Rants, musings, and other general purpose blog entries reflecting the thoughts du jour.
You've got to hand it to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor as his 66th birthday certainly was celebrated in a rather unique and memorable way. Somehow I doubt "custody suite chic" was what he had in mind, though...
Today I had the privilege and honour of observing the passage of the Buddhist monks on their "Walk For Peace" near Jordan Lake. To say that it was genuinely a life-altering experience is the understatement of the century... :)
Today would have been Dad's 81st birthday...a day he shared with Dr Martin Luther King Jr. How about a fun journey to see what other notable birthdays and events occurred on the 15th of January?
(This entry is very intensely emotional and personal and I'll understand if you choose to give it a miss!) The word "super" always had a special meaning between Dad and I for far longer than anyone else would have ever known of it's deeper meaning whenever he'd use it to answer their question. Today seems as good a day as any to finally let everyone else in on what it truly meant to the both of us...and still does to this day.
We'd barely been able to process the 389th (!!!) senseless mass-shooting event at Brown University in Rhode Island before the grim newsflash from Bondi Beach near Sydney of an attack upon Jews celebrating Hanukkah (the festival of light) and it makes me wonder if we can see anything at all in the darkness seemingly consuming our world. :(
Alex was hoping for a Snowpocalypse so he wouldn’t have to go to school. The lack of a Snowpocalypse didn’t stop Wake County schools from binning school anyway…
When the weather forecast turns ghastly and is of the wintry persuason round the Triangle, one can’t help but thinking of the great wintry calamities that have befallen an area utterly unprepared for the aftermath…
Even an impending Snowpocalypse (or Durmageddon) isn’t enough to keep us from seeing some old friends at the arena! :)
YouTube served up a certain clip from "WKRP in Cincinnati" and that was the inspiration for today's Thanksgiving message...humour and the people you love in this world can get you through just about anything life can throw at you.
My cousin Hannah is arguably among the strongest and most courageous people I have ever known. In spite of pain so severe that it is almost unimaginable that it could be endured, she's managed to finish a master's degree and advocate strongly on the behalf of those who society would prefer to forget and do more in her time than most have with many more years behind them. Now she's in what is literally the fight to reclaim her life and fully realise her destiny of being a troublemaker of the very best kind this world desperately needs. Will you help her in her time of need?
Whilst waiting for some Chinese comfort food for Nicholas who was definitely feeling like the fourth day of a three-day liberty pass, there was a penny on the table whilst I was waiting for the food. That penny was apparently worth many thoughts that restores my faith in this country's ability to survive... :)
As we honour the veterans and active duty members of the Armed Forces as well as those who came before them, they should not be the only ones shouldering the burden of fighting for the freedoms we often take for granted!
I love my Traverse but mending her occasional faults seems to have more than a little frustration thanks to curious design choices by the engineers of the Lambda series…or it’s just that they hate people who want to mend their own vehicle. So imagine my surprise when this little bit of maintenance was actually much less painful than expected… :)
The morning started out a bit harrowing apparently sleeping through the alarm but visiting the front of Alex's school I'd not seen in quite a while showed the Enloe Marching Band's pit crew got a massive upgrade we'd have only dreamt of... :)
To the nice lady in aisle A3 at the White Oak Target this afternoon with tubes of shampoo that just refused all attempts at adequate support...it was a honour and a privilege to hopefully brighten your day just a little bit! :)
Through the years, I have come to understand two things: 1) At a certain point in life a man’s hips spread and there’s nothing you can do about it and 2) there’s a very easy way to define friendship. A friend is someone who won’t stop until he finds you and brings you home.
It's been an awful long twelve days of having the Traverse sitting idle in the garage but now she has the correct coolant hose installed and the coolant reservoir topped up so there's only one thing left to do...
I had thought about showing Nicholas that I can occasionally be clever and handy mending things under the bonnet of the Traverse whilst he was away at Toyota training. Let's just say that the universe had other ideas...
There seems to be a fundamental law of the universe that says that when I have a happy day that ends with a client settling their bill, then obviously I'm in need of immediate punishment that effectively spends it before deposit at the credit union. In this particular case, it was eerily similar in location and root cause to an incident just a couple of years earlier...
One of the most memorable villains ever on film is also the same chap who played Bernadette on "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert". But then that was Terence Stamp to a "T"...such contradictions but also such a sublime talent! He will be missed... :(
Some very un-Corolla like noises come from under Meghann's bonnet and that's when we discovered two stowaways... :)
After decades of inspections that were ten minutes and forking over some cash, the emissions testing regime for this year has been an exercise in frustration and stress beyond belief. At least the Traverse has finally passed for another year and hopefully the emissions testing will go the way of the dodo in Wake County before next year's renewal season!
From pleasant memories of tubing on the "What a Loop, Eh" River to the horrific news that the Guadalupe lived up to it's more sinister nickname of "Flash Flood Alley" that has claimed many lives including several young girls who were at Camp Mystic. May their memory be a blessing to others... :(
It may have taken a while but Ben charted his own course to the altar. Today we celebrate just how awesome my brother is and how wonderful Jessica is for actually getting who truly he is at heart! :)
No one in the military knows how to properly take the piss better than a Marine as anyone who has seen the first half of "Full Metal Jacket" or this cheeky birthday wish from a jarhead in his Class A dress uniform can attest...
