January 2002
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January 2002
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When you live in the shadow of insanity, the appearance of another mind that thinks and talks as yours does is something close to a blessed event. R. Pirsig Tuesday January 1, 2002 We stayed up and toasted the New Year with the kids (Except Autumn and "B") I had some Sparkling Cider. The kids got up and watched the Rose Parade on TV. I tried to watch a little football but, except for the Virginia Tech Florida State game, I had a hard time staying interested The new FrontPage has a regressive feature... it is very difficult to put Hyperlinks (Link Bar Properties) into the page now I used to be able to pop up a window and select the pages I want in the "Link Bar" in a matter of seconds... Now I really have to concentrate hard and custom design each page... luckily the feature exists in the bowels of the program some where because I can cut and past an old menu bar from one of the older pages and it works fine... even brings up the same window... Learned some new words today... epistrophe: The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses or sentences. "If women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have a chance to work ... their families will flourish." H. Clinton or "of the people, by the people, for the people." A. Lincoln anaphora: The same word or phrase begins a number of sentences, "If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee; If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare me with ye women if you can." Anne Bradstreet symploce: A combination of the two simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid, each cycle of the wave is valid, each cycle of a relationship is valid." Anne Lindbergh G. W. Is famous for epistrophe's. Epistrophe's can be very powerful in speeches or demonstrate a lack of imagination... Wednesday January 2, 2002 Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord, John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, historian (1834-1902) Always wondered who said that... I was listening to a paranoia panderer from Texas talking about taking all the Genealogy databases offline because they could be used for identity theft... give me a break!... Damn, Genealogy is about Marriage, birth and death. The SSDI (Social Security Death Index) has been online for years, the database is used to verify deaths, try to use a SSN out of the SSDI and you won't make it out the door. Next they will be publishing Phone books with no names in them. Cindy cooked a zucchini/date loaf at Bonnie's... I hope someone submits my name to some Daddy-hood Hall of Fame for "Heroism-above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty" medal. Damn it was yu(ck)mmy. She is off with Christy... I will dispose of it humanely. A fella named Brock Meeks wrote a nice note thanking me and Jerry for all the research we put into "The Irony of War" . I wrote back and jabbered inanely about this and that... very few people write to me even fewer write to complement me... He wrote back to tell me who he is... "Chief Washington Correspondent" for MSNBC, I feel like a real rube... thinking he was just another Schlub like me, I had even sent him a link to my bio... how embarrassing... and cool. Click on his link above... I like most of what he has to say...especially in regards to National ID Cards and the Terrorist Bill, I haven't been able to pigeon-hole him yet, with luck I won't be able to. Jerry says he is a Commie Pinko Hippy Liberal just like me... HAHAHAHAHA Mike is helping Mr. Goodman move... he is in Santa Monica by UCLA... it is 22:30... damn... he won't be home till midnight... again. Autumn had Therapy today... Jane wants to "graduate" her from PT... she said "she has met all her goals." What is wrong with this picture... her goals were set arbitrarily by Jane, Christy and I. Jane is the pro, what she is telling me is that there is nothing more she can do for Autumn. She will still have OT with Jamie but it bothers me that Jane doesn't feel she capable of providing Autumn with more services. Thursday January 3, 2002
After therapy I took them to McDonalds in Palmdale and then went to get the mail, I noticed my phone wasn't on and as soon as it lit up the display said I had missed 5 calls and it started to ring, Christy said... "Where are you? Did you forget Mike?" I said "Crap" or words to that effect. I had forgotten that Mike had Therapy at 11:00... it was 10:45... I dropped off the girls, picked up Mike (Calie wanted to come too) and raced to Saugus, I got there at 11:15... Steve, Mikes Therapist and everyone else from the building was out front sitting on the edge of a planter, there was a fire truck in the driveway with the lights flashing and the fire alarm was chirping... It was a false alarm, after about ten minutes the Fire Department gave the all clear... Mike had about a half hour of his appointment left so Calie and had a milk-shake at Fosters... we picked up Mike (Steve said that Mike was "Off the wall" He couldn't hold a thought for more than a minute and was really having a hard time concentrating. I told Steve that Mike had missed his 'night medicine' last night... I guess that would account for Mike's behavior... I hope. I had to go to Valencia to pick up a prescription at Dr. D. 