Happy Tuesday....and musical thoughts.

Approaching the end of another workday. Nothing to show for it until payday on Friday. I was thinking about music yesterday as I was on the treadmill. (yes, another music rant, sorry).

I was listening to some music, probably 65 Days of Static. While my legs were plugging away at 3.8 mph, my mind was soaring over the sights seen by the Mars Rover, and the new robot that is exploring the poles there. I visited the Amazon too. I time travelled to the future to a week in Austin and another to be spent in Florida. I travelled to the past, Minnesota, the Grand Canyon. I visited a lost loved one.

Why does the right music set my mind so free?

A song on my mind, depressing I know.

Things are wrong in this world and I feel powerless.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdRd3k4CIAg

System
Of
A
Down

"Chop
Suey"


Wake up (Wake up)
Grab a brush and put a little makeup
Hide the scars to fade away the (Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup)
Why'd you leave the keys upon the table?
Here you go create another fable

You wanted to,
Grab a brush and put a little makeup
You wanted to,
Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup
You wanted to,
Why'd you leave the keys upon the table
You wanted to,

Oh I don't think you trust,
In my self righteous suicide,
I cry when angels deserve to die
In my self righteous suicide,
I cry when angels deserve to die

Father (Father), Father (Father), Father (Father), Father (Father)!
Father into your hands, I commend my spirit,
Father, into your hands,
Why have you forsaken me,
In your eyes forsaken me,
In your thoughts forsaken me,
In your heart forsaken, me oh!

Trust in my self righteous suicide
I cry when angels deserve to die
In my self righteous suicide
I cry when angels deserve to die...

Travels

I like traveling. I mean, I REALLY like traveling. I can get in a car, drive for hours, and hours, and still arrive at my destination with positive energy. (provided enough sleep was obtained the previous evening of course). This weekend Steve and I took a road trip up to Minnesota. John is working for 2 weeks in a very small town, but for the weekend we are staying with Aunty Mary in Minneapolis and John has joined us there.

Floods:
There is MAJOR flooding going on right now in Iowa. Our route, I-35, was not closed at all. But in Des Moines we were able to see the flooding of the Des Moines river which was way out of its banks, and very close to the highway surface. East of Des Moines I-80 was closed due to the flooding. There are many people who have had to evacuate, and will probably lose their homes.

People are jerks:
We ran into a little stretch of construction where the highway narrowed to one lane only and traffic had to merge. As semi drivers sometimes do, two of them formed a blockade to keep cars from cutting to the front of the line. I really don't mind when they do this, but not everyone feels that way. I was driving next to an extra-long tractor trailer. There was a small purple car behind him that kept trying to peek around the right side on the shoulder. When we finally arrived at the merge spot, the purple car tried to pull around the semi on the right shoulder and pass him to get to the front of the merge line. The semi driver just drove onto the shoulder himself and almost put that purple car into the ditch. Eventually the purple car did get in front of the semi as we merged to one lane. They were right behind me. Now that traffic was at a better pace, the purple car drive just kept going at a snail's pace, and there was nothing the semi driver could do. I was glad to get FAR ahead of them.

The Weather:
It's bright and sunny this Saturday morning. I would like to drive over to see Minnehaha Falls later. I've been there once before with John, the kids and my parents. It was probably around 1995 though. I think Mary and the boys are going to the gym to work out around noon, so perhaps this afternoon.

"How Chris W. Saved My Life" a story from the 70s.

The Salvation Army vehicle was a big station wagon from the 70's. Rather angular in shape. The cool feature of this station wagon was the neat seats in the very back of the wagon. There were two little mini-seats that faced each other. After church when it was time to take people home the kids, including me, would fight over the back. The neat thing about the back door of the wagon, it had a huge window that had electronic control. Wow! An electric window! That was cool. We pretended the back of that station wagon was our own little house, or spaceship, or train, or ocean liner, or airplane.

Back to my story. It was late on a Sunday night and we were taking the usual folks home. Chris and I were in the very back of the wagon just goofing around, laughing at our silly jokes. When he got dropped off, my dad just rolled down the electric window and he climbed out. I stuck my head out, still talking to him as he started toward his house, but my dad, unaware of my little head sticking out, pushed "the button" that could have spelled my doom and chopped off my silly pre-teen head!

But no, not a chance. I made a startled squeak of some sort and Chris, in a couple of strides arrived at the back of the wagon and pushed my head inside! Of course I was very frightened and cried all the way home. My dad apologized profusely of course for scaring me. I lived, didn't hold too much of a grudge about it, and wonder if that little event changed my life in any way.

Yes, it's been a month. Here's what went on, with lots of pics.

