I was truly chagrined to see how long it had been since I wrote anything here on my blog, seeing as how the whole point of having a blog is to write stuff on it. And in the interest of full disclosure, I probably should back up here and revise my estimate to 75% chagrined, because that's about how sure I am of what the word actually means. But if it means what I think it does, that's what I am.
So why the long absence? Work, school, work work work, school school school, and so on. Like so many of us, it seems that every available minute in my day is spoken for. That's basically my explanation.
Oh, and I had a heart attack. Seriously.
Let me do you the favor of confirming something for you that you probably always suspected: heart attacks are no fun at all. If I had it to do over, I wouldn't, and I hope I never do it again. I can't think of one good thing to say about them. You know how you hear about those near-death experiences? I just had the near-death part...I didn't even get an experience out of the deal. I had no idea it was coming, and I didn't know until it was all over how truly close to checking out I came. So if there was one bright spot, that was probably it: I was so ignorant of what was going on that it wasn't really all that scary.
I could list a good number of reasons why and how I was blessed and fortunate to be where I was when this happened, and some of those reasons are pretty spine-tingling. But I'll spare you a lot of reading by just getting to my main point today. Get checked.
You've heard that a million times. You hear it and go "Yeah, yeah, I know". So did I. And you know what? I don't care...I'm telling you again, me to you, if you think something may be going on, get checked. Not everybody is as blessed and fortunate as I was. I will give you one example. I was supposed to be off work the night I had my heart attack. I complained about working my night off, but went in anyway. If I HAD been off, I would have been at least 25 miles away from any help. Since I worked, I was 2 blocks away from St. Johns Hospital and the Prairie Heart Institute when mine hit. My cardiologist (a term that still seems foreign to me- "my" cardiologist) informed my wife in no uncertain terms that if I hadn't gotten to the hospital when I did, that would have been all she wrote. Actually, "all she wrote" is my terminology. His was fancier, but it carried the same meaning. This is nothing to play around with.
So essentially, that's all I have to say this time around. From time to time, I do get to put something on here. I'd like to be around to do that, and I'd like for you to be around to read it when I do. It can ruin your whole night when Death steps up behind you and taps you on the shoulder.
Overly dramatic? No, it isn't. It's true.
Take my word for it. Get checked.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Back-To-School
I must be nuts. At the ripe middle age of 56, I'm doing yet another thing I never expected to do- I've signed up to go back to college. And not to finish a degree, either. Starting from scratch. And not a walk-in-the-park course either. It's probably going to be harder than crap. And being a college student, I realize that "harder than crap" is a comparative adjective phrase that doesn't hold up at all, but you get the idea.
As negative as all that must have sounded, though, I'm actually quite excited about it. There are so many unexpected connections in all this. My degree is going to be in Information Technology (with an emphasis in Security), a field that scarcely existed when I originally reached college age. It's an online degree, meaning that it's about computers, and it's being done by means of a computer. That definitely didn't exist when I was 18.
The progress technology had to make in order for this to be possible is nothing short of amazing. I'm not sure we would have been able to visualize being able to do this back then. We had been told what the future would be like, but those predictions usually involved flying cars and the like. I'm still waiting for that one, but overall, the progress has been astonishing. The computer I'm typing this on is a decent one, but nothing extraordinary compared to some. That makes it easy to forget that, average as it is, this computer is more powerful than the ones on the Apollo missions that took men to the moon.
We've come a very long way, and our possibilities now are almost endless. It's just my opinion, but I believe that the days of living an adulthood without a learning curve are behind us. I believe we have to either go forward or backward, and staying in one place is a luxury we no longer have. And, as my daughters might say, I'm down with that. The only catch is that you have to actively pick up the baton and run with it, and once you've done that, it's your race to win or lose.
A lot has certainly changed since I originally enrolled at good ol' Tennessee Tech. It's more important than ever to have a plan for success, and I'm finding that age and experience are a big help in that area. In fact, I've used my TTU days as the basis for my first item in my own plan:
I plan to drink a LOT less beer this time.
As negative as all that must have sounded, though, I'm actually quite excited about it. There are so many unexpected connections in all this. My degree is going to be in Information Technology (with an emphasis in Security), a field that scarcely existed when I originally reached college age. It's an online degree, meaning that it's about computers, and it's being done by means of a computer. That definitely didn't exist when I was 18.
