All about earthquakes - somewhat graphic

I don’t know how many of you have lived through an earthquake, but I had one right here in my home this weekend! My 15 year old, raging hormone, bright, beautiful, normally smart, teenage granddaughter has discovered the “glorious” world of sex!

It’s not so much that it happened that bothered me, it’s that she is taking a class in school on child development, and spent several weeks on the subject of STDs. In spite of the graphic knowledge of the dangers she got “caught up” in the moment and was unprotected. The worst part was she did not tell her folks. When one of her brothers got in trouble, he did a CYA maneuver and ratted her out. Let’s just say it was a major shit storm! Fortunately for her she was at my new place helping me move in when it struck, and emotions had some time to cool.

I learned several things. 1) I can’t stand to see my granddaughter cry. 2) Looking back at my life, all of the stuff we did, and when we started doing it, pales in comparison to kids today. 3) Even armed with knowledge teenagers can be flat out stupid.

I thought being a grandpa would be an easy, fun thing. Ignorance truly is bliss. Standing between raging mom and dad on one side, and rebellious teenager on the other, is not fun and very hard work. Advise welcome.

Where we ever like that, nahhh! (lol - quietly).

A Different Christmas Poem

This was sent to me by a very good friend. I felt it deserved as much play as I could give it. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did, and please remember our sons, daughters, husbands, wives, grandchildren, friends, and all of our men and women standing on the line to protect us. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..

To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at ' Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ' Nam ',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."

" So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

PLEASE, would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many
people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our
U.S service men and women for our being able to celebrate these
festivities. Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people
stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.

Moving Day!!!

Friday December 11 2009 I am finally going home. After almost 2.5 years in rehabs and hospitals I am returning to Fort Wayne to my own place.

I have to say, I am all over the place emotionally over the move. I am excited, happy, anxious, and scared all at the same time! I am so looking forward to my own place but at the same time I remember all of the problems that led up to my leaving home in the first place. Also, the last time I tried to go home it only lasted one day.

I am in a much better place mentally and physically this time around. I will also be surrounded by family that loves me (another story) and will not let me slide back into the pit of despair mentally or physically.

Still lots of arrangements to nail down. I'll let you know how it goes.

To hell and back, Living in the Midwest: Thank You!

To hell and back, Living in the Midwest: Thank You!

Thank You!

Thank you for all of the very concerned and supportive comments to my last post. Since that post, I have been asked what I had. The list is long; its almost is easier to type what I didn’t have!

OK, here I go. Keep in mind this is all at one time and my last post will be better understood:
• Pneumonia
• M.A.R.S.A. (super antibiotic resistant infection)
• Severe Renal Deficiency
• C.O.P.D.
• Digestive track problems
• Heart Attack
• Uncontrollable Blood Pressure / very low could not raise
• Chronic Anemia
• Blood clots in bladder
There were a few other things going on that I really don’t remember. As I said in my first post it was a heck of a trip that I don’t wish on anyone.

In my lifetime, I will never be able to payback and thank all of the Doctors, Nurses, Aids, Friends, and Family for the work they did to keep me alive, and the support they gave me. My goal now is to continue my recovery and be the best I can in the future.

Thanks again for all of your good wishes and prays. I’ll keep posting news on my progress to my blog: http://fortwayneliving.blogspot.com

My recent journey to never never land and back!

What a strange journey I have been on. It started in May when I started to feel ill. The powers that be at the place where I was living decided that it was all in my head. Well it wasn’t! By the middle of June I felt so bad that my attitude was “Stick a fork in me, because I was done!” I was really ready die. Of course, when you talk of suicide or dying, the management decided I needed help and sent me out to a psychiatric facility. This is when the journey gets interesting.

My arrival at the facility was uneventful and I settled in for a two week (the maximum) stay. I had a good day, met the staff, had a good meal and turned in. Four weeks later I woke up in intensive care with a tracheotomy, connected to a plethora of monitors, IV’s, and other medical accoutrement hooked to me.

We always hear about people who claim to have had a near death experience and usually we pooh-pa the story, not anymore! I am now a true believer. At my lowest point, when they had told my family that time was short and they should prepare my funeral, I heard a voice. Could it have been as simple as a doctor or family member in my ear, I don’t know. What I do know is the voice said “do you want to live or die, you must choose now!” At that moment, visions of family, friends, grand kids, promises made, and opportunities I would miss all flashed through my mind. These visions were clear as day. Just as real as if I was there. In that instant I answered “I want to live” and I started to get better.

The last half of June and all of July are lost to me, with the exception of my near death experience. August was spent in a rehab getting me off the trach and starting to stand and walk again. Now I am in another facility, hopefully my last, building my strength and really concentrating really concentrating on my mobility.

In the Harry Potter books he is dubbed “The boy who lived”. Well to paraphrase, I am "the man who lived". My entire view of life has changed. My father used to say to me, “every day you open your eyes is a wonderful day!” Of course as a typical young person who was invulnerable, I did not understand what he meant, now I do. Each day I open my eyes is a wonderful day. It does not matter what transpires during the day, I know it is all good.

Tweet me a message!

Are you heavily involved with multiple social networking forums? If not how can you possibly get through your day?

Your Blog(s) to tell your story of the day, FaceBook, MySpace or whatever is hot this week to keep up with your network, the rest of the day, and of course the new internet must be a part of Tweeter!

