Then all of a sudden inspiration hits me and I’m ready to write but then I make the classic mistake. I decide to hit the web browser first and inevitably I find something to distract me and today was no exception. In fact, I found or re-found something that hit me right in the gut or heart to be more precise and I was suddenly reminded how close my wall of limitations really was.

I was simply overwhelmed by not only what this person had written but in the way that she touched my heart so thoroughly. In a way I never would be able to duplicate if I were in the same position. The post isn’t new (does it have to be?) and no, my friend isn’t always this reverent (who is?), but for this particular writing, she has good reason to be.

It’s about her young, very special son after all.

The secret fire

It must have been awful tiring.

It has several fine features that I can certainly appreciate in a book . And seeing as how I’m an avid reader with many thousands of pages under my belt or the back of my eyeballs as the case may be, I’m awfully picky about my books these days.

I can appreciate that the covers are pre-creased at the inner edge of the binding which I’m positive is to help prevent the book from becoming dog eared. I consider this a nice touch.

The book counts every page meaning that there isn’t a bunch of pages at the beginning with roman numerals at the bottom of the page like they were saying that these pages are “special” nor is the Introduction considered separate from the rest of the book as if it was ‘above the rest’ of the pages in some manner. In fact the Introduction is the first numbered page of the book–page 11.

The book has exactly 222 pages which does not count the blank page at the end. This is as it should be (why would a blank page count for anything?) and is obviously for jotting down notes and such for later reference. And a full table of contents as well so it doesn’t keep you guessing.

I like the pages. They’re nice and thick unlike those tissue paper thin pages you find in some other novels. You never know when you’re going to get to a really good part in one of those tissue paper novels just to find out that the paragraph that ties the whole thing together has been torn from page 256.

I appreciate the font. It’s the just the right size which means I can read it easily. Anytime I’m not forced to use two pairs of reading glasses when perusing a good book is a fine thing don’t you think?

Of course the content of the book is an excellent read as you might have guessed. I don’t mind the occasional cussing by the author now and then, he’s earned the right and after all–this is Grandad we’re talking about. He also has a literary style that just keeps a smile on your face from page 1 to page 222 with a several guffaws thrown in for good measure.

And it has wonderful words in it like: Póg Mo Thóin

So if you’re looking for a good book that is just about guaranteed to brighten up the dullest day then have a look at Head Rambles. It’s destined to be a classic, no doubt.

Yup, I got me a tin foil hat now. I resisted it as long as I could but it was all in vain, I finally had to give in. It was the dreaded Murphy Signal! (AAAGGGHHHH!!), the straw that finally broke this camel’s back.

The Murphy Signal! (AAAGGGHHHH!!)…That miserable wireless Internet connection killer that takes out my connection with the virtual work world and all my special friends out there(hey Sixty, hey Grandad), the one that cuts me off from the outside world and then makes me run around in a blind panic rebooting wireless routers and computers until it finally gets tired of my antics and wanders off to make somebody else’s life miserable.

I came out here this morning and powered up ol’ reliable and went back to the kitchen for that all important first coffee and a pop tart (I never got over those). Upon returning I noticed that I had that little warning balloon hovering over the System Tray that told me my wireless signal was way too low. Oh crap, here we go again. Next step is losing it all together which was ridiculous since the router putting out the signal was in the next room. But wait!!! I checked the available wireless networks and there it was! The Murphy Signal! (AAAGGGHHHH!!).

It’s caused by aliens, I just know it. Either that or it’s the people from Connecticut who bought the house across the street—same thing.

My wife did the honors, I just couldn’t bring myself to admit failure in resisting the tin foil hat. But much to my surprise she placed it not on my head, but around the wireless receiver instead (she was always smarter than me anyway). After the deed was done and I was sitting there with a dumbfounded look on my face, she turned to me with a look of profound sympathy and love, kissed me and went back to her computer in the other room.

I was saved.

