I really don't even know where to begin... War Eagle, congrats to the Auburn Tigers for dominating a difficult schedule in the SEC and winning a thrilling championship game to claim a victory and a National title that has been long overdue.
In other NFL related news, Peyton Manning and the Colts, Tom Brady and the Patriots, Ed Reed and the Baltimore Ravens have all been sent to the lockers for the year, and ya gotta love the matchups coming at you for the conference championships, New York versus Pittsburgh and Chicago versus Green Bay... No Brett Favre, no Bill Cowher, just four quietly dominant squads squaring off in two of the best championship game previews this league has seen in a decade. Bring it on, baby... the NFL is back. And your biggest fan is about to be able to watch a game for the first time in five years. Oh yes, heaven will be a place on earth for me next weekend. Peace, peeps.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Friday, December 24, 2010
Christmas Eve
well, merry christmas and happy new years to everyone, first and foremost. may the blessings of a new and fresh year to begin your endeavors with follow you all the year through. it has a been a difficult year, from beginning to end, on the screens of our televisions and through the lenses of our very own eyes. the world is becoming more violent, dangerous, crowded, and complicated with every passing second... and today is a joyous day! because my daughter is eighteen years old today, a watershed in one's life, a passing from the societal stigmata of being a child into the more versatile title of adult. a day to remember and to celebrate, to be sure. i am so proud of her today, so proud of this woman sitting before me with strength in her eyes and love in her heart, peace in her words and intelligence behind her smile. no words can express the pride and joy, love and happiness that a father feels on this day to see his daughter's face shining with joy. Merry Christmas, praise God and bless His holy name for my blessings. Happy birthday Hayley, and may God watch over your steps forever.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
rumors and innuendo
A long thirty three years of this life have taught me that things you hear are often not the truth of the matter. It seems always you hear a rumor or someone knows something their cousin's best friend's older brother's girlfriend's ex-mother-in-law's bartender told her last night at the crack house, and it's being repeated like wildfire around the wherever you congregate. In the end, the innuendo, the commentary, the lies that are spun from webs of thick jealousy or anger or bitterness or perceived (or real) slights... it never matters, and sometimes its even true, but the end result is always the same: a reaction to one person is not a guaranteed reaction to every person. Each individual personality you encounter in this life will elicit a different reaction from you, and likewise you will elicit a reaction from them different from anyone else. You may remind them of a pleasant or unpleasant memory or person, and that may color their initial emotions, but your true self will always demand that they judge you on who you are, not a parcel of the whole. just random thoughts...
Thursday, November 4, 2010
life without my wife... sort of
For four weeks now, my wife has been in Oklahoma dealing with a personal tragedy in her life. (See tribute to Meemaw below.) It has been difficult for her, and a struggle to deal with the loss and to pick up the pieces, as well as to help heal with her family as one. For the first week, it was both my daughter and my wife gone, and I swear it was the longest week of my life. Toby, our gorgeous little Whippet/Jack Russell Terrier mix, kept giving me the evil eye... I'm pretty sure he thought I had disposed of them and he was next. I kept waking up to him staring at me, and the time he was holding the butcher knife, I decided to sit him down and try to explain that Mommy and Hayley were just on vacation, and they'd be back very soon... he stopped trying to get to the kitchen cutlery, but the bite marks on my neck were a little unnerving...
Hayley, my daughter, came back a week after they both left, and the last three weeks have passed much quicker, albeit with more than their share of trials and sudden pitfalls that required ninja-like reflexes to avoid falling into some serious trouble, but in the end it was business as usual. Toby has stopped worrying so much about Mommy, and things are settling into a bit of a routine. I miss Tiffany much like a person would miss an organ or a limb... some things just aren't working the way they should and I feel the absence throughout my entire being.
