Lovely Wife Was Threatened!

Lovely Wife had a birthday a few days ago, and is now the next best thing to being 50. (Yes, I married an older woman)

Number Two Daughter told Lovely Wife that she couldn't wait until Lovely Wife turns 50.

"Why?" Lovely Wife asked.

"So I can get you a Jitterbug!"

For those of you who don't know, or are otherwise totally out of touch, a Jitterbug is a huge cell phone with massive numbers on the buttons, targeted at older folks who might appreciate having a cell phone they can see the buttons and numbers on rather than a "cool" cell phone.

The young whipper-snapper generation all think the TV commercial for the Jitterbug is a hoot, and that it's for OLD people.

So, apparrently Lovely Wife has only one more year to indulge in her Blackberry addiction with it's full QWERTY keyboard.

I guess it's mandatory for those 50 and up to switch to a Jitterbug.

I personally think it would be more difficult to get someone off of heroin addiction than to wean someone off of their precious Blackberry.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph Attacked By Wild Dogs

(Note: This post is a repeat of a post I wrote during the Christmas season of 2007. I haven't written in a while, and thought reposting something I liked was better than nothing at all.)


Yesterday when Lovely Wife got home from the grocery store and I went out to help her get the stuff from the car, all four poodles made a mad dash past me out into The Forbidden Zone, otherwise known as the front yard.

For the first few seconds they were just running and jumping in the nirvana of just being out there instead of the back yard, but then Rosie and Lilly noticed intruders in our front yard that were not there the last time they got to run around the front yard.

The only thing that separates us from Ebeneezer Scrooge is the fact that we have a three piece plastic nativity scene in the front yard.

Rosie and Lilly, after the first taste of freedom had died down, noticed the unsuspecting Joseph, Mary, and the Jesus/manger module just sitting there like STRANGERS.

Of course, we don't have normal poodles, ours are vicious attack miniatures. Don't let the curly hair and otherwise cutie-pie looks fool you, they mean business Buster!

Rosie and Lilly ran over and while Rosie barked, growled and snapped at Joseph, Lilly did the same on the other side to Mary.

It was a classic pincer maneuver that General George S. Patton would have been proud of.

Thankfully the Jesus/manger module was left alone, and Joseph and Mary wisely stood perfectly still, probably from extreme fright, but still, it was the right thing to do.

Since the three intruders just sat there like bumps on a pickle, our lap dogs highly trained attack/guard dogs finally realized that this family was no threat and came running quickly inside due to the promise of a bite of cheese.

But for a minute or so there, the Holy Family was in dire straights, but tragedy was finally averted.

For this year anyway.

This is Rosie;

and this is Lilly.

Is it any wonder that those poor people were scared stiff when these two brutes went after them?

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Have a Merry Christmas everyone! And watch out for marauding poodles.

Mannheim Steamroller Christmas Concert

Number Two Daughter bought tickets for her and me to go out this past Wednesday (Nov. 19) to see Mannheim Steamroller in concert.

They have provided some of my absolute favorite Christmas Music for twenty years now, and they were coming to do a concert in Melbourne, Florida.

The concert was nothing short of amazing.

14 people, many of whom played various instruments throughout the night. Super, super talented people.

I've always thought that great music gets taken to an altogether new level when heard live, and Mannheim Steamroller was no exception.

They played all of my favorites, especially their version of Silent Night, called Stille Nacht on their first Christmas album from the 1980s.

The concert program didn't list Silent Night as one to be played, but I hoped that they would play some extra songs at the end, and they did. Silent Night was one of the two extra songs they played.

Not only that, but we've had a cold front here all week and it's been chilly by Florida standards and was about 50F and windy as we walked from the car to the concert hall.

So it even felt really Christmassy. Perfect for attending a Christmas concert.

In the late 1980s we were living in the Dallas, Texas area.

I was working two jobs and was coming home one evening from one job and my old Ford pickup truck was having problems.

The heater didn't work, it was brutally cold and windy with a stinging sleet trying to stick to the windshield of the truck. The defroster wasn't hot because it's part of the heater system, and poor "Old Blue" was losing the fight to allow me to see well enough to drive home. At least the wipers were working and eventually allowed me to get home.

