few days left. It had snowed a little last night. The roads were pretty slippery this morning. I went to the doctors office first thing for a blood test. It was a fasting blood test. I had to wait about a half hour in the waiting room and I dozed off a little. I stood up kind of fast when the nurse called me and I got a little light headed. I was hoping I wasn't going to pass out when she drew the blood and I didn't. I probably overdid it at the gym yesterday. I had said I was going to wait a week before I got back onto the stairmaster but I didn't. When I quit going to the gym some time back I had worked up to where I was doing over 20 minutes on the stairmaster and climbing the equivalent of about 90 floors or more. On Sunday I lasted 6 minutes and only did about 10 floors. It really wiped me out. I got to work this morning and the trees outside the office were really quite beautiful with the snowfall. It was a quiet day at work and now there are only three work days left this year.

The annual picture taken with the antique at Spaghetti Warehouse.

2009/12/27 10:00 It was a busy day yesterday. I went to the gym until around 10 or 10:30. I came home and got Karen and Adison up and we went to Freedom of Espresso for coffee. Last night we went to the Spaghetti Warehouse for our annual Tennant-Redmond holiday dinner. The gathering was a bit sparse in comparison to some years past but a good time was had by all attendees. It was Karen and myself, along with Tristan, on the Tennant side. It was Sean, Tina, Zach and Caity on the Redmond side. I say everyone had a good time but Tristan did sleep through dinner. It looked like a good nap and that can certainly be enjoyable. In an historical note, yesterday, Knut Haugland, the last surviving member of the Kon Tiki expedition, died at the age of 92. From the book “Kon Tiki” by Thor Hyerdahl: "...I met Knut for the first time in England in 1944. He'd been decorated by the British for having taken part in the parachute action that held up the Greman efforts to get the atomic bomb; he was the radio operator, you know, in the heavy water sabotage at Rjukan. When I met him, he had just come back from another job in Norway; the Gestapo had caught him with a secret radio set inside a chimney in the Maternity Clinic in Oslo. The Nazis had located him by D/F, and the whole building was surrounded by German soldiers with machine-gun posts in front of every single door. Fehmer, the head of the Gestapo, was standing in the courtyard himself waiting for Knut to be carried down. But it was his own men who were carried down. Knut fought his way with his pistol from the attic down to the cellar, and from there out into the backyard, where he disappeared over the hospital wall with a hail of bullets after him." The crew of the Kon Tiki were an extraordinary group of men.

2009/12/26 07:30 It is the morning after Christmas. I am the only one up this early. That’s not true because Elsie did come looking for me to put some food in her bowl. It was a nice Christmas. Everyone was here. My Mom and Dad were here. Adison was home from college. Michael and Robert were here. Ariel and Tristan were here. Dinner was good. I cooked a standing rib roast which came out delicious. We had some trouble with smoke. Something was burning in the stove and it caused a lot of smoke in the kitchen. The stove is going to need a good cleaning. There was one serious disaster. During dinner I dropped a green bean on the floor. It bounced under the table. I reached with my foot under the table and rolled the bean out to my chair where I could pick it up. I set it next to my plate and figured I would throw it out the next time I got up. Karen obviously hadn’t witnessed any of this and she reached over and picked up the bean and ate it before I could say anything. It was horrifying and I felt terrible. I am going to get my gym bag ready and head over to the gym.

2009/12/25/09:00 It is Christmas morning and I’m the only one awake in the house. Elsie opened one eye when I came downstairs and she stretched but she didn’t move from her new favorite chair. Last night for Christmas Eve Karen had a craving for Pizza Hut pizza, wings, and breadsticks. I was out doing the last minute shopping at Wegmans for Christmas dinner and Karen called in the order. When I left Wegmans they were making more and more dire sounding announcements that the store was closing. I picked up the pizza right before Pizza Hut closed. They locked the door behind me. I brought home the pizza and then we settled in for Christmas Eve. Then Karen dumped the pizza and wings into the open dishwasher and onto the clean dishes. Then she dropped an empty jar of pickles and sprayed pickle juice everywhere. Naughty words were said. I just hope Santa wasn’t listening. Robert went to spend the night with Tristan and Ariel. Adison isn’t coming home until today. It was just Karen and Michael and I for Christmas Eve. I watched “Elf” on DVD. I am feeling kind of peaceful today. I am making a brunch at like 11:00 or so and then Christmas dinner later in the day. Merry Christmas!

2009/12/24 09:00 I re-joined the YMCA finally. That was a big step that I needed to take. I worked out Tuesday night. I am starting slow and easing back into it. Tuesday night I did three miles on the bike and then a half mile on the treadmill. Last night, Wednesday night, I did three quarters of a mile on the treadmill and then 3 miles on the bike. I will work out for a week or so before I start working the Stairmaster back into my routine. Today is Christmas Eve and the gym closes at noon so I won’t be able to go back until Saturday. Last night after the gym I went to Wegmans and got the Christmas meat. I got an eight pound standing rib roast. I have today off from work and as usual I have too much stuff to do and not enough time left to get it all done. History repeats itself once again.

2009/12/19 10:00 Wow. I went to see the new film “Avatar” in 3D yesterday and all I have to say about that is “wow”. Adison called and said she and three of her friends were coming to Syracuse to see the movie and they let me tag along. After the show we went to Clark’s Ale House for roast beef sandwiches. I learned a valuable lesson hanging with Adison and her friends. The lesson learned was don’t ever let your daughter order the beers. She managed to order the only pints on the menu that cost six dollars each. After some totally delicious roast beef sandwiches we stopped at the Clinton Street Pub. A nightcap for me but I suspect my merry band was just getting started. We were standing at the bar at Clinton St Pub when this guy came in and started hitting on Adison. At one point he asked her how she knew everyone in her group. She said we were all college students from Oswego. The would-be suitor looked at me like he didn’t believe that and he asked me how I knew the group. I said, “I am their professor and this is a field trip”.

2009/12/14 09:00 Yesterday I put in some hand railings on the stairs going up to the bedrooms. I should have done this a long time ago. Luckily no one has ever been injured falling down the stairs. Karen likes to store stuff on the stairs and I just think that’s so unsafe. I have always joked that that’s how I’m going to die someday; falling down the stairs. I finished the railings and I was pretty proud of how they turned out and I told Michael, my youngest son, that now I wasn’t going to die falling down the stairs. He said, “My money has always been on another heart attack”. Sarcasm is just one of the many services he offers.

2009/12/17 21:30 I sometimes find the holiday season to be more melancholy than festive. I talk about these feelings with my therapist. It was funny but my feelings got put into words perfectly on a TV sitcom. I was watching “The Big Bang Theory” and one of the characters explained these feelings as a classic Jungian crisis in which the aging individual mourns the loss of the never to be realized ideal family unit – the depression arises from comparing the world as it is to a hypothetical idealized world. It is a perfect explanation and description of the angst I experience, especially around the holidays. I feel the need to make things better; things that can never be made better. They can never be made better because you can’t rewrite the past. What is past is past and I have to learn how to deal with that. I want to fix everything and I can’t. There are things that I have no control over, no man does, and the fact that I have no control I take as a personal failure. I am in fact just an insignificant speck in the universe and I have very limited powers. I would do well and be much happier if I could just accept my limitations. Happy Holidays!

2009/12/08 23:00 Karen is still under the weather. We spent about 4 hours in the emergency room. I met Karen at urgent care at the Northeast Medical Plaza in Fayetteville. They had already hydrated her with an IV drip when I got there. She was going to have a CT scan. For the CT scan she had to drink 2 large glasses of a chalky drink laced with a barium isotope. It smelled like strawberries and it was making her gag. So, I would hold her nose and then pour the concoction into her mouth. We managed to get enough into her system that they were able to do the test. Everything looked okay. We really don't know much more now than we did before she went in. They gave her a new anti-nausea med but she doesn't seem any better. There are no pictures to post of Karen in her debilitated state because I refrained from taking pictures. If it was me in the hospital bed I would have documented it.

Karen is not as happy as she looks in the picture. She is in a lot of pain and she's feeling sick. She's a brave little trooper.

2009/12/06 23:00 Last night Karen and I went to the Bristol Christmas party at the Sheraton on the SU hill. We went late because Karen was feeling so poorly and we left early for the same reason. She had a root canal and there seems to be a problem with an infection. She is in a lot of pain and the pain meds make her sick. I feel so bad for her.

2009/12/03 18:00 Last night Michael and I went to see the end-of-the-world disaster epic “2012”. Spoiler alert! Don’t read the rest of this entry if you haven’t seen the movie and you’re worried about plot points being revealed. Of course just writing that makes me laugh because if you’re worried about plot points in a movie like this you don’t know what you’re going to see. The plot and the characters in the movie just serve as a means to get from one special effects sequence to the next. The plot is contrived and formulaic. John Cusack plays the main character. He’s a novelist that wrote a book that only sold 400 copies. One of the copies is being read by the scientist in the White House that’s spearheading the efforts to preserve humanity from extinction. Because the Cusack character only sold 400 copies of his novel he is working as a chauffeur for a Russian billionaire. The Russian billionaire bought seats in the top secret project to preserve humanity. The Cusack character is divorced from his wife, played by the still hot Amanda Peet, and she has a plastic surgeon doctor boyfriend. The Cusack character’s kids get along better with the doc than they do with their Dad, the not too successful writer. The Russian billionaire has a cute young Russian girlfriend. The cute young Russian girlfriend knows the plastic surgeon boyfriend of the Cusack character’s ex-wife because he had done her boob-job. Of course all of these disparate characters are going to end up in the same place together and in great peril. Near the end of the movie the cute Russian girlfriend bemoans the fact, to the doctor, that she had the breast enhancement. She only had the surgery at the insistence of the billionaire boyfriend. You know the Cusack character has to get back with his wife and kids and the doctor boyfriend is in the way. So, when the cute young Russian girlfriend is drowning I thought she might be saved by her new extra buoyant tatas and then end up with the doctor in gratitude for his saving her life by installing the built in water wings. But they’d already killed off the doctor and so the cute Russian girlfriend was no longer required and so she just drowned. She drowned but her dog made it. That’s part of the formula. You can kill off most of humanity on screen, women and children included, but the pets are off limits. Don’t hurt the little yippy dog. The plot is of course laughable but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the movie. You go to see the special effects and the big action sequences and those didn’t disappoint.

