First Door on the Left

The pics did not turn out as well as I had hoped. I think all the good ones are on the second roll, which is still in the camera. I need to finish taking that roll before I can get it developed, and at the rate I take pictures, that could be a while.

But, I did promise a picture, so here is one of our spoiled kids, Giorgio and Sunshine. Sunshine is the black one, so she’s kind of hard to see, and Giorgio has that sleepy, “what the hell?” look on his face I think he was born with. They are on our bed, which seems to become their bed during the daytime hours.

Sunshine and Giorgio

Precious, aren’t they?

I have some money! Wow! You see, several months ago I ordered something from a mail order catalog. A few weeks later, they sent me a little postcard to advise that the item was on back order. A few weeks after that, another postcard, still on back order. A couple of weeks later, another postcard… well, you get the picture.

Yesterday, they finally gave up. They admitted that they are very likely to never receive the item I ordered, and sent me a refund check for my order. “We hope you’ll shop with us again,” the check said. So, I have money! Yeah!! Not much, but it will pay about half the gas bill for the big trip.

So I’m off to mail the money to my bank, since I have one of those internet bank accounts and the only way to deposit money into my account is to mail it. Then I’ll stop by the drug store and pick up the pics I left there yesterday to be developed. I asked them to put them on a disc. Perhaps I’ll have a pic or two for you later.

You have something to look forward to. Yeah!

I find the fact that this page turned up during this yahoo.google search strangely disturbing. Whoever you are, I do hope that eventually you find what you are looking for, but I don’t think you’ll find it here. I’m not giving those kinds of lessons (yet). On second thought, how much are you willing to pay for these lessons? I am looking for a job, you know.

A couple of weeks ago, my mom made an appointment with her doctor. She just wanted a general check up. This is the same doctor that has been treating my parents for several years, supposedly cared for my dad, and even signed his death certificate. Guess what his first words to my mom were when she entered his office? “How’s your hubby doing?” Mom was so upset that she had to leave the office. Then this idiot doctor wonders why she got upset.

Do not try to convince me that the level of medical care in this country is not on the decline. I wish I could have been there. The imbecile would have gotten several pieces of my mind, despite the fact that I don’t really have that many pieces left to give away.

In other news, if you are looking for cellular service, I do not recommend Sprint PCS. Though they advertise nationwide coverage, I found out during my trip that this simply is not the case. I would estimate that my phone worked during perhaps 25% of the trip. The remainder of the time service was not available. This is in addition to the fact that they have yet to get one of my monthly bills correct. Last month they tried to charge me a $100 cancelation fee, and I had canceled nothing. I finally got that charge removed after calling customer service and speaking to three different “customer care agents” after waiting on hold for 45 minutes. Not stellar service!

I need to find something happy to write about here, don’t I? I’m working on it!

And…. the high school from which I graduated burned to the ground on Tuesday. It was transformed into a junior high school a few years ago. I did not see it, but the s/o says it made the national news. I had just driven past it the day before!

I got home a little after 11:00 last night. Gone for seven days, of which about four and a half were spent driving. Total mileage driven: 3,369 miles.

For those into numbers, which I am (CPAs run in my family, though I am not one), I purchased 157.11 gallons of gasoline on the trip at a total cost of $212.60, an average of $1.35 per gallon (regular unleaded). The car got 21.44 miles per gallon, which I figure isn’t too bad for a 6-cylinder Isuzu Rodeo.

I got some good pics, but they are on film and need to be developed. Once I get them developed, and figure out how to use my scanner, I may try to post some. Maybe I can get them to put them on disc.

All in all, a pretty emotional trip. It was my first trip up there since Dad’s funeral, and the first time I saw his grave with the headstone on it. Pretty hard to do. Mom and I both shed quite a few tears, especially when it was time to say goodbye. Leaving was hard, but I had to get back here and start getting my life back together. Like, uh, finding a job!

I do not recommend to anybody that they undertake driving that far alone. It was a bit boring, especially across Oklahoma and Kansas, where there is absolutely nothing to look at. And no offense if you live in Colorado, but why does the entire state of Colorado smell like a cow pasture? I drove through a snow storm in Wyoming! That was pretty weird for the end of May.

Thanks to the elderly gentleman who waved to me just south of Salina, Kansas yesterday morning. I don’t know if it was somebody who happened to read this, or just a kindly man waving at me, but thanks anyway!

At any rate, I’m home. Back in the heat and humidity that is Texas. More later.

Saturday Scruples (a bit late this week)

1. At a video store, someone is about to rent a movie you’ve seen. It’s really bad. Do you say something?
Yes. Why make them suffer, too?

2. Your former lover becomes famous. A tabloid offers you $50,000 for nude pictures and a “tell all.” Do you sell?
For 50 grand? In a blinkin’ heartbeat!