In the morning, when I wake for the first time, the mattress feels wrong, and so do the blankets... it's the first subtle hint of the day that things aren't right. Bed is too cold, and the blankets are too bunched up around me, because I toss and turn a lot in my sleep. Except that when she is here, I don't. It's the little things about her, the little changes in me that have occurred because of the void.. I miss her, and I miss her every bit as much as I thought I would.
However, I thought it would be harder to deal with the distance, to handle the loss of her physical self with me each day, the inability to hold her, or kiss her, or catch the fragrance of her hair when she lays her head on my chest. It has been hard, but I have been shocked and stunned (pleasantly) by how I have found the strength in our phone conversations and emails, pictures sent back and forth and text messages sent in flurries between us each day... It has been an incredible testament to the love we share that we have endured the time and distance and the suddenness of it all, coupled with the grief of the loss of a loved one.
My wife, my life, my love, my angel, my baby girl, my sweet wonderful woman who makes my life complete in a way I never knew was possible until we met: I love you with the brilliance and the fire of a hundred million suns. Thank you for showing me what love is, and thank you for showing me what true strength really is.
Hayley, my daughter, came back a week after they both left, and the last three weeks have passed much quicker, albeit with more than their share of trials and sudden pitfalls that required ninja-like reflexes to avoid falling into some serious trouble, but in the end it was business as usual. Toby has stopped worrying so much about Mommy, and things are settling into a bit of a routine. I miss Tiffany much like a person would miss an organ or a limb... some things just aren't working the way they should and I feel the absence throughout my entire being.
In the morning, when I wake for the first time, the mattress feels wrong, and so do the blankets... it's the first subtle hint of the day that things aren't right. Bed is too cold, and the blankets are too bunched up around me, because I toss and turn a lot in my sleep. Except that when she is here, I don't. It's the little things about her, the little changes in me that have occurred because of the void.. I miss her, and I miss her every bit as much as I thought I would.
However, I thought it would be harder to deal with the distance, to handle the loss of her physical self with me each day, the inability to hold her, or kiss her, or catch the fragrance of her hair when she lays her head on my chest. It has been hard, but I have been shocked and stunned (pleasantly) by how I have found the strength in our phone conversations and emails, pictures sent back and forth and text messages sent in flurries between us each day... It has been an incredible testament to the love we share that we have endured the time and distance and the suddenness of it all, coupled with the grief of the loss of a loved one.
My wife, my life, my love, my angel, my baby girl, my sweet wonderful woman who makes my life complete in a way I never knew was possible until we met: I love you with the brilliance and the fire of a hundred million suns. Thank you for showing me what love is, and thank you for showing me what true strength really is.
Tribute to Meemaw
Four weeks ago, my wife Tiffany's maternal grandmother passed away. She was a grande dame, and her life story is an American story, one that encompasses the best years of the Twentieth Century. My wife was greatly affected by her during her childhood and into her adult life, and within a few days, she was gone on a bus to Oklahoma, back home to her family to bury an icon and grieve as one. The last three weeks for Tiffany have been difficult at best and downright horrible at worst, coming to terms with the loss of such a giant in her life. She will be forever missed. Love you, Meemaw, and we know Jesus is walking with you in the gardens even now.
Rick Scott: How To Purchase The Governor's Mansion
I mean wow... $74 million dollars and a massive negative ad blitz later, Rick Scott won the most narrowly contested gubernatorial race since 1876 in the state of Florida. In the last two weeks alone, my home has received over twenty pieces of dark, scary-looking anti-Alex Sink literature making as many comparisons between her and President Obama as possible, and attempting to paint her as an "Obama Liberal."
I was already voting for Mrs. Sink, a veteran in Florida politics, and a competent, measured, bipartisan voice reaching above the din, but with the avalanche of negative ads and mudslinging towards her, i was cemented into my vote for Sink. Even my daughter remarked to me that if she could vote, she would probably be voting for Alex Sink now simply because of the incredible amount of negative ads sent to our house by Rick Scott. Unreal.