's office, Christian's should have been there too... but it wasn't, that means I have to go back there...56 miles round trip... rats. Sandy had to go to the Doctor's Office but she ran out of gas in the Cadillac, right in the drive way...I poured some gas in the tank from Mikes motorcycle but there wasn't enough so I had to go down to the Union Station to get more... It's down hill all the way so the Caddy will coast down there (I've done it) but I don't think Sandy is strong enough to deal with no power steering or power brakes... She took Mike down to Santiago Square to me a friend named Cody (a girl)... Mike has $171.00 he earned it working for Bill Goodman... he put in about 20 hours moving furniture and making trips to the dump... it is burning a hole in his pocket... all the way down to Therapy he was talking about ways to spend it... Motorcycle parts, guitar, paint-ball gun, video game player... he must have changed his mind 20 times... he decided he is going to buy Scottie's old pain-ball gun for $175.00... Christy is not thrilled... either am I but it's his money and paint-ball wars are a lot of fun. I am downloading a bunch of stuff from Morpheus... I heard Belá Fleck again last night on a free show broadcast by Direct TV... he is just incredible... he plays Bach Fugue's & Chopin Mazurka's on the banjo... he makes a banjo sound like a harpsichord He put his name to a group called the Flecktones... all of the musicians are oddballs I guess, they are inventive and very accomplished... the have a fella named Victor Wooten who is the best bass guitar player I have ever heard... he did a 7 minute solo of variations on Amazing Grace that just blew the audience away... me too, a sax player who can play an alto and a tenor sax simultaneously and can modify the sound electronically to make the damn thing sound like anything from a calliope to a woman moaning ...A bassoonist and a Clarinet player too... nothing in the world like a Jazz Bassoon...and a steel drum percussionist and keyboard player and another guy (the brother of Victor Wooten) who calls himself Future Man who plays a set of electronic drums mounted on a guitar looking thing... it's just the most amazing bunch of people I have ever heard. They even had a Tibetan throat singer and an Indian (from India) drummer! Friday January 4, 2002 What is true is what I can't help believing. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. We had a lady from the county come out here to evaluate Autumn for --- are you ready for this--- a PPT (Professional Potty Trainer) I bestowed the title... Autumn will receive 24 hours a month of Potty Training... something extremely hard for me to justify in my mind... now, it's really cool that they are going to do this but damn, our taxes and the energies of our state government are focusing a considerable amount of resources to ensure that Autumn can use the potty at school. Getting ready for the arrival of the "Assessor" was a challenge but we made the house presentable... sort of...if you squint. Christian and "B" snuck out about half way through the cleaning frenzy and jumped on their bicycles and went to the Copier place to buy Pokémon cards... I was so mad...they disappointed me quite a bit... They have a knack for it... Mike is acting very strange... like he's on amphetamines, he was at Scottie's all night and came back and slept all day, that is aberrant behavior for Mike... I am concerned...Mike is pushing me again... not sure if it's because he missed his night medicine once or if something else is going on. Christy cooked a turkey dinner tonight, it was delicious.. but (you knew there would be a but)... it was like a meal out of a Fellini movie. I tried to get the kids to sit and have a quiet dinner, Cindy was crawling around like a baby, smelling the food like a puppy, Mike wouldn't come out of his room until half the meal was eaten then he grabbed a piece of turkey off the platter with his hands and even ate with his hands... like an animal, When we told him to stop he said "It's not like I act like this with real people." I am beginning to wonder which planet he's from. "B" and Christian were playing tug of war of the Cindy wouldn't come to the table because I raised my voice to her. Calie wouldn't eat because she had snuck into the kitchen earlier and made a couple of tortilla's with cheese.
Saturday January , 5 2002 I took Autumn to get her blood work done... poor baby didn't know the Phlebotomist and was not real cooperative. Mike bought paraphernalia for his paintball gun... he bought (With his own money) Scottie's old one for $125,00 it's a nice gun... worth a lot more than $125. The house is still clean... this is the second day ... amazing... I made this picture last night... this is just a shrunk down version of a much larger one... the big one takes up too much memory to put here. This is a panorama Crown Valley from the front of my home the center of the picture is almost due South, the right is due West and the Left (Duh...)is due East... the little program that came with my Canon camera
I am very impressed, I have tried this in PhotoShop and with a couple other programs... this one is effortless...
Sunday January , 6 2002
Panorama's are so cool... Packers won and they are in the playoffs (albeit a wildcard team) they do have home field advantage in the first game so all is right with the world. And now for some stuff very few people care about... Motocross: I watched my 22 year old hero Ricky Carmichael plow into the dirt face first at about 45 mph on NBC Sports... Ricky Carmichael is the best motocross rider I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot... Roger Decoster, Bob 'Hurricane' Hannah, Jeremy McGrath... On a motocross track Ricky is in a class by himself. I saw him crash and I had to leave the room, I thought he was really hurt bad, the rider behind him ran over his foot, the bike hit him in the back and the rear wheel came down on his head with the tire spinning... I went to the PC and looked up the results of the race and found out that he will be OK... his face will need some stitches and they said his foot was cut... but he will ride next weekend... the other kid, Travis Pastrana damaged his front wheel in the first lap and was out of it by the fourth lap when the wheel collapsed... too bad... saw another kid in the 125cc class that is really fast... only 16 years old.. James "Bubba" Stewart (Link is gone, but you can find him on the Net) and he's a black kid... the first African American I have ever seen in contention for a National Motocross Title... He was really the best rider on the track but he went sown in the whoop-de-do's and came in second... apparently he has been tearing up the amateur races... I have to go to Mike's (potentially) new school tomorrow at 1030... it's down in Palmdale about two long blocks from the mall... damn...
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