The progress technology had to make in order for this to be possible is nothing short of amazing. I'm not sure we would have been able to visualize being able to do this back then. We had been told what the future would be like, but those predictions usually involved flying cars and the like. I'm still waiting for that one, but overall, the progress has been astonishing. The computer I'm typing this on is a decent one, but nothing extraordinary compared to some. That makes it easy to forget that, average as it is, this computer is more powerful than the ones on the Apollo missions that took men to the moon.
We've come a very long way, and our possibilities now are almost endless. It's just my opinion, but I believe that the days of living an adulthood without a learning curve are behind us. I believe we have to either go forward or backward, and staying in one place is a luxury we no longer have. And, as my daughters might say, I'm down with that. The only catch is that you have to actively pick up the baton and run with it, and once you've done that, it's your race to win or lose.
A lot has certainly changed since I originally enrolled at good ol' Tennessee Tech. It's more important than ever to have a plan for success, and I'm finding that age and experience are a big help in that area. In fact, I've used my TTU days as the basis for my first item in my own plan:
I plan to drink a LOT less beer this time.
Friday, June 18, 2010
LHRA Goes All High-Tech
I just figured out how to put live weather conditions for Greenview on this page. If you watch the data box closely, you'll see that it's actually updating every 30 seconds or so. Cool, huh? I figured that for all the babbling about the weather I do on here, this would give the real story on it (and back up MY stories in the process!).
I don't know the name of the person who is contributing the information, or I would give them credit here. People can buy these personal weather stations and set them up so that the information they collect gets sent to a site called Weather Underground. That site then offers up these neat little windows that can be put on other web pages like this one.
Just a fun little thing I stumbled across, and maybe the ONLY thing in our little town of Greenview that changes fast enough to need live updates. And that's really the part I like best.
I don't know the name of the person who is contributing the information, or I would give them credit here. People can buy these personal weather stations and set them up so that the information they collect gets sent to a site called Weather Underground. That site then offers up these neat little windows that can be put on other web pages like this one.
Just a fun little thing I stumbled across, and maybe the ONLY thing in our little town of Greenview that changes fast enough to need live updates. And that's really the part I like best.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Carla
I had been thinking for a couple of days about a subject for a new post on here, a funny one (to me, at least), but I'm putting that one on temporary hold in order to do this one. This is what's on my mind this rainy Monday morning, and sometimes there are things that need to be considered right away instead of delaying them.
When I first moved to our little town of Greenview, two of the first people I became acquainted with were my friends Sue Elliot and Carla Clemens, who were longtime friends themselves. I honestly don't recall which order I met them in, but because it was so close in time, I invariably think of them together. Everyone here, without exception, has been more than generous in making my wife and me feel welcome in this great little town, but these two have led the pack in that effort.
Carla in particular has just been a little one-woman cheering section for me personally. She writes the most charming little blog about Greenview, and when I became a fan of it (and later decided to start THIS blog), she was first in line to encourage me. My goal was to try to capture some of the small-town feel she had in her blog, and so far, I haven't particularly done a very good job of that. But I'm working on it.
Back in December, Carla's blog posts (which had been pretty much daily) stopped suddenly. The same became true for her Facebook posts. That was immediately noticeable because she had made herself part of the landscape here, and anytime you can do that, you're conspicuous by your absence. The citizens of the "landscape" worry about you.
Today, 5 months later, she broke her silence with a Facebook post. Let me be clear that I want to go to whatever length necessary to respect her privacy, but the post told of how she was dealing with some major health problems of her own while also helping care for two gravely-ill sisters, one of whom she lost this past Saturday. She explained that all this together has led her to deal with these matters privately, and that maintaining that minimal contact with the outside world is just how she feels she needs to handle this at the moment.
I have nothing but respect for that, and nothing but concern for her, and I'll honor whatever she chooses to do. But I also can't let this window of opportunity pass without letting her know, in this forum that she inspired me to step into, that she is a ray of sunshine in the lives of everyone she touches, and that she will be in our prayers daily.
And I can't wait until she gets back to her blog, because SOMEBODY needs to show me how to do this!
We love you, Carla, and we're praying for you to get well soon!
When I first moved to our little town of Greenview, two of the first people I became acquainted with were my friends Sue Elliot and Carla Clemens, who were longtime friends themselves. I honestly don't recall which order I met them in, but because it was so close in time, I invariably think of them together. Everyone here, without exception, has been more than generous in making my wife and me feel welcome in this great little town, but these two have led the pack in that effort.
