The next 40 years

Since the average age for American men is about 80 these days, I am think I can accomplish one of these goals per year.


1. See the Grand Canyon
2. Visit and stay at a National Park like Yellowstone and see as much wildlife as I can
3. Spoil my grandchild(ren)
4. Take a gourmet cooking class
5. Go whitewater rafting or kayaking
6. Take a cruise
7. Be published
8. Learn a foreign language
9. Own a Corvette, Chevelle, or an old, like 1930s old, Mercedes
10. Learn to fly
11. Go up in a hot air balloon
12. Visit all of the states in the US that I have not been to so far
13. Raise and train a Service puppy
14. Travel somewhere by train
15. Visit England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany. I would like to see Stonehenge
16. Embrace a ministry at Church
17. Plant a flower garden
18. Go Ocean Kayaking
19. Track down as many long lost friends as I can
20. Meet as many of my internet friends as I can, face to face
21. Start a collection of classical music and the scores to all the music
22. Take Music Theory over again, so I can understand it better this time
23. Volunteer at the schools my kids and grandkids are attending
24. Own a boat
25. See all 100 movies in the IMDB.com top 250 list. ( I am well on my way)
26. Visit all of the Disney Theme Parks at least once
27. Start a tradition of gathering friends and family for a weekend outing/campout once per summer
28. Take a cruise in the Delta Queen/Mississippi Queen/American Queen river boat
29. Get a Master’s degree
30. Build a new home to my specifications
31. Lose the weight I have gained since I got married
32. Visit Australia/New Zealand
33. learn Taichi (sp?)
34. Take ballroom dancing
35. Take a photography class or two
36. Take advantage of all the tools my father has collected and finally learn fine woodworking
37. Go on a long bike trip
38. Build a model railroad
39. See the Statue of Liberty
40. Play drums in a big band

My life so far

My 40th Birthday is fast approaching, and naturally at a milestone like this I have been taking a mental step back and thinking about what has happened in my life so far. I hear about so many people going through a mid life crisis, and kinda was thinking about what I would do if one of those came upon me. Sure, I wouldn't mind getting a little red sports car. Losing 20 pounds and growing my hair back would be another plus. Running off with 20 year old twin cheerleaders is probably not in my future.... But the thought occurred to me that I have done so many things already, that maybe a mid life crisis is for other people. So I wrote down as fast as I could, the first 50 things that came into my head that could describe what's happened in my life so far.
Tomorrow I will post what I have yet to do


1. Flown in an airplane, jet plane and helicopter
2. Seen the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean and all the Great Lakes
3. Seen my daughter and son born
4. Dug ditches
5. Composed music
6. Went to college and graduated
7. Directed a band, a choir, and an orchestra
8. Performed on Television
9. Worked at a telethon
10. Volunteered at the public library
11. Been knocked unconscious
12. Had many surgeries
13. Won a World Championship
14. Been in 5 car accidents (Only one was my fault)
15. Gone fishing
16. Been waterskiing
17. Learned to swim, and gotten my Water Safety Instructor certification from the Red Cross
18. Been to the top of the Sears Tower
19. Sang in Carnegie Hall
20. Been to a foreign country ( Canada)
21. Drove all night to see a loved one
22. Saw a Reds game at Wrigley Field
23. Buried my best friend
24. Changed lives by being a teach and a camp counselor
25. Coached my sons track team
26. Worked as a waiter
27. Delivered pizzas
28. Made sand castles on the beach
29. Went cross country skiing
30. Took a ropes course training seminar for teamwork
31. Was the assistant director and department head at summer camp
32. Was the Best Man in two weddings
33. Was the pall bearer in too many funerals
34. Slept out under the stars
35. Played Ding Dong Ditch when I was a teenager
36. Marched in many parades
37. Read the Lord of the Rings Series in one weekend
38. Owned a house and a car
39. Had a crisis of faith
40. Witnessed a miracle
41. Got married and stayed that way
42. Laughed until I was dizzy, and cried until I was sick
43. Stayed in a 5 Star Hotel and ate at a 5 Star Restaurant (once)
44. Had to repeat a class in high school
45. Was chosen as Field commander for two years in college
46. Seen 160 turns of the season
47. Lived alone
48. Ran a business
49. Lost at love
50. Was a good husband father brother and son ( at least I think so)

Peace

My friend Leesa

What a great evening. I was fortunate enough to spend several hours talking with a blogging heroine of mine last night. One of the goals that I have for blogging is to get to meet new and interesting people. Since she lives way out in God’s country, I will not likely ever meet her face to face, but chatting with her online was a real treat.

Leesa has always been one of my favorite blog authors. Her blog is more than online musings, or a journal of her day. It is like walking through an art gallery, and seeing the world through her eyes. If you have not seen her blog yet, I cannot urge you strongly enough to check it out. The link is down on the left. You will not be sorry you followed my advice.

