Unknown Date Goes Here, again
5:50a
     It's Summer already????

Monday July 1, 2002
4:35a
     Saturday morning after doing the clothes washing down by the creek and getting them hung on the back porch I got the string trimmer and long extension cords put in the truck. I spent the morning doing the trimming around Mom's house. I had cut the grass Friday evening, after about 4 weeks of letting it go, so I had time to do some extra stuff around her house. After I got that done I connected the battery in the white truck and got it going. There was some leftover dirt in the back with a few brush trimmings. I hauled that over to my house and dumped it beside the steep part of the driveway.
     After that I cleaned up and got the groceries and then went back to my house for the afternoon. I got the magnifying glass that came with the Britannicas to take back over there too. Sometime recently I got to thinking about the old slides. So that's what I did, I got them out and started looking through them.
     Yesterday morning after the usual routines I went back over to my house. This time I found the old single slide viewer in the hall closet and took it with me. Got the boxes of slides back out. I fixed the viewer so I could hold it up to the desk lamp and look at the slides through it. I took the back of it off and the lamp relfector out and then stuck some white paper in back to reflect more of the light.
     So that's what I did all day yesterday. Look at the old slides. I came back to Mom's house for lunch and then went back to my house to look at more slides.
     Most of them are images of things. Too few were of people and faces. The cruise pictures were lots of planes landing and taking off of the carrier. There were just two or three of sightseeing tourist things. It was the same for most of the others too. Places and things.
     I found the one of the two girls laying on the beach nude. I was driving up the bridge road between the keys and saw someone down on a small beach on one of the small keys. So I pulled over at the first place I could find. I got the camera and made my way down to the water's edge and started back toward where they were. It was a cheap way to make like I was just out taking pictures. I can remember pretending to be suprised when I got around to where they were sitting in the shallow water. They just kind of rolled over on their fronts and propped up on their elbows.
     After a few words I asked if I could make their picture and I did. Then there was a bit of me just standing there before I asked if they minded if I joined them. They said ok. So I put down the camera and took my shorts off right there in front of them. Then I waded out to where they were and sat down.
     We sat for awhile. One of them was having boyfriend problems and that's what they were talking about. I just mostly sat and listen. There were a couple of times one of them looked at it. After a few more minutes, I seemed like not much time, I said it was time to head back toward Key West. I guess with them talking about boy friend problems it wasn't going to lead to anything for me. So I made my parting excuses, got up, went back to my clothes pile and put them on. Then I left.
     Out of all those boxes of slides, that one was the only one to have any real memories. They're just a very few that have any pleasant memories if any at all.
     There was just one box of pictures made around the first off base apartment, 422 Amsterdam. An occassional picture of Chuck, Ken and Bob. And then there'd be a face with no name and some vague real image in my mind. Even my own face and body looks ... so young and thin ... it must belong to someone other dude.
     I suppose it was all just an exercise in trying to rebuild my memory. Or is it my life? Or my so-called life? There were suppose to be more, lots more, adventures like that one slide. But they never happened. Too much time spent cruising around Va Beach, alone, making pictures of scenes with no real person in them.
     Sliding time back and forth .... It was about 7 years between Fall 69 and Summer 76, between when college years ended and my house on Gravely road. Orlanda, Memphis, Va Beach, Med Cruise, all that happened then. Seven years ago was 1995. Forty something turning fifty something, part-time go nowhere jobs, temperory retirement ended, back down at Singer-Ryobi, parent in failing health, internet connection, world of terrorism, .... And still just hanging around my house on Gravely road with what's left of life going nowhere.
     There's about 4 sets of 7 years during the last 30 years. I guess there could be about 23 sets depending on where you start the 7. It all just amounts to years slipping by with no much to show for it.

