I drop Montie off at friend's house early yesterday afternoon and head back down Montgomery and out of Glenwood hills when my front tire blows out.
I pull over, get out, and while I am trying to decide if it is safe to change the tire, an Officer Salazar pulls over and offers to help me.
I get the jack, tools and spare tire out and we begin the operation of changing the tire when the jack bends in half and the car falls down, threatening my life and the life of the kind police officer.
I tell the officer there is not much else he can help with as I will now have to call a tow truck and he leaves with my gratitude.
About a third of the people driving by rolled down and offered to help. One of them had a floor jack and we quickly got the tire changed.
I will make my negative comment about how much I hate that van and my love of Hondas is supported by the jack bending in half on it second use.My eighth grade math teacher use to speculate that Japanese cars were revenge for losing WWII. I own two of them and there simply is no good karma found between the three of us.
Patricia bought the van and it is the only car I ever paid sticker price for. She also offered it to prospective hit men to kill me.
A few weeks ago, a gentleman backed out of the parking lot on Juan Tabo and Montgomery and side swiped the van just as I was returning to it. He immediately admitted it was his fault.
I took one look at the damage, thought about it for a moment, and told him not to worry about it and to have a nice day.
I bet he went home and told his wife what a nice guy I was. The truth is that my plan is to drive that van until it is beaten so bad, I will have no guilt in driving it off a cliff.
But, speaking of nice guys. It was really nice for Officer Salazar, and all the others who offered their help yesterday, literally dozens of people of all genders and ages. This is still a town where this happens.
I hope I did not make Deeanna uncomfortable the other night when I told her the worse thing about turning twenty-nine is that she would be qualified to date me under my youngest son Montie's rules. Montie's rule is that dad can not date anyone younger then half the difference between my age and Montie's ---- 47 yrs -11 yrs = 36 yrs , 36 yrs /2 = 18 yrs, 18 yrs +11 yrs = 29 yrs.
Montie denied making the rule and stated the new rule was far simpler, Dad was not allowed to bring anyone home as a new girlfriend, fiancé, or wife.
Deeanna is one of my favorite people in the world and some of you may recall me collecting her phone number in what Jef calls Steve's office at Quarters a couple of years ago. We never dated, but she is good people and a friend.
But one of the reasons I care for Deeanna is our similar views on many subjects to include dating as a single parent.
I will admit to thinking during vacation about how nice it would be to have had someone to share the vacation with. These thoughts pretty much died when we drove into San Diego and I recalled my horrible times with Patricia there.
But still, it would be nice to share positive experiences with someone else.
Adding to this is the recent reconnection with two former girlfriends, the last two I was serious about. You start thinking about what went wrong, what you could have done differently, what she could have done differently.
But not for too long. I am not big on regrets.
As much as I might be nostalgic about a relationship, I shake my head at all of the crap many of my friends go through with their relationships and some of the decisions they make out of guilt or fear.
Believe me, I am the poster child for such stupidity, but I hope those days are past.
There is also the guilt about the example I set for my children as to relationships. They might reasonably conclude that relationships are not worth the effort.
I guess I was honest when talking to Io Saturday night, while I am not opposed to dating or entering a relationship, I imagine if a girl was interested in me she would have to hit me on the head with her club and drag me back to her cave…..
There is a trick to be stylishly obnoxious. Here is an example.
Montie's little league team, the Mets, beat the Rockies the other night 8-2, in a game a great deal closer then the score indicates. The Rockies had a great pitcher and it took several innings before we could get a bat on the heat he was throwing.
Montie and I retire to Quarters after the game for a late dinner, sitting at the bar and talking to Deeanna.
Shortly after our arrival, the pitcher from the Rockies shows up with his father and brothers, sitting in G.
I ask Claire, their waitress, to come over and I ask her to sent the pitcher a Shirley Temple, compliments of Montie.
