Wow.
Life is indeed strange at times.
Surreal.
I posted this on Dorries Fun Forum, but obviously I must post here as well.
I was standing here, talking to my son while he was on his MySpace account, when my cell phone rang.
It was the pastor's wife that my ex goes to church at. My son has grown up with these people - in my case, both as husband and now ex-husband of my son's mother.
She had some very bad news: my ex's father passed away today, had a massive heart attack and that was the end of that.
So, Caleb - my son - called my ex and they talked for a while - she is flying out to Florida tomorrow - where her family is from - and will be there for a week.
My son said he had just talked to his grandfather just 3 days ago and he was fine.
It's the 1st day of the New Year.
We are down in Sierra Vista, Arizona, visiting his grandfather from my side.
There is more here than meets the eye. I haven't figured it out yet, but - eventually I will. Besides the obvious and the irony of the situation in visiting one grandfather and on that same day, the other one passes - there is more here. Besides the fact that it's a New Year and we are all celebrate the passing of the old year. Beside the fact that JS has also died.
Very strange to me. I knew this man - he visited us while I was still married some years ago and stayed for at least a month. A likable enough guy, we got along well for the time he was here.
Prayers for my son would be appreciated for those that are of the praying sort. I would like to believe we could have a great time tomorrow visiting with my dad, but understandably my son probably isn't going to feel much in the mood.
Never-the-less, we are staying until Saturday unless he voices that he wants to go home before his mom leaves. He wouldn't be going with her, anyway, so unless he must see her, we will stay here and finish this visit. Maybe. See how he does tomorrow, but my dad is a very godly man, still ministering in a church and I do believe he will end up praying with us.
For me, I was not personally related to this man, and though I'm saddened at the loss for my son's sake, I am not really that much affected by it. I always think about my friends and family - extended and near - that are getting older. I also think about my own life - enjoy it while you have it, it won't last forever.
Still, what a way to start out the New Year.
There's some great people I have met on JS and I know at least some of you will be praying, for that I thank you and for those that don't pray, good thoughts or whatever you do will also be most appreciated.
ben
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Sierra Vista
I should have known a Marriot Inn is going to have a public computer. Nobody is in this lobby to use it, I can sit here for as long as I like.Drove the almost 190 miles (a bit further than Mapquest determined it to be) in 2 and a half hours. I have no idea how fast I was driving since the speedometer on my car is acting up - it showed we were going 140. Lol. Of course, you can do the math and come up with an average : )
Upon arrival my son and I engaged my dad and his wife - Millie - in a couple of hours of conversation before heading out to ………..da ta da taaaaaaa - Tombstone, Arizona. Hadn’t been there since I was a little boy. We ate at the Longhorn Restaurant - a very nice meal indeed. After that, we decided to go into what once once a silver mine. It was quite fascinating, and yes I have pics - but no way to post them until I get home. We went down a flight of 60 stairs they had built just for giving out tours, and then - we got into some pretty tight situations. Mostly had to duck the entire way through there. It was cool, but I don’t really want to give a detailed report of that until I get pics up and then just explain the tour through the pics.
My dad has some pretty bad arthritis in one of his knees and started tipping over several times - decided to stay close and not let him fall over. He just had a stint/s put into his heart not too terribly long ago. We just took our time and mostly stayed behind everyone so we wouldn’t be getting in the way of everyone. Again, it was a fascinating tour and the guide was very knowledgeable and made the tour both entertaining and educational at the same time.
Tomorrow, early, dad and Millie want to go to some caverns whose entrance we saw on the way down here. My dad has always been like this - always going, always touring, always visiting new places or revisiting places he’s already been to.
I left my dogs in the hands of the newer tenant - Mary disappeared after coming home from work yesterday and wasn’t around this morning either. The new guy said he would do it and I said I would give him some money off his next rent payment if he would. That was even more agreeable to him - I can hardly expect tenants to feel like they should be responsible for the owner’s animals if they don’t want to be. Oh, and I didn’t ask, he volunteered. It would cost far more to have someone coming over and feeding them once a day and looking in on them twice a day, so.