Night out with the bowling team. Karen wasn't as drunk as she looks. We had to squeeze into the booth so that we would all be in the picture. Karen told me I had to "actually touch Trevor" if I was going to make it into the picture. So I did and it just looks a little weird.

2009/11/29 08:00 Wednesday before Thanksgiving Karen sent me an e-mail at work to let me know she was feeling very sick. She couldn’t go home from work early because she was the only one left, everyone else had already started on their Thanksgiving breaks. She let me know that she was staying and that she was toughing it out. After I finished work I couldn’t go right home because I had bowling. I bowled a 206 my first game (only the second time I have bowled over 200) and with my handicap it gave me a 277. That was good enough to put me with the highest score for a single game with handicap so far this season. Then the next game I almost didn’t break 100. Consistency is not one of my stronger points. After bowling I went home and Michael said, “Did you do something to Mom?” I said no and asked why he would ask that. He said, “She might be really mad at you. She came home and she was crying. She went in your bedroom, shut the door, and hasn’t come out since”. I assured Michael that this time I wasn’t to blame and that his Mom was just very sick. That night I slept on the couch so that Karen could get a good nights sleep. I had a very strange and vivid dream. I dreamt that I was a 'Terminator’ robot. I was on a large ship, a freighter, and I had a lot of human captives that I kept below deck. I ran around the decks at super speed and shot any humans trying to escape. There was a girl on the ship that I started to like. I decided that I wanted to help her. She didn’t trust me at first because she was a human and I was a machine. It was your basic Romeo and Juliet story where Romeo is a ruthless and remorseless mechanical killing machine programmed to exterminate humanity. My dreams are always so weird and oft times have complicated moral dilemmas at the forefront. I woke up and started making Thanksgiving dinner. Karen was still sleeping and I made dinner by myself. I always do all the cooking but Karen is right there to help me. It’s like the surgeon who says, “Scalpel”, and the nurse puts it in his hand. I missed having my partner there. I cooked a turkey in the oven inside and I cooked a London broil outside on the Bar-B-Que at the same time. I made the usual sides – dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, glazed carrots, and green bean casserole. While I was cooking I put some Carly Simon and some James Taylor on the CD player. I hadn’t listened to those CDs in awhile. I was listening to Carly Simon’s “No Secrets”. I bought that album on vinyl probably 30 years ago. I bought it again as a CD. I’ve listened to it literally countless times. I hadn’t listened to it in years and here I was on Thanksgiving morning and as I listened to the song “It Was So Easy” it was like the first time I’d ever heard it. Or at least the first time the words spoke to me:

It was so easy then never makin' any plans

It was so easy then, holdin' hands

And now we are grown, with debts and regrets

And broken hearts and sentimental schemes

Now every tender failure seems to overthrow old dreams

Love can lead a normal woman to extremes

Thanksgiving was good. My daughter Adison was home from college, both my boys were there, and my parents came. Everything was really good, except for Karen being sick. Friday morning Adison and I went for coffee at Freedom of Espresso before she went back to college. Karen didn’t go because she was still feeling under the weather. Saturday Karen was feeling better and we did our trash run out to Jamesville and then went to see my parents. We helped them take some donations to the Tully Historical Society and then we had brunch at the little diner restaurant in Tully. I can’t think of the name of it now and we’ve eaten there several times.

2009/11/19 10:00

2009/11/07 10:00 Yesterday was my last day at the SOC (Syracuse Office Complex). I will start work Monday at our Beacon North facility. The space I am vacating was a cubicle but it was large enough that I referred to it as an "office". My new space will be much smaller and is definitely just a cube. The company I work for has adopted this new policy of smaller spaces and an open work environment. My new space will be Tiki-less at first. I will need to Tikify my new little cube.

2009/11/10 17:00 Last night was a rough night for me. I had my sleep study. I went to the North Medical Plaza in Fayetteville and spent the night there. I had actually been looking forward to the test. I believed that I was going to be officially diagnosed with sleep apnea and then I would be prescribed a course of treatment that was going to improve my quality of life. I was going to have more energy, more stamina, not be sleepy in the afternoon, and generally all around just be a happier guy. It took about a half an hour to get all the sensors attached to me. There were EKGs, oxygen sensors, and motion detectors attached to me from head to toe. They explained that I was going to go to sleep and they would monitor me. If my numbers were bad enough they would wake me up and then put me on a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine. I was awakened at about 2:00AM and was told that without a doubt I was suffering from sleep apnea. I was fitted with the first CPAP mask and tried that out. I couldn’t stand it and we proceeded to try on 5 different masks. None of them worked for me. With the mask on I was convinced that I was going to die. I was convinced that I was going to suffocate. I was certain that if I fell asleep I wouldn't be able to breathe and the people monitoring me wouldn't be able to get to me in time to save me. It was completely terrifying. I tried to suppress the panic. I told myself that logically I was breathing better with the mask than I had been without it. I was getting more oxygen. It was just an illusion that I was suffocating. I told myself that it had to be a lot like waterboarding. Victims of waterboarding weren't actually drowning. They just had the sensation of drowning along with the panic and fear that I assume you experience while drowning. It is not surprising that once I compared the medical equipment in use to a method of torture things really didn't improve much. I started thinking about the doctor I had listened to on NPR discussing end of life issues as part of the health care debate. He was explaining that dying of pneumonia at 90 years of age wasn’t really a bad way to go. It wasn’t a bad way to go if you let nature take its course. However, if you stepped in with a ventilator you could make the passing agony. People having the ventilator tube down their throat can be so uncomfortable and panic so much that they try to rip out the tube. So they don’t rip out the tube their hands are tied to the bed. I had started thinking about this because they were suggesting some kind of restraints for me so that I could ‘tolerate’ the mask. Later it was suggested that I take Xanax in order to tolerate the mask. I said no thank you to the restraints and the Xanax. At this point I was given a couple of options. I could just leave and go home or I could stay and they would monitor me on oxygen. I stayed and slept through the night on oxygen similar to the setup I had been using at home. They told me in the morning that by cranking me up to three liters of oxygen my numbers were borderline passable. All of this just served to convince me that it’s time to get back into the gym and get myself into better shape. After the heart attack I hit the gym and lost 50 pounds and felt absolutely fabulous. I never should have stopped going to the gym and I wouldn’t have put the 50 pounds back on. I know what I am capable of. I did it before and I am going to repeat that performance. Then I will repeat the sleep study and see if things haven’t improved to where I can skip the oxygen.

2009/11/06 10:00 I woke up this morning to the first snowfall of the 2009/2010 winter season. It was a little disconcerting that the first snowfall was so early this year. It didn't amount to much. It stuck to the grass and the rooftops, turning them white, but didn't stick to the roadways. It was all gone by noon. The forecast for the weekend is back to regular Autumn weather. It should be in the 50s and 60s for Saturday and Sunday.

After the Civil War came the invention of smokeless powder. Blackpowder makes a mess and a lot of smoke.

I had carved this pumpkin at Scott Hay's party. It was getting a little different look to it with all the mold. By Halloween it was pretty scary looking.

2009/10/31 22:00 I got my apple cider fix. This morning Karen and I went to Freedom of Espresso for coffee just as we usually do. After I finished my coffee I tried their warm apple cider with Chai spices. Very delicious. After coffee Karen had to go to work. Michael and I went to the range in Pompey. First we stopped in Jamesville at the mulch pile and offloaded four cans of yard debris. Then it was on to the range and some old school shooting. I had purchased a Navy Arms replica Remington Army .44 caliber black powder cap and ball pistol probably some thirty years ago. I had never fired it. I guess I was waiting for someone to play with. The pistol is a replica of a revolver used in the Civil War. You have to measure the powder into each cylinder and then cover with a small patch. The projectile, which is a lead ball, is loaded on top of the powder. You pack it all down with the loading lever that is attached to the revolver. Then you put a percussion cap on each of the nipples at the back of the cylinder and you're ready to go. It was fun to shoot and it was pretty accurate for our first attempt. As we were leaving the range it started to rain. It rained pretty hard. It was a dreary Halloween and not as much fun for me as Halloweens in the past have been. I just wasn't in the mood.

2009/10/19 20:00 The weekend is over and Monday is coming to a close. I am still getting used to missing Missy. She was such a large part of our lives. I was loading the dishwasher today and I was all set for Missy to start licking the plates. She would always get her head right in the way every time I was loading the dishwasher. I’d let her go for awhile and then I’d say, “Give it a rest Missy. Get out of the dishwasher.” Sunday I finished the door to Karen’s shed. Tristan helped me. He really wants to help. And he wants to do things himself. I had put two clamps on the project and Tristan brought me the next clamp and he said, “Teach me Pop Pop.” He wanted to know how the clamp worked. It is so nice to be a part of his world now. I am included in everything. He used to be a little leery of me. A couple of days ago he told Ariel, when I entered the room, “Don’t be scared Mommy, it’s just Pop Pop.” Ariel laughed and said she hadn’t been scared. Saturday night Karen, Robert, and I went to Syracuse Stage to see “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” which was written by Steve Martin.

