Moving on up

Up to Mississippi that is. As soon as Christmas passed the packing began in earnest. The POD was delivered right on time the day after Christmas and we started loading up. It's gone very well so far and now we're down to just having to pack up the kitchen cabinets and one bathroom.

Here's the POD on the drivway in front of the house. It was really cool watching them deliver it. I had visions of them having to tilt it to get it off the truck onto the ground and didn't see how I was going to keep the furniture from sliding around. The way they do it is really cool but hard to explain. The truck carries a sort of skeleton vehicle that sort of surrounds the pod and supports is at four points from below so that it goes up and down nice and evenly. It looks to be adjustable every which way, somebody did some real creative thinking with that one.

Here is the partially loaded POD sometime early yesterday I think, maybe the day before. It's all kind of mushed together. It is MUCH fuller now. I thought we would not be filling it but we will be getting it quite full. It's a very good thing that I took as much as I did one pick-up truck load at a time for the last year and a half when I went to visit. If I'd taken any less stuff we'd have had a problem.

The packing should be finished by tomorrow night and Wednesday they will come pick the POD up. We leave here on Saturday and will drive straight through. Connie and Caylith (the cat) will be in the toyota and I'll take the pick up. She is not looking forward to driving for 14 hours but she'll do fine. It's a one shot deal for her. I've done it on average every 4 -6 weeks for a year and a half or more.

We need to be up there on Sunday because... hold onto your hats...

THE DOLPHINS MADE THE PLAYOFFS!!!!!

That was supposed to be the dolphin's teal green :) I can't believe that they went from 1 and 15 last year to 11-5 and in the playoffs this year! I can wear my dolphins stuff out in public now and not face (deserved) ridicule. I may be moving out of Florida but I will remain a Dolphins Fan!

I'll also be glad to get to a place that isn't HOT all the time. We had record heat for Christmas. It was like 83 or so here. That is just WRONG! I don't expect a white Christmas but is it too much to ask to be able to wear long pants and a long sleeved shirt? No problem with that in Northern Mississippi that time of year!

Ok time to get back to work... I hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas...take care ya'll.

Completed Projects

A while back I posted some pictures of a couple of projects that I started, intending them to be Christmas gifts. Well I actually finished them! I thought I'd post a picture or two as proof and to let you see how things turned out. I'm not posting pictures of all the ornaments, the one I'm including is representative.

I'll probably do more of them during the year to prepare for next Christmas because they were a lot of fun. The bookhouse I will probably not do another of until Connie starts teaching, she has already told me she wants one or more for her classroom. The bookhouse turned out pretty good but it was a LOT bigger than I thought it would be, why I don't know. It did have to be big enough to hold books after all.

I don't even want to THINK about how much it cost to ship to Pennsylvania to my sister in law. I guess I need to remember to think SMALL for the things that need to be shipped.

Plodding Along

It's been a while since I posted an entry. In part I've been busy. In part I did not have anything that I deemed remotely interesting to write about. I've been reading journals and, as usual, not commenting. When I do that it's usually because I didn't feel I had anything to add to what had already been said. That is also a part of why I have not written. I didn't feel I had much, if anything of much value to add to anything going on in this community or any other.

Did anybody really want to read about the state of poker and casinos in general? Probably not anybody I haven't emailed and gripped about it to. Does anybody really care how many boxes I've packed in preparing to 'officially' move to MS in a month? Only Connie and she knows, she has to walk around them. I didn't have the energy or motivation to try to write a worthy Thanksgiving entry. It was actually a good Thanksgiving as holidays go but nothing astounding to share it seems to me, not compared to what I read anyway.

On the other hand I do like to write and it's time to do so. I look back on these journals from time to time to see what was happening so in part, in large part really, I'm writing for myself. Maybe we all are, or maybe it's just me.

I've got this feeling like I'm living in an almost schizophrenic world. If I don't watch too much news and look only around my immediate little world then my journey through life seems to be going very well. I'm pretty happy. Connie is pretty happy. Lee is doing pretty well. All well and good.

Unfortunately there is this kind of feeling as I walk along the path of life's journey that I'm walking on what has become an increasingly narrow ledge. There are no saftey rails, most of them have rusted and fallen away thanks to things totally beyond my control. It's a long way down and I am not comfortable with heights. Couple that with the fact that on the other side of the narrow path is a huge cliff with boulders poised to fall at any minute and either sweep away any remaining feeling of safety or possibly sweep me into the abyss. Sounds like a dark and forbidding picture huh? Actually it's very much a mixed picture in my mind. I can also see bright blue skys and lush green pastures that await if I can dodge the obstacles in front of me. In a sense that is always the way it is on any journey but in this case I feel like there is little I can do to control the outcome of the journey right now. It's that lack of control (and I am NOT a control freak by any stretch of the imagination I don't think...am I?) that has me feeling sort of antsy. We've planned, we've worked, we've done all the right things and yet it could be all for naught...or it could be wonderful...and there is not a thing we can do now but wait and see what happens. That is a tough situation. I know I share it with many, if not most, people right now although most would think my way of looking it it a bit weird.

