Life is Still just Life

What can you do?

2011-04-09T10:11:00.004-04:00

My wife broke down Thursday night. And there wasn't a thing I could do about it but put my arms around her and tell her I was so sorry. And no, it wasn't me that brought on the tears and heartache. Just another bureaucrat who is forced to "do the job" and cut the costs instead of doing what may be the best thing for the child.

The little guy is gone. Simple as that and that quick. He was scheduled for a visit with his birth-mom on Friday morning, who has only showed up to ONE of the last SIX visits, and the county, in their infinite wisdom decided that they wanted this little boy just a little closer to home. Apparently an hour's drive is too far for the caseworker. So my wife, who pours her heart into these children, gets a call on Thursday night at 7:00 telling her that after his visit is over Friday morning, he will be going to another home. So make sure you bring all his things.

How do you pack up all of a child's belongings while tears are running down your face? How do you wake him up happy and help him enjoy the morning and do the things that are necessary to make sure he has a good day when your heart is breaking and you know that you will probably never see him again. Sure, he's only been here for three weeks, but how long does it take to invest yourself in a happy, smiling two year old, who already struggles with abandonment issues to the point that he follows you around the house afraid that you're going to disappear when you go into the next room? A little boy who has never been around men for any length of time and who was just starting to let down his guard around me.

We know people, great, qualified people, who have left the foster care system because they couldn't take the heartbreak any longer. People who have decided that they can no longer participate in such a ridiculously broken system. And the system is broken. Don't let anyone tell you any different. The way the foster-care system runs in this country is a joke! And it's supposed to be there to protect and meet the needs of those individuals of society who CANNOT protect themselves. They are the most vulnerable among us. And yet they get pushed around from home to home, never allowed to find a place to settle and establish some sort of root system, forced to deal with school systems that don't want "Those" kids, (and we have heard those exact words coming out of the mouths of school administrators here in our town.)

I have always balked at the message of someone who tries to send me on a guilt trip in order to get their point across. I shy away from those who spout statistics in order to back up their claims. But sometimes we need to hear the sheer enormity of them in order to understand the reality of the situation. Because when you are walking through Wal-Mart, there is no way for you to know that the child who just passed you in the aisle, the child who is clean and well-clothed, who looks to be about 6 years old, is holding the hand of his NINTH foster mother since he was born to a mother who was barely out of grade school herself. When you are eating at that fine restaurant, there is no way for you to know that your waiter, or your busboy, or even the manager of the restaurant, spent their lives going from one foster home to another, being shuffled around because either the foster parent couldn't handle them, or the county wanted them closer, or some judge had decided they needed more visits with their birth parents who beat them, abused them and tormented them at night, so they need to be closer. Or the money is cut from the system. The foster care system is already sucking the hind tit. What more do they want?

The city of Cleveland is one of the poorest cities in the country. Actually, it's number two, second only to Detroit as the poorest city in the country. And that's up from holding the number one position in 2006. And in the midst of this joke of an economy, they have had to reduce their number of caseworkers by HALF! 50%! How would you like to come into work one day and discover that your work load has just DOUBLED! But you still have to get it all done in the same amount of time and for the same money. This is akin to my boss telling me that instead of driving from Ohio to Chicago and back, I have to do it twice, and still do it within the same time frame and for the same amount of money and within the constraints of the law! Are you serious!?

So Cleveland cuts there number of caseworkers in half and yet the owner of the Cavaliers was willing to offer LeBron James an extra $128,000,000 over a six year period to stay in Cleveland and not go elsewhere. That's $21.3 Million a year for the next six years. And that's on top of what he was already making. How many caseworkers would 21 million a year provide for? I'm thinking more than a few. Maybe even all of the ones that were let go. (Actually, it's about 600.)

Depending on what study you look at, there are between 800,000 and 500,000 children in the foster care system within the United States, with approximately 115,000 of them waiting for a family to adopt them. Personally, I think those numbers are way too low. But let’s take the lower numbers to be conservative. 500,000 children. Taken from their families, usually because they are living in an abusive or neglectful situation. The town I live in only has 11,000 people in it total. The town I work in claims about 50,000 people. What about where you live? How many people are there? See, this is the problem. We don’t think of these children as people. They tend to be abstract numbers. Names on a page. I think every child’s file should have a minimum of ten different pictures of that child attached to it in order to remind those who work for them that they are real people who have real feelings, who suffer real pain and trauma.

According to the 2010 census Oklahoma City has 579999 people in the entire city, men women and children. Tampa, Florida-335709. Atlanta, Georgia-420003. See my point? These are entire cities. For there to be 500,000 children in the US who cannot live with their family is horrific. No two ways about it. And for there to be more children than twice the number of citizens of Mansfield, OH to be waiting and wanting to be adopted, who have no hope of going home to their original family is atrocious.

And as for my government employees, by which I mean the President and ALL the members of Congress to fight and whine and cry and throw their temper tantrums because they can’t come to an agreement to operate our government in a fiscally responsible manner, and then to have the gall to let us know this Saturday morning that they worked late into the night and pat themselves on the back for finally coming to an agreement and thereby not force our government to shut down? Shame on you, Mr. President. Shame one you, John Boehner. Shame on you, Harry Reid. Shame on all you Republican and Democrat members of Congress alike. Don’t blow your own horn and be proud of what you did. You nearly screwed it up for everyone with your tantrums and whining and it’s not over yet. And the children continue to wonder when, if ever, they will be allowed to call some place home.

So you ask me, what can I do about this mess, John? First of all, take care of the children that you have in your home. Provide for them, love them, and meet their needs. Then find a way to help one, just ONE of these children that are stuck in the “system”. Be a foster parent. Be a Big Brother or Big Sister. Be a mentor. Or, maybe even go so far as to provide a Permanent home for one of them. Sure, they have struggles and behavioral problems. Who wouldn’t? Let someone yank you from your family, no matter how abusive they are, and tell me you’re not going to have a hard time dealing with it.

Secondly, if you see another family in your community struggling with raising the kids that they have, don’t let the first thing you do be to call children’s services. Let the FIRST thing you do be to go to them and see what you can do to help. Maybe that single mom just doesn’t have enough time in the day to get everything done. Maybe her job doesn’t pay her enough to keep the electric on and put gas in the car and keep the heat on and put food on the table. It’s expensive to live in this country. Maybe that couple has never had anyone show them what being a parent is really all about. Remember, we don’t get a training manual for this. Maybe the child with Autism or Developmental Delay or ADHD is just more than they know how to handle. Maybe they just need someone to help them along for a little while and point them in the right direction to get the services that they need, or even to take the child off their hands for a few hours and give them some rest.

Really, it’s not that hard to love on someone, even if it’s just for a little while. And children can use all the love they can get. So put yourself out there. Go out on a limb and risk having your heart broken. You’re an adult…probably…and I think you can handle it. Probably much more than one of these kids can.

Can you tell I'm angry? Can you tell this important to me? And I make no apologies for it.

My wife woke up this morning…crying and sad and with a broken heart. But she woke up. And it wasn’t the end of the world. And I’m sure, knowing her the way I do, that she will do it all again. Some other child somewhere along the way will benefit from her love and compassion. She can't help herself.

There are a lot more smiles than there are tears when children are involved. And even the tears are worth it all.

Changes?

2011-04-07T08:52:00.004-04:00

You know the old saying, "The only thing you can count on to remain the same is for nothing to remain the same"? Seems like that could be the motto for my life. But usually, it's a good thing.

I "had"? to get a new phone a couple months ago, a Droid X for those of you in the know, and I've spent that time figuring out all its bells and whistles. And yes, it comes with actual bells and whistles! I was thinking about the Iphone, but at the time Apple and Verizon had not joined hands and I liked the bigger screen on the X. Maybe next time for the Iphone.
Anyway, one of the big things about this phone that I have discovered is the availability to download the app for Audible.com. I have always been a big reader, (or should I say heavy? No. Voracious? Yeah, that works) and about 17 years ago I discovered the joy of Books-on-Tape. Then that progressed to Books-on-Cd, which for some reason does not have quite the same ring to it, and about 3 years ago I started loading books on my Ipod.
Then I discovered this app for Audible that I can put on my Droid X and I don't need to use the Ipod anymore, which my daughter is quite happy about since she crashed hers and is now using my old one. The app allows me to access any book that I've purchased through Audible.com, download it to my phone, listen to it, and then delete it from the phone, without ever having to hook up to a computer. Which means it can do all this while I'm asleep. Which is good. Sometimes the download takes a while, but I usually keep a few books waiting while I finish the one I'm listening to now. Some of the books that I've listened to over the last couple weeks:
"Black Cherry Blues" by James Lee Burke, I love James Lee Burke's style of writing but I much prefer Will Patton as the narrator to Mark Hammer. Mark Hammer just doesn't seem realistic in his reading. Too stilted and false sounding.
"Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter" by Tom Franklin, a new author for me to try,
about half of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William L. Shirer It's HUGE! Over 57 hours! LOTS of detail that I just had to get away from for a bit,
"Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen one of the few books I've read where a female author writes in the first person from the perspective of a male character. And she does it VERY well,
"Waking Lazarus" by T.L. Hines, I got this one because Tom Stechshulte is the narrator and I loved the reading he did of "The Lords of Discipline" by Pat Conroy.
"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury I read this years ago in high school but for some reason always remembered it as being written by JD Salinger. Don't know why that is,
"Slumdog Millionaire" by Vikas Swarup, originally published as "Q & A". One of the best narrators I've heard in a long time and it was an excellent movie as well. And
"Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy" by Donald B Krabill, Steven M. Nolt, and David L. Weaver-Zercher. This, my dear friends, was an amazing book. It revolves around the response of the Amish community to the shooting of 10 schoolgirls at Nickel Mines, PA in October, 2006. It went a long way towards explaining what the Amish believe about grace and forgiveness, and how they live this belief in their daily lives. This book had me in tears a number of times and made me examine my own feelings of anger, bitterness, and my desire for vengeance. This is a must-read book for anyone who has had, currently has, or is planning on interacting or having a relationship with ANY other individual on the planet. You know who you are.
The books that are waiting in the wings are:
"A Time To Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran" by Reza Kahlili,
"Every Man Dies Alone" by Hans Fallada, translated by Michael Hofman, narrated by George Guidall,
"Light in August" by William Faulkner,
"Summer's Path" by Scott Blum,
"The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy,
"A Dangerous Fortune" by Ken Follett,
"The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara,
"A Game of Thrones" by George R. R. Martin,
"Daemon" by Daniel Suarez,
and "Freedom" by Daniel Suarez.

Other changes: We have a new little boy in the house, and it looks as though he's gonna be here for a while. He's been here for about three weeks now and the county is trying to decide where they want him "permanently". He'll probably be placed with us for the long-term. He's a cutie though. Just turned two and a tiny thing. No big "special" needs that we know of right now, except a severe peanut allergy. That makes 6 kids in the house. Some days are more interesting than others.
My parents came for a visit a couple weeks ago and we had a wonderful time with them, but I think I heard them breathe a sigh of relief as they headed for my brother's house. Just kidding , Mom. All I can say is we live in a busy house.
Work has been slow for a couple months but seems to be picking up. The interesting thing is that with fuel prices rising again, my boss is trying to combine runs when he can. So every other week, instead of me doing western Michigan, Chicago, and Milwaukee, I've been going to Toledo, Detroit, and Flint, MI Before going on to Grand Rapids, Chicago, and Milwaukee. And two weeks ago we started a new customer in Fort Wayne, IN which I hit this week on the way home. So work is still slow but the run is getting longer. Sad thing is that when my run gets longer, someone else's gets shorter. Or gets cut altogether. Which means the other driver works in the factory all day on Monday instead of being out on the road where he loves it.
So there you go. Life in our dull and boring world.

How's your world spinning?

How's this?

2011-03-26T11:08:00.002-04:00

So tell me. Does this grab you as the opening scene for a novel, or not? Honest opinions please.

The piercing sound of the alarm finally penetrated his dreams and he began to wake to reality once again. Four-thirty in the morning was too early for most people and he needed some time to wake up. The anticipation of this day had made it difficult for him to fall asleep the night before; that and the torturous lumps of his parents old couch, on which he had spent the last three nights. But he was awake now, all dreams and visions gone from his mind.

He sat up and slowly pushed his out-of-shape body off the couch and started towards the kitchen to make coffee, banging his shin on the coffee table that his brother had made for their parents in tenth grade.

He held back the word that came to his lips, can’t say those things in mother’s house, and limped into the kitchen. He found the coffee and the filters in the same cabinet his mother had kept them in for the 28 years his parents had lived in this house, and started the brand new coffee maker brewing a fresh pot.

Coffee makers did not last long in this house at the rate that his father drank the stuff, and he was usually safe in buying them a new one at least every other Christmas, if not more. If the last one hadn’t given up the ghost by then, it probably wouldn’t be much longer. And then his mother would have his father climb the pull-down stairs to the attic to retrieve one of the fresh new coffee makers that sat up there in the darkness, still in their boxes, just waiting to be put to use.

These thoughts ran through his mind as he watched the dark liquid begin to fill the bright glass pot and realized that he had other business to take care of right now. He headed down the hall, so familiar there was no need to turn on the lights, and turned into the hall bathroom his mother kept fresh and clean for the frequent guests that came to visit. He stood before the commode, trying to aim his stream. He certainly did not want to splash anywhere in here. He was startled by the memories that came flooding back to him; the days that his mother and father had spent training him in all the little things that make a boy into a man.

And here he was, a man in his parents’ house, no longer the child who needed training. His own wife and children asleep in the back bedroom his parents kept as a guest room. He moved about in the familiar darkness, doing the things a man does when he is the only one awake in the early morning hours.

He finished in the bathroom, dried his hands on the small guest towel his mother kept hanging by the sink, and went back towards the kitchen. The coffee should just about be finished by now and he found that he needed the familiarity of that domestic habit, on this day in particular.

He poured the strong brew into the old travel mug that he carried with him wherever he went, and sat at the kitchen table. It was his desire to leave his family a short note before he started out and he was glad for the quiet that allowed him to focus his thoughts, but his thoughts were slow in coming. And as he sat in the stillness, pen in hand, paper and coffee on the Formica tabletop before him, he thought of the course that he was to begin on this day, and the possibilities it might bring back to his wife and children, and of all the joy that they had shared already as a family. And he wondered if his decision to embark on this campaign would bring some of that joy back. Or would it bring about their destruction?

In the end, he decided a short note telling them that he loved them and hoped to be back soon would be enough. He folded the note into thirds, wrote his wife and children’s names on it, and propped it against the napkin holder, which was shaped like a duck from a children’s book, and which his mother kept in the center of the kitchen table. They would be sure to see it there when they sat down with his parents for breakfast in a few hours. By that time, he hoped to be halfway across the state, heading east.

His note left, his bags having been packed the night before, he found that there was nothing more keeping him from starting out. It was time. Today was the day that he had been working towards for so many months, if not years, and it could not be put off any longer. He went to the front coat closet and got his old leather coat. He would need the warmth of this old coat this morning, and in the days to come. The mornings were still chilly in March here in central Texas and the smell of this old coat kept the memories of home close.

He picked up his small duffel bag of clothes, grabbed his travel mug off the kitchen table, opened the kitchen door that led out to the carport and his parents’ driveway, went outside and pulled the door shut quietly behind him. He stood in the driveway in front of his pickup and looked up at the bright stars overhead. He knew that he was being slow about getting started on his journey and that he was only putting off the inevitable. Still, he stared a few moments and allowed his mind to traipse back over the years. Back to the early years of joy and happiness, the wonderful births of his children, the usual financial struggles that came with young children and young parents. And then the later years came. The months and years of pain and of fear and of anger and betrayal.

He hoped that this expedition would bring an end to those years of turmoil, and that maybe, just maybe, it would set things right. But maybe not. Either way, this was as good a day to get started as any. This was as good a day to fix things as any other day. This was as good a day as any to kill some people. If not today, than when?

A conversation with Preston

2011-03-10T08:20:00.002-05:00

Preston is getting ready for school this morning. I'm standing there watching him making sure he keeps moving. He is putting on shoes.

Preston: I like to just slip my shoes on without untying them.
Me: I do too. Mostly because I'm fat and I can't breathe when I bend over to tie them.
Preston: Dad, your not fat.
Me: Yes I am. As a matter of fact according to the american medical association I am obese.
Preston: Obese?
Me: Yes.
Preston: You mean obtuse?
Me: That too.

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Thaw and Freeze

2011-02-15T08:56:00.001-05:00

In the morning the parking lots are all ice. By afternoon they're slush. Next day, rinse and repeat.

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Illegal?

2011-02-13T11:58:00.001-05:00

I was just wondering. What's so different about living in this country illegally, without the proper documentation, and, say, driving a car illegally, without the proper documentation? Or driving a truck without a medical certification card? Or practicing medicine without a license? I think if I told the police officer that pulls me over that I was driving without a license in order to provide more for my family, he might say something like "So sorry. Get the permit, then drive. Until then, here...pay this ticket."

I'm just sayin'.

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See why I want to move to Texas

2011-02-12T11:29:00.001-05:00

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2011-02-12T09:47:00.003-05:00

It's been a long cold winter and frankly I'm tired of it. If it hasn't been snowing it's been so cold my snot freezes. That's cold!
Enough of that. I thought I would bring you folks up to date and share an idea or two. I'm writing this on my phone, between quarters, at the Upwards basketball games I announce every year. Isn't technology cool?
Anyway, here's the news. We are still working on adopting Josh. I've requested a state hearing. Don't know when that'll
be happening. Probably in a month or so. Also, we are in the process of moving some beds and kids around in the house so we have room for another foster child...or two. I've had people question our sanity since we seem to keep taking kids in. But with 50,000 children in foster care in the state of Ohio alone, how can we say we're not going to do any more. We have decided though that we are going to try to take only younger children, 6 and under, with special needs. We just don't have the firmness necessary to meet the needs of the teens that are in the system.
Sheila's been dealing with some tendonitis in her elbow, Isaac has mono again and the flu, Ben may graduate a quarter or two early if he takes classes this summer, and Preston has improved dramatically in school. He's been bringing home almost all A's, most of which have been 100's. We are very proud of all our kids.
So here's an idea I have. Iwas listening to the state of the union address the other day and one of the things the president was talking about was the jobs situation in this country. The fact that we have a large number of people out of work and a number of corporations are sending more and more jobs out of the country. And I believe these corporations still claim to be American companies. So here's my thought.
If a corporation has more than 10% of all its employees out of the country, then that corporation loses its status as an American company and should pay tariffs and higher taxes as a foreign corporation doing business in America.
I don't know all the answers but this seemed like a good idea. Don't we charge China and Japan to bring goods into our country? And if you do business here, provide goods and services, and yet don't provide jobs here, then those goods and services should be taxed/tariffed. It's just a thought. Who knows, it might work.

She's gone, gone, gone...

2010-11-06T09:01:00.003-04:00

My wife left me yesterday.

Actually, she's just gone for the weekend. The kids and I bought her a scrap-booking weekend with a bunch of other ladies as her birthday gift. I don't think I've ever seen her so excited. She loves scrap-booking and is very, very good at it. Last year a friend of hers got 82 pages done in one weekend. Sheila said she has every intention of blowing that number out of the water. And I imagine she'll probably do it. A creative woman, that one.

So that leaves me at home with the kids for the weekend. And once again, I've discovered how much she actually gets done around here. No, I take that back. I've discovered that she gets more done than I can imagine and I have absolutely no idea how she does it.

It's Saturday, so I set my alarm for 6:30 so I could get up and have some quiet time before Preston and Josh woke up. I got about 15 minutes. Just long enough to get the coffee going and get a shower. I came out of the shower to find Josh awake. So from there it wasn't long before Preston was awake.

It's get Josh on to the commode, (still working on potty training), get Preston his medication, get Josh his medication, feed Josh, feed Preston, empty the trash so it doesn't tumble off the top of the mountain the kids have piled up so that they don't have to take the bag out. And then discover the last time Isaac took the trash out he used the last trash bag and decided not to tell anyone that we had no more bags. So I shove as much of the new trash in the last bag going at as I can get to fit and leave the rest on the counter.

Empty the dishwasher, load it again, set the timer for it to start in about an hour since I've used up all the hot water in my shower and the subsequent cleaning of crusty dishes so that the dishwasher can finish cleaning them, wonder what sense that makes.

Get a cup of coffee, listen to Preston tell me about the cars that are cool and that he thinks I should buy from the Ohio Auto & RV sale magazine. Find Josh asleep on the couch buried under the cushions. Change him again since I missed his pottying time, apparently. And it's not even 8:30 yet.

And my wife does this every morning, even on the weekends. I don't know how she keeps going.

I hope she's having fun and I can't wait for Sunday afternoon to get here... so I can see her again.

2010-07-17T21:38:00.002-04:00

2010-07-12T21:48:00.003-04:00

Why do I keep getting comments in Japanese? Do I look Japanese to you?

I’m very proud of my kids. All of them. Although they scare me at times, and sometimes they just make me laugh.

I was having a problem with my Blackberry, and not having time to go to the Verizon store and get it worked out, I switched phones with Hana. She has the same model and doesn’t need the alarm function anyway, since she usually wakes up when the setting sun comes through her window.

I finished my book at dinner tonight and looked up the order of the Lucas Davenport series written by John Sandford so I could read them in order (I’m that kind of guy) and I stumbled across some memos that Hana had put on her phone. I thought I’d share them with you.

Under the heading “On Haikus”:
I can’t write haikus
Because I’m not Japanese
Hey, wait a minute.

Haikus are easy
But sometimes the don’t make sense
Refrigerator

Under the heading “Memo to self”:
Talking to self is bad.

Oh Crap!

I would love to see her dreams sometimes. She must have some really weird ones. The nice thing is she usually writes them down. But apparently, she sometimes just jots down some notes about her dreams. I found this memo entitles “Dream 18”:
Alley. Bloody Slug. Hobo Women. Ran Off. Door open. Job Opportunity. Application. Tom Cruise. Alien. Chase (could be the verb chase or her cousin Chase). Robot. Escape through sewers. Lake. Modeling Photo shoot. Sean and Gus (from the TV show Psyche.) Join. Pass out. Airport. All my stuff is ruined. Stranded. Good Samaritan. Model boss. Fight. Missed Flight. Christmas. Puppies. Apartment. Moved. Pink. Emily. Kittens. Kate and Mike. Rotweillers. Chase. Hurt Diana. Lock Door.

Yeah, Hana. I’d lock the door too.

Ben called me a couple hours ago and said he had landed in Houston and was on his way back home. A friend of his is moving to San Francisco and asked Ben to go with him out there and he’d buy him a plane ticket home. They left last Monday morning. This is Ben. My 21 year old son who got his third learners permit three days before they left. You see, Ben’s never gotten his lisence to drive and doesn’t really like to drive. But it sounded like they had a good time. They spet the first night in Des Moine, Iowa, then spent the second night in Denver where they had dinner with my brother Phil, who Ben hadn’t seen in probably ten years. Then they were trying to get to Las Vegas to see his friends uncle but didn’t make it that day. They stopped in Cedar City, Utah, about 175 miles from Vegas. Drove on into Vegas the next morning and spent the day running around, and then on to San Francisco on Friday.

I was more scared of him making this trip than I was when he was 16 and went to Peru on a mission trip. But all went well. At least so far anyway.

Do you listen to podcasts? If so, do you listen to Radio Lab? If the answer is no to either question, I would recommend you going to the Radio lab website and getting the podcast entitled “Oops”. It’s amazing. Especially the last section about Butte, MT. Actually, I would recommend getting all of their podcasts. I personally think it’s the best one out there.

And for those of you who don’t know it, my wife is a great wife. As I told her on Sunday before I left, she’s the best wife I’ve ever had. That’s probably not as funny now that I read it since a lot of you don’t actually know that she’s the ONLY wife I’ve ever had. So excuse me while I delete this paragraph.

There. That’s better.

2010-06-28T21:39:00.002-04:00

Here's a tip for you.

If, by chance, you are in need of that wonderful product known as "Super Glue", there are a couple of things you want to make sure of. If you open a new tube, makeabsolutely sure that the cap which holds the dispensing nozzle is firmly screwed back onto the tube. Secondly, you do not want to carry this tube in your pants pocket. Particularly if you are also carrying a pocket full of screws.

Did this happen to you, John, you may ask.

And I would reply. No comment.

The glue will leak through the fabric which makes up your pocket and, before it dries, will leak onto your boxer briefs. It will then leak through your boxer briefs onto the skin of your upper thigh.

Very powerful stuff, this super glue. In just a moment your pants will be glued to your underwear, which will be glued to your leg. This makes a quick trip to the restroom very difficult, depending of course on the position you need to assume while in the restroom.

Sounds like this happened to you, John.

I'm just saying. And the removal of this mess can be very painful. Nail polish remover is supposed to work well, but it's hard to get it into your pocket, through your pocket onto your unmentionables and then your leg without looking like you've wet yourself. I'm just saying.

And then once you get the whole thing off, you will find that you now have a hole in your pocket, drawers that aren't worth keeping, and a hickey on your thigh.

So think about these things the next time your in the hardware store and you need a tube of this "Super Glue". It may not be worth the trouble.

I'm just saying.

Life has been good for us, just busy. Preston's county of birth wanted to reduce his assistance subsidy again after failing to negotiate according to the law. So we filed for another state hearing and won that one as well. They are not keen on continuing to try to get it reduced anymore.

Ben is home from college for the summer and working at Pizza Hut. Hana is working as an aid on a bus route for developmentally disabled adults. Isaac is enjoying his summer of freedom and Josh is going to a school for Autistic kids as his extended school year program. We are thinking that by the end of the summer, if we can get everything lined up, we're gonna pull him from the public school and put him in there full time. It's just a matter of getting all our ducks in a row.

Speaking of ducks, I was driving through the western suburbs of Chicago today heading north on 59, traffic is moving well. It's a state route so there are lights every now and then, and then next thing I know, the lady who had just passed me, jumps into my lane right in front of me and hitsher brakes. Not like locked them up, you know, just slowed down really fast. I hit mine and started to get over into the lane she had just left. And then I saw them. A mother duck with about 6 chicks all in a row trying to cross this busy street. She realized her poor planning and turned her brood around and headed back to the median. When I got by her, I looked in my mirror and saw her start them bakc across. Looked like they all made it sfely.

My mower bit the dust not right before Father's day and shot my idea of buying a new grill for father's day. There's only so much money going around and I needed a new mower. So that's what I got. It's a nice push mower that starts easily.

Preston was so happy with it that he promptly took off throughout the neighborhood trying to get people to let him mow their lawns. He gets back in about two hours and he's made $30 and has two people who want him to come mow for them every week. Saturday he was out agin and made another $25 in the afternoon. The older kids are a little...peeved? He's making it look a little too easy. I've been telling them for years that they could get out there and mow lawns but they haven't done it yet. Oh well.

Other than that, life is good. Work is picking up, and Sheila is very happy that she now lives in a house with central air conditioning. I am as well. I'm also very glad that, since we rent, I don't have to pay the repairman when the air conditioner breaks down.

Life is good.

2010-03-09T18:24:00.003-05:00

So I'm in Elkhart, IN waiting for the morning. My boss asked me to stop by Markley Enterprise in Elkhart on my way back home and pick up 300 sample cases. I'll get them back home and then we'll load them with small sample pieces of our windows and color samples and such and then we'll ship them out to our customers. But Markley closes at 3pm and there wasn't anyway I was going to get through all my Chicago stops today and then drive 150 miles to Elkhart and be there by 3. So here I sit.

I'm parked in the Den of Thieves, also known as a Turnpike Travel Plaza. Truckstops are bad enough when it comes to high prices, but I cannot for the life of me, figure out how these folks running turnpike travel plazas can justify gouging people like this. I ate at a Burger King in this one and it was over $10 for just me. That was a Whopper w/cheese, a Whopper Jr. w/cheese, fries and a large drink. At home, the whopper jr is on the dollar menu. Here it's $2.69. I think the only thing they had on the dollar menu was napkins.

As you may or may not remember, I have five kids, one of which is a foster son. This little guy is extremely autistic. He just turned 8 last month and we are still working on potty training, holding eating utensils, and not walking across the dining room table. He does not speak. We have no idea how much he will learn as the years go by, but it will only be by way of a miracle that he ever finds himself able to live independently. And he is one sweet little boy.

So his county of residence calls our agencies and asks them to ask us to meet with them to discuss our concerns about adopting Josh. There are many. We have had a few family discussions about this issue in which all the kids were included, and the consensus is that we would like to adopt him.

But...

Josh will need assistance the rest of his life and where will that come from? Sheila and I are not getting any younger. I will be 60 when Josh turns 21, and still, he will need help. If we adopted him we would receive an adoption assistance subsidy, but that would only last until he was 21. What if something happens to me or my wife in the next few years? Will the remaining spouse be able to take care of Josh and still work? As it is now, Sheila would not be able to work outside the house since he has so many appointments. Psychiatrist, Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Family doctor. If something were to happen to Sheila I know that I would have to change jobs i order to be home with the kids. But with Josh, I would need to be home much more than if it were just the other 4. And if something were to happen to both me and my wife, then my kids would feel responsible for taking care of Josh from then on. And that doesn't seem fair to foist that onto their shoulders.

We have had difficulty with our local school system. Regardless of the laws that are in place that state that a school must provide an education for the children that live within its district, our school authorities regularly tell parents, and foster parents in particular, that they have no room or facilities or teachers capable of teaching your child. Believe me, it's true. They've told us that regarding three different foster boys, and we had to fight them tooth and nail to take Josh. Now they are saying that we should probably look for another place to educate him since they feel that they are not making enough progress.

There is another school nearby that specializes in autistic children and their education, but the cost is pretty high. Right now, Josh's county of residence is financially responsible for his education. If we adopt him, then that responsibility transfers to our county. And I know good and well they are not going to pay $5000 a month for Josh to go to another school. So there would be another fight. And I imagine that one would need an attorney or two before it got straightened out.

He's a great kid and we love him and it would tear us up to see him leave. But can we provide for him the things that he will need as he gets older? I have my doubts tat he would be adopted by another family and I'm fairly certain that his county of residence would leave him with us for as long as we can keep him. And as it stands, if he has a need then the county has to pay for it. And they've got quite a bit more money than we do.

So that's where we stand right now.

In the meanwhile, I've had a couple follow-up visits with my cardiologist, plus a stress test and an ultrasound of my heart. e gave me fairly good news. He sees no indication that I might drop over dead tomorrow. I guess that's a good thing. He did want to try a different medication for the heart flutter, and he told me that I have a slight enlargement of my upper chamber and a slightly leaky valve. I told him my wife has been telling me that for years. That I have a big head and I'm always blowing wind. He clarified his thoughts. The heart, John, the heart.

But he said that was fairly normal for a guy my age, my size, and with Sleep Apnea. Lance Armstrong I am not. Besides, I'd look ridiculous in those bike shorts. I'd look like a bowling ball walking around on two sausages. So I started the new meds yesterday and we'll see how they do. So far so good. I've actually been feeling better since the episode anyway. Maybe it's cause I see spring around the corner.

Oh, and Hana was finally able to get a job. She's gonna be an aide for special needs kids on the school bus. And the nice thing is that she can ride to work with our neighbor around the corner. YEAH!!

That's it. See ya later.

2010-02-18T17:52:00.002-05:00

We wanted a larger computer monitor to watch TV on. So why not just get a new TV and make it a computer monitor? Works for me.

Josh is not your typical couch potato. Not in the least.

Sheila likes to teach her nephew, Markie, how to protect oneself from alien mind control. Isn't she a great Aunt?

Isaac heard Vancouver was having to truck in snow for the Olympics and thought he and I might make a trip of it. Who knows, maybe we could trade snow for tickets to the Men's Figure Skating Finals.

2010-02-16T08:29:00.002-05:00

I have, for a few years now, dealt with an issue regarding my heart. I had one heart attack back in '07, but prior to that I started experiencing some episodes of atrial fibrillation. For the most part, the episodes will resolve themselves in just a few minutes and my heart will start beating normal again. They usually aren't that bad. But twice now, I have had episodes that I thought warranted a trip to the ER. Sunday was one of them.