2009/10/28 10:00 Last night I had a very strange nightmare. It was a karaoke nightmare. I dreamed I was at a karaoke club with Zooey Deschanel. Zooey Deschanel is an actress who was in the movie "Elf" and the mini-series "Tinman". Her sister stars in the TV series "Bones". So Zooey and I were friends and we were at this karaoke bar. My wife, Karen, was going to meet us there. So Zooey says she's not comfortable singing karaoke unless she is naked. She quickly got naked. Now, I was kind of uncomfortable because my wife was going to be there shortly and I was with a naked girl. Even though I had done nothing wrong I was still a little uncomfortable. Then it got worse. The bartender said there was a two song minimum at the club. Every patron was required to sing at least two songs. I have never sung karaoke and so I was getting pretty anxious. I ordered a shot and a beer. The bartender said I could have the shot, or the beer, but not both. They very carefully monitored the alcohol consumption of the patrons because they didn't want dulled senses to get in the way of the karaoke experience. That I found kind of odd because I can't imagine anyone doing karaoke without more than a little liquid courage. While having Zooey Deschanel naked is not necessarily a bad thing there were other patrons with the same idea. These other patrons were also more comfortable singing karaoke with little to no attire but they weren't all as pretty as Zooey. Thankfully that's where I finally woke up.

2009/10/29 15:00 Autumn for the year 2009 is two thirds of the way gone. I have been feeling particularly melancholy these last two weeks or so. Seems to be the season for it. I was watching the "Food" channel last night and on the program "Unwrapped" they were showing some apple cider production. Since then I have been craving some apple cider.

The canal in Autumn.

The canal in Winter.

Missy and Elsie.

The Old Erie Canal in Summer.

2009/10/13 22:00 There is much sadness in my world today. Yesterday we had to humanely euthanize our family dog. Missy was a trusted and loyal member of the family for more than 13 years and her passing leaves a hole in my heart. When Adison was 9 years old she wanted a puppy. She was having some behavior issues in school and Karen came up with the idea of a merit system to reward her for good behavior. The goal was the puppy she wanted. Everyday Adison's teacher ranked her behavior as a one, two, or three. Adison accumulated enough points and she got her dog. We went to Adopt-a-Puppy, in the north country, and that's where we met Missy. As the kids got older Karen and I were both working full time. There was a time when the kids came home from school while Karen and I were still at work. If it hadn't been for Missy they would have had to come home to an empty house. It always made me feel good to know that Missy was there looking out for and protecting my kids and my hearth and home. Missy and I took many long walks together. We walked every inch of the Old Erie Canal from Dewitt to Chittenango and beyond. We walked around Green Lake and around Round Lake. We walked in the sunshine. We walked in the rain. We walked in the snow. They were little adventures for me and a great big sniff for Missy. We encountered all kinds of wildlife; deer, rabbits, squirrels, turtles, snakes, and all kinds of birds. I don't believe any man can live a life free of all regrets. Regret seems to be an inevitable part of the human experience. One of my regrets will always be that there weren't more of those adventures. Missy was a sweet dog with a kind and gentle disposition. When Adison was in high school she had us adopt a kitten that we named Elsie. I think we got the kitten too early, before she had been properly weaned. At night a few times I was awakened by the sound of Missy yelping in pain as Elsie tried to nurse on her. She never got mad and that cat seriously bonded with Missy. Quite often I would find Missy and Elsie curled up together sleeping on the floor or the couch. On Thursday night Missy suffered what appeared to be a stroke. She was unable to get up and walk. Even in her debilitated state she was in good spirits and still managed to wag her tail at your approach. Robert took very good care of Missy in her final days. He stayed up with her at night. He fed her and brought her water. In a final indignity, that sometimes neither man nor beast can avoid, Missy had no control of bodily functions. Robert cleaned up after her and did his best to keep Missy clean. Robert said Missy didn't have to worry about cholesterol anymore and so she feasted on leftover goulash and boneless chicken wings from Ninos and such. Her last meal was a McDonalds cheeseburger. On Monday about 4:00PM we took Missy to Shop City Veterinary Hospital. We didn't take her to the doctors office with the expectation that she would be euthanized. I still held out hope that she was going to get better. The doctor, Dr. Bunnell, was very compassionate as he explained what was going on with Missy and what our options were. When we decided that we wouldn't be bringing Missy home with us we called Adison at college to let her know. She wanted to be there to say goodbye to Missy. They were very understanding at Shop City Veterinary Hospital and they let us wait in the exam room for the hour that it took Adison to get there. Missy was surrounded by the family that loved her when she left this world. There was no shame or self-consciousness in the tears I shed for the passing of my friend Missy. Rest in peace girl, you deserve it.

Adison and her puppy.

2009/10/04 10:30 Yesterday Karen and I went to Oswego to see Adison for her birthday. We went out to lunch at the Pressbox. I got Adison her new most favorite movie and she was very happy with it.

Khan Tiki Mon and a stone Moai from Easter Island at the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

2009/10/01 21:00 I had a very strange dream last night. I don’t often remember my dreams. I did last night. I dreamed that I was getting married. That is a little strange since I’m already married. My wife, Karen, was not in my dream and that’s not who I was engaged to. My new bride didn’t show up in my dream either. I was meeting with my future in-laws. They had a small business and they wanted me to come to work in the family business. They ran a coffee shop and they sold small chocolate candies. They were very excited about an expansion to the business they had planned. They were going to start selling puppets. I said it didn’t sound like a very good idea to me. I suggested that they might be better often expanding into breakfast sandwiches. I said that I could imagine someone saying; “Let’s go get a coffee and a bagel sandwich” long before I could imagine someone saying, “Let’s go get a coffee and a new puppet.” The future in-laws were very disappointed and remarked that they thought I would be more open minded since I was an artist. That part was pretty cool. I was an artist in the dream. Then my future mother in-law asked me how old I was. I said I was 57 years old. That wasn’t true as I’m not 57 years old. I don’t know if I was lying or if the dream took place in the future. Anyways, she got very angry saying that I was way too old for her daughter. I think it’s possible that she was just still sore about me not liking the whole puppets thing. I never did get to meet my fiancé. I don’t even know her name.

2009/09/09 12:00

2009/09/05 12:00 I heard this great story on the news. There is a ferry at night on a river. There are cars and trucks on the ferry. Suddenly the door to a truck opens and a man gets out holding his hands to his head to cover his ears. He yells, “I can’t take one more minute of this.” He makes his way to the railing, up and over, and jumps into the fast moving currents of the river and disappears. The captain and his men hang lanterns looking for the man but hold out little hope for his survival. Miraculously he washes up on the bank of the river sometime later and the police ask him what he thought he was doing. You could have drowned they say. He says, “I really thought I was going to drown but it was preferable to my wife’s nagging.” The police took him back to the police station where….. wait for it….. his wife was waiting for him. We are driving to Baltimore this afternoon. Karen, Michael, and I are going to visit her Aunt and Uncle there. Karen’s mom will be visiting from Illinois. On the way down we are going to stop outside of Philadelphia and pick up our nephew Sage. Then it is on to Baltimore. I went into work this morning to try and get some important stuff done since I will be out of the office on Tuesday and Wednesday. I was planning on 2 hours but it turned into 4. Karen was not happy at all and we had our usual fight that we have whenever we travel anywhere. It’s not so much a fight as just Karen being really pissed at me and yelling at me. Adison called me the other day to tell me she had just seen the best movie ever and that I had to see it. The movie she was raving about was “Taken” with Liam Neeson. I had already seen it. In the movie the Neeson character is an ex CIA operative and his daughter is kidnapped by a sex slavery ring. Adison said, “That guy really wanted his daughter back!”

Zane's mom, Kristin, Mike (posing Maori), Renee's mom, Renee, and Zane.

My NY State Fair dates: Mel, Diana, Karen, and Theresa.

2009/08/28 18:00 Last night Karen and I went to Joey's for our anniversary dinner.

2009/08/29 18:00 Yesterday we went to a birthday party for Jessica at a camp on Lake Ontario. It was cool and the clouds over the lake were pretty ominous. Karen made cupcakes.

2009/08/30 23:00 Today is the next to last day of the summer that never was. In an appropriate ending for a very wet and cool summer there were drenching showers off and on all day.

2009/09/02 23:30 I was at the The Great NY State Fair today. I met Karen, Theresa, Diana, and Mel there. I had a rough day at work. Didn’t get to go to lunch and so I decided to use a couple of hours vacation to leave early and catch lunch at the fair. I got to the fair and grabbed a Dinosaur Barbeque pulled pork sandwich and a Saranac beer. Then I headed over to check out the butter sculpture. I saw Renee and her mom also admiring the buttery art and they told me Mike and Zane were outside. I hadn’t told Karen I was going to the fair early and I sent her a text saying I was having a beer with Mike and Zane. She texted back, “Oh great. Are you even going to make it to the fair now?” I explained I was already at the fair. She must think those guys are a really bad influence on me. Of course when I met Zane’s mom and they explained who I was she said, “You’re that guy?” Maybe the bad influence thing depends on your perspective. All I know is I have a great time with those guys.