But having written that do you now see why I have not written? Talking about it does NOT help. What helps is staying very busy doing things that I can see producing tangible if not vitally important results, building things, creating, cleaning, improving things in my immediate life while trying not to take too much time looking at a big picture that is increasingly bleak and which is increasingly nothing that any amount of planning or work on my part can do anything about.

I'll be back in less time this time...maybe writing about some of the small things that are making me feel good will not only help me but help somebody else. They don't matter in the overall scheme of things but they make me happy and more and more it seems to be important to take any happiness where you can find it and be grateful while trying to avoid thing things that you cannot change that make you unhappy. I know it's a philosophy sure to be condemned by many in this community and the world in general. Sometimes its a good thing to have a small audience, fewer people to tell me I'm nuts (dont' waste your breath...I'm know I'm nuts....I like it that way).

And that's the way it is....

Look around you...find one thing that can make you smile and then....SMILE...and have a great day ya'll!

Cruisin' on home...

I'm tired so this will be short but I'm feeling a wee bit of withdrawal having not been able to even think about writing here for over a week now.

We're back from our cruise. It was great as they usually are. It was our fifth trip on the Carnival Glory and probably our last since a year from December they will be pulling the Glory out of Port Canaveral and replacing her with a new ship, the Dream. Of course we won't be living in Orlando and Mobile and New Orleans will both be closer as ports to cruise out of but who knows when and where the next cruise will be. I'm ready to go again now but that's just me. Too bad they aren't free LOL.

We even got an extra half day tacked onto this cruise. On Thursday a crewmember on the ship, a 23 year old woman, developed appendicitis and we had to divert and head toward Puerto Rico to get within range of a US Coast Guard helicopter to medi-evac her off the ship. We cruised for 5 or 6 hours in pretty much the wrong direction... straight south instead of the Northwest heading we'd been on. The helicopter got to the ship around 7:00 pm I guess, in full dark. It was interesting to watch and the Coast Guard did a great job. Oddly this is the second cruise we've been on where somebody had to be evacuated by helicopter. The other time we were not diverted though since we were already within range of a coast guard station I suppose.

All told we got into Port Canaveral about 10 hours late. Usually we count on having all day Saturday to do stuff after getting off a cruise but we didn't even get home until 8PM. Normally that would not matter but we were having a bunch of people over for poker on Sunday so it put a crimp in our prep time.

We got everything done though and had 13 people here tonight. First we watched a poker show on FSN called ClubWPT.com. A friend of ours had won a seat to play on TV six handed for a winner take all prize of $5000. Tonight was the airing of his show. It was fun to watch as this was the first time he'd seen it too so he got to see the hole cards of the other players for the first time. It was even better because it turned out he WON!!! He managed not to tell anyone but we'd kinda guessed that he might have.

We played two mini-tournaments after the show was over and everybody ate too much considering that EVERYBODY brought plenty of food. It worked out well even though we've moved a lot of our furniture to Mississippi already. Instead of telling people "bring your own bottle" we told them "Bring your own chair". How many times do you hear that? LOL

Anyway we're done and everybody is home and I'm beat. We were supposed to leave for Mississippi tomorrow but I didnt' get the truck packed so it's looking like we'll be leaving Tuesday...and yes...we've already voted.

I'll be writing again in a day or two probably, who knows from which 'home'. I'll get caught up on everyone's blogs as soon as possible but it will probably take me until the middle of the week or maybe even next weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone has been up to.

Remember the Ice Cream Truck?

Do you remember as a kid how you loved to hear the Ice Cream Truck driving through your neighborhood? I know I did. It would bring kids tearing out of their houses to try to catch up with it.

I'd thought it was a thing of the past actually, gone the way of the Milk Man, the Charles Chips Man and Drive In movies. It's not gone though. It's driving through my neighborhood.

At first it gave me a nice nostalgic flashback. Then, after it had been parked in front of my house for a bit the nice nostalgic feeling gave way to irritation. The old curmudgeon in me started to come out.

I suppose that it always played really badly recorded music realy loudly. I mean that is how we knew it was coming. But after listening to it for a good ten minutes (I guess the kids could not make up their minds) I know wonder if maybe our parents didn't look at it with quite the enthusiasm that us kids did. Possibly they even had thoughts of ripping the speaker off the side of the thing and stomping on it. I would no longer blame them :)

Just goes to show you how your perceptions can change over time. I was tempted to go out and see about buying something but I have a feeling the prices would shock me. I can't actually remember how much we used to pay for things but I know I always just needed some change, no paper money. These days you probably need a credit card to afford it.

The neighborhood kids still looked just as happy to see it as I remember being though. I never got to see my kid react to hearing it. At 21 now he'd be more likely to want to shut off the loud and truly horrible music than to get an ice cream...but maybe not.

