No rant today

Greetings fellow bloggers. (Both of you that actually read this!) Nothing to rant about today. Oh I am sure I could come up with something, as I have a tendency to rant and rave about a lot of things. My disdain for George W (Or as I like to call him, "Shrub") or his untenable war.Then there is the fact that Congress is so busy trying to cover up all the ethics violations, and Congressmen going after young pages, and how much money they can put in their pockets...that they can't seem to take the time to handle trivial matters like running the country! Or the gaping wound that is our border, bleeding illegal immigrants. Oh forgive me, undocumented aliens. (Undocumented my ass!! Let's call them what they are- Law-breakers and criminals!) They come here squeeze out a bunch of babies, and live off of our generosity!

But I am not going to go of on a rant today!

Anyway, this is Wednesday, and that means LOST!!!! Are the others the Good guys like Henry/Ben said? What are they forcing Sawer and Kate to dig up?

What will they do now that Sun has shot one of them?
Maybe tonight we will have more answers. I have no doubt we will have more questions....

Animal Rant!

This is going to be a little short tonight.

We are watching Animal Cops Houston, on Animal Planet. They had a story on about a dog that had been left with a jumper cable around his neck as a tie to a fence. There was no water, no food, and the dog had no slack in the so called rope. This left the poor dog sitting in it's own excrement, for over 30 days. At this point in the show, they have not located the owners. Hearing the poor dogs cries are heart wrenching.

People who do things like this should be taken out and shot. Or at the very least, treated the exact same way they treated their animals. These people probably abuse their children too. Is it really a stretch to imagine that? I don't think so. As far as animal cruelty, here in Texas the law provides a maximum sentence of 2 years in prison. Not enough. Not nearly enough!

I think the prison term for animal cruelty should be no less than what the sentence for child cruelty is. ( I am not certain of the maximum term on that is, but it's a damn site more than animal cruelty.) But animal are considered chattel, and up to a point you can do whatever you want with them.

Oh well, What can I say, this is a subject that I get very angry about. Rant for the day done!

Even more Rain!

Monday again! Well we managed to get some things accomplished today. I was able to get Social Security on the phone, and transfer our direct deposits over to the new account. They tell me that the November checks will go into the new account. I hope so!!!

The rest of this week is going to be busy. Sue has a couple of Doctors appointments over the next couple of days. Plus I have several projects I need to get off my dead butt and work on. Sue and I need to get working on the script. We have gotten a couple of pages actually written which is a plus. I also have to write my column for the Challenge, our church news letter. I also have to condense a survey on health for the congregation. I am part of our new Health and Wholeness Ministry Team. Kay found this survey for church members, so I have to see what may pertain to our congregation, and put it together so we can determine what the needs of our congregation are.

Not only that,. but I need to sit down and start coming up with some short story ideas, and writing. Once I start getting a few together, I can start sending them out to different magazines, and start trying to get published! One of these days.. NO, darn it, NOW!!!! I really need to push myself.

Rain, Rain, Rain

After months of drought conditions, we are finally getting rain here in North Texas! Yea! We really need it. It comes on top of several communities imposing either actual water rationing, or voluntary restrictions.

In some communities here in the Dallas area, people are not allowed to wash their cars, or water their lawns. There are hefty fines if you get caught watering the water. In other places, including The Colony where we live, the restrictions are as I stated before, voluntary. Here we are asked to water lawns on Monday, Wednesday and Friday if your address is an even number, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday if your address is even. Restaurants are asked not to automatically give water to customers unless asked.

Of course having lived in Phoenix, Arizona for several years, a drought is not new to me. What used to rankle me was the restrictions placed on citizens, while every golf course in town was always watered to be a beautiful, verdant green. What is wrong with this picture?

Weekends are fun

Saturday again. We were kidless most of the day. Sandy had an Orienteering meet for Jr ROTC. She had fun with that. I had the mens' breakfast at church. We had a speaker who was a former school principal at the school near the church. He talked about guiding kids to Christ, among other things. and then Sue had a women's luncheon at the church. (I was the token male) We had a little excitement. One of the older ladies there got a piece of candy corn stuck in her throat, and I had to do the Heimlich maneuver. Then Sue won the centerpiece from our table. Apparently if you had a smiley face sticker on your chair, you won it. It's a cute little ceramic pumpkin candy dish!