Heck, at the time, the alternator was even going out on it, and the battery kept getting tired from not getting enough nourishment from the alternator.

I was really worried about getting home in a working vehicle.

Old Blue only had the stock Philco AM radio with one speaker mounted in the dash, and I was listening to Christmas music on an AM Christian station in Dallas.

So I'm tired, cold, stressed, worried, and then this gentle song comes on the radio.

It starts out quietly so I turned it up.

And I hear this version of Silent Night for the first time ever.

When it ended I was crying like a baby. (I'm one of those guys who isn't afraid to cry, especially when I'm alone.)

I was absolutely in love with the song, and I tried to describe it to everyone I knew, but they all looked at me like I was crazy. Before the internet, it was much more difficult to find out about such things as who sang what and other trivia the world wide web is so good for.

It was a year later when I heard the song again, and the announcer on the radio thankfully mentioned that it was Mannheim Steamroller who had done the song. I thought I misheard him; that was such a goofy name for a musical group.

Anyway, Mannheim Steamroller's Stille Nacht is still my all-time favorite Christmas song by anyone.

In a thoughtful mood, I can still cry when hearing it.

At the time of that first hearing, our daughters were babies, both mine and Lovely Wife's parents, all siblings, and most grandparents even, were still alive. At the time, it's beauty just touched something deep within my heart like some pieces of music can. I was young, with a young family and a head and heart filled with dreams.

Now, after that song being heard so many times over the years, it brings back good memories of lost loved ones, my Dad, my Big Brother, all of my Grandparents, my In-Laws, etc.

Hearing it is still a joy, but bittersweet. It's beauty is now mixed with sadness too, at the thought of people I miss terribly.

But this concert the other night was simply mesmerizing as only a great group of musician's can do.

Mannheim Steamroller playing Stille Nacht as an encore was just icing on the cake to an already beautiful concert.

And now I have new memories of a great night spent with Number Two Daughter to add to the list of great memories this song brings to mind at each hearing.

The whole evening with my daughter, and all of my associated memories made this evening a wonderful gift.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

It has just flat-out been a busy past few months.

Work has been intense, and I just come home and eat, then sleep.

It's not really a problem, but days like today get me a bit upset.

(I just deleted a whole story about what happened at work today.)

In the end, if someone were to read it, I might get in trouble.

We're in a mode at work where everyone is supposed to be so grateful to have a good job in these tough economic times that we're expected to be willing to be trod upon.

I was trod upon some today, and was basically forced to find someone willing to be trod upon with me.

I can't be any more detailed than that.

I love my company and I especially love the people there, but sometimes, some days, I'm required to not only go above and beyond, myself, which is no problem, but also required/expected to find some others who will go above and beyond with me.

That's really hard for me to do.

Richard Pryor used to joke about how his dad would yell at him and tell him to "go get a stick for me to beat you with."

My work day was kinda like that today.

Zoom, Normal, and Wide Angle

I really liked how these shots turned out. I took them only seconds apart, of the sailboat against the beautiful evening sky.

It's hard to capture a single image that gives you the feel of a time or place, but when I saw these three viewed on my computer, one after another, I thought the sum was much greater than the parts. Viewed one after another, they give a good impression of how it felt to stand there looking at the scene.

Of course, these were taken on the Indian River Lagoon in Melbourne, Florida.

Bush Derangement Syndrome in Science Fiction

I’ve still been reading some science fiction, but now that I’ve read through our library’s collection of what books look interesting to me in the genre, I think I’m coming to the end.

Maybe some of my mainstream favorite authors will have written a couple of books each in the last year or two that I’ve been reading mostly science fiction, and will rescue me.

What I wanted to talk about was something that always annoys me with reading, no matter who the author is that does it.

An analogy: Watch any Sylvester Stallone movie and you WILL see some prominent-to-the-point-of-annoying product placement. Watch “Demolition Man” and “Cop Land” and you will see and hear Marlboro ads built into the movie.

Annoying.

In books, the equivalent of this is when an author uses specific names of real people in a derogatory way in a work of fiction.

I recently finished reading "Coyote Frontier" by Allen Steele. It's set about 30-40 years after the landing of escapees from earth first land on the distant planet called Coyote.

