The retired FDNY firefighter who generally leads the charge for anything 9/11 related, who is also a Red Knight member, lost everything to a fire in his home 7/5/11. All the boys and girls are lining up for the heavy lifting.
Sharpening the knives,
and getting by .....so far.
We went to the local building supply the other day and saw a tailgating grill as above. The only thing I didn't like was the price, $300!
One of the things I missed this last job was riding the bike. I didn't have a good way to haul it (working on that), so it didn't go along. Eight weeks with no scoot, sucks!
It’s been an interesting couple of months.
Kind of like being set on fire, but not quite.
Thanks giving and Black Friday. The struggle with the gift buying thing until Christmas.
Major family blowup, the girls, the rest of the family is OK and the one to blame (mostly) refuses to accept any responsibility, as expected.
I wish I was as perfect as she thinks she is.
My truck was stolen from my driveway, dumped in the woods a half hour away. Recovered the truck, the insurance company has it, we aren’t sure if it is worth having back.
Rednecks driving your truck that they have stolen don’t tend to take care of things. “Drive it like you stole it” is more than a line in a bad movie, for some folks it’s a way of life.
They made out with a thousand dollars worth of cameras and GPS units. The truck was recovered four days later, and the local PD saw it was recovered, the “investigation” pretty much stopped. It took a month, and several conversations with station chief to get a call from the “detective”, or is that defective, I forget, and it could go either way.
My son moved to a friend’s house, and took his wide screen TV with him. I went shopping for a TV without adult supervision. I found a Phillips 52 inch HD LCD that was great. It wouldn't fit on the book case, and looked like a huge, evil mushroom sitting on an end table. The result was an avalanche of remodeling that has only just been completed. That would include some new furniture, hardwood floors, painting and tile in a bathroom, then move all the furniture.
I have taken up paintballing as a hobby.
Sometimes the only way to get rid of stress is to shoot someone.
Nonfatal, in this case, but you can’t have everything, I guess. We run around the woods in camo, shooting kids and women, getting shot in turn. It’s lots of fun, if you can stand a few welts. Like the “t” shirt says, “If you can’t stand the welts, stay out of the woods!” We have a few Iraq veterans, they are the people you watch the most, (i.e. shoot them first if you can) because they will get you, if you don’t get them.
I got my truck back from the body shop on Friday, everything appears to be OK, but we are watching closely. One result of the theft is a monitored security system in the house and a driveway alarm, with remote controlled lights to come.
The Love of My Life is having health issues, excisional biopsy coming Wednesday, this after several noninvasive attempts to determine the nature of the shadow on an X-ray. She has had several procedures done in the Shamans office that scared the mortal life out of me. All is well so far, but we have far to go. This is all preventative, or diagnostic in nature, and we hope to stay in that realm.
I have to leave for work the day after her surgery, and will be back in May. I’m hoping for a job of several months duration this summer to help with bills and the move to a motor home for work. I would actually like to get a job overseas for a couple of years and rent the house.
We'll see.
AP wire
updated 8:54 a.m. ET, Mon., March. 1, 2010
ORLANDO, Fla. - Rocky, a 700-pound grizzly considered one of the most gentle animals of all Hollywood's performing beasts, bites down on the neck of a veteran trainer.
Illusionist Roy Horn is severely mauled by a show tiger during a Las Vegas performance.
An elephant at an Indonesian tourist resort tramples its longtime handler to death.
And now the latest — a 40-year-old trainer at SeaWorld Orlando is drowned by a massive 12,000-pound killer whale named Tilikum, an incident that raises anew the question of whether some beasts, especially the biggest ones, have any business being tamed to entertain.
Descriptions of Tilikum, the 22-foot orca which has now killed two trainers, inevitably come around to his intimidating size.
Sorry, if you expose your vitals to a PREDATOR, you may become a chew toy. Neither you, nor your next of kin, should be surprised. Orcas are intelligent, not human. Any thing 100 times your weight, with corresponding appetite, has an unfair advantage in unarmed combat.
I went to say good by to a friend today. She is the sister I always wanted, and tells me I am the brother she never had. Very high praise indeed.
She is the person who, as far as I know, has never done a bad thing to anyone. I have known her for thirty years, and will miss her for as long as I live.
She moved away several years ago and I lost track. A time or two I would run into mutual friends who would give me up dates. Like most people I was so busy trying to live that I lost touch with the very best people I know.