Hiya. It's been awhile. You're probably wondering what happened? Let's just say it was probably the busiest two month period of my entire life. But, a lot of fun and cool stuff happened, so here's my 'travel' report. (no travel, really, but we can pretend..) Here's the story of spring at our house.

March 23, 2008 - Easter Sunday. Here's a picture of the family that I stitched together. It was FREEZING. None of the usual crowd was around to do Easter pictures. We always have a 'just the girls' picture, but this year it was just us. It was a really nice day too.

On April 5, we had a nice girls dinner to visit with Denise Z who was in town for a week. Then Jean and I went downtown to Artopia. My pictures aren't great from that event, but we had a good time. Got to see some interesting performances and some really nice music.

April 17, 2008 - Jordan performing her Dramatic Interpretation for Showcase Night at the high school. She'll be taking this performance to Nationals later this summer.

April 18, 2008 - The funniest play ever. The Complete Works of Shakespeare, abridged". Steve was one of 3 primaries in the play and they all played various roles. Steve played about 15 or 16 different parts, including most of the female roles, such as Juliet, Hamlet's mother, etc... I can't remember laughing so hard for a long time.

April 25 - Choir Competition at State. This is a picture of Steve and his girlfriend Victoria at M.U. All the kids did fabulous at state. Steve's ensemble received a 1 at districts and a 2 at state . So that was great. A couple of the kids we know got 1's at state.

April 29. Well, you just go right ahead and guess what this picture is about. I bet you will never guess. The answer is somewhere below..... Just look for the word fishing pole. Okay, if you are impatient, like I know you are.. I'll just tell you now. We were doing some housecleaning, as in "clean sweep' style cleaning. It suddenly occurred to the kids that the little tiny fishing pole, leaning up in a corner, in the upstairs hallway, right outside Jordan's door.....well....we tried to decide how long it had been there. We finally decided it was at least 3 years. So, what does that say about our skills in ignoring things? It got pitched finally.

April 30 - Debate and Forensics award night. Jordan received her pins for lettering in Debate and Forensics.

May 02 - The HAZING OF STEVE...in other words, how he got into the Improv Group at the high school. Three openings were up for the improv group this year, to replace the three outgoing seniors. After a workshop one night, auditions the next night, and making it to final callbacks, he still had to wait and see if he was one of the 3 who were chosen. We all went to bed, since the call hadn't come by 10:30 or so, we figured he didn't make it. (even though I made him wear his black shirt and red tie for the final callback)! Well about 11:15 the phone rings. It's a young man we know from church who is one of the outgoing seniors. He pretty much begged me to find a way to get Steve outside the door (keep in mind it's a school night) and he promised to have him back no later than 12:00. It was a 'tradition' for the new members to get initiated. So after about 5 minutes of deciding with John's help since we were in a sleep-deprived fog, I walked down the hall, woke Steve up, told him to get some clothes and shoes on so he could do something for me. Of course he is pretty groggy too. Finally I get him downstairs and trying to keep the whole thing a secret (they were going to jump him on the porch), got him to go out. They took him away, painted and taped and dunked him, and he came home the happiest I've ever seen him!

May 03 - Jordan and PROM!! The limo story. Corey's parents rented a town car style car with a driver to take them to dinner and the prom. When the driver took them to dinner, he asked if they would mind a big limo, at no extra charge (as long as they didn't get the cups dirty since he wouldn't have time to clean them). Umm, of course yes! So he drove them around a few places downtown for pictures before taking them to prom. What a great night for them.

May 10 - BEN GRAD! Our nephew Ben at his college grad party!

May 11 - Mother's Day. Can you believe I took no pictures other that this one? It's Fireball sleeping on the electric blanket. He's getting arthritis and he really likes the warmth. For Mother's Day, Steve got me the new Killers CD "Sawdust" which is GREAT. Jordan got me the Fiddler on the Roof WIDESCREEN special edition DVD. It's great to finally see it widescreen!

May 16 - class is finally over! Hooray. Eight months of intense training and now I'm official starting 'on-the-job-training', working to get stats high enough to be assigned to a group. We had a really nice graduation day. One of our classmates wrote "on the last day of training" to the tune of "On the first day of Christmas", and "this job is your job" to the tune of "this land is your land". We had lunch and bowled at one of the new places downtown and it was fun. I got three strikes in a row, and had my highest bowling score ever. !

May 17 - Nephew Luke high school graduation party . He is heading off to the Naval Academy this fall.

May 19 - The CURE in concert! What a blast! The opening act was called 65 Days Of Static. We have already downloaded a bunch of their music. It was a great night. The weather was perfect.

