It was up a tree...

I saw this up a tree. Look just above center right and you see an arm bent in a wave. IF you see the arm, you can then make out the huge craial protuberance. If you ever visit a site called texasbigfoot.com, there are a lot of pictures that look like this one.

A picture from a different angle revel it wearing red shorts. Point me, texasbigfoot.com, zero.

The mobile blogger...

Posting from high atop the Woodfin Center computer lab using Piney Woods Free Net on campus at beautiful Kilgore College, hello everyone.

It's not so glamorous as that, I'm on the first floor, running off some ortho test and goniometry measurements from a class web site, ate my sandwich on the run, taking advantage of the 10 free print sheets a day I get as a student here. AC charges 10 cents a copy, if I don't use all my copies, can I take blank sheets home?

Anyway off to Longview in a few minutes for a "work hardening" field trip, see what's that about, sounds like something I could enjoy as a job, might even use a little of the safety training I got at the mill all those 100 years ago I worked there.

Should we talk...

My wife has been viewing this web site. Looks like porn to me.

What do you think?

After all she had a bunch of questions about what I was internet surfing for when I found this:

None of your business

We named him...

El Guapo. The new little dog. Pronounce that "L Wappo" for the non bilingual. That is a name that has been floating around the house for some time now so we decided to use it on him. Thanks to all for suggestions. Here is a picture of him at the lake the other day keep alligators from getting in the boat.

For big white dog (my Boy) fans, he had been gone since mid spring break and you guessed it, when we arrived home with the new dog he was there, waiting. He has been a bit confused by the fact that El Guapo gets to go in the car to pick Mary up from school. He wants to go, but a couple of unfortunate incidents keep "my boy" from riding in the car.

See, he defecated in the bed of the pickup, not one time but twice. First time was an accident, second time I figure he did it on purpose. He did it while I was riding him around town. I can just see it, a mom with a 4 year old in the car with her, here we come, bearing down on them, only to turn broadside and reveal a sight like a great surreal, perverted hunched up Mardi Grai float big white dog green truck passing slowly before their eyes huge unreal figures aboard and the kid says, "Momma, Momma, what's that man's dog doing?" I blissfully parade on past, an unwitting flambeau carrier to a scene happening behind me that I am totally ignorant of. The harried mom, her own world out of control hustling kids around town only stares with no thoughts at all.

He left again, couple of days ago, me and Cathy took a bike ride today and while passing some trailer houses on a back road he suddenly appeared running beside me. Ran 3 miles all the way home following me. The police report tomorrow will list man on bike steals dog.

Any way, only trouble with El Guapo so far is he wants to go see a certain female down the road. That gets "fixed" Thursday.

Dreams...

Weird dream, I'm in a drive way on a concrete surface with a tackle box full of fishing lures. One of those small brief case two sided jobs with lure compartments on each side. The side that is up has no hinged top to close. It is full of lures, shiny shad imitations, purple plastic panfish jigs, minnow colored crank baits and the little small compartments are full of sharp tangled hooks.

My problem is that I want the other side up, the one with the top. To do this the side without the top must be turned over and you know what that means. If I succed at turning the box over without making a mess and I seem to think I can, I have another problem, I can't pick it up again without surly making a mess.

Help me out, dreams of accomplishing the impossible, a mess in the drive way, mission accomplished, then what do I do or do I just need a new tackle box? I see numerous themes running here.

Woo-Hoo visitor #1000...

Since I have been keeping count around Thanksgiving, this place has totaled 1000 visitors. That's pretty good. I think we should do something to celebrate each milestone we reach, I mean we should we always aspire to lofty goals and a little incentive never hurts our quest.

So to celebrate each milestone I am going to have a give away. It will work like this, if you post and are number 1000, 2000, 3000 so on you will win a new car. If you are number 1500, 2500, 3500 and so on you will win a bass boat. No substitutions.

