Summer

My summers as a teenager were spent mowing yards in the neighborhood, chopping wood, clearing out weeds and other junk from a large shed @ my grandparents' house and 1 summer I painted their 4 bedrooms (all 16'X16') upstairs, plus my normal chores at home. I did that stuff plus Boy Scouts and church youth group and marching band practice for 2 weeks before school started.

None of this work was punishment. It was just work that needed to be done and I was the one who did it.

Kids now have no concept of what real work is. The funny thing is now that I look back on it, I guess I did a LOT of work growing up, but I still managed to have friends and have fun. I sure as heck didn't complain. I would have ended up with a warm backside and then go do the work anyway.

Lowest Gas Prices in Knoxville

Knoxville Gas Prices provided by GasBuddy.com

The True Christmas Spirit

My wife and I had something happen to us a couple of days ago that truly has renewed my faith in other people.

The story goes like this. It was really cold and our daughter didn't want to wait outside for the school bus, so we told her we would take her to school. We get in the car and drop the younger 2 kids off at the elementary school.

After dropping them off, the wife notices that the car is acting a little weird. I get out to find that the left rear tire had gone flat and was starting to come apart.

I am not mechanically inclined, so putting the spare on was not really an option. We baby the car in to the Wal Mart down the street and do some Christmas shopping while we get a new tire put on.

We get done with the shopping and go back to the auto section to pick up the car.

That is when the amazing thing happened. There was a lady in front of us paying for something she had done to her car. The Wal Mart clerk pulls out our paperwork and I look it over. While I'm doing that, this lady who was in front of us asks if we were the people who had the tire blow out on us.

I say "yes", then this person I had never seen before in my life pulls out her credit card and asks if she could pay for the tire for us for Christmas. All I could manage was a kind of half stunned "yes, thank you". We didn't get her name, and we will probably never see this lady again.

As the song goes, there are truly angels among us, most often when you very least expect it.

Living Christmas Tree

We are going tomorrow night to the Knoxville Living Christmas Tree at Thompson-Boling Arena. The picture is from the 2006 production.

Thompson-Boling Arena and Neyland Stadium

TBA and Neyland Stadium
Originally uploaded by Michael Wender

One of the nicer shots of Neyland Stadium and Thompson-Boling I have ever seen.

Prisoner poker could crack cold cases - Yahoo! News

Prisoner poker could crack cold cases - Yahoo! News

Closure

There is a candlelight vigil on campus tonight for the victims at Virginia Tech.

I wasn't planning to go, but I think I will, if only to give myself some limited sense of closure.

Virginia Tech

I don't know anybody who works for or goes to school at Virginia Tech, but it got me to thinking. Here I am on a college campus about the size of VA Tech. If something this drastic could happen in a little nothing happening place like Blacksburg, it could truly happen anywhere.

We even had a bomb threat here yesterday and they cleared out a couple of buildings for an hour or so. It turned out to be a hoax, but as crazy as the world is now, you never know.

UPDATE

It turns out that I do know someone at Virginia Tech. I have a cousin who lives there now and has an office across the street from the campus. She and her husband are both fine.

A good lesson

I found this on another blog a few days ago. It gives a good message about the basic difference between conservative Republicans and most Democrats (and these days, even "moderate" Republicans like John McCain and Rudy Guiliani).

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat and was for distribution of all wealth.

She felt deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, which she expressed openly. One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs.

Based on the lectures that she had participated in and the occasional chat with a professor she felt that for years her father had obviously harbored an evil, even selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father.

He stopped her and asked her point blank, how she was doing in school. She answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain. That she studied all the time and never had time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because of spending all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your good friend Mary doing?" She replied, & Mary is barely getting by; She continued, "She barely has a 2.0 GPA, "adding, and all she takes are easy classes and she never studies; "But Mary is so very popular on campus, college for her is a blast, she goes to all the parties all the time and very often doesn't even show up for classes because she is too hung over."

Her father then asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's Office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your 4.0 GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0." He continued, “That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter visibly shocked by her father's suggestion angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! I worked really hard for mine, I did without and Mary has done little or nothing, she played while I worked real hard!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said, “Welcome to the Republican Party."

Turning 40

I'm not sure how I feel (or how I should feel) about turning 40. I know I have gained a fair bit of weight, but I don't know how much because I don't have a scale. All I know is that my pants and shirts are getting tighter, so it is time to step away from the table and get exercising again.

Fortunately, this place (commonly known as T-RECS), is right down the street.

I'm back!!

I know it has nearly been a lifetime since I posted anything, but I have been super busy with work, school, and so on.

There will be more later.

Update

For the 2 or 3 of you who read my blog, I have an update that goes back to my very first post back in November, 2004.

In that post, I mentioned my hockey playing days and some of the fellas I played with all those years ago.

Well, it seems that one of those fellas went and read what I said and he decided to say hello to me after nearly 25 years, (even if all I did was stand in front of the net and poke in the shots of his that the goalie happened to stop). I was very happy to hear from him after all this time and plan to keep in touch.

As for this blog, this "blast from the past" has gotten me motivated to write more about my present. I am on vacation right now, but when I get back, expect a lot more frequent posting from me.

Thank you, UT!

Affter having been at the University of Tennessee for a little over a year now, I have to say that coming here is the best decision I have ever made!!

The people I have gotten to know here have become almost like my family. They not only provide me with the opportunity for a good education, they provided me with a place to live in a hurry when I needed it. They have also provided me with a job that gives me the time I need to study, as well as nice folks to work with who have helped me more than they know. Without these people, I would pretty much be up the river with no paddles, so saying 'thank you' somehow seems to not be enough, but it is the best I can do for now.

GO VOLS!

Walking, Part II

This walking class is tougher than I thought it was going to be. First day, we walked a mile and then a bunch of steps. My legs are killing me!!

I'll tough it out and see what happens. Still sounds like an interesting class from looking at the syllabus.

Walking

I am starting a walking class today. 1 credit which I should get an "A" in at least. I am doing this for more than the easy grade though. I also hope to get rid of some of this gut I hae developed since I have been in Knoxville, and to hopefully give me more energy as a result.

I am not sure what is wrong with me, but I just have very little motivation to do much of anything, and I know I need to do something to change the way I am going.

Divorced

Well, I went to sign all the divorce papers this morning. I am agreeable to the greatest majority of the stuff I signed. The only thing I didn't care for was that she seemed so darn HAPPY about it all coming to an end.

Now it goes to the judge, who has to hold on to it for 14 days before he (the judge) signs it, then poof.....DIVORCED!

Back in Greensboro...for now

I know now why I left Greensboro.

I am here for a few days to visit my parents, and would not live here again on a bet. Way way too crowded with nothing to do. I did get to see the Depot downtown for the first time in about 30 years, but that one highlight is overshadowed by all the corporate sprawl from the airport coming into town on I-40.

Liberalism is a mental disorder

This guy is the only talking head who tells it like it REALLY is without the political baggage of Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly on the right or Al Franken and the Air America left wing nut jobs. Check him out!