Saturday. Hmmm, was that a maggot in my Diet Coke? Not sure. It wasn't wiggling but........maybe........

And what am I doing drinking a Diet Coke? It was left over from our wonderful vacation. Jim gave us a few to drink on the way home. We didn't drink 'em then.

What a glorious day today! The wireless thermometer I bought this week (Liz accused me of trying to keep up with the Joneses :-( ) said that it was 64 outside. Really it was only in the lower 50's but glorious nonetheless.

My beautiful wife suggested we go to Dairy Queen last night for dessert after we had supper. I didn't have Cake, Cookies, Candy, Pie or Donuts. But that Turtle Sundae? TO DIE FOR!! Thanks, Dear!

So, in the Sheboygan Press yesterday was a letter from a lady in Oostburg complaining about the Press'es coverage of the bar in Oostburg being open for the first time ever on a Sunday. She emphasized the "Keep holy the Lord's day" commandment. I don't have a problem with the commandments. I do have a problem with people playing "holier than thou" though. This lady who criticized the bar owner didn't mention anything about other businesses that are open on Sunday. Take, for instance, the Kohler Company. I suspect that they operate 24/7/365. I would imagine that there are plenty of good, church going, family-oriented people who have to work Sunday shifts because their job depends on it.
How about those people pictured in the bar who stopped in the bar that Sunday. They got off the highway at Oostburg looking for something to eat. That bar is the only place in town that was open that day. Does our lady letter-writer expect that nobody should travel on Sundays? If so, she's so far off kilter that I shouldn't even bother with her. So, I'm done.

I've decided to start a new feature of my blog entitled "I should". It's things I'd like other people to do. It's just that I know that I can't control them.

I SHOULD remember to keep my headlights on when I drive, especially when it's near sundown or sunrise or foggy or rainy. I need to remember that it's important to be seen not just to see.

I SHOULD remember to use my turn signal when I'm turning. That way, a pedestrian knows whether to cross the street when I'm approaching.

I should remember to ease up and have a good day.

Ciao, babies!

