Belated Mothers Day

05.11.2010

This year was the second in a row I managed to have Gina away from home on Mothers Day as we were at scenic Orange Beach/Gulf Shores on Sunday. Last year I had her on a plan as we made our way to Jamaica. I think those 2 would qualify as extremes of the beach.

Somewhere along the way on the trip down to the Gulf, Gina and I started talking about Old Time Pottery, which I always call Old Time Pottery Barn. I know it's wrong, but after the first one showed up in Madison I called it that for a month and it's just sort of stuck ever since. I've been in Old Time Pottery Barn once, with Mom a few years ago. We went after Mom had been diagnoses with breast cancer but before she had started any chemo - it was at the time when they had told her "We're going to do what we can to fight it, but we're going to do everything we can to make you comfortable." When the doctors tell you that you're pretty much screwed it's hard to be upbeat about anything from that point on.

Luckily, mine and Mom's relationship didn't steer toward focusing on the bad parts of life. I've been told for years that I'm a happy, upbeat guy, and I'll admit that started with Mom. Looking back over the years a lot of things never really went right, but at the time I didn't know it. With that said, let's go back to the Old Time Pottery Barn.

Mom's final wishes were to be cremated. Since we were in a store full of pottery, I grabbed Mom's hand and told her we needed to find her a good pot for her ashes. After all, if she's going to be spending eternity someplace she should enjoy it. I would go around the store and pick up a vase of some type and hold it up to show her and ask "How's this?" Mom would look at it, the I would lower it to look in the top and then say into it, in a loud, deep voice, "Mommmmmmmmmm".

The first time Mom looked at me as if to say "What the hell are you doing?", so I had to explain to her that if she was going to be sitting on a shelf I would have to talk to her every once in a while, so how does my voice sound in this one? Mommmmmmmmm.

It was one of those times I was just being myself that looking back means so many more things. We both knew she was going to die, not how soon or far away but that it was sooner rather than later. We weren't dwelling on how bad it was, but rather accepting it and moving on (well, sort of moving on. Maybe just accepting it is ok). I think she also saw that I wasn't going to forget about her. All of this also meant I wasn't afraid to act a fool inside Old Time Pottery Barn with Mom watching.

This was the story I told Gina while we were driving to the beach, about me going around to pots and saying "Mommmmmm". Somehow that's all it took and both Gina and I were crying, because it hit me again that I still miss Mom. Maybe it was the closeness of Mother's Day. Maybe it was because it's been a year since her funeral. Maybe it was just a little bit of it all put together.

"Mommmmmmmmmm" :)

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Beach Oil Slick Bound!

05.05.2010

There may be a giant oil slick about to engulf the Gulf, but I'm still going on vacation!

Today I pack up Gina and head to Orange Beach to take advantage of JJ's condo. I enjoying taking advantage of his condo and telling him it's one of the perks of working for him. I've been running errands since yesterday, making those last minute trips to get everything ready. Orange Beach, or at least Foley, has a Wal Mart so I'm not worried about forgetting anything too important. Now that I'm older there are a couple of things I have to really remember to take with me, like my blood pressure medicine.

The first thing to do this morning is to take the car to the stereo shop in Madison and get the nav system I bought back in November replaced with the original factory stereo. I ordered the nav system through a dealer on Amazon and have had a couple of problems with it (like the stupid thing powering off after anywhere from a minute to 10 minutes). I'm fed up with the stupid thing so I'm going to get the original system put back in so I can box up the nav system and ship it back to the manufacturer if needed. Plus, it would be nice to have some background music for the 6½ hour trip Google Maps says it's going to take.

I've also had to make a couple of lists, which would make Gerry unbelievably happy. My first list was of errands to run on Tuesday. This was handy because of the 8 places I was to go, I had forgotten 2 at any given time. By the time it was dark Tuesday night, all of the errands had been checked off. The second list was of things to do Tuesday night. This list was relatively short, but had some annoying biggies such as "mow grass" and "pack". Except for the "pack", all got done Tuesday night. 11:30 is still night, right?

Wednesday will be a day of driving. Wrapping up of errands (picking up the key, getting the radio put in), driving way the hell down to the ocean. The drive takes a lot out of me as I don't really enjoy being cooped up for that long. 4 hours is my normal comfort level in a car. Going down isn't too bad since at the 4 hour mark you get off I-65 and the scenery changes and makes you think you're closer than you really are. It'll be nice to get there and just take a long break for a few days.

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I Live!

04.28.2010

After last weekend's motorcycle class I have survived the learning-to-ride experience. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The class had us riding around on 500CC Buell sport bikes, and I don't think we ever got above 20mph. Not bad for somebody that had never been on one before last Friday! Now I feel confident that I can tool around in large, empty parking lots and perhaps the lesser used back roads of Limestone County. Of course, there's also the dilemma of what to toll around on. That's a whole 'nother blog for a week or two later.

My annual handyman refurbishing started this week with landscaping around the patio area. There is also some remodeling in the kitchen that should start in the next day or two. I've done a lot to the house over the past couple of years, and the green counter top in the kitchen matches absolutely nothing now.

Next week Gina and I are heading down to Gulf Shores for a few days. We're going to pack up the bicycles and get some extra exercise while we're down at the boss' condo.