Wedding day August 27th, 1983

2009/08/27 18:00 Okay. Here's a little office humor. This guy is on the elevator. The doors open and a cute young girl enters the elevator. She's the one that's just a little too perky. Enough to be annoying. She smiles at him and she spells, "T-G-I-F". He smiles back and he spells, "S-H-I-T". She looks confused for a minute and then respells, "T-G-I-F". He's still smiling and he spells, "S-H-I-T" again. She says, "you don't understand. T-G-I-F. It means Thank God It's Friday." He says, "no, you don't understand. S-H-I-T. It means Sorry Honey It's Thursday." When you work in an office Monday sucks. It's back to work. But, you do have a little bounce coming from the weekend. Tuesday you're getting into the work week but you've still got some of that weekend bounce hanging on. Wednesday is 'hump' day. You're halfway home. Friday is the best. At the end of the day on Friday it's the weekend. But Thursday! Thursdays are the worst. It was Thursday all day at work today. Today I have been married 26 years. I am 52 years old. So that means I have been married for half of my life. To the same woman, now that’s an achievement. I hope to be married to the same woman for the rest of my life.

2009/08/15 08:30 Karen doesn’t have to work this weekend so we are going to be able to go to Freedom of Espresso for coffee and we are going to be able to sit and enjoy our time together. I really enjoy this time together and I look forward to going to Freedom of Espresso each week. This week I am looking forward to going out for coffee even more than usual. They have a bathroom that works and I’m going to be using it. Our toilet is still in pieces on the floor.

2009/08/17 21:15 Busy busy day today. We dropped the van for an inspection. Then Karen and I went for Monday coffee at Freedom of Espresso. We almost never get to go for coffee during the week. After coffee we went to the Village of Liverpool and I paid one hundred and five dollars to have the sanctions against my drivers license lifted. I am innocent of all charges but had to pay just because I had to pay. After the injustice suffered in Liverpool we stopped at Thano's for cheese and at Columbus bakery for bread. I dropped Karen at home and I went to work for two hours. I had the rest of the day plus the morning as vacation. Karen was in the pool when I got home cleaning it manually with a filter she made from an embroidery hoop and some tight mesh. The pump is broken and the cost to replace it was way more than I anticipated. We’re probably going to close the pool in two weeks when Labor Day rolls around and I didn’t want to spend the money on a pump for only a couple of weeks. The dryer is broken. The mechanic called and he wants seven hundred and fifty dollars to pass the van. Joy joy. Karen, Michael, Tristan, and I went to Olive Garden with my Mom and Dad to celebrate my Dad’s seventy sixth birthday. After dinner we came home and Michael and I finally finished fixing the toilet. In the directions for one of the parts for the toilet that I bought it warns not to inhale dangerous and infectious bacteria when you’re bent over the open waste pipe. I think that’s a pretty good rule and I’m going to elevate that one right up there with “no running with scissors”.

Typical evening. Tristan is on the computer while his mom and dad play rock-em sock-em robots.

2009/08/23 19:00 It is late Sunday afternoon, or early evening, and the weekend that just was is winding down and coming to a close. Soon it will be one for the history books. It was supposed to rain yesterday on Saturday. The weather forecast was for midday showers. I worked outside, mowed part of the lawn, and I moved some stuff to the shed. Physical labor. The air was moist with anticipation for the rains to come. That humidity in conjunction with the physical labor caused me to sweat through my T-shirt. I jumped in the pool to cool off. That was my first time in the pool this summer. It was very refreshing and I completely enjoyed relaxing and rejuvenating in the cool waters of the pool. I don’t spend anywhere near enough time relaxing and rejuvenating. The threatened rains didn’t come until overnight. I was headed to bed about midnight or so and that’s when the rains came. It has been dreary and damp all day today with intermittent showers. This morning Karen and I went to Freedom of Espresso for coffee as usual. These thoughts occurred to me over coffee. A lot of things in my life haven’t gone the way I thought they would. There are no indications that would lead me to believe that the remainder of my life is going to be any different. And yet, I’m happy and I feel fortunate to have had Karen as a partner. I can’t help but think that we have some really good things ahead of us. This past week I watched the 2006 film “Little Children” from Netflix. Can’t say I really enjoyed it or that I would recommend it. The film is based on an acclaimed novel and the author, Tom Perrotta, assisted with the screenplay. The movie stars Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson as unhappy suburban dwellers that have an affair with each other. All of the characters are damaged and unhappy. That’s how they start the film and that’s how they end up. Karen’s pick on Netflix this past week was “The Felon”, of which I only watched a little. The little I watched was enough for me to label the film as a depressing prison drama. I have to check and see what I have next in my Netflix queue. I could use something a little more fun or uplifting. The summer, such as it was, is almost over. As far as the weather was concerned it was probably the worst summer I can remember. It was just wet, and cold, and damp, and wet all the time. Did I mention that this summer was very wet? Labor Day is late in the calendar this year. Everything just seems to be out of sync. The NY State Fair will be starting soon. Hopefully we’ll get some nice days for that. Adison came home today and will be staying for a few days I hope. I miss my little girl. My little princess.

Tristan woke up for a walk down by the lake and he ate his fries on the pier. It was a fun evening.

Eileen, Nathan, Tina, Sean, and Karen. The T-man is down front with a chocolate milk. Much fun was had by all.

2009/08/14 23:30 Today was the first day of summer. What an absolutely beautiful day. And it was TGIF too. I slept with the oxygen last night for the second night. I didn’t wake up with a headache this time. I felt pretty good all day. I definitely felt more rested and I felt I had more energy. The cat woke me up batting the oxygen line around. She was sitting on my chest and playing with the oxygen tube. Glad I could provide some entertainment. Last night after work Karen and I went to Red Robin for dinner and then came home and took the toilet apart. We are going to reseat the toilet on a new wax ring and replace the mechanism inside of the tank with a new and improved system. Do we know how to enjoy a Friday night or what? (or what would be the correct response). Couldn’t finish the job, as we have some issues with rusted bolts and we need a new supply line, so there is no toilet upstairs now.

2009/08/13 23:30 Last night was my first night sleeping with the oxygen. I woke up with a ghastly headache. I thought I was going to throw up and I had to go back to bed, without the oxygen, until it passed. I did feel better all day. I don’t know how much of that was the oxygen and how much was a placebo effect. I think because I thought I was going to feel better, more rested and with more energy, that I may have felt better just because I was expecting to. Yesterday Karen, Tristan, and I met Sean, Tina, Eileen, and Nathan and we went to Doug’s Fish Fry in Skaneateles for dinner. Tristan fell asleep in the car on the way there and slept through dinner.

2009/08/11 12:30 Breaking news. This just in. It seems I may not be as close to death’s door as was originally thought. The monitor that I wore for the test the other night had a cracked case and the electrical leads were shorting out. The truly scary oxygen levels that I posted may actually only be mildly scary. I repeat the test tonight with an unbroken sensor and without the oxygen and then I start on the oxygen the next night. It hasn’t rained yet today. I don’t know what’s up with that.

2009/08/09 22:00 And then the rains came. It drizzled all day until the heavy stuff started. Thunder boomed and flashes of lightning lit up the sky as the rains came unabated. Everything is wet except for the stuff that’s soaked. I’m hoping for improvement which at this point would be dampness setting in. I took my drink fountain to Sean and Tina’s for the baby shower.

Karen and Adison at the baby shower. It was so nice that Adison came home for the baby shower.

2009/08/10 23:30 I woke up this morning to the sound of rain on the roof and rain hitting the bedroom window. There was a pause in the rain long enough for me to get to work and make it to my desk without getting soaked. When I got to work there was a message on my answering machine from Lincare about my emergency oxygen delivery. I found that interesting because I wasn’t expecting an oxygen delivery let alone an emergency oxygen delivery. I called and it turns out that the overnight test I took showed that I had some pretty scary oxygen levels at night. I probably have sleep apnea but that can’t be diagnosed without a more involved sleep test that involves me sleeping at a test facility. The oxygen levels I was showing were so low that the doctor and the techs want me on oxygen at night right now. They said we can’t wait until they get an official diagnosis. I have blamed my fatigue on my medications and maybe sometimes on depression but it is starting to look like this sleep apnea might be a culprit. There have been days when it has been just so hard to get out of bed and maybe this oxygen might be a good thing. Michael Jackson slept with oxygen. Except I think he had a big tank or chamber that he slept in. I don’t think my insurance will cover a Michael Jackson type hyperbaric chamber. Around three o’clock in the afternoon or so the heavy stuff started coming down. Sheets of driving rain accompanied by thunder and bolts of lightning. I worked late and I left work at seven and there was a break in the rain and I was able to make it to the parking lot without getting soaked. Not a bad day at all.

2009/08/09 08:00 Woke up this morning and it was raining. Really no surprise there. It has been an uneventful weekend so far. Karen had her girls night Friday. I stayed home and watched the season finale of “Burn Notice” on TIVO. It is such a great series. Every week on the show the main character, Michael Westin, goes to great lengths to see that the bad guys get what’s coming to them but without ever killing anybody. That’s why it was such a shock that when Fiona’s life was in danger he just killed Strickler immediately and with no hesitation. It’s a great love story, Michael the spy and Fiona the gunrunner and bomb maker. This past week on Tuesday I had a test for sleep apnea. It’s one of those tests that you can’t study for. I picked up a monitor on Tuesday and then wore it while I slept that night. It’s an oxygen sensor that clips on your finger. It records the oxygen content of your blood and your heart rate. We’ll see what the results are. I’ve been blaming some of my fatigue on the medications that I take but maybe there is a different culprit. Today there is a baby shower for Becky at Sean and Tina’s house. They are borrowing my drink fountain so I am going over at noon to set that up. I am going to make some appetizers too. Then maybe Sean and I will go do something manly while the girls have their fun.