Sheila and I were sitting on the couch, enjoying our new "TV", (really, that's all we were doing) and I started to feel that old familiar fluttering at the base of my throat that tells me my heart's starting to beat out of sync again. As I sat there, it started to beat faster and harder. More so than I have felt in the past. So after a while I thought I might better go lay down for a bit. That didn't help at all. It just beat harder, or so it seemed. It felt like something was going to blow at any minute, so I figured I'd better get it taken care of.

So I had Sheila drive me down the street to the ER, since I didn't want to hear them fussing at me about driving myself. When I got hooked up my heart was racing at 148 beats per minute and my blood pressure was 178/124. Not good. So they hooked up an IV and started dripping stuff into me to slow the rate down, and in short order I was down around 100 bpm. But the heart wouldn't get back into rhythm. So the doc decides he's gonna keep me so they can check and make sure that there isn't any damage. The first blood draw showed no sign of a heart attack, which I was fairly sure that I had not had one, but they said that sometimes there's a lag in the enzyme production and the second draw may show evidence of one.

All this going on and I'm supposed to be leaving for my run, Monday morning at the latest. (I usually leave Sunday evening or afternoon.) On my way to the hospital I texted my boss and told him what was going on, just to give him a heads up. Right before the doc came in to say that they were keeping me, he got back to me again and said not to worry about my run, that he had covered it with another driver, and that I should concentrate on resting. I apologized for causing such a hassle and he said it wasn't any hassle at all, get some rest. I have an EXCELLENT boss.

So they kept me overnight, came in a few times in the night to draw more blood, and in the morning, all signs indicated that there had not been a heart attack. As a matter of fact, my heart was back in rhythm about 10 pm. As I said, it usually only takes a few minutes before it gets back where it should be. I'm glad I went in. That was a long time for it to be out of sync. So now I'm on one more medicine to help keep my heart rate down and I have an appointment to see the cardiologist on Friday. There will probably be some more changes.

All in all, it wasn't a very bad episode, but it was bad enough.

So we've got more snow falling today and the kids are out of school again. Sheila's new washer is supposed to show up today and she's worried that the weather is gonna keep them from showing up. For their sake, I hope they don't keep her waiting. I pity da fool that keeps her waiting on a new washer.

2010-02-13T10:13:00.003-05:00

Our washing machine has been slowly giving up the ghost. Notice I didn't say "Sheila's washing machine"? So we've been waiting for the feds to get up off my money so we could go get a new machine. We figured with the number of people in our house, it was important to get a large capacity washer, and since the front loaders are so much more efficient as far as water usage, that's what we went for. A Samsung Front Loader with ActivFresh and Steam cleaning. They also spin faster, which throws out more water, which lets your dryer use less energy. It gets delivered Tuesday. Sheila is excited. Happy Valentines Day dear.

Actually, I'm not that dumb. I was warned 27 years ago to not buy appliances or pots and pans for Christmas, Valentines, Anniversary, or Birthday. I have tried to adhere to that advice. And so far I have never had a black eye.

Anyway, after we paid for the washer, we went looking around the store. Now, here's something you need to understand. In my house, the kids TV stuff is in the basement. Don't worry, it's a finished basement. And Sheila and I watch TV upstairs on the computer. We don't have cable and we don't get any channels over the air since we have no outside antenna so we watch shows on Hulu.com and sites like that. But all this time we've been watching TV from across the living room on a 17 inch computer monitor. It's been OK but it's a little hard for Sheila to see any sub-titles at times. So we've been talking about buying a larger monitor.

So we were looking. The "standard" now seems to be about a 21 inch screen. But I've seen them as big as 26. So we're talking to the guy and I tell him that mainly what we do is watch TV on the monitor. If it weren't for sitting across the room, we wouldn't be needing, or I should say wanting, a new one. His recommendation; buy a flat screen TV and hook that up to the computer and use that for the monitor. "Can you do that?" I ask. "Sure", he says. "It's uses the exact same cord.

So we go looking at the Flat Screens. And lo and behold, they had a 32 inch flat screen TV from Samsung on sale. About $150 off it's regular price.

So...

We now have a 32 inch computer monitor. Wow!

As a computer monitor, it's a little ridiculous. It's like sitting in the front row at the movie theater. But since it's our TV as well, it's great. And Sheila is loving it. She said last night that she was really feeling spoiled. Score more Brownie Points for John!

Work has been good lately. Same old runs. (Quit your snickering.) And we've had quite a bit of snow, not near as much as the Mid-Atlantic states have received. But so far, I've not been caught out in it. It was close last week, but thank the Lord for the Internet. I was able to see the weather coming to Chicago two days early and so I left early in order to beat it home. It's called Racing The Weather. Usually the Weather wins, but not this time. Monday night I was safe asleep in the truck at midnight in the company yard. The snow blew in behind me about 6 hours later. I left for the house about 10 Tuesday morning and stayed home with the family on Wednesday.

On a sadder note, Sheila's uncle, who lived in Maryland, passed away this week. They have received so much snow that the funeral cannot be held until the 25th of February. Sheila is definitely going to make the trip and it's possible that I may go as well. It depends on a number of things.

So that's about it. Ya'll have fun.

Who's gonna take responsibility?

2010-01-30T10:38:00.004-05:00

I usually don't do this, but I think I am going to take today to climb up on my soap box. Excuse me while I get my ladder. Stand by for large amounts of personal opinion. Hey, it is my blog, right?

So here goes. First, let me tell you, I despise politics. The political system we have now is not the same one we started with over two hundred years ago. We may have the best system that exists in this world, but we do not have the best system possible. Why is that? Some things I know, some things I don't. I will not pretend to have all the answers, as you will shortly see, and I probably don't have very many of them anyway. But I can see what some of the major problems are.

We needed a government to help protect us, from without and from within, and to help organize and bring our country together; a government to support an infrastructure and develop our physical lands as resources and retreats. This is the role of the government. To oversee the needs of the people. All the people. Not just the elitist and the wealthy, and not just those who are so destitute that they cannot provide the basic necessities for themselves, but for all the people. Low, middle, and high income alike.

One common theme I hear from my middle-class friends, and I have a lot of them, is that they are too rich to get the assistance for college and such, but too poor to be able to pay for it without some assistance. There should be some middle ground, right? I mean, we DO have a middle class, right?

Actually, I started this post on Saturday, got mad, quit the writing, and now it's Tuesday night and I can't remind where I was going with all this. I do remember some of it so here goes.

I have grown up conservative all my life. It's what I heard as a kid and what I learned as an adult. Staunch Republican. And I still consider myself a conservative, if I'm gonna wear any label at all, but I don't think I'm a Republican anymore. I know I'm not a Democrat, so let's call me an Independent.

WARNING! PERSONAL OPINION APPROACHING!

That said, I don't trust President Obama, and for a number of reasons. One is I sincerely feel he's not experienced enough for the position he holds. Another is that his governmental experience was nearly all earned in Illinois which has the reputation of being one of the most corrupt political environments in the country. And thirdly, the actions that he's taken in his first year in office indicate more government involvement in our lives. And I don't like more governmental involvement.

(Deep Breath)
That said, again, I am fairly certain that I would not vote for President George W. Bush again if it were possible for him to run again. I voted for him the first time, in 2000, but I did not vote for him in '04, nor did I vote for McCain and Palin in '08. Now there are some people who feel that if you don't vote you don't have the right to complain. I would disagree. The act of WITHHOLDING my vote is a vote in and of itself. I found neither of the candidates suitable enough for me to support. I feel that had I voted for McCain, I would bear some responsibility for his being in office, and likewise had I voted for Obama. And since I felt neither man was appropriate for the job, I gave neither one my blessing. (That sounds quite haughty, doesn't it? But rest assured, it's not meant to be. This is just my personal opinion, remember?)

But I lost confidence in President Bush by his handling of the war in Iraq and the lack of action I saw regarding those large companies who violated the trust of their shareholders, ran the company into bankruptcy, and then went running to the government with their hands out. Now I firmly believe that this country was built by private businesses and that companies should get some breaks so that they can provide jobs for the people of this nation. But I also believe that there needs to be stiff penalties for those who violate the law for the sake of greed, who cook the books for profit, and leave the employees and the shareholders hanging out to dry.

Had executives known that they would be serving jail-time for their actions, I doubt very seriously we would be where we are today. But instead, Wall street players and big insurance companies (AIG) made deals and engaged in business practices that could be called shady at best, but would be better described as immoral and unethical. And now, right now, in the midst of this economical meltdown, those gentlemen who actually bear the responsibility for us being in the position we are in, are receiving bonuses for their companies profits of 2009, which came from the pockets of the taxpayers, and in some cases, these bonuses are retention bonuses! I do not, in any way shape or form, understand how people would think that this is ok. Take a look at the whole sub-prime mortgage fiasco and one can easily understand that this was a house of cards just waiting for someone to bump the table. But those who were making money from this legalized form of gambling, made their money and are safe and sound. No responsibility to bear.

(Now I remember where I was going).

So who bears responsibility for this situation? Is it the homeowner who knowingly bought a house, just because he wanted a house of his own, knowing he was unable to make the monthly payment? Or is it the lender who also knew the homeowner could not make the payment, and in many cases changed, falsified or ignored financial information on the applications which would have caused the homeowner to be rejected? Or the lender, who after falsifying or ignoring this financial information, then went out and bought and insurance policy on this loan, which was a high risk, from a company who, unlike all other forms of insurance, did not have to have enough money set aside to pay the claims that would one day come rolling in.

Do you see? We are all asking today, right now, who is responsible for this mess. Why didn't people do what they knew to be right? Now I know it's pure stupidity to ask any industry to police itself. Ain't gonna happen. So we need some regulations in place. But, from what I understand, we had some regulations in place that would have prevented this mess and some of them were done away with and some were ignored. And I have heard people cast the blame for that on both sides of the aisle.

So do you see my dilemma? Big Business or Government Regulations?I am in support of business, BIG business even. Businesses make products that we buy, provide services that we use, provide jobs for me and my family, and in some cases, even pay for my health insurance. And so I don't believe businesses should be hindered from doing this and making a profit. But many things are happening that make this difficult to do. Insurance costs are a big problem as everyone knows. I personally pay $231 a month for insurance, which I think is fairly good. That covers my whole family. My company pays, I believe, $752 for my family to have insurance. So one insurance company is receiving $983 every month just for me and my family to have coverage. And my company provides that to around 45 employees. That amounts to nearly $12,000 per year, just for my family. Now, don't get me wrong. I believe in insurance, but it has reached a cost level that makes it out of reach for most Americans. And even WITH insurance, many families can't afford the medical bills that they do get.

John, you're preaching to the choir, you say. I know, I know. Sorry. I guess I'm thinking out loud here as I try to work this out.

See, one reason that insurance costs so much, aside from executives greed, is that medical expenses cost so much. I have sleep apnea. The machine I use costs $1200. Ok, it's a little more complicated than an air compressor, but not that much. But I'll let them have that. The rubber hose that goes from the machine to my face mask costs $75. It's 5 feet long. It's about an inch in diameter. IT'S A RUBBER HOSE!! Plumbers don't even charge $75 for 5 feet of hose. A comparable hose in Home Depot would cost about $5. So that's the hose. The strip of fabric that goes around my head to hold my mouth closed is about a foot and a half long. It has velcro on the ends of it so it doesn't fall off. It cost $65. RIDICULOUS!! See, I got to thinking about this cause Sheila went looking for a larger car seat for Josh. He's getting bigger, and he needs a bigger car seat. He's already in the largest one that you can buy off the shelf. Anything larger has to be purchased from a medical supply company. So she went looking for one. She found one. You wanna guess? You wanna take a stab at what a car seat that is about 1/3 to 1/2 larger than the one you can buy at Costco or Wal-Mart for about a hundred dollars costs? $200? Think again. $300? Uh uh. $500?! Nope. Try $1602. For a car seat. $1602 for a car seat and this does not include the car. And then if you want to be really special, you can buy a stroller frame that you can strap this car seat into and take your little guy for a stroll without having to take him out of the seat. But you'll need another $1600 for the frame. But the frame does come with wheels so that makes the pushing of said frame a little easier. This combination supports a child up to 110 pounds. Three thousand two hundred and two dollars, plus tax, plus shipping and handling, some assembly required, don't forget to tip your waitresses, for a car seat and stroller!

Why so much? And seriously, it's just a big car seat. Nothing special or technical involved. I sincerely believe it costs so much because the manufacturer knows that insurances, be they private insurance or Medicaid, will be the ones that pay for these things. And so the average consumer will let his insurance foot the bill. What to do? I don't know. I told Sheila we should call this company up and order one for Josh, but tell them we would give them $250 for it and they can keep the stroller. Think that would fly? Me neither. But that's also what insurance companies do. They'll call the doctor or the supply house and say, "We'll pay this much and that's it." Then I get stuck paying 20% of the total bill, plus what the doctor or supply house charges that the insurance company would not pay.

It's an ugly mess, and in all reality, I don't see anyway out of it other than to have more regulations. But I hate more regulations cause that means more government involvement in my life. And I don't want more governmental involvement in my life. They haven't been doing all that great as far as being responsible either, as far as I can see. But without regulations we are trusting people to do the right thing. And so far, they are not doing it. So you and I are footing the bill.

Now I said at the beginning that I don't trust President Obama. But if you are one of his supporters, don't let this make you mad. The truth is, I don't trust ANY of them. And I find myself becoming more and more disappointed in their actions. President Obama put forth a budget on Monday that conservatives are calling him a spendthrift for and that liberals are saying doesn't go far enough in reducing the deficit. Now, as I said, I hate politics, and this is why. Right here, my very own senator, George Voinovich, from Ohio, said, "I am disappointed that he himself failed to jumpstart reform by making tough choices on the real budget busters like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid." This coming from a man who is retiring. And I can guarantee you that he is not retiring on Social Security alone. These three programs address the needs of the neediest people in our nation and this man wants to cut them first? Yes, there is immense amounts of fraud in the Medicaid system, but address the fraud, not the budget. Arrest people. Make people responsible for their actions. But don't take the money away from the seniors who are trying to get by on $600 a month, or the kid who, through no fault of his own, finds himself relying on the government for his medical needs. This is ridiculous.

John, shut up already! You're writing a diatribe.

Ok, sorry. If you've stuck with me this long you are truly patient, and I thank you. But you are also very lucky. Because, you see, I actually do have the answer for this mess. It's not quick and it'll take a while but it will work. Here's what you do. Pick yourself up from where you are right now and find the quietest, darkest room in your house. Go their alone. If you're with someone, tell them they can do this after you are done. Go into this room, turn off all the lights, plug your ears with white noise headphones or something, and start thinking.

And here's what you think:
In my house, in my neighborhood, in my school, in my church, in my community, what is the right thing to do? Not for the world, but just for where I am right now? What is the RIGHT thing to do? And I'm not talking right and left politically. What is the proper thing to do? The mannerly thing. The compassionate thing. The honorable thing. In what situation, you ask? In all situations. See, if I were to stop thinking about just what is good for me, but also think about what is good for others, then that will most likely lead me to the right thing to do. And I really believe that if we take away our outside influences, our preconceptions and our prejudices, and allow ourselves to really think about what is true, and honorable, and right, then we'll know what we should do. And we should do that.

Will this fix the mess? Not today. And not tomorrow. And most likely not before any of you have died. But one day...maybe.

That sure is pie in the sky thinking, John. Maybe. Maybe not. All I know is that if I am going to expect executives to do the right thing, or politicians, or insurance companies, or my neighbor, with or without regulations in place, I better be willing to do what is right and honorable.

Change doesn't come from me voting for the one who makes the right choice. Change comes from me BEING the one who makes the right choice.

Thanks for listening. I'm done.

Good, Bad, and Ugly

2010-01-23T12:13:00.002-05:00

It's been a long time. I feel disconnected. I miss you guys. Sniff.

We had a good Christmas. I made my wife cry. But it was a good cry. See, she's one of those lady's where it's all about the kids. "Don't get me anything. Money's tight and the kids need it more than I do." And my sister would ask, "You didn't listen to her, did you?"
No, sis, I did not.
Sheila's into scrapbooking. The one and only thing that she has ever asked for was a Cricut Personal Cutter. And no, it's not a lady's razor. It's a computerized letter and shape cutter. Very cool. The only thing she's ever asked for specifically.
They were on sale at less than half price at Joanne Fabrics this year. Sheila was very, very happy. And you know what the old saying is; If Momma ain't happy...run for your lives!

Work is good. The weather hasn't been too bad. I've missed most of the bad roads and for that I am grateful.

It's January so I'm back in the sound booth at church announcing for the Upwards basketball games and having fun.

Josh has been progressing. Sheila's still getting him to the commode most mornings before he's already seen the man about the dog. And he's getting the hand, or should I say handle, of a spoon and fork. Soup is not a fun meal, but the dog loves it when Josh eats chicken or beef.

Preston has lost a few teeth. And yes, the normal way, no help from family. He's playing basketball again this year and loving it.

We got word Isaac needs his adenoids taken out. So the surgery was scheduled for this Friday. Sheila tells me last night that the doctor called and said that Isaac has not met his insurance deductible yet and they need $250 by Wednesday or they won't do the surgery on Friday. I don't know how others feel about this but it really irritated me. Sheila was ok with it. Maybe it's just me. My comment to her was that I couldn't think of any other service industry where you are forced to pay BEFORE you receive the service. And then to say that it has to be paid by Wednesday which is two days before the surgery, and only five days away. Most folks would put it on the credit card or something like that but we don't have any credit cards, which has saved our collective butts more than once. So, I don't know. Not sure what we're gonna do. And then that got me to thinking, maybe I should get a second opinion anyway. I mean, it is surgery and it got scheduled pretty fast. One more thing to think about.

It appears my compassion level is dropping. Not sure why, but I seem to have less concern about the plight of others. And it worries me. I'm usually not that way. But it seems like every time I turn around there's a new ad or plea for some charitable organization or other. Someone wants money to support these folks or those kids or that organization. And I'm thinking, why should worry about them? And then I feel guilty, and then I get mad at myself for feeling guilty, and then I get tired and then I take a nap.

Maybe I'm just trying to isolate myself. I know this is a little bit of a ramble, so bear with me. I see folks around me who go to work, and then come home to their families and relax and watch TV together and have their hobbies like model trains or bowling, and I think, when does that happen in my house? Someone has to go here and the other kid has to go there and this person needs this, that or the other thing. Now, granted, my wife does most of the running around, but I miss her. I long for the days when I can sit with her and just revel in her presence. Am I gearing up for retirement? (Which will probably not happen anytime soon, considering the state of my retirement portfolio.)

So...

I don't know. I just wish I weren't so hard-hearted lately.

Maybe next week...

But...I have a good wife, very pretty, very sweet; and a great family.

Ya'll have fun.

Maybe I should lay off the Vicodin.

Oh, what a wonderful day

2009-12-17T09:03:00.003-05:00

It's Thursday. I have really gotten to enjoying Thursdays. See, Thursday is the last day of our pay week and if times are slow at work, the bosses don't want me working on Thursday since I'm usually into overtime by about half way through Wednesday. So they tell me to take Thursday off. Then I go in Friday for 6 to 8 hours, load the trucks, help out here and there, and then I've got the rest of the weekend to myself.

I like Thursdays. I get to wake up slow in a warm house that's not vibrating from it's motor running. And I'm almost always lying next to this sweet young thing who very rarely snores. (Only when she's had too much to drink, which last happened about the time Hector was a pup.) Then I fiddle around on the computer while the kids are waking up and I get up to help them get ready for school. It's great.

Josh is starting to get a little bit, and I mean a "little bit", of the potty training into his head. "When I stand in front of this bowl looking thing, I'm supposed to let my warm water out." That's where we are right now.

So every morning, Sheila gets him up and stands him in front of the bowl. Saturday I was up before she was and he got up while she was still in bed. I'm thinking we need to keep this pattern going. Autistic kids like structure, patterns, sameness. Don't give him change. He hates it. As do I.

So I take him by the hand, walk him into the bathroom, remove his diaper, and stand him in front of the commode. Nothing. He's not going. But now my morning coffee has kicked in and I have to go. And I'm thinking that maybe if he sees me going he'll get the idea. So I let go of his hand and I proceed to "remind" him of the proper use of this bowl-shaped facility.

And, glory be, he gets it! And he starts to let his own stream flow.

The only problem is, he is no longer standing at the bowl, but has decided to move around behind me and let fly from that angle, soaking the back of my pant leg and my shoes in the process.

I don't know how it is with the ladies, but as Bill Cosby once pointed out many years ago, us men can't cut it off in mid-stream. So I'm dancing in front of the toilet, trying to avoid Josh's stream, trying to maintain some semblance of aim as regards my own, and I finally gave up. One thing at a time.

At least he was in the right room. It's a slow journey, but it's a good one.

But it's been a good week. Work has slowed down for our company, which is not that great, not unexpected, but still not great. But this also means I now have more room on my truck for more windows, which means more stops which means more miles which means more hours and you get the picture.

So instead of sending one guy to Toledo and Michigan, and then me to Chicago and Waukesha, the company sends him to Toledo, and me to Michigan, Chicago, and Waukesha. You see? More hours. And on top of that, I only had a little drizzly day on Monday, and then Tuesday and Wednesday were beautiful. Cold, but nice and sunny. I woke up Wednesday morning in just south of Milwaukee and it was 4 degrees.

I had to leave the truck running Tuesday night cause when it gets that cold, she doesn't want to start without being plugged in. The only problem I had was that my Fast Idle Control decided to quit working. See, a truck will idle normally at about 500 to 550 rpms. Most trucks have a switch or something that will allow you to raise the idle. Mine is tied in with the cruise control, meaning that if I'm parked, and my cruise switch is on, all I do is hit the "Accelerate" button, and the idle will jump up to about 1000 rpms. If I want it lower I just hit the "Coast" button and it'll drop a little bit at a time so I can set the idle where I want it.

This does three things. It smooths the idle out, a faster idle being smoother than a low idle. It also raises the oil pressure. This keeps the oil flowing better through the motor thereby making life easier for the engine. A faster idle also keeps the water temperature up. Higher water temperature means hotter heat for the cab within which I sleep. More heat means more comfortable sleep. If I'm NOT running the truck and I need heat, I use a bunk heater that burns diesel fuel and works very well.

But remember, my fast idle's not working, meaning rough idle, low pressure, no heat. They make a "Throttle Stick" or "Throttle Prop" that looks like "The Club. You stick one end on the throttle pedal and the other end under the steering wheel and adjust it's length to set the idle where you want it. But I was parked in the Flying J, and they didn't have any, and I figured it was too far to get to the next place that I thought MIGHT have one. So I'm digging around in the cab looking for something to mash on the peddle to get the idle up. The case of water's too big and too heavy, no wire coat hangers, only plastic ones. And then I get it. Stephen Kings double cassette movie "The Stand". It's thick and sturdy and I can jam it between the throttle and the bottom of the dash cowl. And since the cowl is rounded I can tap the edge of the movie, after it's in place, and speed up or slow down the idle. IT WORKS!

Yeah, heat!

And that was the best thing that ever came out of that movie.

Life is good.

Randomness

2009-12-09T11:01:00.003-05:00

Sheila left today to go pick up Ben in Columbus. I was gonna go but she and a friend of hers wanted to stop at the high-dollar mall down there and get some things. So I'm at home.

I have some time not used from work so I took today and tomorrow off. I was planning on going and getting Ben but you see how that worked out.

I was driving north from Chicago towards Waukesha, WI a couple weeks ago and saw this guy driving next to me. No biggie. I see lots of guys driving next to me. But this guy was about half again as large as I am ( and I'm a big guy) and he was completely naked. Not what I was wanting to see at that time of day. Or any time of day, actually.

We got moved into our new house and out of the old one. It's taking some time to get settled in but you all know how that is. The night before Thanksgiving we're getting ready to sit down and play a game and Sheila goes downstairs to change the laundry over while we wait for Isaac to get out of the bathroom. Isaac comes out, Sheila's not up yet, I send Hana down to get her.

Hana calls out that I need to get down there. Sheila is standing in the laundry room crying. "I just cleaned this floor two days ago!" I mean she's bawling. And I really couldn't blame her. There on the floor, in the middle of the floor, all over the floor, is everything that went down any drain upstairs. Sink, shower and toilet. It all came up the toilet and shower stall that are in the basement. NOT a pretty picture.

So the game is off as I get the kids and we start with the rubber gloves, picking up...well, you know. sss.....stuff! Nasty. The kids are gagging and hacking, and all they're doing is holding the bags while I do the pooper scooping.

We get most of it up and I set to work seeing if I can clear the drains. 30 minutes later I decide it's a lost cause and it'll have to wait til I can hire a plumber.

Hana asks how soon the plumber can get there.

"Friday morning, I hope," I say.

"Friday?! What'll we do til then?"

"Well, if you just have to pee, you can go in the toilet. Just don't flush it."

"What if we have to do more than pee?"

"There's a bucket in the garage with some cat litter in the bottom. And there's toilet paper out there."

Hana: "Are you serious? You want me to squat over a bucket?"

Isaac: "Maybe it should be called bucket paper."

Sheila: "Maybe I should go buy more cheese."

Preston: "Can Nate come over to play?"

So Hana asks me why I don't just call a plumber right then and get them out here quick.

"It's the night before Thanksgiving (sounds like a poem, right?) and there's no plumber around. If I were to call one now, or before Friday even, I might as well buy him his own boat. Just go down to the dealer and tell him to pick out whichever one he wants. Nope. It'll wait til Friday.

So Friday comes and then the plumber comes and two hours later he's gone and the roots are out of the drain and the sss...stuff is flowing much better and the bucket was summarily disposed of, and without EPA approval either. And life goes on.

We do foster care, right? Move into a new house, need a new inspection. Fail the new inspection. Don't have GFI plugs near the sinks. For those of you not in the know, or who don't care about such things, GFI stands for Ground Fault Interrupted, or something like that. You've seen them and newer house have them within a certain distance of where water is or would be. The idea is that the outlet has a little breaker on itself and it will trip if it senses some sort of change. I don't know how it works really, but I do know that if your outlet boxes are not already grounded then the GFI outlets won't work.

How do you know this, John, you might ask.

Experience, my dear. Experience. Experience I gained when I tried to change the old outlets to the new GFI outlets so we could get inspected. Four screws on the outlets sides, six wires coming into the back of the box. Can you figured out the possible number of combination's of wires to screws there are? And I was smart. I labeled the wires so they would go on the right screws. But the GFI is different. Now what. Maybe I should read the instructions. Nope, doesn't help. The GFI keeps popping it's breaker.

So I call a friend who's an electrician and beg for help and mercy and he comes right over. He does a quick perusal of my situation, plugs a few things in, moves some wires around and says, "Your boxes aren't grounded."

"So what's that mean?" I ask.

"The GFI outlets won't work. I mean, I can get them to work, but they won't do what they are supposed to do, plus it's illegal, and you'll fail the inspection if the inspector plugs his tester in the outlet, and I wouldn't do it anyway."

"So what do I need to do?"

"We need to run three strand, or grounded wire, from the circuit box up to the three outlets you need to change."

So that's what we do. Or I should say, that's what HE does. I'm not much help since Electricity and I do not get along. Nope, Not in the least. We did get along, once, but the last time I tried to do any rewiring we had a blackout from Michigan east to Massachusetts and as far south as Virginia.

While we were getting the last things out of the old house, we put some things in the new shed. As we are walking away form the shed, I hear a lock snick closed. I turn around and Hana has just locked the shed. "Do you have the key to that lock?" I ask her. "Sure, it's right here," she says and holds up her keys.

I say okay and keep walking. Couple days later, in the ensuing plumbing catastrophe, I'm needing my tools. I remember they are in the shed. I tell Isaac to get Hana's keys and bring me my tools. Isaac never comes back. So I go looking for him. He's out there trying to get the lock off. Seems he can't get the keys to work. So I give it a try. Nope. Not gonna happen. S0 I holler to Hana to get out there. She points out the proper key, the one that we had been trying to get to work all along, and says "That's the one."

"But it doesn't work," I say.

"It worked before," she says.

And we go round and round.

I finally walk away in disgust.

Yesterday I come home from work and I bring my tools into the house to fix a shelf. Hana says, "I thought your tools were in the shed."

"They were," I reply.

"I thought the shed was locked."

"It was."

"How'd you get it open?"

"With a new type of key."

"Really?"

"Really. It's called bolt cutters."

Now I just need a new lock for the shed.

My children are...

2009-11-28T18:52:00.002-05:00

IDIOTS!

You know the contest they run under the soda caps. Twist off the cap and you might win a free soda or a trip to the Bahamas or a lifetime supply of snide remarks.

But usually it says "Please Try Again".

So I twist it off and Isaac asks, "What's it say."

"Please Try Again."

"Cool. Can I try it?"

"Try what?"

"Try it again" he says as he twists the cap off and looks under the same cap I just looked at. "Darn!"

"What are you looking at? I told you it said 'Please Try Again'."

"I know", Isaac says. " That's why I wanted to be the one to Try Again."

"So what's it say?"

"It says 'Please Try Again"."

This could go on all night.

Moved

2009-11-14T10:12:00.001-05:00

Well. We got moved. We didn't go far. Just about a half mile away. And I'm finding there are boxes still waiting to be unpacked. Not from this move but from the move three moves ago. I have boxes that haven't been unpacked in 15 years. And why, you ask. I don't know. Just haven't. Quit being so picky.

But it's a nice house and we like it.

And we left the possum behind.

So?

2009-10-20T09:19:00.004-04:00

Our house is old, say 100 to 120 years. The basement is unusable but for the laundry and storage and the one car garage, which has never held our car in the five years we've been there, has a gravel floor and a door that opens to the side like a bi-fold closet door. OLD!

We keep our trash in the garage and once a week I throw it in the back of my truck and take it to work and dump, in the big ram-powered dumpster, not in the boss's office.

Our outside door to the garage does not always get closed properly where it will stay shut and not swing open so we have had a problem with animals getting into the trash.

I told you that to tell you this.

I'm laying in bed the other night, having just fallen asleep maybe thirty minutes before, when Hana, our eldest, comes running in the room.

"Dad! There's a big possum in the garage getting into the trash! Lucy's going nuts trying to get at it!"

So I jumped out of bed, grabbed my housecoat, and yes, I do wear one sometimes, and ran down the stairs, Hana hot on my heels.

I get to the door from the kitchen to the basement stairs which also goes on out to the garage, and Lucy, our Rat Terrier, is sniffing and snuffling, barking and howling at the door, trying to claw her way through to get to this monster so that she can do her duty as our protector and kill it.

I shoo her out of the way, grab a broom (knowing full well not to approach a possum unarmed) and head out to do battle. I ease open the garage door and I see nothing but trash scattered on the gravel floor, a familiar sight by now. I see no possum. Maybe he/she is hiding behind the various and asundry boxes, implements, and empty paints cans that call my garage home.

So I start beating about with the stick, smacking boxes, cans, shelves, tools, counters, empty barrels, old fans, washtubs, doors, walls, table saws, thesaurusi, all in an attempt to disturb this varmint into showing him/herself.

Then it hits me. What's the expression, that idiosyncrasy, that mannerism that defines these minute members of the mammalian marsupial menagerie?

You guessed it. "Playing Possum!" And what does this mean. Well, for those city dwellers among you who are not familiar with the thought processes of the animal kingdom, a possum will roll over and act as though they are dead. Much like a middle-aged American Male.

So here I am, in my bathrobe with no belt, and the briefs that lie beneath, swinging my lance of choice around in the garage in the middle of the night trying to disturb an animal who has learned that if he/she just lays there quietly the mean old fat man will soon go away.

And then it hits me. What am I doing? And more importantly, WHY am I doing it? What do I care if this possum eats my trash? It's already made a mess. I can clean it up tomorrow and nail the garage door shut. It's not like he's gonna get into the house.

So with as much dignity as I can muster, I gather my robe together, and with lance in one hand and Rat Terrier in the other, I concede this particular battle to Joe/Jane Possum, and march into my house.

My daughter says, "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to bed."

"What about the possum?"

"What about him?" I ask.

"But he's still out there!" she squeals.