Friday July 5, 2002
1:45p
     I'm at my house today. I had yesterday off for the 4th July holiday and today too. It was suppose to be a workday today but the higherups decided to let us have another day.
     Yesterday was a waste. I didn't do anything constructive or useful. I just fooled around on the internet in a Netherlands chat room. That was most all the morning and part of the afternoon.
     I did manage to drive down to Easley late afternoon. I went to Lowes looking for a knob for the airconditioner that Mom broke. They didn't have anything like it. So that was a waste too. I knew it was pointless to try and find one.
     I didn't sleep well the night before. Well, more so than usual, so that kinda messed up the day too.
     At the Colony theater they had the Lord of the Rings movie playing. I thought then about going down to see it this afternoon. But I haven't. It started about an hour ago anyway. I couldn't get into the mood to see that mind bending fantisy again.
     This morning I spent working on all those website statistics files. The program I wrote to do part of the processing needed a bit of changing. Somewhere along the way Yahoo changed the file format so I had to account for that.
     It was all mostly putting the date line in all the files. Toward the end of doing all that I realized I could have just included that bit of info in the input file list. But too late for that. After the program got the stats out of the yahoo files I deleted them so it was a short lived change.
     So now I have a bunch of 4k files instead of a bunch of 70k or 100k files. That directory got shrunked from 20M to .75M. I'll problably not do much more with the stats any now. That's the way things go. I'll make a bit of progress then quite for a long time.
     One day this week, maybe last week, the handle on the toilet tank came loose. It's the one I fixed awhile back. I tightened it back up and thought that would be the end of that. But 2 or 3 nights I've heard the tank re-filling regularly. The handles too tight now and won't let the flap drop completely down. I got around to checking it at lunch time today and mentioned to Mom about lifting up on the handle a bit to let the flap close completely. She had been pushing the flap down by hand and said it still leaked. So all that's normal too. I suggest what it takes to make it work right but it gets put down and shut out.
     I'm really getting worn out with this kind of existance, it's not living. If I try to do anything extra around the house it's some comment about "I'll go that" "Let that go". Most of the time I just don't bother trying and end up sitting in that chair feeling bad about not being allowed to do more.
     She's let her congestive heart failure go without any real treatment for a year and half now. She never did go to the heart doctor except that one time. It was December 2000 when she was suppose to go back but she didn't want to. I've probably already wrote that anyway. It's just that she might have been feeling better than she is if she had gone regularly like she does to the lung doctor.
     So anyway. I'm spending my evenings and nights over at Mom's house just to be there. There's no real sense that I'm accomplishing much to make her life any easier. It probably like DM says, she's given up. And I guess I have too. It seems more so now that I've had depression and anxiety all my life too. You live with depression you catch depression and that's all there is to it.
     Oh well, enough of this. Bye.

Monday July 8, 2002
5:00a
     The 4 day holliday weekend is over now. About the only thing I did was spend time on the internet trying to find an address for my best friend during the navy years. It looks like he and his family are still where they were 14 years ago. That was when I quit writing to him for no reason ... except maybe my own depressive state of mind. I gave up after a while.
     Yesterday morning I spent writing a letter to him and his wife. I used that 14 year old address. So maybe it will get through to him. I sent one to General Delivery too and wrote on the envelope to forward to the current address. I guess the letters are still sitting up in the Pickens post office now. I don't think they have any dispatches on Sunday.
     So that was this weekend. It's back to the work week that seems to go by way to fast. Usually without accomplishing much either.

Wednesday July 10, 2002
5:05a
     I started this new webpage this morning.

     Added an entry to this. I really need to add a link on the mainroom page for Decline and Collapse of the United States. I'll get a round to it.

Wednesday July 24, 2002
4:40a
     It must have been Friday when I checked on the space station overpass schedule. I made printouts all the way through September. It had been mostly clear in the early mornings. Hazing but you could see the stars. Yesterday and today was the first time it was to pass over. So you should be able to guess ... it's been cloudy in the mornings too.
     From the news last evening ... two more doctors have had to close up their offices. Insurance costs increased 500%. Now they're another community without proper health care for the babies. Lawyers and their greedy sueing ... it's another entry in Decline and Collapse of the United States

Thursday August 1, 2002
5:30a
     Another 1:30 wake up. Another morning of sitting out on the backporch smoking cigs, drinking coffee. A rare morning of writing stuff here about Janus the Two Faced Opponent.
     Yesterday afternoon I got to my house and started walking down to check the junk mailbox. I heard a bird call that sounded odd more like a whistling than a bird. I stopped and looked up in the trees for it. It sounded unusally close. I did that a couple of more times, hear it, stop and look. Then I finally saw it on a lower limb about 15 - 20 feet away. It was a pre-adult hawk or falcon, maybe a falcon it had feathers on its legs. It sat there while I looked at it for about a minute. Then it flew off across the road made a circle and then down the road to another tree in the woods on the other side.
     I think my native Amercian spirit got a lift from the experience. Good medicine.