Chris, Holli, Kevin, and Karen. Karen wasn't as drunk as she looks.

Karen and Katie. Karen wasn't as drunk as she looks.

2009/08/02 09:00 We went to the Clinton Street Pub last night. The manager is a friend and I felt bad not telling him that he has a serious security problem. Karen and I walked right in without being 'proofed'. Karen and I stayed pretty late. Jeff Surface wimped out and went home early. He was tired. I told him our secret, Karen's and mine, to be able to keep up with the younger kids - two words: "Power Nap". I had slept for a couple of hours and then got up at 10:00PM to go out and play.

Later that night I was awakened by, you guessed it, rain. It was a heavy downpour and the rain hitting the window woke me up. The forecast for today is good with rain predicted for tomorrow. I was thinking about going to the movies last night but there was nothing that caught my eye. Nothing worth shelling out nine dollars and change to see. There was nothing on TV last night and I didn’t have anything TIVO’d that I wanted to watch. Karen watched “So You Think You Can Dance” and I just surfed e-bay. Didn’t see anything on e-bay that I could get excited about. Blah best describes yesterday. Hopefully today will be different. Lots to do today. I have to work on the pool. Maybe I’ll have time to work on the Major gatehouse project. Later we’re going to Sean and Shelby’s for a barbecue. Then there is a party tonight at the Clinton Street Pub. None of it really matters since a day off from work is better than a workday anyday.

2009/08/01 09:00 And then the rains came. Today is the first day of August. June and July were both washouts. Lots and lots and lots of rain. Not many nice days sprinkled in among the rainy days. Thursday night was nice. Karen and I went to a Chief’s game and it was a beautiful night for it.

2009/07/26 15:00 I dropped Robert at work last night and I was listening to TK99 on the way home. I heard the rest of the line-up for the concerts in the Inner Harbor this summer. It's a rerun of my youth; The Outlaws, Foghat, Little Feat, and BOC - Blue Oyster Cult. Of course they aren’t exactly the same bands as my youth. There have been some casualties. At least three members of the original Outlaws are dead; one overdose, one suicide, and one heart attack. Two members of Foghat died of cancer. And Gene Frenkle of Blue Oyster Cult died (the last one is a joke – there is no such person as Gene Frenkle – that’s from an SNL skit with Christopher Walken and Will Farrell - “More cowbell”). Tristan has a new friend, Sprinkles. He joined us at Freedom of Espresso for coffee.

2009/07/25 15:00 I went to see "The Proposal" last night. Went by myself. That's right, I went to a chick flick without a chick. I'm man enough to admit I like a good romantic comedy. It's a great movie. Thumbs up. I love Ryan Reynold's comic delivery. Didn’t cause me any pain to see Sandra Bullock most of the way naked either. She’s 45 years old and she looks great. I’d take seeing Sandra Bullock naked over Megan Fox anytime. I’m getting older and it seems healthier to me to appreciate the female form of a woman closer to my age than to my daughter’s age. Before the film started there were previews for another Sandra Bullock film, “All About Steve”, and it looks pretty funny.

2009/07/22 08:00 Yesterday I had two doctors appointments. I can't believe I scheduled two appointments on the same day. I tend to make the appointments very far in advance and I guess I just wasn't paying attention to the calendar. I had my annual physical in the morning and then a dental cleaning in the afternoon. My dentist is really funny. He always has a new toy that he’s playing with. Yesterday it was a digital camera for taking teeth pictures. It looks like a toothbrush with a usb cable attached. You put a plastic sleeve over the camera end for hygiene and then snap away. The doc and two hygienists were practicing taking pictures of my teeth. As much fun as that was I was really thinking that I need to get back to work. The dentist decided I need another crown and so he now sends the x-rays and a digital picture to the insurance office to get approval. Now my comment on the state of our medical system is this. If my dentist decides I need a crown do we really need to have some person in the insurance office, who has a GED maybe?, second guessing the doc? And the doctor’s opinion, backed up by the x-rays, isn’t enough so now we need a photo too? The hygienist and the doctor said that I have symptoms of sleep apnea. They said the way the inside of my mouth is chewed up is a sign of sleep apnea. I have one thousand four hundred twenty one days until I retire. But then who's really counting?

That's John Cougar Mellencamp on stage. It was a stadium concert and obviously we weren't too close to the stage. The sound was great though.

Tristan sitting outside in the sun at Freedom of Espresso.

After Freedom of Espresso Michael and I got the next post set for the fence. Tristan didn’t help mix the concrete this time because he was taking a nap. Adison came home from college for a few hours and she, Michael, Karen, and I went to Trapper’s Pizza Pub for lunch. After we finished the late lunch it was getting close to 5:00PM and so Karen and I dropped Adison and Michael at home and headed out to Alliance Bank Stadium for the concert. Willie Nelson, John Cougar Mellencamp, and Bob Dylan were playing. Willie Nelson was up first and he put on a pretty good show for a guy that’s 76. Next was John Mellencamp. The last time I saw John Mellencamp, actually the only other time I ever saw him, he was John Cougar and he was the opening act for Heart. That was sometime in the mid ‘80s at the Syracuse War Memorial. Here it is twenty some years later and he’s the opening act for Bob Dylan. For a good deal of the time in between these shows he was the headline act but I never caught him as headliner. My favorite John Cougar Mellencamp song is “Paper In Fire”. When you like a song and you’ve only heard the studio version sometimes hearing it live can be a let down. That was definitely not the case here. They played “Paper In Fire” as their second tune and they tore the place up with it. Electric violin and accordion and they rocked the stadium. What a great show. When John Mellencamp and band were done I said that they were going to be a very difficult act to follow. Bob Dylan for me was a let down after that and Karen and I actually ended up leaving before the show was over. To be fair, I’ve never been a big Dylan fan and went to the concert for Willie and Mellencamp, but the Dylan show was still disappointing.

2009/07/19 23:30 A busy busy weekend is over. This morning it was just me and Tristan hanging out. Everyone else in the house was sleeping. Tristan and I went over to Tim Horton’s. I got a coffee and Tristan got some donut holes. They call them Timbits at Tim Horton’s and they come 10 to a cute little box with a handle. Tristan enjoyed the box way more than the donuts. I am just so happy that he will do stuff with me now. For a long time he was pretty stand offish. Probably the beard was scary. But now we’re best buds. When Karen woke up the three of us went to Freedom of Espresso for coffee. We sat outside and Tristan ended up playing in the dirt. He had a good time.

There will be more music tonight as Karen and I will be off to see Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and John Cougar Mellencamp at Alliance Bank stadium. Right now Karen, Tristan, and I are headed over to Freedom of Espresso for coffee. Then I am going to try to get a post set in the backyard for the fence. Once I finish the fence I can get to work on the major gatehouse.

2009/07/19 11:00 The summer is more than half over, which really just doesn’t seem quite right. It has been so rainy and unseasonably cool that it doesn’t even seem like summer has started and it’s already more than half over. Yesterday Karen and I took Tristan to Baltimore Woods for the CD release party for the band the Milkweeds. We met Sean and Tina there. In all the time I’ve lived here I’ve never been to Baltimore woods. For years and years I listened to John Week’s weekly radio spot “The Nature of Things” on NPR radio. The radio spots often dealt with happenings in the Baltimore Woods. And yet I never ventured the short distance to Baltimore Woods until yesterday. It turned out to be a very nice day for the party. It threatened to rain but it ended up that that’s all they were was threats. It was cool and comfortable weather-wise and we had some fun. Tristan played with some bocce balls and watched a brother and sister beat the crap out of each other. They knew kung-fu and weren’t afraid to unleash it. The boy seemed about 4 and the girl seemed about 6 and Tristan was just fascinated and at the same time maybe scared by the roughhousing. The music was very good and provided the promised soundtrack for the setting delivered by Mother Nature.

2009/07/09 16:00 post on Tiki Central I have to admit that I was getting very jealous reading all the rave reviews from my Tiki brethren who already had their Jungle Jetsetter Jetpacks. Stuck here waiting on the east coast where we’ve endured the rainiest June since the early 1970s (July is continuing the same damp way), I was starting to think that I would never enjoy said package in this Tikigodsforsaken spot. Then, the sun shone for the first time in over a week and the package arrived that very same day. Number 72/100 has landed safely. The whole package is great but if the music didn’t deliver it would just be gimmicky. The music delivers, and then some, making this an instant classic. What a great CD. I was listening in my car (actually in my very not cool family minivan – but the CD made me feel cool), and I was trying to picture VampiressRN’s eargasm? Sorry, getting off topic, anyways I was listening to the CD and for a few minutes I thought I was in a Dean Martin movie having a cocktail with Matt Helm. Does anyone else get that feeling? The music is evocative, taking you to many different and exotic places. Crisp and clean. I did eat the fortune cookies. Never been one to save the packaging to sell later on E-Bay. Plus, if you didn’t open how would you read your fortune? Truth be told I only ate one cookie. I was so excited opening the second one my trembling fingers dropped the cookie and the dog snarfed it up in about 2 seconds. Anything that hits the floor is fair game. Anyways, hats off and congrats to Captain Lush and crew for a truly memorable flight!

