Times are a changin’

Greetings, readers. The nine-year stint of Rebecca and I working together will be coming to a sad end at the end of this year. Many factors on both sides have made this the only logical choice. Fear not, blog readers. While I might not post new entries twice a week, I won’t be closing the blog down either. As well, Rebecca asked me if she could add an occasional From Rebecca from time to time in the next year. Obviously, I said yes.

I’ve been going through a rough patch recently. A very sweet young lady – a server at Bear Spring Camps for many years – was hit by a car in Florida and killed a few days ago. It made me wonder: A wonderful person with her whole life in front of her is called home and I, a gamer and absolute loafer, continues to walk the planet. Hmm. I don’t see the justice in that. Probably I’ll get to live to be 106, playing baseball video games right up to the end.

A high school classmate of mine is back in the hospital and not doing well. Pinky, you have to make it, Kid. I’m not ready to add your name to the curse of the class of ’83. I’m praying for you constantly.

It is a beautiful sunny day here in central Pennsylvania, yet cold. There is nary a cloud in the sky. The days of 60º F are gone until springtime, I’m afraid. I must say with climate change we were warmer here longer in the fall season than in years past. I will take it.

I cannot believe that we are getting to the home stretch of the Penn State football season, and just past the mid-point of the NFL season. It truly feels like the older I get, the faster time seems to go. That is probably because the majority of my years are behind me. I’m not that young kid anymore who could run around and play sports. Hell, with my knees I couldn’t even run to a bus.

Now, readers, as you know I am not one for conspiracy theories. The other day I was doing errands with a friends and I saw something weird in the sky. I can only describe them as chem trails, a term I learned from a former friend that meant she thought the government was spraying chemicals in the air. I hope never to see another cloud like that again. It was definitely not a vapor trail from a jet liner at 33,000 feet. I know the difference. This was low and perfectly curved, as though it would fit around a big pipe. As Arte Johnson on Laugh-In would say, “Verrry interesting.”

Lastly, I’m still getting used to my new smart phone … very slowly, and thanks to the winning costume at the Halloween party, I won a Kindle Fire. That’s right folks, I went from having a dumb phone to having two smart devices in a week. There will be a learning curve. I must say though, I am enjoying both gizmos.

 

Me at the 2019 Halloween Party at Addison Court Apartment as C3PO. I won the contest!

 

That’s it for today. I can’t guarantee a blog entry for the weekend as you know, but I will try. We’ll be working together until the end of the year, so until next Wednesday, take care, have a great week, love one another, and as always, happy reading.

Getting back to normality

Greetings, readers. After two and a half days of lying flat on my back in the hospital, barely able to raise by right arm, I am happy to report to all that my recovery is coming along faster than I ever believed possible. I hardly have any pain, and my range of motion, believe it or not, is almost back to normal. It is hard to believe that my surgery was one week ago. How time flies.

I had a private room with a gorgeous view. It was near the helicopter pad and Life Flight did take off once while I was there. Bless the person whom they were rushing to help. The morning I left was beautifully clear and I got to see a hot air balloon fly in the sky. Although they always look beautiful, standing in a little basket is something that is not on my bucket list. I’ll just take pictures from my window.

Speaking of normality, I got back to watching Penn State football and the NFL. Boy, did the Pittsburgh Steelers lay an egg; I don’t think they have a coach that knows how to fire up a team to beat a champion caliber opponent. Saquon Barkley was one of the only New York Giants who had a good game vs. Dallas. I am an Eli Manning fan but I think his time has come and gone. The best game of the week was the first Monday Night Football game. Houston at New Orleans with the Saint’s last-second field goal. It was a true nail-biter right to the end.

One a serious note now, prayers go out to all the victims and families of Hurricane Dorian and the several mass shootings that took place during my convalescence. I’ve only ever experienced the outer fringe remnants of a hurricane-type storm, and believe me, it spooked me. I can only imagine what those poor people in the Bahamas and the Carolinas went through. My heart goes out to you.

Until next Wednesday (Sunday blog will begin soon), have a wonderful week, take care, love one another, and happy reading.

I’m about to be blocked out of my hobby!

Greetings, readers. As some of my regular readers may know, I am a flight simulator hobbyist. It is so relaxing to sit in my chair looking into my simulated cockpit and looking at the beautiful blue sky at 36,000 feet. I am a hobbyist pilot for PacificAirways.net. A couple of weeks ago I requested a hub (airport) transfer from Miami to New York, but I didn’t get an email saying it was approved or denied. Yesterday I got a message that I am about to be terminated.

