I remember as my parents aged they attended more and more funerals.  I see the same with The Nancy’s parents.  I don’t think a month goes by that I do not hear them speak of someone they knew having passed away.  Now, at this juncture of my life, I seem to be moving into this stage and I do not care for it.  So far this month I have attended two funerals and could have gone to three.  Additionally, I have been informed of another life that appears to be waning.  I pray not, but have little control of such things.

Taxes are one thing none of us can escape, that is unless we just don’t pay them, but God knows I don’t care for funerals and care less for wakes.  I do not enjoy “The Viewing,” thinking it to be totally unnecessary and a complete mortifying moment for me and the dead.  Most dead people look little of the person I knew.  Just this last week I went to my last remaining uncle’s funeral.  He, lying in the coffin, little resembled the uncle I loved, but more like a manikin with heavy makeup applied.  I have asked this not be my fate. 

I don’t want people staring at me lying in a box with a lot of makeup covering the stains of death, and telling my survivors how good I look and how peaceful.  Instead I want my family to get a couple of kegs of really good beer, order in five or six pizzas, and at the point when however many people attend this funeral party (let’s call it a fun party) get a little buzz on, I want them to gather around as my ashes are thrown into the air allowing the breeze to spread me out over the earth I love.  Now that’s a funeral I can live with, so to speak.

And that is all I have to say about that…

Today, again, almost exactly one-year ago, I am back in Chicago and my trip has begun with a surmountable issue: I am here, my bag is not.

Now most of us that fly from time to time for business have been in this situation.  What with changing planes, perhaps rushing from a late arrival to an on-time departure, bags sometimes do not get loaded.  Today’s incident has me somewhat baffled, in that I only took one plane – Washington-Dulles to Chicago’s O’Hare.  How in the world does a bag not get on the plane when you only have one to get on?  This is one of life’s little conundrums.

The United people didn’t seem to be baffled by this at all.  It appeared to me the agent I spoke with took this as a ho-hum, everyday occurrence, and offered little more than a tough-shit attitude as she filled out a form, and telling me the bag will be delivered to my hotel sometime between 4 and 7 PM.  Thanks, but no thanks.  I will go back to the airport (just about a mile away) and retrieve my bag, hopefully, if the United not-so-smarts can get it on the later flight.  Keeping my chubby little fingers crossed, I remain hopeful.

All that is all I have to say about that…

Can you think of anything more God-like than to be a mother?  God is mother of the earth and of all things on it and around it forever and ever, amen!!  I am in awe of pregnant women and of just plain women, for that matter.  Just think of it, women are able to give life.  Sure, we guys play a part, but for women it is so different, they grow life, we (guys) merely contribute to process it in a moment of lust.  It is our true purpose for being here, to procreate.  It is our only job.

I get tears in my eyes thinking what it must be like to have a life growing inside of one’s body and then one day getting to experience the ultimate beauty of giving birth.  Does this make me a pussy – so to speak?  I don’t think it does.  Having read “Conversations with God,” one day even I may get to experience it, or perhaps I already have.  Read the book and you will understand.

The Nancy says I am not your typical man.  I think I am.  Perhaps I just am a little more vulnerable than others, but I know I would like to experience the beauty of carrying a child and bringing in to this world.  I suppose a little of this vulnerability comes with the four beers I had while I watched the pregnant server at Buckhead’s, but whether this is true or not, I am still in awe of the process.

And that is all I have to say about that…

I remember seeing the motion picture “Amadeus” back in 1984, and in awe of Mozart and his ability to seemingly hear the music he was composing in his mind even before he wrote it down.  Composing a symphony is not just putting a bunch of notes to paper, but also requires the composer to imagine how all the instruments in the orchestra will interact and compliment one another to accomplish what the composer has imagined for them.  Is this not amazing?