We are on track to have a give away like this, one car, one boat every quarter and that depends on how popular this place gets. So since it will involve some finatual commitment on my part I will have to have all these arrangements approved by my chief operating officer. I don't foresee any hold ups, since I am married to said operating officer and we do get along pretty well, she is a bastion of support for me and my affairs, I can't really see how she would not go for it. She is sleeping right now, I won't wake her up to begin this discussion, I just thought of all this myself, but will let her sleep so that when she is fully awake with a fresh mind she can embrace this program with the same enthusiasms I have.

#1000, you know who you are, go ahead and pick out your car. Approval is pending.

New face around here...

Not the girl, the dog silly. He is a stray wandering in the rain and picked up by our friend May Ellen who thought he would find a good home with us. Looks like a chiuwawa/daushund mix.

He has had quite the day, changed owners, went fishing and fell out of the boat. He's small and kept walking under the front gate of the boat deck onto a very narrow space outside the safety of the inner deck, just right for him to stand on and observe fishing action, but not wide enough to turn around on. he found this out when he fell out of the boat trying to return. Lucky for him I keep a net that will hold a 40" redfish and has a handle long enough to net small sharks from long distance. It was over kill for him but we used it any way. He swims well. I lost my cool, leapt into action and saved the dog, I should have been making pictures.

He looks like a keeper. No name yet, email suggestions if you like, due to his Mex heritage I'd like a Spanish name. How do you say jumper in Spanish? The girl has a name, so no funny business.

I did get one picture. Morgan really caught a fat largemouth, just a little under limit that we did not take a picture of, I caught a keeper cat on a roadrunner jig and a small bass.

Cds we listened to while fishing:
Dizzy Gillispie and Machito Afro Cuban Jazz Moods
Abtibalas, Talkatif
North Mississippi Allstars Electric Blue Watermelon
Cooking With Kurt, which was downloaded at the end of a month when I have few emusic downloads left and I try to get the most minutes of music possible. Not bad, there are worse hobbies than collecting long cds with few tracks.

More Pictures...

Ok, the pictures, here is some more.

Drums and Tuba again from a different angle, might not be the last picture you see of these guys since I like tubas. Notice the yawn on the young lady partially hidden by the pole who just happens to be my youngest daughter, kids are bored so easy these days, I mean you take them to something like SXSW and look at them. The other lady in the picture happens to be my wife, Cathy. The look on her face says, "Carl is going to want to try this shit at home."

Notice the accessory to your right under the tuba players elbow, no tuba worth his salt gigs without one.

Here are the Castanets, weird looped guitar with surreal poetry that made no sense. I kind of liked them. Notice the Fender Bassman combo in use by the female bass player on your left. Don't see that amp used as a bass amp much these days and I kind of like some of these bands that are trying to get starteds use of nontraditional gear. It was a borrowed amp, I later talked with its owner and he said she blew a speaker. That is a Fender Mustang the guitar player has, a student model guitar in the early 70s.

Also saw a group, My Brightest Diamond, (remember that name, I think you will here it again) didn't get a real good picture of them, but the bass player used a Fender Deluxe as a bass amp. Rule of thumb these days is 300 watts for bass, a Deluxe is 22 watts. Course it was also through the PA, so he did it for the tone he wanted, it was plenty loud for the crowd.

Few more pictures...

From SXSW, an Aussie band, Living End. Pretty good show, I won't bother with the CD though. Bass player put on a good show. The guitar is no Brian Setzer but he does have some nice Gretch guitars.

Not my hand with the 16 oz. PBR. It seem this was the drink of choice, the tall boy, in Austin bars. Looks like a conspiracy to me with the news today that undercover agents can go into a bar and ticket drunks. Let's see take a 21 year old 90 pound woman, fill with 4 tall boys drank quickly so they don't get hot, the state, the bar owners, the lawyers, other drivers on the road, every one is a winner, well execpt the drinker.

Glad I am past all that, seems too hard. I'm drunk on this blog anyway.

More SXSW pictures...

Couple of more GoGol Bordello pictures, I think they were on a late night talk show of some sort last night, I didn't have to watch, my ears were still ringing from the other day.