By the way all, have a joyous Holiday, whichever one you celebrate.

Peace

Its a guy thing

So my wife was talking to a friend of hers and telling her about the theft of my Mickey inflatable from the front yard of the house. During the telling of the story, she told her friend, that although, I didn’t bring any souvenirs back from Florida, since I have been home I have been really interested in anything Disney.

Then they knowingly looked at each other, and said, “It’s a guy thing.”

A guy thing? For once I am totally stumped as to when Disney became a “guy thing”. As a matter of fact, I thought I was getting in touch with my feminine side by being sentimental over the whole thing.

Somebody needs to explain this to me

Troubador

The Christmas Spirit

I have been watching the papers lately with more than a little disbelief and sorrow. The new trend around Cincinnati has been the stealing of the Baby Jesus from various prominent nativity scenes. The body count is up to three now. From what I have read, the statues have been antique and heirlooms. One little girl, upon hearing that the Baby Jesus had been stolen from a local display, offered hers. It had been passed down through her family for generations. Now hers is gone too.

I sincerely hope that this is merely a poor attempt at a prank, someones sick idea of a joke. What I suspect is that it is more of a political statement. The Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas debate has been hot and heavy in Cincinnati and I cannot help but think that the fringe elements have decided that they will take Christ out of Christmas anyway they can.

I walked to my truck this morning and got another dose of Christmas cheer.

The only souvenier that I got from my Disney trip last month was and inflatable Mickey mouse display. Actually, this was an early Christmas present from my two children. They tried to convince me to get something while I was in Orlando, but I told them, and meant it, that all I wanted were the memories of one of our happiest times. I got my wish after all. Someone has stolen the display from my front yard. At least they were kind enough to leave the extension cord.

What the also left me with were two heartbroken children who were so tickled to see the look on my face when I opened the box.

I will be taking down the rest of my decorations tonight. I don't give a damn if they have to use flashlights to find their way up and down my street. I will never trouble myself to light the way again.

I am going to try and make something positive out of this and re focus my thoughts on the real reason for the season. But this really hurts.

Peace

Aniversary Update

I should have posted this prior to now, but Sherri, our office manager, with the idiot engineer for a husband, showed me her new tennis bracelet the other day.

She learned a long time ago, that whining can move mountains if you work at it

You may carry on with your lives now. All is well

Good and Bad news

Good news and bad news.

The good news is that Joe was re evaluated after one year of occupational therapy and has made tremendous strides. Many of his tested areas are what would be average for a boy his age. Some, particularly the fine motor skills still test far below normal and would be considered impaired.

The bad news is that the OT is worried that the dirty rotten lousy no good bastards at the insurance company will see Joe’s progress, and pull the plug before the work is finished.

The implications of that, to me are too much to think about today. I will worry about it tomorrow when I start the eviction proceedings against the woman who paid my mother with a bad check for the apartment she rented a month ago.

Merry Christmas

I hate roller coasters

Sometimes I wonder if I am crazy and just haven’t realized it yet. Maybe crazy isn’t the right word, but at the moment the right word escapes me. Take movies for example, or books. I get so taken in by the emotions that they evoke, that I wind up having to leave the room, or put the book down. I was reading the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe this weekend, to get ready for the movie. I kept tearing up at the end. I am a 40 year old man, and I have to walk out of the room at the end of When Harry met Sally. The end of Willy Wonka (the real one with Gene Wilder) gets me going, for heavens sake. I honestly wonder if something is wrong with me. And this is all the time. I don’t have good days and bad days with this stuff. I guess if you lived on the emotional roller coaster that I live on, this should be expected.

For example, yesterday we got an official letter from a bankruptcy court. RFM, it seems has filed bankruptcy and has been granted immunity from his creditors. “Who is RFM?” you ask. RFM was a glazing contractor that we hired as a subcontractor to do a large project for us in 2001. His portion of the overall contract was nearly $200,000.00 RFM came to us early on, and asked for an advance on his contract, so that he could purchase materials. This is not out of the ordinary, as most companies don’t keep that kind of working capital. So we gave it to him. Next, he came to us, and asked if his checks could be made out as multi party checks. In hindsight, this should have set off alarm bells, but being the trusting people that we were, we did as he asked. Now- this is very important- When making out a multi party check, make sure that you write “Pay to the Order of: RFM AND Joe’s Glass Supply AND Bill’s Metal Fabrications. Our secretary did not know this little bit of banking law. She filled out the checks “Pay to the order of: RFM/Joe’s Glass Supply/Bill’s Metal Fabrications”. RFM took the three party check to the bank and cashed it, and pocketed the money. We went to the bank, that we had done business with for 40 years and said, that it was their responsibility to see that the checks had the proper endorsements. They said that since the checks were ambiguous they could pay the money to anyone listed. The said that the checks should have said AND. We said that they sure as hell did not say OR. We asked why they couldn’t make a 30 second phone call to clarify the situation. They said it’s not their job. We told them that they were responsible to protect us. They said that we would just have to sue them.