I have not been out of town on any kind of trip save runs in the company semi since before my house burned down July, 2007. Very relaxing. I had not expected that. I thought I would be tense and uptight just being away from home. Not at all. The Marriot isn’t a bad perk, either, it’s a pretty darn nice place. My son is currently in the work-out room and plans to visit the pool in a while - heated pool of course.
This little trip is just what the doctor ordered. My only “concern” is I want to be home on Saturday before the NFL games start up for the wild card games. They are hopefully going to be good games, even if my team isn’t playing. That will be next week. Which, Saturday is the planned day of departure, anyway.
That’s it, I don’t want to spend too terribly much time out here as I would like to retire to the bedroom and see what’s on the tube.
Have a great evening/day, be visiting your sites after I get home.ben
edited: I have no idea what I did to my blogspot journal, I went over there and posted this entry to find that it only has that one, single entry and everything was changed. Not sure what I have done? Oh well, here’s the entry, anyway.
Edit 2: I realized my mistake, I made up another blogspot journal under another email account, and entered that account id instead of this one's id. All's well that ends well......
Upon arrival my son and I engaged my dad and his wife - Millie - in a couple of hours of conversation before heading out to ………..da ta da taaaaaaa - Tombstone, Arizona. Hadn’t been there since I was a little boy. We ate at the Longhorn Restaurant - a very nice meal indeed. After that, we decided to go into what once once a silver mine. It was quite fascinating, and yes I have pics - but no way to post them until I get home. We went down a flight of 60 stairs they had built just for giving out tours, and then - we got into some pretty tight situations. Mostly had to duck the entire way through there. It was cool, but I don’t really want to give a detailed report of that until I get pics up and then just explain the tour through the pics.
My dad has some pretty bad arthritis in one of his knees and started tipping over several times - decided to stay close and not let him fall over. He just had a stint/s put into his heart not too terribly long ago. We just took our time and mostly stayed behind everyone so we wouldn’t be getting in the way of everyone. Again, it was a fascinating tour and the guide was very knowledgeable and made the tour both entertaining and educational at the same time.
Tomorrow, early, dad and Millie want to go to some caverns whose entrance we saw on the way down here. My dad has always been like this - always going, always touring, always visiting new places or revisiting places he’s already been to.
I left my dogs in the hands of the newer tenant - Mary disappeared after coming home from work yesterday and wasn’t around this morning either. The new guy said he would do it and I said I would give him some money off his next rent payment if he would. That was even more agreeable to him - I can hardly expect tenants to feel like they should be responsible for the owner’s animals if they don’t want to be. Oh, and I didn’t ask, he volunteered. It would cost far more to have someone coming over and feeding them once a day and looking in on them twice a day, so.
I have not been out of town on any kind of trip save runs in the company semi since before my house burned down July, 2007. Very relaxing. I had not expected that. I thought I would be tense and uptight just being away from home. Not at all. The Marriot isn’t a bad perk, either, it’s a pretty darn nice place. My son is currently in the work-out room and plans to visit the pool in a while - heated pool of course.
This little trip is just what the doctor ordered. My only “concern” is I want to be home on Saturday before the NFL games start up for the wild card games. They are hopefully going to be good games, even if my team isn’t playing. That will be next week. Which, Saturday is the planned day of departure, anyway.
That’s it, I don’t want to spend too terribly much time out here as I would like to retire to the bedroom and see what’s on the tube.
Have a great evening/day, be visiting your sites after I get home.ben
edited: I have no idea what I did to my blogspot journal, I went over there and posted this entry to find that it only has that one, single entry and everything was changed. Not sure what I have done? Oh well, here’s the entry, anyway.