The reason they took a space ship and slept cryogenically for over 200 years while traveling to Coyote is because in the mid-21st century, America is taken over completely by the religious conservatives and create an authoritarian state hostile to "dissident intellectuals."

In the book, Johnson Space Center outside of Houston has been re-named the George W. Bush Space Center, with people having forgotten it was once named something else. Those evil, Constitution-killing conservatives have just taken control and changed EVERYTHING.

Also, under this future, evil fictional totalitarian regime, the Kennedy Space Center is re-named after Newt Gingrich.

There is a "reeducation camp" in rural Georgia, that is called Camp Buchanan, after Pat Buchanan.

Then later in the book, a woman on Coyote who is middle-aged, and thinking back to her youth on earth, recalls having been sent to a place for teens who were going astray from the government's official doctrine, and this camp is Camp Schafly, after famous conservative woman Phyllis Schlafly. Mr. Steele didn't even spell the name right in his book.

The book was decently written, very readable, and an interesting story, but the references to this fictional future totalitarian America and pointing out people like that, were so obviously the author's opinions that he couldn't resist putting in the book that I almost didn't finish reading it.

Allen Steele has received various awards in the science fiction genre for his novels, so I was wanting to try reading some, looking forward to a potential author to watch for in the future, but I finished the book feeling that it was worth reading, but that the jabs at the "vast right wing conspiracy" stood out like a hard shadow against a white wall.

Naming the author's most hated conservatives in the text of a fictional novel brought the reader (me, at least) to the conclusion that he wanted to preach instead of writing a story.

He never got to preaching his viewpoint in other places, which allowed me to finish the book.

It just annoys me when a fiction writer adds his own personal viewpoint to a book in such a way as to make sure you know this is the author talking to you, and that it definitely wasn't one of the books characters talking to you.

The book cover says that Mr. Steele is a journalism graduate, and a former reporter, so it definitely fit with the way most of today's journalists lean in their politics, but it almost ruined the book for me in the way it jerked me from being in a character's head, then suddenly in the author's opinionated head for a minute because he couldn't resist an egotistical jab at the political right, and then suddenly back into the character's head.

I would expect such things from a beginning writer, not one with numerous award-winning published novels.

Bush derangement syndrome is rampant, and in some ways it's funny to watch otherwise sane adults turn insane over their hatred of President Bush, but it's another level of the syndrome altogether to allow it to make it all the way to publication in a fiction novel.

I know next to nothing about Mr. Steele, but he's definitely got Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Funny thing is, I personally think that a totalitarian state coming about in America is much more likely to happen under liberal control of the government. Just look at the unearned adoration given to Barack Obama in this presidential campaign. The man is given a pass on so many questionable areas of his past, while his complicit media take apart the life of Joe the plumber. Barack Obama is the epitome of the "empty suit," and he's not allowed to be confronted or asked difficult, penetrating questions.

We now know more about some poor schmuck who dared to point out Obama's socialist agenda of huge redistribution of wealth, than we know about the man who could very well be our next president. Obama's followers are much more likely to willingly submit to a heavy-handed government.

OK. I'm climbing off the soap box now.

Thanks Everyone

Losing Rosie so suddenly just shocked us to the core.

I appreciate everyone's kind comments.

I can think about her and talk about her without crying now, but we all miss her terribly.

To use a popular psychology term, the "dynamic" of the house has totally changed.

The other dogs act differently now, and of course, we just flat-out miss having Rosie around.

She was one of those dogs that just made us laugh without playing or her trying to be funny. Just the way she did things was funny.

For example, whenever one of the family came into the house, while the other dogs got excited and barked, Rosie would express her excitement to see you by turning in about 10 circles. The circles were ALWAYS left-handed, or counter-clockwise.

It was funny to see; it was as if instead of going on a run like some dogs do, she would spin in place, to the left.

She was the mother to two of the poodles we have, and when they got upset or felt insecure, they'd come to her and slowly roll over in front of Rosie in submission, and have their face right in front of her's. Then she would lay there and lick their closed eyes, and it would soothe and calm them down.

They've seemed out of sorts without her there to give her what we came to call "eyeball sugar."

Just a couple of the many things we miss about Rosie.

Anyway, thanks againg for the kind comments.