We are talking about $130,000.00. The lawyers in town are all afraid of the bank and would not take the case to court. So we could not sue the bank to recover the money that they improperly distributed.

We sued RFM instead. Have you ever been to court, or tried to take a lawsuit to court? It takes years. In the mean time, the suppliers that RFM had received materials from, and not paid, had filed liens against the project that we were the General Contractor for. According to Ohio State Law, moneys equal to the amount of the liens must be held back from the General Contractor, until the liens were paid. We were faced with two choices, pay the suppliers to get the liens removed, or try to operate without this money. We could not wait until the court case was settled, because this project had a finish date on it, that we were compelled to meet. If the project was late, we faced fines of $1000 per day until the project was completed. We had no choice but to pay for the materials.

We finally got our day in court, and for once, got a favorable judgment. The judge found that RFM had acted in such a way that allowed the judge to pierce the corporate veil, meaning that we could sue RFM personally as well as his corporation. The judge found in our favor for the $130,000, and ordered RFM to pay it. That is where the court system politely bows out and leaves the collection to you.

RFM offered a $5000 settlement. We turned him over to a collector. We were going to foreclose on his property, and force it to sale. Except, that most of what he owned was in his wife’s name. Except for his house. He had mortgaged for 95% of its value, then defaulted on the mortgage, and let the bank seize it. Since then, the bank got the judge to set aside our lien against the house, and sold the house at auction, since the house was mortgaged before we got the judgment.

Now we got a letter saying that he was given a favorable judgment in bankruptcy court, and we are not allowed to contact him in any way.

I really hate judges, lawyers, and bankers.

On the other hand, the chorus sang at a retirement community tonight. Seeing the looks on the faces of some of those lonely old people and the joy that we brought them, at least for an hour, was priceless.

I need to get a Kleenex to wipe my eyes now….

I told you I am crazy

He Did it!

He did it!
I have spoken in passing about my son Joe. He has what has become known as Non Verbal Learning Disability. What it amounts to is an extreme difficulty for Joe to output information. He has a phenomenal memory, and a vocabulary that is easily four grade levels beyond where he currently is in school. His difficulty becomes apparent when you ask him to write something using a pencil. His fluency becomes halting, his attention wanders, and he fatigues extremely quickly. There were numerous very subtle clues that would have pointed this out to someone who had the training to see it, but up until the middle of the fifth grade, we simply explained the problems away as a lack of motivation, or ability, instead of what it truly was, an impairment.

After many visits to pediatricians, neurologist, neuro-psychologists, and occupational therapists, we have come some understanding of what we are dealing with. But everyone involved acknowledges that our understanding is incomplete.

The practical and long-term conclusions though were the hardest, at least for me, to deal with. I have always been amazed at Joe’s intellect. His perception of detail, and his focus on a subject are incredible to me. I had such high hopes that he would be involved in fields that emphasized his mind instead of his muscles. I worked as a construction laborer and carpenter for 10 years. There are definitely easier ways to make a much better living. Ever since Joe was small, I would always tell him that he could do anything he wanted, from fly an airplane, to design automobiles, to composing symphonies, to authoring software. I believed, and still do, that God had gifted him with a remarkable brain, and he should put his to better use than I put mine.

It is very hard to balance those kinds of hopes for your son, against the reality, that he is in 6th grade, and still has not mastered his multiplication tables. It is not for lack of trying. We drilled for hours, made up worksheets, and did who knows what else, and it simply has evaded him. As an aside, we learned this fall, that if Joe says the multiplication problem out loud, he can solve it much more easily than if he just tries to do it in his head. The neuro psychologist told us that the verbalizing engages another part of his brain. All I know is that it works.

This fall, I enrolled Joe in a club called Lego League. Everyone knows what Lego’s are. I thought this might be an opportunity for Joe to get together with classmates and design and build something. What I did not know is that Lego League involved dozens of schools in the area that received a project from the organizers. The project was divided into two parts. One was a research project that would culminate in an oral presentation by each team to the judges. The other was that each team was to design and build a robot that could perform a series of tasks in a certain amount to time. Each team would start out with the same robot chassis and programming software, and then they had to design the implements to attach to the robot to complete the tasks. Then they had to create the orders for the robot to complete the tasks as efficiently as possible. Lego league started early this fall and their first contest was this past weekend.

Joe was elected to be captain of his team. The coach told me that the kids chose Joe, and the coach whole-heartedly agreed. He was the coolest under pressure, and also came up with a lot of the design details. As captain, he was also in charge of changing and aligning the implements during the time trials.

