Absent...

My gosh...so long since I've blogged. I did manage to get signed in. Lots to write about, but that will come later when I'm actually in the mood.

Repost this if...

Yep, I'm fed up with all of it. I've never been fond of politics, but I especially hate it now. In fact, I'm so fed up that I may never vote again. That's because this constant fighting between the two parties has invaded my life like never before. Seems that at least half of Facebook consists of those expounding their political views, resorting to name-calling and half-truths. My Facebook friends and family constantly bombard Facebook with their rhetoric and links to websites they think is going to change somebody's mind about what party to belong.

However, on Sundays the political poop on Facebook changes to poop about Football and now NASCAR--not much better in my opinion. On Monday, it all swings back to politics and name-calling, interspersed with requests for hearts or vegetables, or the usual copy/paste "Repost this if" garbage. I might even write my own repost, "If you're sick of unsolicited political announcements, repost this". But as most Facebookers haven't figured out yet, reposting is not going to cure cancer, help diabetics, stop child abuse, bring back your dead father, or change anyone's mind about politics.

...but then there's that Egypt thing...

I grow weary.

Has it Really Been this Long???

My buddy Graybeard lists me as "moribund". Yep, I have been gone awhile. Like many others, I've gotten addicted to Facebook and just a whole lot of sitting around. I sit all day at work, writing tech manuals and system documentation, then come home and sit some more. I knew it wasn't good for anyone to be as sedentary as I've been, but it all became a vicious cycle. Bad habits lead to getting out of shape, gaining weight...and all that led to knee surgery and a back that constantly hurts.
Two weeks ago my friend Jennifer and I joined a gym. We both needeach other to push us to take an hour or so of our time every day and do some bicycling and work the machines down in the weight room. So far, we've both lost a few pounds and feeling a little bit better already. I've recently had a stress test done, and the old ticker is in good shape. I saw a cardiologist today, who seemed to agree with me that my old blood pressure medicine just ain't doing the job. He's switched meds, and hopefully that will bring my pressure down 20 points or so. He thought I was on the right track with joining a gym, and said my stress test didn't indicate otherwise.

I know this isn't the most exciting or funny blog I've written, but the pain in my back is forcing me to quit for now. I still have lots to say...I just need to put down my iPhone and pick up my laptop. And I'll do that after I get home from the gym at night.

Stand Him Down

Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court

Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say. His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his 'allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah,' defiantly stating, 'I think I will not apologize for my actions' and told the court 'I am at war with your country’.

Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below:

Judge Young: 'Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you.

On counts 1, 5, and 6 the court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4, and 7, the court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutively. (That's 80 years.)

On count 8 the court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years again, to be served consecutively to the 80 years just imposed. The court imposes upon you for each of the eight counts a fine of $250,00--that's an aggregate fine of $2 million. The court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines.

The court imposes upon you an $800 special assessment. The court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.

This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence.

Now, let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court, we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals. As human beings, we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether the officers of government do it or your attorney does it, or if you think you are a soldier, you are not. You are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I've known warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and the TV crews were, and he said: 'You're no big deal.'

You are no big deal.

What your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?

I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing? And, I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.

It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom, so that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf, have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.

We Americans are all about freedom. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. The day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure.

Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America . That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. And it always will.

Mr. Custody Officer. Stand him down.

She Was Asking for it.

There are some pretty ignorant people out there. As soon as I heard this chick speak, I knew she was just plain ignorant, and it wasn’t the religious garb she was wearing that tainted my opinion of her. Afterwards, I got the lowdown on this idiot, and what happened to her after I left. I wish I’d stayed around to see her being hauled away in a police car.
As far as I’m concerned, they need to give her a blindfold, cigarette, and a brick wall to lean against. What she did a few years ago was tantamount to treason.

Bird in the House, Ma...

After work today, we were in the kitchen when my husband noticed what looked like small wasp nest hanging on the soffiting over our deck. I thought it looked more a small hornet's nest, so I went out to investigate. As I got closer to it, I saw that it was a tiny little bat, all curled up into a ball.