Saturday August 3, 2002
4:40a
     I don't quite know what to make of it. Wednesday I saw the hawk/falcon. Thursday afternoon when I got to my house it was in the big tree near the backporch. It flew off across the road again. And I got my binoculars out to try and get a close up look. But by the time I got them it had flew off somewhere else. Then later I was leaving and sitting in the truck when I heard that whistling call again. It had flew back to the close up tree and was probably sitting there while I was looking across the road for it. Friday it was in the dogwood tree over the path to the backporch. I had drove the truck up the drive and got it turned around like I always do. That means I backed up right next to that tree and then pulled forward some. Then I got out and had just started to walk around the truck to the house when I saw it still sitting there. But as soon as it became aware I was looking at it, it flew off.
     I really just don't know what to make of it. The first time it was good medicine. The second time fortuness dose of more good medicine, mostly. But now my doubtfulness of such good fortune crossing my path three times is taking over. Paranoidness that my Euro-carcasioness still lurking about ready to pounch out and overwhelm my Native American spirit ... again.
     The grass has turned brownish again so I won't have to do that today. Didn't do that last weekend either, or has it been two Saturdays ago when I last cut it. The toilet tank in the pink bathroom doesn't fill up ever time. I got a new float value thing for it so maybe I'll get that done instead.
     It will probably be just another weekend of staying in my house with the air conditioner running. Maybe I'll get something useful done with computer files and such. But I've been tried of sitting in that green chair in front of that computer on that old table for a long time now too.
     Enough gripping and dumping. Maybe I'll get to watch that hawk/falcon all day today. Why is it hanging around my house?

Sunday August 4, 2002
5:00a
     The hawk, I've decided that's what it is, the wings are broader and the end feathers spread out some, was in the open area behind the house where the trees were cut a couple of years ago. That was yesterday morning after I got the clothes done. It made a 2 or 3 swoops while I tried watching it. I had even got the binoculars and was behind my house. But that was all. Never saw again during the rest of the day. I guess my truck in the parking area kept it away.
     It was mostly another just another Saturday. Spent more time looking at websites than doing anything really constructive.
     Toward mid to late afternoon I got around to doing some writing. It's another addition to DCofUS. That entry probably should have gone on one of the Ressurrected Rememberances pages but like my confused and scrabbled mind it ended up there. Over the decades it seems like being a suspicious suspect has become life's default case. It's gone from the innocent till proven guilty, pass guilty till proven innocent and on to suspected till proven otherwise.
     Maybe it's really always been that way and it's just that when we're kids we don't know it. I'm sure whenever some adult saw a bunch of kids roaming the pastures, fields and woods there was a flash of doubt about what they were really up to.
     I really should write the "Getting From That To This", or "Then to Now", or ... what was those other titles I tought of yesterday?

Wednesday August 7, 2002
4:25
     Yesterday morning it was 1:30 when I woke up, so I had a 20 hour day. Spent most of that morning writting another segment for Terrorism2002. That one I posted at the ABC boards. The first couple of responses were odd. For some reason my words get misconstrude a lot. I wrote about some of the connections between starting a war with Hussein and there still being terrorist cells in the States waiting to do another attack. There were other things along that line. It was all basically statements of real possiblities that's not being talked about by the politicians and news media. But anyway it got read by some who thought I was saying Americans are afraid of what might happen and being cowards and running and hiding. So much what Benjamin Franklin said about expecting the worst and being relieved when something less serious happens.
     Sometimes it's just not worth it to speak one's mind. It gets twisted by the reader into something that was not intended. If it's opposite of what they think and believe it gets ridiculed and put down.
     It's really better to smile and nod your head in agreement with whatever is being said and wrote by others. Keep your own thoughts to yourself and leave them with the impression that everything they say and write is right.
     Freedom of speech is really just a one way street. And everyone thinks everyone else is going the wrong way down it.

Thursday August 8, 2002
4:20a
     Spent too much time writing an ABC discussion board post. Then I never posted it because it just rambled off into jibbering about everything except what that other person posted.
     I really need to stop trying to do anything with that board and the others.

Friday August 9, 2002
5:00a
     The company got the new sound and vibration analyzer system last Friday. This week was spent stumbling around all that software trying to learn how it works. It's like learning most other large programs. It all reduces to quasi mind reading. Like what is it wanting me to do now and why did they, the programmers, use this method of thinking to solve the problem and not this other way?
     Schools have opened back up for another year. The busses are back on the roads in the mornings and afternoons. The kids are on the side of the road waiting for them.
     I guess that's as good a sign as any the cooler weather can't be much further in the near future. The far future is still that global warming and/or cooling thing.

Saturday August 10, 2002
4:15a
     Internet discussion / message boards. CNN took their board down weeks and months ago. ABC took the link off their front page but the board index page is still there. I wonder what all that means? Free exchange of thoughts about national and world issues has been classified a national security risk and is being dealt with accordingly?
     Nahhh. Couldn't be that. The States have that freedom of speech thing in their constitution. Yeah sure. Kinda like that all men are created equal thing, words written and/or approved by slave owners.
     If ABC does not put its link to the main discussion page back, I'll take it as a sign things are getting serious. Or seriously wrong. According to the administration and congress leaders' usual way of thinking, the prelude to war in the internet age would be shutting down publicly expressed opinions. And exchange of first person witnesses to what's happening else where in the world.