The meet was held at a local technical college, and the place was swarming with kids. Each team was called to a central lecture room; six teams would compete at a time. The teams would set their robots on identical boards, a horn would sound, and the contest would be on. There were announcers calling the action over the PA and the central board was actually projected onto a big screen.

When Joe’s team was called, there was my son talking with the referees, being in charge of his team, and making adjustments on the robot. After each robot mission, he would pick up the bot, make the adjustments and start it on its way to the next mission. I sat there in awe. With all the commotion going on, and all the pressure, he was as cool as a cucumber.

When it was all said and done, his team was one of 10 teams that were invited to go on to the State Level.

I still have goose bumps. After all we have been through, I honestly thought that something like this just could not happen for Joe. The cards seemed to be stacked against him so badly. I am just so proud and happy for him I could bust.

Yeah, its old, but its right

Why ARE Men Happier?Men Are Just Happier People--
What do you expect from such simple creatures?
Your last name stays put.
The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans takeare of themselves.
Chocolate is just another snack.
You can be President.
You can never be pregnant.
You can wear a white T shirt to a water park.
You can wear NO shirt to a water park.
Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal.
You never have to drive toanother gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.
You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
Same work, more pay.
Wrinkles add character.
Wedding dress $5000.
Tux rental-$100.
People never stare at your chest when you are talking to them.
The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.
New shoes don't cut,blister,! or mangle your feet.
One mood all the time.
Phone conservations are over in 30 seconds flat.
You know stuff about tanks.
A 5 day vacation requires only one suitcase .
You can open all of your own jars.
You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.
Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
You almost never have strap problems in public.
You are unableto see wrinkles in your clothes.
Everything on your face stays its original color.
The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe even decades.
You only have to shave your face and neck.
You can play with toys all your life.
Your belly usually hides your big hips.
One wallet and one pair of shoes one color for all seasons.
You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
You can"do" your nails with a pocket knife.
You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives onDecember 24 in 25 minutes.
No wonder men are happier.

Damn Straight

Engineers are silly people

Our office manager's 16th aniversary is today. She is married to an engineer. This is one of those marriages that would leave you scratching your head. Sherri is bubbly, pleasant, and and fun to talk to. She has her days of dingy-ness- she is a blonde after all. I can't think of a person less like an engineer than Sherri, but somehow they have held it together. Perhaps it is her mothering instict. Most engineers need a mommy, but that is a topic for another day.

Sherri told me yesterday that she was dreading to find out what Randy was getting for her for the big day. He told her that he wanted one of those convertable "little giant" ladders. Sherri has worn herself out trying to find this thing. They are VERY popular for some reason.

Sherri was trying to steer him in the right direction. She would leave flyers out from a jewelry store and actually circle things that she liked. They would talk about it over breakfast. He could not have missed the hints. But he is an engineer. The rules do not apply to him and people like him.

Sherri walked in this morning with that "look" on her face. Women are born being able to create that "look". You will never guess what Sherri received as an aniversary gift.

Are you ready?

She received one of the inflatable lawn ornaments. A 6' tall rendition of The Grinch and Max.

I laughed until my sides hurt.

Then I suggested that she take the ladder back to the store and get Randy and inflatable gift as well. Lord knows he is not going to be getting any for a while after this one.

Then I suggested to Sherri that the 16th wedding aniversary should be re named the "Inflatable" like Silver or Gold or Paper

I think I need to get more sleep at night

Troubador

Happy Thoughts

The world seems to be trying to pile more shit on me than I can handle right now.

This is my antidote....

This was our first view of Main Street at Magic Kingdom








This was the view of Cinderella's Castle from the front porch of the Crystal Palace, where we ate Breakfast.


I had never imagined how beautiful it would be. The weather was warm and ducks were swimming on the pond in front of me. The PA was playing Christmas music. It was perfect.









This is what Main Street looks like at night. All we needed was a little snow.

















This was a float in the SpectroMagic parade.
The camgera does not do it justice.

This was a tree just to the right of Cinderella's Castle.

For Leesa

My buddy Roger forwarded this to me, and I immediately thought of Leesa. Enjoy.



Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog's owner, his wife, and their little boy were all very attached to Belker and they were hoping for a miracle. I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer. I told the family there were no miracles left for Belker, and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home. As we made arrangements, the owners told me they thought it would be good for the four-year-old boy to observe the procedure. They felt he could learn something from the experience.

The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker's family surrounded him. The little boy seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away. The little boy seemed to accept Belker's transition without any difficulty or confusion.

We sat together for a while after Belker's death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives. The little boy, who had been listening quietly, piped up, "I know why." Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I'd never heard a more comforting explanation.

The boy said, "Everybody is born so that they can learn how to live a good life, like loving everybody and being nice, right?" He continued calmly, "Well, see? Animals already know how to do that, so they don't have to stay as long."


Peace

Troubador