"Yes," I say. "He most likely is still out there. But the "Out-There" belongs to him. The "In-Here" belongs to me. And as long as we both respect each others territory, I think we'll be okay."

"But..."

"I'm going to bed." And off I went. I get upstairs and Sheila says, "What was that all about?"

"There's a possum in the garage," I said.

"Oh. Okay," she said, and rolled over and went back to sleep.

The Steel Trolley Diner

2009-10-06T21:05:00.005-04:00

This past weekend, my wife and I were treated to two nights lodging, sans children, in a fine hotel in Lisbon, Ohio in exchange for me singing two songs in a young ladies wedding and DJ'ing her reception. I figured it was a fair enough deal and off we went to enjoy a weekend together, albeit with some other people thrown into the mix, but not the hotel room; thank you, God.

We arrived in Lisbon Friday afternoon and after checking into the hotel, we went with the bride's father directly to the church for the rehearsal. All went well and I enjoyed the quiet time with my wife. Since there was no actual rehearsal dinner, the bride's father and mother took Sheila and I out to a late dinner at the Speakeasy Casino located at the Mountaineer Racetrack in New Cumberland, West Virginia across the river from Lisbon. The restaurant was serving a buffet which featured Alaskan King Crab legs and we did our best to eat enough crab legs to make up for the $18.99 per person the casino was charging. I paid for it later but it was well worth it since neither of us had had good crab legs since leaving Maryland nearly twenty years ago. And these were VERY good.

Anyway, the weekend was wonderful, the wedding was beautiful , and the reception was a blast. We slept in Sunday morning and left the hotel about 11 to head for home. The following conversation ensued as we pulled out of the hotel parking lot.

"You got any druthers for lunch," I asked my sweet bride.

"Not really," she said. "Do you?"

"No. But I was thinking, if we wait too much longer we might hit the church crowd wherever we go."

"True. Why don't we go ahead and find something soon."

"Okay," I said and the conversation ended. (We're not usually this exciting but it had been a good weekend and our dander was up.)

It was about this time that we came upon The Steel Trolley Diner, located in the historic district (or so the pamphlets said) of Lisbon, OH. From the looks of the buildings that we saw I would say pretty much ALL of Lisbon qualifies as historic district. That being said, it was a lovely town.

I mentioned to my bride that we might try this diner and she readily agreed. Not two minutes after sitting at our booth, I knew I had to tell you all about it. So here goes my first restaurant review. (Be easy on me, AM.)

Are you interested in nouveau riche cuisine where the napkin weighs more than the food on your plate? Or maybe you'd like a light fresh Mediterranean style salad with Romaine lettuce, Crimini mushrooms, sardines, and garbanzo beans tossed together in an invigorating dressing of extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice with a hint of garlic? No? Then maybe a thick chateaubriand steak with a peppercorn garlic spread and steamed vegetables on the side?

Well, if any of these are what you are looking for then I would highly recommend that you go.....NOWHERE NEAR the Steel Trolley Diner. Seriously, stay far, far away. My heart was screaming "NO! NO! GET ME OUTTA HERE" even as we were walking in the door. (Silly heart). This place has four basic food groups; fried, deep-fried, griddle-fried, and ice cream.

At The Steel Trolley Diner the hamburgers are thick, juicy, and cooked on a griddle that's about two foot square, right there in front of you and all your patronly friends. The menu is eight pages long and features breakfast foods, all fried, griddled, or toasted; hot dogs and hamburgers, which are prepared in any number of condimental combining manners; desserts, which were mostly pies, ice creams, and shakes; and four dinner entrees-Meatloaf, Chicken Fried Steak, Fried Chicken, and grilled liver and onions. (I don't know how they cooked the meatloaf since I saw no actual oven anywhere.)

We're talking the penultimate "greasy spoon" here. But oh, what a diner. Had it been in a larger city I would have expected Sam Spade to come walking in any time in his trench coat and fedora, smoking a cigarette, and asking Trixie behind the counter for a hot cup of Joe, then settling himself in a booth where he would read the paper as the rain fell outside, the car tires sizzling on the pavement like bacon frying in the pan, the neon lights of the dance hall across the street glowing like cheap jewelry on a...but I digress.

Sheila and I both decided on the BBQ Burger, which won first place at the Fourth Annual National Hamburger Festival this year in Akron, Ohio. It was not a complicated burger, consisting of a half pound patty, grilled onions, shredded cheddar cheese and barbecue sauce, but it sure was messy. I consider myself a man's man and seldom lower myself to cutting a burger in half in order to eat it. But this baby was saying either cut me in half before you start or drop half of me down your shirt front, your choice, go ahead, I'll wait.

So I cut that puppy in half and started in. Oh my, it was a taste to behold. Bright, engaging, and woodsy, with a hint of steel mill thrown in.

We ordered fries with our burgers, why bother with anything else, right, and since Sheila is an onion ring lover, I thought I'd be nice and order some of those for the both of us. Big mistake! The burger came in one basket, and the hand-cut fries came piled high in another basket all their own. The "side" of fries was probably half again as large as the "basket" of fries you buy in most chain restaurants. And then there were the onion rings. Hot, juicy, and crispy.

Sheila barely made a dent in her fries and I could not finish all of mine, a first for me, I assure you. I was so full I had to stop for a nap while I walked back to the car.

But rest assured, if the Award Winning BBQ Burger is not your cup of tea, forgive the mixed-metaphor there, then you can order virtually any combination of burger, cheese, and condiment that you can imagine. And if it's not on the menu, I'm fairly certain they'll throw together any combination you tell them to.

Some of the more interesting burgers included the "Elvis Burger, "a juicy half pound burger topped with bacon, Jif peanut butter, and homemade banana jam, just like the King liked 'em", I kid you not; or the "Johnny Appleseed burger, a half pound burger topped with homemade apple pie jam, grilled onions, and shredded cheddar cheese"; or even the "Burning of Atlanta burger" which was "smothered in peach bbq sauce, topped with pepperjack cheese and jalapeno peppers." There were too many for me to remember, but all were capable of stopping your heart on a dime and giving you a nickel in change.

The diner was first opened in 1954 and has changed hands a few times since then. Also it is one of what I believe is only 2000 trolley diners still in existence in the US today. This is a truly a down home place. If this place were located in my town I'd be either broke, weigh 500 pounds, dead from a heart attack, or some combination of the three. And as the commercial would say, "they don't take American Express". Nor do they take Visa, Mastercard, Diners Club, or Discover. And they won't take personal checks either. So bring your appetite and bring your cash. Because when you leave you will have left some of your cash and all of your appetite behind.

It was fun to say the least.

And Jackie, our server, was fabulous. She made us feel as if we came in every day.

Thanks, Jackie, for a wonderful time.

I'm sorry

2009-10-06T20:57:00.003-04:00

In my last post I commented on the 70 year old fellow getting married to a 46 year old lady. I also made the comment that I wasn't sure that I could marry a 70 year old woman.

Forgive me, I beg of you. It was not a smart thing to say, and I meant no disrespect to those ladies out there that have reached, or are close to reaching this quite seductive age.

You will also note that I stated that I needed to get to bed. Truth be told, I should have gone to bed before writing that post. Then maybe I would have thought more clearly about what I should say regarding Mr. Young and Ms. Harbin's upcoming nuptials. Or whether I should have said anything at all.

And yes, I would agree with Mom. There are a number of "very hot" 70 year old women out there. In fact, I am currently married to a very hot 45 year old woman right now. Maybe that's why the thermostat in my house is set on 54 all the time.

chuckle chuckle

2009-10-05T19:41:00.002-04:00

I was perusing my Google Reader, where I keep up with the other bloggers out there, and I came across one from "Galion News", where I live. It said "The following marriage license applications were filed in Richland County Probate court between Sept yada yada yada. Being the curious type I wondered if anyone knew was getting married and hadn't told me. So I scanned the list.I didn't find anyone I knew but I did find this one.

"Newton Douglas Young of Lexington, 70, retired, and Gail Bullock Harbin of Lexington, 46, sales associate."

Mr. Young, ironic isn't it, who is 70, is marrying Ms. Harbin, who is 46. And then I thought, Hey, I'm 46! Could I marry a 70 year old woman? The fact that I am already married is a major deterrent, but I'm not sure I could marry someone who is 24 years older than I am. In this age of soccermommania, there are quite a few very attractive 46 year old moms out there. And my first thought, sorry ladies, was You go, dude!

My second thought was I really need to get to bed.

Goodnight all.

The Promised Post

2009-09-29T18:28:00.006-04:00

I told you last episode that I would tell you about the pig with the wooden leg. Well, here goes.

It was a rookie mistake. I had made a wrong turn coming out of a shipper in Oconomowoc, WI and found myself on a narrow farm road trying to find a place to turn around. I was tired, frustrated,and scared that I might be driving further into the hinterland with less and less chance of finding a suitable place to get turned around; that eventually the road would turn from asphalt to gravel and then to mud and then peter out completely and there would be Satan standing in front of my rig saying, "You should have changed your ways a long time ago." And I would scream back, "I was trying! I really was trying!"
I was tired. And this is what led to The Rookie Mistake. And that's just how it should be written. All caps. Forever more a noun to stand on it's own.
I have, since the dawn of time, or at least since I started driving, been drilled with the instructions that one never, never, never, under any circumstances, not even in case of nuclear attack, uses private property to turn around your misguided vehicle. Drive another 40 miles if you have to, but DO NOT turn around on private property.
But this guys driveway was huge. Granted, this particular farm had no place on it that I could swing the truck around, but the the driveway was wide with nice curves at its apron, just calling me to pull up and back into its easy open warmth and safety. And yes, I'm still talking about the drive.
I fell. I succumbed. I tumbled from my lofty perch and found myself giving in to the enticement of this particular temptation and swung left and then right to position myself to back quickly into the drive, and then be on my way, once again on the road to redemption.
As you know, most farms have culverts running along the road frontage, to keep the water from flooding the lawn, to keep the road salt out of the yard, and to more easily collect the beer bottles of drunken teenagers, so one needs a way to get over this culvert to get to the house. Hence, the corrugated drainage pipe culvert thingy. You've all seen them. The pipe under the gravel at the drive allowing the water to continue on it's journey unabated. They come in various sizes too. After all, not everyone has a really large culvert. Nor do I, you should know. And apparently, this particular farmer did not either as I would soon discover.
My trailer axles cleared the culvert fine and I was backing and straightening quickly with visions of smooth sailing ahead of me. That was when I felt the lurch. My world literally dropped out from under me as my rear tractor axles proved to be the proverbial straw for this farmers' camels' back. And there I sat. The rear drive axles down in the ditch, having crushed the pipe under their weight, the front drive axle not yet having fallen into the trap, up on the drive still, and the whole rig looking like a toy that has been played with just a little too hard, it's back broken and weeping in pain.
I jumped back in and thought, I can get out of this if I just grab the low gear, lock the differential, and give it the goose. And that's exactly what I did. Grabbed the gear, locked the differential, and gave it the goose, and you know what I got? JACK! Nothing. Nada. I was going nowhere. The rear drives were now spinning in the air while the front drives were digging a hole in this guys driveway. Why? I jumped out and saw the problem. The landing gear on my trailer was now firmly driven into the ground. Had I, by some miracle, been able to pull out of there, I would have plowed a furrow the farmer could have planted pumpkins in.
It was at this point that I began to cry. Not the quiet, manly one tear down the cheek cry. But that sobbing, wailing, shoulders jumping caterwauling that comes from deep within your soul. I was done in. I was exhausted. I was at the end of my proverbial rope. And so I cried. And cried. And when I finished crying I cried some more. And then I screamed, for it was at this time that I felt the hand on my shoulder.
I jumped and jerked around, ready to run from whomever was intent on causing me bodily harm, and there he stood. He had to be close to 80. His hair was thin and the purest white I have ever seen. It shown from under the gimme cap he wore which advertised the "Oconomowoc Feedstore, Fine Feed For All!". He wore the obligatory overalls, one leg of which was tucked inside a Redwing pull-on boot, the other leg hanging free, and a blue bandanna hung from his back pocket. His face was lined with the evidence of many Wisconsin winter storms and summer skies, but I saw no anger there. Just...what? Was that sympathy I saw on this old-timers face?
And then he spoke. And the voice was exactly as I would have expected. He sounded as though his voice came from the bottom of a barrel and passed through 200 pounds of gravel as it came. It was deep and husky and it reminded me of my grandfather. "Looks like we got us a problem here." Not "Looks like YOU'VE got a problem", but WE'VE got a problem.
In an attempt to own the problem I said, "Yep. I really screwed up this time."
"Well," he said, " I doubt it's the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Name's Wendell by the way" and he stuck out his hand. I stuck my hand out to meet his and he gave my hand one strong, firm pump and turned and started towards the house.
I stood there, not knowing whether to follow him or stay with the truck when he turned and solved my dilemma for me.
"Come on in and Agnes will pour you some coffee while I call my nephew Ollie to help us get you out of there." And he turned and continued his slow shuffle towards the house.
I stood there, the disbelief of my stupidity and the generosity of this saintly man both vying for a position of dominance in my brain. He had shuffled another 30 feet or so towards his house when I realized I was standing there with my mouth open, snapped it shut, and started after him. The front of my truck was off the roadway proper and therefore not likely to be struck by passing traffic so at least that was one less worry.
At the house he guided me through the back door into the kitchen, bright and clean, it's appliances all well used and Avocado Green, but in good shape. The setting sun lit the chrome that ran around the edges of the Formica table and I went back in time to Grandmother Iola's house. I swear I could smell her roast with green beans and potatoes, her large flaky rolls smothered in butter, and a pecan pie just fresh and warm out of the oven. This kitchen had somehow been transported from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin to Stephenville, Texas. I felt as though a burden was slowly lifting from my shoulders as this man directed me to have a seat.
"Let me get the coffee going and then I'll call Ollie," he said as he went to the cabinet and pulled out a familiar looking can of Maxwell House coffee. As he prepared the coffee he told me that Ollie was his nephew, on his wife's side, come from one of her smarter sisters, and owned an excavating company. "If Ollie doesn't have what we need to get you out of there, he can find it sure enough," he said.
In short order I had a hot cup of coffee in front of me, the cup advertising the Oconomowoc VFW Hall Annual Sausagefest of 1978. Wendell had just dialed the phone to call his nephew, Ollie, from one of her smarter sisters, when a small woman, no more than 5 feet tall, walked into the kitchen.
"Please forgive me," she said as she put her hand out to me in an exuberant greeting. "I was in the bath when our driveway gave out from under you. I sent Wendell down to see if he could help while I made myself presentable. And please forgive me for not having the coffee made but I surely wasn't expecting any company at this time on a Tuesday evening." She then turned to her husband and said, "Is that Ollie, dear? Ask him if Laurie would like some zucchini bread. I made much, much more than either you or I could eat and I don't want it to go bad." Turning back to me, her smile brightening the room, she asked, "Would you like some zucchini bread, dear? I wouldn't want to be immodest but it's been said I make the best zucchini bread in this county. And the butter is fresh. Here, let me get you a slice or two." And she spun around to her Avocado green stove and twisted the center knob so hard I thought it would snap off in her hand. She then grabbed a cookie sheet out of a lower cabinet, set it on the counter and turned to the refrigerator for the zucchini bread, the best in the county or so they say.
Wendell soon hung up the phone and joined me with his cup, All-State Insurance, at the table, while Agnes busied herself getting saucers from the cabinet, butter from the fridge, and two glasses of cold white milk.
"Ollie's on his way over," said Wendell. "He said he'd come take a look and then decide what he needs to get you out of that hole."
"I sure do appreciate all this," I said, sipping the strong coffee from my VFW Sausagefest cup. "And I am so sorry for causing all that damage to your driveway. I will definitely make sure it gets repaired to your satisfaction."
He waved his hand at me and said, "Don't worry 'bout it. Ollie put that culvert in the first time and I imagine he can put it in again. He might let you buy him a few gallons of diesel fuel but other than that it won't be much."
I could not believe my luck. I had destroyed this couples driveway and they were pouring me coffee, feeding me warm buttered zucchini bread, and treating me as if I were a long lost member of the family. From one of the smarter sisters.
"But how are you going to get out of your driveway?" I asked.
"No problem," he said. "We've got another entrance further down past the pigs. We"ll use that one til Ollie can get over and fix this other one."
So I sat there in that warm kitchen from the past, drinking my coffee and nibbling on the hot buttery bread, remembering the summers at Grandmother Iola's house and enjoying the company of Wendell and Agnes.
Ollie showed up in short order and, after shaking my hand and introducing himself as "this sweet couples favorite nephew", told me that he could have me out and on my way in no time and he'd come back that weekend and fix the culvert. He smiled and turned towards his truck as I called after him, "Thank you! And don't worry. I'm sure our insurance will cover your expenses and your time."
"No need to get them people involved," he said as he climbed back into his pickup. "I'll just let you buy me a couple gallons of diesel fuel and we'll call it even." With that, he turned his truck towards the other end of the property and was soon gone.
"Care to take a walk with me?" Wendell said from behind me. "I nee to go check on the pigs before the dark comes."
"Sure." I said with a smile, and we started off in the direction that Ollie had driven his pickup.
The day being somewhat cool, and a light breeze blowing from behind me, I had no warning of the pig pen until I got within 50 yards of it. And even then the smell was not something that I would call offensive. More like that pleasant farm smell, the smell of turned loam and fresh wet hay, mixed with the scent of 100 large pink, white and black beasts, all crapping in an area the size of a neighborhood swimming pool. Okay, so it was strong. But something about it still struck me as pleasant.
Wendell went about checking the fence for open gates and downed boards and made sure the automatic water tank filler was still working as I stood at the fence watching the pigs follow him with their eyes, grunts of anticipation filling the air. A small sow stepped away from the corner she had been standing near and it was then that I noticed a large black and white hog, easily 600 pounds from where I stood, but he could have been a 1000 as far as I knew, lying in the mud and the muck in the corner of the pen. His legs were splayed out as he lay on his side and I noticed a piece of wood sticking out of his back hip. Poor thing. It looked like it was in there pretty deep too.
"Excuse me, Wendell," I hollered to him across the pen. "Looks like there's one over here that's hurt."
"Where," he said stepping up onto the second rail of the fence, his neck stretching out to see what I was pointing at.
"Over here in the corner," I said. "The big black and white one. He's got some wood or something stuck in him."
"Oh. That one," he said with a grin. "That's Chester. He's okay." And with that he stepped down off the fence and started over towards me and Chester.
As he got nearer we heard the rumble of a heavy diesel engine and felt the ground begin to vibrate under our feet. I looked past Wendell and saw a large yellow Caterpillar dozer coming down the side of the road, riding at an angle as Ollie kept it in the bar ditch so as not to damage either the road or his uncle's fields. And behind the dozer, following like ducklings behind their mother, came two backhoes and the pickup that Ollie had driven off in earlier.
"Here comes Ollie," Wendell said unnecessarily and we turned and started back towards the scene of my stupidity, my guilt increasing as I wondered how many people had their evenings ruined because of my dumb maneuver. So far the count was at least six if not more, and that was assuming that the pickup contained only a driver and no passengers. I soon discovered I was short by three as a blond teenage boy stepped out from behind the wheel of the pickup, and it's passenger door opened disgorging three teens from that side, one a young girl that looked about 14, all of them with hair so blond it made my eyes hurt.
The two backhoes took up their positions on either side of my truck and I soon noticed that the drivers had to be twins; two men in their early thirties, gimme caps on their heads and coveralls pulled up to their waists, the arms of which were tied off around their mid-sections as though it were just a little too warm to put them all the way on. Ollie pulled his dozer up by my truck and the ground ceased it's shaking as he shut the motor off and jumped down from the seat. He walked over to the twins and they began discussing their plan of attack. I know nothing about either excavating or the rescuing of broken-backed trucks, and so I stood out of the way, ready to be called into play whenever Coach Ollie decided he needed my help. From the looks of these guys, I figured I would be on the bench for the whole game.
And I was right. They went to work with an efficiency and speed that I could hardly believe. Large hydraulic jacks were pulled from the back of the pick up and placed under my trailer on columns of crisscrossed four by four beams. The teens were dragging shovels, picks, and chains over towards the culvert, preparing to shovel, pick or chain whatever Coach Ollie told them to. And I stood at the sidelines and watched, marveling at their quiet preparations.
Ollie soon walked over to me, tilted his cap back, this one black with the word CAT printed on the front in yellow, and said, "We don't get a lot of calls to pull trucks out of ditches but I think we got this figured out. It may not be a pretty sight but we'll jack and chain it up till we get it level, get some beams under that back axle so you can move it. Then, if we need to unhook the trailer we can do that, and fill in the ditch so you should be able to pull right over it."
"Sounds like a plan to me," I said. "Just tell me what you want me to do."
"I'll holler at you when I'm ready," Ollie said and turned and walked back over to his people. It was clear to me that these men and boys, and the one girl, had all worked with Ollie before, as they gathered around him and took their instructions from their coach. Ollie soon waved his hand in a shooing gesture and the work was started.
All I can say is, if it were possible to perform surgery with a bull dozer, Ollie would be the man to do it. I saw precision moves that day that I never thought possible, and this with a six foot tall blade in front of him, virtually working blind. I cringed as he lifted the dozer blade high up over the trailer, missing it by less than an inch, and held it there as the teenager helpers through chains and hooks and binders around, securing my tractor frame to his dozer blade. And slowly but surely, the whole mess was coming level.
The dance over the ditch lasted about an hour and a half before I was called into play to pull my truck out, the ditch having been filled with beams and dirt so that I could just pull on through. I pulled it out onto the road, hit the flashers and set the brakes. I stepped out to look it all over to see if I had done any lasting damage, and Ollie and his crew were at work cleaning up the ditch so Wendell and Agnes could just drive right over this one and not have to go past the pigs at the other end of the farm. He would come back and fix it right on Friday after work, and since the weather looked clear, no rain at least for the next few days, Wendell said that would be just fine. I went over to where Wendell and Ollie stood watching the crew finish up, and I thanked Ollie profusely. "I cannot tell you how much your help means to me," I said reaching for my wallet. "Are you sure you don't want to file with the insurance company?" I said.
"Absolutely," Ollie said. "As I said before, I'll let you buy me a couple gallons of diesel and we'll call it even."
"Thank you so much," I said. "That's more than generous. I don't know what to say but thank you very much." I pulled a fifty dollar bill out of my wallet and held it out to Ollie. He just looked at it.
"Not sure exactly where you're from, fella, but around here diesel fuel is nowhere near $25 a gallon," he said with a grin.
"But you surely burned more than two gallons of fuel," I said. "Fifty may not even cover the fuel you used."
"Well," he said. "It may and it may not, but I told you a couple gallons. Aunt Agnes says that a couple is two. And fuel around here right now is about two sixty five. Two sixty five times two is five dollars and thirty cents. So we'll round it off to five dollars and that'll be fine." I shook my head and stuck the fifty back in my wallet. I reached for the five and paused. It was at that moment I decided to deceive this kind man in front of me.
"I've only got the fifty, a twenty, and a one dollar bill," I said. "Do you have change for a twenty?" I asked him.
He shook his head and patted his pockets as if to prove his point. "Nope. Sorry. My wife got to me first," he said grinning at his own joke.
"Then I guess I'll have to give you the twenty and we'll worry about the change another day," I said. "I'm certainly not leaving here having only given you a dollar for all your work."
Ollie tipped his hat back again and scratched at a spot high on his forehead. "Well," he said. " I guess the next time you're through here you can stop by my shop and pick up your change." And he slowly took the twenty from my hand and folded it in two, sliding it gently into the front pocket of his jeans.
"I turned to Wendell and said, " I cannot thank you enough either for all your help, for your hospitality and kindness, and for your mercy as well. This could have been an ugly scene if you had not been so gracious."
Wendell smile and said, "It's getting late and you've had a long day. Why don't you stay the night here and you can leave in the morning. Agnes would love to have someone around in the morning that she can cook a big breakfast for. Doc told me I got to go easy on the bacon and eggs and she just doesn't get the thrill out of cooking oatmeal that she does cooking a dozen eggs and a rash of bacon."
"I couldn't," I said. "I've already been way too much trouble. Besides, there's no place for me to park my truck without tearing up your driveway again and paying Ollie another twenty dollars to fix it." He grinned at that.
"I guess you could park it at the truck stop if you're comfortable leaving it over there."
I had been looking over his shoulder at Ollie and his crew as they gathered up their equipment and my eyes snapped back to his when I heard his statement.
"Truck stop?" I nearly yelled. "There's a truck stop out here?"
"Yessir," he said. "Keep going the way you were and it's about two and a half miles down on your right. It's not one of those big ones like they've got over on the interstate. Only got enough room for forty or fifty trucks. Ollie's sister runs it as a matter of fact. But she keeps the dirt oiled down and she makes some real good fried chicken. Good zuchinni bread too. Got her recipe from my Agnes."
I stood there gaping at him, astounded that he had never mentioned this truck stop until now, and the grin on his face got wider and wider. All I had to do was go another two and a half miles and I could have avoided all this mess. I shook my head at my own stupidity.
"Don't worry about it," he said with a chuckle. "You're not the first person to stop when they should have kept going." He smiled a big smile at me. "I insist you stay the night. Go get in your truck and I'll get mine and I'll lead you around the back road to the truck stop. It's not far but you're facing the wrong way now." And with that he turned and started slowly back up his driveway.
I kept shaking my head all the way to my truck and soon I saw an old Chevrolet pickup pull around me and honk as it got back in front. Wendell waved me forward through the back window and I just smiled and let the brakes off and slowly started after him.
It took about ten minutes, the roads squared and straight as they bordered the fields, and we were soon at the truck stop. Wendell pulled off to the side and I went past him to find a spot to park. I backed in, shut it down, and gathered up my bag just as Wendell pulled up in front of me. I climbed in his clean polished truck from another age and we started back.
It was then that I remembered the pig. Chester? Was that his name?
"Wendell?" I asked. "You never told me about your pig. Was it Chester?"
"Yessir. It's Chester," he said."
"Well, I saw that wood sticking out of him and you said that he's okay. What's the deal with that, if you don't mind me asking."
"It's not sticking out of him," he said. It's a little hard to see, but it's strapped to his back end. It's a wooden leg."
"A wooden leg?" I looked at him as waiting for the sign that he was putting me on.
"Yep. A wooden leg."
I waited for more but Wendell didn't offer any more. I couldn't wait any longer.
"I'm sorry, but I've got to ask. How do you come to have a pig with a wooden leg? There's got to be a story behind it"
"That there pig, Chester, is the greatest pig in the world. He's about five years old now and when he first come out he didn't look like he was gonna make it, him being a runt and all. But Agnes took him in and fed him from a bottle and he started putting the weight on. Soon enough, he was big enough so's you'd never known he'd been a runt. But he was also fairly attached to Agnes by then.
"Well, about 7 or 8 months after he was born we had a fire in the barn. Burnt it to the ground. And it nearly got to the house too, but it weren't for that pig. He busted out of his pen and stood right underneath our window and started squealing and carrying on some kind of racket. Agnes heard it and saw the light from the barn being on fire. She woke me and we were able to get the volunteer fire department out here in time. If that pig hadn't have woken us the fire would surely had reached the house and we might not have gotten out in time.
"Then three years ago, Ollies boys were over here for a visit and they went swimming in the tank out back. The two older ones came into the house to get a drink and left the younger one out there by himself. He was playing fine there. He could swim like a fish you know. All of Ollies
boys are good swimmers. But Tad, that's the youngest's name, he was out there and somehow slipped in the mud and cracked his head on a rock just under the water. Out like a light. Chester had been playing in the mud with the boys and he grabbed that little one up by the shirt collar and drug him out of that tank up on to dry land. Tad surely would have drowned had it not been for Chester."
I listened, amazed at the stories of heroism this man was telling me about his pig.
"It was the next year after Tad's accident that the dogs came. Folks from the city sometimes come out here and drop off dogs that they can't, or just don't want to take care of anymore. I guess they figure the good Lord made the dogs so the good Lord can take care of them. Either that or they think the dogs will just somehow naturally learn how to hunt for their food like their ancestors did. Some people are fairly stupid," he said. "Don't you think?"
I agreed and he continued his tale.
"Well, like I said, that was the year the dogs came. There was a pack of them. House dogs that'd been dropped and gone wild. They figured out that they could bring down food if they worked together and so they ran as a pack. Got pretty bold too. Killed one of Ollies calves. Anyway, they come in the yard one day when Agnes was out hanging the wash and I was off to town picking up some medicines. She heard them and turned toward the house, but she didn't have time. She's not as young as she used to be. She told me later she was expecting them dogs to clamp down on her legs at any moment and bring her down like Ollies' calf when she heard Chester squealing. It wasn't pain at first, pure anger, Agnes said. But she said she could tell the squeals were squeals of pain by the time she reached the house.
"She knew she had to do something or Chester would be killed. She grabbed the 410 I keep in the front closet and ran back outside. She couldn't fire at the bunch of them for fear of killing Chester, so she fired up in the air. That startled them and one broke away from the pack as if he was gonna take to the hills. She had room to get that one and she did. I guess when his partners saw him fall they figured enough was enough and headed across the field.
"Chester was bit and scratched pretty good, but nothing that wouldn't heal up with a little care and tenderness. Them dogs surely would have gotten Agnes had it not been for Chester. That is some kind of pig, that Chester is."
I waited for more but Wendell had gone quiet again.
"And the wooden leg?" I asked. "Was that from one of the dogs?"
Wendell chuckled and looked over at me. "No son. The dogs didn't do that. I did." He paused and went on a moment later.
"Son," he said. "When you've got a pig that great, you only eat him one ham at a time."

Panic!

2009-09-23T00:39:00.009-04:00

Some people will do anything to avoid taking the truck into the shop. This truck was parked next to me in a dock in Chicago. First time I've ever seen a truck with stitches.

In case you can't tell, this is the drivers side front fender right behind the wheel. The damage is a split, due to some accident I'm sure, in the fiberglass fender well. I'm hoping this was a temporary repair, but it looked like it'd been there a while. What he did was drill holes on either side of the split and then some Zip Ties through the holes to keep the split together. Pretty smart actually, but like I said, I hope it's temporary.

We caught Josh outside the church a couple Sundays ago entertaining folks with his Ray Charles impersonation. He's such a cut-up.

But this little cut-up scared the crap out of us last week. As you may or may not remember,Josh operates on about a 12 month level. He can't talk but we're working on other forms of communication and he's coming along well.

So it's last Friday afternoon, Nijal has gone for the weekend on respite, Preston is at a friends house for the evening, Hana and Isaac are at their Aunt Sandy's house taking advantage of their cable TV while Sandy and her husband are out of town, and Ben has just left for a last late night with his buddies before he goes back to college. Sheila and Josh are hanging out at the house while I walked down to the video store to get us something to watch for the evening. I come back in the house and it's quiet as a graveyard. No sounds anywhere. This is highly unusual for my home, since this only occurs between about 3 AM when the last kid is in bed, and 4 AM, when I get up to go to work.

So I come through the door and I hear NOTHING! The van's still in the driveway so I know Sheila didn't go anywhere, and when I last left the house, Josh was wandering around clapping to whatever music it is that he hears, and hollering to beat the band.

I holler out, "HELLO!", and quickly get the response that I hope for; Sheila from the basement laundry room saying, "I'm down here!"

"Where's Josh?" I ask since I don't hear him anywhere.

"He's upstairs," she answers and so I head upstairs to check on him, and to make sure no one left the bathroom door open for him to get into something he shouldn't. I hear nothing as I climb the stairs and I'm getting nervous. I'm hoping he just fell asleep. So I go into the boys room, glancing over to make sure the bathroom door is closed, and...where is he? Is that him under the covers on the bottom bunk? Nope. Not their. I glance at the top bunks, there being four beds in the room, and see nothing but wadded up covers. (We haven't had a "made" bed in our since my mother last came to visit three years ago.) No Josh. He must have gone into our room. So it's out the door, down the hall and...nope, not on our bed either. Hana's got her hook and eye latch set on her door so I know he's not in there, but I check anyway. No Josh. Now I'm getting even more nervous. I go back through the boys room, checking behind the beds, pulling them away from the wall, checking in the closets, kicking at the piles of dirty clothes (hey, they're are some big piles in there), looking under the beds. No Josh. Into our room again, behind the bed, in the closet, under the headboard, wherever. No Josh. Hana's room. The bathroom. No Josh.