So basically we all had our own things going on today.

Tomorrow is Sunday. Time for us to turn our hearts and minds toward worship.

Thank God it's Friday!

This is the actual Friday the 13th. I should have written yesterdays blog today, but what the heck. I got off on a tangent, which I often do. This is kind of a lazy afternoon. Later tonight, while the DVR is recording some shows, we are actually gonna sit down and get some work done on the screenplay... About time!!!

I guess we have dragged our feet on this, because we have never adapted a book into a screenplay before. It's definitely a learning process. The beauty of this is that when we finish, we will have another style of writing under our belts.

Another difficulty is in writing battle scenes, because this story takes place during WWII. Maybe we should see if we can find some war movies online for download to get ht e idea on how to write it. I will look into that later.

SO anyway Friday is here, the end of the week. (13th notwithstanding) When I was able to work, I used to live for the end of the week. Now the weekend doesn't really mean a whole lot any more. Not as much as it used to anyway. Whatever the weekend means to you, here's hoping you have a good one.

End of the week is closing in!

Today, is Thursday the 12th. Hmm. It doesn't mean the same thing as Friday the 13th, but does Friday the 13th really mean anything? A lot of people think so. Frankly I have never really placed any credence in the superstition. Paraskevidekatriaphobia is the medical term for fear of Friday the 13th. This is a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, a phobia (fear) of the number thirteen. There are many stories about the origin of this fear.

DID YOU KNOW...
* 17 TO 21 MILLION Americans suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia - the fear of Friday the 13th? (4 to 5 million in the UK)
* it has been estimated that 750 MILLION DOLLARS will be LOST in business because people will not shop, travel or take risks of any kind on this Friday the 13th?
* that the U.S. NAVY to this day will NOT LAUNCH a ship on Friday the 13th?
(Note, this information was found on Google, and I do not guarantee the veracity of these statements)

Some people believe that this fear began with the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Jesus was crucified on a Friday ( Good Friday) but there is no evidence that He died on a Friday the 13th. There are others who believe this superstition began on Friday, October 13th 1307 was the day that Philip IV of France arrested and subsequently tortured and killed hundreds of the French Knights Templar to get their money for the French treasury. Yet others argue that the belief traces it's origins back to a Norse myth.

I would be curious to see what anyone who might read this blog think. In the mean time, I need to cross my fingers, find my lucky rabbits foot, and look in the back yard for a four leaf clover!

Waiting on hold

Here I sit, writing the blog, on hold with Social Security. Sheesh. They said on the recording that the wait would be approximately 8 minutes. We will see. All I want to do is change the Direct Deposit to a new bank. I tried the automated service, and gave them the exact information that they wanted, but the recorded voice tells me that the information doesn't match. AAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So my only option is to sit in hold, or as I like to call it, ignore! I think the automated deal is just a dodge to get you frustrated!!! @^%$#!!!!!

I finally got through to someone who started the process, and then put me on hold, and managed to disconnect me! CRAP!!! Oh well, just as well, I have to have them talk to Sue anyway to verify her information. So I guess I will start over later. I am letting her sleep in today so it's back to the drawing board. I just love morons who don't know the difference between the hold button and the disconnect button!

I could do all of this on line, except they want you to have a password. No problem one would think. Wrong! TO get the password, you fill out an on line form, then they send it to you through the mail. You get to the end of the form and it says "Wait up to 15 days for your password to arrive in the mail." Have the people at Social Security ever tried waiting for the mail to arrive? I doubt it, or they wouldn't ask us to for a lousy password. I mean the internet is at least as secure as the mail. You can set up firewalls, and security on line. How do you do that with your mailbox?

Yes I am on a rant. I get this way when I have to deal with red tape and bureaucracy! God how I detest bureaucracy. We live in an increasingly (supposedly) paperless society. Really? Bull$%&#!!! One of the reasons I am changing banks is that there is a check-box on the on line banking page that asks if I do not wish to receive mailed statements. For 6 months in a row, I clicked on this, and told them to stop mailing me statements. They are still killing trees to send me the statements. ( Not that our statement is that long, but you get the idea!) That's only one reason. The major reason is that they keep stealing money form our account. Stealing you say? How can a major bank steal for a customer? How about this. We only write checks, and use the debit card for money that is actually in the account. Yet 8 times over the last 8 years that we have had the account there, the bank has overdrawn our account, and charged us overdraft fees every time. In August they did this for two items, and in September only one. We put every cent we spend in the check register and deduct it. How in the name of all that is holy can they present an item for payment, and then say there are insufficient funds to pay the items? If any financial geniuses out there can explain this to us we would dearly love to hear! I won't mention the name of the bank, but suffice it to say that since they have stolen over $300.00 from us this year alone, we have changed to another bank.