Sunday August 11, 2002
4:35a
     It is signs of the burden of the office that are missing. There's too little greying of the hair, too few wrinkles in the face, not enough worrisome sadness in the eyes. During the first few months those things were beginning to develope like the previous holders of the office. But now they are no longer any of those signs. It's really the sense and feel that's not right.
     Government related officials are always concerned about "sending messages", sending signals and maintaining self images and standards. They make laws to send a message to criminals. They denounce unethical and unmoral practices by others. They signal the public with backdrop images.
     So what is being signaled by this absence of signs?
     Potus is talking war with Iraq, sending soliders off to die. There's still alqaeda, hamas and terrorism attacks within the borders to deal with. Yet he's not in the office much, so it appears. He is too much elsewhere, at his ranch, on the links, attending political party functions.
     Just how much is it costing the States citizens to fly the Potus around the country and the world? What kind of image is being presented to the public when the Potus speaks of war to the media one moment and then turns his back on them to start his golf game? Men and women are going to die in one breath, watch my drive in the next.
     Johnson had those signs of the burden. So did Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr and even Clinton. It wasn't just 4 or 8 years of ageing with them. It looked more like 10 or 15 years.
     There's something seriously wrong with the background signaling.

Tuesday August 13, 2002
2:45a
     Yesterday morning was spent writing another ABC board post. Someone wrote about just feeding his 10 month old son and wondering about his future. No one else responsed to it. So I did. Just basically said he wasn't alone in his thinking and wondering. And then another paragraph about the States going it alone against Hussein. Later that morning it got 2 or 3 more responses and then that was all.
     So ... no more writing political stuff and posting them. It's all to be journal entries and my private discussion pages.
     I've gotten to feeling bad again about being alone to look after Mom. It gets that way sometimes.
     It's been a lot of just sitting around in the evenings waiting for time to pass while watching television. It's never been easy to talk or converse with her about regular events. Not like it is when Leander or Lucille or DM and Mickey visit. We just sit in our chairs in the corners and watch television. But that's what we have done for decades now. Every since Dad and Joel died. And before that too.
     I'll tell myself that I give up. It doesn't make much diff what subject I bring up. It will get some depressing comment. But what else should I expect? Two people with depression disorders tring to talk like normal folks. And then a few days or weeks later I don't think much about it for a while. It's just the way things are and will be.
     ....
     I'll think about the things I've given up doing for myself. I use to go up town and eat breakfast at Garren's and before that the Feedroom. I gave that up in November when I started staying over at Mom's house in November 2000. I use to go out two or three evenings and eat at restaurants. But that ended in 1994, I think, after I wrecked the red truck. Instead of eating supper with Mom some evenings it became all evenings. I think the same is true for lunch time.
     I never did a lot over at my house. It was the occassional project for something to do. But mostly just ... do nothing things. That would be before the internet connection in 1997. Afterwards it ended up wasting time in chat and looking at pictures and the Columbine Spring and Summer. Now it's the been the same routine week after week since November 2000.
     Oh well, enough gripping and dumping for this morning. I'm alone in the world, deal with it.

4:40a
     Added some memories to Random Ressurrected Rememberances Book 4 Part 6. And another entry in DC of US, that thing up at the beginning of this Journal entry.
     I've managed to stay off the internet and away from that ABC board this morning. I haven't even got the telephone wire connection made yet. I think I'll eat my bowl of cereal, upload these files and then go lay on the glider on the pourch. It's going to be another stay awake 20 hour day. Bye.

Thursday August 15, 2002
4:50a
     Four wake up extra early mornings this week, so far. 1:30, 2:00, 2:30 I'm going to be in bad shape soon.
     I worked some on my website stats program. I started saving the files differently so now the program that use to work doesn't work now.
     There's been a pack of dogs in the neighborhood a couple of mornings. This morning they have an animal up a tree in the neighbor's yard. I guess it's another neighbor's cat. I've chased them away twice now. But they're probably lurking among the a third's neighbor's trees. How long does a treeed animal or cat stay up the tree after the dogs have left?
     Well it's time to eat and wash my hair and shave.
     Oh. Jason called about 9:00 last evening. He and Rachel had their first child last evening. I was in my bedroom when the phone rang so I use the portable one. Mom was still reading so I took it to her room and let them talk. I didn't learn whether it's a girl or boy or any other details.