One friend told me she had developed breast cancer and another told me she was in remission. I didn't even know where to start looking to find her.
Just past the end of my nose would have been a start, but I was so busy.
While Christmas shopping I ran into a mutual friend who knew what was going on, the lady told me that she has bone cancer, that has spread to her brain.
TLOML and I resolved that I should visit and be quick about it, for that chance once lost could not be recovered. I called a friend today to start tracking her down, and found she was visiting her old home near here. I made a call and as quick as I could drove to where she was.
I held the speed down to something under a hundred. There was no reason to hurry, but I wanted to have as much time with her as I could. Walking in was as hard as anything I have done in a long time.
Manly image and expectations be damned. I wanted to be strong for her, well, I blew that one out my whatever. After a litte while I calmed down enough to feel her acceptance of her fate. She was not bitter or afraid. I hope that when my time comes I can muster one tenth of the grace she wears like a crown.
We visited for about four hours and I held her hand the whole time. We talked and laughed about all our old friends and things we had done. We spent our time catching up on all the things I had missed.
We talked about everything except the elephant in the room.
When I finally had to say good bye, and it was a final farewell, for I know I will never see her in this life again, we gently touched the subject.
I kissed her forehead and her hand and told her that I loved her and would miss her forever.
An angel will soon leave us and the world will be a poorer place with out her.
The mother in law continues to decline. She doesn't wake up much and hasn't eaten in three days.
This can't last long.
Additionally, I was told the other day that several years ago she was told that she had ovarian cancer, and decided to take no action.
If this was her wish, then as bad as it seems we must honor it. DNR in place.
I participated in a memorial walk for four soldiers from our area that died in Bagdad. About two hundred and fifty walked to our local war memorial for a short service.
We were warned that the nutjob hate mongers who protest the USA were going to be there, I had a prepared message for them. I was gratified and disappointed that the cowardly bastards didn't show.
I don't need any jail time.
I was voted into the Red Knights, (does that mean you have to call me Sir DW? Probably not.)
The soon to be son in law is still alive, as previously noted he totaled the Love of My Life's Jag XK8. She cried over the car. It isn't just "a" car it was "THE" car. Just so you know, when the Love of My Life sheds a tear, I start looking for things to break.
Do not be the cause of those tears, it will not end well.
We have found a suitable replacement, in Utah.
Road trip upcoming. Anyone want to meet and greet?
All's well that ends.
Well.
Then they get terrible.
My mother in law has dementia, to me one of the most cruel of malady's. Your loved one slips away a little at a time, until the shell that's left is an object of pity, that doesn't know you anymore. The love of my life has been adjusting to that reality for a year or so now, not easy but doable.
A week or so ago the motherinlaws vitals dropped almost out of sight, she was recovering in the ICU with some testing, when someone did a CT looking for a stroke, and found a tumor the size of a tennis ball in her frontal lobe.
With that news, we basically threw everything down and ran for home. I put TLOML on a plane in Portland, Oregon at 17:30 on the sixteenth and ran for home. 3200 miles, in four days.
The MIL is losing body functions at a rate slowed by steroids and cushioned by dilantin.
The Love of my life is now trying to prepare herself, no hope there, and is wound tighter than a spring. There is some doubt if the MIL will make into the new week.
Amazingly enough, she is awake all night and sleeps all day. She is hard to wake, but manages with some help. Today they woke her and dressed her and put her in a wheel chair, when I walked in the room she recognised me.
It absolutely broke my heart
It's the only time that I could hug her and kiss her face, previously she did not react well to affection from me. Sadly that was never a big problem.
We had all the youngest there for pictures, it wasn't planned, it just happened. The tiniest came all the way from Japan with her mother (of course).
The MIL looks better than a lot of the residents, but we know it's drugs and can't last.
TLOML has been to fun places like the Funeral home to make arrangements in advance of the event, probably a good idea. It seems to be a little unsettling though.
What do you do with this?
I guess we will muddle through, it's not like we have a choice.
If there is a plus side to this, it would be that it will be quicker than dementia and, in a sense, cleaner.
Sad, but that's the best you can make of it.
All of us have our excuses for failing to post. Work, tired, family, just living is bad enough. I hate to see Monkey Girl go, but I thoroughly understand. I have been posting enough to let every one who cares (few enough, I expect) know I'm still alive.