I'm gonna say this once, Rick. Don't let me hear you talking about unity and coming together. You've shown me about your concept of unity, you've demonstrated that your ideas and goals and plans for this state are secondary to destroying someone with slander and lies and mud. You have no right to speak to the residents of Florida about coming together, nor do you have any right to govern me. Seventy-four million dollars may have bought you a nice house to live in for a few years, but it will never purchase my respect or my allegiance.
If for no other reason than circumstances like this one, there should be so much more control over the types of advertising and campaigning that the candidates are allowed to smear across the television and into my mailbox. They should not be able to attack, unless it is face to face. Stand on that podium, Mr. Scott, and look Mrs. Sink in the eye and call her the foul things that your 74 million paid to have repeated ad infinitum on my television. Speak with your own mouth the wicked smears that appeared day after day in my mailbox.
But of course, you'll never do that. You'll appeal to unity and coming together, speak about the valiant fight your opponent has put forth, and you will congratulate her on a well-fought campaign. You will do this because honesty is a trait you do not possess, as well as decency and honor. That is why you will stand up there and speak out of the other side of your mouth now. You are no different than the rest of the politicians who are only out there to feather their own nests, and if in the process of serving their own interests they happen to serve ours, it will be a glorious accident. Thank you for further demonstrating the weaknesses in the system, thank you for further exploiting an already over-exploited public. We resent this as we have resented it every time we have been lied to, and we do not forget.
I was already voting for Mrs. Sink, a veteran in Florida politics, and a competent, measured, bipartisan voice reaching above the din, but with the avalanche of negative ads and mudslinging towards her, i was cemented into my vote for Sink. Even my daughter remarked to me that if she could vote, she would probably be voting for Alex Sink now simply because of the incredible amount of negative ads sent to our house by Rick Scott. Unreal.
I'm gonna say this once, Rick. Don't let me hear you talking about unity and coming together. You've shown me about your concept of unity, you've demonstrated that your ideas and goals and plans for this state are secondary to destroying someone with slander and lies and mud. You have no right to speak to the residents of Florida about coming together, nor do you have any right to govern me. Seventy-four million dollars may have bought you a nice house to live in for a few years, but it will never purchase my respect or my allegiance.
If for no other reason than circumstances like this one, there should be so much more control over the types of advertising and campaigning that the candidates are allowed to smear across the television and into my mailbox. They should not be able to attack, unless it is face to face. Stand on that podium, Mr. Scott, and look Mrs. Sink in the eye and call her the foul things that your 74 million paid to have repeated ad infinitum on my television. Speak with your own mouth the wicked smears that appeared day after day in my mailbox.
But of course, you'll never do that. You'll appeal to unity and coming together, speak about the valiant fight your opponent has put forth, and you will congratulate her on a well-fought campaign. You will do this because honesty is a trait you do not possess, as well as decency and honor. That is why you will stand up there and speak out of the other side of your mouth now. You are no different than the rest of the politicians who are only out there to feather their own nests, and if in the process of serving their own interests they happen to serve ours, it will be a glorious accident. Thank you for further demonstrating the weaknesses in the system, thank you for further exploiting an already over-exploited public. We resent this as we have resented it every time we have been lied to, and we do not forget.
wi-fi should not be this difficult to find...
waiting on my daughter outside her school, i am thinking about how i spend an inordinate amount of time when i am out looking for wireless internet access points... are we really so technologically devolved that at this point in our human history, we haven't advanced to the level of a comprehensive wireless internet web across, at the very least, large urban areas. (like the one i live in). Instead, what one finds is a random collection of wi-fi spots, with ebbing signals that come and go, and rarely allow more than a few minutes of access.. Should it really be that hard to get online once you leave your house? should i really have to park at whataburger just to get a signal? do i have to buy a coffee to not feel bad about stealing starbucks wi-fi for fifteen minutes so i can check my email at the mall? i'm just saying....
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