Weekend

Saturday was a busy one for me. My wife decided to have Pampered Chef party Sat night, so I got to help clean and straighten up the house. Oh yeah, my wife took off for the morning to do some Quilting stuff. Sheesh, must be nice. She did work hard once she got home, but I was busting butt in the morning. Then I got to relax and mow the lawn. Thank God for John Deere. We have about an acre of grass and it takes an hour on the tractor, I think it would take me about 4 with a push mower. Exercise is good and all but 4 hours mowing is too much for me.

Sunday was typical, Church in the morning. We went out to lunch with church friends, and then to Wal-Mart for gardening stuff. We bought vegetable plants and seeds. Then at home I had to dig up the section of lawn we decided to make into the garden. That was hard work, but once it was done it looked good. I am hoping that the deer don't eat all of our plants, we shall see.

Bifocals, er "progressive lenses"

Today I enter old age. well, not really, but in a few minutes I will be going to pick up my new glasses, which are fitted with Progressive lenses. For those unfamiliar with the term progressive lenses is the new description of bifocals. I started noticing about Christmas time that I was having trouble seeing close up. Reading was becomeing an issue. I went through denial for a while, but not too long, I really am not that vain. I have been wearing glasses since Junior High, so its not the glasses thats the issue.

I remember my father cursing his bifocals all the time. Dad was once of those guys who could fix most things. He did almost all of the car work. This involved getting under the car on his back. Well when you are on your back your close up parts of the glasses are in the worng place, upside down if you will. I suggested to him one day after a long cursing diatribe "Why not get them to put in your lenses upside down next time you get glasses". He laughed and said that he wouldn't be able to see the rest of the time. At which point I said "No, not on your new glasses, on the OLD ONES" The light bulb went on and he did that, no more cursing, well at least about the glasses anyway.

I am actually looking forward to getting the glasses. I will be able to get back to modeling. I have a sweet kit of a racing Porcshe that I am working on, but it was too difficult to paint the little parts, once I have my glasses all should be good. Have a good weekend!

Update: Picked them up, my god these things are weird. Its gonna take a while to get used to these puppues.

Here go have some fun Yankee or Dixie

Sick Children

I awoke at about 2 AM with a hard mass under my right arm. A tumor, you ask, nope. The mass under my arm was a lot harder to remove, it was the head of a 5 year old girl, or munchkin as we call her. She has been fighting a cold the last few days. It started on Tuesday morning as I drove her into school, she sneezed. A normal occurance, and there usually is snot involved. But Tuesday's snot had color, and was copious. Yellowish and dripping off of the chin. I handed her a left over Subway napkin and she cleaned up. Yesterday my wife took most of the day off work and took her to the doctors. Just a cold. Today I took off, she was tired and miserable, and so was I. when we are tired in the middle of the night we will let her finish off the night in our bed. Its bad, we shouldn't do it, but we are tired and damnit we just need sleep.

So I get the head digging into my side and my wife gets the feet. Another day begins. She was miserable all day. Thank God tomorrow is Friday and I will get the day at work, because that will be a day of rest.

Porcupine Tree

I did something I almost never do today. I bought a CD without hearing any of the music first. Generally I will hear something, like it, do some investigation to find out if the rest is like that, or something different and then make the investment into the album. Recently there has been a lot of buzz on the Rush message boards about the new Porcupine Tree CD because Alex Lifeson the guitar player for Rush makes an appearance. So I was out earlier and swung by and picked it up. I have been listening to it in my office and I am a very happy camper. I have found new music that I really enjoy. It is sort of like progressive rock, like Yes, Genesis and Pink Floyd, but not. Sure there is a 17 minute song on there, but the lyrics are very real and not spacey at all. For example. From the title track: Fear of a Blank Planet:

X-box is a God to me
A finger on the switch
My mother is a bitch
My father gave up ever trying to talk to me

Don't try to engage me
the vaguest of shrugs
the prescription drugs
You'll never find
The person inside

Ouch, thats real, you can feel the pain, and see the truth with so many of today's kids.