Yes, it’s been a few days. You see, we’ve been on vacation.
We drove down to Jackson, Tennessee last Friday, leaving at 4:10 a.m.
We stopped at an oasis off 294 in Chicago and got diesel fuel and made a potty stop. At about 9:30 a.m., Liz took the wheel for a few hours. We stopped at Boomland, a huge building that housed a “family restaurant” and a store that sold fireworks (that great American staple) and lots of other “touristy” things. We each had a fish lunch but were not brave enough to try the hushpuppies.
We arrived in Jackson at about 3 p.m. and Jim DeKeyser was here to greet us. He had been working on putting in a new screen door on their screen porch.
Jim cooked salmon on the grill and we watched “Under the Tuscan Sun”. I had already seen the movie so I slept through much of it.
Saturday we had a breakfast of bacon and eggs and then left to see Chickasaw State Park. First though, we had lunch at a bookstore. I had a Mocha Java and managed to get my coat full of chocolate syrup. Don’t ask.
At Chickasaw, we hiked around the lake and through the woods. It was a mild day and I tied my jacket around my waist. It must have been in the low 60’s. We went out to dinner on Saturday night to a nice restaurant. Liz and I both had the Seafood Pasta. It had shrimp and oysters on pasta with a creamy sauce that was a little on the hot side.
Before supper, I forgot to mention that we went to Mass at the 5:30 p.m. mass in Jackson’s only Catholic church.
Sunday, we had coffee and English muffins for breakfast and then headed over to Memphis, Tennessee. We walked around for a while, taking a look at the famous ducks at the Hotel Peabody and then visited the Peabody Mall where we ate lunch at Isaac Hayes’ Barbeque place. I had a pulled pork sandwich and it was pretty good. After lunch, we walked down Beale Street and then over to the Gibson showcase for a tour of the Gibson Guitar factory. The tour was very interesting. They only make the jazz style guitars used by people like B.B. King (Lucille) and Chet Atkins. The Les Paul style guitars are made in Nashville and all the acoustic Gibsons are made in a factory in Wyoming.
After the Gibson tour, we went over the the National Civil Rights Museum. It is located adjacent to the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered. We sorta had to race through the very extensive displays because we were bumping up against closing time. There is so much to see there and I was very moved by much of what I saw. It is an excellent place to visit and I highly recommend it for anyone visiting Memphis.
We drove back from Memphis and then ordered a pizza from Domino’s. I’ve had better pizza. No offense to Jim and Kathy. They were excellent hosts in every way!
Sunday night, we watched Secondhand Lions. I enjoyed it very much. I even stayed awake for the whole thing. I fell asleep while they were watching “Mickey Blue Eyes” on TNT later on.
This morning, we again breakfasted on English muffins, coffee and fruit. Kathy went to work so Jim, Liz and I took off for Jackson to see the local sights. First, we went to Cyprus Park and walked along a long boardwalk in a Cyprus Swamp. They had several eagles, hawks and owls in large cages along the boardwalk. The trail took us right out on a lake and over to a tri-level observation tower. While walking on the boardwalk, we came upon a pileated woodpecker thrashing around in a falled log. It’s the first one of those I’ve ever seen and it was quite a sight. It was raining a little when we started but that let up and we were able to tour the park in comfort and stayed dry.
Next on the agenda was the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in downtown Jackson. We saw memorabilia from Carl Perkins, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and other lesser known Hillbilly Rockers.
Finally, we ventured out to Pinson Archeological Site, part of Pinson State Park. They had a nice museum which we toured before walking up their featured 72 foot mound. The mounds in this park were built between 1-300 A.D. by native Americans. We walked around the park for another hour or so before heading back to Jackson.
Now, we are waiting for Kathy to come home from work and Jim is starting dinner. We rented “Mona Lisa Smile” from Blockbuster and I hope I can stay awake to watch it after dinner. We did a lot of walking outdoors today.
Tomorrow, we leave for home, probably by 9 a.m. It looks like we may have to drive through some snow so it might take longer than the 11 hours it took to drive down here. I think we’ll come up through Rockford and take I-43 so we do not have to go through Chicago. We don’t want to mess with rush hour traffic.
It’s been a very quick and wonderful vacation. I’m so grateful to have found some spring down here. It was in the 50’s every day and in the 60’s for some time too.
Jim and Kathy have a lovely home and they are the best hosts ever. Friends like this are more precious than gold.
I’m going to log in to AOL now and post this using cut and paste from Word 2002.

Ciao, babies!

Yeah, It's been a couple days. I'm going to sneak that second cup of coffee this morning and write a few things.
How about a few quick themes?

It's so hard to hear these people trying to legislate marriage as being between a man and a woman. Gay is here to stay. I believe that gay is not a choice. We, as a society, do not empirically know that it's a choice to be gay. I think it's genetic or due to some other reason that's not a choice of the individual. Gay people should be able to join into the same kind of legitimized emotional and legal union that heterosexual people have.

Get this: The gun lobby has convinced many legislators to veto a bill that would have banned certain kinds of armor-piercing bullets. Why do these people refuse to ban bullets that kill cops? Do deer or bears wear bullet-proof vests? I'll tell you why. They are AFRAID that this is a step towards taking their guns away by taking their bullets away. This is incredible hooey!!!!!

Liz and I are looking forward to visiting Jim and Kathy DeKeyser in Jackson, Tennessee this weekend. We drive down on Friday and will return on the following Tuesday. I printed a color Trip-Tic off the AAA website yesterday. Cool! No more having to visit the AAA office.

The moon was bright this morning when I took the dogs out. My motion sensor lights outside annoy me. I turn the light on and as soon as we walk out the back door, it goes off. And our subsequent motion does nothing to turn it back on. This morning, the moon thumbed its nose at my motion light. It was lovely out.
God has truly blessed me with moments of serenity when I take the dogs out. I don't exactly jump for joy at having to get out of a nice warm bed at 5 a.m., bundle up and walk outside. But soon the birds will be singing. Spring is in the air. God is kind and generous to me.