So I pondered that one for a short while, and then began to see that life is like a musical composition.  You heard this before: “Life is not about the destination but the journey.” As with music, our lives are a series of notes, notable events and passings, each playing at a particular moment, and each of us gets to compose our own.  If life were just one “note,” it would be awfully short.  In life, there are sweet notes, sour notes and off-key notes.  There short notes and long notes, and God knows we all have some flats and sharps.  But put them all together, and look at what can result?  I am the composer of my life.  It is a symphonic masterpiece, and so far it has had a pretty sweet sound. 

Excuse me, please, I have to go.  I am up early this morning I seem to have misplaced my baton, and I need to find it to begin my day.

And that is all I have to say about that…

In the year or so I have owned this piece of equipment I have had some mishaps with it.  Come to think of it, I believe I can list quite a number of mishaps.

I have driven it into the lake, by accident, and had to tow it out.  I managed to break the drive belt, the one that turns the blades, and had to have it replaced for $115.00.  Not long after that I ran over a nail and flattened one of the front tires – not a big deal on a small mower, but this one must weigh 700-800 lbs, so one doesn’t just pick it up and take it somewhere in the trunk of the family ride for repairs.  I think that mishap was a cheap one at around $20 to fix.  Next I got the mower hung up in a rain-softened low spot and again got my tow rope out.  Not long after that I hit a tree root with the side of one of the back tires and tore out the side of it.  Cost of that little error in aim was a nifty $80.00 and a new tire.  Jacking up the mower to take the wheel off was no joy, either.  Next mishap involved a slope, some rain, and a very bad angle for this boy to maneuver.  I didn’t, and had to get out the tow rope once again and nearly burnt up the clutch on the Wrangler The Nancy and I have as a fun vehicle.  Can you see the reason for the new Commandment yet?

Here is the newest.  Sunday I was out on The Tank minding my own business.  I had on all my clothing, my ear plugs and my safety glasses, and my trusty hat for protection so the sun wouldn’t burn my ever-growing forehead.  Clippings were being thrown out of the shoot just as they should at a furious rate.  The areas that I cut are for the most part former pasture land, so you might guess they are not as smooth as most lawns.  This is certainly true of the area where I was mowing.  Suddenly the ride got a little rougher than usual, and my first thought was “Don’t tell me I blew another tire?” Well, not exactly.

What I did was – you do remember the blown rear tire from above, right? – looked at the left-side rear wheel to see if it was flat.  It was not; however, it seemed to be wobbly.  I stopped the mower to take a closer look.  I had a mess.  I had lost one of the lug nuts, and the other three were in various positions other than where they should have been.  The openings in the wheel itself, formerly about a half inch in diameter, are now at least an inch in diameter or larger.  The wheel is shot.  The studs where the lug nuts go are stripped of their threads.  All of this is the result of the shoddy workmanship of the idiot who put the wheel back on the mower after the tire was repaired.  That idiot is me.  I tried to blame this on The Nancy, and I tried to blame it on the fact that one of her cousins spent the night with us this past Saturday and caused me to get a later start on my mowing Sunday morning than I wanted, but I truly know where the fault lay.  I am fully responsible for what happens to me in my life, dammit!

Monday morning I went to the Cub Cadet dealership where I bought the mower.  I bent my head down and looked at the floor as I told the owner my newest mower mishap tale.  I did not want to see him smile as he no doubt stifled a belly laugh.  As I looked up I could see him begin to flip pages in a book that contained a listing of all the parts for this particular mower.  He began to write down those parts needed to fix my problem.  He took a deep breath and these words exited his mouth.  “Ain’t gonna be cheap.” I hadn’t expected it to be, but I wasn’t quite ready for part two.  He said the parts to repair what I did will run about $777.00 plus labor.  Oh, happy days!!!  What a terrific way to begin the week!

The Nancy always tells me that we live in abundance.  Whatever we need always seems to be there at the time we need it to be.  Well, I am looking for the Abundance Fairy to make an appearance one more time.  That is, one more time this time.