Even the the old curmudgeon can step aside long enough to smile at the nostalgic thoughts of times gone by. Oh...and it moved on so it's quiet again which helps too :)

A change then a vacation

First the change. I'm back in Orlando for a week. We left around 1 pm on Friday when Connie finished work for the day and started driving. She really wanted to get to Orlando in time for a home poker game some friends were having on Saturday night. She likes poker but not enough to want to drive that long all at once. She likes the people too and I suspect the chance to get together with them for what is rapidly turning into a diminishing number of opportunities was the key for her. Whatever the reason we ended up driving straight through and got home just before 4 am on Saturday morning.

I know it sounds insane but I'm coming to like to drive this way. Being on the road all night is not that bad. I seem to have no trouble staying awake as long as I have a goal in sight. Also if need be I can cat nap at a rest stop. The traffic is non-existent and driving is very easy. She pointed out to me that a lot of why we seem to like it is that it no longer feels like we are wasting a day driving. We use the same amount of TIME of course but we got plenty done on both Friday and Saturday and STILL drove from Hernando to Orlando. Normally we'd have used up all of our waking ours on Saturday sitting in the truck.

She got right around six hours sleep on Saturday and I managed about four but felt pretty good. We did get to our friend's house and played both of the tournaments that night. They're just little $10 buy in things between friends. No big stakes involved here. The people are fun though and the poker is not bad. I feel a little awkward playing these tournaments because I cash well over 50% of the time. This past Saturday I won the first tournament and was second in the second one. I guess if it really bothered people how often I take home the money they'd stop inviting me. It may help that I'm not in Orlando that much anymore so it probably doesn't feel to them like I win that much. This is kinda too funny....a poker player with a conscience. I love to win and I play to win...always even against friends. The thing is they ARE friends and I guess I do worry I will piss them off. Not much I can do. I just have never been able to throw a game of any sort. If you play with me and beat me then you know you beat the best I could give it.

Now that the weekend is over I'll spend the week working on the flooring I'm installing as an ongoing project and also doing a few odds and ends toward moving in January. There are things I can pack up now because I know I can do without them for the next three months. I'll probably take the truck back to Hernando when I go in around two weeks and take a load of stuff even though I realy don't need to. It's going to be too cold up there to enjoy the Miata with the top down anyway so I might as well take the truck and a load of 'stuff' with me.

Before I go back though we've got a long anticipated vacation coming. Around nine months ago we booked a cruise and have been asking ourselves "is it time yet?" ever since. Well it's almost time. We leave Saturday for a week cruising around the Carribean. I'm really looking forward to it. It's the most relaxing form of vacation I've ever found. I just enjoy the sun and fresh air and sit around reading and people watching. If I take a vacation on land I usualy end up planning some way to play some poker on it, or theme the whole thing toward poker. This cruise will be poker free. They do HAVE poker available but it's one of the horrible PokerPro tables. It's like playing online, you play against live players sitting around a table with a computer screen in front of them. Horrible idea. If I'm going to play on a computer I want to do it in my living room with a tee shirt and gym shorts on and my feet propped up. I won't have any trouble not playing.

Now it's time for me to get to work. Lots to do here before I go on the cruise. I'll probably write another entry before then but probably will not write from the cruise. I'm taking my laptop so I can write but plan to have very close to zero time spent online as well. We're not even planning to buy one of the plans where you get cheap (well cheaper) minutes on the ship. I'll probably check email a few times so if somebody writes I'll write back but I'm not going to be online long enough to write journal entries.

I'm amazed at how much I have been writing here. Especially after not having written for so long on AOL and being sure when I moved here that I wouldn't be changing that here. Oh well I do enjoy writing so it's working out. So is our new home here I think. I'm really liking it here. I was always sort of on the fringe of J-Land on AOL, sort of like the guy at a party who hangs around watching but not really being part of the party. That won't change a whole lot here but maybe it will change a little...just maybe.

Ok NOW I'm going back to work...I really am...maybe :)

Tricks memory plays on you

Yesterday I finally started on something I've mean to do for quite a while. I've seen in a couple of different places, mostly writing prompts I think, how you should keep a timeline of your life, sort of a life resume. Not just of jobs held but of important events in your life.

I thought I remember it all fairly well but as I began to try to compile the document I found myself remembering a surprising number of things only dimly and getting things in the wrong chronological order. I also found out that I am horrible with dates.

I discovered another oddity for things farther back in my past, and I'm really just talking since I've been married. Jobs I held back then that had seemed like I'd been there a long time in reality turned out to be only a couple of years. One house we lived in which I'd been sure we'd lived in for a very long time was also only about two years.

A more recent house that we DID live in for 10 years seemed no longer than the one back in the distant past, and remember I've been married 31 years so the distant past is pretty distant.

All in all it's been an eye opening experience creating this life timeline or whatever you choose to call it. I'm glad I'm working on it and have a feeling that I'll be VERY glad in another 20 years. I know I've still got things to add and dates to refine. Some things will be hard to document because they were before I began to journal in any form. That is another thing that will be nice in 20 years or so. Journals like this one and the private ones I have kept over the years either in actual paper journals written long hand or on my computer will be invaluable to look back on somewhere down the road.

Mostly right now I'm musing over the oddity of how compressed time seems the farther back I go in my memory. I wonder if it's just me or if it's a common thing.