Carving Pumpkins & New Orleans..

So much to catch up on….

It’s been a really busy past couple of weeks. I’m sorry for not posting, I just haven’t really found the time. I used to be able to post once a day because of computer access at work, now that is gone, I’m really down to once a week but I was out-of-town last week for my wedding anniversary. My wife and I went to New Orleans….

We ended up going to Bourbon Street just to say we went. I found it to be interesting and nerve-wracking all in the same breath. It’s not the drinking that really bothered me, it was more as night approached and it became darker less than savory characters started coming out of the woodwork, and I don’t mean tourists. I think I have some experience in this area and we soon found ourselves on darkly streets with a lot of folks hanging out in doorways. Overall the trip was good. The architecture and culture of the city is second to none. We ate at a fabulous restaurant on a balcony above Bourbon Street….

We took a paddle-boat ride down the Mississippi and saw some of the old graveyards. While riding down the Mississippi I snapped this photo of a building that caught my eye for the obvious reasons. I was told it was tagged post-Katrina…..

 We spent 2 days there and that was enough for me. It was our 19th Wedding Anniversary. Some folks have asked me what is the secret to a long marriage, to be honest, I have no clue. I’m not sure there is a secret involved. I guess the main thing, a sappy as it sounds, is love. We still get on each others nerves, still argue, still have issues, but we love each other and that is what really has kept it going.

Halloween is upon us once again and for those of you who are new readers there is something you should know. I am a master pumpkin carver. It is my second best talent, I won’t tell you my first best talent…..:) Just Joking.

I find it relaxing to be honest with you, the kids like them, and it gives me something to do even way out here this year……

 Things have been quite around here. Work is work, school is school, and life is life. I was called an Ex-Yankee by a co-worker the other day which means I think I have turned the corner. I just go in and work and come home and do my thing. I’m comfortable with that for right now. There are some things I’d like to change but for right now everything is going the way it’s supposed to.

I hope you all have a safe and fun Halloween.

Take Care,
Bob D.

The Dream is True

As I drove down the road this morning a light mist, a fog, stretched through the field and across the road. For a moment it seemed as if I were flying through the clouds. The sun barely peeking through the trees in an orangish glow that made the moment surreal. Only for a moment I wasn’t here, I was free……

I remember as a boy having dreams of flying. Flying like Superman. I used to try to force myself to have the dream, but when forced it would never come. I remember laying down at night and telling myself, ‘I hope I have the dream tonight.’ Some nights it would and some it wouldn’t.

As I got older another type of dream would happen. I would dream things that would come to pass. Small glimpses into the future. I never have told anyone this except my wife. It’s not that I can see lottery numbers or anything. Most of the time they are blurs, images happening to quickly for me to decipher. Sometimes it will be a place, or a person. Sometimes it will only be one or two sentences of a conversation, but nothing more than that.

When the event happens, I get the feeling of Deja Vu. That I have been here before, or we have talked before. I will remember something small like something passing by in the background or the way someone was standing. I haven’t had these dreams with great frequency but they sometimes still happen.

Tonight is the Homecoming Dance. My daughter does not have a date. She does not seem to be to upset about this. She didn’t have a date last year either. I think that she wants to go with someone. She had someone ask her this year but because he didn’t pay his student fee’s he isn’t allowed to buy a ticket? I really thing that it’s more like the person she wants to go with already has a date and she doesn’t want to go with anyone else but I’m really not sure.

Things are ok, life is ok. I have been going through a lot of up’s and downs these past couple of weeks. I find myself more quite and less opinionated than usual. I am developing a ‘less is more’ approach to things. I don’t feel as inspired as I should, I do know that.

We have been going to church on Sunday. I like the Pastor. I like the way he delivers a message that isn’t bogged down in rhetoric and politics. I am trying to be open-minded about the whole thing.

My son is doing well as he can. His last football game is Tuesday.

My wife is worrying me to death about small things that she loves to worry about. That’s ok, she has been doing that for 19 years, I see no reason for her to quit now.

I miss the fall colors of Ohio. I miss Renick’s Family Farm and the pilgrimage to find the perfect carving pumpkin, and their sausage sandwiches.
The nights have been cool and quite here, which is something I have been waiting for. Their has been clear skies at night which makes for excellent stargazing.

I want to Thank those who read for your support and your love.

I hope you are all well.
Bob D.

On A Whim and Some Guilt

When faced with being right or wrong, I don’t need to be right, I just don’t like to be wrong……

I sit and sometimes ask myself, ‘What really brought us here’? Moving across country. Leaving behind jobs, friends, memories, a sense of belonging and purpose that would permeate my being most days. I tell myself we did it for our kids, for our sanity, to move out of the inner city, to move away from a city whose population is pushing over a million, to a town whose population is roughly 50,000.