And that is all I have to say about that…

I was up this morning at 6:05.  Jackie had already left for work; her twelve-hour shift at the emergency room begins at 6:30.  The rest of the household occupants are still fast asleep.  Ken is a recliner in the family room.  Jared in his room lay sound asleep sideways in his bed.  Jon-Luke is in his mother’s bed in a position similar to Jared’s, as Princess, the family cat, stands guard over him at the foot of the bed.  She gave me a wary look as I glanced in to see if Jon-Luke was near waking.  The Nancy, likewise, is in a deep sleep.

This is the third time this morning I have come to my car.  It is 8:42.  The first time out I made a trip to Starbucks for coffee and a chance to catch up on all the e-mail I missed yesterday afternoon, as I drove the 170 miles from The Farm to Bridgeport, the home of stepdaughter Jackie and her husband Ken.  I had my morning Joe and returned to the house hoping to have the two boys up to go to breakfast with me at Bob Evan’s.  They hadn’t stirred.  I grabbed a shower and rattled around the bathroom with the idea of waking up someone, but it did not work.  A bomb could go off and The Nancy might wake up, then again, probably not.  So I left the house for a second time and got gas for the Jeep and went to the bank for some cash.  I returned home the find things as they were when I left.  The house is as quiet as the car except for the snoring emanating from the family room and the room wherein The Nancy dwells. So here I sit alone in this car hungry as hell.

I found the remnants of a bag of pretzels, and this then is my gourmet breakfast – 140 calories in 21 pretzels, at least for now.  I am up to eighteen.  Oops!  Nineteen!

The rain has ceased.  The sky is getting a little lighter as the clouds move easterly.  It is 8:51 and I am about to go back into the house to see if I can get someone moving so I can get a real breakfast, perhaps some yogurt and fruit.  Damn, there were only twenty pretzels left in the bag.  So I am about to go back in, praying someone is upright.

Someone has to be up by now, right?

And that is all I have to say about that…

My little county here in West Virginia is a little less rural and bucolic than it once was.  This was a farming community, and in the old days lots of small farms dotted the Morgan County quilt.  It doesn’t look so much like that these days, but there are some remnants of what once was here.  The bridges in the county, especially those as in the photographs below cause me to wonder what the county was like fifty years ago.  I don’t know what provoked this as a subject, but I thought I would have some fun with it and I did.

One day in June 2008 a crusty old fart – that would be yours truly – decided to capture the essence of this county’s bridges on film (digitally, of course – after all, this is a modern tale).  I traveled the back roads and the front roads looking for bridges.  I photographed a few, not all.  A covered bridge would have made the piece more romantic, but alas, there are no covered bridges in Morgan County, West Virginia that I know of.  We do have a shitload of one-laners, though!!!

There are one-lane bridges scattered all over this county.  Back in the day, one lane was all that was needed.  Some of these, probably most of them, were constructed in the 1920s and are fairly narrow.  There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of traffic to contend with, so there wasn’t much need for two-lane bridges unless they crossed rivers with major roads like Route 522 (which is a two-lane road through the county running north-south).  Just so you know, in the whole of Morgan County there are not four-lane roads.

Enjoy the photos, and come see us.

If some of these happen to show up twice, please forgive me, I am not a good photographer.  In fact, I have a few more pictures, but it was a struggle for me to get these on this page, so I gave up.  This techno shit drives me up a wall.  I should quit this stuff and just be “Eye Candy for the World.”

And that is all I have to say about that ...

In the last two weeks The Nancy and I have lost a dear relative to cancer.  She was a truly an amazing woman who dealt with her terminal illness with the utmost dignity and grace.  She planned her funeral service down to the smallest detail, including what was said about her, the scripture that was read, the music and even food that was to be served.  The Nancy and I fully believe she arranged a trip to Martha’s Vineyard to die, so she would not pass in the house she and her family resided in, thereby eliminating a hurtful memory there for her husband and three sons.  Amazing!!!