Above is Eugene. Here are the girls, Cathy knows their names, I don't, they are really accessible and easy to talk to after a show. As loud as this band is you can hear her pound that bass drum, it is really amazing. Looks kike the same head on the drum since we have been going to the shows, they beat heck out of it and sit on it as the drum is crowd surfed around the audience and everything.

Her is another band from SXSW, a little less high energy, but a pretty complex approach. Left to right the fist guy is playing a xylophone, various drums and he is stomping what delta blues men call a porch board for the bass drum sound. The next guy has keyboards, various percussion and he shares a drum and cymbal with the first guy and is using a really nice mid 60s Fender amp. Next guy is doing guitar and keyboards at the same time. Their songs are kind of weird poems. The group is called Why? Cathy found one of their cds used at Cheapo and bought it.

Stuff like this reminds you to never be afraid, your stuff is as good as anybodies. Put it out there.

Shipment in from Mexico...

Yep, my man came through, Lord only knows what it cost him, the risks he took, a modern day pirate he is.

I'm talking about my connection, my main man, the guy that gets me my stuff. I imagine him in dusty towns, deep in the innards of Mexico making bargains and trades I don't want to know about as he procures this stuff. I hope Geneva is not put in too much danger as he engages in a business that often puts him on smoking buses and risky planes.

You know who I mean, visitor #800, Bill Cooney, just in from Mexico with a new shipment of hot sauce. He keeps me supplied and he has me hooked.
There is the El Yucataco, Habanero 2 bottles, you can't see one in the picture) and Jalapeno, two of my favorites and also a new one for me, the La Anita Chile Habanero. The others are good ones, fitting to wash the taste of the habaneros from your...

Well enough of that kind of thinking, let us start the eating.

Thanks you again, Bill!

News from Iraq...

Here is a picture of Jeremy, my friend in Iraq about whom I post updates here now and then. It was sent to me by his mom. I don't know if there is a story behind the picture or not, I've know Jeremy since he was about 8, I kind of remember the days when he could tear up a steel ball with a rubber hammer, don't know if he has anything to do with the damage pictured here or not.

Got teeth fixed...

It really wasn't teeth, but an abscess of the gum. He drained it, gave me powerful medicine. I have a drainage tube in my mouth right now to keep it open, I need to pull it out before bed. I think my teeth feel the best they have felt in about a month, but it took a few bad hours to get there.

I left the office in Longview feeling pretty good, mouth numb, planning my evening, I would study, may be even go to TKD. About half way home I started having relevations.

These relevations were about why animals bite their hind quarters when an injury occurs in that area. Why road rage happens. Why people get their selves in situations where it seems like they wanted the police to shoot them. I saw a big tanker type truck, the kind that hauls gasoline that had the words "Liquid Chicken" on the side. I don't know if that was a pain halucination or inspiration for what to name my next band.

I made it to Walgreens in Lufkin, submitted my scripts, figited around and tried not to appear like I was there for speed making materialsas I waited on filling, got it, took it, made it home and passed out for 4 hours.

I awoke feeling wrung out but I think the teeth will be ok. Not the first time I have thought such, but I can go a long way on a little encouragement. I think I can crack a book. Sorry no pictures.

It was a warrenty job as well it should have been.

The day started well, but then...

I awoke this morning to the sound of gentle dripping rain and distant thunder. Very comforting, rain slow and soaking the spring earth, the thunder too far to be a threat. A good way to slowly come awake to the possibilities of the day. New growth in the spring rain safe from the far clashing, a good day to start back to school after spring break, a day where I can get this tooth business done with so I can move on to a pain free existence. Well, I'm not up long and the struggle begins to manifest itself in full.

The rain is really coming down. No gentle growing today, I'm going to get a good butt wetting if not down right washed away. Be my luck flooding prevents the dentist from gong to the office. Where is my umbrella? Where is the ibuprophin? Did I study enough over spring break, some, may enough. Will we start slow today or a bruising mind numbing run through material with test always on the horizon? So many questions, add in has the paper come?

I'm off. Be a lot of dead wet dogs on the road this morning, always is.

Got pictures now...