Sunday August 18, 2002
4:30a
     Last Monday I helped Joe at work lift a realy heavy piece of equipment out of the back of his car. It was a shaker, a big shaker, had a granite block on it, the shaker was heavy, the granite block was heavy, it was double heavy. But I get twisted around to lift it out of the trunk. As soon as I started to lift I felt the vertibrate move around in the lower back. Too late, the damage is already done.
     I've been spending the last two weeks sitting in the sound and vibration lab learning that new software and test equipment. The chair is just a regulare chair. So that hasn't been good for my back either. Especially after messing it up.
     Yesterday I made a pad from one of my obewain robes and placed it under the lower back while laying on the couch. That seem to help. I would move my spine up and down on it, twist this way twist that way. I also rolled up an old beach towel and use it in the truck for lower back support. That made it feel better too. I actually started with a folded up pair of work pants. But they kept coming unfolded.
     So anyway. I was in the bathroom cleaning up. I lifted one leg and felt the lowere spine move again. The rest of the evening was as bad as some during the week. So was last night. When I finally got up about 4:30 and as I was rolling over to get up, I felt the spine move again. This time it felt like it moved back to where it was suppose to be. At least it's not aching as much.
     Well that's this week's mis-adventure. .... Yeah like any adventure I have isn't going to be a mis- type.
     War, Hussein, Bush, alqaeda, hamas, and all other types .... Bush is going to get a lot of people dead. Iraqian, Israeli, Palestinian, European, US citizens military types in the war and civilian types here in the homeland. "Homeland Security" .... get that madman, american politican out of that office.
     Do you ever wonder about the military dudes carrying the football? Who's protecting them? And from whom do they really need protection? They're trained to do what they're told to do when they're told to do it. So the office holder goes mad, insane, just looses it. "Give it to me and give it here now!" .... What is that man with the football suppose to do?

Monday August 19, 2002
4:55a
     I had always thought the Presidency was debateable from the beginnings. Well that part was right, I had also thought it was intended that there be no Presidency. Apparently there was to be a Presidency and the debate was over the office's power. Or more so about how to limit its power.
     Well, its 215 years later now. The Presidency has too much power. It's also too much dependant upon the personality of the ever current resident. They should have opted for the no Presidency.
     Of course they messed up by over looking same problems with Senate and Representative offices becoming offices for life. Effectively just like the monarch and House of Lords which they had recently been at war with.
     Dumb, dumb, dumb.
     My back is still messed up. It's not a constant hurt now but that dull sore muscle throb. I do have to be careful how I move or else the vertibrate will shift again.
     Later.

Tuesday August 20, 2002
3:40a
     I have to use my truck this morning to move some test equipment to a parking lot for an outdoor test. It's a new peice of equipment and software that's worth $80,000. It being so expensive I decided to clean the back of the truck last evening. I actually got the garden hose and used it to wash out the truck bed. So all that dust and dirt from the cross country trip is in the drive way next to my house now. I guess there's part of New Mexico and Idaho there too.
     It's really the software, hard key that's expensive. One of those things you plug into the parallel port. The rest of it is a portable computer and transducer signal processer. It's all smaller than a breadbox. It's worth more than my house, land, both trucks, and savings.
     I had a couple of nights when I slept or dozed till four or four thirty or five. But this morning is back to waking up at three and staying awake.
     I've already checked out the news websites. I haven't been spending as much time doing that as I use to. So I should get some more writing done during the rest of the morning. Maybe some additions to one of the Rememberances pages.
     It's 21, 22 days till September 11th. A year has already passed by since that tragedy. The following 100 to 180 days will be ... should be as tense as those first days, weeks and months last Fall and Winter. If alqaeda is still viable the terrorists will make another major attack by next Spring. Or, shortly after the current Potus attacks Hussein and Iraq. Which will happen first?
     There's still a sense that bin laden and alqaeda defeated themselves with the September 11th 2001 event. Something so horrifying and shocking that it even shocked the foot soldier terrorists types. It certainly didn't sit well with the rest of the Islamic world, having something like that done in the name of their religion.

Wednesday August 21, 2002
5:15a
     The latest family member arrival is not doing well and is in the hospital.

Friday August 23, 2002
5:05a
     I called Scott, the baby's uncle, and the baby's condition is improving. I really have to remember to ask about its name next time I talk with someone.
     The Septemeber issue of Scientific American arrived the other day. It's a special, single topic issue about time. The first couple of feature articles have been hard reading. The second one is a five page discussion that really reduces to proper terminology (symantics?) about verb tense. Does time flow or not? What is really meant by past, present and future? In time-scape all events have already happened, are now happening, and/or will have happened?
     About the only useful thought I had from the issue is that proper grammer with respect to verb usage can be simplified. Which is just use the base verb word with a hyphened extension for past, present, future tense. Like, "The articles in Scientific American be-ppft pretty dumb." Where the "be-ppft" is the contracted version of "has been, is now and/or will be" since according to the articles all time depended events have already, are now and/or will be done and over with all at the same time from someone's relative, space-time-motion perspective.
     It's really disappointing. Or maybe it's the skepticism factor and I've become doubtful about anything written in the magazine. Anyway, it's just another reason, or evolutionary trend in the magazine, for my subscription to become extinct in a couple of years. That is assuming that somewhere in timescape land it has not already expired ... or is in the process of dying out ... or, oh I give-ppft up.