The Nancy and I compared the deaths of our sweet Amy and that of Tim Russert.  I don’t know which type I would prefer.  Amy got to say goodbye to her family and to make plans for what would happen to her and them after her death.  Tim Russert’s family got not of this, but Tim died without the drawn out medical treatment and the pain.  But, it is nonetheless painful to his family that didn’t get to say goodbye to him.  Sad!!

I loved Amy, and I had a great deal of respect for Tim Russert.  Both are in a good place now.  They have rejoined the Soul of God.

And that is all I have to say about that…

I have a loved one who has decided to no longer submit to a harsh cancer treatment, but rather to allow her fate to “God’s will.” The whole family supports the decision, though we pray for a miracle to remove the cancer that may take life from someone way too young.

I don’t look at myself as being overly smart or with intelligence greater than anyone else.  I am not a learned man; I do not possess a college degree.  I am just a regular guy with a new view on life, God, and what is next.

For most of my adult life I have been on a search for God.  I accepted God’s existence when I did the nonreligious-based workshops in Dallas; however, I could not define what God is or meant to me.  Still, it was truly a tremendous epiphany for me.  My “God” search began when I was a teenager and ended just short of my 61st birthday.

“I tried to find him on the Christian cross, but he was not there; I went to the Temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas, but I could not find a trace of Him anywhere.

“I searched on the mountains and in the valleys but neither in the heights nor in the depths was I able to find Him.  I went to the Caaba in Mecca, but He was not there either.

“I questioned the scholars and the philosophers but he was beyond their understanding.

“I then looked into my heart and it was there He dwelled that I saw Him; He was nowhere else to be found.” Jelaluddin Rumi

Last Father’s Day my daughter gave me “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch.  As I read it I found the God I was looking for all those years.  Many of you may not see or find what I found when I read this book, but I encourage you to read it anyway.

My God does not judge, He only observes.  My God gave you and me “free will,” and will not punish you or me for using the gift He gave to us.  My God wants me to be the “The grandest version of the greatest vision I have ever had of Who I Truly Am.” And, I believe this to be true.  I now have a personal, one-on-one relationship with God, and I love it.  God speaks to me.  Okay?

Death is just a phase of our total existence.  The lifetime in the body that our spirit resides in is but a mere speck of time compared to the forever-ness of the life of our Soul.  Notice “our Soul.” There is but one Soul and it is the Soul of God, and our spirit is merely an “individuation of the Soul of God.” When a body has served the intended purpose of the spirit the spirit moves on, exactly as it is supposed to do and always has.  Its will is God’s will.  Simple as that!!!  Don’t agree?  Afraid not to believe in a Judgment Day?  That’s okay.  It’s still called free will.  Death of the body is not death of the spirit.  The spirit has no lifetime, it just is. 

I am not afraid of death.  I am not afraid to die.  I now know my spirit will live on and perhaps I will get to do this all again – if I choose.

And that is all I have to say about that…

It is a perfectly gorgeous day here in Chicago, The Windy City.  There is an almost cloudless blue sky above the airport and the sun is gloriously warm as it lights up this day, there is no wind today.  I am on my way home; lord willing and the creek don’t rise.

If you are a regular reader here you may recall the last time I attempted to depart this city.  That experience began at 2pm on August 23rd, 2007 as I boarded a United Airline’s airplane that was to take me to Dulles airport outside of Washington, DC – a two-hour trip.  What was supposed to happen did not, and I didn’t get back to the Farm until 4am Saturday morning after experiencing several twists and turns, beginning with sitting in th epalnce on the tarmac for six hours.  I like to think of it as the Flight from Hell.  Needless to say, I am a tad nervous but not quite as much since the plane I am to take out of here today just pulled into the gate.  Fingers crossed and prayerful, I now await my fate with a hopeful smile on my face. (Imagine me grinning from ear to ear.)