2009/07/07 22:00 Life sucks and then you die. It seems that way sometimes doesn't it? As Meatloaf said so eloquently, "Life is a lemon and I want my money back." Lately I have been thinking about my mortality a lot. Everyone born is going to die. No exceptions allowed. I know I have a finite number of good years left to me and I don't want to spend them the way I am now. Or the way I have in the past. I have wasted and squandered time like there would always be a tomorrow. Now the end of days is looming and I've got stuff to do. I've got places I need to be. When I was 17 years old I read “Meditations by Marcus Aurelius”. Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor and a stoic philosopher. His writings left an impression on me that last to this day. Lately I have been thinking a lot about some of what he wrote. He counseled us to live in the present. That’s all a man has. The past is past and can’t be rewritten. There is no future; nothing is guaranteed. “Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it. Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.” I feel better having made the decision to retire in four years (48 months). Sunday night Michael and I went to see the new Transformer’s movie. I wasn’t a big fan of the first one. It was too loud and frenetic and loud. The sequel was actually better than the first one. I felt there was more of a plot and it was easier to tell what was going on. Near the beginning of the movie the lead actress Megan Fox bends over a motorcycle in some really short jean shorts and you can see an amazing amount of her ass. I think they should put that in a poster and Megan Fox would surely be heir to Farrah Fawcett’s legacy; she can be pin-up for my son Michael’s generation.

Today felt like it was a Friday since I have tomorrow off for the Fourth of July holiday. TGIPF. Thank God it’s pseudo Friday.

Last night Arica and her daughter Abriana came to visit. We had a party at the house in their honor. It has been raining a lot of late and so the planned barbecue got moved indoors. I still cooked some pork outside, and I made some daiquiris, and I’m pretty sure a good time was had by all.

Mother and daughter are both so damn cute.

And Tristan perfected use of the slide. “Look at me Pop pop!”

On Saturday the bar where Adison works was having a luau party and she asked us to come visit. Adison wore a grass skirt and coconut bra to work. None of the women I work with ever wear grass skirts to work. They might wear coconut bras. I mean if they wore them under their shirts how would I know?

Karen taught him how to drive the car.

2009/07/02 23:30 So, this guy is checking into a hotel in Las Vegas and he says to the girl behind the desk, “I hope the porn channel in my room is disabled?” “No,” she says, “I’m sorry sir, it’s just regular porn.” I heard that on the radio. Pretty funny. Here’s something else I heard on the radio. This was on the Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. What’s the opposite of lonely? No answer was given and it has had me thinking for a week at least. I haven’t written anything here since I got back from Florida and the Hukilau. I think I’ve been suffering from a kind of post-Hukilau letdown. I spent months looking forward to the Hukilau. I had a great time there and now it’s just back to the ordinary. Coming back to work wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was gone at the right time in my billing cycle so that there wasn’t that much work piled up when I got back. There wasn’t as much work waiting for me as I feared that there might be. I have made a decision since I got back from Florida and the Hukilau that I'm going to retire at age 56. I won't have enough points for my full pension but I'm going to take my cash value and leave. I will leave my job in 48 months. That’s not that far away and it gives me something to work towards and to look forward to. These last 2 weeks I’ve had some nightmares that involve me dying of some disease. Lately, for whatever reason, my mortality has been a concern. Last Thursday night Michael and I went to see “The Hangover”. It was way funnier than I expected. Michael said when we were leaving he overheard some of the kids behind us talking about how hard I was laughing. It wasn’t quite as bad as when I went to see “Step Brothers”. During that movie, which I went to by myself, I was laughing so hard that at one point I was getting light headed and I was afraid that I was going to pass out. For safety’s sake I guess I shouldn’t see comedies without someone with me to call 911 in case of an hysterical emergency. We had Tristan at the house this last weekend. We were babysitting while Ariel was downstate for her sister’s baby shower. It was fun having Tristan spend the weekend with us and he and I really got to be buds.

2009/06/10 23:00 It is the night before I leave for Florida and the Hukilau. My flight leaves at 6:00AM so we’ll be leaving the house at 4:30AM. This past weekend was busy. We spent Friday night at the Taste of Syracuse. Saturday morning I got a lot of work done outside. I mowed the lawn and made a trip to the mulchpile in Jamesville. I dropped off grass clippings and yard debris and picked up mulch and compost. Saturday night we met Sean and Tina at Barnes & Noble for coffee.

Tristan was with us at Barnes & Noble and he ate a sugar cookie that was bigger than his head. The cookie had multi-colored sugar crystals all over it. When we got home from Barnes & Noble Michael and I headed out to Shoppingtown and Regal cinemas to see the late screening of the new Star Trek movie. I saw the first Star Trek movie when it first came out and I thought it was absolutely terrible. The only Star Trek movie that was halfway decent was “The Wrath of Khan”. That was before JJ Abrams re-invented and updated Star Trek (and saved the franchise). I thought the movie was great. There was enough there for the people like me who saw all the original episodes multiple times. And my 19 year old son who never watched any Star Trek episodes liked it. Sunday morning Karen and I made our customary trip to Freedom of Espresso. I spent the rest of Sunday building a rack to hold my Tiki torches. It is not easy being a man of many torches. I needed a good place to store them. The rack came out great but I need to paint it before I can say it’s finished. Once it’s finished I’ll post a picture. Three days of work this week. Short week, which just means I had to bust my ass to get as much done as I could before I left. And there will be a pile of work waiting for me when I get back. None of that will dampen what I expect to be just an absolutely wonderful weekend. I am Hukilau bound.

Microsoft has a new web browser that is to compete with Google. It is called Bing and it is very cool. I say that because Google never crawled my website but Bing has. The way a browser works is it sends out “crawlers” to map or catalog the internet and that’s where search results come from. If you tried to “Google” stuff from my website you could never get a hit for anything other than the main page titles. With Bing you can actually hit stuff inside my website. It’s very cool and I have been playing with it a lot.

2009/06/06 10:00 It has been a long time since I last updated. I wish I could say that was because I have been too busy doing exciting things. Not. Plus sometimes I just get lazy and uninspired. Robert is no longer incarcerated. He was a free man last Friday. This weekend he has gone, with Ariel and Tristan, to a wedding in Rhode Island (I think it’s Rhode Island). Last night Karen and I went to the Taste of Syracuse downtown. We ran into Mark Pine. Every year we run into Mark Pine at the Taste of Syracuse. Fun time.

2009/05/24 09:00 My favorite tree was assassinated while I was at work. My wife ordered the hit. My youngest son completed the contract. I was left on Saturday to dispose of the remains. I kept the trunk because I am going to carve it into a Tiki and at least I will have the tree spirit with me. It makes me sad.

2009/05/24 18:00 e-mail to Darren and Paul I saw the movie “Taken” in San Antonio when we went to see Michael’s graduation from BMT (Basic Military Training). Not being able to go to the movies was one of the things he missed the most. We went to Alamo Cinema and Ale House. The seats all have tables like the seatbacks on an airline but way more comfortable. You have a waitress for the movie and you can have beer and snacks during the film. You gotta love Texas. There’s nothing like that in New York. I had a Bass ale while I enjoyed the film. And I did enjoy the film. Incidentally, Liam Neeson has been an action star for a long time. He was a knight of the round table, Sir Percival, in the movie “Excalibur”. I leave for the Hukilau on Thursday June 11th. I come home on Sunday June 14th. I am really looking forward to it. A few years ago Missy and I were walking over at Green Lakes. We walked around the lake, it was autumn, and the sun went down sooner than I was expecting. It caught us in the woods after dark. We were carefully walking the path when Missy stopped. She froze up and all her fur stood up on end. She was really scared. The fact that she was scared kind of freaked me out and after all I was in the woods in the dark. Then at least 14 deer passed us on the path. I mean 7 went on one side of me and seven on the other. They were within arms reach as they passed. They didn’t seem to pay any attention to us.

2009/05/31 12:00

Pop Pop and Tristan at Freedom of Espresso.

2009/5/28 20:00 I came home from work and it had been raining. I was in the backyard and I was captivated by how green and lush things seemed. The greens were just so green. The moss on the tree was vibrant. The pictures I took don’t do any of it justice. I mean things were green.

2009/05/22 16:00 On the walls of most modern corporations you will find the ubiquitous inspirational and motivational photos. Photos with little platitudes on them. A platitude is a trite, meaningless, biased or prosaic statement that is presented as if it were significant and original. It is an oft-quoted saying that is supposed to be meaningful but has become unoriginal or hackneyed through overuse. These inspirational photos extol the virtues of everything from TEAMWORK, PERSEVERANCE, LOYALTY, and so on. The use of these inspirational postings was pioneered by the Nazis during World War II. "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Shall Set You Free) adorned the entrances of the concentration camps at Dachau and Auschwitz. So, in the hallway where I work is this photo and it says; "QUALITY - Every Job is a Self-portrait of the Person Who Did It. Autograph Your Work With Quality." The photo was somewhere else and someone had to move it. When they moved it here they must have dropped it and they broke the glass. Instead of having the photo repaired they just hung it as it was. I imagine them stepping back and looking at the job and saying, "Yep, I signed that one."

Looking out on the armory from a 300k condo. Karen on the balcony talking to Adison.

Upstairs at Center Armory.