From SXSW 2006, Austin Texas.
Gogol Bordello at Emo's.
Left, Eugene and the girls.

Guitar and bass player.









Yuri and the girls.

Below, Irish punk, Flogging Molly and their bass player. Cathy says he's not Irish, but he sure acted like it.


Here is a group called Drums and Tuba, I liked them, for all the usual reasons. Check the massive bank of effects the tuba player is manipulating. That's what I want to be when I grow up!
Work on some more shots later.

Back from Austin...

Gone for a few days at SXSW in Austin. A fun time, saw Gogol Bordello, the namers of this blog and one of Cathy's favorite bands. I have a bunch of pictures, but seems they are not wanting to upload today, maybe later I'll get them up.

Glad to be home, for some reason the city seemed to weigh heavy on me. Maybe it was the crowded music venues full of cig smoke I don't know but I am glad to be home. I needed a little space for some reason after this. A visit to the city has always been a treat for this country boy, bright lights, big happenings, I have always made the best of the Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Dallas circuit, don't take long to get to get to where the action is from here if that's what you want, and it has always been kind of a battery recharger for me, see new things, think about different stuff. Seems I retreated back behind the pine curtain with my tail between my legs this time. Tried of so many people, all lined up and rushing around.

So now it's back to studying. I'm about to get the text books out. Also my tooth that I had repaired a few weeks ago is giving me some problems today. Swollen, I feel like the cartoon character with a sling tied under his jaw. I'll be calling that dentist in Longview when I get to school tomorrow.

Try to get some pictures later.

I need to be busy...

To write good in the blog. The old mind needs to be just a churning you know. I have been on slack the last few days on spring break, I've done a little studying, but really taking it easy. I guess it's good to rest the circuits, but it makes me restless.

I'm off again for a few days, you won't see me here. Till then keep busy with the link I added to youtube.com. Really great videos of any performer you can think of, just do a search for say example Sharkey Bonannao. Also a lot of home made stuff that I usually don't check out, except for a really cool home made light saber fight by two teenagers that was a pretty cool little piece of home made film. Helps if you have a fast download speed, but if not, just bring one up, go outside and enjoy the spring and come back later it will be ready to go.

See you in a few days.

Notes from the day...

Played a funeral Mass this morning.

Mowed the yard, first time this year.

Anne Kelly, friend from Houston visited this evening.

Anybody read Doonsbury today? Hard on us bloggers, but then my blogs more serious than that, right folks?
Sorry if this is a copy right violation! Click on the cartoon to enlarge it nicely.

Austin weekend...

Had some fun during a visit to Katie and Travis. Saw Matisyahu and Balkan Beat Box at Stubb's BBQ. See pictures of that here:

Matisyahu and Balkan Beat Box

Also made a few pictures of the gang. Here are rock type chicks going clubbing, Katie, Cathy and Mary.

Also saw Redd Volkeart and Cindy CashDollar. They played western music, might have played a couple from the 70s, but most of it was old time western swing. Redd really cooks and Cindy can be heard on the prairie Home Companion radio show with that band sometimes. She also just finished a tour with Van Morrison. They really had fun playing together, a joy to see them.

Here is a shot of me and Cathy.

Two sisters, messing up some BBQ at Stubb's.

Sad news...

Got back to Lufkin from Austin to find that friends of ours from church, no longer in Lufkin but now moved away, lost their daughter in a car accident.

Please pray for Jim and Terri, Stephanie was their only daughter. She was one of 5 University of Texas students that were killed in the accident.

Strange thing, I was in Austin Saturday and saw that headline on a newspaper and bought the paper, said a quick prayer for the families and thought about what a sad spring break it would be for them. I did not really read the names, I had not seen Stephanie in a couple of years so it did not click and it certainly did not dawn on me that I would be going to one of these funerals. These students were all honor students on the way to some sort of conference.

Coulda slept later...

Because I don't have early classes today, but I still woke up early. I know what it is, two things, I am either an old man or I wake up when the amount of caffeine injested yesterday wears off and it's time to start getting more.