Later in the song:
How can I be sure I'm here?
The pills that I have been taking confuse me
I need to know that someone sees that
There's nothing left I simply am not here

Reminds me of the Wall a bit, good stuff.



Wikipedia supplies this about te music:
Porcupine Tree is often categorized as a "progressive rock" band. Many listeners familiar with the group label them as such. However, Steven Wilson has been noted in the past to express a certain dislike for this tendency.

Wilson: "Porcupine Tree music is very very simple. There's nothing complex about it at all. The complexity is in the production. The complexity is in the way the albums are constructed. All of the work goes into creating the texture and the sound, and making it sound right. There's nothing complicated about the music at all. And that's really why I have to take issue when people describe us as progressive rock. I don't think we are a progressive rock band. I think we're just a rock band. I think what leads people to give it that kind of progressive tag is the way the songs are produced."[7]

It's currently unknown whether he has changed, or remained in this posture regarding the fact.

Tuesday, tuesday, tuesday

This morning as I was leaving the house there was a flock of Wild Turkey standing in the middle of the road. Two males were in full display, something I have only seen pictures of, vying for mating rights to the 5 or 6 females. They were so intent on intimidating each other that they didn't notice my car until I honked the horn. Very impressive. I am glad that humans can do more than flash feathers to attract a mate, there is some thing to be said about intellect. while the physical show is impressive in the end we all kind of look like turkeys stripped of their feathers, not a pretty sight, and then its best that we really like what is underneath the feathers. Done pontificating.

Heros was wonderful last night, great way to come back after the hiatus. I am a big fan of that show.

I have spent my entire day in a meeting. Yikes. Not fun, not intellectually stimulating . Almost fell asleep once, which would be a problem, big time, my bosses are sitting 10 feet away on my left.

Driving down to Mom again this afternoon. The driving is not bad, but it does get tiring. I have the turnpike between Morgantown and Willow Grove memorized.

Well, there was a weekend

Spending 6 hours on the PA turnpike in 2 days, not fun

This past weekend flew by, but not really in a good way. So busy, so much to do, and little time to do it. Friday night we loaded the munchkin in the car and went to visit my mother in the hospital. My daughter has been asking pretty much daily when she could go visit "Granma Clauss" and of course while she was in the ICU we couldn't take her. Well on Wednesday they moved her to a PCU room, and so Jacklyn could go down. We didn't tell her until we where almost there because of the "are we there yet?" syndrome that sets in. Jacklyn was a little shy of my Mom, but they talked, and she drew her pictures. I think it was good for both of them. We drove the 1 1/2 home and put the little one to bed.

Saturday. My wife had "Quilt Guild" so Jacklyn and I did some stuff around the house. I put together her sand box and we got sand for it. Jacklyn helped with the bolts and washers and holding the wrench on the nut while Daddy tightened it. She is good at it, and very cute. Then she played in the sandbox while I took the snow plow off of the tractor and put the mowing blades back on. It was well after 3:00 my wife called and had me drop off the kid at her Mom's so I could go visit my Mom. I did, but I went back up to the house and got the motorcycle. Yeah the turnpike sicks, but on a Saturday afternoon its not so bad. More miles for the mileage contest, and I saw a Mac-Pac member West bound while I was East bound. Mom was asleep when I got there, and tired so I did not stay too long, then I rode home. Had leftovers for dinner at the in-laws and then watched the NASCAR race.

Sunday. Early church, Sunday school and the start of late service so Jacklyn could sing in the Cherub choir. My wife ran off to do errands during Sunday School and I hung out and socialized with church friends. Then Jacklyn stayed at my in-laws while my wife ran off again with her Dad and sister. I went home and did laundry and cleaned the house a bit. We did cook on the grill for dinner, and that was very nice to be able to do again.

Well thats about it for the weekend, nothing to exciting. We did decide to tell Mom about her brother's death on Tuesday. Not looking forward to it, but we need to do it.