I motioned for my husband to come out, and as he did, he grabbed the wasp spray. I told him to put it away, and to get out there fast. He thought it was a cocoon of some sort. I had to tell him it was a bat. I grabbed my camera and snapped a few photos of him...macro, so I had to get really close.

The bat reminded me of one of those hilarious events that happened when my kids were small. We were at Mom and Dad's, sitting around in the family room--except for Dad. He liked to sit at the kitchen table, smoke his cigs, drink a beer, and watch the little portable TV. At one point, he looked up at the kitchen ceiling, and without missing a beat, he very dryly said, "Bird in the house, Ma...".

I ran into the kitchen, telling Dad not to hurt it. When I got close, it swooped past my head. It was a bat, and that's exactly what I yelled, "BAAATTTTT!". That set up a huge round of chaos. Everyone started running around. I went berserk. I kept picturing that bat being rabid and getting tangled up in my hair. I grabbed my two little hysterical kids and ran from room to room, with the bat right behind us. It never occurred to me to take the kids to a bedroom and simply shut the door!

My husband never moved from his couch-potato post on the sofa. Picture a houseful of screaming maniacs, and then Mr. Smooth not even flinching while in his reclining position. At one point Dad had a fly swatter and was whapping the poor little guy (the bat--not my husband), but he managed to escape Dad and continue his reign of terror on the family. Finally, the bat flew out the sliding glass door to the enclosed back porch. I hurried and shut the door, then locked it. At least he was out there where he couldn't get to us! And I was fairly sure he couldn't get through a locked door.

A minute later, a scream came from the other side of the sliding glass door. Mom had been out on the porch, unbeknownst to us! And since I locked the door, she couldn't get back in. I unlocked the door and Mom scooted in before the bat could fly back into the main part of the house. We were finally able to get the bat back outdoors by opening the outside door off the porch. Whew!

For the next few minutes, the house was still noisy--but this time with the sound of laughter. That would've been hilarious on video, but few people had video cameras back then. Later, my son told me that he never thought bats were real, because they turned into vampires...and vampires weren't real. So when he saw the bat, his thinking was that bats ARE real and this guy was going to turn into a vampire!

I just checked on the little guy, and he's still hanging from the deck soffiting. I hope he's not sick. It's starting to get dark, and he should be out looking for supper. Funny that a bat scared the life out of me 30 years ago, but not today. I must be getting brave in my old age.

Sick of Being Sick

I don't know how people who are chronically sick stand it. It's just been a few weeks for me, and I'm losing patience real fast. Seems the strong antibiotic I took to get over pneumonia has killed off a lot of good bacteria as well as the bad bacteria. You know what happens when all the nice folks move out and leave their homes wide open...the riff-raff moves in.

And the riff-raff has moved in--on my tongue at first. It started with the black tongue that is common when taking an antibiotic. I thought it would clear up after I was done with the meds. Nope. It merely evolved. It became a "hairy tongue", and now it's become a full-fledged case of "thrush". Sunday night, my tongue began hurting. I thought maybe it was a taste bud gone bad and as the Bible says, "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out". Well, I located a swollen taste bud in the central part of my tongue, and thinking "maybe if I just got rid of it"...I grabbed my small needle-nose pliers, latched onto the elongated taste bud, and pulled the stupid thing right off my tongue.

Who would've thought that a tongue with a dismembered taste bud would bleed so badly? I tried to yell at my husband to grab a wet wash cloth. He came in to see what I was blathering about, and found me trying to talk with a really bloody tongue. What a stupid thing to do.

Yesterday morning I woke up to sore tonsils and throat, and my tongue still hurt.  I felt generally sick again. I ended up going to the doctor, who gave me the diagnosis.  This stuff has spread to my throat and also my intestines.  I didn't tell her about my self-surgery.  I learned my lesson.  And in case you're wondering, the photo is NOT of my tongue.  I just tried to find an example of "thrush tongue" that wasn't horribly gross.

From now on, I won't sever anything other than skin tags.