How late do I want to be for work this morning? Not that late. Buh, bye.

I left my credit card at the Five Pillars last night. I realized it as I filed Geoff's taxes and needed to pay for electronic filing.
It's been a wonderful day. Geoff and Laura, Theresa and Robin are here and working on the living room. They are using power tools to sand and prepare the woodwork for staining. We had bacon and eggs for breakfast and I grilled pork chops for dinner. We also had Rice-a-roni for dinner. I'm grilling brats and deer steak for supper.
While I drove down to Five Pillars to get my credit card I thought about a topic to write about today.

Topic: Going back to college

Since shortly after spending some time in the real world, I'd longed to return to my college days. The thoughts and feelings seemed to be there for a long time. I remember college as being "the best years of my life". I suppose that thought is from mostly a purely selfish standpoint.
College was better than high school. While I was in Thorp, I lived in a world where I was seldom "good enough". I was picked on. I'm beginning to believe that the bullying I endured while I grew up in Thorp has a lot to do with problems I have in my life today. I wanted to be a varsity athlete in basketball and football. I couldn't make it. I was picked on by older boys for much of my life while growing up. Some of them probably thought they were being cute or funny. It hurt me and it hurt me bad. I think of some of their names and I don't want to write them down.
When I went away from college, it was like entering a new life. I was accepted for who I was. My past stayed in Thorp. It was OK that I wasn't an athlete. Eau Claire was known as a "suitcase college" but I didn't go home much. I took advantage of lots of activities that the college provided on weekends.
I didn't have many "steady girlfriends" in college but I dated a fair amount of girls. There was always some girl I was pursuing or sometimes just groups of friends of both sexes that I socialized with.
I got better grades in college than in high school and I learned how to work hard. College built my self esteem.

After teaching at the middle school and high school level in a small, conservative town for a few years, I began to long to be back on a college campus. I saw college as a place where diversity was encouraged and where thinking was progressive and liberal. I wanted out of the small town prison that was Cedar Grove.

The problem was that I didn't like math enough to get an advanced degree and be a college professor. I don't think I have that kind of ability. I was getting C's in most of the math courses in my later years in college and I don't believe that I could have gotten an advanced degree in math. I had no idea how else I'd get back on a college campus.

Then, in 1996, the good and bad people of Cedar Grove told me to go away. The thing I wanted to do was to get a job working with computers but I wasn't sure I had the knowledge or experience to do that. I was wrong. (this theme will occur frequently in the story of my life). After interviewing at a few businesses and taking a temp job that I qualified for because of my experience with a piece of software that I threw on my resume at the last minute, I finally got a second interview at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. Their IT department wanted me! This blew my mind! He who had little faith in his computer skills was wanted at a school where they teach computer engineering! My second interview with the college president proved to be my undoing. He suspected that I was forced out of teaching for some dark reason and refused to hire me.

But I got an interview at St. Norbert College and, after praying in their church to be hired, I was! Oh, my goodness! Here I am. Pinch yourself, George! And I did. It was a beautiful place. The people were nice. The work was what I really enjoyed doing. I had my own office. I had my name on the wall. I had my own business cards! For the first 5 years, things were mostly incredible. I was grateful! I was innocent. I was naive. The place was bigger than I was. I eventually swelled.

So, after all those years of longing to be 18 again, I have had the chance to learn first hand that you can't go back. I'm married. I can't chase all those gorgeous girls. I'm an alcoholic. I can't go out and act crazy with those testosterone-gorged college boys. And it's ok.

Further though, it's not that liberal, wide-open, atmosphere I thought it would be. Maybe it's liberal and wide-open for those 18-22 year olds who go to school at SNC. But for me, it's the real world. It's a job. I have to behave. I like to misbehave. Is it possible to teach this old dog better tricks? I think so. I hope I'm learning.