May 20 - the junior high awards ceremony. Steve, "best actor" award. His drama friends also got some certificates. Emma got a special commendation from the House of Representatives in this state! She's pretty awesome!

May 22 - Choir Concert, the last one of the year. The kids also received their awards for the district and state competition, medals and certificates. About a dozen, including Steve had enough points to LETTER! So, Steve got a letter! He was thrilled.

May 27 - Happy birthday Jordan!

May 27 - a family picture on Jordan's birthday. We had dinner at Bo Lings. It was my first time there, Steve's too, and we really loved it. Steve has decided that he now likes Chinese food.

OKAY TIME FOR A FEW BIRDS, but stay tuned for a picture of my new fountain! These bird pictures were mostly taken May 31st around town, at the nature sanctuary and at the local park.

Summer Tanager

Two Carolina Wrens building a nest.

Male Baltimore Oriole.

Eastern Meadowlark singing

AND HERE IT IS - June 1st! My old fountain got smashed recently and was beyond repair. John helped me pick out this neat one. I love it. It has 3 lights in it and lights up at night!

THE END

Some bird pics from the new camera...

The Five-Year Cure

When a person has battled cancer and has gone cancer-free for five years, the doctors say "you're cured".

I have a theory that all life's traumatic events also have a five-year cure rate.

When my head-on car collision occured back in 1998 I wondered if I would ever learn to love driving again. In 2003 (five years after the wreck) I found that, finally, I did once again love to drive for hours and hours.

John had two layoffs in quick succession, one lasting almost a year. He has one more year to go for a complete cure. But he's getting there.

Something I just realized this year, for Steve who was extremely traumatized after the shooting death of a classmate (November 2002 - his 4th grade year), it has now been over five years since this terrible event and I am almost convinced that Steve has been "cured" from his heartache. This 9th grade year for him, if I could describe it in one word, "flight". He's taken off. He's on his way. He's a young man with aspirations, amazing abilities, and just plain awesome-ness. He's earned some respect as a performer, singer and friend. He's managed to dig himself out of a grade snafu and even enjoy some of his core classes.

Is he cured? Perhaps. Will he ever forget his friend? No, never.

Walking Mary

I took a walk from 6am to 7am this morning. The sky was just getting a hint of light when I left the house, and when I returned the sun was about to come up. It was a bit chilly outside and my cheeks were very cold.

As I was heading back to the house I walked by a field that had just a shadow of fog. There was a herd of deer, numbering about 10-12 in the field eating grass. They were backlit by the eastern sky. Can you picture it? It was just lovely.

But it got me thinking. I remembered back to my teen years, and an unknown lady who we saw nearly every day walking down a busy main thoroughfare in my city. We just called her "Walking Mary" since we didn't know her. She must have walked all day long, or at least a good many hours each day.

As I walked this morning on the new 4-lane road that cuts through farmland, but will someday be crowded by gas stations, car dealerships and tanning salons I wondered if I would still be walking this same 4-lane road twenty years from now, and in my mind still seeing the farmland, the watchful deer, and remembering the sweet sounds of spring birds.

I wonder if Walking Mary saw Noland Road the way it used to be.

UPS where are you?

After getting the used camera of my dreams, a second hand older model rebel, I am now anxiously awaiting the cheap-o zoom lens I found on Ebay. Scheduled for delivery today, but still not here. But after checking the UPS site I have high hopes for some lovely outdoor bird photography tomorrow! The weather is supposed to be lovely!

Package Progress
Location_______________Date____Time _____ Description
KANSAS CITY,KS, US ___04/04/2008 _9:06 A.M. __OUT FOR DELIVERY

My lens has really travelled!

04/04/2008
12:09 A.M.
ARRIVAL SCAN


LENEXA,KS, US
04/03/2008
11:41 P.M.
DEPARTURE SCAN
04/03/2008
1:33 P.M.
ARRIVAL SCAN

EARTH CITY,MO, US
04/03/2008
9:31 A.M.
DEPARTURE SCAN
EARTH CITY,MO, US
04/02/2008
7:09 P.M.
ARRIVAL SCAN


DORAVILLE,GA, US
04/02/2008
10:49 A.M.
DEPARTURE SCAN
04/02/2008
9:55 A.M.
ARRIVAL SCAN


JACKSONVILLE,FL, US
04/02/2008
1:57 A.M.
DEPARTURE SCAN
JACKSONVILLE,FL, US
04/01/2008
3:01 P.M.
ARRIVAL SCAN

MIAMI,FL, US
03/31/2008
9:35 P.M.
DEPARTURE SCAN
03/31/2008
7:30 P.M.
ORIGIN SCAN
03/31/2008
5:15 P.M.
PICKUP SCAN
US
03/31/2008
9:50 A.M.
BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

blog challenge - $50000 question.