Carla in particular has just been a little one-woman cheering section for me personally. She writes the most charming little blog about Greenview, and when I became a fan of it (and later decided to start THIS blog), she was first in line to encourage me. My goal was to try to capture some of the small-town feel she had in her blog, and so far, I haven't particularly done a very good job of that. But I'm working on it.
Back in December, Carla's blog posts (which had been pretty much daily) stopped suddenly. The same became true for her Facebook posts. That was immediately noticeable because she had made herself part of the landscape here, and anytime you can do that, you're conspicuous by your absence. The citizens of the "landscape" worry about you.
Today, 5 months later, she broke her silence with a Facebook post. Let me be clear that I want to go to whatever length necessary to respect her privacy, but the post told of how she was dealing with some major health problems of her own while also helping care for two gravely-ill sisters, one of whom she lost this past Saturday. She explained that all this together has led her to deal with these matters privately, and that maintaining that minimal contact with the outside world is just how she feels she needs to handle this at the moment.
I have nothing but respect for that, and nothing but concern for her, and I'll honor whatever she chooses to do. But I also can't let this window of opportunity pass without letting her know, in this forum that she inspired me to step into, that she is a ray of sunshine in the lives of everyone she touches, and that she will be in our prayers daily.
And I can't wait until she gets back to her blog, because SOMEBODY needs to show me how to do this!
We love you, Carla, and we're praying for you to get well soon!
Friday, April 30, 2010
A Dash of Plagiarism
OK...confession time: The only part of this post that I actually wrote is this here opening paragraph. The rest of it is just something someone shared with me, and I thought I'd share it with you guys. Being the kind of living-on-the-edge guy I am, though, I'm posting it BEFORE I show it to my wife! Danger is my middle name! (Actually, "Daryl" is, but that wouldn't make much sense in this instance). Anyway, hope you enjoy it!
1) Fine
This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to just shut up.
2) Five Minutes
If she is getting dressed, this means half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.
3) Nothing
This is the calm before the storm. This means "something", and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with "nothing" usually end up with "fine".
4) Go Ahead
This is a dare, not permission. Don't do it!
5) Loud Sigh
This is actually a word, but it is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. It means she thinks you are an idiot, and she wonders why she is wasting her time standing there and arguing with you about "nothing" (see #3).
6. ) That's Okay
This is one of the most dangerous statements a woman can make to a man. "That's okay" means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.
7. ) Thanks
A woman is thanking you. Do not question, or faint. Just say "You're welcome".
WARNING: This is true, unless she says "Thanks a LOT"- that is pure sarcasm and she is not thanking you at all. DO NOT say"You're welcome". That will bring on "Whatever" (see #8, below).
8. ) Whatever
This is a woman's way of saying " **** you!!!!"
9.) Don't Worry About It, I Got It
Another dangerous statement, meaning that this is something a woman has told a man to do several times, but now she is doing it for herself. This will later result in a man asking "What's wrong?" (see #3, above).
9 Deadly Words Used By Women
1) Fine
This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to just shut up.
2) Five Minutes
If she is getting dressed, this means half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.
3) Nothing
This is the calm before the storm. This means "something", and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with "nothing" usually end up with "fine".
4) Go Ahead
This is a dare, not permission. Don't do it!
5) Loud Sigh
This is actually a word, but it is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. It means she thinks you are an idiot, and she wonders why she is wasting her time standing there and arguing with you about "nothing" (see #3).
6. ) That's Okay
This is one of the most dangerous statements a woman can make to a man. "That's okay" means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.
7. ) Thanks
A woman is thanking you. Do not question, or faint. Just say "You're welcome".
WARNING: This is true, unless she says "Thanks a LOT"- that is pure sarcasm and she is not thanking you at all. DO NOT say"You're welcome". That will bring on "Whatever" (see #8, below).
8. ) Whatever
This is a woman's way of saying " **** you!!!!"
9.) Don't Worry About It, I Got It
Another dangerous statement, meaning that this is something a woman has told a man to do several times, but now she is doing it for herself. This will later result in a man asking "What's wrong?" (see #3, above).
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Some Thoughts On Creative Block And The Power Of Audacity
I thought that rather than risk backsliding into AWOL status again, I'd stop by and shoot the breeze here for a little bit. I hope everybody's doing well.