The Murphy Signal! (AAAGGGHHHH!!) was finally gone and my connection to the outer world was once again strong and healthy. And I could walk still outside with my head held high and without looking like a fool wearing a tin foil hat.

Life is good.

I’m not going to say who it is yet until I hear word on the mother and baby and how they’re doing but as soon as I know everything’s alright and she says I can…

Think good thoughts folks.

Many thanks to Grandad. This absolutely horrendous, disjointed post is all his fault but he’ll probably blame it on K8.

And here we go….

I seem to be getting older these days. Not only am I getting older but it seems to be becoming a habit, a perpetual thing if you will. Knowing full well that it’s always a changing world out there, I began to feel that dreaded sensation of old(er) age that life was beginning to pass me by. I just didn’t seem to be attracted to all that new and interesting stuff out there. A mere 5 years ago, life at home was nothing like it is now and things like having a PC and being connected to the Internet hadn’t been part of my life for at least 4 years at that point. When I finally came to live with my honey in old Stove Pipe City, I was more than way behind as far as the old WWW was concerned and my disabilities from my time in the service had begun to take their toll. In short, my health was lousy.

But being a veteran of the Cold War, serving as one of those strange, stubborn, thickheaded, tenacious, twisted breeds of Navy men called submariners (who are always on the best bad behavior), it didn’t take too long to pick myself back up from the stresses of taking care of my folks, getting back to work and start building my life back up again. I even enrolled in the VA and let me tell you, life as a veteran hasn’t been the same since.

Even so, every night I still dreamed of the ocean mist in my face as I stood watch on the bridge of that submarine during the rare times we were surfaced, watching the reflections of the sky dancing on the surface of the water and thinking how beautiful the day was and of all the destruction those nuclear weapons we and other subs carried hidden from sight under the ocean could do to this world, erasing these beautiful days forever. One saving grace was that my boat was a “fast attack” and our job was to prevent just such a thing from happening…and we did.

We pause from this utterly disjointed, meandering post in order to change the subject entirely…

An oddball and an “off the subject” thing I might mention (so I can use up several tags at once) is that I was born in 1959 and this makes me one of those boomers. In fact a lot of these folks my age and up go around advertising this fact quite a lot lately and even more of the same age that hate the word boomer and spend a lot of time making sure everyone knows it. And strangely enough a lot of these folks have blogs out on the WWW. In fact, we have a regular blogging community having adventures in SEO, metrics systems advertising and spam protection using Akismet and Spam Karma. They’re blogging about the going green, clean energy, global warming, warm winters, the weather and hernias. A lot of them also have WordPress installs because they decided to “do it themselves” no less and these bloggers have learned all about wp plugins and the havoc a bad one can cause, upgrading from WordPress 2.1 to WordPress 2.2 to WordPress 2.3 and hacking their own themes. So who says you have to be young to do this?

I find these blogs to be the best reading around with a ton of great info and insight to be found. A regular digital democracy by jeezum!

I call these folks (and myself) BC Bloggers (Before Computers).

We now return you to more of the same boring nonsense as before…

So one morning, shortly before the holidays, while reading a new Yankee Magazine I found myself taking interest in my surroundings again and with a gift of a digital camera from my wonderful lady, my fascination with gadgets came flooding back. Another item I received also helped peak that fascination was my first set of hearing aids. One disability I ended up with from my time spent poking holes in the ocean was being deaf and since this particular form of deafness is self perpetuating, I began to realize that if I was going to hold down a job, I needed to be able to hear. Logical thinking on my part I thought.

By the way, do me a favor and don’t call me hearing impaired please. I’m deaf…period! Thank you very much.

And so came my first pair of hearing aids (complete with remote control no less) and life in general changed drastically–I now could hear the comments made behind my back. Made life at work a great deal more interesting for those so called friends of mine and their brilliant ideas. All of a sudden they found themselves on the business end of my subtle, dry, sarcastic wit and humor as I quietly stabbed them with their own misc nonsense.