What can I tell you? I can tell you that you can't go back. My unsolicited advice is to enjoy today! It may be the "time of your life". While the thought of being 18 years old again still brings a wistful smile, I figure I've got it pretty good today. I have a wonderful, hard working, pretty, sexy, warm and loving wife. I have a job that makes me think and that gives me a great deal of satisfaction. I have all the material things I can play with. I have my health. I have children that make me swell with pride and satisfaction. In less than two years, I'll have to figure out how to start dealing with the money from my pension. Yes, I will start drawing my pension at age 58. Life is good. Thank you, God!

Ciao, babies!

Today is Liz's birthday (y'know? 30 years of marriage and I'm still not sure how to spell the plural of my lovely wife's name.) Geoff and Laura came up and we went to the Five Pillars for supper. I had the lightly breaded walleye and fries. The fish was good but the French Fries sucked! They were all "bubbly" and yucky. If you eat there, I warned you. Skip the fries.

Theresa and Robin are at the Badger hockey game tonight. They'll be here tomorrow. We're going to try to make a little progress on the living room remodeling.

I actually spoke into the recorder the day before yesterday. Now I just have to bring the recorder in, listen to it, and write about what I thought about and spoke about. I'm the man with a plan.

I finished listening to The Cold Heart (?) by Jonathan Kellerman today. Geoff burned it on to CD's for me. It's just that the tracks somehow got mixed up. I never could follow from one CD to the other and there were 6 tracks that played after the one where the story ended. I still enjoyed it but not as much as the Steve Martin books. I'm gonna listen to Shop Girl as soon as Matt gives me back the CD's I burned for him.

I'm feeling kinda wierd today. Not excited. Not depressed. Sorta waiting for something fantastic to happen. Been thinking about buying a new Titanium driver (that's a golf club). I didn't want to spend the money ($250-$500) at the time I bought my woods several years ago. But I've come to understand that I could get 15-30 more yards off the tee with a Titanium driver as opposed to my steel one. I won a $100 gift certificate last summer for my win in the Second Flight of the Pressland Golf Tournament. It's redeemable at Quit Qui Oc pro shop in Elkhart Lake. They don't have as extensive a selection as the pro shop at T&C but can probably order anything I want. Maybe I'll get fitted at T&C and then place my order at QQO. That will have to wait till golf season though.

The belt clip on my phone broke the other day. It took a dive on the pavement. That phone has been pretty resilient. Guess I better keep it. I would like the cool color screen and neet ring tones of the i330 but can't justify spending a couple hundred bucks for that little bit of extra functionality, er, coolness.

Enough for now. Ciao, babies!

Ok. Today I am better. I made it to bedtime without exploding, imploding or otherwise self-destructing.
Today, the anger is mostly gone. I'm even tempted to send Beck an email and thank him for helping me learn proper communications skills. I have decided I can accept not sending emails to broad campus lists. My penchant for frivolity, cuteness and other forms of amusement cannot get me in trouble if I don't send stuff out. I've committed myself to just send the technical details of any communication to Tech Babe and let her rewrite it and send it out. Problem solved.
Yesterday, Rob told me to do that and I could not accept it.
I have an appointment with a trusted professional and, once again, I will attempt to learn more about why I'm angry and how to deal with it. I am skeptical. After all, I did go to counselling on several occasions several years ago. I can't say that I learned much. I have to have faith though. I know that if I don't get better at handling anger it is going to cause me and my loved ones great pain.

Switch gears!