Congratulations! You've won 50,000!

Oh, but there's a catch.

You must spend every penny of it within 2 days.

What do you buy?

Here it is...... 1972 Ford Mustang Grande, with hardtop, color ginger.

Happy Easter Sunday

Happy Easter! This Easter will be with just us four. This will be the first time in 18 years that has happened. I think it will be fun, but I sure miss the old Easter egg hunts with the little ones and all the little cousins.

In NCAA news, my bracket is looking horrible. Although I did pick KU to win it all. (crazy from a mizzou fan, no?). But although most of my first round picks were good, many of my second round choices now have a big huge "X" through them.

I made waffle iron cookies last night. Chocolate and then sprinkled with powdered sugar. They were GOOD. I heard about them somewhere and found the recipe on the 'net. I managed to ride my bike yesterday afternoon too and do a chest/arm workout.

John is taking care of our dinner today. He went to the store yesterday and got the goodies. He also got some jelly beans and things so we would get our Easter candy fix. I think the plan is for ham and mashed potatoes. The kids have to be at church at 9am to practice for the 11am service. I should get done working at 1 so that is probably when we'll have dinner. Then we might watch a movie. They rented a couple.

In other news, John spent most of our tax refund on getting a bass! His plan is to learn it, so he won't be the only one in the family to not play anything. Pretty exciting. It's a pretty little guitar.

And I didn't think so, but I did have enough stashed away for a camera upgrade! Yay! It's just an old used canon rebel 6.3 mp. Nothing earth-shaking. I was shopping first for the nikon d40, but that was much more. Then I started looking at olympus evolt older model, and it was about the same. Then I looked at old canons and they must be a lot more common because they were about $100 less than the other ones! Now I just have to save up $99 for a zoom lens.

More squaw creek on Sunday March 9th.

Back to Squaw Creek again. This time I dragged the family along. I promised the kids this was the last, the very last time I would force them to go along on a bird watching outing. I think they were impressed though. When you're talking about almost 1/2 a million birds, it's hard not to be impressed. Here are some of the best shots of the day including a better shot of a bald eagle sitting on the ice. I also got a nice shot of a juvenile bald eagle as it flew right over our car. Did you know it takes a bald eagle 4 years to get its beautiful black and white coloring?

Squaw Creek on Saturday (3/1)

Oh what a WONDERFUL day....

You could feel the heat in the south wind. You could feel the chill coming up off of the ice. But oh, the combination of hot/cold/blue sky and fresh air was just what I needed!

Here are some pictures

trumpeter swans

common goldeneye in flight (duck)

i'm speechless

wish I could recreate the sound
snow geese
another common goldeneye
this is a bad picture of a bald eagle that was flying
in for dinner as I was driving out.

My house is so damn loud! And yes, I love it that way....

What's Annette ranting about now you ask? Not a rant. I swear. Walk into my house almost any evening and you will hear LOUD stuff. Music, IPOD, piano, electric guitar, and cat yowling all at once. Oh, you might hear me singing too, but that can be frightening, so...let's talk about cool sounds, not geek sounds.

Steve's and I went to Vintage Stock tonight and he picked up a Ramone's CD. So that was going full blast for awhile. Then Jordan had some Avenue Q blasting and Steve moved downstairs to play some Green Day on his electric guitar. Fireball just thinks we're all nuts I think. I love all the racket.

Anyway, back to my story. Ummm Yessss I was going to tell a story. Steve has been under a LOT of pressure this week and actually been forgetting to breathe. Yes, it happens to all of us I think. He felt like his heart was having a seizure. So, we thought SEIZURE OF LIFE was a good title for a rock and roll song. John is working on the lyrics. It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with.

And, just 'cause i know you miss him, here he is --
Fireball, a.k.a. Lion-O a.k.a. Sofa King

Feb 15th - Dad gets to go HOME!!!

Finally after 17 days, Dad got to go home from rehab on Feb 15th. YAY! Steve and I went over to help out that day. Here are some pictures.

Dad sitting in his wheelchair, until given the go-ahead!

Dad and Steve reviewing Steve's script for the spring play

2nd floor elevator

Down on the first floor, ready to walk on out!

Getting set up in his chair, Dad gets love and kisses from Missy.

Annette cuts off those silly wristbands!

Steve ponders life as a pig. (Grandpa is part pig now for real, with his replacement "porcine" valve)

Mom supervises kitchen clean-up