Edit 2: I realized my mistake, I made up another blogspot journal under another email account, and entered that account id instead of this one's id. All's well that ends well......
Happy New Year!
Yes, folks, it's actually 2009!
I can't imagine what kind of messes the government will create or the condition of the economy by year's end, but for whatever reason, I'm going to remain optimistic.
But, my mind isn't really on that right now, I'm just about to leave. I mean, JUST about to leave.
I was trying to print out my dad's instructions and realized I haven't used the printer since the computer crashed and - there was no driver for the printer!
Okay, I'm just sitting here waiting for this thing to print it out - it's a slow thing - Canon i550 bubble jet printer. It has this windup - like a pitcher in a baseball game - cept' it takes it much longer.
Okay, deal done.
I really don't have time to write out a an entry that would be - normal - for me, I must get moving so I have time to visit with my folks this afternoon and on into the evening.
Hope everyone is doing well and putting the JS disaster to rest - I know that's hard for many of us - but, blogging is still available and I think it's possible to just move on. Considering we can all connect on Dorrie's page if we somehow are separated, that's a pretty good deal right there.
Take care - hugs to everyone, Happy New Year!
benb
I can't imagine what kind of messes the government will create or the condition of the economy by year's end, but for whatever reason, I'm going to remain optimistic.
But, my mind isn't really on that right now, I'm just about to leave. I mean, JUST about to leave.
I was trying to print out my dad's instructions and realized I haven't used the printer since the computer crashed and - there was no driver for the printer!
Okay, I'm just sitting here waiting for this thing to print it out - it's a slow thing - Canon i550 bubble jet printer. It has this windup - like a pitcher in a baseball game - cept' it takes it much longer.
Okay, deal done.
I really don't have time to write out a an entry that would be - normal - for me, I must get moving so I have time to visit with my folks this afternoon and on into the evening.
Hope everyone is doing well and putting the JS disaster to rest - I know that's hard for many of us - but, blogging is still available and I think it's possible to just move on. Considering we can all connect on Dorrie's page if we somehow are separated, that's a pretty good deal right there.
Take care - hugs to everyone, Happy New Year!
benb
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Lamenting
I'm not sure I'm gonna get used to THIS place. I enable "translation". Great, somebody that doesn't speak English can translate.
NOOOO, that's not what this friggin' thing does: it starts translating EVERYTHING I'm writing into HINDI!!!!
WHAT?
I turned the translation crap OFF - permanently.
I tried to reply to people on the last thread, it was asking ME, the owner of this blog, to post my credentials!!
BUNK!!
I turned all that crap off too - ANYONE can post, I am NOT moderating this place, and I don't want people to have to enter a bunch of letters/words after they try to post a comment.
....
....
I never had that on JS, I ain't havin' it anywhere else.
......
I'm not real happy about any of this situation going on. Me and however many JS refugees like me that aren't happy, either.
It just doesn't make any sense that the site wasn't backed up on disks; external drives; friggin' CD's. I don't know how this stuff works, I do know that everyone on the planet that is in business backs up their drives. I guess everyone but J friggin' S.
.....
I can't get it out of my mind. I'm really TRYING to drop it, but - then again - I only found out TODAY that JS is a goner. People posting that we should just get over it? Sure, GIVE ME SOME TIME, THANK YOU. HALF A FRIGGIN' DAY IS NOT ENOUGH FOR ME, THANK YOU AGAIN.
.....
I don't mean to offend anyone, but - have some respect. Some element, an atom's worth of empathy for those of us that are REALLY not liking what happened and yes, it's affecting me/several others GREATLY. Maybe it's just that some had far more vested than others. Granted and understood. Now, PLEASE, grant and understand that I don't get over things like this in 12 hours time. I have 4 years of this vested: or - roughly 1,460 days - I don't even want to try to guesstimate the amout of hours I have into this. Maybe I don't even want to admit it.
...........