Sunday August 25, 2002
4:30a
     Two forty wake up, nothing new about that. Five hours sleep per night and it use to be six hours. I wonder how much longer before it does me in?
     I went down to DM and Mickys yesterday afternoon. I had not been out for a visit in four to six weeks I think. We talked about the ships he was on during the war. One of his granddaughters had found some pictures of those kinds of ships. I found some writeups about them. Other than that it was the usual talk, Singer/Ryobi, politics, terrorism, economy.
     I cut the grass early yesterday morning so that there would be dew on it and not blow up dust. Mom made her usual remark about it being dry and dusty and hot. It's like a conditioned response, I get ready to cut grass and she makes that too hot and dusty comment. I said I'll cut it this time and won't cut it anymore.
     It's times like that when I just want to toss in the towel and give up. It doesn't make any diff what I try to do. I start to vacuum or clean house, it's let it go. The same thing about washing dishes or help with Sunday cooking, it's I'll do that. The trap in the pink bathroom needs replacing, the toliet tank value too even though it hasn't stuck recently.
     .... Oh never mind. I don't want to talk about that anymore.
     It's all the same old thing everywhere anyway. I set up that new software at work to do something. Joe wants it done different so I fix it his way. Next Earl suggests what I had the first time and then Joe agrees that's ok now. It doesn't make and diff what I suggest or try to do. It gets rejected till someone else comes up with it then it's ok.
     The same thing about my political, issues or whatever thoughts. It's still better to just let them express their opinions, smile and nod in agreement and keep your own thoughts to yourself. Besides if do tell them what you think, they'll never talk with you again.

Life expectancy for white male born in 1949             66.2 years
Single men have shorter lives than married men          -5.5
Depression causes shortened lives                       -2.0
Smoking causes shortened lives                          -5.0
Loner's life is shorter than one with friendships       -3.5
Siblings who care of elder parents have shorter lives   -4.0
Unfulfilled working carreer                             -2.5
Family history of stroke and heart disease              -3.0
                                                       -----
Net Balance                                             40.7

Monday August 26, 2002
4:20a
     I had laid down on the floor in the front bedroom to rest some and ended up dozing off between 2 and 3. It was late afternoon, about 3:30, when I left to go to the hospital. Drove through Easley and US 123 and was just at the Southerner Resturant when I noticed it was being torn down. The car dealership next door made the owner an offer he couldn't refuse. So that decades old landmark is history now.
     At the hospital they're doing construction all around the building. Or at least on 2 or 3 sides of it. But parking wasn't as bad as it could have been and I parked in the first one I found.
     Up on the fourth floor I was following the room number signs and one of the nurses asked if she could help. I told her what room number. I found the room and knocked.
     Jason and Christy where there, Rachel and Bridgett came in a little later. Christy was holding the baby on a pillow in her lap. She asked if I wanted to hold him. I said maybe later. The baby is doing better every day it seems. Jason and Racheal appeared in good spirits too considering the circumstances. Maybe that's from the improving condition too.
     The little guy is still going to have to have some surgery and it will be a long term healing process. May have to have plastic surgery done too later on. The big problem is getting the uriane tube stay open on its own, it collapses when the cathetor is removed. Jason mention one of them inserted devices like they use in blood vessels to keep them open.
     It always difficult when things don't go right. And it seems kinda cheap to say it could be worse and other new borns have lots more serious problems, along with the burden those parents and families have to carry. But still ....
     It's like a never ending, repeating event loop ... I think about, grip about, dump stuff into this Journal about my sad life. Not only my life but it's too much empathy with all the events in other family members' lives. And then along comes another reminder ... it could be worse.