Anyway, thanks for letting me rant away here. Have a great day. Or if you have had 247 great days in a row and you're tired of them, have a rotten day or whatever kind of a day you want.

Monday, Monday (actually Tuesday)

No I am not going to break into the Mama's & the Papa's song. Just noting that today feels like Monday.There isn't a song titled: Tuesday,Tuesday! Here in Texas it is rainy, and blah!! And guess what, It's actually Tuesday any way! Have you ever noticed that the Tuesday after a Monday holiday feels like Monday? When I became disabled, I thought that would not happen any more. However it still seems to work that way! Maybe it's because we have a daughter in school. But I don't think so, since she went to school yesterday. Oh well.

There has been a lot in the news over the last couple of weeks about former Florida Rep. Mark Foley. You remember, the guy who likes to run his fingers through pages... Well maybe not quite. He did however get busted for sending quite a few emails and text messages to some under age male pages of a highly sexual nature. EWWWWWW!!!! This guy may have put the nail in the coffin of the GOP. Hmm must stand for Groping Our Pages... Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert today said that anyone who knew of this before hand should resign from Congress.. Does that include himself? Of course not. He didn't know anything until the media found out. Two problems with this. One: If he did know, then he should resign with everybody else he says knew about it. Two: If he really didn't know, then he should resign for being complete clueless!

Then yesterday, Kim Il Jung of North Korea detonates a nuclear device Bush and his cronies are probably sending Kim a thank-you card for getting their party off the front pages. It's interesting that we went into Iraq 3 years ago looking for weapons of mass destruction that North Korea already had. What the heck is wrong with this picture?

And apparently, an even lazier Sunday!

Well, I blew it yesterday. I have been making the attempt to write here every day. I have managed to for the most part do that. Yesterday I missed! Rats! Oh well, God took off at least one Sunday. I guess I can once in a while!

At any rate, I managed to get the grass cut on Saturday after all. I borrowed the lawn mower from my next door neighbor, Chris. I tried to get mine started, no luck. Chris wandered over and we both figured out that the little rubber plunger that primes the carburetor is dry rotted. That's why I can't get the thing to stay running. Ross, neighbor across the street says I should be able to get the part from any lawn mower repair shop for around 5 bucks. I can certainly look into it, but I may just get a new mower at Wally World or Home Despot or something like that.

Any way the grass is cut, and I feel like I finally got something accomplished around here! That's one of the biggest problems about dealing with chronic pain. You have to get used to not being able to do everything ( hell most things ) you used to be able to do. Crap!

There are things around the house that need taken care of, that I just can't do. I got a replacement faucet for the kitchen sink, and a couple of months ago borrowed a tool from Kurt at my church. The crock here is that I can't get myself down on my back to install the damn thing! ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Oh well. One of these days I will have to break down and ask for help. That's something else that is really hard for me to do. Well anyway, it is now Monday, and Sandy is home from school. She is sitting at the table, working on her Algebra homework. I need to get dinner going in a bit. Time to close for the day.

A lazy Saturday

Here it is, Saturday. I feel a bit lazy but what the hey. I am trying to get hold of the guy across the street to help me fix our lawn mower. He is willing, it's just a matter of catching him at home when he has the time, and when my back will put up with going over there. The problem with the mower is that I can get it started ( using starting fluid) but I can't get it to stay running. It has to be a problem with the choke. I just can't find the choke adjustment to fix it!

The grass meanwhile is getting higher. Oh well, one of these days. In the mean time, Sandy is gone next door playing with one of her friends, so once again it is kind of quiet here.

Sue is sitting on the couch watching a special on the History Channel about the 1935 Hurricane that devastated Florida. We should both think about doing some writing, but can't seem to get motivated to do so. Well at least this is a form of writing. Now that I have updated both of the people that read this on whats going on,Time to quit for now.

Friday and kid-less!

