Not Dead Yet

Yes, I am still alive. Just a lousy blogger. Life has been pretty SOS lately, but a few items of interest are worth sharing.

Pat leaves this Friday for two weeks in Mozambique. She is going on a Heifer International study tour and will be in country for ten days. She is excited, nervous, apprehensive, you name it. I am envious. I could have gone with her on the trip, but you'll recall I replaced the transmission in my vehicle instead. Didn't have a spare 7 grand laying around. So, it will be me and the animals for two weeks. I already warned Pat that there may be one or two fewer dogs when she returns and the dogs understand that they can all be replaced.

The first week she's gone I am taking vacation time and painting the exterior of the house - at least that's the plan at the moment. Haven't decided on the color yet. Same color scheme would be easiest, but I think it's time for a change. Maybe I'll paint the sucker pink.

The final presidential debate is on tonight, but I don't know if I can bring myself to suffer through it. I haven't learned anything from the previous two debates and I suspect there will be nothing new tonight. Besides I think I've pretty much made up my mind who to vote for - but I'm not telling. Mom and Dad never divulged their voting preferences and I'm upholding a long-standing family tradition.

On the subject of television, I have gotten hooked on Fox Network's show "Fringe." Missed the pilot and the first two regular episodes, but thank goodness for technology and Fox On Demand on the Internet. Got caught up in no time. Never got into the whole 'X Files" thing, so I guess this is kind of along those same lines. If you haven't been watching, check out the episode synopses on the Fox website first, otherwise you won't have a clue about what's going on. Good TV.

On the artsy-fartsy side of things, the Andy Warhol touring exhibit is coming to the Arkansas Art Center and I'm going to the preview tomorrow night after work. All of his famous works - Campbell's Soup cans, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, giant box of Brillo pads - will all be there along with some of his earlier, more obscure works as a budding young graphic artist. Very high class. And there will be wine and munchies.

Well, I never really thought I'd be alive for the end of the world as we know it, but the last week and a half have been quite remarkable as far as my mysteriously disappearing 401(k) plan is concerned. There is much to be depressed about, but just when you think life really sucks and you've had the world's worst day at the office, you get a phone call from your 4-year old grandson asking if you would walk down to his house and play Candyland with him and suddenly all is right with the world.

Eight and Fifty Years Ago

Celebrated my 58th birthday anniversary this year and a good, long celebration it was. My birthday was actually on Thursday, but the celebration started wednesday at work. Every Wednesday morning we have a meeting of the bank's senior management team, of which I am a member. About halfway through the meeting a birthday cake was brought in and was shared by all in attendance. Many nice comments about me not looking a day over 57. Thursday, my HR department team had made plans for lunch and cake. Only one problem - they didn't check with me and my schedule. Conflicts and meetings all day long, so that was postponed to Friday. Thursday night Pat and I went to Shorty Smalls for dinner. Friday was the department salad lunch and scratch made chocolate on chocolate cake. Delicious! Took Saturday off from celebrating. Mowed the yard and watched the Olympics. Then today, Sunday, all of the family was together at our house for supper. Kids and parents very wound up and tired, so it was an early evening.

I have been truly blessed with a wonderful family - a loving and patient wife, two intelligent and beautiful daughters, two terrific sons-in-law, four precious grandchildren, two cats and three dogs - good health, a roof over our heads (although a leak or two have appeared lately), and a satisfying job. I have no right to complain about anything.

Appetite for Destruction

Our wonderful Sierra (see previous post) has a mischievous side after all. It seems that last night, while Pat and I were attending church activities, Sierra managed to eat one of our living room chairs. Picture a section about the size of a basketball in the over-stuffed back of the chair ripped apart and stuffing everywhere. Quite a party! Granted the chair was old and had years of animal and people smells imbedded in it - must have been tasty - but it was still serviceable. I guess we only have ourselves to blame for not putting the gates up to keep her confined to the non-carpeted back of the house. Bad, bad human.

Hi, Sierra!

We welcomed Sierra to our pack this weekend. Just to prove that our daughter, Katie, doesn't have a corner on the insanity market, we added another canine to the family. As many of you know, we already have two cats, Oscar and Gracie, and one dog of our own, Bogart, plus a foster dog from the Humane Society of Pulaski County. Bogart came to us from HSPC, too. Our foster dog, Patty, was the victim of some goober who was trying to breed designer dogs in his basement. Patty is some kind of mixed breed, maybe Manchester Terrier and some wire-haired variety. She is very cute and very sweet, but is painfully shy and neurotic since she was not allowed to socialize with other dogs or humans. We've had her since October and she spends most of her time hiding under the end table in the family room. She will occasionally appear and sit on the couch or recliner and maybe, if you're lucky, let you pet her for a minute. But, don't make any sudden moves cuz she'll run and hide again.