I holler down to Sheila, "He's not up here!"

"What?!"

"Josh is not upstairs!"

"Sure he is. He's got to be somewhere up there," she says as she climbs the stairs. "I've been in the dining room up until right before you walked in the door. He can't have gotten outside without me seeing him."

"I'm telling you. He's not up here." I call Hana. "Do you guys have Josh over there with you for some reason?" I ask.

She answers, "No, he's at home."

"No he's not at home. That's why I'm asking if he's there with you. If he was at home I would know it and I wouldn't be calling you asking if he was over there, now would I?!" It was then I noticed the panic was setting in. One last place to look. I walk out the door, going to Preston's friend down the street. Maybe for some reason they've got Josh with them. Although I seriously doubt it, but I've got to check, right?

As I go out the door I hear Sheila on the phone with the police "He can't talk!". She's nearly in tears, but I can't stop. Time is a'wasting. I get to the friends house, and you guessed it. No Josh. I head back to the house with the friends mom starting out around the block to look for Josh. In the meantime, Sheila has called Hana, Ben after she got off with the police. Hana has already taken off in the van to drive around looking. I grab the pick-up and take off through the park. Josh loves the park. Surely he's there, swinging on a swing, oblivious to the panic he has instigated. As I circle through the park I begin to wonder if he's still wearing the black shirt I saw him in earlier. Josh seems to change clothes alot and maybe Sheila put a different colored shirt on him while I was gone. Should I look for a black shirt or what? I try to call her to ask and get no answer. I circle the veteran's memorial and head back to the house to ask.

As I get to the corner I see a crowd in our yard. And there, on the top step of the porch, in Ben's arms, is the happy, grinning, clapping, hollering Josh that we love so much. The driveway is blocked by the police car, so I pull straight up into the yard, crushing a Nerf gun under my truck tire (we've got too many of them anyway). I jump out and the first thing out of my mouth is exactly what you would expect. "Is the pizza here yet?"

No, just kidding. Seriously, I really did ask where they found him. Apparently it went like this. Mom got a hold of Ben and told him to turn around and head back and look for Josh as they were coming. They didn't see him, so the first thing Ben did when he got back to the house, surely thinking that Mom and Dad are not nearly as smart as they think they are, was go upstairs to look in all the same places that we had already looked. I mean, do I LOOK like an idiot!

He walks into the boys room and hollers, "JOSH!" and BOOM! There on the loft bed that Isaac sleeps in, grinning his grin, is our man Josh. He just threw the covers back and sat up, looking at Ben as if to say Look how high I am up here, and no one can see me!. We don't know how he did it, since he has never done it before, but somehow he climbed up in Isaac's loft bed, pulled the covers over himself completely and nodded off.

Sheila and I had both looked up there and never saw even the slightest indication that under that wad of a comforter could be a little boy. But there he was. The officer was very nice and took all his information, just in case Josh ever took off for real, said goodbye, and left us to hug and kiss our little prodigal boy.

It was as we stood there on the porch, hugging, kissing and crying, that we got the greatest news of the evening. The pizza girl drove up in the driveway. DINNER'S HERE!!

So that's the story of the day Josh almost, kinda sorta, but not quite ran away. Maybe next week I'll tell you about the pig I saw with a wooden leg.

2009-09-07T12:24:00.002-04:00

I guess the easiest thing is to tell you that yes, I am still alive. Although there have been a few close calls. The one night I told my wife what I really thought of those jeans; man, I haven't moved that fast in years. But when there's a bronze bust of Stephen Hawking being hurled at one's head, one tends to choose the flight part of one's normal "fight or flight" response. (Can't fight the bronze Stephen Hawking. Along with Wolverine, he is , in a word, unbeatable.)

I guess it's time I quit kidding myself and actually do something about this sleep apnea garbage. I did a study a few years ago, found out I had it, had a heart attack when I got the bill, got my machine, used it for a few weeks, hated it, and put it in the closet, never to be seen again. Until a few months ago. I got it back out thinking I should be responsible and come to find out, my machine doesn't work anymore. It apparently got broke somehow in the hustle and bustle of our busy lives.

So I made another appointment. I really need a new study anyway since it's been so long. So next month I go in, get a bunch of wires glued to my head and try to sleep. Oh well, life goes on. At least that's the goal.

We are still doing the fostering thing, for now anyway, and I'm still driving back and forth to Chicago and St Louis. Nothings really changed there except that business has picked up a bit for our company. Always a good thing. Freight is getting a little easier to find for the return trip so that's a plus. And I was told by the powers that be that the next big purchase for our company is a 53 foot trailer for me to pull around. For the past 8 years I've been toting a 48 footer. It's easier to get into some of the tighter spots that I go to, but it's harder to find a backhaul if all you have is a 48 foot trailer. Most shippers are wanting a 53 footer at their door. Many loads have been lost due to the shorter trailer. Oh well. I don't know when the purchase will be made, and I guess that's up to the big wheels.

The kids have started back to school and Josh is still only going a partial day. AAAAAUUUGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! I had thought we had this all worked out. But it seems that the folks in the Galion school system, like the folks in the Galion city government, pretty much do what they want. But we see a light at the end of the tunnel. There is a time frame in place for him to be going all day and it's not too far off. The little guy needs it.

Still fighting with Ashland county over Preston's subsidy. We would not agree with their "automatic" reduction, so we filed with the state of Ohio for a Fair Hearing. We should be getting papers on that date soon. But Ashland county, apparently, has just decided that they are not sending anything until this is settled by the hearing officer. never mind that this action is illegal and that they have been informed it's illegal, and shown the applicable laws stating that it's ILLEGAL!!!! Another case of government doing as they please. I don't sound bitter, do I?

Be leaves for college again here in a couple weeks and Hana is taking a year off to work and save up some money. Isaac gave us a scare last month, don't know if I told you, but he wasn't taking care of his diabetes again. Not checking his sugars, had a bunch of Hi's over several days and went into the ER with Diabetic Ketoacidosis. A big word that says, "you're about to die". But we must take some of the blame for that since we were expecting a 12 year old to be a little more responsible than that. DOH! So we set some things in place. I have a chart that shows him I will be looking at his meter and checking his numbers nearly every day. We set alarms in his phone, my phone, and his mothers phone to go off at 7, noon, 4, and then 10, to check his sugar. Guidelines are written out explaining what to do for "High" readings. (Take a shot like right now!) He has to text me if his sugar is over 300 and take a shot. We ad some problems this weekend with his pump blocking up, but he apparently had a few set changes that kept getting bent or blocked when he inserted them in his abdomen. Got that all worked out yesterday afternoon and he's dripping fine now.

Preston's playing football and loving it. It's a busy schedule but for now the weather is nice enough that we can sit there and read or talk while he practices. It gets us out of the house.

And I treated myself to a membership at Audible.com. I loved listening to Books-on-tape years ago when I was driving in Texas, then went to CD's. But I've pretty much run through the library's selections. So I figured I've got the Ipod, I'll download them as Mp3's and listen to them on that. Much easier, nothing to tote around, and I can save them on my computer. I can even burn them onto a CD if I want. Just so much nicer. Yeah for me.

So that's it for now.

Hope you all are doing fine.

See ya later.

Back home, well, sort of

2009-08-12T07:33:00.005-04:00

I'm back from Texas and I have made one decision. I am doing my own funeral.

I think what I'll do is get a video camera and once or twice a year video my own eulogy so that if I go during that year it'll be ready. I can then update it year to year. And I will probably not have an open casket. I really don't think I would have recognized Granddad if I had seen him on the street. He had lost quite a bit of weight in the last few months. But still, I was glad I went.

Hana was a big help with Preston and Preston was exceedingly well-behaved for a kid who spent about 5 days in the back of the car. Back seat, not the trunk. Although there was that one day in Arkansas when it was close. And the DVD player helped.

Granddad's viewing was Thursday night with the funeral service on Friday morning and then the graveside service Friday afternoon. His funeral service was held at the Pleasant Ridge Church of Christ in Arlington, Texas where he was a member for 64 years, and he was buried about an 45 minutes away in Boyd, Texas next to his first wife. His second wife already has a stone there on the other side of him just waiting for her time to come. All in all, it was an interesting time. A time to see family, to remember the history of our family and to see how things were many years ago. I'm glad I went. And my mother was very appreciative of all of her kids being there. It was hard but it was good. He was 96 years old and as one uncle said, he used his equipment up.

I took Preston mainly because he was unknown to most of my family. Since we adopted him in December of '07 my father is the only member of my family who had met Preston. But he is not the shy little boy he was a year ago. He did wonderfully. And I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all my family for taking him in with such open arms.

Thank you Thomas for buying him the cowboy hat and belt and making him feel like a real Texan. Thank you mom for taking him by the hand and introducing him to cousins I didn't even know as the "newest grandchild". Thank you Phil and Linda for letting him ride with you from Weatherford to Arlington and for introducing him to Whataburger. Thank you Maribeth for giving him some new movie suggestions for his ride home and for telling him the stories about what a brat his daddy was. Thank you Joel for sitting with him at the bar in Mesquite Pit so he didn't feel so alone and for not letting him hit on the bartender too hard. (She was cute though.) Thank you Terry and Tom for letting him burn the gas up in your "lawn tractor"(think riding mower) even though he wasn't actually cutting the grass, just driving all around the yard as fast as he dared. Thank you John for riding behind him on said "tractor" so he wouldn't run into the cars. Thank you Granny and Gramps for letting me drive your car to Texas in the first place. Thank you Tim for giving him an up close and personal encounter with a Brangus bull. Seriously, it was close.

There were many more good times, and the one thing I heard most often was "It's good to see you, considering the circumstances." I hope that when I go, my family will use that time they get together as a time to renew their relationships with one another. Pay tribute to me by getting closer to one another. What more can you ask for.

Anyway, it was a good trip. We came home at a slower rate than we went down and stopped in Nashville for a visit to the Opryland Hotel and Opry Mills Mall. Beautiful hotel. And if you see Yoni in the Opry Mills Mall selling Dead Sea Salt Exfoliatant, don't even glance at her. She will suck you in and it'll take 30 minutes to get away from her without buying an $80 jar of hand soap. And down by the Rainforest Cafe is a stand with about 20 different candy machines on it. Drop a quarter in the one that sells Tropical Fruit chic-let sized gum, turn the handle all the way around, and then start jiggling the handle back and forth. It'll keep dumping candy. You may be able to empty the machine for a quarter. But we ran out of pockets.

So we got home on Thursday and I went back to work on Friday so I would know how my truck was loaded. Got a call from Sheila Friday morning that Isaac was sick and she was taking him to the ER. Seems he's been lying to us again about checking his sugars and he was in ketoacidosis. Diabetics get this when they don't control their sugar and the ph level in the body goes toward acid too much. He was in pretty bad shape. So Sheila stayed with him in the hospital til he came home on Sunday about 1230 and I left for Chicago Sunday at 3. What a great weekend. (Note the sarcasm).

So I've been to Chicago and Waukesha, WI, got a load from Libertyville, IL that went to Avon, OH, and here I sit in Avon waiting to get over the receiver for my 930 am appointment. It's an easy load. Thirteen skids of foam that weigh about 1850 pounds total. After I unload I'll be headed to the shop and then home.

My friend Bob, who was my best man, is coming to the house tomorrow night as he and his son are traveling to Oklahoma where his son will attend college. Which makes me wonder. When you introduce someone as "he was my best man" is it necessary to say "best man in my wedding"? Wouldn't "best man" suffice? Where else would they be a "best man"?

Just wondering.

On our way

2009-07-28T22:29:00.002-04:00

Well, Grandaddy passed away Monday evening and from what others were saying, he was ready to go.

So Hana and Preston and I are on our way to Texas. Should be there tomorrow evening. I was in Racine, WI when I got the news, but it wasn't that much of a shock by the. Mom had called earlier in the day as I was driving through Chicago that she had received word his blood pressure was dropping and he was non-responsive. So we knew that his time was very short. I was sitting in a Petro eating dinner when I got the call.

I knew I couldn't handle the Chicago traffic and didn't really want to at that point, so I went to bed there in Racine.I left there this morning about 6 and got home about 330. Sheila knew I was leaving pretty soon and so everyone was packed. So by 5 I was back on the road heading south. I knew I wouldn't make it all the way and with Hana and Preston both with me I probably would not be sleeping in the car. We made it another couple hundred miles for the day and I hung it up here in Florence, Kentucky. We've got about 950 miles to go tomorrow which shouldn't present to many problems.

The viewing is Thursday evening and then the funeral is Friday morning with the graveside service at 2pm. I really would like to thank you all for your prayers and good thoughts. We are doing okay so far.

No news?

2009-07-25T09:01:00.002-04:00

It seems that life is slipping away. Or running off at full speed, however you want to look at it. And I have had blogger friends emailing me asking if I'm still here. Thank you for that and yes, still here and kicking, much to my children's dismay.

We are still dealing with the county regarding Preston's adoption subsidy. What with the cutbacks and economic woes, the state is talking of lowering their portion across the board. Right now, my mind is somewhat fried on the whole issue and I just wish it would go away, but alas, it will not. So we write letters back and forth and a fair hearing will be filed for soon. The county just will not negotiate anymore and that's against the law. It's amazing how many cities and counties around here just decide what they are going to do without taking into consideration the legality of their actions.

The summer has been a constant source of material for blogging but has not allowed the time for it. We still have all the kids that we had a month ago (haven't figured out where to bury any bodies yet so they get a reprieve). We were trying to get Nijal into a day camp at the Y but the funding has not been approved. Maybe sometime in November they'll get back to us.

Work has picked up, and word is that we have landed a new account that could potentially produce 4000 bays and bows a year. That's 80 windows a week. Right now 80 windows is sometimes our whole week's production. This could be the boost we have been waiting for. But it's like the boss says. I'll believe it when the orders start coming in.

I had an extra run this week which is good cause the run at the beginning of the week was lousy short. I left Monday morning and went to Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Lafayette (Indiana, not Louisiana). I could have been home Monday night but it would have been a really long day. So I work in the plant on Wednesday. Come home from that and about 5 I get a call from one of the bosses. "Are you available to make a run for us tomorrow?" "Heck, yeah!" Anything to get me out of the factory. Then he tells me. Seems a truck backed into our dock on Tuesday from company A at a time when the truck from company B usually shows up. The truck was subsequently loaded with the wrong company's product and sent on their way. How nobody caught this before company A's truck got all the way home, I do not know. Company B showed up and hour or so later and were told that their truck had already come and gone. Needless to say, the boss was not a happy camper.

But I got to drive from Mansfield to Paducah, KY, to Youngstown, OH and then back to Mansfield. 1189 miles. Very nice run. Quiet, pretty, good weather, all that stuff. And no deer in my trailer. On here I will not discuss the logging of such a run. Just know that it was all done strictly above board and in accordance with DOT regulations. heh heh. The great thing is that Ohio raised the speed limit fro trucks from 55 to 65 on July 1st. And since my truck won't run faster than 66, I'm fine on the interstate. Lots less stress.

On a more personal note, my grandfather in Texas is not doing well at all. In fact I have given notice to my company that I may be needing to go to Texas for his funeral soon. This is my mothers' father, and he is 96 years old. From what I understand, his body is just shutting down. I could have that wrong but that's what I understand.

Grandad is a great guy and we were always excited about going to Texas to visit him and the rest of the family that was down there. He was a letter carrier for the postal service for 30 some years and has been retired more years than he worked for them. His first wife died when I was about 9 and then maybe six years later he got remarried to a sweet and wonderful lady named Jo. They have been together since then and she has really been a blessing to him. We are so grateful he found her. Without her, I doubt he would have lasted this long.

So I'm online the other night looking at bereavement prices to fly to Texas and I realize that with a good car I could drive for half the money. Down and back. 1200 miles, about 20 hours, one good loooong day or a day and a quarter. However you look at it. Plus, the family in Texas has never met Preston, who by the way turned 9 on July 3rd. So I am thinking I might ought to take him with me.

So I call him to the bedroom Tuesday night and we talk. You need to know, Preston's own grandfather died about 3 years ago and he seemed to take it pretty hard. So there are some concerns. Can he handle a funeral? Can he handle being in the car for that long, coming and going? Will he freeze up when all these people down there want to lavish love on him? So we talk.

"Preston, I got to tell you something."

"K"

"My grandfather is dying and it looks like I'm going to need to go to Texas soon. I'm going to be driving down and it's a very long time in the car. Do you think you would like to go with me?"

"Sure."

"You sure, you'd really like to go?"

"Yeah."

"We will be in the car all day when we go down and then another day when we come back. Can you handle that?"

"I'll listen to your Ipod. It'll go fast. And we'll have fun."

"Yes, we'll have fun, but this will not be a pleasure trip. We will be going down to attend my grandfathers' funeral. We will visit with other family as well, but the main purpose is to honor Grandad and Jo. You okay with that?" I know that he will never really understand this whole thing but I'm trying to lay it out there for him.

And back comes his quick answer. "Sure."

So I try again. "I know that when your granddaddy died it was really hard on you. This might make you remember things and it might be a little hard again for you."

"Yeah, but when your grandaddy dies," he says, "it'll be hard on you. And I want to go with you."As if he wants to hold my hand to make sure that I'm okay.

It was then that he had to leave the room. I have a hard time with my little ones seeing me cry.

So that's where we stand right now. Waiting for a call and enjoying one another while we can.

Old song

2009-06-20T10:08:00.002-04:00

It's an old song but a familiar one. Life has been busy around here. We've been to ball games, church, work, the store, and numerous other places over the last two weeks. Can I remember some highlights? I'll give it a shot.

The county where Preston is from wanted to "redetermine" his status and his need for an adoption subsidy under the Title IV-E program as a special needs child. I did a bunch of research and we were fairly prepared when we went in. After some discussion, I got them to finally admit that they did not want to pay their portion any longer and wanted to leave us with the federal and the state portion.

I told them, "The letter I received from you does not indicate your desire to reduce his subsidy or renegotiate. If that's what you want to do then we have to be notified of your intention to reduce his subsidy, your reason for doing so, the law that supports your reason, and the information needed for us to file for a fair hearing in the event we disagree with your decision. Which we already do."

This pretty much ended the meeting. I don't think she thought we would know what our rights were. Sheila and I went to dinner afterwards since we had not been able to celebrate our anniversary.

Preston had a game last weekend and hit a couple of good ones.

Work this week has been busy. I ran Chicago leaving Sunday night and got home early in the day on Tuesday since no one in Milwaukee ordered anything. We had a driver on vacation so I was covering his run on Thursday but I ended up leaving on Wednesday for Streetsboro, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. The Harrisburg drop was a remake and they needed it by Thursday and I wasn't sure I could have it there if I waited to leave Thursday morning. Plus I knew I wouldn't get enough sleep at home to get up early enough, so I left Wednesday about noon. Got the Streetsboro and one of the Pittsburgh drops off which left one Pittsburgh and the one Harrisburg drop for Thursday. I miscalculated though and didn't have enough hours to get all the way home on Thursday so I slept out about two hours away. All is good though.

Spent the last two hours driving in Friday morning and then loaded trucks the rest of the day. Other than that there's not a lot going on. Just trying to get the house together so we can move. There's one other thing but I'll put it in another blog.

Ya'll have fun.

Bored

2009-06-06T08:46:00.002-04:00

How on earth can I be bored? I've got a wife, six kids in the house, plus two nieces sleeping over, (one who is married but her husband is in Iraq) and a boatload of stuff to do.

But it's 8:47 on a Saturday morning and Preston is the only one awake besides me. I thought I heard Josh clapping upstairs but all is quiet now. I've been down to the corner for my coffee, none in the house, and I get online and find out ITunes has a new update. So I downloaded that. Now it's checking my library. Checking it for what? Overdue tunes?

My good friend Dawn, (AM, you'll get a kick out of this), yes, she's my lady carpenter friend, spent part of Thursday and Friday fixing the soffit on the front of my house. Seems the roof needs repainting, (tin roof) and water got behind the wood soffit and fascia and rotted it out. Wasn't a lot of wood or work, but it's way up there and I don't do ladders like I did in my younger days. She did a great job and it looks like the rest of the soffit, like there never was a repair.

We don't own this house but since we're moving in July, I wanted to get this taken care of before we left. Just seemed like the right thing to do.

I'm not sure what we're going to do today. Maybe go for a picnic, or walk around the mall. Who knows. But the weather is nice, finally, and I'm sure it'll be a wonderful day.

Ya'll have fun.

A day late, but much much richer

2009-06-03T21:51:00.004-04:00

I should have blogged about this yesterday...but...it didn't happen. Travel, work, one thing or another. But I was the first one to make the call. I called her before she called me. So there!

I remember standing with some friends of mine in the sunshine on a bright June day and watching this gorgeous young woman walk across the grass towards me. My college roommate at the time, Bob Reece, commented on how beautiful she was. I could not disagree. She was all in white and had some lovely flowers in her hands. What they were, I can't remember, I was looking at her face.

My father stood behind me, waiting with the rest of us. All my family was there, including a grandfather who is now 96. Plus more friends than I ever thought I had.

And she certainly was gorgeous.

And she still is.

It's been 25 years since that day in June and though she deserved better than she got, I never deserved as much as I received. And I will always be thankful that she said yes when I said, "Will you marry me?".

She has been a wonderful wife and an unbelievable mother who will move heaven and earth for her children. I hope for 25 more years with her and the light that she brings to my life.

Happy Anniversary, Sheila. I love you.

I cannot imagine, nor do I want to.

2009-06-01T19:25:00.003-04:00

We live in a small town. Around us are mostly small towns. Word travels fast when something terrible happens. I did not want to write this at first but you all have become friends. We share hurt with friends, right?

Late Saturday night a young lady went racing down the road with 5 little kids in the car with her, none of which were hers. Not a single seat belt was in use. She did not make it to her destination, whatever that was. Nor did any of the children. Four people are gone now, three of them being little children, and two are in critical condition. There are lots of rumors flying and lots and lots of people in more heart pain than they ever imagined possible. A few of these people I know personally.

My niece was working as the receptionist/intake person at the ER when the ambulances came in with these little ones. She had wanted to be a nurse. She's not so sure now. She cried for an hour after her shift was over.

I learned today that the little 8 year old who passed was a classmate of my son Preston. I asked Sheila how he was handling it. She said he was mostly angry. I'm sure he's wondering why.

I'm sure a lot of people are wondering why. I would be too.

If you pray, pray for these people. If you send good thoughts, send good thoughts for these people. Whatever you do, do it for these people who are asking why.

I just ask for peace.

HUNGER!!

2009-05-31T21:57:00.003-04:00

Hey Josh, wait for us to open the box, will ya?

Back Again

2009-05-30T13:06:00.008-04:00

I see that it's been a while, and as usual, we've been busy.

Josh is going to school from 9 til 12 now, not great, but for now the best we can hope for from our school system. They are hiring an aid to work with him one on one for next year. This is good. Josh has also decided he likes skateboards.

Ben came home last weekend for the Memorial Day weekend. Needless to say, his friends all came over as well. Then we had three nieces stayed with us for a few days, and one nephew came by to spend the night. At one point I turned to Sheila and said, "Do you realize there are 14 kids in this house right now?"

"Really?" was her only reply. She is way too calm sometimes. So I had to gather them all together for proof. Here it is.

There was no party planned or get together organized. These were just kids who decided to drop by. One of these guys was Preston's friend from across the street. His dad came by about 9 to get him and said that he was going to nominate us for that show Extreme Home Makeover. His words, if anyone deserves it, you guys do. I don't know about that. I'd settle for the same house with fewer people.

Preston's got a ball game today that we're getting ready to head out for. He's been struggling with batting recently but he got a good hit last time. We were happy, and so was he.

One of my customers in Lafayette, IN has moved. they said that it would be a lot easier to get in as their last lot was extremely tight and you had to get all the way over to the left by the fence to get turned around so you could back into the dock. This new place is much easier to turn around in although their new dock is tighter than anything I've seen so far.

If you don't get your trailer lined up exactly right you're going to rip a door off on the concrete walls.

Neither side gives you any room to play with.

But, as usual, I put my masterful skills to work and quickly had the old girl backed in to the tiny hole, to much applause and fanfare from the crowds that gathered to watch me and my skillful backing display. Next week, I have an appointment to meet with a therapist to discuss my humility. I hope he's as good as I am.

I met with an attorney yesterday to see if we could get his help when we go back for Preston's subsidy re-determination. No Help whatsoever. Seems I knew more about the law than he did, his words. That was not very comforting. So I guess we go to the meeting by ourselves and if things don't work out like we feel they should then we file for a Fair Hearing with the state department of Job and Family Services.

Our company had a driver on vacation last week and so the rest of us were covering his runs. As soon as I got back from Chicago, I climbed into our straight truck, which I HATE, that had already been loaded for a short day run to Toledo. I should have been home by about 2 or 3pm which would have given me plenty of time off between runs. But with the air valve blowing out on my dash I didn't get back to the shop til about 915. I wasn't tired so I figured it would be after 10 before I could fall asleep in the truck. If that happened I wouldn't hear the alarm and be ready to leave for Toledo by 3AM. So I figured, what the heck. Let's go to Toledo now. And off I went. Got there about midnight and figured if they didn't have anything for me to take back I would go ahead and yank of my stuff for them and head home. But alas, they had one garden window going back to our shop.

Thinking this might be the case, I had brought my pillows with me so I could curl up on the bench seat. Not very comfortable, but better than not having any pillows. And curl up I did. I awoke about 230 with another ripping headache and waited for that one to go away before laying back down again. At 340 another headache woke me up and this one was worse. I stepped out of the truck to try to walk it off. As it eased up, I headed back to the truck. For some reason I had climbed out on the passengers side, guess that's where I just sat up, and so I went back in that door since I had left it open as I walked around. I pulled the door shut but it wouldn't shut. It never gets used and the latch was pretty stiff. Guess it needs a good slam from the outside, I thought to myself.

So I stepped outside the truck and proceeded to slam the door shut. For some reason though, I reached up quickly as I slammed it and locked the door. BOOM!! Door is shut. AAAUUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!! Various words poured out of my mouth as I realized that I had locked myself out of my truck, with no extra key since it's not my usual truck, at 400 in the morning, in a dock with no one there.

My wallet, my phone, my watch, and my glasses were in the truck, laughing it up with the keys hanging from the ignition. I cursed them all for the selfish fools that they were. Luckily, I still had my shoes on, So I proceeded to walk around the truck trying to find a way in. The International company builds a truck that is very hard to break into without a hammer or a slim jim. Not the meaty snack, the long metal tool crooks use.

After trying to make my own slim jim out of metal banding straps from inside the plant, and unsuccessfully trying to jimmy the door open, I went inside, found a phone and phonebook and started calling lock-out services and towing companies. It's amazing how many people who advertise 24 hour service just don't want to get out of bed at 430 in the morning. I called more than a dozen people and found ONE person who would come to my aid. The damage, you ask? EIGHTY DOLLARS!!! Good thing I had the company credit card. Figured I'd put it on there and pay them back since it was my dumb mistake. But let's make sure this savior takes credit cards before we hang up, shall we? And the answer, Ladies and Gentlemen, is a resounding NO!! Cash only, he says. Who carries $80 in cash with them at 430 in the morning? I don't have $80 in cash, I tell him and he offers to drive me to an ATM. I tell him it wouldn't do him any good unless we went to the one he uses and got it out of his account.

"I have 28 bucks," I tell him.

"I can't come out there for 28 dollars. Sorry." And I hang up. Now we're pushing 5 am and two forklift drivers walk into the office where I'm making calls. I know these guys, and so I ask without any hope whatsoever, "Either one of you have a slim jim and know how to use it?"

"Sure," the big guy replies. "People around here are always locking their keys in their cars and I'm the guy they call. Be right back." And he toodles off to the tool room, grabs the company slim jim, goes to my truck and pops the lock, quick as you please. I am ecstatic! Enthusiastic! So relieved. So I finish up my work and pull up to shut the back doors. It's then that I realize that somewhere in the process of me jerking around inside the door with my sub-par slim jim I have pulled off the rod that connects the inside door handle to the latch. So now to open the door, you have to roll down the window and reach out for the outside handle.

It's also now that I remember how much my boss HATES working inside door panels and I resolve to myself that when I get back, I will fix this problem myself. Can't be too hard, right? A few screws gets the panel off, put the rod back where it belongs and put the panel back. No big deal. HA! This I found out on Thursday when I came back in. I just couldn't get it done on Wednesday since I was way out of energy and had had some fairly lousy sleep that night.

Seems the International people don't want you fixing their doors either without a blow torch to cut off the inside panel. But after an hour and a half, I was finally able to wiggle that little puppy back where it belonged. If I'd known what I was doing to begin with it might have only taken about 30 minutes. Maybe next time.

So that's about it. The weather has been great and this makes for much easier driving. I'm off to Chicago tomorrow afternoon and I think I'll take my time.

Ya'll have fun now, ya hear?

Live from Plymouth, IN

2009-05-19T10:57:00.002-04:00

It's a beautiful day outside today. Close to 70 and very sunny.These are the days I long for. It would be an absolutely perfect day but I'm sitting in an International truck dealer's garage while my truck is being worked on. No big deal and I shouldn't be here long, Lord willing and the creek don't rise. I passed through this little town about and hour ago and east of here is a Pilot truck stop where I made use of their facilities, grabbed a couple bananas and some Diet Pepsi, and headed back out on the road.

About a mile down the road the trailer valve on my dash starts blowing air out all around it. You know that sound you get when you blow up a balloon and then stretch the mouth of said balloon as you release the air? Multiply that about 10 times. Scared the crap out of me. Or would have had I not already made use of Pilot's facilities.

Anyway, I quickly realized what it was and also saw that my air gauges were dropping.Not super fast but dropping nonetheless. I pulled over, checked it all out, and after walking around to see what I could hear leaking outside the truck, came to the conclusion that it was probably the valve on the dash itself.

For those of you not intimately familiar with the workings of a tractor-trailers braking system, there are two knobs on the dash that set the brakes and allow air to flow through to the brakes. They are usually colored yellow and red. The yellow knob controls the air going to the brakes on the tractor portion, and the red knob controls the air going to the trailer portion. Unless I have lost a brake chamber and the air is backfeeding through the lines, then the red trailer knob on my dash has just given up the ghost. No big deal, just a swapping out of parts.

So what else? Made five stops in Chicago yesterday and got to the last one. They have one dock for semi's. I pull up and there's a trailer already there. Not the first time. But this trailer has no tractor on it. Meaning it's been dropped there. I walk in and check with the big cheese. Seems this trailer will be there for a few days. Now why would you do that? They know that I'm coming. I've been coming every other Monday for 8 years and another guy came every other Monday for 10 years before me. Like clockwork. So they drop a trailer in the only dock I can use. Big cheese's idea? Use the dock that the pickups use. I see that there are about 5 guys around and so I say sure, as long as I can get some help getting these things off. It's a little tight but I manage to get it in there without tearing anything up, always a good thing, and the deck of the trailer is about a foot higher than the dock. But they get to work and I'm unloaded in short order. It's on to Milwaukee, or more precisely, Waukesha, WI.

I learned last week that one customer up there moved and so I called and got directions to their new place. YUCK! One way into their lot and you have to back in off the street and then jockey around to the left, then the right to get into the dock, then the left again or else you're blocking all cars from leaving the lot. So I get it in there and get their one window off my truck. That's when I notice something. The service guy, who has been there as long as I've been going there, is calling me Mike. Again, I've seen this guy every other week for 8 years, and all that time my name has been John. He's called me John before. I've called him Brian. I've never called him Todd, or Jim, or Esther. So why am I now Mike? And you wanna know something? I didn't correct him. I got the feeling that he was pleased with himself for having "remembered" my name, and I didn't want to embarrass him in front of the other guys. So I can be Mike in Waukesha. I don't mind. My personal philosophy is if I can't remember your name, I call you Boss, or Ma'am. And why does ma'am have an apostrophe in the middle of it.