Here it is Friday. We are as the title says, kidless. Sandy will be ushering the football game tonight for her ROTC company. She won't be home until 10 or 11 tonight, so it will be a quiet evening!


She is really enjoying being a Cadet. We have hopes that she will graduate, and go into the Air Force. She is interested in the possibility. SO far High School is going pretty well.

As I have said I am making a concerted effort to write here every day. and thus far I am managing to do it. Some days I don't have as much to say. Today we went and got some bills paid, and changed banks. Wow exciting stuff!!!
I will make an effort to find something more interesting to write about tomorrow.

Kitty Antics

We have 3 kitties, Jenny; our calico girl, Shadow, our Siamese mix boy, and the newest member of the Bacon menagerie, Mac. An orange Tabby mix. We have had several cats, and they all have their own special personalities. Each one seems to have more personality than the previous ones.

Jenny for example has a tendency to jump into boxes, and hide in them, We have plastic basin she loves to lay in, but what she really loves to do it to tap at it with her paw until it comes up and bonks her in the head

Shadow thinks he's a dog. He will play fetch if you throw a ball, he will bring it to you and meow until he convinces us to throw it for him. He also has a strange raspy meow that he can turn on at will. He does this when he mooches food from us. We refer to it as his "Darth Pathetic".

Mac, the kitten, is the strangest of all. The minute we brought him home a couple of months ago, he took over. He will bug the heck out of the other two trying to get them to play with him. If that doesn't work, he will walk up to one of them and whap them on the head, or bite them on the butt, till they give chase. Which is what he wants. His name, Mac is short for Macarthur. We got the idea for the name from a friend of ours in Australia. She told us he sounds like General Macarthur standing down the Japanese.

It's Wednesday

It's Wednesday. Did you ever stop to think about that word? Wednesday. Why is it pronounced Wenz -da instead of Wed-ness-da? I was just wondering.

(See this is one of those random thoughts I mention in the intro to the blog. )

There are a lot of words that we don't pronounce the way they are spelled. Pretty much any word that is spelled with a "wh". "What" should be "wut", "who" should be "hu" "when" should be "wen" - you get the idea. I personally think we should have a dictionary that spells words the way we pronounce them. Our kids are doing their homework, and ask us how to spell a particular word. We smile with glee and tell them to look it up in the dictionary. Cruel. aren't we. How the heck is the kid supposed to look it up if they can't spell it? I always wondered about that myself.

Any way, it's Wednesday. Or as some people call it, Hump day.

I won't even get into that one. Let's just pretend that it means the middle of the week and leave it at that!

Sue, the fearless Wasp killer!

Yesterday when Sandy got home from school she noticed that we had a wasp building a nest on our front screen door up near the top. Sue and I went out an looked at it and determined that it was definitely a wasp nest. Sandy had seen the wasp doing her thing. We decided that we would pick up some wasp and hornet spray to get rid of it.

We did some running around this morning, but didn't get the spray as we didn't see any at the place we stopped. When we got to the door, we saw the wasp working on the nest. Sue looked at me and said:

"I'm not hanging around all day waiting for her to decide she's done for now."One of the items we had picked up was a pack of notebook filler paper.

She grabbed the notebook paper, and swatted the hell out of the wasp,. It took two blows, but she squished the flying Sting-Meister! Yea.

(I hate wasps, having been stung in the neck by one when I was ten, and am deathly afraid of them.)
So I salute my wife Sue. The fearless Wasp Killer!!!!

3 Days in a row.

This is a first for me, actually posting more than once a month. Actually this is the third day in a row that I have been here posting. Part of it is that I need to get back in the habit of writing. Writing anything is writing. So the log gets the benefit of my new and improved attempt to get back in the game as it were. What game? Writing of course.

Sue and I are starting to work on the new screenplay, and I also need to start writing short stories to try to sell. ( Couldn't we all use a few extra bucks?) The only problem for me is getting started. The other day I asked what others do to remember to do things they need to do. Well, I use the Calender feature on my browser, and we also have a dry erase board in the kitchen/dining room. We usually reserve that for grocery lists and other lists of things we need to get.