There has been SO much going on, especially in the last couple of weeks, that most of my creative cells or muscles or whatever they are have gone into standby mode. That's not the best thing in the world when you have a number of creative ACTIVITIES going on. One project is a CD, another is an upcoming live solo appearance, and yet another you're reading right now.
There are a number of reasons for this: the ever-present crazy schedule, a recent family loss, and an assortment of smaller causes thrown in for good measure. At least in my case, it's possible to get enough of these factors going simultaneously to just shut down your creative productivity. And it's not that you don't WANT to produce something- it's more that you just don't feel like you have any of it in you.
Fortunately, I've been here before, and I know it when I see it. I also know that it always has a short shelf-life, regardless of how things might seem at a given moment. Living life is about moving on, and by that very fact, it's not a lesson you only get to learn once. You learn it repeatedly, because you're, well, moving on. The good news is that each learning experience you have with this prepares you a little better for the next one, and maybe that's the best thing you could ask for anyway.
Sometimes, the only footing you can find to take that needed next step is the willingness to find a little audacity in yourself and stand on that. That little nugget occurred to me yesterday on the way to work as I was hearing a commercial on the radio. There's a restaurant in Springfield that has a not-at-all humble name: Incredibly Delicious. I've never been there, but now I almost feel obligated to go, because I almost feel I owe them for opening my eyes to this whole audacity thing.
I'm not sure I'd have the self-assurance to open a restaurant and put that name on it. Mine would more probably be called "I'm Pretty Sure You'll Like It" or something like that. I mean, to call a restaurant that, you either have to be able to back it up from moment one, or you've got to be one of the most flagrant BSers to ever draw a breath. Although I don't know this from experience, I do know by their reputation that they apparently fall into the first group.
How great is that, to be so good at what you do that, even when you're on the cusp of opening a new business, you're willing to put a mark on it that commits you to only the highest level of performance? There is uncertainty in ANY new business venture, large or small, but to step beyond that and put that name right out there is a great example of what I'm talking about. If you can find nothing else within yourself, find that audacity and use it for your first stepping-stone. What a thought-provoking and uplifting lesson to find in something we'd normally take for granted!
I hear their bread's to die for, too!
There has been SO much going on, especially in the last couple of weeks, that most of my creative cells or muscles or whatever they are have gone into standby mode. That's not the best thing in the world when you have a number of creative ACTIVITIES going on. One project is a CD, another is an upcoming live solo appearance, and yet another you're reading right now.
There are a number of reasons for this: the ever-present crazy schedule, a recent family loss, and an assortment of smaller causes thrown in for good measure. At least in my case, it's possible to get enough of these factors going simultaneously to just shut down your creative productivity. And it's not that you don't WANT to produce something- it's more that you just don't feel like you have any of it in you.
Fortunately, I've been here before, and I know it when I see it. I also know that it always has a short shelf-life, regardless of how things might seem at a given moment. Living life is about moving on, and by that very fact, it's not a lesson you only get to learn once. You learn it repeatedly, because you're, well, moving on. The good news is that each learning experience you have with this prepares you a little better for the next one, and maybe that's the best thing you could ask for anyway.
Sometimes, the only footing you can find to take that needed next step is the willingness to find a little audacity in yourself and stand on that. That little nugget occurred to me yesterday on the way to work as I was hearing a commercial on the radio. There's a restaurant in Springfield that has a not-at-all humble name: Incredibly Delicious. I've never been there, but now I almost feel obligated to go, because I almost feel I owe them for opening my eyes to this whole audacity thing.
I'm not sure I'd have the self-assurance to open a restaurant and put that name on it. Mine would more probably be called "I'm Pretty Sure You'll Like It" or something like that. I mean, to call a restaurant that, you either have to be able to back it up from moment one, or you've got to be one of the most flagrant BSers to ever draw a breath. Although I don't know this from experience, I do know by their reputation that they apparently fall into the first group.
How great is that, to be so good at what you do that, even when you're on the cusp of opening a new business, you're willing to put a mark on it that commits you to only the highest level of performance? There is uncertainty in ANY new business venture, large or small, but to step beyond that and put that name right out there is a great example of what I'm talking about. If you can find nothing else within yourself, find that audacity and use it for your first stepping-stone. What a thought-provoking and uplifting lesson to find in something we'd normally take for granted!
I hear their bread's to die for, too!
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