Ramblings, Incoherent Thought and Family

Hey all; I went and saw Watchmen on opening day. There may be some spoilage here...so if you haven't seen it and want to...don't read further. OK now that that is out of the way... Watchmen as directed by Zach Snyder is NOT a comic book superhero movie. No matter what you read, see, or hear...this is NOT a movie that you should EVER EVEN CONSIDER bringing a kid to. It is based upon a 12 issue mini-series published in 1986 by DC Comics. However...it is NOT Superman, Batman or even Doom Patrol. It is a dark, gritty and very thought provoking drama using Heroes and masked vigilantes as a looking glass into a world teetering on the edge of nuclear armageddon. The heroes are not 'white hats' and not without their own hangups, issues and motivations for being 'heroes'. The book is 23 years old...and for me still very readable and relevant today (unlike much of the 80's comics). It's not a 'feel good' or uplifting story...but a morality play and...

Ya know...I didn't think it would happen to me. I mean I'm a very young at heart kinda guy. My office has Battlestar Galactica miniature ships on top of one of my monitors, I have a Green Lantern Postage Stamp Picture my in-laws got me for Christmas, I game, I watch Cartoons still. I genuinely thought I was still with it. Nope...NOT EVEN CLOSE. The below is a snippet from a friend of a friend's kid who friended me on Facebook. They replied to their Dad in their doing status...and it just made me realize how unhip I am. Below is the response to their father: "y should i b nicer 2 others while others r bin mean 2 me!!!!??? yea ik im not @ skool but i have u dat keeps tellin me 2 clean n borin stuff like dat no wonder y im bored!" WHAT IN THE SAM HILL OF DAMOCLES DOES ALL THAT MEAN?!!?!?! I've seen the commercial with the kid texting her Grandma...and Granny is a hip granny dropping an idk on her son. But man...I just don't get it. I mean I can understand wha...

7 Years. I remember being a kid thinking that was a long time. When you're in 5th Grade and someone says it's only 7 years till Graduation...or when you're 14 and it's only 7 years till you're 21 and legally an adult. It'll only be 7 years till Lake Avenue is FINALLY finished...before they tear it up again. It has such a mystique to it. Yet here I am. 7 years have passed since what could possibly be defined as the best day of my life...and it feels like yesterday. I can remember everything. Waking up in the hotel room with my friend Mark in the adjacent bed snoring away. Feeling like I should be nervous...and yet...not. Looking out the window at the city skyline still awed by the way it just seemed to envelop the area...while knowing that Rochester's 'metro area' probably spans about 3 city blocks...but it's perspective is one of a much larger city when you're in the heart of it. Having breakfast in my t-shirt so I don't get anythi...

Wow...yesterday was a jumble of emotion for me. I get a call at 7:30 in the morning that my Mom is being rushed to the Hospital with symptoms presenting a heart issue. I get dressed and make like a small aircraft toward the hospital. After clearing myself for landing with the tower...I park in emergency parking and begin to get things ready. I do what I always do when I'm at the hospital...I grab my vial of Oil and church ID badge. See...as a deacon and now as an elder of a church...I've been ordained as clergy. A heavy idea if you think about it. However...while having my Church ID has let me get out of paying for parking a few times at various hospitals...I've always felt it's my obligation to wear it when I'm in the hospital for anyone...just in case there's an opportunity to pray with someone who needs it. So I just grab it out of my center console in the truck and my vial of oil is always in the front dash board. I put em on...and go in to see whomev...

I've heard it often since I was a kid. "Man you were born on Christmas? That must suck". Most times I smile and nod. I may make a statement like "Yeah...it sucked having only 1 day of presents as a kid. If I didn't get Laser Tag...then I had 364 days to go to try my luck again"...etc. What I don't tell people is how blessed I was to be born on Christmas...and how God ordained it not for me...but for my Grandfather (on my father's side). What I didn't know till I was older...is that my Grandpa Ed hated Christmas when my Dad was growing up. The reasoning was sound I guess. See my Great Grandmother (Grandpa's mother) I guess passed away at 10:02 AM on a Christmas Day when he was still a boy. For every Christmas after that...the holiday was tainted. My Grandpa Ed was a hard man to know. I learned that later with all the poems he wrote. I like to think that's where I got any talent for writing down my thoughts into words. He was able...

This will be the 18th Christmas eve. In 1990, we celebrated what we all knew would be our last Christmas eve with Gram...the woman who served to define it for us all of our lives. For those of you newer in my life...my Grandmother Short (on my Mother's side) had a lot of traditions...but the biggest was the open house on December 24. Grandma had 7 kids, but 6 with families...so you had 14 people to start (counting her and Gramp), add in 18 grandchildren (at the time) of various ages, then any NUMBER of drum corps, bingo, people who had Grandpa work on their cars, adopted family, and the Penguin...and you'd have a small two story house with a garage filled to the rafters with people. It served to DEFINE Christmas for me to this day. To be honest it's one of the most amazing and awesome memories I have. Should I ever develop Alzheimer's...it's one of the memories I pray I never lose. I hold these memories like precious stones in my heart...and to this day while the ho...

Ya know...Patch Saturday is kinda like paying bills... It comes once a month Involves taking resources I don't have I don't necessarilly see any REAL return from the investment. I know it's important to patch servers...I mean if we didn't it would go badly. I knew more than one guy who lost his job in the early 00's when Blaster/Netsky hit when Microsoft released that it could have been avoided should they have applied patches. It's leading me to think about the direction of my life. Ya know...I love my job. Computers were something I was always good at but just didn't spend time with till after College when I decided I wasn't going to pursue performing. I fell into it. Became good at it, and really did grow to like it. I like fixing things...making them work. Helping people understand something they didn't. However as time has gone on I've been growing more restless. I'm not saying I'm leaving my job. UU is great. Working from h...