It was silly enough when politicians tried to show they were just regular folk, with pages on FaceBook and MySpace, but now they are moving to Tweeter. For the uninitiated Tweeter is supposed to capture the moments of your life between your blogs! A Tweet is a short message no more than 148 characters in length.

A whole industry has grown up around Tweeting. There are apps for almost all Browsers and platforms. I have found great joy in TweetDeck, and various apps for IE8 and FireFox.

So many Tweets are flying through the internet cloud at any one time that Tweet has lately been suffering some server overloads and delays.

Ultimatly I am forced to ask why? Don't get me wrong, I like Tweeter, I’m hooked. I tweet all the time (tiredoldguy), but really why? Do we need this level of minutia in our lives today? Social Networking is great, and lots of fun. But have we gone a little overboard just because we can?

America in trouble

What is the future of the United States of America? It is my theory that downstream for this country everyone will be in one of three businesses, agri-business, military business, or a service business.

I am worried that our younger generations with their computers, laptops, notebooks, pdss, ipods, mp3 players, and gaming consoles know how to rip the latest tune or text message their friends at the speed of sound, but cannot read a newspaper, have no concept of current events, and appear to be getting no real education.

We are pouring tons of money into the education system. Most of it never reaches the classroom, and since the creation of the Department of Education was created in Washington to remove local control of schools from parents, regulation not education is the rule.

I am currently mentoring a friend (I love a good buzz word as well as the next guy) as she makes her way through college. The latest trend is “distance learning” not a bad concept in theory. One professor in any location can serve students in any branch of the school or even an individual not connected with the school. The problem with the way it is implemented here is that there is no “face time” with the professor. If the class had a several hour video chat it would be incredible, instead, things get posted that make you wonder where these students were on school days. I’ll give one example and move one. The discussion was about the 80/20 rule and its use in logistics management. On a response to a posting the student said “I didn’t know the government built the highway, that’s not fair to the railroads”. How can a college student not know about the history of the Interstate Highway System and its connection to the Cold War!

All this brings me back to the beginning. The way the country is going now, we will always feed the world. We are good at it. Sometimes unfortunately better then feeding our own. We are also very good at making war. We make good weapons and just like feeding the world we are good at it. Everyone else not in agri-business or the military will be in some service roll to support these industries. Now these are very board categories, when I say agri-business, I talking about everyone from the farmer to the food manufacturer. In the military the range is from the front line to the munitions factory. Anyone not in either of the first two industries will be in the third. Just by its nature this is the broadest group with the most opportunities. These jobs include the entertainment industry, the legal and health industries the hospitality industry, and all of the other service industries required to run a nation.

Unless we do something drastic quickly the students of today will be in no position to compete with the world of tomorrow.

Sprint rip off SOP!

Sprint did me in! I listened to the Sprint salesman and believed what he said, Barnum would have been proud. I was shopping for an internet aircard for my new laptop. Sprint said they had a sale, a free card, UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH, $60 a month.

Now, I don't consider myself stupid. I asked the salesman at the store is the internet usage unlimited, he said yes. I asked again, "I can use this as much as I want with no overage or other charges", he said yes. My bill arrived, WOW, STUNNED, BREATHLESS, $250 in overage charges! Turns out the plan I signed up for was only for 5GB not unlimited.

I went ballistic at the store. Ripped the manager a new asshole and found out that this is SOP (standard operating procedure) and happens all the time. They continue to do because most people don't fight, they just follow. Not me, not anymore, not in these times when every nickle counts. I got a partial credit (about half), but it's not enough. I am planning my attack now, BBB, Internet, Letter wriying.

I'll keep you posted.

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End of the month

We have reached the end of another month. This one was more interesting then most because I became another year older. Next month will also be a good month because my bright, beautiful, and generous baby sister has her birthday.

Birthdays, anniversaries, deaths, births, graduations, are all way points that effectively breakup our normal day to day patterns of living. In the movie "Last Holiday", we hear a great soliloquy on how we end up in our normal rut. The funny thing is that each New Years Eve, we resolve to break out of that rut, but most of us never do. Why is that? I think it is fear of change. Personally I don't handle change well at all. Major changes scare the dickens out of me! What do you feel is holding you back? Let me know, let's compare and contrast.

Collage Classes

Busy, Busy, Busy. I never thought at this age that I would be up to my neck in school work. I am helping a friend get an associate degree in Logistics/Supply Chain Management. That's quite a mouthful. Much of this degree has been done by "distance learning". I am not at all impressed with its execution at Ivy Tech. My friend is taking four classes this semester, all over the Internet. I'm sorry but this is not the way to learn. I might be able to accept the class if it had a set meeting time online using a video conferencing / video chat facility where at least you could interact with the "professor". The way the classes are currently constituted, the teacher posts a syllabus at the beginning of the semester, class assignments, discussion boards, and tests are listed along with the method of posting desired. The student does the work and posts the material in the proper place. At some point the teacher reviews the work and leaves comments. But there is no real interaction, no real give and take student to student, or student to teacher. This method might be OK for large freshmen survey classes, but it should just not be allowed for core courses.

The day after

Well Valentines day has come and gone. I'm far enough away from the death of my wife so that I didn't turn into a pool of jello. But, for the time being it's just not the same. No giddy rush to buy flowers my wife didn't want (she loved getting them but would never admit it). No finding the perfect chocolate bark or chocolate cherries. No stuffed bear.

My father was blessed by finding love again after my mom passed away, so I hold out the hope that I will not old alone!