Claire, sweet soul she is, fulfill this request of mine. I do
follow up later by going over to their table and telling the young man what a fine game he pitched.
Well, we had our sixth, yes sixth non hearing/hearing this morning on the Motion to Revoke Probation, Patricia's probation filed by the State back in September of 2007. Friday will mark Patricia's ninth month since her arrest for alleged probation violations as outlined by the State.
It is a little tough on the kids, but I imagine it is tougher on Patricia.
Slowly, slowly, Alice looked around, peeking out around the bush, looking out on the grounds surrounding her. She wondered if it was safe to venture out. She hesitated and then slowly moved toward the fountain in the center of the garden.
In the beginning she placed so many hopes in coming to Wonderland. Wonderland would be the place for meeting new people, sharing her thoughts, sharing her poetry, just putting herself out there, meeting some of her needs.
She should have anticipated the vultures, the wolves, just as common in Wonderland as the real world Given the wonders of Wonderland perhaps the vultures were even more common then the real world.
The messages, some of them including pictures of body parts, the requests for undying friendships, the constant sexual innuendos.
So, you had to hide, had to set up some privacy, but that sort of defeated the purpose of Wonderland in the first place, didn't it?
A cyborg is defined as follows – "A human who has certain physiological processes aided or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices". We tend to think of this in science fiction terms such as the Terminators or Borg. We also tend to think of the mechanical or electronic devices as replacing and not in terms of enhancement.
After spending a week with my teenage daughter, I am evolving a different perspective and will introduce my daughter as a glimpse of future cyborg evolution.
It's her damn cell phone. If they ever start waterproofing the things and attaching them to the human body, my daughter will be the first in line. The cell phone is an extension of her body, an extension of her persona.
I can not begin to count the number of text message she sends and receives during the day. I now believe her when she tells me she does not sleep – the damn text messaging goes on all through the night as she sleeps with the phone in her hand.
The number is easily in the hundreds. She is sitting next to me in the van somewhere in the desert east of LA while a friend is texting her while the firend is sitting next to her dad while driving on her summer vacation at the same time. A couple of days later another friend texts her and wants to know what the 'four horsemen of the apocalypse" are and Jessica finds out from me and then tries to figure out how to spell 'Pestilence'.
I even caught her texting on rides at Disneyland and Universal.
I see a little of this with Montie and Xbox Live. Alex does not come over as often because they meet online, play Halo, and talk. When I interrupt to get him to start on chores I am no longer pulling him away from just his video games but also his friends.
I build an image of their future, living in a world half physical and half electrical. They converse with people in the room and on another planet simultaneously, their avatrs move across a series of screens and maybe into three dimensions.
I neither praise or damn, I am just beginning my thoughts, "Resistance is futile".
Now, in contrast to the personal horrors experienced by "It's a Small World", my favorite ride at Disney is "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride". The ride is a quick rampage through British Society cumulating in your death a trip to Hell, yes a trip to Hell in a Disney ride that opened with the park.
I looked forward to sharing this ride with Glen during his first trip to Disney at four. We jumped into the lead car while Patricia and four month old Jessica took the car behind us.
A couple of minutes later Glen and I hopped out of our car and turned around to share the experience with Patricia. This was when the ride broke down, stranding Patricia and Jessica for ten minutes.
Jessica spent ten minutes with her mother in Hell. I wonder what that foretold……
Okay, I am a veteran of the 82d Airborne Division, The Army assigned me to the 2/504th straight out of jump school in February of 1983 and I served in that battalion until my honorable discharge in August of 1986 under an early release program. I entered the battalion as a private first class and left as a sergeant.
People lie about being in the military and their military service all the time. My mother and I recently encountered a contractor who told me with a straight face that he was in the Army in 1982 and served with the 82d Airborne at Ft Campbell. Ten years ago, I might have pointed out to him the Ft Campbell was just big enough for the 101st and the 82d is stationed in another state, but after the last six years and heart surgery, I do not need any more conflict.
