Hardly any of my friends ever post in here anymore, so I’ve decided to stop posting (not that I‘ve posted anything for a while), so I can be like everybody else. I’m doing more on facebook, anyway, now that I’ve figured out how it works. I’ll keep checking back from time to time, and if it gets busier, I’ll come back. Until then, see you on fb, or on the bdb, or at Bristol.

My favorite commercials of all time are from E-Trade!

And here are two reasons why!

I have a confession to make. I am addicted to “American Idol”. To be perfectly honest, I’ve only watched one complete season, and that was a few years back. But I’ve watched the final 12 (or how many they are), for the past few years. Last year made me a big Adam Lambert fan. The boy can sing.

This year, being Simon Cowell’s last season, plus the addition of Ellen Degeneras (who won’t be on till some time in February), convinced me to watch the whole season, front to back. And after two nights of auditions (some good, some unbelievably horrid), my favorite was this 63 year old guy named “General Larry Platt), who sang (and danced), a rap song he wrote called, "Pants On the Ground".



Now, I am not naïve. I realize this was some kind of stunt to add something different to the show, but it worked for me. And evidently for a lot of other people as the video of his “audition”, on Youtube is over a half million. It was just fun.

It is currently 34 degrees outside. So, somebody explain to me why I am freezing. I'm colder now than when it was 5 below a few days ago.

I worked three days this week, and I’m having some “fun”, getting used to this again. I had to clock in at 5AM, which means a 3:45 wake up. Since Santa ended, I’ve been doing nothing but eating and watching the tube. I just wanted to do nothing for a couple of weeks. The problem is that now I’m used to staying up late, so getting to bed early has been a bit of a problem. I lay there for a couple of hours before I actually fall asleep. So, I’ve been operating on about three hours of sleep per night. Not good. And next week I’m scheduled to work five days straight, beginning at 5 each day. Hey. It’s a check and I’m getting a whole lot more hours than I had a right to hope for. I ain’t complainin. I’ll get used to it.

This Haiti situation is horrible. I can’t even imagine. I was watching one newscast today and the reporter broke down. I will admit to a problem. I would like to be of some help, and it would appear that all I can do is send money. I can do that, but I have a very deep set belief that money given to charities rarely gets to those who need it most. In this situation, I keep having thoughts about the corrupt government in Haiti getting fat on our donations. I listened to a representative from “Doctors Without Borders”, and this topic came up. I have to say that she wasn’t real convincing. I’m gonna have to give this more thought.

Ugh. I started back at “Gordman’s”, today. I will be working in the stockroom, and wherever else they can find a gritty job. No problem. I don’t mind them. I don’t have to get dressed up for it, and the pay is the same.

This is the first time I’ve worked there since the “big split”, when the entire management team (including my wife), walked out “Gordman’s”, front door and into “Burlington Coat Factory”. Actually, it was nice to get back. Some of my friends stayed, and there isn’t much “drama”, there anymore. My lady is happy where she is, and we get a discount there. I am happy where I am, and we get a discount there. How can we lose?

I was scheduled for 14 hours this week, but they have already offered me more. So, this fits nicely into my plans. If I can work 20 to 25 per week there, and sell some stuff on “Amazon”, we should be okay, barring any unforeseen big expenses (knock on wood. OUCH! Now my head hurts).

The temperature is dropping like a rock. We are currently at 3 degrees and it is supposed to get down to -4. But, good news. The heat wave is coming and is supposed to last a while. By heat wave I mean above freezing temperatures. Bring it on.

Well, now it sounds like my mother has “ampullary stenosis”. They are releasing her from the hospital tomorrow, and then she has to get treatment. My father told me yesterday that she has been suffering from this for years. We (the kids), just found out about it over the past few weeks. They just never told us. My mom is like that. She has a very high threshold of pain, and rarely complains about how she feels. Those days may be gone.

My wife and I watched “HP and the Half Blood Prince”, this evening. Actually, I thought it was pretty decent. I’d have to say that so far this is the best film in the series.

Okay, all you haters of winter. According to my weatherman here in Rockford, by this time next week, we are going to be looking at 35 degree weather. I know, that’s still cold, but nothing like this crap.

As mentioned yesterday, I got to use my new snow thrower today. I had such a good time, I did the front walks of three of my neighbors homes. My only regret was that the 12 inches of snow never materialized. We had to settle for only five. What a jip!

I’ve recently started taking vitamins. This past fall I took daily doses of “Airborne”, and 1000 mg of Ester-C. I avoided any colds and flu, something I usually suffer from, particularly on the Santa set. All those kids and all. I’ve now added a multi-vitamin (Centrum), B complex, D, E, fish oil, and gingko balboa. At night I also take a couple of tablets, each containing 3mg of melatonin. Now, something I have noticed is that I’m not feeling nearly as depressed, and I have more energy. I really don’t know a whole lot about vitamin’s, but it just seems like they are doing me some good. That is a little surprising because back many, many years ago, I took an allergy test and I am supposed to be allergic to certain vitamins (don’t know which ones).

Alabama won the BCS national championship tonight. This makes me very happy. They probably took their vitamins.

That's about it. Now I'm going to bed.

My mom had her surgery, and I guess there is this muscle that goes between the adrenal gland and her upper intestine that has swollen almost shut. I don’t know what they are going to do about it, but at least they know what the problem is.