I think I may have gotten hit with a computer virus last week. I was downloading video codecs and one of them had some type of browser add-on which automatically installed that redirected any failed URLs to mybrowserbar.com. After the computer was active for about 10 minutes the internet connection would intermittently fail. Given Charter's service, that's nothing new, but I would try to connect to either the modem or the router by IP address and they couldn't be found. Luckily I learned a long time ago not to put anything important on the main system drive, so I was able to restore an old backup with minimal trouble. Now I've just got to go back and add the little things I've started to use since that backup. Minus evil video codecs, of course.

After a lull of late things are starting to pick back up. I kind of miss the lull.

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Ted Sr

04.21.2010

I'm not really sure why, but I've been visiting the wrestling documentaries section of my DVD collection. Over the past couple of days I've watched the rise (and usually fall) of Brian Pillman, the Road Warriors, and the Ultimate Warrior. It was during the Ultimate Warrior disc that I found myself thinking back to my childhood when Ted DiBiase (Sr) was talking.

Way back in the early 80's, wrestling came on WTBS in the form of Georgia Championship Wrestling. It was the reason we HAD to have cable as far as I was concerned. This was when we lived in a trailer park outside of Florence, so having cable was a big deal. I didn't know anybody else that watched wrestling when I was that age (10-ish?), but I loved to watch wrestling. I don't know why, but my favorite wrestler became Ted DiBiase (Sr). He wasn't the most popular, the biggest, the most ripped, or the most charismatic, but I liked him.

Ted (Sr) was embroiled at the time, against somebody that I no longer remember, to become the NWA National Champion. Try as he might, he seemed to never be able to win the belt. This probably went on for a couple of weeks, but when you're 10(ish) those weeks could be years. To show my support for Ted (Sr) I wrote him my first, and what has so far been only, fan letter. I traced a picture of Mr Fantastic out of How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way (a book which my aunt Brenda got me for Christmas circa 1979 which I still have) and turned Mr Fantastic into a non-stretchable Ted DiBiase (Sr) holding the National Title belt. Dad mailed the letter off, and to this days tells the story of how disappointed I was that I never heard anything back. I don't think I was disappointed as Dad makes out, but it's his part of the story so he can tell it however he wants.

Ted (Sr) was also in one of the greatest angles ever in wrestling history (my opinion, but I'm a wrestling storyline genius so you should take my word). Ted (Sr) was embroiled in a war against the Freebirds for reasons I can't remember. During a match Ted (Sr) receives 4 piledrivers on the concrete floor outside of the ring. This was unheard of back in the day, as a single chairshot would end any match. After each piledriver Ted (Sr) would slowly make his way back into the ring. It felt real and brought out true emotion while watching. I've read since that Ted (Sr) even went to the hospital and stayed home afterward to sell what had happened during the match on TV. From there Ted (Sr) began a run of tracking down members of the Freebirds from territory to territory along with a heel turn that the wrestling magazines hypothesized was from brain damage from all of those piledrivers.

Everybody else remembers Ted (Sr) for his run as the Million Dollar Man in the WWF, but for me he is the man that survived those piledrivers and was always trying to win the National Title.

On Monday nights when Matt and I are getting ready to watch Raw we usually start by firing up the Xbox 360 and playing the latest wrestling game. This year we've been trying different wrestlers other than our standard, go-to of Triple H and Shawn Michaels, and we've ended up using Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase (Jr) the majority of the time. I secretly think it's funny given my fan history of Ted Sr that Matt plays as Ted Jr. Then again, I enjoy talking like Dusty Rhodes when playing since Cody talks like that sometimes, plus it's just fun. Both Ted (Sr) and Dusty are available in the game, so maybe it's time to switch families and go old school.

I just got to remember to avoid piledrivers outside of the ring.

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3 Weeks Later

04.12.2010

Wow, 4 weeks between updates. I wish I could say I've been too busy to post, but really there hasn't been that much going on. If anything, I've start to find myself with a little free time.

The biggest thing that I'm looking forward to is that in 2 weeks I'm taking a motorcycle safety class via the local Harley Davidson dealer to learn how to drive a motorcycle. I would say ride, but I can hang on and stay upright. Shifting and not running into things is what I'm worried about. I'm also worried about getting proper riding gear before the class. I've ordered a helmet (2X), jacket(5X), and gloves(3X) through Amazon and so far only the gloves have fit. I ordered a 4X helmet that should come in sometime this week, so we'll see how I do from there. I'm kind of giving up on the jacket right now.

The first thing everybody has asked when I tell them about taking the class is "what motorcycle are you going to get?" Maybe I'm going about this wrong, but I haven't picked out a motorcycle yet. First I'm going to see if I enjoy the class. If I'm scared the whole time, it's not for me. The main reason I'm taking the class is that casual riding on a pretty Spring day looks fun, and if I knew how to ride I might do it, so let's see how plausible this scenario is going to end up.

I had talked to Gina about doing this a couple of years ago. Then one day on the way home from work I was behind a guy about my size who was on a motorcycle. Surrounding him were cars, cars of DEATH! In that instant I remember thinking "If I was on a motorcycle I would kill myself" and with that the desire to ride quickly went away. Since last October (I think) Gina and I started riding bicycles and I've gotten comfortable on 2 wheels again. I also don't think I would ride in the middle of evening rush hour traffic, at least not while learning my limits. Now I'm going to at least follow through with learning the basics of how to not kill myself.

If I can find a helmet that fits this bowling ball of a head I have.

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