While we are doing a nice thing for this poor little dog (and she's not taking up precious space at the Humane Society), I've been wanting a bigger dog that is happy to see me when I come home and can go on walks and be a companion animal. So, after browsing the dog listings on the HSPC website, we spotted a couple that looked like possibilities and off to the Humane Society we went to check them out. After being dragged around on a leash by several over-exuberant and quite strong dogs, we came across Sunshine, a Golden Retriever mix. We fell in love with her from the get-go and adopted her. "Sunshine" just wasn't going to cut it as a name, however, so after several hours of hemming and hawing over name possibilities, we settled on Sierra.

Sierra is the sweetest, most gentle, well-behaved dog we've ever had. She loves to go for a dip in the pool and play with the other dogs, when they are in the mood to play. She's a great addition to our pack and is just what I wanted in a companion dog. Welcome to the family, Sierra!

Dancing Queen

Granddaughter Reagan had her first dance recital on Fathers Day. At age "three almost four" the dancing is secondary to getting all dressed up in a fancy coustume and getting to wear makeup - lots of makeup. The recital was really cute in parts, but very long. It started at 1:00 and Reagan's group didn't go on until after intermission, which occurred at 2:15. Needless to say, as soon as she was finished with her performance, we two-stepped our way on out of there.

Itzaboutime

Haven't blogged in awhile, so itzaboutime. Let's see - where to begin . . .

It has been our year for repairing/replacing major appliances and machinery. It all started this Winter when our furnace blower motor died. That was followed by replacing our kitchen stove, washing machine, and last week the entire central air system. But the topper was this week's episode. Driving back from Hot Springs Saturday afternoon (more on that later), one of the little idiot lights in the old Mazda Tribute started flashing, the one that indicates if you're overdive is on or off, which I can manually turn on and off. Well, I figured I had accidentally bumped the "O/D Off" button, so I figured I could just push the button again to turn it back to "on" status. No dice. So, when we got home I perused the owner's manual which only advised you take it in to the dealer for diagnostics. Then, Sunday afternoon the dreaded "Check Engine" light came on and stayed on. So, Monday morning, off to the dealer I went. It seems the trusty old SUV had the equivalent of a myocardial infarction, suffering a life-ending event in the innards of the automatic transmission. Can't repair it - must replace it - with (get this) the one and only 2001 Mazda Tribute automatic transmission available in the continental United States. Talk about your good luck! Should have it fixed by the weekend. Thank goodness for 401(k) loans! On the positive side, though, we shouldn't have to buy a damn thing until the kids put us in a home.

We did get invited to spend last Friday night and Saturday with our good friends, Tom and Carolyn Evans, on their 55' houseboat on Lake Ouachita. Had a wonderfully relaxing evening, dinner on the Dock Holiday, wine, great food, and cigars. Tom's business partner, and also friends of ours, Sam and Pam Custer, stopped by later that evening. They also have a houseboat a couple of docks away from the Dock Holiday. Talked until midnight. Next morning Carolyn rustled up a great breakfast, Tom and I took their "little" boat (23' Chaparral deck boat) to get some ice for Saturday's main event - the Praise Team party. Most of the Praise Team from church and their families came down for a day on the lake. We swam off the stern of the Dock Holiday (still parked in the slip as it was too windy to take it out on the lake), had B-B-Q lunch and then Tom took several of the kids and a couple of dads out on the "little" boat for some tubing and water skiing. Several of us old fogies followed in Sam and Pam's party barge. It was a wonderful day with wonderful friends.

Pat and Carolyn topside

Men with stogies

Tom's "little" boat

Spring-y Thing-y

Been away from the blog world for awhile. Really not much going on other than work. Been really slammed at the office lately - my payroll/benefits manager out on maternity leave, and her back-up is a very nervous woman. Spend most of my time trying to get her to calm down and think logically.

We are well into Spring by now. Azaleas blooming and grass really greening up. We've had mucho rain and more on the way, so the Back 40 is pretty much un-mowable, unless you've got some gumbo mudders on the old riding mower. It will dry up eventually, but I'll probably need a machete by then. Our redbud tree was really pretty this year, though - see photo.

Been working on some songwriting. Hava couple of tunes in the works, Finally figured out midi, which for someone as low tech as me, is a significant achievement. I was very proud of myself. For those who don't have any idea what midi is (like me up until very recently, it is an acronym for "musical instrument digital interface." It is simply a series of computer instructions that tell a midi-capable device (keyboard, synthesizer, drum machine, or other virtual instrument) to play a particular midi note at a certain velocity (volume) for a certain duration. Once you have your midi recording track set up, you can move notes around at will, make them last longer or shorten them, increase or decrease the volume. Then you can apply any virtual instrument and play it back in an audio track and have it sound like any instrument you can imagine. Very cool and powerful tool for making music. It's nothing new, been around for years, but it's new to me.

