As I reflect back on my past 61 years, it occurs to me I’ve done a lot of stuff. Some of it major some of it minor/trivial. But the thing is I’ve done it it. I’ve always been a seeker of new things to do. I don’t want to go to my grave with a big ‘bucket list’ of things I never got to do. So I thought that this would be a good place to document with one liners some of the things I’ve done in my life…so far. I may at some future date come back and expand on a given topic. If you see something that intrigues you, just post a comment and I can expound on it in a separate post. Since I’ll be doing this in spurts, don’t be surprised if I list something twice (or more).
Dates are best guess.
I got my pilots license – 1999.
I’m a green belt in American Kempo and a brown belt in Tae Kwando – 1986.
I was in the USAF for almost 4 years stationed in Missouri, Hawaii, and Johnston Island – 1971.
As I muse over the stuff I’ve done in the last 61 years, it occurs to me I’ve done a lot of stuff. I probably ought to be documenting it so that I can refer to it after my memory has completely left. So I frequent will put a list together as I remember it. I will probably come back in the future and expand on a topic. But in the meantime, this will just be a place for me to jot down a memory of stuff I’ve done in my life.
So lets get started with some of the biggies. Note: I sux at dates so these will be a best guess. If you know better, please leave a comment. Also leave a comment if you want more info on a topic.
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Born in the first half of the last century – 1949.
Graduated from Texas High – Texarkana – 1967. To 25% (barely).
Married in 1971 and again in 2001.
Had my son in 1975
I was in the USAF in 1967-1971 and I made it to SSgt – E5. Stationed in Missouri, Hawaii, and Johnton Island. I was a clerk. This makes me a Viet Nam Era vet, but I was never stationed there during the war. But it does get me some nice VA benefits.
I had this spot in my vision in my left eye, upper right quadrant. Had it for several months. It was only minor annoying like the floaters one gets occasionally. But I noticed recently that it seemed to be growing, so I decided to get it checked out with the eye doc. This would also be a good time to get my eyes measured for glasses as my distance vision is also starting to blur slightly. I dont trust optometrist as their primary income is selling glasses so there is an inherent conflict of interest there. So I went to an ophthalmologist.
After shining some blinding painful lights into my eyes, and a couple of ‘umms’, he asked me, “Have you ever lived in the Mississippi or Ohio River Basins?” Puzzled, I said no. “Have you ever been around chickens?” Yeah, I raised a some on the ranch. Well you have a disease called Histoplasmosis. Its a fungus that comes from the soil where chicken poop has collected. When disturbed it goes airborne and can be inhaled. Lord knows I cleaned enough poop out of the barn and chicken coop. Anyways, he sent me on to a retina specialist.
They put me thru a whole battery of tests. One of them was injecting me with a dye in the arm and then viewing the inside of my eyeball on a blacklight. The specialist told me it takes 15 seconds from the time it enters my arm til it shows up in my eye. He warned me that one of the after effects was that I would be peeing green for a couple of days. He wasn’t kidding! Glad he warned me.
Finally the retina doc told me there was not much they could do about it. There was a clinical trial of a drug if I was interested. Sure why not. Then he told me they would inject it straight into my eyeball. When, I said? Now, he said. Gulp. Okay go ahead.
They put me in the chair and put numbing eyedrops in my eyes. After several minutes, he clipped these thin wires to my eyelids to hold them open. I felt like the guy in Clockwork Orange. Then he pulls out a long thin needle ( I swear it had a hook on the end ) and inserts it into my eye. It hurt slightly but not near what I feared.
Latest. Its been a couple of weeks. Good news it the spot seems to have become more translucent, almost transparent. Bad news is it has moved to the center of my left eye give me a slight double vision. Its sort of like looking thru a drop of water. Its really difficult to read and if I need detail I have to close my left eye.
Another appointment at the end of February, so we’ll see what he wants to do. He hinted that I may need multiple shots in the eye. Yee Haa.
So those damn chickens that I snuffed out on the ranch seem to have taken final revenge.
This was a sleeper I had never heard of. I just saw a description that intrigued me.
The plot is sort of like The Matrix. The main characters appear in three different stories as different characters. The three stories are intertwined and the intriguing part is figuring out how. But it is “an intellectual” picture and the plot gets confusing quickly. But for me, that was the fun part – trying to figure it out.
The acting is excellent by all three main characters. However I was very impressed with Melissa McCarthy (Gilmore Girls). Her character was very likable and it felt like she got best dramatic parts and really pulled it off.
So overall I give this movie 8/10. Definately a must-see.
This is a hilarious video. The guy in the video was the lead actor in the Firefly / Serenity series – Nathan Fillian. The girl is a porn actress – Aria Giovanni. The website that describes the make of this is here.
This is one of my all time favorite games for the PC. Its called PORTAL. Its a simulation where you have to get to the end by solving these teleportation problems. You get a gun that can create portals, a blue one and an orange one. You go in one and exit out the other. For example, if you need to get over a moat of acid, you just fire your gun at a wall on the far side and another one on a wall near you. Then enter the portal near you and you come out on the far bank. The levels keep getting more and more complex requiring you to utilize your momentum going thru a portal to ‘fling’ yourself. It was very challenging and I only had to go to the web twice because I was stuck. The song at the end is very cute. Someone even made a video with it.
This is the tree that was hit by lightning. The tree service guy told me it would take a couple of hours tops. It took them seven hours but they finally got it down. He and his helper were two tired dudes. The city will come by later in the week to pick it up. To more pictures of the various stages of it coming down go to my Flickr group.