What ever it's a fine morning with a white bass are biting feel. In another life I was on the lake this day, but it's different now, a course called nursing Spanish calls me today, and I find it good to have many lives, I'm different things at differen times, you think you know me, you just see me.

The times change, if I went and caught a bunch of wite bass, they got an advisory on them anyway, you can only eat so many white bass, stripers and gaspargou before the mercury messes up your brain and I need to hold what I got for just a few more semesters.

It's spring break, I'm going to cool the brain a couple of days, if I can I'll post, but I'm gone. I may take a book, looking at the next test they hit hard and fast after spring break, but I am going to try not to worry about it and stuff till Sunday. That seems like an eternity without studying, I worry all those gaspergou eaten in another life will make me forget things, but I know I'll have some dead time, especially early when I wake before all others and am all alone.

Be back with good pictures I hope.

Famous people can make you lie if you catch their vibe...

Well maybe not lie but BS just a little.

Being in school at Kilgore I have been a little curious about the famous classical pianist Van Cliburn. He is from the Kilgore/Shrevport area, born one place, spent time in another and the fine arts auditorium at the school is named after him. I lurk around in there sometimes on Tuesday/Thursdays, at lunch break on this long day at school trying to catch some of his vibe.

I know that he was trained by his mom, a great piano player herself and sometime in the 70s his parents got old, died, and he took some time out of the spotlight to care for them and deal with their passing. He returned in the 80s, I think giving a concert for Reagan and Gorbachev. I wondered if he lived in Kilgore. He does not, there was recently a short news item of something, a fire maybe that occurred on the street of famous Van Cliburn, I think in Ft. Worth.

Somehow it seems better if he lived in Kilgore or Shrevport, I can see him praticing his scales for his mom in the hot summer time, dressed in white, classical music drifting out the windows to the magnolias and oaks with their moss, him dressed in white while other kids got dirty and sweated. Ft. Worth don't seem right.

I did find evidence of him in the fine arts building as I slunk around. There were pictures posted on an office door, bound to be students, but there was one, must have been the piano teacher and a very luminous man. Has to be Van Cliburn, I have never seen a picture, but I could see that he has never sweated, never been too dirty, forever clean and bright. He lookes happy. I wondered if just maybe, before he made that 80s comeback, he was like me, lurking around, trying to find some essence of inspiration in a mostly empty quiet building with his guts all nervous. When my guts got too nervous I found that the crapper seemed to be down stairs directly under the stage. Bound to have been constructed there at Cliburns request, a hidden position of power, vibe and mojo where a man could get ready for whatever he needs to do.

Across the hall from the Physical Therapy lab where I spend a good bit of time there is a piano class. Looks like maybe fundamentals of music is taught there also. In another life I sat in those classes in another place, another time when there were ash trays at the ends of the halls where you could smoke right before class or as you looked out those tall windows that are always at the end of school building halls at the spring semester rains and I see those students, like me then with their high school band letter jackets, selves lined with all region band patches, one of them always has on a Hendrix T- Shirt, all learning about the circle of 5ths and that a triad is still a three note chord. Like Van Cliburn they are from small East Texas towns, names like Pittsburg, Queen City, Wascum. Sometimes I hear their scale attempts and I think I may have to go over there and play it my damn self.

One day this week we all arrived and I noticed they were not in class, the room was dark. A few of the therapy students are piano players and some have taken music courses at Kilgore. I suddenly thought of the lie.

I said, " Once every semester the piano classes have brunch at Van Cliburn's house. I have heard he is real nice."

They all bought it.

Blogs are cool right now...

...in China. Good topic for an election day, they think the net is going to bust China open, lots of free thought being shared on blogs right now over there. So a report I heard today says.

They are talking about politics, but in the report they profiled the typical Chinese blogger and it was a young, single, educated, urban dwelling woman who listens to popular music while posting late at night. . I assure you I am none of those things contrary to what you here about who may be at the other end of the keyboard on the net. This paticular woman had a blog for a year and had 10,000 site visits. Ok, you guys need to get busy and sorry I do not have a link to her blog. On occasion I visit a couple of blogs, allthegoodnamesweretaken.com and postsecret.com.