You probably know I accept everything that happens to me to be under my control.  I am fully responsible for what happens to me in my life.  So, this aircraft will lift off the ground exactly as it should at an hour that will get me into Dulles at the exact time my flight itinerary says it will be there – 1:52pm eastern standard time.  I also fully accept what happened to me the last time I made this trip as so totally my fault – I really sucked that day.  Today I don’t suck.

And that is all I have to say about that…

PS:  The flight arrived fifteen minutes early at Dulles.

The story:  I was looking for a place to eat my supper.  The road my hotel is on, Lake Street, didn’t show me a lot of choices, given to my non-meat eating proclivities, though I refuse to classify myself as a vegetarian any longer.  I decided on Mexican, even though my choice (La Hacienda) turned out to be more Tex-Mex than Mexican, and I think the quality of the food probably added to my decision this particular restaurant sucks.  I had spinach enchiladas but began the meal with a Negra Modela and some chips and salsa.  Salsa good, chips bad; beer okay, but not great – wimpy, enchiladas – yuck!  Boo! 

Across the three-sided bar from me were three guys with “f-bomb” syndrome.  You know the type. They cannot go more than three or four indecipherable syllables without dropping a bomb.  These particular goofballs could hardly make it beyond two syllables before uttering a “fuck,” which was totally understandable on my side of the bar, maybe twenty-five feet away, and could probably be heard outside of the bar in the restaurant area.  The boys were very loud, in addition to being vulgar, and, surprisingly, no one came to let them know they were perhaps a little beyond a modicum of decorum.  These guys were very “working class,” most assuredly “Hillary” people, and so helped me form this postulate. 

“The amount of times one uses the word ‘fuck’ in any given sentence is in direct reverse proportion to the IQ level of the utterer.” For those of you in the Chicago area this simply means, the more “fucks” one utters the lower the IQ.

And that is all I have to say about that…

This is very clever! No wonder people who are trying to learn English become so confused - I guess we just take it for granted as we grow up with learning the idiosyncrasies of the English language. Have fun reading through it.
Can you read these right the first time?
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce .
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert after dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present ..
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row .
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England nor French fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea, nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese? One index, two indices? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital, ship by truck and send cargo by ship, have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill-in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
P.S. - Why doesn’t Buick rhyme with quick?

We are spending the week in Orlando, Florida.  Part of the week is work related, the rest is vacation and relaxation.

Typically when Americans travel they carry a camera with them to photograph a memory trail.  Pictures may include those of people, places and things they wish to remember (and to show off).  The Nancy and I like to photograph things too, just so we can create visual memories.  The problem we have is one of memory, that is, the physical one.  Neither of us seems to ever remember to pack one of the many cameras we own – even the non-operating one.  This omission, believe it or not, makes picture taking an insurmountable problem, except…well, picture this, please?

The first shot I would have taken, had I remembered the camera, would have been of our seats in the First Class section of AirTran Flight 716.  We did the upgrade thing.  Imagine this is the picture occupying the space below?

“Nice Leather Seats”

I suppose my second photo attempt probably would have been one of new The Nancy showing off her weight loss of twenty-five plus pounds.  Doesn’t she look great?  Imagine the photo of her in the space beneath this?

“Skinny Nancy wearing Tommy Bahama”

Isn’t this exciting?  The imaginary album that follows, please pretend, is all the photos I wish I had remembered to bring a camera to take.  They include flora and fauna indigenous to Florida, more of The Nancy and a few of me, some of friends and people we love.  We have some of restaurants were we dined with our buds.  One of me with beer glass in hand!!!  What a surprise that one is, eh?  Well, you get the idea

Camera or no camera, we had and are having a wonderful time.  Even with a bit of disturbing news this week, we have had a glorious time celebrating life, friendship and love.  The current phase of our existence (it is a “forever” journey, you know?) may end at any moment, but the memories we create are part of the cosmic landscape forever.

Damn!  This camera worked just fine.