During the winter months I constantly complain about how much I hate winter. Nothings changes, except there are things I do like about this season. For one thing, I really do love it when both myself and my lady are home and it is cold and snowy outside. There is just something about a cozy evening with the one you love, in front of a roaring fire, enjoying whatever accompanied by a favorite warm beverage. Tonight, after a delicious dinner, we adjourned to the newly remodeled family room, turned down the lights, and watched the film, “28 Days”, with Sandra Bullock. Not WITH Sandra, but she was in the movie.

Now my lady has gone up to bead and I am wide awake as has come to be a bad habit over the past couple of weeks since Santa went back to the North Pole till next November. I am awaiting the beginning of the other thing that I, for some strange reason, love about winter. Snow. I have a love hate relationship with snow. I hate driving in it, especially if I have a long drive, but I love removing it from my driveway and sidewalks with a snow thrower. And this year I purchased a new one. I feel a bit like Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor, when he gets a new power tool. Yeahahahaha! All I need now is the 8 to 12 inches of snow predicted over the next 24 hours.

My mother has been rather ill for the past two months. She is 84 and very frail. She has had a pain in her stomach since some time before Thanksgiving. It has really taken a lot out of her, and she doesn’t have that much left to give. Yesterday she was taken to the hospital by ambulance for the second time in two weeks. The first time they were stumped as to what she had. She was given a colonoscopy and an upper GI. They couldn’t find anything. She spent the next two weeks in pain then finally passed out in the bathroom yesterday morning. Another ambulance ride to the hospital emergency room, where she waited until after midnight to get a room. Today they decided that about the only thing they can think of is irritable bowl syndrome of some sort. Evidently, they have found some kind of gushy stuff inside her stomach that is impeding whatever is supposed to be going on inside there. So tomorrow they are going in to see what’s up. Prayers and good thoughts are definitely welcome. Unfortunately for us, Mom and Dad live a hundred miles away, so I won’t be able to be there.

New bad habit. I have, for years, had both a PC and a laptop. I usually use my PC, but the laptop is beneficial for several reasons. Usually, my laptop lives in the basement where I use it for processing my Amazon orders (I have been selling off my old bookstore inventory for about three years now). But, at the beginning of December I began tearing up the basement, trying to get some order. The laptop moved upstairs next to my magic chair in the family room. Two things have resulted from that. First, I can’t sit and just watch television anymore without turning on the laptop and messing with it while I watch whatever. Bad. But, I have also finally become proficient in using the keyboard on my laptop. When I purchased this one last year, I also purchased a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse, because I hate using the keyboard on the laptop, and I despise the touchpad. That problem has been partially fixed as over the past month I have become very proficient on the keyboard. Fact is, But, I still hate the touchpad, so I will continue to use the mouse. The next time I upgrade to a new computer I will probably bypass the PC, and just get a laptop. And I’m thinking very seriously about a MAC.

The one redeeming value in this current cold, Cold, COLD month of January, is football. If you know anything about me, you know that I LOVE football. And, now that I am ungainfully unemployed, I have all the time in the world to watch my favorite sport, at the time of the year when it all really counts.

Of course my favorite team, “the beloved”, will only participate in one extremely meaningless game. That comes in about an hour against Detroit. I suppose I will watch it, but there will be a great temptation, which I will probably succumb to, to watch Pittsburg at Miami, as the Steelers are one of my favorite teams, and they actually have a chance to go to the playoffs. At 3:15, I get to watch the Packers against Arizona, or Baltimore at Oakland. Again, I will probably switch between both. Tonight is Cincinnati against the Jets. By then my Lady will probably be home from work, and I’ll put on a movie.

To add to the enjoyment of the moment, I’ve got some homemade pizza and some homemade chili just waiting for me to devour it, plus lots of snacky stuff and plenty of my favorite beverages. So, today is going to be a fantastic day of football and food for your favorite fat guy. That’s a lot of “f’s”.

As we come to the end of this decade, I can’t help but look back on the past ten years. They flew by so quickly. It seems like only yesterday that it was 1999, and many were afraid of the world coming to an end because computers wouldn’t recognize the new century. I remember taking time on January 31, 1999, to fill several jugs of water, just in case.

As for the past ten years, I lost a business that I thought I would be able to retire from, and experienced what it is like to go through financial ruin. I became a working actor, and my wife has become the main bread winner in our home, leading us back to financial stability. She has done well, building on her experience at “Gordman’s”, to become a manager at a “Burlington Coat Factory”, store in our area. Both my boys are now married, and I have become a grandpa; twice. I weigh about the same as I did in 1999. I achieved half my educational goal by receiving an "Associate of Arts", degree, with a 3.9 GPA. I have noticed, however, that I am ten years older.

A lot has changed in our world. Life has become much scarier, and our country has sacrificed some of its freedom. We experienced another “Pearl Harbor”, yet I wonder if we learned any lessons from it. Our country is experiencing distress morally, financially, politically, socially, and about every other “ly”, you can think of.

It would be easy to just barricade myself in my house and attempt to separate myself from the “enemy”, that exists outside, but this is not what I will do. I will again approach the future with hope that I can make a difference, and make things better; not only for myself, but for the world around me. I need to pick myself up off the mat physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc., and fight harder.

I, we, need to do what Idaho did yesterday in the “Humanitarian Bowl”. With only 4 seconds left, and after scoring a touchdown to bring the score to 42 to 41 Bowling Green, they elected to go for a two point win, instead of a one point tie. They took the gamble and won the game, 43 to 42. That is heroic. That is what we all need to do in the coming days. We all need to become heroes. I believe we can.

Happy New Year, everyone. I wish everyone of you all the best as you meet the future head on.