3. You decide not to hire someone because he’s wearing a nose ring. When he asks why he didn’t make it, do you give the real reason?
Yes. I’m sorry, but nose rings are just gross!

Hate to wake you up to say goodbye. (Just continuing the Mama Cass theme.) Fixin’ to hit the road. I wish I were more excited about this, but three days alone in a car just isn’t doing it for me. Something I need to do, though. It will be good to see my family again for a few days, and pay my respects.

Take care, and drive carefully! Remember, I’m on the roads. Please don’t run into me, okay? My plan is to be back a week from Friday, or maybe Thursday if I push it.

So, bye-bye.

(Side note… today is the anniversary of my graduation from high school. Blinking lot of good that did me!)

It has been a very strange today. The slightest things have set me off. If it were possible, I’d blame it on PMS, but I don’t think that’s possible. I guess I’ll just chalk it up to my on-going mid-life crisis (which has been on-going for going on ten years now).

All my bags are packed and I’m ready to go. Taxi’s waiting, he’s blowing his horn. Just kidding about that taxi part. Who can afford a taxi? My bags are packed and in the car, however. All set for departure in the a.m. I figure I need to make about 600 miles a day to keep my schedule. So if you happen to see a silver Isuzu Rodeo with Texas plates and a driver sporting a very perplexed and lost look on the road over the next couple of days, give a honk and a wave. If I happen to be going in the wrong direction, it would be awfully nice of you to point that out, also.

If I don’t happen to put anything here in the morning, see you in a week or so. Off now to watch the season finale of Scrubs. Like that show.

I have been viewing with some interest the slow and painful death of the Catholic church in the United States. A couple of years ago, my youngest brother met and fell in love with a lovely girl who was very steadfast in her Catholic faith. They wanted to get married, but before she would marry him she required that he convert to Cathlolicism. This he did, and they were married in a lovely ceremony (and a beautiful church) last summer. So, even though it may be on the fringes, I do have an interest in all this.

I also have a bit of an interest because of my homosexuality. Many in the church take comfort in placing the blame (if blame is to be had) for the downfall of the church directly on the shoulders of the gay community.

This morning, I happened upon two extremely well written articles. If you have any interest in this subject, you should read and consider both. The first is by Stanley Kurtz, entitled “Gay Priests and Gay Marriage.” The second is by Andrew Sullivan, and was written in part as a rebuttal to Stanley’s article. (Andrew’s archives do not seem to be working, so I am unable to link directly to his article. You will need to locate his writings for May 21, 2002, and then scroll down to the article entitled “USING THE CHURCH’S CRISIS AGAINST GAY RIGHTS.”)

To me, personally, (not that anybody asked), what it all boils down to is a bunch of rich old octogenarians who have been living in their own world and by their own laws for so long that they are getting kind of pissed off that anybody would have the tenacity to stick their noses into their business. Now that they’ve been found out, they have to pass the blame for this mess they have created on to somebody. Homosexuals are an easy target. Yeah, let’s say the gays did it!

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I must now begin in earnest my preparations for “the big trip.” I must wash and pack clothes, finish getting the car ready, stop by the bank and pick up some money (no, not at gunpoint, though it my eventually come to that), and stop by the pharmacy to pick up more pain medication. (Yes, that problem persists.) Time to get busy!

(5/20/02) — The former men of Enron Corp. might have lost their stock options but they still have their assets.

Seems a few of them will be showing off their “assets” in the October issue of Playgirl magazine. Hmmm….

I prefer dark text on a light background, as witnessed by this page. It’s the way nature intended. However, if you persist in putting light text on a dark background, I will probably still read what you have to say (provided you mostly agree with my viewpoints or do not send me into cardiac arrest with your moronic ideas). But, if you are one of those people who think that dark text on a dark background looks “cool”, well, you can just fo-git it! My eyesight is deteriorating as I age, and I refuse to hasten that process through attempts to make out what you are trying to communicate.

I screwed around with the design of this page last night, until I was too tired to screw around any more. I do not know how it all worked out, and could not replicate it if I had to. I just put this here and that there and kept rebuilding until it somehow fell into place. It looks decent on my monitor. If it doesn’t on yours, sorry. You are welcome to come look at it on mine.

Also, if you are going to join one of those blog linking things like Blog Snob or Wander Lust, put the code on your page! I’m tired of running into dead ends, and have toyed seriously with the idea of publishing a list of dead ends on this site. Fact, I will probably do that when I return from “the big trip.” You don’t really want to end up on my list of dead ends, do you?

GREAT FALLS (AP) - A 22-year-old Great Falls man shot off his right testicle Friday while stuffing a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun in his waistband, police said.

Ouch. He won’t be passing the “breeder intelligence test.”