.
I'm getting ready for my next contract,and getting the Love of My Life ready to go with me. Two is not twice as much, it's more like a geometrical progression. We, or at least I will be gone for six months, approximately. The big kid is going to house sit, and feed the livestock. That will let him set up for his own rental place by paying down his debts.
.
I on the other hand have spent about a week juggling furniture, ferrying trash, generally clearing every ones problems away.
.
Today I sat down at breakfast with a calculator and took a stab at estimating the cost of the coming trips. 5600 miles, at the current price of diesel, unless I come home from Minn. and then drive to Richlands, Washington. I took the general numbers and cranked them through a hat full of scenarios to see if there was any justification for larger exhaust or power tuners.
.
Not!
.
I can buy a lot of diesel for a thousand bucks. Minor power and torque gains would add little to drive ability, not to mention my new truck has about a hundred more horsepower than the old truck, and 500lb/ft torque. My transmission guy said he could change the front throttle body spring and give me the crisp shift I want. It would also reduce wear on the bands, all for the cost of a service. Guess what the trans command (electric) modules do.
.
Same thing.
.
Besides, if I feel I really need an exhaust change out, I can have it shipped to me where ever I happen to be, and have it installed.
.
I may be able to post something a little more interesting soon.
We went on a cruise around town to enjoy the show provided by Christmas lights. There are fewer lights this year than in years before. We went downtown and the riverfront, usually decorated, is pretty sparse. We scaled down this year because I just didn't feel up to doing the edges of the roof and the several conical shapes designated as trees.
We went to several of the traditional areas where the neighbors fight it out tooth and claw to see who can blow a breaker with cheer. I know one guy who loves to wow his daughters, who had a separate service installed for his Christmas display. He fills his front field with every conceivable anthropomorphic hallucination indicating a holiday is upon us. Good on him, it's way cool.
Some areas showed restrained good taste, the heck with that!
I like volume in lights, I want to hear the electric meter scream for mercy.
Children, we went to the poorer section of the hood, and found several houses that could be seen from space. The magnetic field from the lights would confuse migrating birds to the point they would circle the house until the breakers tripped.
Bring out the shades baby! Talk about your excess of cheer!
We need to show the people that we ENJOY!!!! our Christmas Holiday!
Next year I'm pulling out the stops!
When The Love of My Life and I started dating the first of those things we found that we really enjoyed, that can be done in public, was road trips. We visited San Francisco, later we went out west and camped. While we were there we hiked and generally did and saw some wonderful things. During my first marriage I had done a couple of driving trips all around the west and mid west, and thought it would be cool to share the experience with a couple of the more adventurous kids.
The planning was done and off we went. I had a four wheel drive Suburban to provide room for four and,,,,,stuff. We camped hither and yon for roughly two weeks. From the Badlands to Vegas and Tombstone, we went where ever the urge took us and stayed the night.
One of the many places I wanted to go was Devils Tower. This Native American sacred sight is known as the Home of the Bad God. It's as impressive as any natural structure I have seen. It is in a rather remote area. Oh, well actually, go to the end of the world and turn left, drive until you see the sign.
We had camped at Badlands National Park, and driven a long day to get to the approximate time zone. I don't know how long the ride was, but every one was napping, including, occasionally, the driver. The Love of My Life was driving, at the posted speed limit of 55mph.
Remember that number.
I woke up long enough to wonder where the hell we were. I was in the navigators seat and snagged the map, started looking for road signs, and trying to get information from TLOML.
The road was long straight and apparently endless, then I saw a sign, and almost immediately a town. When I looked up from the map again, I saw the highway sign that indicated our turn.
Then I really screwed up bad. I said "You need to turn here", and she did.
At 55 miles an hour, TLOML took both her little hands on the wheel, and yanked that land yacht into a right turn.
It must have looked like a cartoon. Dust flying, tires bellowing, passengers pasted to the window on the down hill side. I knew we were going over. If I hadn't been wearing my seat belt I probably would have flown out the drivers window.
Jesus in all his mercy, must have reached down and held that truck in the road.
That must have been what woke up Officer Peterson.
He was a young man performing his duty, apprehending a wild eyed, breaker of the law. He fired up the cruiser and in short order blue lighted TLOML and allowed her a short bleep of siren.