I’ve been trying for several days to log on to the website and the page is asking me to enable cookies. There is only one problem with that. According to the computer settings, they are already enabled. What to do, what to do? With the help of Rebecca’s nimble fingers, we typed an email to Pacific Airways and explained the problem. Hopefully someone reads it in time and has the answer to my browser problem. I have 2,000 flight hours accumulated and would hate to see that all go up in smoke.

Usually I use simulators as an anti-depression tool, but pairing it with the airline hobby is an added bonus. I’ve flown everything from the smallest Dash-8 to the Airbus A380. Such fun it is. I actually wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid but once all my health problems hit, there went that dream.

Speaking of wonderful blue sky, it is a gorgeous day here is central Pennsylvania. TIs a bit nippy, but the sky is blue, the clouds are white, and the leaves are turning colors. All in all it is going to be a gorgeous autumn day. Tomorrow we are expecting rain and turning colder with temperatures really nose-diving over the weekend. Fun, fun, fun for the Penn State game.

I will close this blog entry with this paragraph, “Dear Lord, I pray that these senseless shootings happening across our country and around the world cease. They cause death, destruction, and misery. Absolutely nothing good comes of it, except temporary jollies for the shooter. Then that person’s fun is over, for they are either shot dead by police, commit suicide by shooting themselves, or spend the rest of their lives in prison. Please, Lord, make it stop. Let’s shoot love around the world, not bullets. Amen.”

There is today’s blog. We’ll be back next Wednesday. I’m going to try to have the first draft completed via the speech recognition program; wish me luck on that. Until then, love one another, take good care, enjoy your weekend, and, as always, happy reading.

Overhauling the apartment and me

Greetings, readers. Oh how tired I am this morning. I have decided to get my butt out of my chair and actually give this apartment a good spring cleaning a few months early. I’ve talked about it many times and even Rebecca giggles at me now, for she knows that I either won’t do it or can’t maintain the change. This time I am hellbent on doing so.

With Rebecca’s help before the blog entry time we cleaned off the desk and trashed lots of useless stuff. It looks a heck of a lot better already. Is it perfection? Not yet. But I still have big plans. Another big thing we are doing and still will be doing is shredding papers and the election mailers. I had tons of those. With the election now over, hopefully that will stop. The madness of the mailers must stop.

I am concentrating on one room at a time, because it is extremely easy for me to become overwhelmed. When I think of my bedroom, I scream, go into a panic attack, sit down and watch TV for six hours. Suffice it to say that room is my storage unit. That room may require outside help. What an embarrassment that would be. If I chose Molly Maids, or other such services, I would have to make sure to have all my laundry and unmentionables stashed away ahead of time. Then we would be able to plow through the boxes and throw the stuff out. My big problem in the bedroom, is that I am not physically strong enough to lift and toss out heavy boxes. It is true that I would want to go through everything one box at a time, but I am to the point now where I know what is staying and what is going.

I’m trying to concentrate on this blog today, as the construction demons are making their hideous noises next door. We tried to insert a picture of the construction site for you last time around but it got saved to cyberspace, for it was no where on my computer. The cheap digital camera we used has never worked correctly, so it was no big surprise that the attempt to save to the pictures folder didn’t work.

It is a beautiful semi-warm day here. Very nice for central Pennsylvania in November. We will see how long it lasts. I have a feeling I will be back in my down coat by the weekend. Speaking of the weekend, I’ll watch Penn State lose – um play – Wisconsin at noon. It should be a good game if we play well. That is the key. We are already Bowl eligible with six victories, but I don’t want this team to go to the pee-in-toilet bowl. I hate to say it, but maybe it is time for a change in the coaching staff. I like Coach Franklin, but it seems like he can’t motivate his team out of wet paper bag. The Pittsburgh Steelers play tomorrow night, so I’ll have to choose carefully on Sunday. Perhaps the Eagles will be on.

Lastly, continued prayers go out to all the victims and families who need prayers right now. Troubled times don’t pass in mere days. Sometimes they linger. We will continue to pray for you.

Rebecca and I will be back tomorrow with another blog entry, perhaps dealing with yesterday’s election, perhaps not. You know me, I hate blogging about politics. But one thing I can guarantee you of, it will be an interesting blog topic. So until tomorrow, take care, prayers, have a great day, and happy reading.