I learned something else this week. I don't like Slate Podcasts. Any of them. On one of them the sound quality stinks and on all of them they sound like a bunch of whiners. Give me the informational stuff. History, how-to, why does, that sort of thing. That's what I like. That and Meatloaf, the singer, not the dish.

My mother makes good meatloaf though. Not sure what's different about hers. Maybe when she reads this she'll comment and we'll all learn something else new for the week. Hint hint, mom.

It was a nice weekend though, other than the fact that my cluster headaches are back and I went to the ER on Saturday morning. They gave me a shot of Toradol? and put me on oxygen for about an hour and that did it. The doc also gave me some pain meds that seem to work but only if I take them before the headache gets there. So I take a couple before I go to bed at night, since the headaches only come when I'm asleep. And they work very well if you wash them down with a couple of dark beers.

And I will leave you with this thought for these tough economic times. If you want to make money, run a highway construction company in Chicago. I've been going through there for, again, you guessed it, EIGHT YEARS and the construction has not stopped yet. They finish one part and start another. I want that contract. That's almost as lucrative as a department of defense contract.

Adios.

This is Ridiculous!

2009-05-17T23:13:00.002-04:00

Ok. I'm sitting in a dock in Chicago Ridge, IL, (can you guess what windy city that's close to?) and on the bottom of my browser is an exclamation point inside a stop sign symbol. This is from my Accuweather Add-on for Firefox and it's a sign of a Severe Weather Alert for my hometown. So I click on it wondering what sort of weather Sheila is in for while I bask in the warmth of Chicago and Milwaukee. And this is what I find...

OHZ003-006-010-017>019-027>029-036-037-047-181200-
/O.UPG.KCLE.FR.Y.0002.090518T0600Z-090518T1200Z/
/O.EXA.KCLE.FZ.W.0001.090518T0600Z-090518T1200Z/
LUCAS-WOOD-LORAIN-HANCOCK-SENECA-HURON-WYANDOT-CRAWFORD-RICHLAND-
MARION-MORROW-KNOX-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...TOLEDO...BOWLING GREEN...LORAIN...
FINDLAY...TIFFIN...NORWALK...UPPER SANDUSKY...CAREY...BUCYRUS...
MANSFIELD...MARION...MOUNT GILEAD...MOUNT VERNON
934 PM EDT SUN MAY 17 2009

...FREEZE WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 8 AM EDT MONDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN CLEVELAND HAS ISSUED A FREEZE
WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 8 AM EDT MONDAY. THE
FROST ADVISORY IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

CLEAR SKIES...DRY AIR AND LIGHT WINDS WILL ALLOW TEMPERATURES TO
PLUMMET TO NEAR 32 DEGREES BY SUNRISE. A FEW LOCATIONS MAY EVEN
DIP INTO THE UPPER 20S. A WIDESPREAD FROST IS EXPECTED AND WILL
CAUSE DAMAGE TO TENDER VEGETATION IF NOT PROTECTED.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A FREEZE WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN FREEZING TEMPERATURES ARE
FORECAST TO THREATEN OUTDOOR PLANTS. IF YOU ARE IN THE WARNED
AREA YOU SHOULD PROTECT TENDER VEGETATION. ALSO...POTTED PLANTS
NORMALLY LEFT OUTDOORS SHOULD BE COVERED OR BROUGHT INSIDE AWAY
FROM THE COLD. STAY TUNED TO WEATHER RADIO OR OTHER RADIO AND TV
STATIONS FOR FURTHER DETAILS OR UPDATES.

Did you see that? If not go back and look closer. I'll wait.

See it now?

FREEZE WARNING!!

I mean, come on already. We're halfway through May and June, which holds my anniversary, is right around the corner and these guys are calling for a FRIGGIN' FREEZE WARNING. And did you see the part where it says "a few locations may dip into the upper 20's"? UPPER 20's?!? Now the good thing is that we are supposed to have dry weather, as in no precipitation. If we did it would likely turn into snow!

Snow in May.

Is there anything more depressing?

Maybe it would be snow in June.

When I left the house today all the windows were open. I imagine by now they are closed. But then Sheila's hot all the time. When the rest of us are freezing our tuckus's off she's walking around in shorts and a t-shirt. So maybe the windows are still open. I know my bunk heater is running and it's only about 52 outside where I am now.

Ohio weather. Simply Ridiculous.

On to other things. Isaac went to his first dance Saturday. Three girls showed up at my house Saturday evening to pick him up and make sure he got there. The curious thing was that none of the three were his current girlfriend. Hmmm. Not sure what to make of that.

So he gets home that evening, at about 9, and I ask him how it was.

"It was alright."

"Was (girlfriend's name) there?"

"Yeah."

"Did you dace with her?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't know how to dance. Besides, she doesn't either."

"So what'd you do for two and a half hours?"

"Mostly just walked around the room."

I thought of commenting on his lack of wooing skills as far as the dance was concerned, but then I remembered that I wouldn't even go to a dance when I was his age, even after being invited by a girl. Even into high school I never would go. So I guess I had no room to talk. So...

"Did you eat?" I said.

"Yeah." And that was it.

Dad meets Girl

2009-05-12T19:38:00.002-04:00

Hana and I met Isaac's girlfriend today. This is a girl that he, apparently, has been dating since December. He's never "taken her out" but she has got him getting up before noon on a Saturday to play tennis with her while her little brother is across the street playing baseball.

So we figured it was time that we met this young lady who stole my son's heart. Sheila was off with Preston and Nijal at a school program and I stayed home with Josh since he won't sit still for any of that sort of stuff. Before she left I asked Sheila where Isaac was and she said that he was playing tennis again with his girl.

PERFECT!

I finished feeding Josh and finished my own plate and me and Hana took a walk with Josh down to the park. This was going to be fun.

Isaac saw, or heard, us coming and called out to "Joshie". So this was a good sign. No embarrassment, not yet at least. I would see what I could do to remedy that.

Isaac and his young lady were on one court and a court at the other end had two old guys playing, so I refrained from turning Josh loose to just run. We chatted a little with Isaac and forced him to introduce us to his "friend". All was well. She seemed nice and I was happy for him.

As I was leaving I hollered over my shoulder, "Isaac?"

"Yeah, Dad?"

"I wouldn't stay out too long. Mom finished cooking dinner and you know how much she just loves barbecued cat so there might not be much left if you don't come home soon."

His quick-witted response, "I hope she used the kittens this time. You know how tough they get when they get old. You can't hardly chew them."

That's my boy.

Heh heh.

Mother's, Mileage, and Menus

2009-05-11T00:24:00.006-04:00

It's not Mother's Day anymore, by about 28 minutes, but I'm thankful that my kids have a mother such as they do to celebrate that day with. She is an amazing lady who deserves a better husband than she has. So in honor of her on this special day, I ran by Subway after church, picked up sandwiches for everyone, and we had lunch around the table, all 8 of us plus Ben's sweetie, and afterwards we played a rousing game of Uno. This is what she wanted. So this is what she got. We had a blast. A nap followed and after I woke up, I called my own mother and wished her a Happy Mother's Day as well.

I would not be who I am today were it not for these two women. For them both, I am extremely grateful.

So how's life this week, you ask? Great. We had what I hope is the last IEP meeting for a while and it went well. I felt better prepared and I felt that I was heard this time. I see a great improvement in both these kids, even after just being with us for three months. It's encouraging.

I have a very short run this week. Seven windows in four stops and I'm not going any farther, further? farther? than Lafayette, IN. I could even be back home tomorrow night. Sheila would be happy, I think. But the week following looks to be quite busy. We've got a driver going on vacation and so I'll be helping to cover his runs. One thing about a light load like this is that the fuel mileage is great. 9.37 for a semi is great. But then I might as well be empty for what little weight I have on here. I recently had some issues with injectors and the intake gasket on this thing which dropped my mileage quite a bit, but that seems to be all taken care of now. She goes in later this week for an acid bath to get the winter crud off the aluminum parts. Then I'll probably spend some time polishing this week since I'll have the extra time anyway.

Preston and Nijal have been playing Coach Pitch baseball and loving it. They are both excellent players even if it is a bit of a chore to get them out the door and actually to the practices on time. But they're having fun and that's all that counts.

One of the great, if infrequent, pleasures of this lifestyle that we call trucking, is that we sometimes run across something interesting. Several months back I found such a place. Al & Joe's Delicatessen. It's a little corner store that was run by two Italian men who really know what subs are supposed to be. I believe one of the owners has passed away. I found this place after our company started with a new customer. Al & Joe's is in Franklin Park, IL, a suburb of Chicago, next to the railroad tracks, overlooked by the highway which passes by about 50 feet away, and I have to go right by them to get out of this industrial area in which I deliver. There is just enough room next to the highway retaining wall for me to park my truck and run in and grab an 8 inch Italian sub. They are fabulous, made with real Italian bread and I don't know what all else. Seems like maybe salami, ham, or capricola, lettuce, tomato, onion, Italian dressing, (and not that sweet crap), and some spicy relish mix. I love them. It's not that big of a place and it looks like it hasn't been remodeled since they opened in the 60's, but I have never had a better sub that at Al & Joe's. If you ever find yourself near or at O'hare Airport, see if you can't get a ride over there. It's not far and I promise you won't regret it.

Well, that's about it. I better head off now. Ya'll have a good evening and we'll talk again later.

The weak in revue

2009-05-03T23:22:00.005-04:00

It's Sunday night again and I'm in Burns Harbor, IN at a Pilot truck stop. They wanna call them Travel Centers now. Guess it sounds better.

After rereading my last post I thought some of you may be wondering how m Monday worked out. Well, it worked out fairly well. It was just barely past 5pm when I got to Indianapolis, and they were kind enough to have a fellow wait for me (they are usually gone by 430). And then it was on to Lafayette, IN where I had called ahead and it the man there said if his salesman was gone by 7 he would come back to the shop and meet me so I could get his one window off the truck and be on my way. I pulled in about 645 and all was well. Interesting though since they had moved since the last time I was there. Not very far, and it was easy to find, but that was the narrowest dock I have ever seen. It's got concrete walls on both sides and if you are crooked in the dock you're hitting one wall or another. TIGHT, TIGHT, TIGHT! But there's enough room to get it in straight so no big deal. Just interesting.

But it was very nice of these folks to wait for me. This allowed me to get further on to Oakwood, IL that night before I ran out of time, and I wish I had run out of time earlier. This place was a dump. Two trucks stop, certainly not good enough to be called travel centers, and both of them had lots that were so full of holes I was afraid I'd lose the truck in one of them. Add to that the fact that it's been raining all day and the holes are full of water so you can't see how deep they are. Turns out a couple were a little deeper than I would have liked had I known. What a mess. Really muddied my floor up good that night. But sleep soon came and the next day was on to St Louis. This was the place I always try to get to in the middle of the night due to the size of the lot and the fact that once cars get in there and park, you can't get a truck turned around in the lot. Alas, this was the case come Tuesday. It was about noon when I got there and this meant backing in off the street, which was not a truck friendly street, and then all the way down the building to the last two dock available. When I was finished, my truck was 90 degrees in relation to my trailer and it was not pretty. I did have one lady stand there and watch me maneuver. When I was done and stepping out she said, "Don't know how you guys do it." All I said was "Very slowly. And some days you feel like you know what you're doing and some days you don't."

So overall, all went well on that trip. Now I'm waiting to get into Chicago in the morning and then on to Waukesha, WI. I've got 33 windows on this load which is a pretty good sized load. The most I've ever had on here was 37. My only concern was that when I loaded it on Friday I anticipated having to put windows up on load bars from the front of the trailer all the way to the back. But I only had to put up three, rather than 5 or 6. The problem is the three I put up go to a customer that sometimes does not have anyone there to help me unload. I think I will call ahead tomorrow and let them know what's what. Being up on load bars means that I've got window frames standing up on the floor and then bars stretched across the trailer at a height of six feet from the floor. We put up three bars and then lay a window frame on it's inside face and lay it across those three bars. So there's a 200 to 300 pound window up in the air that has to come down. Without a couple people helping, it can be a chore. And the worst part is that we put the bigger ones up because it saves more room on the floor to squeeze in the smaller windows. Sometimes loading these things is like working a puzzle, trying to use as much floor space as possible. But it's what we do so...

Thursday we had another IEP meeting for our two boys and all I can say is I hate school bureaucracies. I can understand there position but I think it's a sucky position. Josh is going to school, being educated, getting his life's training, for one and one half hour per day. That's it. All because our school system feels that he needs a one on one aide to be with him, and since they are not "fiscally responsible" for this child, they will not hire an aide until his "county of residence" forks over the money to do so. That county has since agreed to an aide, and our school is interviewing said aide possibility peoples, but the word that came down Thursday was that even when they hire this aid Josh will only be allowed to go to school for three hours a day.

I laid in bed that night, six hours after the meeting, and I still could not get my heart rate down. I was furious at the injustice of it all. Here is a little guy who's psychiatrist says that he needs at least 30 to 35 hours a week of schooling to keep him on track and our school says, sounds great, but we're not paying for it. Let him spend the rest of his life in institutional care. We could care less. If I here the term "Fiscally Responsible" one more time I'm liable to smack someone. I know there is not an endless supply of money in our county, although there appears to be in other places. And I know that he needs intensive support and help and that this costs money. But it would seem to me that when a need arises like this that there should be someplace a school can go to for resources. They should be able to say, "We have a child here who needs more than we have funds to provide for him. Send us some help." This would allow that child to be in school and get what he needs. The county may have to wait a bit until the money gets there, but if they knew it was coming then they could start him and play catch up with the funding later.

It just does not seem right that a school should be able to say, "We won't take this child because we don't have room for him." But then our school system seems to have a reputation for not wanting to deal with any children that have special needs. This coming from nurses and doctors in the area that have had troubles with the school supporting children diagnosed with learning difficulties and other needs. But I will say that this whole situation has caused us learn quite a bit. We are doing more and more research every day on autism and the help that is available out there. So we will see. There is another IEP meeting scheduled for this Thursday in hopes that a person from his "county of residence" can be there and that we can finish this whole thing once and for all. But somehow, I think not. Three hours a day is not enough for this little guy and he's falling further and further behind.

Enough ranting. My heart won't take a whole lot of this. By the way, IEP stands for Individual Education something, Program I think.

But we had a good weekend, Sheila and I. Both the boys went on respite this weekend, Josh for the first time overnight, and it was sure quiet around the house. We went to Preston and Nijal's ball games on Saturday, a double header, and I finally got some sun on the top of my head. Not enough to burn but enough so that that I don't look like I'm wearing a bathing cap. I don't know about you, but I think it's sexy. Then we went home, got Preston and Isaac to mow the lawn, ordered Chinese food and watched "Australia". Not the best movie out there but fairly good. Visual effects weren't that great and parts of the story were a little cheesy, but my wife and daughter enjoyed watching Hugh Jackman pour a bucket of water over himself. I think I heard my daughter moan at that point. Maybe it was the dog. But overall, an interesting movie and I'd give it a bit over three stars.

Ya'll have fun. I think I'm going to bed.

What?! You've gotta be kidding me!

2009-04-26T21:51:00.002-04:00

It's Sunday night. I should be in Columbus. I am not. I'll explain later.

Last night was rough cause Josh was up again in the middle of the night for about 3 hours and Sheila just could not get up this morning. So I went to church by myself. She slept, he slept, they all slept in. I'm sitting in Sunday school next to my sister-in-law, (my wife's brothers wife) and the topic under discussion is the Holiness of God. What does the bible mean when it says "Be holy as I am Holy." That's God speaking by the way. My sister-in-law is paying better attention than I am, probably got more sleep, but I'm trying. And the teacher says something about do we feel a "need" for God. Shortly thereafter, my sister-in-law hands me a note and this is what it says, word for word, I swear.

"Do you want me or do you just want me to meet your needs?"

Apparently I did not catch the last thought that was put out there by the teacher because the look of surprise on my face caused my sis-in-law's face to turn a bit red.

"NOT ME!" she whispers. "That's what I think God is saying."

"Oh. Okay. Well, I was wondering there...never mind. Gotcha, I see what you mean. Yeah, I'd agree."

"Just shut up, John."

"Okay, I'll shut up." and we both had a good snicker over that one. I need to pay better attention and she needs to write more precise notes.

So I get home, finish up fixin' lunch, do some paperwork for my son at OSU for his financial aid, pack my stuff and have Hana run me to the shop cause she needs my truck while I'm gone. I get there, load my stuff, do my walk around and start heading through town. Now, I promise you, I checked the tires. Did I put a gauge to them, no. But I did thump them all. I'm rolling through town, both windows are down cause it's warm and my AC needs recharged after the winter and I start hearing this clicking sound. Hmmm. Sounds like a rock in the tread. But not quite. A little louder than it ought to be. I'm on city streets, nowhere to stop and check but the road opens up in front of me a ways so I figure I'll pull over up there and check it out. Too late.

Consider one trailer tire a total loss. In that last 100 yards the tire came apart and bent my mudflap iron up into the bottom of the trailer. You've got to be kidding me. It was warm out but I was only doing about 35 when she blew. I have the crappiest luck with tires.

So after a talk with the boss, he determines that since I'm still in town, I'll just run it over to his tire man's shop, let them fix it when they get in in the morning and be a few hours behind. Since I have no set appointments on my run, (just supposed to be there on certain days) it all might work out. I might have to move Lafayette to Tuesday instead of Monday, we'll see.

So here I sit, thirty minutes from home with no way to get there. At least it's supposed to be a sunny day tomorrow. And maybe I'll get a good nights sleep tonight.

2009-04-13T20:36:00.003-04:00

I'm gone for a month and then you get two posts back to back. Don't get used to it. But I came across this blog that I just had to share with you. Some narcissistic 12 year old kid. Talk about an attitude. I thought you all might enjoy him. Wonder where he gets those weird thoughts?

Here he is.

2009-04-13T19:17:00.002-04:00

I was running down the highway between Columbus and Cincinnati when I got an email from AM Kingsfield. She was commenting on my last post saying she missed me. Well, dear, I have missed you as well, along with all my other blogger friends. Now would be a good time to come up with an elaborate story to explain my absence from the blogosphere, but alas, the truth is that life has just gotten in the way. There have been a number of times where I have sat down intending to blog but then something got in the way or I just didn't have the energy.

As you already know, we have two new guys in our house and they are, to say the least, a handful. The only time the younger stands still or sits at all is when you take him in your arms and hold him. And he does not allow that for very long, and then he's off again, roaming around the house, clapping his hands and voicing his opinion on the state of the world. If we could only understand what he's saying.

Sheila has been sick a lot lately. Nothing major, just a virus that wouldn't seem to let go. It's been about three weeks now, and she just doesn't have the energy to keep up. So I've stepped in where I can and where I'm able and tried to help her out. She seems to be feeling better now but not by a whole lot.

Our company has changed health insurances again and now we are required to order all maintenance medications through the mail on a three month basis. This means going back to the doctor, getting a three month prescription and then finding the money for all the meds. I never realized how many pills my family takes. And there is no discount for ordering three months worth as opposed to going to the pharmacy. The only deal is that after three fills at the pharmacy we getting penalized and our copay goes up. So this has forced us to search out the places like Walmart and Drug Mart that offer prescriptions for 4 and 10 bucks without going through the insurance. It also meant changing a couple of meds that our insurance does not cover at all. Good thing ibuprofen is OTC cause this has all been one big headache.

And then we've got the two boys with IEP's trying to get them into the school and the school is fighting us about the younger fellow. They say that he can only come an hour and a half a day until his county of residence agrees to pay for another aide to deal with him one on one. And as with any governmental agency, the wheels are turning very slowly. I told Sheila we should drop him off in the morning and then tell them our car broke down in Columbus and we'll pick him up when we can get there. then make sure we don't get there until just before school is out. That could happen for 5 days in a row. CRAPPY CAR!!

Then we get a letter from Preston's county of origin saying that they want to renegotiate his adoption subsidy and they have been so kind as to already make an appointment for us to be there. Never mind that we may have other things going on that day, like work. I called and told them I would call them back later and tell them when the appointment would be. They gave us a week to gather all the documentation from doctors that he is still in need of counseling and such. Meanwhile, the caseworker for the two new fellows has been urging us to move forward with adopting them, even though they have only been in our house for a month and a half. I flat out told her no. We could not consider it at this time. The caseworkers comment was that N, the older, would continue receiving a subsidy until he was 18, which is all well and good. And that J, the younger, would receive one until he was 21 due to his more special needs. This young man will need help long into adulthood, long past the time when Sheila and I could physically, emotionally or financially help him meet his needs. The caseworkers thought is that his older brother will assume responsibility for him when he turns 21. And then care for him the rest of his life?! I think that a little more than we can realistically expect to occur. She is extremely nice and very efficient at the paperwork, I just don't think she is thinking realistically about these two boys and their individual needs.

And we're moving. Not far and not real soon. Maybe at the end of July and only about a half mile away from where we are. But it's a bigger house with a yard we can fence and a finished basement that we can set up as a safe place for the kids. Our rent will go up a little but our utilities will drop a lot, more than enough to make up for the increase.

Ben has come home twice from college in Columbus, since we last talked, which involves me driving down and bringing him home. Twenty year old college boy and he still doesn't have his drivers license. And it appears that he really doesn't want one that bad. Luckily I've been able to take him back down there when I leave for my run. I'd just drop the trailer at my first Columbus stop and drive him over to the university in the tractor. That saves us some time and money.

This last weekend was one of the times that he came home, and we decided that he would wait until Saturday morning, when the rest of us would come down and pick him up and then we'd all go to the Columbus Zoo. That was fine with him as it gave him time to finish his homework so he didn't have any to do at home. His girlfriend rode down with us and we had a great time. I realized that walking around on blacktop all day is something that I've not done in quite some time. And check this out. For my immediate family, which is Sheila, the two foster kids, our four other kids, Ben's girlfriend and myself to get into the zoo would cost $92.50 plus $5.00 for parking. So Friday before we left Sheila tells me we ought to just buy a membership. It might be cheaper in the long run. Know what? It was cheaper in the short run. $99.00 and that covers Sheila and I, Hana (who is over 21) all 5 children under 21 who are currently residing in my house, two children who we are considering adopting in June(I went ahead and put them on the list. Better safe than sorry.), two unnamed guest of our choosing and free parking. So I can get 12 people into the zoo and park for what 9 of us cost for one day. And the membership is good for a year. We are actually considering changing endocrinologists for Isaac which would mean we would be going back down to Columbus regularly for him. A quick trip to the zoo throughout the summer might be just what the kids need. One tip about the zoo for you though. If you ever get there and the rhinos are trying to mate, just walk away. As a man, the feelings of inadequacy will never go away after that scene.

So here I sit outside of Harrah's Casino in Saint Louis. I'm not a gambler at all really, but I was hoping for a nice meal. And I sort of lucked out. The buffet was serving all you could eat crab legs. Now I could really make a dent in that kind of pile. But the price for that meal was $25 and I just couldn't see spending that on just me. So I had a chicken sandwich, dropped two dollars in the slots and played on that for ten minutes, and went back to the truck.

I was able to get to my stop here before they closed so I'm sitting here empty waiting to go home. I think I will not set my alarm and I'll wake up when I wake up. It rained on me all day today and this is the third trip out here that it's rained most, if not all, of the trip. Tomorrow is supposed to be a little cooler but only cloudy. So if I sleep late maybe I won't catch the rain as I head home. I know it sounds like we're really busy, and we are, but life is still pretty good. Not much to complain about.

I'll try to post some pics and videos from the zoo trip when I get home.

Ya'll have fun. And remember...

We need a therapuetic dog.

2009-03-14T15:26:00.003-04:00

In our neighborhood, and I mean right down the street, we had a Chinese restaurant/buffet. Not the greatest food, but cheap and fast, and it killed that hankering you get for Chinese sometimes. Note I said "had". Said Restaurant is no longer there due to numerous health code violations. I guess there are some picky restaurant goers who just cannot abide an owner changing their babies diaper on one of their tables. So the health department came in and said that's it, last time, three strikes, your out!

So we in the neighborhood waited with baited breath, no longer baited with the scent of General Tso's Chicken, for what would fill the now empty spot. And much to our delight, we soon saw a sign for a Mexican restaurant "coming soon". In the culinary opinions of our family, Mexican and Chinese are nearly interchangeable, with Mexican taking a slight lead.

I noted last week that the sign no longer said "Coming Soon" and no read "Open for business". It should have read "Open For Eating" but that's neither here nor there. So with the new signage, we made plans to give them a try. My wife and I went there yesterday with "J", the younger of the two new foster boys. J, you may remember is autistic. J likes to eat, but so far in his career, has not learned the intricacies of knife, fork or spoon, or even a spork for that matter. So, right now anyway, we either feed him and help him learn, or we get finger foods that he can feed himself. Chicken tenders and fries fall into this category. He really loves these things. So much so that he seldom takes the time to eat just one at a time. He'll often pick up handfuls and try to get them into his mouth. The problem is that he has bigger hands than he does a mouth and so most of what's in his hand ends up on the table, in his lap, or on the floor. I figure it's his lap, his germs, so if that's where they land, I'll pick em back up and put them on his plate again. Same for the table, although you don't want to tell my mother that. To her, the table was no different than the floor as far as cleanliness was concerned. But if his food hits the floor, we pretty much leave it alone.

This is where our dogs come in handy. They absolutely love it when J sits, and I use the term loosely, down to eat. They quickly come running and take up station beneath his chair, waiting for the inevitable droppage. We don't argue with them. Pick your battles and all that.

So as we tried out the new Mexican restaurant, he actually did very well. There was almost no food grabbing, except from his own plate, and he sat still most of the time. It was great. But his food wasn't all that great, the tenders being somewhat crispier than they should have been, and he didn't eat a lot of them. I would bet more ended up on the floor than in his mouth. We picked up most of what we could so that we wouldn't get banned from a restaurant again, and paid our check as we walked out. On the way out Sheila commented how a dog would have come in handy to clean up under the table a little better. She says, "Maybe we can claim him as a therapeutic dog."

"I think that only works for blind people," I said.

"Or wheelchair bound people," she said. "Hey, maybe next time we'll get J to wear some dark shades and then folks will think he's blind."

"Maybe," I said. "But I doubt they'd ever believe a 9 pound Rat Terrier would make it as a seeing eye dog."

"Maybe you're right," she said. "But it couldn't hurt to try, right?"

"It never hurts to try. Unless you're a stunt man."

2009-03-09T21:04:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting in the dock in Waukesha, WI and it's a quiet night. I'm at the back of the building so there's no traffic whatsoever. Which is nice for a change. No worries about another truck bumping me, or someone knocking on my door wanting to sell me cookies. The sad thing s I've lost my regular Sports Illustrated load out of the Chicago area. It wasn't anything I did, but they changed the load times on it and found a guy who could do it every week, whereas I could only do it every other week. So now it's back to hunting loads out of Chicago again. Freight is still down and since I pull a 48 foot trailer instead of the normal 53 footer it's a bit more difficult for me to find something that can get me back home. I found a load out of Oconomowoc, WI which is 25 miles from me right now, going to Columbus and it only weighs 10,000 lbs. I called the broker about it and they're all gone for the day. So I have to call back at 7 am and hope it's still there. That would be a nice easy run.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we have recently taken in two new foster boys, brothers, 9 and 7. They are actually pretty good kids, but they both have their challenges. As Jerry Clower might have said, the older would rather climb a tree to tell you a lie than stand on the ground and tell you the truth. He and I have had a couple of discussions about this already. He seems amazed at my ability to know when he's lying and he went so far as to ask me how I knew. "It's easy", I said. "I know you're lying when I see your lips moving." I quickly told him I was kidding and then explained that I could tell he was lying because I was so good at it myself. I'd lie all the time just to stay out of trouble. I got pretty good at recognizing lies. Maybe that could be my next career. Deception Analyst.

The younger boy is autistic. (Forgive me for seeming distant by using the term "boy" but there are legal considerations concerning privacy.) He is, I guess one would say, extremely autistic. Not sure if that's a proper way to say it, but he dos not speak, is not potty-trained and is very repetitive in his actions. One thing we have learned about him is that he needs his pacing room. He is constantly on the move. He paces, picks things up, chews on them, throws them down, claps his hands, and hollers quite loudly sometimes. My wife and I determined that if we had to mimic his actions for just one hour, we would both collapse in exhaustion. I do not know how he does it. He'll walk around the living room,then around the dining room and then go to the gate that blocks the kitchen door. We have a gate that we block the stairs with and sometimes Sheila will remove it and allow him to climb the stairs. It just gives him more room to roam and get his energy out. We were told he is operating on the level of an 18 month old, but I'm not sure that he's even that high. Maybe. And then there are the times when he will crawl up in your lap and just hug on you. It melts your heart. He's a busy guy and he takes a lot of watching. I asked my wife if it doesn't frustrate her sometimes. She said no. He's a baby in a 7 year old body. So you teach him like a baby, and hope that he'll learn some new things while he is with us. I know that I'm learning. My wife, she has the patience of a saint.

Either that or she's insane.

I'll bet on the former.

Didn't get very far

2009-03-08T21:54:00.004-04:00

It's almost 10 pm on Sunday evening and I'm sitting behind a gas station about 25 miles from home and about 40 miles from my shop. Didn't get very far for having let the shop at 330 this afternoon. It started out well. A little rain, some clouds with the sun breaking through here and there, and warm weather. Looked like a nice drive to Chicago.
But about 50 miles from the shop I had a check engine light pop up. I checked my gauges and listened for anything out of the ordinary and everything seemed fine. In about a minute the light went off, just as I was about to pull over and see what I could find. Dummy me, I decided to keep going and see what happened.
Just after the next exit it popped on again. I still couldn't tell anything was wrong but at the next exit ramp I pulled over to the shoulder and opened the hood to check for something obvious. No leaks, levels are still as good as they were when I left an hour before. So it's back into the cab and I start punching buttons on the computer to check the diagnostics. It shows one active fault and when I get to the fault description this is what it says. "Engine Bad 128s23 12." Does this mean I've got a bad engine? Now the Check Engine light is coming on every other minute or so and going out after about 30 seconds. I tried to call my boss to see if he had a clue about it and got his machine. I cleared the fault and when the light came on again I checked to see if the new fault was the same. Now the computer is registering "No Active Fault". Hmmm.
So I figured, let's see what happens here and I pulled out onto the road again. And there it is. I can feel it in the pull. She just doesn't want to get up and go like she normally does. I can still get up to speed but it's taking a bit longer. Somethings just not right. There's a garage about 20 miles in front of me and when I finally get hold of the boss, his decision is to let his regular garage check it out. So I find the next exit again, turn around and start back towards home. As I'm driving, it dawns on me that the other truck he wants me to take is already loaded with another drivers load (his regular truck was in the shop getting serviced) and that driver probably took the keys home with him. A quick call confirms this fact. Maybe I'll luck out and find another set of keys in the lock box, where they are supposed to be. He says he'll come to the shop if I can't find any other keys.
I finally get back to the shop, get inside, and lo and behold...no keys. In a box that's set up to hold about 20 extra sets of keys for different vehicles and doors, there are exactly three keys, and one key is to a box truck we don't even have anymore.
So I call him back and tell him the bad news. No problem, he says and he's on his way. Meanwhile, I've got to unload all my personal crap out of my truck into the other one, drop my trailer, and try not to forget anything that I might need. I got curious and checked the computer again. Interesting. Now it reads "Engine #2cyl injector 128s003 15." I know this one. It's a bad injector. Actually, it's more likely to a loose wire on top of the injector, which is the same problem I had on cylinder #5 about a month ago. No big deal, but she runs like crap.
The other fellow shows up and we get it all switched over and I'm off again. And then the rain hits. My goodness, it's a bad one. Rain blowing sideways across the road and I can't see squat but for about 50 yards. Thank goodness that didn't last long. But as I said before, I didn't get very far before I decided enough was enough. It had already been a long day at home and I was just trying to get close Chicago. It's easier for me to drive early than late so I figured I'd get to bed early and hit the road early.
So here I sit, thankful that I do not have a back haul already lined up. I don't have to rush tomorrow for anything. Just take my time and get the job done. A good book is calling my name.