When we got back from the Downtown Living Tour I started mowing the lawn. I wanted to at least get the front lawn mowed and get my cans of grass clippings and yard waste out to the community mulchpile in Jamesville. It started raining but I kept mowing in the rain. It was not raining that hard and I was able to get the front lawn mowed before the heavy stuff started to come down. And then the heavy stuff really came down. I was loading the cans into the van and the rains were so heavy they soaked me through. My clothes were heavy and cold against my skin. I just sucked it up and drove to Jamesville all wet and cold. I turned the heater up full blast and I had to sit so I wasn't leaning back in the seat because that just pressed the cold wet clothes against me. I got to the mulchpile and the rains were just pounding the van. I wasn't in that big a hurry so I said to myself I'll sit here for a few minutes and let the rains subside some before I unload. I had NPR on the radio and I was content to wait. A car pulled up and a young couple, who were maybe 25 to 30 years of age, got out to get some compost. They unloaded pails from their trunk and then started using their hands to push compost into the buckets. The rains were just pounding these people as they pushed the dark black slimy compost into the pails. I thought these are some people that really want compost. I mean it was raining so hard that I think a crackhead might hang out inside for an hour or so waiting for the rains to let up before venturing out to get some crack for the crackpipe. But this couple must have really needed the compost in a bad way. It had to have been a full scale compost emergency. The county worker that was overseeing the mulch site took pity on these fools and ran out of his shack / office to loan them a shovel. After about 10 or 15 minutes the rain let up some and I unloaded my cans of yard debris. When I got back from the mulchpile trip to Jamesville I was still soaking wet. I changed into some dry clothes and then Karen and I went a thrifting. A thrifting we will go. Sounds like a carol. We went first to the Salvation Army and then to the Rescue Mission. Everything was half off their already everyday low low prices. It's insane. I get designer label clothes, that I wouldn't buy new and pay those outrageous prices for, and I get these clothes for pennies on the dollar. I got a bunch of Hawaiian shirts, some shirts to wear to work, a pair of shorts, and some LPs. Last summer I got 3 really nice sport coats at the Rescue Mission and some really nice dress shirts. One of the sport coats was from an exclusive mens shop downtown and I know it was probably a hundred fifty to two hundred dollar jacket and I got it for five dollars. It was funny because I was making a presentation at work and someone remarked about how nice I looked all dressed up and I said, "everything I'm wearing except my underwear, socks, and shoes came from goodwill. I think that puts me just inches away from homeless." Homeless chic. Sunday morning Karen and I made our usual visit to Freedom of Espresso. I love our Sunday mornings at the coffee shop. After coffee we went home and I worked on finishing my garden gate I had been working on. Karen went to pick up Tristan for a visit. I finished the gate for my minor gatehouse. I didn't think I was going to be able to hang the gate on Sunday but the stain dried much faster than I thought it would. The minor gatehouse is not complete but the gate is done. I will have two gatehouses when I'm done. I refer to them as the minor and major gatehouses. The major gatehouse is my next project once I finish the minor gatehouse. The major gatehouse will have two gates. It is a much larger opening in the fence. When I first built the frame for the opening Karen seemed rather concerned with the size. I tried to explain how the gates would work and she said, "like the King Kong doors in Jurassic Park?" Yes, exactly!! The whole major gatehouse design is going to be Asian. Asian inspired but not any kind of authentic design. Some of the plans I copied from a Chinese restaurant downtown.

Marty and Laura at Trappers.

On Saturday morning Karen and I took our trash to Jamesville. We stopped at my parents and picked up an old HiFi console that my Dad wanted to get rid of. We took the console to Jamesville and junked it. After the trash Karen and I went to the Downtown living tour. The downtown living tour was open houses in some of the apartments, lofts, and condos in downtown Syracuse. I had free tickets and I was really interested in going anyway. I watch a lot of the construction downtown from outside and was curious to see the insides.

2009/05/19 22:00 A week has passed. A week has passed and the weekend that just was is over. Time marches on and waits for no man. I've been busy. I've been keeping busy. Michael is home. Karen and I picked him up at the Syracuse Airport. He is officially separated from the US Air Force. He exhausted all appeals and was not able to get any satisfaction. They wouldn't let him stay in the Air Force because of his hearing. He made it all the way through basic military training and I feel so bad for him. Tuesday night I visited Robert at the Jamesville Penitentiary. Karen and I used to go together to visit him. Since he has been in administrative lock down he can only get one visitor at a time. You sit in a little room with thick bullet proof glass between you and you talk to each other on a phone. Karen and I have been alternating the visits. I had a nice time talking with Robert. He usually has a funny story about something that happened in his world. He has been reading a lot. I am ever hopeful that he has turned a corner and that he can get his life back on track. Thursday night I went to the MACNY dinner. That's the Manufacturers Association of Central NY annual dinner and awards ceremony. I enjoyed it. My company had purchased a table for the event and there were unused seats so I got invited. I got to sit next to my favorite vice president, who I really want to work for, so that was good. I'm hoping she can work it out so that I get transferred to her division. One of the couples they honored were really funny. They had immigrated to the US and started their own business making industrial molds. He made the molds and she took care of finances. They grew the business from the two of them to hundreds of employees. They are in their 80s and have been married for 60 years. When they accepted the honor he said when he was courting his wife to be he had no idea she had such financial skills. “She had other talents that I was more interested in,” he said and got the crowd laughing and cheering. Friday night Karen and I went to Trappers with Marty and Laura. We had pizza, wings, salad, onion rings, and beer. We discussed concubines and some other topics.

The Milkweeds.

Seeing Tom play the mandolin coupled with the ads I’ve heard for a David Bromberg concert in Homer on Saturday(tonight) got me to remembering. About 1978 or 1979 I saw Bromberg at the Proctor Theatre in Albany (Troy maybe?). The show was great and at the end Bromberg came out and thanked the audience and he said, “you guys are a great crowd and I loved playing for you but you’ve got to tell your friends about us or I can’t keep doing this”. The turn out had been disappointing. Shortly after that he dropped out of performing and went to school for 4 years to learn how to make violins. I think that’s mostly what he does now but it’s great to see he’s back performing once in awhile. I would love to go to Homer and see the show but it’s not going to happen this weekend.

Karen picked me up in front of Kitty Hoyne’s around 7:15 or 7:30 and we headed out to an “Ocho de Mayo” party. An “Ocho de Mayo” party is basically a “Cinco de Mayo” party but just 3 days late. It was a nice party and I had a great time. Played the trivia game “Buzz” for the first time. Did a couple of jello shots but I really wasn’t in the mood to have much to drink. I had had a Guinness and then a Bass Ale at Kitty Hoyne’s and the Bass just didn’t taste right. Didn’t really hit the spot like usual.

I have this book from the 1970s on record album art. I’m sure there have been books since this one. Lots of famous artists, like Andy Warhol for one, did record album covers.

2009/04/23 23:00 I decided to take a walk at lunch today. It had been raining and it wasn’t as warm as it had been the last few days. Still, it was a pleasant walk. I walked down to the Sound Garden but I didn’t walk on the street. I walked through the parking lots because I felt like checking out Onondaga Creek. When I got close to the Sound Garden I cut through the lot in back of the building. There was a little booth there. This attendant came out of his little booth and he said, “Excuse me sir, but I need to see your ticket.”

I said, “I don’t have a ticket.”

Then he said, “In that case I need five dollars from you for a ticket.”

I replied, “I don’t want a ticket.” (It sounded a little like extortion to me).

“In that case,” he said, not altogether unpleasantly, “then I’ll have to have your car towed.”

I said, “I have 2 problems with that. First, you don’t have any legitimate reason to tow my car. Second, you don’t even know where my car is. How are you going to find it?”

“Is your car parked in this lot,” he asked?

“No”

“Then you don’t need a ticket.”

2009/05/02 09:00 Last night was Karen’s girls night out. I got to play bartender. The girls came to our house for appetizers before going out to dinner at the new Greek restaurant in Jamesville. I made some bruschettas for appetizers and the girls had some chamagne. I had already planned on serving Daiquiris for cocktails after the girls got back from dinner. Not the ‘froo-froo’ Daiquiris that most people think of when they think of Daiquiris but a real Ernest Hemmingway Daiquiri. Ernest Hemmingway drank Daiquiris and that was the kind I was making. I juiced 2 dozen limes and I made a simple syrup while the girls were at dinner. My recipe is simple; one part light rum, one part fresh lime juice, and one part simple syrup. Shake with ice, strain, and serve straight up in a martini glass. Hemmingway would have been proud. The girls liked the Daiquiris and I made them until I was out of lime juice. That was a fair amount of Daiquiris. We had retired to the Tiki room and we would have been able to enjoy the fire I made in the Tiki Fire Bowl but it started raining. Still, all things considered, a fun evening.

2009/05/09 09:30 Last night I went to hear the Milkweeds at Kitty Hoyne’s. I have to admit I was a little hesitant about returning to Kitty Hoyne’s. The last time I was there I was thrown out. Actually, my memory is a little foggy and I’m not sure if I was thrown out or if I just fled amid threats of physical violence. I was pretty inebriated that evening, which I blame on Mike Jemison and Zane Fonseca who were feeding me ‘Jager-bombers’. I’m not going to tell that story again. Suffice it to say I felt my actions that evening at Kitty Hoyne’s were justified given the circumstances but I guess I may have broken some social and hygienic taboos. Anyways, I got to Kitty Hoyne’s and the Milkweeds were already playing. One of the first songs I heard that night was “Mama Tried”. I love that song. Seemed particularly apt since Mother’s Day is tomorrow and the song hits me personally since my oldest son is in jail.

"And I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole

No one could steer me right but Mama tried

Mama tried to raise me better but her pleading I denied

Now there’s only me to blame ‘cause Mama tried

She tried to raise me right but I refused"

The show was good, the crowd was nice, it was a pleasant end of the work week, and a nice start on my Friday night (apparently enough time had passed since my last time in the establishment since no one seemed to recognize me).