CreateSpace.com is going bye-bye

Greetings, readers. Rebecca and I were met with an interesting problem this morning when we saw that Amazon, the parent company of CreateSpace, is basically taking them over. All my books will be transferred over to Kindle Direct Publishing at some point, or I could move them over myself. This news threw us for a loop, for we really didn’t know what was going to happen. To our relief, we found out that the transfer could be done quickly and painlessly, and KDP will still publish the printed versions.

Amazon and Kindle also gives you an opportunity to advertise your books somewhere on Amazon itself. I shouted, “Yes,” gleefully. My glee was short-lived. Rebecca tried to find the price of said service, but to no avail. It was extremely difficult to find, making me think they want beaucoup bucks, which I just don’t have at the moment. Yes, it’s true, you need to spend money to make money, but funds are tight right now.

Luckily, the remainder of my business cards say Amazon on them, so I can still pass them out and use them. Thank God for small favors. Could we have done more to promote our books? Probably so, but I still have nightmares about our first and only book signing at the local Webster’s Bookstore and Café. We started with a good crowd, but by the time we were done, all the students who were studying for their tests had been driven away by our stories. By the end the only people who were left were the people who we had invited. Not good.

Enough belly aching. Finally, some cooler weather is coming tomorrow night. With my air conditioner on the fritz, you can imagine just how much I am looking forward to cooler temperatures. For those of you who know me well, no, I am not looking forward to winter, but day-time highs in the 60s F and lows in the 40s are just fine for me right now. It is supposed to be in the mid-50s and partly sunny for the Nittany Lions homecoming game against Michigan State this Saturday. I’ve been invited by my friend Nicci to go see the homecoming parade Friday evening with Traci. I hope it won’t be too cool.

We will keep you up to date, dear readers, about the progress on getting all books to Amazon/Kindle. For those of you who have Kindles, I am sure you will enjoy the reads. We will keep you abreast.

Until tomorrow, have a great day, take care, and as always, happy reading.

Drastic measures for Four’s a Crowd

Greetings, readers. Rebecca went on-line this morning to look up local publicists. We’ve got to find a way to push the latest novel. We found one near where I live and have already emailed them. Hopefully we get a response by tomorrow. That would be encouraging. If sales of the novel would take off, I might consider continuing the writing career into 2019.

The downfall of self-publishing is just that; if you don’t know how or don’t have the funds to push the book yourself, it is just going to sit there and not sell. Sure it is gratifying to see a finished product with your name on it, but holding some cash in your hand from a sale of said book is an even bigger thrill.

I’ve been trying to keep the author of the book, Darren Taylor, in the loop as to what is happening with all the things I am trying to do. I am sure that he will agree to a local publicists meeting. We’ll have to find the time, though, when all of us are free to meet the publicist group. Wish us luck.

On a side note, rain, rain go the hell away. I say that for me as well as all the flooding victims throughout the country. It is supposed to be a sparkling sunny weekend here in State College, but I will believe that when I see it. The Penn State Nittany Lion football team has its biggest challenge of the season so far when Ohio State comes visiting. I don’t know if we can beat them, but we certainly can’t beat them in rain and mud. So how about all local folks pray for good weather for our evening White Out game.

That is today’s news. Tomorrow Rebecca and I will be back with another interesting blog topic. What do you know, we are working two days in a row. Until then, have a wonderful afternoon, take care and happy reading.

Slightly under the weather and I’m about to build another Noah’s ark

Greetings, readers. Whoever said that you should take your medications at the same time every morning is most correct. I took my meds later than usual and although not by much, I could not listen to my morning music because I felt slightly seizure-ish. I’m fine now, but I hate it when my morning routine is interrupted. It is hard to describe how it feels. I remained completely awake and alert but my arms and hands didn’t do what I wanted them to do. I had to shut down the computer and rest.

On to the weather, prayers go out in advance to the folks in the Carolinas, who are about to be slammed by what is now called a “monster hurricane.” I will be donating later in the week to a GoFundMe page for hurricane relieve efforts, and I encourage you to do the same. In a few days, central Pennsylvania is forecast to get the outer ring of this humongous storm. This comes shortly on the heels of three straight days of hard rain from the remnants of the last hurricane, Gordon. Not to make light of the areas affected in the south, but we can’t take a whole lot more rain because of area flooding. This is after we had three solid weeks of rain in August. We had two weeks of drying out with a heat wave, before these latest storms. We don’t need more rain.