So why do I call myself a child of the 50's? I used to think I was a child of the 60's but now I know better. I joined "the establishment" well before I started my teaching career. I had to smoke pot at least a dozen times before it ever did anything for me. I never got in on ANY free love. I graduated from college in 1969, a virgin, and I never came close to getting laid. I am not remotely interested in any social causes like protesting the School of the Americas. I have no interest at all in groups like PITA (that outfit that protests using animals for testing cosmetics and that raids mink ranches freeing all the mink). I'm not a radical and I never have been.
What I am is a child of the 50's. I'm more into Norman Rockwell. While I have not always been a good family man, family is one of the ideals that I hold dearest. I realize at this point in my life that there is nothing I value more.
My parents taught me to conserve things. I've been known to eat most of the core of an apple because that's the way my mom taught me. My dad taught me to eat chicken wings and the "last over the fence". Lots of people would turn up their noses at the neck of the chicken. Dad taught me not to waste.
I'm Catholic and though there is a lot that I don't agree with, I think it still enriches my life and I consider myself one who is faithful to and values religion. It's so wonderful to work at St. Norbert where the Catholic tradition is emphasized. There are many cool priests that are my friends. There is noon mass on holy days. It's so different than working all those years in Cedar Grove where Protestantism is the norm and parents forbid their children to date Catholics. It's no fun being in the minority.
I do owe a lot of my observance as a Catholic to my wonderful loving companion of 30 years, Liz. She is strong where I am weak. I would have laid in bed many mornings rather than attend Sunday mass were it not for Liz. She doesn't make excuses. Now, Sunday morning is one of my favorite times. Liz and I go to mass, then we go grocery shopping. Sometimes we go out to dinner before we buy groceries. Then we come home, put the groceries away at 2 p.m. and proceed to take a nap. Sunday morning is magic. I am reminded of that Kris Kristofferson song, "Sunday morning coming down". I hope to learn the words and music someday. And one of my favorite moments of all time? The feel of Lizes hand in mine as we say the Our Father during mass.

I suppose it's easy to proclaim myself a family man at this stage of my life. I admit, I didn't always enjoy going to soccer matches, basketball games, swimming lessons, wrestling meets and band concerts. I hate to admit that I was selfish. That, however, was yesterday. I can't change the past.

I know that today, the values that are associated with Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver and Norman Rockwell are more important to me than Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll that were the buzzwords in the 60's. Oh, I wanted sex, I took a few drugs and I love Rock and Roll. I find though that I can still like these things but have, as my bedrock, the values of a simpler, gentler time. That time was the 1950's. We didn't have television. We listened to Chicago radio stations. We heard rock and roll for the first time on stations like KOMA in Oklahoma City, WLS in Chicago and KDKA in Pittsburg. None of the local radio stations would play Gene Pitney, Chuck Berry or the Coasters.

That's all for today.

Caio, babies!

Today I'm wondering who reads this and how careful I need to be. Am I oozing with self-pity? Just a really tough day today. I have an angry knot stuck about half way down my chest. Maybe I'm making a mountain out of molehill. I don't know. I don't know.
It's the boss again. I can't handle his correction. I want to talk about him but I know the problem is me. I'm so angry inside. Words just don't cut it. I can't or won't understand what he is talking about.
I have asked for help. I will talk to someone who can help me. I so loathe admitting that I need help. Yet, this is out of control. I can't make the knot go away. I can't stop my mind from fixating on this situation. I feel so bad for those who love me and are concerned about me. "Why are you so angry?" they say. "Why are you depressed?" I don't know why I get depressed but it's probably about anger. Why am I angry? I think it's because I think I should understand and agree with the criticisms that Beck has of my actions. Yet there is something in my gut that won't let me. I am so sick of him picking on me. And I allow my self-esteem to be affected. I'm so upset that I can't control this thing.
I don't want to feel this way. I don't know how to stop it.
Did these words do me any good?
Did they bother you? If so, I'm sorry.

Hello blog fans! Today, I went to a demo of a help desk software package called Help Trac at Carthage College in Kenosha.
I drove down with Jay Cook and Michelle Manke. We stopped for lunch at Bublitz's family restaurant in Saukville but due to the fog, we were a half hour late. There was a big thunderstorm while we were sitting in the demo.
The demo was conducted by the president of the company via telephone and GoToMyPC, a cool remote control package.
We probably won't adopt this package because of the server requirements (IIS) for the web package. It should get us off and running on our evaluation process of help desk packages though.
Next Monday, I go to Carroll College in Waukesha for a workshop on student help.
Nothing burning a hole in my soul today. Don't feel like writing.....will stop.
Buh bye.