In case you are wondering what my end of the internet looks like, well here is a shot.

Election day...

Go vote. Today. Everybody needs to, I think it is more important than ever. I don't have a particular horse in the race, but I just think things could be better and that more people going to the polls would inspire canidates to craft broader messages instead of concentrating on one group or the other to be their support base.

That way they might come close to doing something kind of like government by the people and for the people. Wouldn't that be something?

Hey, I sound like a grown up!

For the big white dog watchers, he's scored 3 days in a row at home. I may have to buy some dog food.

One of these days...

On a nice warm spring day when I'm not working or studying I am going to declare war on white bass. I haven't white bass fished during their spring run like I used to do for some years now and these warm spring days, with red buds blooming in the woods make me realize the need to get back to that quest.

See, white bass use up all the air in the lake. And the water. You have to get them out of there. Kinda like pulling weeds in a garden it is just something that has to be done and I'm the guy to do it. Catch the white bass, not pull the weeds.

There may be readers here that were my accomplices during the campaigns of old when many white bass were brought to the slaughter and exotic dishes such as Mexacallie White Bass were eaten by kings. Those days will be brought back again when I arm myself with the light spinning rod, the 1/16 ounce jig and enter the fray, to catch them till death itself rears its head and says no more for you and I sleep, confidant that the air and water are still there and I have done my part to make things better and have had my fun made seem noble by these stiff words.

What is that?...

Question I was ask by a 16 year old checker at the grocery in Huntington, Texas today. The item in question was two jars of raw oysters.

I said to her, "Honey you have asked that question to the right feller."

I continued in this vein:

Oysters are the figs of the sea. You don't find them just anywhere. You got to go get them, when you want them they do not come to you. If things aint right, the water, the weather the temperature neither are they. They can both be eaten raw or canned for later. It helps to have a bucket around if either one is involved and are in their freshest state and there is a certain sweetness in that freshes state that makes your baby really like it when you hand feed them to her. They are both a thing that most people just don't think about offhand and are really happy about when a person that knows the in and outs about them shows the secrets.

Did you know you can't just stand in the check out line and talk all you want, even if it is in Huntington, Texas? Well I do now.

Make a trade with an ebay seller today, Katie had bought a couple of the wristbands, they get you in shows in Austin during SXSW, I contacted an ebay person that had tickets to the sold out Matisyahu/Balkan Beatbox show at Stubbs BBQ and offered to trade two Wristbands for four tickets. Cathy really wants to see those two bands. Any way the seller thought it over and went for the deal, they wanted more for the tickets than we had in the wrist bands but will be able to sell them for more as SXSW draws closer. So all are happy.

Katie did the trade, they met at a 7-11.

So that's the plans for spring break, a visit to Austin to see live music and oh yeah, Katie and Travis also.

Check out Matisyahu, Jewish reggae, good positive spiritual music, breaking over to the secular crowd. You heard it here, he's going to be big.

Woo-Hoo #800...

Never thought I would have 800 visits to this site, in fact I never thought of such at all when I first started doing this. I am humbled by the attention and more so humbled because it seems that in the last couple of weeks because quite a few people have called and written to responded to things written here. That's creating fellowship and community and I guess that is what I had on my mind to begin this.

There is one down side. The other day I was visiting whith a friend and he mentioned something he read on the blog. As we talked I started to tell him about this or that and I said well he reads the blog so he knows that or this already. So it makes me a better listener to write the blog.

Keep letting me know what you think, share this site with mutual friends we have in common so more get in on the fun, post some I got it rigged where no registration is necessary and I'll try to keep going, it's been tough with school and all. One more week and it's spring break, look for some crazy spring break pictures to be posted here.

Notes from the week...

This week of tests and tooth aches is about over.

The teeth hurt again today, but feel quite a bit better tonight. I think plain old ibuprophin does better that some of the more high powered stuff they gave me which makes me feel weird. I woke up dreaming I was trying to hollar but couldn't last night and my teeth were hurting.