There was nothing easy about being a paratrooper in the 82d and the 2/504th was arguably the toughest battalion in the 82d and the Army, as we were the only battalion in the post Vietnam era to achieve Expert Infantry Status (I imagine every battalion enjoys this status now after several years of combat). And I had it easier then many of my fellow soldiers as after two years of slogging in out all over the world; I bought a personal computer in 1985 and got a desk job.
As the premier battalion in the premier division of the Army, we often spent time at other bases, mainly Air Force and Navy. We looked forward to these assignments for two reasons – first we loved to mess with marines and second the other branches had better food and quarters then we did. Hell, the guest quarters at Norfolk were nicer then the barracks at Ft.Bragg.
Successful paratroopers in the 82d were defined in two ways – paratroopers and garratroopers. A garratrooper is a paratrooper who excels at those essential military skills such as highly shined boots, starched uniform, clean flash on the beret, clean room, etc...
Inspections are an evil of military life. There are the ones that make excellent military sense, checking a weapon for functionality and cleanness, checking gear for usability. Then there are the inspections that focus on the needs of morale – haircuts, uniforms, rooms, etc... Guess which one was more prevalent?
Hugh Shelton, then our brigade commander, once referred to me as the most dangerous man in the 82d Airborne. This compliment was not a reference to my skills as a paratrooper but my habit of pouring a gallon of bleach on my barracks room floor just before an inspection and either turning up the heat or turning off the air conditioner as the season dictated. Time and time again, the inspecting officer or the sergeant major would take about one step into my room, gag, and back out of the room remarking how clean my room was – Inspection passed.
I had one roommate who objected to the practice and having to deal with the fumes for a half hour or so, but once he saw the results the argument disappeared.
Colonel Shelton, later General Shelton, figured out my tactic by the second inspection and thus his remarks.
Our responsibility for barrack inspection extended past our rooms. The CO and the first sergeant were responsible for all of the common areas. Inspection time meant scrubbing and painting bathrooms, halls, the day room, and other common areas. The company use to get 'gigged' or in trouble for broken ceiling tiles.
This is why the video I saw on You Tube yesterday shocked me.
In 1983, our barracks were old. The story I had was they were constructed in the early sixties, not the forties as stated in the video, but these are my barracks. During my time, all nine battalions lived in identical buildings with basically two companies in each building. After talking to the 82d Airborne Association this morning, it is even possible that the barracks depicted are the same ones I lived in from 1983 to 1986.
Everyone knows how I feel about the war in Iraq, about the stupidity of how Bush and Rommie managed it. The Army, from the moment the planning stage began, made it very clear that the Iraq of 2008 was inevitable because of the stupid contact of the war by the Secretary of Defense. As we did in WWII, we needed more boots on the ground, and we needed to absorb the existing government. But the administration did not listen.
Everyone knows my anger to about beginning operations in Iraq with Osama still free. The Bush administration will go down in history as the administration that failed to bring Osama to justice. We are still paying for Jimmy Carter's failure in Iran. I am not talking genocide, I am talking Marshall Plan.
I saw the pictures about Hopkins and how our wounded soldiers are treated, but these pictures from Bragg bring it home to me. These young men are the finest soldiers in the history of the world, spending years in Afghanistan trying to protect my children in Albuquerque. For them to be treated like this is an outrage.
Yesterday, I despised George Bush, today I hate him.
I called the 82d Airborne Association this morning about the video. I wanted to know if the Association was doing anything to help these young men. Their response was as follows.
Basically, this battalion came home and there was no place to put them, so they were put into these barracks as a temporary measure. The situation is being dealt with as we speak.
Really, why did they not put them up at the post commander's house? How about the officer's club? It looks to me like they would have been better off across the street camping in area J with tents and clean showers.
Of course the only person who will get in trouble is the son of the father who posted this video.
Maybe President Bush should move his daughter's wedding to this site. I am sure the taxpayers will not mind.