About that time I made another life changing mistake, my second of the day. As the good officer reached the window, I was about to try to help, I said "Now baby," that's as far as I got.
TLOML turned to me, I swear lightning came out of her eyes, ears and butt all at once. She told me, "don't you BABY ME!!!" everyone for miles knew that I would not baby her anytime soon, on pain of a fate worse than death.
From that point on I was peeping out of the crack at the bottom of the seat. Officer Peterson stepped back for a second, and then did a lot of talking from behind his hand.
I think he strangled occasionally.
As soon as he determined that I was an idiot (not too difficult) he gave us directions and sent me off to my fate.
I wonder why he was wiping his eyes while walking to his car, must have been the dust.
I think I'm going to take up a few hobbies, say for instance, cliff diving or grizzly goosing. Something a little exciting, perhaps crocodile teasing, or explosive ordnance disposal while intoxicated ( perhaps the only way to do that and not blow an artery), maybe just motorcycle racing with out a helmet.
I don't really have a death wish, but I did go to a Christmas dinner at the "Assisted Living" facility where my mother in law is incarcerated.
Locks on the doors, to keep the little dears from wandering off, a very high ratio of care givers (most of whom I expect to become alcoholics, I would) and a lot of artificial high spirits.
The music was provided by an ancient rocker with the most amazingly preserved hair color. He was ten years older than me, with not a strand of grey. How does he do that? Super Glue, perhaps, only his hair professional knows for sure.
The food was excellent, beef you could eat with a straw, crab cakes, shrimp, and stuffed mushrooms. Nothing that required teeth to chew, you could easily gum the stuff into submission, and they did.
Wine was offered, I begged for a full bottle, to divert my thoughts.
I've never seen so many walkers outside of a Hollywood Florida mall. They were lined up like assault vehicles at a Mayday Parade in Moscow.
The Christmas Carols were rendered in a voice that may have been strong once, but broke all too often now. Betty, who sat across from us, sang along in a beautiful little girl voice, that hasn't belonged in a little girl for a tragically long time. I saw a little old lady cry when she was told to eat her dessert. I saw too many people, who were at one time, strong parents and spouses, and providers.
Now the lights are on and nobody's home. This was the first time I've seen my mother in law without makeup or her hair done. That's a real sign of how far she has gone from here. There were way too many empty vessels.
Then you see the secret glances, you look at their eyes, and see that some are not gone, but only hiding.
Excuse me I have to go write my name on some bullets.
We finally got in Monday evening. We left Ct. in 25 F or so and arrived home in the 60 F range. I don't mind saying it was good to come home.
Actually it was wonderful.
Then life set in.
I thought the drivers in Ct. were bad, while I was there. I am now convinced the drivers here can give lessons in stupid.
On a brighter note, the grand babies were actually glad to see me. The oldest who currently has some issue with personal contact generally, and males particularly, never even turned a hair. She walked in the door, took one look and came over and gave me a wonderful hug. That doesn't sound too strange, except she has never seen me with a beard. Think bear.
Today is Thanksgiving, a day that is seldom remembered as a religious holiday. Mostly it's the day before Black Friday. The most horrendous shopping day of the year. I am sure we will hear about the retailers going under because everyone is sitting on their money, as we have for the last twenty years.
Historically this occasion was a day set aside for giving thanks to, dare I say it, God for his blessings, and the survival for one more year.
Everyone, should, in the depths of their heart, thank what ever they believe guides them, for the past year. You have no guarantee of another day.
At my housse today, we will eat too much, and be grateful too little, we will welcome someone who can't get home to their family, and my mother in law who can't get back from where she has gone.
I will eat left overs for ever, and be grateful.
May each and everyone be healthy, happy, and avoid your just desserts, for one more year.
Brass Dragon out.
.....unless you're a surfer. Then you won't go anyway, too trashy and no good breaks. About eight feet, and this is nine hours before peak winds.
Rip currents are very bad about now, but some parents were letting their kids play on the edge of the drop off at low tide.
That would be where the currents are strongest.
Just trying for a little pay back on the insurance costs, I guess.
After all, it's useless if you don't file a claim
Pretty stupid if you do.
....on the homestead. Our storm passed to our west. We got some wind and some rain. No damage. the power flickered but didn't go off. A "going over" with the mower and clear the roof with the leaf blower and we're good. We may not be done yet but it's close.
Thanks to the Master of the Deep.