And that is all I have to say about that…

This first photo is the Farm:

This one is the drive just off the hard surfaced road.  In the dip just beyond the trees is the creek in the placid state:

The old saying goes, “What goes up, must come down,” and so it is with Farm living.  This past Sunday it began to rain in the very early hours.  It rained all night.  About 2AM we had a thunderstorm and some pretty wild weather, east of us in Maryland, that produced a couple of tornados.  Fortunately, all we got was about three or more inches of rain.  I say fortunately, but nonetheless, it left its mark on our surrounding property.

Our house is almost exactly one-half mile off the hard surfaced road.  We have to travel over two concrete bridges that cross a creek that runs into a four-acre pond just off our property.  The bridges dip down near the water so that when the water reaches a certain level it flows over bridges, and doesn’t wash them away when the flow exceeds the ability of the culverts to handle the flow.  Got it so far?  Okay!

Typically the water runs in the creek about six inches deep or so, and the creek is probably not five feet wide in normal times.  Sometimes the water doesn’t run at all and the creek is dry except for a few puddles.  This was definitely not the case on Monday, April 21st.

Just after we got up The Nancy and I could see water cascading down through the yard behind our house and also in front of our house.  Our gravel drive – where we just had some forty-five tons of pea gravel spread a couple of weeks ago – had shallows ruts where the water had taken away both gravel and some of the dirt.  We decided to drive down to the first bridge to see if we could get past the stream.  When it rains a lot the water will pass over the bridges maybe six to ten inches deep; however, it is passable with my Cherokee and our Wrangler.  The Nancy’s car would float away, so it stays in the garage when we get a hard rain.  These photographs will show you what we found.

This one was taken a couple of hours after the one above:

Needless to say, we high-tailed it back to the house.  We checked the bridge situation periodically throughout the morning, and finally were able to cross the bridges, though still scary, at about 2:30 and made it to our offices in Beautiful Downtown Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, population 711. 

The rushing water destroyed the driveway and removed about fifteen of the forty-five tons of gravel.  It left deep gullies and deposited river rocks in many places along the drive – some weighing several pounds.  Water is strong stuff.  This morning the water was finally running under the bridges again, and the cleanup will begin.

Farm living has its ups and downs.  We love our home and will continue to deal with these kinds of nuisances.  It is a minor price to pay to live in Paradise.

And that is all I have to say about that…

“The French essayist La Rochefoucauld got it right, said Stefan Stern in the ‘Financial Times.’ He once said that ‘we get so used to disguising ourselves to others that we end up becoming disguised to ourselves.’ And nowhere do we wear more disguises than in the workplace.  As anyone who has ever toiled in an office knows, the workplace is full of ‘chameleons who feel the need to adopt a different persona as they arrive at work each day.’ Such fronts might seem necessary at times, but ‘suppressing or enhancing personality traits could be counterproductive, and may even have a worrying impact on our health.’ The fact is, ‘keeping up an act is inefficient, and not a good use of energy.’ And besides, when you’re not authentic, it’s very unlikely you’re doing your best work or making the most of your talents.  So instead of trying, probably futilely, to become the person your boss wants you to be, try instead to match who you are to what your organization needs.  In the end, the best advice remains: ‘Just be yourself.’ Of course if you’re not entirely sure who you [really] are, “you will have to work on that one out, for yourself.’”

So here is the rotten truth.  Almost everyone puts on a huge front.  Most people do not want you to know who they really are.  Why?  Because most people do not like the person they really are.  I found this out when I did the “you know whats” in Dallas.

I know a lot of people think I do nothing, but promote “you know whats in Dallas,” and God knows I despise pontification, but I really believe in what I took away from the program.  Check it out – http://www.millennium3education.com.  Want to know who you really are?  Want to meld the person you are with the person you want everyone to believe you really are?  Here’s a place where you can do it.  Fall in love with you in Dallas.  Many thousands of people have.

And that is all I have to say about that…