When I find something that allows me line breaks instead of the way it's publishing now, I'll stop the dots in between paragraphs/sentences.
.........
Well, I had a lot I wanted to say, but I'm just fed up with this particular day. Good riddance to 2008, 4 hours and 2 minutes until 2009. If I wanted to digest the expert's take on 2009, then I would probably be getting sick as the predictions are far worse than what has already happened this year.
..........
I'm ending this before I really start into things...................
G'nite.
Oh, and if you don't see me for 2 or 3 days, it's cause I'm out-of-town, at my dad's place and I don't have internet access.
ben
NOOOO, that's not what this friggin' thing does: it starts translating EVERYTHING I'm writing into HINDI!!!!
WHAT?
I turned the translation crap OFF - permanently.
I tried to reply to people on the last thread, it was asking ME, the owner of this blog, to post my credentials!!
BUNK!!
I turned all that crap off too - ANYONE can post, I am NOT moderating this place, and I don't want people to have to enter a bunch of letters/words after they try to post a comment.
....
....
I never had that on JS, I ain't havin' it anywhere else.
......
I'm not real happy about any of this situation going on. Me and however many JS refugees like me that aren't happy, either.
It just doesn't make any sense that the site wasn't backed up on disks; external drives; friggin' CD's. I don't know how this stuff works, I do know that everyone on the planet that is in business backs up their drives. I guess everyone but J friggin' S.
.....
I can't get it out of my mind. I'm really TRYING to drop it, but - then again - I only found out TODAY that JS is a goner. People posting that we should just get over it? Sure, GIVE ME SOME TIME, THANK YOU. HALF A FRIGGIN' DAY IS NOT ENOUGH FOR ME, THANK YOU AGAIN.
.....
I don't mean to offend anyone, but - have some respect. Some element, an atom's worth of empathy for those of us that are REALLY not liking what happened and yes, it's affecting me/several others GREATLY. Maybe it's just that some had far more vested than others. Granted and understood. Now, PLEASE, grant and understand that I don't get over things like this in 12 hours time. I have 4 years of this vested: or - roughly 1,460 days - I don't even want to try to guesstimate the amout of hours I have into this. Maybe I don't even want to admit it.
...........
When I find something that allows me line breaks instead of the way it's publishing now, I'll stop the dots in between paragraphs/sentences.
.........
Well, I had a lot I wanted to say, but I'm just fed up with this particular day. Good riddance to 2008, 4 hours and 2 minutes until 2009. If I wanted to digest the expert's take on 2009, then I would probably be getting sick as the predictions are far worse than what has already happened this year.
..........
I'm ending this before I really start into things...................
G'nite.
Oh, and if you don't see me for 2 or 3 days, it's cause I'm out-of-town, at my dad's place and I don't have internet access.
ben
Wednesday More
Got off work early -- 11:30 am to be precise. The boss said not to sign out, I would get paid for an entire day, just the same as everyone else. The whole company shuts down at noon, but everyone that was at work gets paid a full 8 hours. Nice.
My mind has been full of this JS nonsense all day long, since I read that rather stunning news this morning on Dorrie's site about JS / Bye-Bye. I take solace in the fact that I'm not the only one that misses JS - dearly. Talk of asking Dylan to bring it back up from scratch has surfaced - I fully support that idea to the point of actually committing to continue to pay for my use of it, but is Dylan even interested in doing any more of this?
Talk of Dorrie taking over JS has also surfaced. Dorrie - if you did that - certainly a lot of people would be indebted to you for it, I just hope that if you are really interested in doing it that it doesn't take over your entire life. Again, I would pay for the use of JS to help pay for the service needed to be able to have the site and whatever upgrades and whatever else there is in maintaining a site like this. If enough people paid, it would be great if you got a salary or something out of it, too, since I take it that running something like this is akin to a full-time job. Honestly, I would think most if not ALL JS'ers would come back if someone as highly held on the JS scape as Dorrie were taking it over. These are all just comments in passing that I"ve read, though, nothing concrete. Even Bobby stated he would be willing to write a check for several hundred dollars to get JS up and running - undoubtedly hoping others would do the same. I would certainly send in some small amount - I just can't afford that much right now.