Six marriages                           
Four seperation and divorces
Two deaths

Parent's strained family life          23 years
   Childhood non-awareness              6
   Depression                          41
   Dysfunctional                        8
Siblings lives
   Bad marriage years                  27 
   Child custody fights                 5
   Child seperations and support       53
                                      ---
                                      163 years

Monday September 2, 2002
4:40a
     I see ... It's been a week ... Blank mind ... The words just won't ....
     Yeah that's it. That's the way it's been all week. I just can't get the thoughts and words to connect. So that's why I haven't written. It's not like I haven't tried. I started a couple of times to get that Weapons of Mass Destruction piece pieced together but it's still laying in broken pieces here and there in my mind. Then there's that other piece about Tags of Shame on the States' flag. That's still just a thought in my head. It's been there for months, maybe years, just decaying away.
     The mornings before work have been reading the discussion posts. I have made a one or two there but they never really lead anywhere. Then I think about making Journal entries but by then it's time to get ready for work.
     It just takes me an hour sometimes to get a decent paragraph typed.
     And then there's the new kid. I haven't made any effort to find out the latest about him. So I guess things are going as well as can be expected with all of them.
     That's the same old lack of calling each other. Don't know when to call or where to call without being a distrubance or bother. I don't think Mom has initiated a phone call in years. Well maybe a few but it seems like a very few. She's always waited, or expected, the others to call her. And I suppose the same thing is happening on the other end. Except for DM and Leander, they are the ones doing the calling.
     At work I had to start learning how to do thermal analysis with the ANSYS Finite Element Analysis. That has to do with pistons and rings in one of them small gasoline engines. Yeah sure, like I barely know how to do structural analysis on woodworking power tools and now it's thermal on engines.
     ...
     Weapons of Mass Destruction ... WeMaD ... WeOfMaDest-iny. Like when has there not been weapons of mass destruction in human history? If what's his name has weapons of mass destruction, then during the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s on up to the present, the States, USSR, China and others had/have weapons of planetary destruction.
     Religions are the causes of war ... yeah maybe, that's still debatable. Science and Technology made the killing more efficient and ruthless.
     The most dangerous person on the planet ... no not him or him either. It's the same as it's always been in history. The man with the most influence and power and control over the populous. Yeah that one, the greatest nation on Earth, the last remaining superpower, the most powerful office in the world and whoever happens to be the current occupant.
     Ever wonder who protects the military dudes with the football? Protection from his own quarterback? I do hope and pray they know insanity when it's glaring at them and demanding the football.
4:40a
     Well I've managed to add two entries to the Decline and Collapse of the United States. ... as if the world will ever know or care.
     This morning, I'm at my house now, I patched that hole in the right pants pocket. So now I can start wearing these pants again and put stuff in that pocket again. It's really kind of amazing how such a simple accomplishment improves one's mental state. It has something to do with releasing those dopimenes, I know the spelling ain't right. Maybe it's just doing any little other than the normal, laying around feeling sorry for yourself type of depression.
     I'm going to go for a ride now. The weather is cool and cloudy.

Wednesday September 4, 2002
4:44a
     Fours ... those be the 13s in Japanese culture ... or is 4 the same as ace of spades? Either way it's not a good omen.
     I spent all day at work yesterday trying to get a finite element model and analysis done using contact elements. Sometimes those kinds of models run like they're suppose to, usually the simple models, but then when the geometery or something else changes they will not run. It's bad enough knowing just enough to get by doing FEM and FEA. Then along comes thermal problems with contact elements which I know even less about. Forget about all the theory and principles and convoluted programming methods.
     It's all a big, magic box and I'm just blindly poking around in it trying figure out what's inside that makes it work.
     Monday, the holiday, I started out on a ride about. I sat in the truck at the top of the driveway for about 20 minutes trying to figure out where to go. All the usual destinations ran throught my mind. I thought about Clemson but told myself no way, the kids are back and it'll be crowded. I left with the general direction being toward Liberty.
     So I end up in Clemson anyway. Went through Liberty, Norris, Central and into the East end of the campus. That stretch of road from Central to Clemson is all four lanes wide with all the usual business build up now. There's one huge residential apartment complex, The Reserve, along the way.
     I pulled into the road leading up to the old Clemson House, it's been another dorm for decades now, instead of a hotel. I parked in the last place on the left near one of the benches I use to sit on during the 80s visits. Use to see most of the open field and Tillman building from there but the trees have grown up. So I sit in the truck and think. Didn't even bother to get out and walk about a bit.
     I suppose it was all apporpriate anyway. I sat there and thought about it being 35 years ago when it was my first semester, first fall in college. But that was then, a different world a different life a different life time.
     Actually two life times, two generations ago. Some of those kids walking on the sidewalks in front of me are 18. Two times eighteen is thirty-six. Thirty-six plus the eighteen when I was there is fifty-four. And I'm fifty-three working toward fifty-four.
     Wonder if I was in classes with some of their grandparents?