This afternoon going to help out at our local Miracle League ball field. Miracle League is where disabled kids can play baseball with the help of adults to hit the ball and "run" the bases. Every kid gets to play and bat every inning. They play on a special hard-surface ball field that allows kids in wheelchairs to move around the field with ease. Should be fun.

Home on the Range

Took a couple of days off from work. Bought a new range for the old homestead yesterday. The 18-year old Kenmore was fading fast and you needed the Jaws of Life to get the oven door open. The new Frigidaire just got delivered and I installed it myself. No gas leaks or busted knuckles. It's a nice one - five burner, convection oven. Should last us until we are too old to cook for ourselves. Jeez, listen to me going on and on about an appliance!

In other news, had the oppportunity to attend a couple of the first round NCAA men's basketball tournament. Took son-in-law, Phillip, and we had a good time. Got to see Missisippi State defeat Oregon, and #1 seed, Memphis, slaughter UT-Arlington. Our beloved Hogs won their first game against Indiana, but met a buzzsaw on Sunday when they had to play the #1 team in the country and the tournament, North Carolina. It was ugly.

Got a new toy for my home studio - a Digitech Vocalist Live 4 vocal harmony and effects processor. It is incredibly cool. It uses chord recognition technology to build up to 4-part vocal harmonies based on the guitar chords you are playing. You sing the lead vocal and the harmonies track right with you in real time. Lots of different harmony options from a simple 3rd above or below you to real jazzy Take 5 sounds. I have no excuse now to not get busy writing songs.

B.S. Bye-Bye

Well, I'm officially retired from Blue State, having played my final gig last night. It's been an interesting five years. I think I've grown musically and in my playing ability, although I'm still pretty much a hack. I've had the chance to play with some very good musicians - Fred, Charlie, Spanky, David, Drew and JT. We never made a lot of money, but admittedly we were not in for the money. We were in it for . . . ??? . . . I forget, now. Many moments of musical magic interspersed with moments of sheer doo-doo. In hindsight, I think I'm too anal and structured to be effective in a live performing band. Too hard for me to adapt to the occasional (or frequent) musical audibles that some of my bandmates would call. Maybe now, I can get everybody elses music out of my head and start hearing my own. Anybody need some gear?

Frozen Daffodil Festival

They always say, "If you don't like the weather in Arkansas today, just wait until tomorrow." Case in point - Saturday it was sunny and 70 degrees. Spent all day working in the yard, pruning and getting ready for the Spring growing season. This morning woke up to snow. Only got about an inch here in Little Rock, but 6o miles northwest of here they had a foot of the stuff. It was the best kind of snow, in my opinion - stuck to everything except the roads. Didn't last long.

Scored a couple of freebie tickets to the NCAA Regional roundball tourney for the Friday night session on March 21 here in Little Rock. Looking forward to that! Thanks Blue Cross Blue Shield!

The Heat is On

After a week of chilly house temps and runaround from our home warranty insurance company, we finally got the furnace repaired today. Thankfully, we live where winter is fairly moderate, but sitting around in 57 degree indoor temperatures isn't all that fun. Anyway, we're back to normal. Next step - cancel the home warranty insurance. Can you say, "Rip off?"

My fifteen minutes of television fame got reduced to a three second sound bite on the nightly local news. Once again, left on the cutting room floor.

Post Time

OK. Nothing cute or catchy to open with in this inaugural post. After reading my oldest daughter Katie's blog, I've already determined who got all of the creativity in the family. Anyway, it's too damn cold to be using my right brain. Our furnace quit working Thursday night - blower motor needs to be replaced. Guy came out Friday to look at it and, of course, he can't repair it until Monday. So, the weekend has been spent dressed in layers and huddled under blankets to stay warm. Went to the mall yesterday (hate it) just to be somewhere warm for awhile. I know all you people North of the sweet tea line have no sympathy, but it does still get down in the mid 30s at night and the house gets rather chilly - especially when you step out of the shower. Talk about shrinkage! Used the oven this morning as a space heater.


My band, Blue State, played a fun event last weekend. Soup Sunday is an annual fundraiser for the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. This was their 27th year of the event. Big crowd, about 850. Filled the ballroom at the Embassy Suites with overflow into several adjacent rooms. At one point had about 25 kids dancing around (read "jumping and running") on the dance floor. It was like having our own little mosh pit full of tiny little people. No body surfing, however.

Friday I was interviewed by the local CBS affiliate for a story they are doing on Generation Y and how they are fitting into the workforce. It's supposed to air on Monday night, so we'll see if I ended up on the cutting room floor or not. The station will also post the story on their web site, http://www.todaysthv.com/, in case you want to check it out.

Hands are cold. Signing off for now.