Gone On by Marvin Sease

Great tribute song I caught today on BB King's Bluesville on XM...check it out. So many great singers, gone but not forgotten.

Pain

Pain.

It not only hurts, but it plays with your psyche as well.

It robs you of sleep, which warps your thinking.

You feel like you'd do almost anything to be rid of it.

Sometimes, some people do just that.

Others, like myself, try to be patient and look at it from all sides and decide which way to handle it.

There's a lot at stake, when you stop and consider all the courses of action you could take.

The one that seems to be the most logical is the one that tends to hold the greatest risks.

Pain, such a fickle bitch she is.

I so want her out of my life.

Five? Not Really, No!

So, Nascar is touting their five time in a row champion Jimmie Johnson and heralding him as someone who has never done what he has done in Nascar and trying to compare him to Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and other drivers who have won multiple championships in the sport.

Hardly a fair thing to do when you consider Johnson is winning under an entirely different system of scoring and awarding a championship. And of course, Nascar, infamous for changing rules and regulations as they go along and who they pertain to, are actually talking about tweaking this scoring system yet again next year.

I would imagine that will be done in an effort to aid Johnson towards a sixth championship as well.

Last Sunday, when points leader Denny Hamlin got into trouble early, it seemed the golden boy of Nascar, aka Johnson, would sail on to his 5th championship.


But then, unbelievably, Kevin Harvick, the forgotten driver in third place, came on strong, had a great pit stop, and took off out of the pits, not only in the lead, but picking up five bonus points for leading a lap. That is, until Nascar intervenes and accuses Harvick of speeding into the pits. Speeding into the pits, right behind Martin Truex. Close enough to Truex that on the highways it would be considered tailgating.

Yet Truex wasn't charged with speeding.

Hmmmm!

Kind of like the weekend before when Johnson's crew got caught with shortened wheel lugs to give them an advantage taking off lug nuts during pit stops. Caught, but not penalized.

Another hmmmmmm!

So, when Johnson is awarded his fifth championship and the media asks Nascar about both the speeding penalty against Harvick and its circumstances and Johnson's attempt at cheating again, Nascar refused to answer questions relating to both.

I've contended for several years now that Nascar would not be content until they killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

Last Sunday they not only took off its head but they began plucking the feathers off it as well.

They lost me as a fan, proabably forever.

They lost a lot of people I talked to this week as fans too.

I have a feeling they lost a lot of fans this past Sunday.

Might also explain the lack of sell out races anymore and thousands and thousands of empty seats you see at the tracks each weekend.

So, was it worth it to "fix" another championship for the arrogant Johnson and his lying and cheating crew chief?

I'm curious to see how many more sponsors pull out of Nascar in 2011.

I mean seriously, why would you sponsor a car driven by anyone other than Johnson when it's pretty much a sure thing Nascar will do all they can to give him another one next year?

Why purchase tickets for races when you already know what the outcome will be in November of 2011?

Again, Nascar, was it worth it?

Lost

The road ahead is not clear
Shadows block the way
Uncertainty is unrelenting
And answers fail to reveal themselves.
A pause
A thought
A tear in the eye
A shake of the head
Yet the mind stays cloudy
The fog continues to thicken
And the only answer that seems certain
Is the ultimate and final move
In this losing game.
How much longer,
How much more,
Why won't it stop?
The wheels keep spinning
In the wrong direction
And I have no map.

Time Might Be Running Out

Ten and a half years ago I underwent a slap repair surgery on my left shoulder. It was probably some of the most intense pain I have ever endured, but I've never regretted having it done because it relieved me of so much pain and allowed me to once again sleep at night.

For months, prior to surgery, I went to physical therapy for both shoulders, and, when I finally made the decision to have the surgery on the left shoulder, the surgeon told me it would be just a matter of time before the right one would have to be done as well. I remember asking him at the time how long he thought I might be able to go before it got bad enough to have to go thru the procedure and he told me about ten years.

Well, it's been ten and a half years since the other one was done, and now, unfortunately, the right one is exhibiting the same symptoms as the left one did before. Pain most of the time, loud poppings when I move it a certain way, which probably means its coming out of the socket at times, and I'm having increasing trouble sleeping at night.

I seem to be going thru a tough time right now, but I remain optimistic that everything is going to be okay. I have the equipment here at home to put myself on physical therapy for a while and see if that helps. I know what exercises I need to do and I pretty much know how much further I can go before I have to breakdown and go see the surgeon once again.