Monday September 9, 2002
5:00a
     Saturday I drove up to lake Jocassee to the far, back boatramp and sat on the riprocks about 15 feet under normal lake level. Watched a group of three kids swim across one of the coves and then walk around the far point. Watched a lady start swimming out of one of the near by coves and way far out into the lake. No one was with her or followed along in a boat. I thought that kind of dumb, to be that far from shore and having to swim back too. And then there was only her white swim cap showing on the surface. Some boaters could have raced over her before they knew she was there.
     The weekend before I was down at Clemson and saw how low Hartwell is too.
     Then there's lake Keowee. It's still close to normal level. I've seen it lots lower before, back during the 80s drought. The thought occurred that there must be more rich people living around Keowee than the other two lakes. They've paid someone off to keep the lake level high so they can use their boat ramps. I did think of another reason too. Greenville gets their water from Keowee and that intake may have a minimum level that's close to normal level. But I can't remember when that water line and intake was built. Maybe it was after the 80s drought.
     It can't be the cooling water intake for the reactors. The lake has been lots lower before and they've always been there.
     Jason and Rachael brought Matthew over yesterday afternoon. So Mom got to see him and she held him for a while. The baby seems to be doing as well as can be expected. Everything is fine except for the urination problem. Jason explained more about what the doctors did. They pulled the bladder up close to the stomach and made it so the kid can pee some how. There will still have to be corrective surgery later on when he grown more. Like maybe years from now. There would be too many surgeries if they tried to keep up with his normal growth.
     I let the grass go again this weekend. It's gotten to be too stressful to think about cutting it while wondering if Mom would say it's too dry and make too much dust. It looks bad since the neighbors have their's cut. But this week I just gave up and decided to let it go. I actually gave up two weeks ago the last time that happened. So whatever sense of doing something useful and constructive I got from keeping the grass cut is gone. The depression from seeing it tall and needing to be cut is less than that from worrying about starting to cut it and be told to let it go.

Tuesday September 10, 2002
4:55a
     One year on, fifty-two weeks, three-hundred sixty-four days, eight thousand seven hundred thiry-six hours, five-hundred twenty-four thousand one hundred sixty minutes, thirty-one million four hundred forty-nine thousand six hundred seconds.
     I don't believe there has been any real change.

Monday September 16, 2002
4:55a
     Friday the Thirteenth September 2002. In the end it was a mournful day for the States. A tragedy - comedy of errors. Three med-students falsely (mis-stakenly) accused. Not only citizens' rights but common sense trappled into the dust of the stampede.
     The terrorists' scored another goal, or rather the States made an auto-goal for the enemy.
     The approaching war to remove Hussein, it will go down like this. The States will attack first with or without UN approval. That doesn't make much difference anymore. The terrorists will retailiate within the States. Hussein and the terrorists will target not only Israel but European cities and probably others around the world. The rest of the world will blame the States for the destruction. And thus Omar the Taliban's statement last Fall or early Winter, "The States will totally destroyed. It's already in progress."

Wednesday September 18, 2002
5:05a
     I've really got to give up reading and trying to make posts to the discussion boards. It takes too much time in the mornings and even at work. It doesn't really do any good. It's really bad for my mental state.
     It's just like my habit of smoking cigs. It's up to 3/4 pack a day now. I don't even try or care anymore about cutting back again. It's just another bad habit I'm having to live with.

Monday September 23, 2002
4:20a
     Fall is suppose to happen sometime today.
     Wednesday or Thursday evening I decided to mow the lawn and went about getting the mower ready. It wouldn't crank, the battery was low and wouldn't turn the engine over. I tried using the old truck's battery but the cables wouldn't stay on, there's no terminal posts to clip onto. So I gave up and used the push mower to do the back and side yards. There's rows of clumpped up grass there now. And the front has grown up to seed.
     Friday at noon time I got the battery and went by the auto store place for a new one. Decided to have it check first and it did start to recharge. That was going to take 25 more minutes so I went back out to sit in the truck and wait. After I got back in the store the clerk said it quit charging just after I left. So I waited for nothing and ended up having to buy a new one. If I had stayed inside and watched the machine .... So now I wonder if the young man lied since it an opportunity opened up for him to get another sale.
     It was after 2:00 when I got back to work. The other two people in my group had started working on a noise problem. So I missed out on that.
     Friday was just a bad karma day.
     Then the rains came again this weekend. The grass is in front hasn't been cut in 5 weeks. It's going to be hard to cut now and I'll try again this afternoon and evening. I should have cut it last weekend or the one before like I knew I should have. But .... oh forget it.
     Daniel started his Central Europe motorcycle riding tour on Saturday. That was the day he flew over. The riding starts today I think. Hope he has good weather and everything goes safely.
     Well that all. I should start the next section of this journal. This file has gotten to big.