The Rat Pack

Last night my in-laws took my wife and I to see a show at the Hershey Theater in Hershey. The show was called the Rat Pack and it was a tribute to the orginal Rat Pack seen in the picture above. Now I am a little younger than the average Frank, Sammy and Dean fans (Peter Lawford was not featured in this show)but I was raised to know and appreciate good music. Also a little more background. I played saxophone for many year. I was in the Jazz Band and even played a bit in college, so I can really get into big band stuff. The gentlement that played Frank, Sammy and Dean were uncanny. I used to see those three a lot on TV as a kid,because my parents would watch them whenever they got the chance. The mannerisms, the jokes, the voices, they really had it all. The guy who played Frank Sinatra even looked just like him, alothough maybe a bit younger than when he was playing Vegas full-time. All in all it was an excellent show and I am glad I got the opportunity to see it.

A nice post.

The last post was a way downer. This one is a little less so. New Years Day 2007. It wasn't a particularly nice day. It was rainy and misty, downright foggy at my house, but the Mac-Pac has a New Years lunch near Pottstown every year. This year "The world's Fastest Man" on two wheels came, Chris Carr. He is a really nice guy. He is a 7 time National Flatrack Champion. He used to race for the Harley factory team but now he owns and operates his own team. He ran Bonneville as a hired gun, and went 354+ miles an hour. I bought a tee-shirt and he signed it, and he allowed me to get a picture with him. I am the taller guy, I am only 6'1" so you can tell he is not the largest guy. I can not tell you what a great way to start the year it was.

Its been way too long since I posted. I have sort of been shamed into restarting. Life has been very, very crazy recently. My mother was in a serious car accident on March 15, and came very close to dying. She ran off the road in her retirement community and hit a tree square on. We have no idea why, she has no memory of the accident. She was really beat up. She broke her nose, actually it was a compound fracture, inside of the nostrils which wasn't found until the surgery. She also broke several ribs on her right side, one which punctured her lung which caused it to deflate. On top of the collapsed lung she aspirated a lot of the blood from the broken nose. She was on a ventilator since the accident, and only got taken off of it yesterday officially.

So on top of all of that trauma that needed to be dealt with another situation occurred. My uncle, my mother's twin committed suicide. We were not especially close with him, but my mother takes any deaths very hard, and I am sure she will be devastated when she learns about this. My sisters and I really had a hard time trying to decide if we should tell her or not. We decided that it would be best to wait until she is in a position that she can mourn the best way for her. It was hard, and I feel like I am lying to her when I see her but she hasn't asked me about her brother, so I feel that until she does I am OK.

Recently I was contacted by my cousin, Gene who is my Uncle's son. We actually meet for the second time in my mother's hospital room. He lives very close to the hospital and has stopped in to see mom twice. She loves seeing anyone and told me what a "nice boy" he was. I had to laugh at that because I think he is almost exactly my age. We had a nice discussion and I learned about his profession and family, and I shared my liefe with him as well. All the time skirting bringing up his father. I had to leave around 7 pm because Mom is in a hospital about an 1 1/2 away from where I live. Gene stayed. I had a difficult time sleeping that night because I just had an image of my Mother asking Gene how his father was. A normal question which would seem totally harmless. I was just dreading that he would be put into that situation and the pain it would cause both Mom and Gene.

Moving on. Last Saturday was a beautiful day and I took the opportunity to go for a motorcycle ride. I rode to Hobbytown USA's model contest and entered some of the models I had built. Many of the guys got a kick out of the fact I carried them in the saddlebag of the bike. From there I went up to Hermy's BMW in Port Clinton. I ran into a bunch of Mac-Pac guys including Dick and his brand new 800 St which is very pretty. It had 147 miles on it when he arrived at Hermy's. My 1993 K with 86K doesn't look as pretty anymore, but I love it just the same. Ate a free lunch and then went home and hung out with the family. Then I went back to the model contest. I took Best In Class for my 2003 Honda race bike in the motorcycle catagory. I also took a third place for my 1978 BMW 325i Race car.

I am going to try and update daily, or maybe weekly, but I will try to update more.