I think however, that the best way to remember to write is to sit down and do it. A famous author ( Don't ask me who this was) said he hated writing, and had to force himself into it. Another one said he had to stand at the fireplace mantle and write longhand. Fortunately I am not yet in that boat. I actually like writing. My problem is that I get lazy, and sit in front of the lobotomy box and vegetate. Yeah I know. I am working on it though. Sue and I have cut down on the number of shows we watch, and no matter how interesting this season's crop of new shows may look, we are avoiding them like the plague. Especially the ones that look like serial types. Like "Lost" or "Desperate Housewives" You know the type that if you miss one episode you're basically screwed as to what is going on.

Anyway if you are going to write, my new philosophy is: WRITE!!!!

Living with Pain

Pain has a way of changing your plans. We got up this morning, and planned to go to church. Unfortunately, the humidity and the dew point went up, and neither of us were able to move. This is the fun of living with chronic pain.
I never understood this until it happened to me. I had been taking care of Sue for several years before my back problems started. She would go through good days and bad days. Having been a Navy Hospital Corpsman, I had a basic understanding, and could empathize, but only as an outsider.
Then I was in the accident. Hit from behind by a pickup truck doing about 75 miles per hour. The seat in the car I was in broke backward ( the car was brand new , and as this is a public forum, I won't mention the make and model - I was delivering it, and was about a 1/4 mile away from the place I was to deliver it to ) and that was the beginning of my introduction into the life of living with chronic pain. Not knowing when you are going to be able to do something, not knowing if you clean a bathroom, if you are going to be able to function for the next week.

Such is the life of dealing with chronic pain. Sue tells me "Welcome to my world!"
Well on the upside, I can definitely empathize a heck of a lot more.

Remembering to do what you gotta do!

Yeah, I know. It's been awhile. One of these days I have to make more of an effort to get up here and blog. I get busy around the house, taking care of Sandy and things of that nature. Excuses, excuses, excuses. I claim to be a writer, and I forget to try to write every day. There are several things I try to remember to do every day, such as write. Sue and I are starting the new screenplay, and we need to force ourselves to write every day, or we will never get it done. Does anyone who reads this, ( Both of you that is Lol!) have any methods to kick your selves in the butt to do things you need to do? If so I would dearly love to hear them.

For example, besides the screenplay, I should really start sitting down and trying to start writing short stories again, and try to sell them. God knows we could use the extra income, if I could start selling some. The problem is, if I don't sit down and start writing them, I won't have anything to sell!

I make my self calender reminders on the computer, then when they pop up, go "Yeah, I gotta do that. I will in a bit!" At least it's a start.

I get a survey from ABC inner Circle, and the one I just took asked me if I would be interested in writing a blog for them. Well, if I get the gig, that means I will have to start writing on a more regular basis. Maybe that will give me a kick start. Well, that's all for now. I'll keep you posted on whether or not I get the ABC blog gig.

Actually blogging in less than a month or two!

Here it is, Saturday, August 26. Only 11 days since my last post! Wow! Yes it can be done!!! Actually I have been busy with a lot of different things. Getting Sandy into highschool, still trying to get the house into order. I mananged to borrow a tool I need to change out the faucet in the kitchen sink, unfortunately I tried getting on my back under the sink and my back was shall we say no very happy. I guess I am gonna have to farm that one out. Unfortunately there are several "Honey do " jobs that I need to do that my back will not allow me to do. Ah yes the fun of having a condition that causes chronic pain. Every time I try to do something that I shouldn't, I get a WG (wife glare) from Sue. Either that or a long suffering shaking of her head. One of these days I may learn that I am limited, but knowing me, it's gonna take a while....

ANyway, more news when it becomes less available.

One of these days I gotta start remembering to blog!!!

I had planned on blogging on more of a regular basis, but life comes at ya full throttle! A lot has been going on. We have had all of the kids here for a couple of month. Tara and Elisa are now back in Missouri ( or as we call it, Misery) Sandy has started back to school as of today. She is in ROTC, and may consider going into the Air Force when she graduates. We have hopes that she will learn some discipline and respect!

The house is getting together, we have most of the boxes unloaded, and it looks lived in. We are planning to have a house warming sometime in September.

We have a new kitty in the household, Mac. A friend in Australia suggested we name him after General Douglas Macarthur, when we told her that the first evening we had him home, he stood up to the other cats Shadow and Jenny, much like Macarthur standing up to the Japanese in the Philippines.

I will post some pics of Mac soon, along with other pics of the kids and other kitties!

More news when it becomes less available!