I watched quite a bit of week one pro football and was not impressed with my team, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Yes, readers, these Cleveland Browns are a better team than last year’s winless club, but come on … we should have beaten them by at least 14 points, despite the rain. This week we play the Kansas City Chiefs. If we are not careful, we will be 0-2. The Philadelphia Eagles squeaked out a close one after looking pathetic in the first half. Maybe I will become a Philadelphia Eagles fan. A lot of folks in our area have become New York Giants fans to watch former Penn State running back Saquon Barkley. I had an opportunity to do the same, but chose to watch the pathetic Steelers instead. Bad choice!

I’m taking tomorrow off for personal reasons, so I’m going to ask Rebecca to put up a new blog for everyone to enjoy tomorrow. Until next week, I bid you a wonderful weekend, please stay safe and dry, and as always, happy reading.

Things to do before the new kitty cat get here

Greetings, readers. One week from today my new kitty cat Princess Josie will come home. She was supposed to arrive this Friday, but there was a slight delay. Actually that’s all right with me because I was not too keen on getting her home late on Friday afternoon and having to go back to work Saturday morning. That would’ve left her all by yourself in a strange place; not exactly the ideal situation.

This week I’m going to go to Target and pick up such things such as food, kitty litter, treats, and other feline supplies. At some point before next Wednesday, I’ll have to go to Wal-Mart to pick up a new litter box. I will gladly accept all the chores that come with owning a pet. I’ve already been imagining the new routines we will form.

I’ve not decided if P.J. will have the whole run of the apartment just yet, or whether I’ll keep the bedroom door closed to allow her to get used to the place one area at a time. I am planning on getting a cat bed, which is something I did not do for Keekee. If Josie wants to sleep on me, she may do so. We’ll see if she takes to her bed.

On to other news now. I am still debating on whether or not to take the summer off for my fast food job. I don’t want to lose the money, but my feet are hurting me more and more. I know I shouldn’t complain. I know everybody’s feet hurt. Perhaps it has something to do with my cerebral palsy, but at the end of the day I feel half crippled. When I first started almost a year ago, I was told by family and friends that my feet will adjust, and won’t hurt so much. Well, I have yet to see any improvement.

I was told by one of my managers that lots of folks from work read my blog. So, after today, probably more than one person will know I’m thinking about taking time off. If I did take the summer off, I would use it to rest my feet and write. I have family coming in about a month from now, so if I decided to take time off, it would be between May and late August. I would come back for the Penn State football season and the beginning of the new school year. If there was no job waiting for me when I returned, that would be my own fault.

Finally, I’m going to undertake a massive effort today and tomorrow to clean up the apartment and take care of chores which are long past due. I must tend to my banking, and pay off a bill. With my short-term memory issues, making a written list of everything I must do is going to be essential. I’ve got a notepad just the right size for such a list. I also need to stop at the pharmacy to see if they have a pill splitter. My new heart medication must be taken a half tab at a time. Here I was slightly overdosing two days in a row. I’m glad I caught my mistake early.

That’s going to be it for today folks. More tomorrow. I’m not certain whether Rebecca and I will get together for work here in the office, but either way I will dictate the blog entry via the speech recognition program, and Rebecca will edit it. Until next time around, take care, have a great day, and happy reading.

Starting the blog entry now to finish it later

Greetings, readers. Thanks to what I was sure was a head cold but seems to be allergies now, I asked Rebecca to come to the office later than usual. So we are scrambling for time before my accountant’s meeting. Oh, those busy Wednesdays. So I will dictate and Rebecca will type until it is time for said meeting, then we will save, close the computer, and finish this entry later in the morning.

First of all, condolences to the families and victims of the Texas church shooting last Sunday. We seem to have a string of senseless, violent attacks in this country; one which was declared flat-out terrorism. What is going on, and how can we get it to stop?

While we are on the subject of condolences, for all of those baseball fans out there, R.I.P. to a fantastic pitcher Roy Halladay, who died in a single engine plane crash in Florida. He was retired, but only 40 years old. Philadelphia Phillies fans must be in mourning and in a state of shock.

Speaking of sports, the other night I watched on YouTube a classic Monday Night Football game from 1978; it was the Miami Dolphins versus the Houston Oilers. It was back in the day when everyone thought Houston was going to win the Super Bowl and the entire Astrodome was full of light blue and white pom poms. It was truly a college football game atmosphere, said announcer Howard Cosell. I love YouTube, I can find almost anything on there. That game was so good, I think I will watch it again tonight … if I can see it.