2009/04/22 21:45 Post on Tiki Central My parents had a HiFi console. They had a box set of LPs from something like Time-Life that was supposed to be all the music you would ever need. Too funny. I remember one of the pieces was the theme from “The Magnificent Seven” by Elmer Bernstein. They also had one other record. That was Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass “Whipped Cream and Other Delights”. That I thought was very cool. That LP got played a lot by me. I bought my first LP in the early 1970s. It was Led Zeppelin III. The cover opened and there was a wheel that turned. Too cool. Over the next 2 decades I would amass a record collection that numbers in the thousands (I think about 2,500). I bought a few 45s in the day but not very many. I think, for me, the paper sleeve that came with the 45 couldn’t compete with the artwork on the LP and that whole package (I did like the little plastic adapters required to play the 45s on the HiFi). I think the album cover art was a large part of the whole record experience. Can anyone, of a certain generation, hear something from the Rolling Stones “Sticky Fingers” and not have the album cover come to mind. That’s true of so many of the classic LPs. I love music and my tastes have always been eclectic. I have rock, folk, progressive, jazz, grunge, new wave, lounge, Exotica, punk, bluegrass, rockabilly, emo, Irish, Latin, and more. Mostly how I listen to music now is on a CD. I don’t have any MP3s yet. For an old guy I’m usually a pretty quick adopter of new technology but I haven’t made the leap to the IPod and the like yet. Digital music is a different experience. I can remember a friend would call up, “Do you want to hear the new Chick Corea album?” And you would have to go see the friend. And hang out. Put the LP on the turntable and pass the album cover around. Today you can send a text with the file attached and you don’t even have to see anyone. I’m probably being too nostalgic.

2009/04/21 18:00 I know I’m going to die; everyone does. I think of the movie “Blade Runner” and the character , the replicant, played by Rutger Hauer. He knows he is dying and he laments, “I’ve seen things….” That’s the way I feel. I’ve seen things! I’ve had experiences. And all of that dies with me. Writing is a way, an attempt, to leave some of that behind. If it touches anybody – great. If not – at least it made me feel better. Writing has become a therapy for me. It makes absolutely no difference to me if anyone reads it or not. But, publishing it to the web, so anyone could read it makes it feel more real.

A little Katsushika Hokusai must have spilled outside and got on the stop sign. Very cool.

2009/04/04 08:30 I can’t shake this illness I have. It’s not as bad as it was but I have a persistent cough and I am still congested. I’m tired and I feel weak. I finished the course of antibiotics I was on and I keep thinking maybe I need some more. One of the last episodes of “The Unit” was about a terrorist attack on US soil. The terrorists attacked with chlorine gas. The other night I was getting ready to go to bed and I was in the bathroom. I sat on the toilet and I was gassed. Apparently Karen was cleaning with Clorox or bleach and left a lot standing in or around the toilet. It may have been my weakened state which allowed the gas attack to have such impact. I don’t know but I couldn’t breathe. My throat started burning. I tried to get out and I retched and threw up in the sink. I made it out of the bathroom, the gas zone. I staggered out into the hallway and here the effects of the chlorine gas were finally mitigated by some fresh air. For the record this was not a terrorist attack, it was not even malicious. It was an accidental gassing. The week is over and we are in full weekend mode. It promises to be a very rainy weekend. It also may get cold and some areas around here may get snow. Karen and I are taking Tristan to lunch with Bunny today at the Zoo. That should be fun.

2009/04/10 09:00 Adison came home yesterday. She got a ride to Syracuse. She wanted to get her bicycles. I took a few hours vacation and met her at home. We went to Target and got her prescription filled and we went to the gas station and put air in her bike tires. We went to Pizzaria Uno and had some nachos and then waited for Karen to get back from visiting Robert in jail. When Karen got home we ate at Tim Horton's and then I drove Adison and her bikes back to Oswego. I first got turned onto "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" in North Carolina. There was a print in Mama Kwan's Tiki Bar and I liked it. I got a print of my own and put my copy up in my Tiki Lounge. Visiting Mama Kwan's the next year I saw that they had removed their print but it remains in my Tiki Lounge and is one of my favorites. The artist Katsushika Hokusai produced the series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" between 1826 and 1833. "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" was the first in the series. Adison told me that there was a bar in Oswego, called Old City, that had a portion of "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" reproduced on the wall. So, we had to go check it out. After dropping the bikes at Adison's apartment we went to the bar. I only had plastic on me, no cash, and so Adison bought me a pint of Bass Ale. It was the first time my daughter bought me a beer. It was a nice bar, not a college bar but more a 'town' bar. I had a nice time there.

2009/03/29 10:00 Sunday morning. A nice, quiet, peaceful, Sunday morning. For the first time in a week I didn’t sleep on the couch last night. I have been so sick that I have been doing better sleeping on the couch. On the couch I basically sleep sitting up and I breathe easier and can sleep longer. That amounted to sleeping a couple of hours before I woke up as opposed to about 15 or 20 minutes if I tried to lay down. This fitful sleep, together with the fact that I was running a fever, is probably what generated all the weird dreams I was having. The funniest dream was a couple of days ago. I dreamed I was at work and an announcement came over the PA system telling all employees to cease whatever they were doing and report immediately to the auditorium for a special message. We were told that, as far as we were concerned, the company was ceasing operations. No more work would be done at our location and everyone was laid off. On a positive note all severance pay and packages would be doubled. People started filing out of the auditorium and then two gentleman in dark suits located me, grabbed me by both arms, and said, “I’m sorry sir, not you, you’re not going anywhere. There’s too much work to be done.” In case the reader is not sure, what I just described was a nightmare. I was feeling better yesterday and I ventured out in the afternoon for a trip to Pier One. There is a chair at Pier One that I want for my Tiki room and I wanted to make sure that it was still there. It was. Adison called when I was at Pier One and we talked. Later, I got in the car and drove towards home. I stopped to turn left onto Sunset and it was busy. While I waited for an opening in traffic another vehicle came to stop about 5 feet behind me. I continued to wait for a break in traffic while a third vehicle, the driver of which was engaged in composing and sending a text message, hit the vehicle behind me going approximately 45 MPH. She never touched her brakes, why would she?, and the force of her hitting the vehicle behind me drove that vehicle into my rear end. I wasn’t hit too bad. I will most likely need a new rear bumper. The people behind me, the meat part of the motor vehicle sandwich, suffered the most. The driver and his girlfriend were both taken from the scene on backboards by ambulance. I am hoping that everything is okay with them. When I was in San Antonio I bought two matching bumper stickers. I got one for the Saturn and one for the van. They say “MY SON IS A US AIRMAN”. I couldn’t wait to put them on the vehicles. Well I hesitated when we found out that there was a possibility that Michael might not be continuing in the military. I decided not to put the stickers on the cars until he got his medical waiver. So, I’m at the accident scene thinking how happy I am that I hadn’t put the bumper sticker on yet. The accident would have ruined it and then, if Michael gets the waiver and continues in the Air Force, I would have had to return to San Antonio to replace the bumper sticker. The bumper sticker itself cost $1.50 but airfare, car rental, motel, something to eat… I saved a fortune by not having put the sticker on yet.

2009/03/27 22:00 e-mail to Darren Hi Darren, I’m glad to hear you guys are back okay from Texas. We had a great time and it was really fantastic to see you guys. I woke up in the motel in San Antonio Monday morning at 3:00 AM before we left and I threw up. It has been downhill since. I was very sick on the plane back. It really isn’t a great idea to fly with a sinus infection. I made it to the doctor on Wednesday and they determined that I had a fever, and that I had bronchitis and that the sinus infection was bacterial. In addition to the elevated white blood count my white blood cells weren’t in very good shape anyways. It seems that as sick as I was my immune system was rushing the white blood cells into battle before they were ready, like little immature child warriors in the battle against infection. I got a prescription for antibiotics that come in these big horse pills. About all I have been doing is going to work and sleeping. Today is the first day that I can say that as bad as I feel it is not quite as bad as it was yesterday. Michael has run into a bit of a snag and is still at Lackland Air Force Base. He was supposed to be onto his technical school but he has been held up by his hearing test. When I get a good address for him I will let you know. I’m sure he’d love to get something from Philip.

2003/03/21 09:00 I am in San Antonio Texas. The flights here were uneventful. We flew first from Rochester to Chicago. I fell asleep on the plane and the stewardess woke me up with a question. I had been dreaming and I thought she said, “do you want a photograph?” I’m thinking like one of those souvenir photos for the tourists. I thought, perfect, a shot of me ‘dozin and droolin’ would definitely be mantle worthy. What she had really said was, “do you have a connection?” She was giving us the gate we needed to get to. We made our connecting flight, got the rental car, and settled into the Motel 6. The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn and headed to Lackland Air Force Base to see the Airman’s Run. We watched the flights run by and were unable to pick out our son Michael. They made a loop and came back by from the other direction and we were still unable to pick out our son. We were able to locate him after the coin ceremony. Michael has two ribbons on his uniform. He has one for BMT (successfully completing basic military training) and one for National Defense. The National Defense ribbon he earned because he enlisted when the country was at war. If I wasn’t truly aware that we were at war then sitting through the classes, lectures, presentations, and ceremonies really hammered that point home, over and over again. I am so very proud of Michael and at the same time so worried for him. It has made for a very emotional weekend so far and we’re just getting started.

Karen and Michael after the coin ceremony.

khan tiki mon's rants and rambles

(part three)

Could this be even more of what's going on???

And so part three of this trilogy begins. My Rants and Rambles trilogy is surely poised to take it’s place among the other classic and timeless trilogies like Lord of the Rings (well maybe somewhere between LOTR and the Beverly Hills Cop franchise). As before, the same cautions apply. Ahead may be TMI – too much information, so read at your own peril. This page continues the tradition of its’ predecessors and starts on St Patrick’s Day.

2009/03/17 09:00 Happy St Patty's day to one and all!