Getting back to what I was saying…at home with the cats, I was just thinkin’ on how I just might finally want to get me that new computer so with hearing aids in my ears I began to peruse the local community at large to see if there was anywhere nearby where I might do this. Okay…there wasn’t. Up here in the Northeast Kingdom by the Canadian border where the local environment, the seasons and the amenities thereof hasn’t changed for the last 50-60 years, I decided the only way to get this new PC was to order it online. My lady was nice enough to let me use her computer to do so.

Too make an already too long post short…

Six months later, DSL finally came to our area (yup, 2004 and all we had was dial up) and with DSL…the blog was born and I was back in business with all my backwoods tech yearnings at full steam. Of course I started with a first post and quickly followed with a few misc posts but then went on to more specific subjects like absentmindedness, at which I excel, posts about space and science and basically ending up wandering all over the place with my various ramblings which entirely confused any readers that happened to stop by thus establishing my reputation as a complete knee biter. Google became my best friend and I even managed to take on a few blog projects put forth by Liz Strauss. I managed to survive them as well (just kidding Liz).

I wrote up posts about my lady’s Long Meadow Farms Quilts (her long time quilting business), quilts, quilting and stained glass. Just so you know, I test each new quilt that she makes by sleeping under it. Good God, I hope she doesn’t read this.

Things have slowed me down of course. I spent quite awhile at the VA hospital in Boston, MA for an endoscopy and surgery for instance and while I was there I spent the initial recovery wandering around as best I could, gazing out of the various windows at the grand vista that was Jamaica Plains…okay, maybe not exactly what one would call a vista but it was better than gazing at all the old farts like me laying in bed in various stages of decomposition. That can get to you after awhile so the hallways and various lounges were the places the hospital staff often found themselves searching after they finally noticed that I had been missing for a day and a half.

Once, while gazing out one of these windows, I noticed that part of the window had been cut out and had been replaced with one of those flat panel LCD TV’s that’s replacing the old CRT sets these days. There was a live interview with an author of some best selling book going on at the time and in my slightly drugged state I remember thinking that this author guy was a real windows live writer. I found out later on that some other author, in a fit of jealous rage, tried to burn down the poor guy’s home and although the local fire department was able to save most of his property, they said it was a real scribefire.

Amazing what you can learn in a hospital. Even more amazing what one will go through to get just three more tags taken care of for the sake of two extremely bad puns.

So there you have it. After starting 3 new sites and keeping one of them, through the 1st writings of nearly 15 years ago to finally publishing on my own blog, seeing my blog referenced in the news section of the online version of Time Magazine, through snow days, spring and Springfield….I’m finally done with this unbelievably horrendous, disjointed, discombobulated, post!

I may not exactly be the person of the year, but you can just call me the ultimate tag warrior! Now where’s my pogo stick?…I’m outta here!

Disclaimer: Of course a few of the tags and categories had the same name which means I really need to weed these things out and none of the tags/categories are necessarily related to the various horrendous, disjointed post subjects. And since I use these tags for my Related Posts feature I decided not to list all them at the bottom of this post for obvious reasons.

Oh yeah, and I simply could not find a way to use Firefox/Thunderbird and JT Evening News so I…wait minute, I guess I used them after all. Good deal!

Did I pass?

Update 11/15/07: It has been pointed out to me that I haven’t tagged anyone with this meme yet. This was strictly due to the fact that whatever brain cells I had left fried for good after I finished this horrible thing. In short, I had to take a few narcotics and pass out on the floor. But now it’s morning and it seems not all brain cells died in the fire of the moment and since my friend Cat stopped by to comment and had the audacity to state that she had over 100 categories and it would be too much hard work…after I managed to shoehorn over 100 tags and categories into the above post…consider yourself tagged Cat!

I also tag Elaine, Emma and Micki as well since I admire these ladies as writers and also because I haven’t given them any reason to harass me lately.

And yes…I was scrutinized by the originator of this meme, K8 and I did indeed pass. Almost makes it all worth it.