On my benb1.wordpress.com site I have started to copy and paste on to new, respective entries the posts from my JS past that I am finding. So far about 115 of them. I don't know how to find all of them, I am sure there must be more somewhere, just a matter of finding out how to retrieve them. Foregone conclusion, from the myriad of sites I have been reading, that getting 4 years worth is not a happening event. Not from Google, anyway. I have been searching the web and will continue to do so until I have either found what I'm looking for - or just ready to hang up the towel.
I had my neighbor's mechanic change the oil in my car just a few minutes ago. Same price as the oil change places - yes - just MUCH more convenient. Like, in my next-door-neighbor's driveway. An easy job, I didn't want to do it, I have all but totally quit doing mechanics after some 25 years of doing so. I just need to do some laundry, give Mary some instructions on Prince - shoving pills down his throat and changing the dressing on his tail - and that's it as far as getting ready. The car's vibration is all but gone. There's just a little hint of it at speeds of 75mph. I figure that the mechanic that told me that Discount Tire has the right balancing equipment but not the qualified personnel to USE the equipment must be right. I'm waiting til' after this trip to see if my dad will, indeed, give me some more money this coming year. I ain't asking but Iwill definitely be grateful. I'm also going to seriously pursue a part-time job at Fry's now that I have info on how, exactly, to go about it so that you get noticed by management. Working an extra 20 hours per week will be nothing different than the life I used to have in trucking at 60, 70, 80, 90 and more hours per week. Not exactly GREAT - but I'm looking to protect myself. If you read anything online, then you might run into the stories that all of these business mortgages are going to change this coming year and the comanies will owe much more money on the payments. That's what I read, anyway.
The prediction is a Sunami of foreclosures YET to come. What kind of devastation will THAT wreak on our economy? Don't want to know, but if it happens, will find out whether I want to or not. Having a second job is at least some protection.
The dogs were not able to penetrate my chain link fortress today. I'm sure they tried. It would be obvious if they had made it over, under or through it.
I've worn myself out thinking about this JS mess. Really, I have. I've spread myself out on 3 blogs - 2 repetitive sites and now my other Wordpress site to save my cached JS entries. And now, since it's apparent many people are headed to Blogspot, I'm going to simply start posting my entries in 3 places instead of 2: TrooperRat.livejournal.com; TruckersJournal.wordpress.com and TruckingJournal.blogspot.com. It will take some learned discipline to copy and paste an entry to 2 different blogsites, but in the end, it will be worth the peace of mind in doing so. I've lost too much, the sting of the loss is still very real. I can save some of my old journal, but all of it? Not unless there's some place I can find that's been caching my journal for years and still has all of it. I know those robots have been coming a long time, I don't remember the name of the robots (I visited the sites a couple of times) - and I have no idea how to find them.
Well, I don't really know if I"m writing again today or not, and again, I don't know if I'm going to be able to post any entries when I'm at my dad's, so - I'll bid ya'll a goodbye for a couple of days - or not - and will be visiting as many of your journals as I can. I do visit all of them, but I don't think you can see exactly who has stopped by, like you could on JS. I guess the only way to validate it is to comment.
ben
My mind has been full of this JS nonsense all day long, since I read that rather stunning news this morning on Dorrie's site about JS / Bye-Bye. I take solace in the fact that I'm not the only one that misses JS - dearly. Talk of asking Dylan to bring it back up from scratch has surfaced - I fully support that idea to the point of actually committing to continue to pay for my use of it, but is Dylan even interested in doing any more of this?