Speaking thereof, yesterday at work, I lost my glasses. I put the stem of my glasses in the neck of the sweatshirt like I always do and went outside to collect the trash around the parking lot. On the ride home, I looked down at my hoodie, and lo and behold, no glasses. Crap! If they cannot be found, I will have to get a new pair from my eye doctor. There goes the money I was going to save for a PS4. I hate when I do dumb things. Rather or not this is classified as a dumb thing, I couldn’t sleep because I felt like it was. All I had to do was leave my glasses near my work station or in my bag and this would not have happened. I just wasn’t thinking.

Break now for meeting with accountant. Okay, back again.

I’ve not chatted about the weather in a while, so here’s an update. It got cold yesterday and snowed much more than anticipated. My computer weather forecast didn’t even make any mention of snow, that is how surprised I was. Today, however, my day off from my other job, it is sunny and beautiful. It looks like it is about 80 degrees, but it is probably only in the 30s. Yes, winter is coming. I must admit I like late fall more than I used to. The holiday seasons are just around the corner, and before I know it I will be watching my Thanksgiving Day Parade, having a feast, and planning what to buy folks for Christmas.

Lastly, kudos to President Trump for his trip to Asia. It seems to be at least a mild success. I’ve not seen in the news that he shot his mouth off or said anything that he’ll have to retract later. Why am I getting the distinct impression that he is getting the hang of the job? Maybe he is just a good actor.

Well, that’s the news, I think tomorrow I will take a day off to rest and do personal projects around the apartment, for I will be working on Sunday at my other job, because it is the homecoming weekend for the Penn State Nittany Lions football team. They play Rutgers University. Good luck to PSU. That will be a five-day work week. Now I know that doesn’t sound too bad for most, but for a part-time employee with leg problems, it is no fun. I can put on a smile and give a good show. I really like interacting with the customers, so that gets me through.

Until next time, take care, have a great few days, and happy reading.

Hello from Panera

Greetings, readers. I was on a slightly different schedule this morning so I called Rebecca and had her meet me at Panera to start our shift. I just finished my breakfast and am now enjoying my coffee. I was hoping to keep the computer charged up but the plug is damaged and not working. Luckily the battery is new so we have plenty of power and time to type this blog entry.

First of all, congrats to the Houston Astros on their World Series championship. I did not think they would be able to win a game 7 versus the Dodgers in Los Angeles, but they did. So far I have seen a number of people wear Astros hats around town. Looks like everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.

While we are on the subject of baseball, I am still trying to resurrect my sim baseball league on Out of the Park Baseball 18, which crashed and burned a couple of weeks ago and the file was unable to be saved. I hope to have everything ready to restart within a month. The game got an update so it is even more fun to play. I can’t wait until I can get my league going again.

This morning I awakened to a grey rainy day, with the temperature in the low 40s. My injured leg did not like it. After yesterday’s blog about it still hurting, I had three people from Facebook yesterday tell me to head to my doctor immediately and get my leg checked out. If it’s not back to normal in another week, I will go.

Yesterday I did something very … well, stupid. I called my therapist very late and called off. It was raining, I didn’t feel particularly well, and yes, I have a fear of falling. So far she hasn’t called back. I hope she wasn’t too upset. I think I can smooth things over. When I talk to her, I will explain how I felt yesterday and hopefully she will understand. I’ve always had a good rapport with her so I don’t think I will have much of a problem.

At 1:00 I have an appointment for a manicure which won’t take long and which I won’t bail on. Because of my cerebral palsy, I have a weak left side and trouble with some fine motor skills, and clipping fingernails in next to impossible for me. I actually enjoy getting the pampering and my nails always look good for work. I can’t be at the register with long scratchy nails. I have shifts at work tomorrow and Saturday. A week from this Sunday is the Penn State football homecoming weekend and I’ve already volunteered to work both Saturday and Sunday. They gleefully accepted.

Again, I want to thank all of our new readers and ask that you tell all your friends, so that everyone can enjoy this blog. That’s why Rebecca and I do it; not only to let me vent but to also to share my life experiences.

Finally, once again my condolences go out to families affected by violence, this time from a shooting in a Colorado Wal-Mart. I honestly do not remember a time when there was so much violence and strife in a span of a few days. I might blog next week about the differences of how people get their news today versus how we got it way back in the day, before we had internet.

Until next Wednesday, take care, have a great weekend, and happy reading.