Our weekend away

2009-03-01T20:10:00.002-05:00

Well, it finally happened. My wife and I got some time to ourselves. We hardly knew what to do with ourselves. But after some conversations regarding our first year of dating, we finally arrived at the crux of the matter. We got our books out and read blissfully in the quiet of the hot tub.

Well, that's not all we did. We did go out to eat once or twice. Overall, we had a great time. We got to talk in adult language, not the swearing kind of adult language but the kind that discusses the realities of the world around us in words that have more than two syllables.

We didn't go far, just down to Columbus and got us a room for two nights at the Hilton Garden Inn. Very pleasant people, wonderful duvet on the bed, quite comfortable overall. It was a very quiet weekend for us which is exactly what we needed.

We checked in on Friday and went across the road to eat at Molly Woo's, an Asian Bistro. Sheila had the Pineapple Chicken and I had the Triple Delight Big Bowl which had beef, chicken and shrimp in it. I was expecting it to be spicier than it was but it was still quite tasty. After that we stopped in at Barnes & Nobles and bought a couple books, Jeffrey Deaver's book of short stories called "More Twisted" and "False Impression" by Jeffrey Archer. We always look at the discount shelf in there so we got two Jeffrey's for the price of one. Then it was back to the room for some quiet time together.

We had a wonderful breakfast in the hotel and after some time reading again in the hot tub we went back across the road and walked around the mall, people watching and looking for signs of the struggling economy. Sure didn't see any at the Polaris Mall. Them folks were looking fit to kill. Then it was back to the hotel, another dip in the hot tub, ordered an early dinner from Charley's Grilled Subs, and then ordered a movie for us to watch on the TV. Sheila had been wanting to see Twilight and I like seeing Sheila smile so we ordered Twilight.

Had a lazy morning this morning as we gathered our things up and waited til about 11 to check out. We would have waited til 12 but we wanted to eat at the Cheesecake Factory across the road and we wanted to beat the church rush. We ordered way too much and brought about half of it home. I do believe that I could go the next three days without eating and not even feel hungry.

But we had some fun while in The Cheesecake Factory. Our family likes to carry on fictional conversations just loud enough for those around us to over hear. Sometimes we get some looks, sometimes not. We sat at a fairly small table today and there were two college age girls sitting at the table next to us. Very close. I decided it was time for some fun. In a bit of a louder voice, I told Sheila that I was a little frustrated. Why she asks, not knowing right then where I was going.

"Two months ago I flew over in the jet to the house in Tuscany and the caretaker is just not keeping things up the way I'd like him to. All I ask is that he have the house ready for us in case we show up unannounced. I don't think that's too much to ask. He doesn't have to care for the pool, or the stables, or even help out in the vineyard. He just has to keep the house ready. And it's not like it's that big of a house anyway. It's only 15 rooms with 6 bedrooms. I mean, come on. If he can't do that on a hundred thousand a year, maybe we should find someone else."

And Sheila jumped right in. "Would you like me to have a talk with him next month after Hana and I leave London? He seems to listen to me a little better."

"That'd be fine. If you think you can get him to listen to you. If not, tell Luigi we want him to find someone else. He was recommended by Luigi in the first place. I think it only fair that he look for his replacement. And while you're in London, please, please, do not buy me any more suits. I've got thirty or more hanging in the closet right now and I really don't care to wear them that much. Just let me dress down like I like to. Why pay 4 grand for a suit that I'm never gonna wear?"

"Fine. I won't buy you anymore suits. But Charles on Savile Row is going to be disappointed to not see you anymore."

"Charles will be disappointed to not see my money anymore."

And it went on from there. We talked about Sheila's race horse that was recovering at the best vet hospital in the country and the fact that it was worth flying her out to San Diego to have her taken care of. We talked about Hana putting a scratch on the Ferrari and that she would only be allowed to drive the BMW or the Hummer from here on, or at least until she learned to be responsible. We discussed the call that I received from our accountant stating that Ben had overspent his monthly clothing allowance again, this time by about $10,000. Such a clothes horse, that Ben. We talked about the meeting that I would be having on Monday with the Columbus mayor and the Ohio governor and that this would hopefully wrap up our business in town and we could fly home on Wednesday at the latest and how nice it would be to get home to the "islands".

It seemed that the two girls sitting next to us had somewhat of a difficult time carrying on their own conversation. I would hate to think they might have been eavesdropping.

Heh Heh.

2009-02-23T19:18:00.002-05:00

Our memory is a mysterious thing. I have, along with kazillions of other people, recently gotten involved with Facebook. And here's an interesting thing that I have discovered. I knew it before, but this brought it home.
When I remember someone, I remember them as they were the last time I saw them. Not really surprising, but this includes their age. If the last time I saw you you were 8, then I would always think of you as 8, even though I KNOW that it's been 20 years since I've seen you and you can't possibly still be 8. You'd have to be like, 32, wait, that's not right. 8 + 20 = 28. Yeah. 28. That's it. You'd have to be like 28 years old. You might have gotten married and had kids or hijacked a plane or something else that normal 8 year olds don't necessarily do.
And yet there is still a bit of a surprise when I see a picture of a 28 year old that was 8 the last time I saw them. Weird, huh. I wonder why that is. And here's another thing. My Dad has a full head of hair that is completely gray now. But if you asked me to bring my Dad to mind, his hair would be sort of salt and peppery. Even though I see him nearly every year and it's been completely gray for some time now. Again, I wonder why that is.
So I'm sitting in Gary, IN right now, gonna finish this up, maybe watch some TV on Hulu and go to bed early. I'd like to be rolling about 3 or so but I'm not setting the alarm. I haven't been feeling all that well for a few weeks now and I'll wake up when my body says it's ready to wake up. My wife said though, that it would be very helpful if I was home tomorrow by 5:15. Preston has a Dr's appointment. Now get this. She says I should be home by 5:15, but his appointment is at 5:15. And it's 35 minutes away if the deer aren't running. Does she have some new form of transportation that I don't know about? Maybe one that travels at the speed of light? Maybe that's why her headlights aren't working.
The police never showed up Saturday night. I called them and told them it wasn't an emergency though so I shouldn't wonder. We had some pretty good ice in town and folks were sliding everywhere. One of said folks slid into my yard and hit the guy wire that supports the telephone pole on the street lawn. They didn't bust it, but they did pull it out of the ground a little and frayed the wire some. I figured somebody would want to know about it. Hence the call. Maybe they came after I went to bed.
Sheila and I are disappearing this weekend, so if I don't post before that I may not post again til next week. It's been too long for us to have some time together and we figured the easiest way to do that was to go away from home where nobody can bother us. We're not going far. Probably to Columbus and just getting a hotel room. We'll see. Sharing a room with two of your kids sucks, but it looks like that's about to change. You may see me walking down the street with a new spring in my step. Ok, that's it. See ya next time.

OH MY WORD!

2009-02-20T21:01:00.003-05:00

Can we get any busier? Life has just been ridiculously busy. I seriously do not know how single parents do it. We both have been running like crazy for the past three or four weeks and it's all I can do to keep going. I get home in the afternoon, and it's run here and then there and then back over here and then...by 7 pm I'm ready for bed. Just wishing I could crash.

Haven't been feeling good lately. One of those colds and coughs that doesn't make you sick enough to stay in bed but just wears you down.

So what's new?

The door on my pickup broke...again. I've jury rigged it a number of times, and did so again this time. But I'm fairly certain this is the last time. After this comes a new door. The sheet metal where the door latch is attached is too thin and the door is so big that it rips the sheet metal after too many times shutting the door. So what's the magical number? Don't know what it is, but I hit it. In the past I was able to fix it so the door shut good and I just had to be careful about shutting it too hard. Now, it won't shut all the way. It'll latch but you get a lot more wind noise. I need someone to run into my door with their car so I can get it fixed. Any takers?

Hana just called a while ago from town and said the headlights on the van won't come on. Not sure what that's all about. We've had a problem with the dash in that van for a few months now. The van runs just fine. It's just that every now and then, the dash gauges will quit working. No speedometer, no fuel gauge, nothing. We're lucky Hana or Sheila hasn't run out of gas yet as a result. But Hana's been good about putting gas in it when she thinks it's getting low. The gauges will be off for a few days and then voila, they're back. No rhyme or reason to it. Oh well. It's paid for.

Both mine and Hana's cell phones have been eligible for upgrades for a while now but we liked the little 8300 that we both had and just hadn't upgraded yet. I've been looking at that Blackberry Storm and dreaming a little and this past week the time came. Several planets aligned for this to occur. The tax refund came back, my phone started acting up, and Verizon had a special, buy one Blackberry, get the second one free. So being the primary line on our account, I was able to get a pretty good discount for the Storm, and then got Hana one for free, which really cheered her up some from the funk she's been in since she lost her special Princess, and canceled the broadband card that I was using in my laptop while I was on the road. I can tether the Blackberry to my laptop and use that as my broadband access. So I've been trying to get the software on the computers and get it all to sync properly and figure out the tethering deal. I guess I got it working cause I'm using it right now.

And Tuesday we had two new foster kids arrive. Hopefully they will be able to be here for some time. Two brothers, nine and six. The younger is autistic and so we'll have a little bit more learning to do about how to best help him? I may be calling on you, Anne, for some tips. They seem to be pretty good kids overall, and once we get them in the school, which should be next week, things should settle down quite a bit. But the ages fit right for them to share a room with both Preston and Isaac and so it appears, let's not get our hopes up, that Sheila and I may get a room to ourselves again. Wouldn't that be nice? I am not looking forward to moving two boys into my room, Hana into their room, and Sheila and I into Hana's room, but basically, I just do what I'm told. Mostly. Why not just a two room move instead of three? I don't know either.

I think I'm going to bed. Goodnight.

Princess

2009-02-11T10:48:00.004-05:00

My wife is not a complainer. Never has been and probably never will be. So when I ask her how her day is going, 9 out of 10 times the answer is fine or okay. So I knew something was up yesterday when I called her back in the afternoon, a couple hours from being home, and the answer I got to that question was "Not so good".

We had spoken earlier in the morning and the answer at that point was "I've had better days".

See, Princess had spent the night in the kitchen because she had been having diarrhea. Sheila thought it was over but apparently not. She woke up to about 15 puddles of diarrhea all over the kitchen floor. When we spoke, she was trying to laugh about it and not let it gag her down. I told her to try to get Princess into the vet to see if they could find the problem. Then I signed off and we went our separate ways for the day.

So when I got the "Not so good" later in the afternoon, I knew something was up. Seems Hana and Sheila had taken Princess to the vet and the news was not good. The vet said she could run a bunch of tests but from what she was seeing it appeared that the diarrhea was a side effect of the pain medication that Princess was on. It's some pretty strong stuff and everything else we've tried hasn't worked. She would spend the nights getting up and down and whining and crying, too uncomfortable to sleep. The diarrhea would not go away as her system adjusted to the meds and anything else would not help her pain.

So, my wife and my daughter, over many tears, decided that Princess was suffering more than they could justify allowing. The time had come to allow her to rest in peace.

Princess was 14 years old. She had severe arthritis, was nearly blind with cataracts and was going deaf. She had lived a good and happy life andwas a great companion to our family and my daughter in particular. We were remembering her yesterday afternoon and we got her as a puppy when Hana was 8 and in second grade. Now she's 22 and a junior in college. Princess has been right there with her all those years, except for a couple three years or so when she lived with my parents. We had moved and were unable to keep her in our rental house. But when we moved again she came home to us. Thanks Mom & Dad.

Yesterday was not so easy. Actually, yesterday was hard. This afternoon I'm supposed to go pick up her ashes. Maybe things will get easier.

The Update You've Been Waiting For

2009-01-28T18:05:00.003-05:00

I know. You couldn't sleep last night for all your concern over whether or not I beat the weather. Or whether the weather beat me. Or whether weather is...Naw. I can't keep it going.

The answer is no. I did not beat the weather. But not for a lack of trying. Good news is that I did get everything off the truck last night and got parked safe. The bad news is that I'll not be stopping at the Petro Truck Stop in Remington, IN at exit 201 again. That is unless I need to use the rest room. And even then, I may decide to...never mind. Let's just say, it was not a good experience.

The background: Last Friday I got to work to load trucks, fired up the three that needed loaded (mine being one of them) and coiled up all the electric cords. (We plug them in at night due to the cold.)I was gonna load mine first and so I climbed up inside and the first thing that greets me is the irritating alarm for the Low Air Warning. I glance at the gauge, the air should be up high enough by now to quiet the alarm, and I see that it is. 120psi. Right where it's supposed to be. What's the alarm for then. Wait. There it is. The computer on the dash says "1 Active Fault". The nice thing about these types of trucks is that it'll usually tell you right off what's wrong with it. So after pushing 5 buttons 37 times and scrolling through the diagnostic menu, not to be confused with the diabetic menu, I discovered that cylinder #5 had a bad injector. Sooo, my truck is going nowhere but the shop.

Luckily the weather was up a little and the replacement rig fired up even though it had not been plugged in, albeit with much belching, farting and smoking. Just like a few truck drivers I know.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning. I'm in a truck that is not usually mine, I'm loaded and headed towards Indy with great hopes of not getting caught up by the weather that was coming. I'm running south on 65 and my wife calls. I'm talking to her for a few minutes and then hear it. That distinctive bang that signals your day has just gone in the crapper. A quick look in the side mirror confirms this as tire strips are flying out behind me.

It was then that my wife heard me say some things she does not normally hear me say. And yes, I did apologize later.

I pull over, creeping down the shoulder til I can see a yardstick and then try to figure out the nearest town. Crap, my map is in my other truck. I call the office, gonna have them look it up, but they can't tell by the mile marker alone. Don't ask me. Finally, I see an exit ahead, Remington, IN. The boss is on the phone. Good news. He tells me there's a Petro at Remington and they have a garage. Cool. I'll call you back when I'm on the road again.

So I pull up to the garage. Tell the lovely lady that I have a flat on the trailer and after gathering all the pertinent information she tells me to put it in door one. This I do.

Now here's where it gets interesting. There's one mechanic on duty. Two others are on the clock but they are out on road calls. And this one mechanic just started eating lunch. Knowing the importance of a meal, I do not hurry him along. I wait patiently in the truck. He finally comes out and gets started as I check the weather again and see how I'm doing.

I hear the air wrench that these guys use to take our big lug nuts off. (The ones on the wheels! Get your mind out of the gutter.) But it sounds as though they are not coming off. You can tell when the nut breaks free. After listening to this for a bit, I get out and see if there is a problem. Not that I can fix it but if I'm gonna be a lot longer, I need to let some people know, right?

And here's where it gets interesting. The mechanic tells me he does not have a socket for these nuts. WHAT!?! Here is a garage with 5 bays where they can do hundreds of different repairs from changing light bulbs to rebuilding engines, and they don't have a socket that will fit my lug nuts? Now I know what your thinking, but no. They are the same size nuts as the vast majority of other trucks have. Nothing special. So he's trying to get them off with the next size higher. And now I'm concerned he's gonna bust something. My confidence is waning fast in this fellows abilities. And the fact that he moves at the speed of frozen custard is not helping.

This should be a thirty minute job. I mean, I'm in YOUR garage. You don't even have to come to me. I brought it to you! Seems the socket that he needed was in the road repair truck. They went to NAPA and tried to buy another one, but NAPA didn't have one, apparently. So we waited til the road repair guy gets back, and then my repair starts.

The expected thirty minutes turned into an hour and forty-five minutes. RIDICULOUS! Needless to say, I was not happy. And by now I know that I will hit the bulk of the weather by the time I get to Indy. The truth is that I hit it a while before I got to Indy and it was bad from there on.

The one thing I was grateful for was that it had not been raining on those roads first. That would have been a nightmare I would have parked long before I did.

But I made it to Dayton, an hour and a half late after having started out almost two hours early, and then made it to Columbus, two and half hours late. Oh well, what ya gonna do?

By this time it's bad, traffic is light but what's there is crawling, 25-40 at best and I hear that the road that gets me to the truck stop I was planning on parking at is closed. Crap. So it's back across Columbus to the west side where I have two options to park. One behind a Wendy's in actual truck parking or an old warehouse that's up for sale. But if it's for sale then there's no plowing contract and we're supposed to get up to 10 inches which could stick me fast. I opt for the Wendy's. It takes a little maneuvering but I finally get in there amongst the others, out of the way, not in a legitimate spot, but I'm in the corner and everybody can get around me. I'm done.

The weird thing is that I sat there, in the seat, staring out the window for probably ten more minutes, listening to the weather band on the radio. Doing Nothing. Just Sitting.

I think they call that "detox"?

Anyway, I was parked, empty and safe. The boss calls me today after I woke up. Sit tight he tells me. They got hit harder than Columbus did and the road into our plant wasn't plowed at all. No way could I get the truck in there. So here I sit. Again. Still. Behind the Wendy's, (God Bless You, Dave Thomas) with a full belly, and a good broadband signal. I'm warm and safe. Other than being home with my family, I couldn't ask for a whole lot more.

As my mother would say, I'll be home tomorrow, Lord willing and the creek don't rise.

Racing the weather

2009-01-27T12:38:00.001-05:00

I'm in the garage of a truck stop in Remington, IN. Another blown tire on the trailer. Big major winter storm is running west and should be in Indianapolis by 3. It's 12:40. I'm a hundred miles from Indy. I need to get in front of this thing. Got to get to Dayton and Columbus. If this storm stops me I may be stopped for a while. It looks like a big one. I just want to get to Columbus this evening and then get empty. Then it can do what it wants. I'll watch Hulu.com after that.

Daughter's dream

2009-01-17T11:16:00.003-05:00

My daughter was mad at me this morning.

She had a dream last night that I died and my spirit possessed the minivan and wouldn't let her drive over 50 mph.

She was not happy.

When I die I'm gonna ask God if He can work that out.

Stream of Consciousness

2009-01-17T09:09:00.010-05:00

As with nearly everyone else in the country, it's been way too cold here as of late. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse, not because my hands are sore though. It's just been going on for so long. It was 14 below when I went in to work yesterday. Had three trucks to load and got two of them started. They didn't want to start, but after much belching and groaning and smoking, (the trucks, not me) they finally got running. One straight truck refused to run at all. So the boss is gonna come in on Sunday when it's supposed to be warmer and see what he can do. The straight truck only gets one tub on it anyway so it's an easy load.

Today is supposed to be better. It's 3 degrees right now but we're supposed to get up to 22. Yeehaa! But the wind is blowing which is putting the wind chill down around 25 below.

I went to the doctor last week, due to regular, frequent, screaming, make you cry and then throw up headaches. She diagnosed Cluster Headaches. I get a series of them once or twice a year that lasts about 5 or 6 weeks and then I'm fine. But when they come, well, I'd do anything to make them stop. The good thing is that the headache itself only lasts about 30 minutes before it's gone. And she was not happy to hear that the best way for me to get rid of them is to sit on the porch and smoke a cigarette. But she understood why that works. It's a result of the constrictive actions of smoking. It constricts your blood vessels and that seems to clear the headache out. She gave me some stuff to take for the next cycle, since it appears I am out of this last one, plus she suggested a change in my regular meds to discuss with the family doc. She also told me that smoking is the biggest aggravater for cluster headaches and told me that I have to quit, even though it seems to help them go away, it actually makes them worse when they get there. Went to the family doc on Thursday and made that med change. All is well so far.

Went down to Columbus yesterday and picked Ben up to bring him home from college for the long weekend. He is really enjoying it at OSU. On the way home he was telling me all kinds of stuff about his school, how big it is, how diverse it is, what kind of food they have, how far he's walking. Sounds like this is a great thing for him. But I sure did miss him while he was gone. His girlfriend and a bunch of his friends were over last night so it was pizza night and Sheila and I sat and watched "Bangkok Dangerous" with Nicholas Cage, (meaning he was in the movie, not sitting there with us watching it), while all the kids watched other stuff elsewhere and played on the computer. It was a good night. It was also a good movie, even though, as usual, I had to rewind the last 20 minutes because I fell asleep before it was over. Don't take that as an indication of the quality of said movie. I fall asleep in all movies. Doesn't matter where or when. At home or in the theater. That's why I don't go to the theater. Why pay $7 for a nap. I can get one at home for free. Although I did make it all the way through "7 pounds" when Sheila and I went to see it a couple weeks ago. That was a good movie.

I was supposed to start announcing this morning for Upwards basketball, but they cancelled the games due to the bitterly cold wind chill factors that we were expecting.

So that's pretty much it. There's not a whole lot else going on. I still have a job, thank you God, and I still have my wife, thank you God, and I still have all my kids, can I get some help here, God? Actually, I am very thankful for my life. It's not perfect. I would love to be in Texas right now. But apparently, I am where I am supposed to be right now.

So...until further notice, I'll keep doing what I'm doing, and going where I go, and all should be well.
But I am not cleaning out that litter box anymore!

2009-01-10T09:06:00.003-05:00

I know. It's been a week and you've heard nothing from me. Life has not been busy all that much so I can't use that as an excuse, but it has been cold. Does that count?

It's Saturday and the house is quiet this morning. Preston is the only one awake so far and he's playing Spyro in the Ps2. We got a little snow last night, about 3 inches, but it's snowing pretty good out there right now and they're calling for 8 to 10 inches by this evening. That's not a lot compared to some places but it's enough for me. I thank God that it's Saturday and I have nowhere to be. I will have to call the boss tomorrow morning and make sure that a path is plowed for me to get into and out of the shop tomorrow afternoon since that's when I'm leaving for my run to Michigan and Chicago. They are telling me that I may be going to Chicago every week soon since we've got a customer that took over a bunch of the clients of Republic Window and Door Factory that recently closed their doors up there. Bad for them, good for us. You might have read about that outfit that closed it's doors and the workers staged a "sit-in". It sucks when companies treat their employees like that.

The snow was falling last night and my daughter mentioned how bad it must be to be a dog.

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Cause when they've got to pee and poop outside in the snow, they've got to squat they're butts down in the snow to do it. I think I'd hold it."

My children are so deep.

Upwards basketball is getting ready to start their games next week at the church and I'll be spending today getting my music together for that. I do all the announcing for the games and play music in between quarters and games and such. They run all day on Saturday for about 8 weeks. It keeps me busy and I have a blast with it.

So between that and looking for a job in Texas, I'll be pretty much busy all day.

By the way, I got my daughters laptop working but alas, she did not clean her room. One can only expect so much.

Mr. Fix-it

2009-01-03T13:24:00.003-05:00

Kimmy has said this before. Apparently, women get excited about a man helping out around the house. Why my mother never told me this, I'll never know. It might have saved me a lot of trouble, and made me a happier fellow. But it's true. I found that out again today.

I fixed the washing machine.

Earlier this week the washer quit draining or spinning. I hate working on appliances, but I've learned a few things about it from a previous job I had in Texas and worked with a fellow who could fix anything. So I had a little bit of an idea about where to start looking. And I found the answer fairly quickly.

You know that switch right there on the top that stops the tub from spinning if you lift the lid? That switch broke in our machine. I needed to check and make sure the switch was bad before continuing on and, alas, it was. So, I pulled the switch, took the wires off the contacts, stuck the two wires together and wrapped them up with electrical tape.

Viola! Working Washing Machine! The only thing now is that if you lift the lid, the tub does not stop spinning. So If you're ever here for a visit, and you decide to do laundry, don't stick your arm in my washer. I may have a new switch on by then, but I may not. You never know.

But I do know that my wife is very happy. In her words, I have just scored some major brownie points.

Now, I'm working on my daughters laptop. Maybe she'll be happy enough to clean her room.

Maybe not.

Nothing...Hopefully.

2009-01-02T11:23:00.003-05:00

Today is a good day. At least it looks as though that will be the case. Why, you ask? Well, it appears that my wife is going to the big bad Wally World. Now, normally, I would not be excited about my wife going off, checkbook in hand, with visions of winged dollar signs dancing in her head. But she and I have an agreement. She can go to Wally World and I can go to Wally World, (although I only go when I am in the big truck and then only to replenish some supplies.) But we do not go to Wally World together.

Again, I here you asking why. Be patient.

You see, at Wally World, we have two different agendas. My agenda is to walk in, find the various items on my list, and walk out. I do pay for them though. I guess I should add that little note. I do not interact with others in that store more than to bump them out of my way, or ask where the Smooth and Slick Head shaving cream is located, or knock the little kid off the demo display of Guitar Hero so I can do a wicked rendition of "Sweet Child of Mine". I get my stuff and I go.

My wife, on the other hand, goes to Wally World to take inventory. Not of what she needs, but of what they have. She walks down each aisle, counting each item, picking them up, reading the labels, checking the fat content, counting the carbs, perusing the level of niomathianicide in each and every item. The question "Is this something that I need?" is running constantly through her head and each item is held up to this justification. Many items appear to fall into that category while she is in the store, only to be discovered later to carry the label "what was I thinking?". But she keeps the receipts and some of those "what was I thinking" items end up going back to grace the shelves of the almighty conglomerate. Thank God for small favors.

So the good news is that if she is going to Wally World, I am not. What, you may ask, will I be doing all day. If the Lord is a good Lord, which I believe He is, then I will be doing very little. Nearly Nothing, if I can get away with it. That was my goal for yesterday, and it was not accomplished. Not even close. I drove 120 miles yesterday going to a water park I couldn't play at, right next to an amusement park that was closed, only to eat fast food once again. Oh too much fun.

So, if all goes according to Hoyle, I will be squatting right here, in front of this beast of electronics, searching the vastness of the world for items of interest.

Wish me luck.

Unusual

2008-12-23T11:17:00.003-05:00

I usually don't have the time to write in this blog more than once a week or so, but this week has given me more opportunities. Like now. I'm sitting in an independent truck stop in Mt Vernon, IL. I left St Louis this morning, about 3 1/2 hours ago, and was headed to Louisville with two, count them, two bay window frames to drop off and then the plan was to head home from there. This means that my trailer is nearly empty, which means no weight, which means lousy traction in bad weather and strong winds. Well, best laid plans of mice and men and all that. It looks as though I will not be going to Louisville after all. You see, I love to drive, and I don't mind driving in bad weather. But I WILL NOT DRIVE ON ICE!! Nope, Ain't gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent. If I wanted to drive on ice I would move to Yellowknife. As a matter of fact, I won't even skate on ice. That wouldn't be prudent either, but for different reasons. The last 20 miles, before I reached Mt Vernon, I saw about 10 cars off in the ditch in various states of orientation. Meaning some were on their tops and others were on their side and a couple even were still on their wheels. I was doing about 25 or 30 that last 20 miles and had one fool lose it right in front of me.

Now help me out here. You're driving down the highway and all the traffic, this means everyone, is in the right lane doing about 25 or 30. The road just looks a little wet. But wait, what's this? There is no spray coming off of anyones tires. It must just be a temporary suspension of one of the rules of physics for my benefit. Great. This will allow me to travel at a high speed in this light misty rain without getting my windshield all gunky from those mean old trucks throwing up spray. It couldn't be ice though. Everyone knows that the freezing temperature of water gets much lower if I'm driving down the road. This will allow me to travel faster than everyone else.

But the sad thing with this scenario is when you suspend one law of physics, another one usually gets suspended as well. Like the one concerning friction. Friction is that mysterious law that keeps your tires from going off the road whenever you turn the wheel. Did you know that on a dry road your car will actually lose speed if you turn the wheel? Friction, force, thrust; they all play together in there. But some folks skipped physics class. Like that fool who thought everyone was just driving slow to watch the deer on the side of the road and that 60 was a good speed for him, cause he had places to see and people to be. That same fool that lost it about 50 feet in front of me and spent the next half a minute trying to get control back, put his Blackberry back in it's case, set his coffee down in the cup holder, and fill his shorts, all at the same time. Did you also know that the wake-up or rumble strip on the shoulder will help you maintain traction, a little bit?

Well, God was merciful to that fellow today because he was somehow able to get his car straightened out and continued on his merry way, albeit at a much lower speed. Me? I knew Mt Vernon was close and figured enough was enough. I'm done til the temp goes up. The only problem with that is that by then I will probably not have time to get to Louisville before the customer closes and they will not be open the rest of the week.

The boss says to be safe and he'll reschedule the delivery for January 6th, which is when I'm due back on this run anyway. I've got a good boss.

So here I sit, fooling around on the laptop. Good news though. Another boss wants me back tomorrow at a decent hour so they can load my truck for next week so everyone can take off on Friday. That I can do. And on top of that, the weather for my run next week to Grand Rapids, Chicago and Milwaukee looks good. A little cool, but sunny. That'll work.

Well, ya'll have fun and if I don't see you again before Thursday, Have a Merry Christmas.

Update

2008-12-21T15:05:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to post this photo of our Living Christmas Tree from church. We're all done with the program and as I write this, the tree has already been dismantled and put away til next year.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Jesus is...

2008-12-20T09:57:00.003-05:00

Just like Mom, I sing in a choir. Although one not quite as large as hers, and yet we have fun with it. This being the season for choirs to show their stuff, we have been rather busy. One thing out director asked of us this year was that we memorize the music. I've only done that for a whole choir performance a couple of times since college. But our director, ever vigilante, made it much easier for us by providing each part with a practice CD. Now with all the time that I have on the road, you would think that I would have it down pat.

But alas, I was not quite as successful in the memorization as I had hoped. I did have most of it down, but there were still a few spots that kept throwing me off.

During one of the songs we sing a line that says "He is King of Kings" and we sing another line that says "He is born in Bethlehem".

There is a term for it but I do not remember what it is, but it pertains to when you begin to say one word and switch to another word right in the middle of said word. This happened to me during practice on Wednesday and I was unable to continue since I was about wetting myself with laughter.

I started out sing "He is born..." and in the middle of "born" realized that I should be singing "He is King..." and so I switched. What came out was "He is Bong". It was here that I lost it. All sacriligousness aside, just the idea, Jesus as a bong, sent me over the edge.

It's a good thing our fine and skilled director is also so patient with us.

By the way, the performance was last night and again tonight, with about half the performance again on Sunday morning. We are performing in a "Living Christmas Tree". It's a huge contraption where we all look like ornaments in a tree. Looks good from the audience, but I get a little nervous up there. Good thing they didn't put me in the top. Maybe I'll send you a picture later, if I remember to take one.

The Ghost in the Red Scarf

2008-12-11T13:30:00.002-05:00

I'm laying in bed (yes, at home) the other night, and Preston hollers at me.

"Dad!"

"What!"

"Can you come here for a minute?"

"Sure. Be right there." I climb out of bed, and shuffle over to his bed, he's in the same room anyway, and ask him what's going on.

"Are ghosts real?"

"What do you mean 'Are ghosts real?' Do you mean are there really ghosts or do you mean are ghosts real people?" Not that this distinction matters to an 8 year old at 11 o'clock at night.

"Are there really ghosts, I mean?" he says.

"Yes," I respond and head back to bed.

"Dad?"

"What, Preston?"

"How do you know there are really ghosts?"

"Cause I've met one," I answer.

At this he rolls over in his bunk and looks straight at me. "Really!"

"Really," I say.

Nothing...nothing...nothing...then..."Cool."

"Wanna hear about it," I ask.

"Yeah," he says and I tell him this story.

I was driving across Indiana about 3 years ago and I had been through Indianapolis already and I was on my way to St Louis. I was running behind because I was having some mechanical problems with the truck and it was already night time. It had snowed the day before and there was still snow on the ground, but the roads were clear and dry.

I was hoping to get to Effingham where there was a garage that might be able to look at my truck and see if they could fix the problem. See, she would just shut down for no apparent reason. If I let it sit for about 2 minutes it would start back up again and run fine for another 30 minutes or so and then do the same thing all over again. I had checked my cables, my batteries, my alternator, the air in the tires, the milk in the fridge, and everything I could think of, but I was unable to find the problem.

So here I am, between Cloverdale and Brazil, and it happens again. Off to the shoulder I go, flashers flashing, tires rumbling on the rumbler strip, and soon I am sitting parked once again. I shut the key off and wait for 2 minutes to go by. After that, I turn the key again and voila! Nothing. What? Nothing! Nothing. Zip. Nada. This time it won't even crank. So I get out of the truck, pull up the hood and start looking again for anything that looks out of place. A mechanic, I am not. Everything looks just like it ought to, except the MOTOR IS NOT RUNNING!! Now I'm getting frustrated. After several attempts at starting it, and several smacks with a hammer, I realize that I am stuck.