All over the place still on test grades, some real good others less that I expect out of myself, wonder what the teacher thinks, I guess I could ask her, I don't think she reads this so she really don't know what I think.

The big white dog showed up Sunday night, he was all sparked up, stayed about 10 minutes and gone again. Last night he showed up and got a good 10 hour nap and left after breakfast. He pisses Cathy off.

Music I listened to in the car this week:
North Mississippi Allstars and Revue Live at Bonnaroo
Derek Trucks - Songlines, his new one, buy it.
Le Roi Bros. Check This Action
Loretta Lynn Van Lear Rose, great cd, Jack's pipes just don't match hers though.
Indigenous Live, from my brother the illegal downloader
Drive By Truckers another from my brother, I'll make it up to you guys, promise.
Jesse Dayton, Country Soul Brother, he grew up in Cathy's grandmothers 'hood in Beaumont as did Johnny and Edgar.
Mountain Extended Versions
Dr. John and Chris Barber, All on a Mardi Gras Day
Meters Greatest Hits
Pixies Live 2004-2005 emusic only download.
Ray Bonneville forget which one got a couple of his.

Found a Max Roach release on emusic 2 tunes about 45 minutes of music, got one of them a while back, think I'll get the other one tonight and burn that cd in the morning. I let Morgan have a copy of the first tune because it had a long cool understated jazz drum solo.

studied a bit tonight, it's been hard with the tooh ache this week, but feel like I got caught up on stuff I put off because I did not feel good. Even played the guitar a few minutes, that helped a lot. I am going to hit it hard this weekend, two test before spring break.

Got a package of cds off to Jeremy in Iraq and got the oil changed in Cathy's car.

Goodnight.

Word from Iraq...

Got an email from Jeremy's mom. Jeremy is an old scouting friend now in Iraq, some may have followed news of him here on this blog. He is OK, he called home, but they have been under a communications blackout. That means it aint too good over there right now folks.

He got a package of cds I burned for him, hope I am not corrupting fine young men with the stuff I download off etunes (shameless plug, contact me and subscribe, I'll get free downloads) and I just fixed up another package of music to send.

Music is important to me, I can't think about being without it, Jeremy plays guitar I know it means something to him too. I trust they have a way to play the music, where you find GIs you usually find stereos, so it's music for a bunch of guys.

I can't support this war, but the best thing I know to do right now is help the guys over there. If you want to help here is Jeremy's address:
PFC Lester, Jeremy M.
Maint. PLT., D- FSC, 1/32 Cav.
OIF III, FOB Normandy
APO AE 09324

He likes to eat, needs bug spray, tell him you are a friend of mine.

Got tooth fixed...

Or so they say, I was warned that the pain would go away gradually the next couple of days and they way it feels right now I hope he was not sugar coating that warning.

I had headed back from Kilgore yesterday and I call my dentist, I needed something done right now. So they got me in at 4 yesterday at a specialist in Longview. Long day, "aggressive treatment" as he called it, a lab practical at school and I finely got home at 9pm last night.

I think I did ok on the lab. The tooth was basically a redo of a previous root canal. What I want to know is how that dentist knew how much my income tax return was going to be, because that is exactly how much he charged. Hopefully when we get it all sorted out the insurance will pay some, but the way those crooks operate it will be awhile before they will cough up some of that cash.

Did I tell you I puked yesterday also? Throwed open the car door and never missed a beat on the cell phone. Pain medicine upset my stomach. I have something different now, it's easier on me, but don't seem to be killing pain.

This is almost like a real blog, whining, bodily functions, let us see how is this the Republicans fault, no, no it it must be the Democrats, the insurgents, the unions, the folk singers or the farmers, ouch the bird flu.

Thanks to all who wrote and called with words of encouragement. Thanks for the flowers big 'in. I am sorry I throwed the last bunch on the ground and hurt your feelings.

Off to Kilgore, as long as nothing happens that cannot be delt with via cell phone, credit card or the mobility of a fine Japanese auto I will be fine.

Ash Wednesday, don't forget, no meat.