Thing is, I don't want to have to go thru another surgery. I don't have enough time built up at work to be able to take off to have the surgery, and I sure don't have enough funds in reserve to pay all the bills associated with having it done.

I guess we'll go a day at a time and see what I can do to keep from having to have another surgery at this point in my life.

Veterans Day, 2010

Up at 5AM this morning and on the road at 6:30AM and headed down to Nashville, Indiana for a trip to our favorite little coffee shop called The Daily Grind. We don't get a chance to go down there very often, so when we take our October vacation and again on Veterans Day each year, we make the trip down to visit with the owner, Hal and his wife, whose name escapes me right now, and chow down on a breakfast of Espresso Eggs, a Daily Grind original. Add to that, for me, a Sledgehammer, which is a cup of dark roast coffee with a shot of Espresso poured in, and whatever exotic concoction Peggy is in the mood for, and we are set for the day on a terrific caffeine rush.

Normally this Veterans Day trip is a cool one, but by the time we walked out of the Grind a little after 9 this morning, it was shirt sleeve weather the rest of the day.

A stop over in Edinburgh at the Prime Outlet Mall, another stop in Shelbyville at Wal-Mart, and a trip back home by 1:30 or so. After our cruise and a light lunch, we took to the yard for some much needed finishing up touches with mowing, raking and mulching. A couple of hours of working together and the yard looks pretty darn good.

Our intentions were to go ahead and put up our outside Christmas lights on a mid 70s day, but fatigue set in, the Sledgehammer wore off and we made a big pot of chili together and put some tunes on the Bose for the evening. We will probably top our Veterans Day evening off with a nice long soak in the hottub.

All in all, a very nice Veterans Day, shared with someone very special indeed.

And, might I add, even though I am a pacifist, I do thank our veterans for all they do and for the sacrifices they make serving and protecting our great nation. I may not agree with the orders they have to follow, but I thank them nonetheless for their unselfish duties they fulfill to protect each and every one of us.

Happy Veterans Day to you all.

Love This!

Something so simple says so very much, and I just have to post this for that reason and that reason alone.

Indwelling

Cast me down
Perpetuate the pain,
Inflict with your staff of
Unrighteousness
Scores and scabs and injuries
As you smile your foreboding smile.

The fire in your eyes
Burns as a deep orb,
Revealing
The wicked desires that inhabit
Your festering soul.

Evil words and prejudice
Are released from the macabre
Regions
No one dares to peer into
And the sinister laugh of glee
Rips from you
And pierces those in the night
Unable to hide from your Obnoxious
Presence.

You are vile
You are cancerous
You are vicious
Thru and thru.

You remain smug as from you is released
An ugly embellishment,
Born from the souls
Of trolls long thought to be dead.

In the distance,
A baby cries.

I Approve This Positive Message

I look at the election this year in a totally different way than I have before.

As always, I try and figure out who the best candidate is for the job and give them my vote. I'm probably about as middle of the road as you can get and that usually ends up with me voting a split ticket. Not very often have I ever voted a straight party ticket.

Like a lot of registered voters this year, I'm pretty much sick of all the "politicians" who are running most forms of our government, whether it be on a national, state or local level. Partisan politics is more and more rampant than ever, and the negative campaiging being done by so many of the politicians at all levels truly sickens me beyond words.

This year, as in past years, I voted early. I do this for a couple of reasons. One is to avoid having to get up early on election day and stand outside the polls before they open in Indiana's unpredictable weather. The other reason is so I can turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to all the corrupt political adverstising.

I have taken special note this year and have taken tabs on all the negative ads and which party has run the most. Since I started doing this I have to say that the most negative ads I have seen myself have been from the Republicans, with the Democrats running a close second.

I have yet to see one negative ad by the Liberterian party.

Not one.

I hear a lot of people saying they never vote for a Liberterian, regardless of their qualifications, because voting for them is the waste of a vote.

I totally disagree with that statement.

Your vote is your vote and it is a statement of how you feel and who you would like to see running our government at all levels. Regardless if that person running wins or not, if you feel that they are the best candidate for the job, then that person deserves your vote.

That vote is not wasted when you do that.

To me, the only votes being wasted are the ones that aren't being cast.

Think of that when you go to vote, or if you're thinking about not voting.

I not only voted, but I took that thought with me and remembered it while casting my vote this year.

Don't waste your vote.

Cast it and cast it for who you think will truly represent you the best and keep your best interests in mind.

Get out and vote, Faithful Few!