But I think, there must be something I'm missing, and so I step out again to look. As I am leaning into the engine compartment on the passenger side, trying to warm my hands over the rapidly cooling motor, I hear a voice behind me. "Looks like you're having some problems."

I nearly jump out of my skin because I never heard her approach. Never saw a car come up behind me or pull over in front of me. I even glance towards the back of the truck and there's no car back there. Just the intermittent flow of traffic that is passing me on this cold lonely night.

"Yeah," I said. "It keeps shutting down for some reason and I can't figure it out."

The woman who spoke to me looks to be between 40 and 50, is dressed warmly for the weather and is wearing a red scarf around her neck. Also, in her gloved hands, is a large, green Stanley Thermos.

"There's a garage about 4 miles off the next exit. They might be able to come help you out," she says and hand me a slip of paper with a phone number on it.

"Thanks," I say and took out my cell phone and made the call. It was indeed a garage and they said that they would have someone out there in about 30 minutes. I said thanks and hung up.

I turned back to the woman and told her what was what and she just smiled and said that she had always heard they did good work. "Have you eaten yet? I've got some good hot stew here," she says as she holds out the thermos.

"Well, I have eaten but it's been a while. Hot stew sounds like it would be great right now," answer and she quickly unscrews the top and pours me a bowlful. It smells wonderful and the steam is rising off the bowl in the cold night air. She pulls a plastic spoon from her coat pocket and hands the dish to me.

"I hope you enjoy it. It was my husbands favorite recipe," she says. I dig into the stew and it is delicious. Just what I needed after a cold frustrating day. I have been wondering all this time though, exactly where did this lady come from and I ask her that question.

"From back there," she says, and points here thumb over her shoulder towards the woods. I glance over her shoulder and I can just make out a house about a hundred yards into the woods. She says "I saw you sitting here and I thought this was a bad night for a driver to be broke down. My husband used to drive a truck so I tend to keep my eyes open for you guys."

"Well," I say. "That's very nice of you. Again, the stew is great. I don't want to be forward or anything, but would you like to sit inside where it's at least a little warmer?"

"That's ok," she says. "Looks like your help is here anyway." With this she points to the back of the truck. I look back and see a wrecker pulling up in front of me, it's yellow flashers bouncing off the trees and the fresh snow around me.

I turn back to her, handing her back her empty bowl, and say, "Thanks again. I better go check in with him. I'll be right back." I walk up to the tow truck and the mechanic who is stepping out of the wrecker, and I fill him in on what's going on. He grabs a few tools and heads back to the front of the truck. When we get back to my open hood, I notice that the lady with the red scarf is nowhere to be seen. It appears as though she has gone back home now that my help has arrived. I shrug my shoulders and wait patiently while the mechanic starts going over the motor.

Soon he decides that the repairs are beyond his capacity and the truck needs to be towed in to their garage. He quickly hooks up and we are soon off to his garage.

As we arrive at his garage, he pulls through one of the open bays, drops my truck there in the warm building, and unhooks his wrecker. I go inside and check in with the head mechanic and the work soon begins. He tells me there's a restaurant next door if I want to go get something to eat. I told him I wasn't hungry but I might go get some coffee. I then told him about the lady who came to me on the side of the road and brought me some stew.

At this news, his head pops up and he looks me square in the eyes. Then he asks me, "Was she wearing a red scarf?"

"Yeah," I said. "Do you know her?"

"Most people around here know of her, but only a few have ever met her." Then he asks me if I ate any of the stew.

"Yes," I said. "And it was excellent."

"I've heard that she makes a very tasty stew. But if I were you I wouldn't stray too far from the bathroom."

It was at that very moment that I felt an unsettling rumbling in my stomach. Sometimes, when you start to feel as though a restroom will soon be your best friend, you get some warning. Sometimes that warning is long with several rumblings, and sometimes it's short with a couple of quick cramps. This one smacked me in my gut and yelled at me in a loud voice, "NOW!!" And I was off in a run. I made it but barely.

I will not go into any details here as I am trying to keep this a family story, but let's just say...well...it was bad. Quite bad.

After I came back from the restroom, I started to ask the head mechanic about this lady but I was interrupted by another stomach doubling cramp and I was off for another dash. Twenty minutes later I was back. The head man, Billy, said, "At this rate, we'll have your truck done before you are." Very funny. Very funny.

"So tell me about this lady," I said and he started in on her story.

"Her name is Marcia Stillwater and her husband was a truck driver."

"She told me that," I said. "Did he pass away?"

"Yes," he said. "One month after she did."

"What?! You mean this lady is dead?"

"Yep. You are one of about two dozen truck drivers who have come face to face with the ghost of Marcia Stillwater."

Seems Marcia's husband, Tom, was a driver for a local company and he loved his job, almost as much as he loved Marcia. Marcia, on the other hand, hated his job because it took him away from her far more than she wanted. It was about two weeks before Christmas and Tom was on a run to California. He had left the night before and he and Marcia had had a bad fight. She was pregnant with their first child and was due to deliver in about a week. Tom figured he could get back home before the baby came but she didn't want him to chance getting caught out there or the baby coming early. She begged him to stay home but he felt they needed the money and so he went anyway.

Her worst fears were confirmed the next night when she started going into labor. It was cold and snowing and she could not get a hold of her doctor. She called her sister and she soon showed up with a friend who was a midwife. The labor was a bad one and the midwife was soon dealing with an issue well beyond her capabilities. Neither Marcia nor the baby would survive the birthing process.

This happened in the 1965 and her husband was beyond reach. He tried several times to call her over the next few days and grew increasingly concerned when he received no answer. He came home as fast as he could only to find his wife and child already gone. He was so distraught that he never left his house again. One month later he was gone too. The doctors say he died of guilt, thinking that if only he had been home he would have been able to do something to save his wife and baby.

So this was the story of Tom and Marcia, told to me between about 7 trips to the restroom and much laughter from the mechanics. By now I was sore, irritated, and totally worn out. I knew that even if my truck were finished, there was no way I would make to St Louis that night. But there were still some holes in the story that I needed filled.

"So what's the deal with the stew?" I asked. "Why would she do this to broken down truck drivers?"

And Billy told me. "The story is that her last words, spoken to her sister that night, just before she died, were 'Tom will pay for this. And so will every other driver out there.' Ever since then there have been about two dozen drivers or so, who have met up with Marcia Stillwater. Always at night, always near Christmas, and all but one spent several hours regretting eating her stew. And they all say she was wearing a red scarf."

"What about the one who didn't regret eating her stew," I asked.

"He didn't eat it," Billy said.

"And so, Preston," I said. "That's the story of the night I met the Ghost in the Red Scarf. What'd you think?"

"Cool," he said.

Yeah, I thought. Real cool.

I love stew. But some nights around Christmas... I just can't eat it.

I had to quit and some sad news...

2008-11-26T10:51:00.006-05:00

Well, I had to quit my job as Mayor of Tick Ridge, WV. Seems they weren't real thrilled about my idea of knocking down the football stadium and putting in truck parking. Hey, parking is at a premium. I thought it was a good idea. But the town council seemed to think otherwise. Can you say Impeachment?

Sad news this week.

This is Princess.

Princess is a Cocker spaniel/border collie mix that was born off a dirt road outside of Lubbock, TX. She has lived in Texas, Colorado, Arkansas, and Ohio. She's a regular globetrotter. She's a real sweet lady. Quiet, and loving, and she's my daughters dog. She has a skin condition on her back, arthritis, and is nearly blind and deaf. She is also 14 years old. Which means she is drawing near the end of her years on this earth. Hana was almost eight when Princess joined us. They are quite attached to one another.

My daughter was giving her a bath the other day and came running down the stairs. "There's blood in the water, Dad!" I'm thinking of the curse of Egypt and wondering why there would be blood coming out of our taps, but I soon learn what she's doing. We both go back up and check it out and see that her skin has opened up on her back and she's bleeding a little on her back. Hana gets her cleaned up and puts some ointment on her and all is well. Princess already had a vet appointment scheduled and so on Monday, she went off to see her doc.

Dr. Sandy Carpenter is a great vet and takes the necessary time with her patients. I called my wife later in the day to see how the vet appointment went and she told me that Hana was given "the news". Seems the vet told her that we need to start thinking about the conditions under which we...how long will we...there's no easy way to say it. When would we decide to allow Princess to ease out of this life into one that's less painful.

Now my wife has always believed that animals will be with us when we get to heaven. And this makes it a little easier for my kids and their pets. But I still needed to have the discussion with Hana about what we needed to do and when we might need to do it. Not an easy discussion. But the good news is that this day will probably not be very soon. Probably before next winter though.

My family is very pet oriented. We now have three dogs and two cats. And pets have always been a big part of our lives, even when we weren't allowed pets. We've hidden the dog a number of times from the landlord. I don't say that proudly, just matter-of-factly. We've also had fish, rats, and an orphaned bird at one point. But buzzards don't make good house pets and their always getting in the trash, so that didn't last long.

So I had the talk with Hana. She understood, but that didn't make it easier. But the last thing I said to her was, "Maybe God sent you Edgar because He knew that Princess wasn't going to be around a whole lot longer."

Let me tell you about Edgar. About two months ago the 12 year old neighbor girl came over to the house crying because she found a stray kitten that was in real bad shape and her parents wouldn't let her keep it. Needless to say, I went about putting my foot down, quite firmly I might add, that we were not keeping the kitten either. I mean come on. You should have seen this thing. Filthy, covered in mud, one eye completely closed and dripping pus, the other nearly closed and dripping pus, skinny as a rail. Now I'm normally a kind fellow but on some things I figure, be firm at the beginning and ease up later if I need to. As far as this kitten was concerned, I had no plans to ease up at all. WE ARE NOT KEEPING THE CAT!!!

As I'm sure you know, we now have another cat. I put my foot down and my kids stomped all over it. I knew I was in trouble when the kitten was named before the discussion was even over. Edgar! What kind of name is that for a cat?

Well, Edgar has filled out nicely and his fur is quite soft. He is completely black with a stray hair here and there that is white. It makes him look like he's sparkling. He likes to climb up on the back of my chair and sit there. He is right behind me now as I tell you his story. A curious thing about Edgar. He's missing his right eye and his left eye is about half covered with that interior lid that cats have. He probably would not have made it as a wild cat, not being able to see much and all. But we have some fun with him anyway. And did I tell you my kids have a sick sense of humor.

We're painting right now in the dining room and my wife is not thrilled about company right now since the house is such a wreck, but Pastor dropped by for a visit last week. We quickly scooted him through the dining room, into the living room and we all sat around visiting and sharing about the upcoming church projects and visiting the elderly and the sick and Edgar walks in the room. Pastor loves animals as well and when Edgar strolled over to see if this new visitor would be so kind as to give him a bit of a rub, Pastor willingly obliged. He bent down and scooped him up and started stroking Edgar on his back. Edgar, as I said, is very soft and loves to be rubbed. Don't we all?

Soon Pastor turned him around to get a good look at him and saw his eye was missing. "What happened to his eye?" he asked. I started to answer that he was like that when we found him when Hana spoke up loudly, "What do you mean 'what happened to his eye?!"

Pastor is looking a little concerned now and he says, "Well, his eye...his right eye. It looks like it's missing."

Again I start to answer and Hana jumps up and is across the room in a flash. She grabs Edgar from Pastor and spins him around, looks him square in the eye (heh heh) and gives out a blood-curdling scream.

"What did you do!?" she screams. "Where's his eye? Dad! His eye! It's gone!"

"Hana..." I start.

"Dad, His EYE!" she screams again. And I see her sly wink as she turns her back to Pastor. And I think, you cruel little girl.

"Uh...what happened?" Pastor says.

"His eye!" Hana screams. "What did you do with his eye?!"

Pastor is looking totally flumoxxed by now and I'm sure he was wishing he had skipped our house on his visitation rounds. "Uh...I...Maybe..." he tries to mumble.

"Quick," Hana yells and drops to her knees. "Help me look. Maybe we can find it and have it put back in." And she begins crawling around on the floor, Edgar still firmly in her arms as she "searches" for his eye. No one else has moved and I'm sure Pastor was wondering why my wife had her face buried in her hands and why I sat still doing nothing as our daughter scurried around on the floor.

I figured it was about time to end this charade when I hear Hana holler out from behind the couch, "I found it."

Huh, I think. You found it. This I've got to see.

But she doesn't come out right away. And I hear her say, "Oh... oh...this is nasty...oh too gross...Dad, get me a tissue...sick, it's still got the string thingy hanging from it." At this point she begins to retch and heave behind the couch. I must admit, she sounded quite convincing. Enough so that Pastor stood up quickly and scooted across the room. Who knows, she might get some on him.

And here she comes, backing out from behind the couch, Edgar still in one arm, something in the other hand, scooting out on her elbows. She stands up and quickly crosses the room to Pastor, her hand extended, trying to show him the "eye" she found. "I got it," she says.

For such a big man, he was very light on his feet as he tried to get away from this mad little girl.

It seems that somewhere along the line, one of my sick kids decided that one of the green grapes they were eating was a little past its prime, and rather than getting up and throwing it away, they figured behind the couch was as good a place as any.

This is what Hana dragged out and waved under Pastors nose yelling, "Here it is! Quick! If we get to the vet now she can probably put it back."

I am sure that this was not in any of the curriculum that Pastor studied as he went through his doctoral studies in seminary. I mean, do seminaries have a class entitled "Wacko Children"? Just wondering.

He knew something was up when Sheila started laughing so hard tears were streaming down her face. I then quickly explained that Edgar had come to us without his eye and that all was well.

I think he'll come back some time. I hope at least. He's a good pastor. Meanwhile, Hana is still snickering about it. I really do have some sick kids.

To the Son of JB

2008-11-10T22:52:00.002-05:00

This may seem a little weird to you, regular reader, but I must make a personal plea here since I have no other way to contact this gentleman.

Last week, son of JB posted a comment on my blog here concerning the pics I took on my trip to Texas last March. It took me some genealogical hunting, but I soon found out that the Son of JB and I are related and exactly how we are related. Seems his grandfather on his daddy's side is the brother to my great-grandfather on my daddy's side. Like most southern families, ours is so spread out that it is nearly impossible to keep track of who's married to whom and who's cousin that was and why Aunt Zelda has that bump on the back of her head, without a Cray computer and a GPS Navigator. But I found it intriguing, nonetheless, that a relative that I have probably never spoken with would come across my blog and choose to comment on it even. I mean, most relatives of mine usually hide their familial affiliation whenever I am around. Obviously, the fellow doesn't know me all that well.

So, son of JB, if you're out there and you come across this again, I would love to get in touch with you and see what all is going on with you and yours. Feel free to email me. You can find that address on my profile page.

For the rest of you, I will be back soon and fill you in on my new job as Mayor of Tick Ridge, West Virginia. "What?!" I hear you say. Yep. That's what I said. Mayor. Elected by a landslide at a pancake breakfast held in the elementary school of a town I don't even live in.

How's that for charisma?!

I'll tell you later.

Why I Do Not Hunt

2008-10-24T11:59:00.007-04:00

So I'm running down 65 through Indiana and morning is coming on. I can see the sky lightening up in front of me. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day. A mini-van passes me and scoots back over in front of me and continues on down the road. No big deal. Plenty of room between us.

Good thing too. From out of nowhere, well, not nowhere actually. Actually he came from the bushes. Anyway, here comes a big buck. I just have time to note the size of the rack when he runs right in front of the minivan. She hits her brakes hard and I see her swerve to the left trying to avoid the buck. Man, it's a biggie. That sucker is going to do some damage.

And over he comes. I could not believe my eyes. This big old buck comes flipping over the top of the mini-van and crash lands in the middle of the road. I've been on the brakes for some time now and traffic behind me is slowing up. I hit my flashers and head for the shoulder. The deer has landed in the right lane and I holler out on the CB, "Dead buck in the granny lane, southbound, at the 183. You wanna move left. I'll try to get it moved.

I jump out and go check on the mini-van. The woman inside is shook up and is shaking in her seat but she's alright, no injuries and she soon calms down. She gets out and we check out her damage. Actually, it's not too bad. I sure would have figured a lot more. Her hood is bent in where she hit the buck, but apparently she knocked his legs out from under him and threw him up over the top of the van. She's got a small dent above her windshield and other than that there's nothing. No fluids leaking. No weird noises. All seems well. She smiles.

"Thanks for stopping," she says.

"No problem. Just wanted to make sure everything was okay."

"Is he dead?," she asks.

"I think so," I say. " He's still laying there where he landed. If he were still alive, I figure he'd be up and gone by now. Wanna go with me and check?"

"Sure," she says and we start walking back towards the deer as traffic is crawling by in the left lane.

I'm not much of a hunter, never have been. So verifying the demise of an animal is usually confined to whether or not I can see any obvious indications of death. Massive open wounds, blood flowing, severed head, those kinds of things. I've never shot a deer but I have seen many of them strapped on the hood of a Buick and they always seem to have blood dripping from the nose and the tongue hanging out. Maybe this is the universal sign of death in deer.

As we get closer, I am amazed at the size of the rack on this thing. Huge! I try to count the points but I keep losing track as I shift from one side to the other. "Sure is a big one," she says.

"Yep. Maybe a record of some kind", I say.

"So do you think it's dead?"

"I think so. See the blood dripping from the nose and the way the tongue is just lolling out there like that. I believe that is the universal sign for death among deer. I think I read that somewhere."

But just to be safe, I pick up a stick and start poking at the deer to make sure. No movement. I reach out and grab it by the antlers and give it a good shake. Nothing. It's got to be dead.

"I think it's dead," she says. "What should we do with it? Do we call someone?"

"I think you're supposed to call the police and they'll have it removed, but I've seen so many of these things lying by the side of the road and it sure would be a shame to waste all that meat."

"You think you want it?" she asks.

"Well, if you don't think you want it, then sure, I'd take it."

"How would you get it home?" she says.

"Well. It really should be bled out so the blood doesn't spoil the meat. But I don't think I want to do that right here on the side of the road. It might gross people out and it's sort of dangerous to do that right here."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Tell you what. If you can help me throw it up in the back of the truck, I'll take it down to the next rest area and I can hang it up there from the back of the trailer and bleed it out. It's cold enough right now that it won't spoil before I get it home and get it butchered."

And she agrees. We grab this monster by the antlers and start dragging him to the back of my truck. After much heaving and hoeing we finally get him up in the trailer and I shut the doors on him. All I've got in there right now is about half a trailer full of light bulbs going to Columbus and there's plenty of room for a deer carcass. So we are both happy. Her car is drivable and I've got quite a bit of extra meat to help out at home. I feel like a hunter gatherer from the Mesozoic period. Or one of those Oic periods.

We say our goodbyes and we're on our way. Life is good. Just six more hours to Columbus, then about an hour and a half to home and I'll get to work on skinning a deer. How hard can it be, right?

It was about 30 minutes later that I noticed something strange was going on. I had been listening to my Ipod, ZZ Top specifically, and so the music was a little loud. It was in between 'Cheap Sunglasses' and 'Legs' that I first heard it. A bang. Or it might have been a bong. Not that kind of bong. The bong you get from whacking a gong. And now I sound like Dr Suess. Maybe it was more of a bang. Yes, definitely a bang. And there it was again. It was then that the thought "Oh Crap!" ran through my mind. Quickly followed by "NO!" and then some others that I'd better leave out of here. My mother reads this blog you know.

The rest area has still not appeared but I can no longer wait. I dive for the shoulder in a hurry, dust flying out from the back of the trailer. I get as far off the road as possible and hit the parking brakes. My flashers are going as I jump out of the truck and run to the back. Morning is in full bloom now and traffic has really picked up. I reach for the door of the trailer and get ready to throw it open, and I stop. From the sounds I hear emanating from inside the trailer, it appears that my skills at determining the death status of deer is severely lacking. This thing sounds like it is trying to punch it's way out of my trailer as it kicks and thrashes around inside.

And do you remember what I have in there that might provide this manic buck some cushion for his inevitable slips and falls? Yes! That's it. My precious load of light bulbs is doing it's best to make sure that Mr. Buck does not get hurt as he falls around inside my trailer. I can hear them giving up their very lives for him with no more than a whimpering tinkle.

I want to throw open the door and get him out, but he's sure to jump out into traffic and probably cause another wreck. What to do? What to do? Then it hits me. I run back up to the tractor and grab the CB. "Anybody got a copy on this radio?"

"Copy that" comes back and I start trying to explain.

"I need traffic stopped. This is the big truck on the southbound shoulder and I need all traffic stopped behind me. Anyone north of the 152, you need to stop before you get to me."

"What's going on?" and "We're not stopping for nothing!" and "Anybody want to buy a radio?" comes flashing back in a hundred different voices. How do I tell these guys that I'm getting ready to turn loose one really pissed off buck out on the highway.

"Hazardous Cargo!" I scream into the radio. "It's loose in the trailer and I don't know how it's going to react when it hits the air." Which is somewhat true, right?

I get a couple south bounders hollering out for a brake check and they block the highway. As a result, the northbound starts to back up and slow down to see what's going on. The word gets passed to them and they're stopping the traffic as well. When I finally see that all traffic is stopped I head to the back of the trailer again and start to ease the door open. As I'm doing so I hear a trucker behind me holler out, "Don't open that! Wait for the HAZMAT guys to get here!"

I turn around to tell him it's okay. But I've already opened the door enough for Mr. Buck to get a glimpse of light and it is anything but okay. He heads for the light, as any good deer would, and promptly bowls me over with the door, head over teakettle. Mr. buck hits the ground and is skidding right toward the other driver, who jumps back so fast that he trips over his own feet and down he goes. But Mr. Buck doesn't stop there. His mission seems to be to hunt down the man that locked him in that rolling coffin and meet out some justice.

That man would be me.

I see him spin on the shoulder of the road and look straight at me. Until this time, I thought only bulls pawed the ground, and then only in bad movies. But no! Mr. Buck wants to express his anger and he begins to throw dirt up over his shoulder just as he charges.

I may never win the high jump, but I know now that I can clear the back of a trailer deck without a running start. Up I went, with a mighty roll, as Mr. Buck comes a-snortin and a-huffin. Something else I learned. Deer can clear the back of a trailer deck as if it's not even there. Here he comes, right up over the deck and into the trailer again, trying to kick me in the head as he passes over my quivering huddled body. He gets by me and I roll out the door and quickly duck underneath the trailer. I hear him skidding around in there as he gets turned around and out he comes again looking for his nemesis, that would be me.

He soon spots me under the trailer and I learned one more lesson for the day. Deer cannot crawl. "I thank you, God, for your foresight in designing these animals with this limitation." I am safe. At least for the time being. That is until the video gets posted on Youtube. "Big Bad Truck Driver attacked by Bigger Badder Buck." I'm sure it will appear soon.

Mr. Buck is thoroughly frustrated by now but he soon realizes that I am beyond his reach. He paws and snorts and throws more dirt around as he shows me who the real Alpha Male is between us. He finally quits snorting bucksnot on me and struts off into the median, does a slow circle, observing the audience he has gained, and slowly strolls across the northbound lanes and disappears into the trees.

"You can come out now," an Indiana State Trooper says. When he showed up, I haven't a clue.

"Not yet. He could be back. I think I see him just inside those trees over there. I think he's waiting for me to come out so he can have another go at me," I say.

"Come out now," the trooper says and I slowly crawl out from under the trailer. It's then that I hear the laughter from both sides of the highway. But the trooper is not smiling.

"You want to tell me what's going on here?" he says.

I thought it was fairly obvious what was going on here, and it crosses my mind to say as much, but as I glance inside the trailer at the devastation of the "buck meets bulb" massacre, I know that there is no way anyone is going to believe this. But what the heck. Let's give it a try. So I begin...

"So I'm running down 65 through Indiana and morning is coming on..."

Another Errr Visit

2008-10-21T09:36:00.006-04:00

It was Wednesday, two days of good running behind me and I'm at the shop doing paperwork. I haven't felt too good for a couple days now, just an overall poor feeling. I've had heart issues in the past, and when I say "issues" I mean an attack. AAUUUGGHH! I'm too young for this. So anyway, I got real sensitive to feelings in my chest. Whenever anything feels a little weird I start to get nervous, which sends my blood pressure up, which doesn't help and it becomes a vicious cycle spiraling into the netherworld.

So it's Wednesday, like I said, and I'm thinking, this feels like my hearts having a problem. I'm tossing around whether or not to go to the ER and since the nitro pills aren't doing anything (this should have been my first clue) I decide to go ahead and give them a visit. I get a buddy at work to run me over there and tell him I'll call my wife to come get me later. I call her and tell her what I'm doing and that it's probably nothing, but I want to be sure. Got to put on a happy face, right?

If you don't already know this, here's a hint. When you get to the ER tell them you have chest pains. NO WAITING! They scoop you right in there and put you in the bed and start hooking everything under the sun up to you. My room sounded like an R2D2 soundtrack was playing.

So I get in there and they take blood and send it off and it's time for a little nap while I wait for the results. I'm there a couple hours, got a good nap in and I'm relaxed now, and the blood work comes back fine. No heart problem. I ask the doc, "What's the problem then? Why do I feel like crap?"

"Heartburn, he says.

"HEARTBURN!? Are you serious?! Heartburn? You mean to tell me I just spent a thousand buck for you to tell me I have heart burn?"

"Well, it's really bad heartburn."

"Oh. Well that makes it alright then."

So he asks me if I take anything for heartburn and I tell him I take Pepcid AC.

"How often?"

"Twice a day"

"Every day?"

"Yeah. Every day. Is that bad?"

"Here. I'll give you something stronger." And he writes me out a prescription for Prilosec. Wonderful stuff. Haven't had a problem since. Meanwhile my mom calls to check up on me. Seems my wife has called her to let her know where I was. They want to keep track of my whereabouts, you see.

Mom says, "Maybe you should cut out the caffeine."

"What'd you say, mom? You're breaking up. I can't hear you. I'll call back later when I have a better signal!"

So the doc comes back with the scrip and a bunch of papers. "Here's a list of what causes heartburn."

"Keep it." I say.

"Keep it?"

"Yeah. Keep it. Save your paper. I already know what causes heartburn. I just need to know what doesn't cause heartburn. And that I have not found yet. But you have given me something to help and for that I thank you."

My wife says, "Being in here reminds me. We're out of bandages and gauze pads at home."

"There's some in that drawer over there by the sink. Do we need a sphygmomanometer?"

Anger

2008-10-14T21:53:00.003-04:00

Terry, over here at Road Rage, writes a very entertaining blog about her adventures as a truck driver. She's a better...uh...man(?) than I am cause apparently she goes into NYC on a regular basis. Won't find me doing that. But the reason I bring her up is she posted about her observations regarding some folks and there anger issues.

I was reminded of that this morning. I'll get there in a minute. Just be patient.

Our local McDonald's, which I do not frequent very often, recently posted a sign behind the counter for all the customers to see. "PLEASE DO NOT SEAT CHILDREN ON THE COUNTER". Seems like a reasonable request. And one that I had never really given any thought to, but seeings as how the kids who would be "sat" on the counter would be the littlest ones, who may or may not have complete control of their bodily functions at this stage in their life, I'd rather not order a Big Mac and find it sitting in a surprise, even if it is set upon one of those oh so sanitary trays. So at that time, I just thought "huh" and went about my business.

Now get this picture. I'm in Mt Comfort, Indiana at exit 96 at the McDonald's there, which has truck parking (obvious, right?) and I walk in a minute or two behind a woman who has three kids with her, all between 1 and 4, from the looks of things. I hate to be judgmental, but these kids were fairly filthy, as was mom. I think you know what I mean. I tried to think, well, maybe they're traveling and the kids have been playing in the floorboard or the back window or the oil pan while mom drives and maybe she's a single mom trying to do her best and that they don't sell soap or wipes where she comes from. I know. I'm a jerk, but more on that later.

As mom is trying to pay for the Super Size Deluxe Big Monster Heart-Stopping Breakfast that she ordered, she plops the littlest one down on the counter so she can fish in her purse for her change. Then it hit. Where's the Sign?! They didn't have one at this particulate McD's, and I thought, oh how sad to not have a sign when you need one. But littlest one wasn't there very long and she went about her business of waiting for her Cholesterol in a Box meal, as I proceeded to order my own heart stopper.

Mom's order arrives and her and the kids are off to their seats. I'm standing there waiting when she's back in a flash. "I ORDERED THE SUPER SIZE DELUXE BIG MONSTER HEART-STOPPING BREAKFAST AND THERE'S NO SAUSAGE IN HERE! JUST PANCAKES, EGGS, A BISCUIT, HASH BROWNS, A SAUSAGE, BACON, EGG AND CHEESE McGRIDDLE, AND A SMALL BISCUITS AND GRAVY. BUT NO SAUSAGE! YOU GUYS FORGOT THE SAUSAGE! NOW THE REST OF MY MEAL IS GETTING COLD WHILE I WAIT FOR YOU TO GET ME THE SAUSAGE!"

At this point I thought, "John, you were right the first time. Trust your instincts." So the little old lady behind the counter says, "Oh dear. I am so so very sorry. I apologize severely. Please, let me get you a sausage and while I'm at it, I'll replace your whole breakfast since we let it get cold." And she toddles off behind her walker to gather up this poor, mistreated mothers meal once again, her support hose drooping around her ankles as hot grease splashes out of the fryer onto her bent, arthritic hands.

"Good!" mom says with a harumph, and glares around daring anyone to comment on her rudeness. She sees me watching her and she says to me, "I can't believe they forgot the sausage! It seems like nobody can fill a simple order anymore."

I put on my best face of compassion and say, "You're absolutely right. Tell you what. Let me finish my breakfast and you finish feeding your oh so darling children and then we'll take Granny here out back and beat her to death with a fry basket. That'll teach her to mess up somebodies order. People like that just shouldn't be allowed to live."

She looks at me for a moment, not sure what to think of this maniac who's proposing senioricide, and then gives me a look that says "not funny".

"No, seriously. Let me help." I say. "It's not fair if you're the only one that gets to meet out the justice in this world."

By now, her Artery Sucking Order has been refilled and she storms off to her oh so wonderful children. Granny comes back, shuffling her walker, and sets my breakfast down on the counter. "Sorry for the delay, young man," she says.

"No problem," I said. "Oh, and by the way, Ethel, (at least that's what her name tag said). You're doing a wonderful job here and I hope you have a marvelous day. rest assured, I will be back, next time I'm through here, just so I can come in here a see your pretty face again and enjoy your wonderful service."

I get so tired of having to clean up after stupid people. It's so easy to be nice in the first place. You get more results anyway, nobody spits in your food, and it keeps you're blood pressure down. What more can you ask? Do people really think they are going to get better and faster service by yelling and being stupid? Apparently so.

Let me tell you how it really works.

I went to the doctor the other day, nothing serious, she just moved her practice so we all had to go in and get check-ups. Whenever I speak with someone behind the counter I will try to call them by name, even if this is the first time I've ever met them. I'll read that name tag and say, "Good Morning, Nancy. How's you're day going so far?" People are always looking at me as if they are trying to remember where they've met me before.

So I'm at the doctor's, joking around with Linda, the receptionist, and I tell her that her hair looks nice because she just got it cut. Now I could really care less how Linda's hair looks, but she just got it cut, and a lot of women are worried about whether or not the new cut looks good. So I tell them it looks good. Period. Linda beams at me. Seems her husband hasn't even commented on it yet. So I've made her day.

I sit with the prerequisite forms to fill out, finish and bring them back up. Linda says, "Have you filled out our customer survey yet?"

"No, I haven't", I said.

"Do you mind filling one out while you're waiting? We want to see how we're doing," she says. "And don't forget to add any suggestions at the bottom if you have any."