To a different culture, to a different way of thinking and doing. Do I fit in? Am I really the chameleon I thought I was? Have I adapted or have I accepted?

In watching the sunset this evening with an odd purplish pink glow not accustomed to being seen in the north and a warm breeze I caught myself believing all of these things for just a moment. In reality, I understand I moved to make others happy. My wife, my kids at that point in time, and our relatives. I’m not convinced I made myself any more or less happy, I am convinced that if I am able to do this, I can do anything. That in doing this I have in truth set myself free in some odd way.

I went to an NA meeting last week on a whim and some guilt. When I am at my lowest, God, as I understand him, is at the top of his game. A guy at the meeting asked me to sponsor him. I am back in the solution again, helping someone else and in turn that helps me.

Work has been steady and my wife is frustrated at her temporary placement.
My son continues to believe that school here is a social junket and has received detentions to remind him it’s not.
My daughter continues to sneak and talk to boys we wouldn’t approve of.
An oddly enough, all seems right in the bizarro world I call reality.

Our wedding anniversary is fast approaching. It is the 26th of this month. We will be married 19 years. I love my wife more today than I did yesterday. I am truly a blessed man. I am open for suggestions for gifts.

I hope this post finds you all well. Special holler out to David and Elizabeth who went to Disney to celebrate a late Honeymoon. I hope they had fun on Space Mountain…..the ride that is!

Take Care.
Bob D.

Sex, Stream, Suicide

I was watching the story the local news carried about Tyler Clementi and the fervor surrounding the number of gay/lesbian suicides in recent weeks due to bullying, or due to their sexual preference being revealed in a manner that was inappropriate. It seems in Tyler’s case his roommates allegedly streamed live via webcam an encounter Tyler had with another man in his room.
In reality, if this had been a man and a woman I could have charged $19.95 and been called an entrepreneur, but because of what it has become we will call it suicide instead.

I have several gay friends. I consider myself open-minded. I have my own views of homosexuality, and they are just that, my views. What I am wondering is, is this a case of bullying or a case of shame? In all that I have read there seemed to be no malice between the roommates before the incident. That the roommates had told friends at home that, ‘They were glad to have found such a cool roommate (Tyler)”. Is this a case of bullying or a case of a roommate making poor decisions to spy on another roommate who had a webcam setup in the room for sometime for God knows what else (His/Her own Sex Streams) and put someone else’s junk out there to see?
In the end it seems so petty, and the loss of such a gifted young man and the countless lives that are changed all over a situation like this makes me wonder sometimes.
It makes me wonder what happened to the people I made fun of growing up? I could lie and tell you I didn’t pick on others, but I did. We didn’t have webcams or digital cameras. We had mouths that roared and stories made up to embarrass one another. We had wedgie’s and lockers stuffed with rotting banana peels. Looking back on it now it seems so foolish.
Now we have digital cameras, live steaming video, picture mail, text messaging, bogus MySpace and Facebook pages and a determination to hurt on a whole new level.
I guess what caught my attention was, these were adults, not kids, not teens, but adults in college. I can’t vouch for their maturity levels but their ages deem them adults in society. Something just isn’t coming together for me with this story, there is something amiss and I am sure more will come to light.

 My wife went to Texas to Canton. Some huge spend more of Bob’s money adventure with her Aunt. I guess it’s like a huge flea market (Help Elz) that is all the rage. So the kids and I have been left here to our own devices. David went roller skating and my daughter continues to work on carpel tunnel syndrome being on computer and texting endlessly.

My son seems to have been able to pull his grades up to at least a D the last 2 weeks of this 6 week period. He is usually a B/C student and the business of school here threw him for a loop. Schools here are all business about the business of school. What I mean is they are much more strict. It’s not that the work is any harder, I actually believe are kids to be one year ahead, it’s that every assignment, every paper has to be accounted for and when you have 2 kids with ADHD that can be a challenge.
School has always came easy for my daughter. I looked at one of her chemistry papers last night and I thought I may have to call in Homeland Security because it was a formula for a dirty bomb. Just kidding, I couldn’t make heads or tails out of it, but she got an 80% on the paper. David has always struggled and we remind him he needs to work just a little bit harder.

 Fall has finally arrived here, mid 80’s and cool in the evenings. I haven’t been getting to meetings as often as I like but I continue to have an understanding and a process of this new life here. My goal is to get into a schedule after David’s football season is over of Tuesday and Thursday meetings.

My wife wants me to go to church on Sunday, which there are an overabundance of here. There is literally a church every mile it seems. I don’t know, maybe I will go, maybe I won’t. I haven’t found it necessary to go so far. I haven’t been to church on any consistent basis in over 20 years, so I wonder why I should start now?

I’m sorry I haven’t replied to your comments as of late. I do read them and it is probably rude that I don’t, so I will make an effort to reply.

I hope this post finds you all well.
Take Care,
Bob D.