Talk of Dorrie taking over JS has also surfaced. Dorrie - if you did that - certainly a lot of people would be indebted to you for it, I just hope that if you are really interested in doing it that it doesn't take over your entire life. Again, I would pay for the use of JS to help pay for the service needed to be able to have the site and whatever upgrades and whatever else there is in maintaining a site like this. If enough people paid, it would be great if you got a salary or something out of it, too, since I take it that running something like this is akin to a full-time job. Honestly, I would think most if not ALL JS'ers would come back if someone as highly held on the JS scape as Dorrie were taking it over. These are all just comments in passing that I"ve read, though, nothing concrete. Even Bobby stated he would be willing to write a check for several hundred dollars to get JS up and running - undoubtedly hoping others would do the same. I would certainly send in some small amount - I just can't afford that much right now.
On my benb1.wordpress.com site I have started to copy and paste on to new, respective entries the posts from my JS past that I am finding. So far about 115 of them. I don't know how to find all of them, I am sure there must be more somewhere, just a matter of finding out how to retrieve them. Foregone conclusion, from the myriad of sites I have been reading, that getting 4 years worth is not a happening event. Not from Google, anyway. I have been searching the web and will continue to do so until I have either found what I'm looking for - or just ready to hang up the towel.
I had my neighbor's mechanic change the oil in my car just a few minutes ago. Same price as the oil change places - yes - just MUCH more convenient. Like, in my next-door-neighbor's driveway. An easy job, I didn't want to do it, I have all but totally quit doing mechanics after some 25 years of doing so. I just need to do some laundry, give Mary some instructions on Prince - shoving pills down his throat and changing the dressing on his tail - and that's it as far as getting ready. The car's vibration is all but gone. There's just a little hint of it at speeds of 75mph. I figure that the mechanic that told me that Discount Tire has the right balancing equipment but not the qualified personnel to USE the equipment must be right. I'm waiting til' after this trip to see if my dad will, indeed, give me some more money this coming year. I ain't asking but Iwill definitely be grateful. I'm also going to seriously pursue a part-time job at Fry's now that I have info on how, exactly, to go about it so that you get noticed by management. Working an extra 20 hours per week will be nothing different than the life I used to have in trucking at 60, 70, 80, 90 and more hours per week. Not exactly GREAT - but I'm looking to protect myself. If you read anything online, then you might run into the stories that all of these business mortgages are going to change this coming year and the comanies will owe much more money on the payments. That's what I read, anyway.
The prediction is a Sunami of foreclosures YET to come. What kind of devastation will THAT wreak on our economy? Don't want to know, but if it happens, will find out whether I want to or not. Having a second job is at least some protection.
The dogs were not able to penetrate my chain link fortress today. I'm sure they tried. It would be obvious if they had made it over, under or through it.
I've worn myself out thinking about this JS mess. Really, I have. I've spread myself out on 3 blogs - 2 repetitive sites and now my other Wordpress site to save my cached JS entries. And now, since it's apparent many people are headed to Blogspot, I'm going to simply start posting my entries in 3 places instead of 2: TrooperRat.livejournal.com; TruckersJournal.wordpress.com and TruckingJournal.blogspot.com. It will take some learned discipline to copy and paste an entry to 2 different blogsites, but in the end, it will be worth the peace of mind in doing so. I've lost too much, the sting of the loss is still very real. I can save some of my old journal, but all of it? Not unless there's some place I can find that's been caching my journal for years and still has all of it. I know those robots have been coming a long time, I don't remember the name of the robots (I visited the sites a couple of times) - and I have no idea how to find them.
Well, I don't really know if I"m writing again today or not, and again, I don't know if I'm going to be able to post any entries when I'm at my dad's, so - I'll bid ya'll a goodbye for a couple of days - or not - and will be visiting as many of your journals as I can. I do visit all of them, but I don't think you can see exactly who has stopped by, like you could on JS. I guess the only way to validate it is to comment.
ben
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