Well, you know me. Never give me a blank page and let me write what I want. I answered all the questions by circling the numbers and I got to the suggestion line. Heh Heh. They wanted to know what they could do to improve their service. So this is what I wrote:

"I think that you should provide doughnuts for those of us in the waiting room. Or if not doughnuts, then how about blueberry muffins. As a matter of fact, let's just go with the blueberry muffins. They're probably healthier for us anyway, and I like blueberry, although sometimes it doesn't like me. And coffee. Could we have some coffee out here. Real coffee, not that flavored stuff but maybe some of that Ethiopian Medium Fresh Ground from the Peace Coffee Company. And maybe you could pass out those stainless steel travel mugs with your name printed on them so your favorite patients, like me, can remember who their doctor is and tell other people about what a great doctor you are and what a great service you provide as we travel this wide country of ours. Oh, and doesn't Linda's hair look nice today?"

So I hand the sheet back to Linda, the suggestion side facing down so she can't see it, and I sit back down just as the nurse calls me back to get weighed and tagged before the doc comes in to see me and fuss at me for gaining 8 pounds. I have a nice visit with Dr C, despite getting chewed out for breaking my personal record for gravitational strain and for still, um, ...smoking, and I head back out to see Linda and make my copay.

After she schedules my next appointment, I hand her my card so she can take $20 from my ever dwindling bank account, and she hands me a large pink bag that has some unpronounceable drug name on the side of it. The bag is stuffed with goodies that they got from all the pharmaceutical reps that show up peddling their drugs. Inside is a red plastic travel mug, a "manly" size pen with a cushioned grip, a pen with a highlighter on the other end of it, a flashlight that looks like a pen, a pen that looks like a flashlight, six different sizes of post-it notes tablets, three different sizes of notepads, a mouse pad, two magnets, and a key fob that says "Real Men Use Cialis."

"Come back soon, John," Linda says. "And you don't have to wait until your appointment either if you want." Maybe I will. I could use one of those wall clocks. Or an office chair. A new office chair would be cool.

What's up with that?

2008-10-03T16:16:00.005-04:00

Gotta pee! I mean, seriously! I have got to go like nobody's business! I'm not comfortable with the amount of room on the shoulder so I head to the next exit, there's a Petro there. Jump in the fuel island, pull through and run inside. AAAAHHHH. Much better

Hey. While I'm here I might as well get something to drink. Another 1 liter Diet Pepsi should do fine. I take it to the counter to pay and there at the counter, in a box there on the counter, all by themselves there on the counter, is a box of Snickers Bars. MMM, Snickers would be good right now. What's different? Did Snickers change the wrapper? Hey! It's a new Snickers bar. The Mars company in all their wisdom, has decided that the sugar rush from scarfing down a Snickers bar was not enough. Now they are producing Snickers Charged. Yep, you guessed it. Caffeine added.

Who thought that adding a stimulant to a candy bar, that already has enough power to bring a diabetic back from a near-coma, was a good idea? I mean, when I'm feeling a little down, I reach for a Snickers. Always have, always will. But now I'm a little frightened. Maybe that Snickers Charged might just send me a little further over the edge than I was planning on going. What if the Mars company keeps me from passing the random drug test that I win WAY too often? What if that sweet little candy suddenly turns me into a raving Type A Personality? I doubt I could handle it.

But I thought, It seems like there is caffeine being added to everything nowadays. So I thought I would do some research. Some of these are crazy, and some are just stupid. Actually, adding caffeine to anything is probably stupid. But who am I to say?

We've all seen the plethora of drinks that have caffeine added to them; Monster, RedBull, Amp, and Nos. But then there are the killer drinks. There's on called Ammo. It comes preloaded with 171 mgs of caffeine per ounce. Granted, it only comes in a one ounce container but still. Mountain Dew only has 4.58 mgs per ounce and why the hell won't this thing quit underlining? It's driving me nuts.

There we go.

Anyway, so I'm thinking why are we putting caffeine in everything? Is it to stay awake or are these people trying to get us addicted to their product? Seems I remember some other company trying that a long time ago. And it worked fairly well, apparently.

So I'm looking around and I see, no lie, potato chips with caffeine added. Also I found gum, sunflower seeds, candy, jelly beans and ice cream. It's not like we're not wired enough already. Right?

But, not only that, Molson is also adding caffeine to one of their beers. As is Anhueser Busch, and there's one called Moonshot that's made in Massachusets. So how does that work? You get drunk and then drive home really fast? Then stay up all night worrying about whether the cops saw you or not?

What are we coming to?

That's my girl

2008-09-22T22:37:00.004-04:00

Do you have a friend that sends you those obnoxious emails where you have to fill out a bunch of information about yourself? What you like, what you would do, where you would go, and all that? I hate those things. And my daughter sends them to me. I never send them on but I do read what she sends me. She sent me this one and I laughed pretty hard. I don't think I wet myself, but could be, I haven't checked. As for her sense of humor, I see the apple has not fallen far from the tree. Enjoy.

Have you ever licked the back of a CD to try to get it to work?
No. But I have rubbed it against my chest ( with a shirt on, you pervs ). Doing that I discovered that most CD's are male.

What' s the largest age difference between yourself and someone you’ve dated ?
Me and Dr. McCoy are gonna beam down for " exploratory research" . .... Just kidding! I've never dated .

Ever been in a car wreck ?
Oh my god! I killed Kenny !

Were you popular in high school?
Oh yeah. All those wall bricks had crushes on me.

Have you ever been on a blind date?
I have glasses, but I'm not that blind ....

Are looks important?
Judging by the font, I'd say the person who created this survey doesn't think so.

Do you have any friends that you've known for 10 years or more? ?
Let' s just say that the phrase " friends & family" applies to the same people.

By what age would you like to be married?
Preferably . . . . after I die. That way, I won' t have to stress about loosing weight for the wedding.

Does the number of people a person's slept with affect your view of them?
Only if they aren't safety and hygiene conscious.

Have you ever made a mistake?
" mees- tahk- ey"? what the heck does that mean? Is it a craft ?

Are you a good tipper?
I guess so. I tip over pretty far when I'm tired .

What' s the most you have spent for a haircut?
Oh, about 8 pound s of my dignity.

Have you ever had a crush on a teacher?
Fictional teachers are hotter.

Have you ever peed in public?
Does an abandoned hiking trail count as " public"?

What song do you want played at your funeral?
" Come What May" from the moulin rouge sound track . Some people will love it, some will get pissed off, and others will just get it stuck in their head.

Would you tell your parents if you were gay?
I would on April Fools Day.

What would your last meal be before getting executed?
Anything and every thing that I could think of. I'd just have a smorgasbord and share with all the other . . . . . wait a minute... why am I getting executed?!

Beatles or Stones?
Bugs are gross , but some rocks are pretty.

If you had to pick one person on earth to die, who?
Just one? .... awwww ...

Beer, wine or hard liquor?:
Wine COOLER. Or Daiquiris.

Do you have any phobias?
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Interpret that how you please.

Do you walk around the house naked ?
Which house ? MY house ? No way, that' s just asking for dog hair in weird places.

If you were an animal what would you be?
An animal. Duh.

Hair color you like on someone you' re dating?
How about . . . .NOT pink.

Would you rather be blind or deaf?
How about I keep both those senses and give up my sense of smell .

Do you have any special talents?
I can touch my feet to my head. . . . ..as far as you know.

What do you do as soon as you walk in the house ?
Drop every thing I carry on the nearest horizontal surface and sit down.

Do you like horror or comedy?
I like them both, as a set.

Are you missing anyone?
( Looks around) No, I don' t think so. They' re all here.

If you weren't straight, what person of the same sex would you do?
Wow. . . . that thought never occurred to me until now. And I'll try not to ever think of it again .

Where do you want to live when you are old?
Not here.

Who is the person you can count on the most?
The Count from Sesame street. Seriously, he just goes on forever.

If you could date any celebrity past or present, who would it be?
Hitler, so I can order the most expensive meal and then leave before he gets there . Also, I would poison the wine.

What did you dream last night ?
Something about . .... a dream .

What is your favorite sport to watch ?
I like to watch good sports who don' t get pissed when you play pranks on them.

Are you named after anyone?
I'm sure there were lots of people who were named before me.

Non alcoholic drink ?
Yes, please.

Have you ever been in love?
I don' t think so. But if I ever find it, I'll be sure to write down the address.

Do you sing in the shower?
And in the car, and in my room, and in the hall, and while I'm working, and to bug my brothers.
Have you ever been arrested?
I've slept well before, but not lately.

What is your favorite holiday?
My birthday. .... Shut up! It is so a national holiday!

Would you ever get plastic surgery?
No. What' s the point in giving plastic surgery? It's inanimate, just throw it away!

Have you ever caught a fish?
Yeah, but I threw it back. I didn' t want to eat it, I just wante d to make it late for something.

Conversation with an 8 year old

2008-09-20T09:22:00.005-04:00

"I'm really in bad shape, Dad."

"You're really in bad shape? Why?"

"Cause I can't find my jersey."

"You're jersey? What jersey?"

"My soccer jersey."

"Where'd you put it?"

"I swear I put it right up here."

"On the kitchen counter?"

"Yeah"

"And it's not there?"

"No! And now I'm in bad shape."

"Did you look upstairs?"

"No! I put it right here and now it's gone."

"You put your soccer jersey on the kitchen counter and now it's gone?"

"Yeah, Dad!"

"Hmmm."

"I'm gonna look upstairs in my...uh..."

"In your closet?"

"No, Dad...yeah, in my closet."

Feet pounding up the stairs.

"Found it! No, wait, that's not it. That's my basketball jersey. Oh, here it is."

"Imagine that. A jersey in the closet. On a hanger no less. What'll they think of next."

"I don't know. Maybe one of those things that makes peanut butter sandwiches for you."

"Yeah, that would be cool. But what if you're allergic to Peanut butter?"

"Then you could load it with ham or turkey or even tuna."

"Tuna?! Yuck!"

"Yeah. I hate tuna too. Isn't that cat hilarious?"

"Yes, Preston. The cat's hilarious."

"What's allergic mean, Dad?"

"It means you can't eat something without getting sick."

"Like I'm allergic to Mom's fish?"

"No, you just don't like fish"

"But whenever I eat it I feel like throwing up. That means I'm allergic to it."

"No, that means you don't like it"

"But you said..."

"Preston, go see if your mom's awake yet."

"Ok, Dad. MOM!! Are you awake?"

Isn't life grand.

Here I sit, brokenhearted...

2008-09-09T21:58:00.004-04:00

No, it's not what you think. I'm not in the potty. Actually, I'm sitting on the shoulder of the road. I-65 southbound at the 181 yardstick, which is about 7 miles north of Lafayette, Indiana. And no, I'm not taking a break. I'm waiting on the road repair guy. I called our office, they looked up a couple numbers, I called one, they sent me to another shop, that guy said it'll be an hour or so before my man can get there. Fine. Can't go nowhere anyway.

I bet you can cut the tension with a knife. "What happened, John?" I hear you all asking.

Not much really. Just blew a tire on my trailer. Rearmost axle, passenger side, inner dual. Get the picture. Luckily, I've got a spare hanging underneath, just need the man to come and swap the tires out for me on the rim. No big deal for me, really. But it was a little scary for the truck that was following me when it blew. If you're not familiar with the inner workings of trucks here's something new for you.

When we lose pressure in a tire, the term used is "blow" or "blew". We very seldom get "flats". Only once have I walked around and checked the tires and found one that was flat. When they go flat, it's usually at 60 mph and the result is quite, how shall we say, explosive. When this one went there was a loud boom, lots of dust and flying tread. The truck behind me was a little close and a quick glance in my mirror saw him nosing down and dodging debris. Here comes the man. That was quick.

It's now 10pm and I'm sitting in the dock at the post office in Columbus. I was due here at 830 and I just backed in about 5 minutes ago. They've got 23 skids of Sports Illustrated coming off here so I may be an hour or so. It doesn't take long once they get started. It just seems that it takes a while to get started. From here I'm just looking for a place to park and eat a warm meal. Well, look at that, there's the first bang on the trailer. That was quick. I'll get back with you.

OK. It was an alright day even considering the blowout and subsequent running late. But now I'm pissed. My favorite truck stop is closing. There's a Pilot and a Flying J at the 131 on 71 northbound and then another Pilot at the 140. But I usually run up to the 151 where there's a Duke Travel plaza. The restaurant has good food and the lot is large and always has open spots, even late at night. Pilot's only have fast food places any more, Subway at 131 and Arby's at 140, and sometimes you just want a good hot meal after a long day. Arby's is way over priced for the quality and Subway just doesn't float my boat anymore. So I pull into the Duke longing for a good hot grilled chicken sandwich and some fries. Straight into the lot, straight into a spot with empties on either side, no idlers around me and I'm wore out. I stroll over to the restaurant and my heart drops into my stomach. All the lights are out. What? There's a sign on the door. "We're sorry. Our restaurant is no longer open for third shift. The restaurant hours are now 6am to 10pm. We're sorry for the inconvenience." AW MAN!! Sorry?! What now? Behind me is a convenience area. Crap food in the soda fridges, you know. I go look. Maybe I'll get a couple burritos and throw them in the microwave. I just need something hot. Nope, no burritos. Let's see what's over here. Not much. A couple pepper loaf sandwiches, a couple ham and cheesers, and one roast beef with cheese that looks like it's been there since Clinton was in office. Oh my, what a feast.

So I'm back in the truck, snacking on some Fritos and one ham sandwich is gone. Another day over and done with. Started at 7 this morning. Oh look, it's tomorrow morning already. 1245 am.

Guess what. No alarm will be placed in service tonight, or this morning rather. I'll get up when I wake up. Period. End of discussion. Have a nice day.

Well, I couldn't end this on a down note. So here's an up note. I'm going on the radio this afternoon on the show "A way with words". They want me to call them and pose a question to the hosts. Cool, huh? Tell you later about that. Have fun and get some sleep. I'm outta here.

Going for breakfast

2008-09-01T10:46:00.002-04:00

I was sent to the store this morning to get eggs and biscuits for breakfast. Preston wants to go with me.

Sure thing.

We stop and get coffee for me a soda for him and for his mom. On the way to the store I hear, "You're the best dad in the world."

"Naw, I'm probably not the best, but I may be up there."

"Yeah, Dad. You're the best...Except for God. He's the best."

"You think?"

"Yeah, cause He could finish a video game in like...SNAP!"

I wonder.

A new hair style

2008-08-28T14:14:00.006-04:00

Hana was having some fun with her camera. She didn't tell me it was on at first. That's why there's a lull at the beginning. Enjoy.

Eyes Wide Open

2008-08-27T17:05:00.004-04:00

As you all must know by now, and if you don't you need to work on your memory retention skills, I got a new Ipod a while back and I have been loading it up with podcasts. I love the fact that I can listen to these programs anytime I want and learn something new everyday.

One of my favorite podcasts, or favourite for those of you in England, is WNYC's Radio Lab. It's about an hour long or so and they talk about very interesting things in the realm of science and human interaction and why we do what we do. I listened to several of them this Monday as I drove, had them all lined up, and one in particular threw me for a loop. Not the program so much as it was what I heard an interviewee say.

The discussion was about Morality, where does our sense of right and wrong come from? And the hosts referred back to the final episode of M.A.S.H.. SPOILER ALERT; In case you haven't seen the final episode that was broadcast about 24 years ago, I'll set the scene.
Hawkeye, played by Alan Alda, is telling some of his experiences to the visiting psychiatrist, Major Sidney Freedman, and he recalls an incident where he is hiding on a bus with a number of other people, all from one village. The enemy is approaching outside, and if they hear the people in the bus they will come in and kill them all. One woman has a baby that won't stop crying. Hawkeye keeps telling her to make the baby be quiet, and her final solution to the crying baby is to smother her own child. Hawkeye finally 'remembers' what she did in a fit of anguish.

So on the podcast this question is posed to a number of people "on the street"; in this circumstance, could you or would you smother your own child, in order to save the whole village of people trapped in this bus?

Now before I go on, a little about me and my family. My wife is adamantly Anti-Abortion. She cannot accept any reason that would allow an abortion to be justified, including saving her own life. Me, not quite so much. It's probably due to the fact that I'm not a woman and therefore have no "motherly" instincts regarding the baby, but I think if her life were in danger, I may consider aborting the child to save her life. I say "may" because I know she would fight me on this. So this is where our family stands on abortion. But this is not a debate or a discussion about abortion. I say those things so you know where we come from. No we go on...

Again, the question was posed to a number of people and various responses were heard. Yes, no, I don't know...and most folks elaborated a little bit on why they felt the way they did. And then I heard one woman say this, "Yes, I could do that. That's my baby and I have the right to terminate that life if I want to."

WHAT???

I have heard that statement made regarding the issue of abortion and I make no further comment about that here at this time. But I have never heard this spoken regarding a child who has been born and is out among the living and breathing. So I rewind. Did I really hear her say what I think I heard her say?

Yes, I did.

Now, I'm wondering something? Have you ever heard this sentiment expressed before regarding children that have already been born? I know that there are all kinds of people in this world with many differing opinions, and that China has developed different feelings about baby girls than they do baby boys, mostly because of China's one child policy. But we as average, everyday, normal American's, do we really feel that because a child is our child, that we have the "right" to terminate that life? I know that it would not be an easy thing to do, to smother your own child under those circumstances, but I think it was her tone and her word usage that threw me. She seemed quite absolute in her statement. "Yes! It's my baby and I have the right to terminate that life if I choose."

Maybe she was caught off guard and wished later that she had used different words. Maybe she misunderstood the question. Maybe she really feels that way. I don't know. Again, this is not a discussion about abortion, because I think we can all agree that this child would not be "aborted", but would be "killed". But I cannot wrap my mind around the idea that because a child is mine, I have the right to terminate it's life. And believe me, there certainly were some days that I longed for that right, that's for sure.

Anyway, I had a hard time with that. Maybe some of you will not have as hard a time with that, maybe some of you will have a harder time than I did. Regardless, it was an interesting podcast.

Oh...what would I do you ask? I don't know, but I doubt very seriously I could smother my own child to save a village. I'm glad I don't have to answer that question for real. And I'm sure my children are glad as well.

I promise not to be so serious next post. Maybe.

Day 16,725

2008-08-27T16:37:00.003-04:00

Isaac has his pump "installed"(?) and is loving it. I think this is going to work.

Ben tells me that one, maybe two, more quarters and he's going to OSU at Columbus. So he'll be moving out. I'll miss him, I'm sure.

Sheila got three, yeah, I said three, tattoos today. Seems the radiation people have to put three little dots on her in order to line up their machine correctly, and those dots are permanent. They're about the size of a pencil point.

No police at the house last night, that was a good thing.

My boss had me fix a problem at work I screwed up. Seems I billed a broker with two invoices that had the same invoice number on them although they were for two different backhauls. Add to that the confusion that both dollar amounts were the same and both included 2.5 hours of detention pay. The broker saw the same invoice number again and figured they'd already paid it. I got it fixed. Hopefully.

I need a shower.

Did I say no police at the house last night? Yeah, I see that. I did.

My neighbor put two signs in his front yard, in Burma Shave fashion, one after the other.
Sign #1: "Whoever stole my ladder"
Sign #2: "I hope you fall off!"
I asked him that afternoon if he needed to borrow a ladder, which was very nice on my part since I don't own a ladder. But the guy across the street does and I figured I could ste...borrow his.
He said, "No, I just can't find it. I don't need one right now. Thanks anyway."
I come home the next day from shooting cows at the Roller Skating Rink and the signs are gone. His wife is in the yard.
"Hi Marcy. Did someone bring your ladder back?"
She laughs. "No, Mike's an idiot. Seems he left it behind the other neighbors house in their back yard while he was trimming their bushes for them. He got distracted and forgot about it." The funny thing is he's been looking for it for two weeks and his neighbor has just been moving it around so he can mow around it. I love this town.

That's it for now. I need to go help Ben pack. Why wait til the last minute?

Been Too Long

2008-08-23T09:12:00.003-04:00

Did I say I missed all you folks? It seems like it's been way too long since I've posted anything. It's not like there's really that much going on.

All is going well. Sheila starts radiation treatments next week and the prognosis is very good. There really shouldn't be any problems.

Isaac got his insulin pump in the mail this week and we are waiting for him to get out of the shower so I can get in and then we're going in to Mansfield for a training session on how to use it. I really think this is going to make a big difference in his diabetes management. The doc seems to think so as well.

Sheila's van was finally fixed so now she can't borrow her mom's new Impala anymore and ride around in a nice air-conditioned car. It's back to her van in which the air-conditioning is on strike. She said it's ok. She just drives faster and gets the wind blowing through.

Hana and Ben are getting ready to get back into the groove of college life and Preston is chomping at the bit to get into second grade. Isaac, well, let's just say his excitement regarding school is still in the development stage. Our new foster son just left a little bit ago for a home visit and he'll be back on Tuesday.

Sorry bout that. It's now evening...about 11 hours after I started this post. Isaac learned all about his pump. I couldn't keep up but the nurse assistant said kids learn it a whole lot easier than adults do. It's like a new video game to them. He was pushing buttons faster than she could follow. He certainly lives by his dad's process of learning new technologies. "Push buttons until something happens."

Right now he's just carrying it around, entering the numbers that he normally would so he can get used to how it works. Monday they'll hook it up and he'll run saline through it for a day or so and then start running insulin through it. It's amazing the technology that they've come out with. His glucometer, the new one that came with the pump, automatically "beams" the number for his blood sugar to the pump so the pump knows what to do with the sugar reading. There is a sensor attachment that is a separate order that gives a continuous blood sugar reading by automatically testing his blood sugar every five minutes. But the docs don't want to use it just yet, plus it costs another $1000, plus insurances are just now starting to cover it and ours hasn't gotten on the train yet. Maybe soon.

After that was over, we stopped for lunch and came home for a nap. Felt like Sunday. I just woke up. Another day gone.

So that's it. Life in the fast lane.

I asked my wife, "Why don't we ever do anything exciting like other people?"

She said, "We can't fit it on the schedule."

There you go.

The Ta Ta Update

2008-08-12T15:40:00.002-04:00

Ok. I know you have all been waiting with baited breath for the update so here it is.

Sheila, our daughter Hana, Sheila's best friend Melinda, and I all went together to the James Cancer Center in Columbus. No problems getting there, even though Melinda asked if I wanted to borrow her GPS. I said, "I don't need no stinkin' GPS", while wearing my sombrero and bandoleers.

Very nice facitlity and the nurses were fabulous. Very compassionate and understanding. Amy was by far the funniest and friendliest. The doctor, not so much. As a matter of fact, we all found him a bit rude. I personally think he was just covering his butt. Or maybe he was having a bad day. Maybe his dog peed on his persian rug this morning, or the heated cup holder in his Beemer wouldn't work. I don't know. But I have a hard time trusting a doctor that won't look you in the eye.

But the news was good. He said the margins were good on the mass that was removed and he did not recomend a mastectomy, although I think Sheila had geared herself up to be ready for that eventuality. He said that we shoudl proceed with radiation treatments and that if coming off the estrogen was going to be a problem then she should not take the Anti-estrogen therapy. They are nor dependent on one another.

So there we are. Sounds good. After he left the room, his nurse Amy stayed behind and was very understanding with Sheila's concern. I have always thought, and this just reinforces my beliefs, that the nurses are the real healers in the medical world.

So here's to you all and stay safe and get that Mammygrammy done, unless off course your a man. Then go get that other thing done. You know. The one we all fear? But men, do you know why we fear that exam so much? We're afraid we might enjoy it too much. Then what would that say about us? Bite the bullet, get in the car, take the bullet in with you, and when you here that glove snap on, bite the bullet again. You'll feel better later. But at least you'll feel better.

Earlier

2008-08-02T21:48:00.003-04:00

I noticed on an earlier post of mine that Dant made a comment about a song that I was listening to and that he felt it wasn't a "One Hit Wonder". I responded with the fact that I am not very familiar with individuals names as much as I am the names of bands themselves. Then I got to looking and it seems that we were both confused. Dant thought I was talking about the song "All She Wants to do is Dance" by Don Henley, as he pointed out a core founding member of The Eagles. When in reality I was talking about the song "All she wants to do is Dance" written by Melvin Hammerschlein and sung by his group Melvin and the Hammers. Yes, I know. It's hard to believe that there is such a group, and it's true that they are very obscure. So obscure in fact that one needs an extremely strong search engine to find anything about them on the internet. Google won't do it. I recently had to hack into the Cray12 that is used by the NSA in order to find the last album art work that they did for the album "koalas and crayfish, love em and eat em".

Their music is mostly New Age Alternative Polka music and their origins of Latvia really show through in their use of tubas and glockenspiels. Amazing style, though. Give them a try, if you can find them.

I went to the pool today. It was a nice day, not too hot, and I figured since I hadn't gone all summer today was as good a day as any. I did notice that I needed to tan a little more when a lifegaurd told me that white t-shirts were not allowed to be worn in the pool.

"I'm not wearing a shirt", I said.

"Really?"

"Really"

"Oh. Okay. Sorry."

Maybe I should buy that tan in a bottle stuff. And some guy named Quiquay or something kept following me around the pool.

Worked on my check book today and got that all straightened out. Then I had to borrow two Vicodin from my wife after that was over. Whew! That wasn't pretty. We can't keep a checkbook to save our lives. Maybe one day before we die we'll have it all straightened out. In the meantime, I'll just continue to live life on the edge.

Back Again.

2008-08-01T18:13:00.003-04:00

We're back. Again, things could have been better. Sheila has now been referred to the James Cancer Center at OSU to talk with them about her options. The pathologists report indicated "multiple focal points" meaning there are more places in her tissue that have not reached the level of the mass that they removed but could be on their way to DCIS. Her tissue is abnormal.If she does nothing then there is a 30% chance that it will progress to invasive cancer. Radiation and hormone therapy will reduce that but the hormone therapy is "Anti-estrogen" which scares her. She's afraid that would send her into menopause and emotionally put her where she was before she had her hysterectomy. A mastectomy would reduce the risk greatly, but reconstruction could be difficult. So that's where we stand. She has an appointment right now for August 12 to go to James Cancer Center and if they have an opening earlier they'll let her know.

Ever get the feeling that you're spending way too much time in the doctor's office? It's been that way lately. It's getting old. My mind is so focused on these things that I can't even come up with a good lie to blog about. How sad is that?!

Maybe next week.

Cya.

WOOHOO!!

2008-07-28T22:37:00.005-04:00

I had a short run last week and was back home on Tuesday morning. My truck was due for it's 10,000 mile service job and so right after I got back to the shop the boss told me to run it over to the mechanics and he'd pick me up. Other than the lube, oil and filters, all it needed was a bracket replaced or repaired under the drivers seat so it would quit tilting to the right whenever I made a hard left turn, and the 2 month old radio was acting up. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't. Sometimes the buttons on the front would not work until it got warm and sometimes it would just flash on and off without touching it. Seemed possessed to me.

I picked the truck up Friday from the mechanic and my seat was fixed and lo and behold there was a brand new Sony CD player in my dash. And then I looked closer. No! It can't be! Don't tell me it's true! What's that hole there on the right corner. Why, it's an auxiliary jack. WOOHOO! I can plug my Ipod into the radio now and I don't have to wear earphones. That is way too cool! It sounds soooo good! I was listening to my "One Hit Wonders" today. One night in Bangkok, The Night Chicago Died, All She Wants To Do Is Dance, One Tin Soldier, Werewolves of London, Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye. Sweet City Woman. Does that take you back?

Who says life has no soundtrack?! Mine does!

This is getting old

2008-07-26T09:53:00.005-04:00

I wonder sometimes if my sons doctor is a little bit of a hypochondriac himself. My son sees him. My sister-in-law takes her son to him. We have a few friends that take their kids to him and it seems that he finds something wrong every time. I'd like to go back to our regular family doc but she moved her practice and it's a bear getting in to see her.

My son has diabetes. Prick yourself 6 to 10 times a day, five shots a day diabetes. It's pretty rough for an 11 year old and he's having a hard time getting a handle on it. We're working on it and learning things about it. But he went to see Doc E yesterday and he puts him on a "Stop Light Diet For Children". He says if he doesn't get control of it he won't live past 20 and his kidneys are already struggling and the blood work looks like they are beginning to shut down. the funny thing is that when his sugar drops he acts like he's stoned. he got some Sweet Italian Sausages out to eat last night and put them in the microwave for about 1 minute. these are the kind that are not pre-cooked. So they're sitting on his plate all bloody and warm and about half pink and half white and looking really nasty. Not realizing his sugar was down I fussed at him and said,

"You can't eat those. For one thing, you're not allowed to eat sausages anymore and for another thing, they're not cooked."

"OK." and he goes into the dining room and tries to log in on the computer. He can't figure out his password.

"What are you doing?"

"Huh?"

"You need to put the sausages away."

"Ok". He continues to try to log in

"What are you doing?"

"Putting the sausages away."

"No you're not. You're on the computer."

That's when it hits me. His sugar is dropping. So I drag him back into the kitchen and check his sugar. It's down to 50. Not good. Give him 3 glucose tablets and fix him a peanut butter sandwich. Check it again. 54. Better but not good enough. Wait a few minutes. Check it again. 227. What! Hint: Don't try to prick a finger without wiping off the peanut butter first. Check it again, on a clean finger this time. 74. Coming up. Fifteen minutes later he's up to 97 which is about where he should be. He goes back now and tries to log into the computer under his account. I'm watching him making sure he's okay. He can't get logged in because he keeps messing up his password so I'm worried again.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I just keep messing up my password."

And then I notice. His password is about 30 characters long. I ask him what it is and he tells me. (I have that power, you see.) It's a complete sentence! Subject, verb, and object type sentence! I'd have a hard time logging in stone cold sober!

I laugh and tell him he might want to pick an easier password. I mean, who's he trying to keep out?

So we are learning. We can't eat like we've been eating but if it's what you know then it takes some education to learn what you can eat. I've been perusing the American Diabetes Association website and there is a lot of good information there but again, one has to learn how to think in those terms.

He goes to Doc D, his endocrinologist, on Tuesday and Sheila is going to talk to her about this diet and what the bloodwork says. So we'll know more then. Tuesday is going to be a busy day.

Meanwhile, go check out the pictures that Kimmyk takes. Just absolutely beautiful. I really like her style.

Today is the AMA's Vintage Motorcycle weekend at the Mid-Ohio Racecourse. It would be cool to go but the tickets are $20 a piece and for 6 people that adds up in a hurry. Maybe we'll go to the mall. I think we all just need to get out of this house. It's too nice out there.

An old, old picture. Back when I thought a lot of my hair. You like that watch band? HA!

Going well.

2008-07-22T16:24:00.004-04:00

Ok. All is going well. she had the lumperotomy or whatever and now she's got a black eye on her...not on her eye anyway. She hurt a few days and next Tuesday we hear back form the doc who will give us the results from the pathologist. If the rest of the mass is clear then she starts radiation treatment. If they find something else in the mass outside of the spot that they were already looking at then they will do a mastectomy. It's not just lopping one off anymore. They'll do reconstructive surgery to build the one they cut off back up to size and reduce the other one to match. So she gets a free boob job in the process.

Can you see we're really working here to keep a good attitude?

She wonders if they can make them perky again.

Could be a lot worse

2008-07-14T20:45:00.002-04:00

I guess you would call it good news although it could have been even better.

The results are back and Sheila does have cancer. The good news is that it is apparently the lowest form of breast cancer that one can have. It's called DCIS or Ductal Carcinoma In Situ. The website at Breastcancer.org says "In the staging system that doctors use to classify cancer, DCIS is known as Stage 0. And it is sometimes called "pre-cancer." You may also hear it referred to as Tis, which means that the cancer is non-invasive. Tis stands for "tumor in situ" or "in the same place.""

So she has to have a "lumpectomy" and get about 5 or 6 treatments of radiation and the doc says after that there will only be a 4% chance that it could return. The doc also said that they had a cancellation for this Wednesday and if there is going to be a radiologist in they will do it then. Otherwise it'll happen on the 30th.

I would have preferred that it had been a spot on the film or a penny she swallowed as a kid or even a dinosaurs tooth, but I think we can deal with this. I really can't believe her attitude though. She seems so at peace about the whole thing. As if it's no big deal. Me, I'm not doing quite so well with it. But better than I was when I first heard I guess. Prayers are very much appreciated.