Monday - May 30, 2005
Skipper Update
I have just got off the phone with The Skipper. For the record, he is in the North Georgia hills and will be flying back to St. Louis tomorrow. That’s a good thing because I have run out of the stuff he left me to post over the Memorial Day weekend. I will try to post some stuff in the news tomorrow and hopefully Skipper will be back on Wednesday and this ghost can fade back into the woodwork.
For those who are wondering, Skipper asked me to restrict all guest posters until his return. He says that it is just time for him to resume his full duties on this blog and to thank the gang who stood in for him in recent months. He says he will still accept guest posts that are e-mailed to him but he feels he needs to jump back in full-time.
I shouldn’t pass this along yet but here goes .... the reason for The Skipper’s abrupt absence was the death of a close friend .... more importantly, the suicide of a man he has known for nearly thirty years. I’m afraid it shook him pretty badly. I have never heard him sound so quiet and withdrawn as when I talked to him a little while ago. I’m sure he’ll be alright and may provide more insight when he returns.
I thank you all for bearing with me over the last several days.
Posted by Ronald Reagan's Ghost
on 05/30/2005 at 03:06 PM
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Permalink • Saturday - May 28, 2005
I am a little bit homesick
Well here I am, manning the weekend graveyard shift at BMEWS. The readership for blogs really drops off on the weekends. See the graph below.
My golf game got rained out today, so I spent the afternoon moving my mother’s old clothes out of her closet and into the local Salvation Army store. That was very strange, but I have a place to hang my hat now. What else can one ask for, except a place to hang your hat?
I remembered a lot of the outfits and the occasions associated with them. I should probably go out tonight, just to get myself out of this blue funk I am in, but I am too exhausted. I don’t really know where to go anyway.
It is really strange living in this house. There are so many pictures of me on the wall. I will change my avatar for awhile. I was 14 when this portrait was done.
Update: Well I was feeling a bit morose. I went to “Popeyes” to get supper. I got back to the house, and there were two teenagers sliding down the wet grass on the hill on the opposite side of the street. I yelled out, “What the hell are y’all doing?” The young lady replied, “Nature’s own slip and slide. Would you like to join us?” I thought about it for about a nanosecond and yelled back, “Well why the hell not?”
A tackle on the MacArthur football team.
His girlfriend.
Me! Look at those “man tits”, how disgusting.
Posted by Yellow Dog
on 05/28/2005 at 04:43 PM
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Permalink • Farewell Austin, Hello Baja Oklahoma
After doing my part to “Keep Austin Weird” since the early 1970’s, I am no longer a resident of that wonderful, quirky, scenic community. I have moved to Irving, Texas. Irving, Texas is stuck onto the upper left hand side of Dallas, Texas, like a sidesaddle on a boar hog. Irving, Texas is the home of the Dallas Cowboys, at least for a couple of more years, until they can build a new stadium out in Arlington and move out to “Theme Park Land.” I think in the interest of truth in advertising, they should be required to change the name of the team when the move it. It should have been the “Irving Cowboys” for the past 30 years, since they moved from the Cotton Bowl. They should call it the “Arlington Cowboys” or the “Six Flags Over Texas Cowboys” when the new stadium is complete and they move out there. If you are not a sports fan, the “Dallas Cowboys” used to be a football team, but now they are mostly known for their cheerleaders.
I live in the Las Colinas area now, by a golf course (Las Colinas Country Club.) I am going to play golf this afternoon, if I can find the box that contains my golf shoes. No more hanging out on Lake Austin. I feel so… Old! I am off to get a newspaper and eat some breakfast. I can’t blog without a newspaper and I haven’t started getting one delivered yet.
Update: I am back from breakfast. Click below to view some pictures of my new neighborhood.
Posted by Yellow Dog
on 05/28/2005 at 07:52 AM
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Permalink • Friday - May 27, 2005
Skipper Is AWOL
ANNOUNCEMENT:
The Skipper will be AWOL until next Wednesday, June 1st. He had some personal difficulties come up and has “gone over the fence”, so to speak, leaving me in charge. I realize this is quite sudden and I am sure an explanation will be in order when he is apprehended by the MP’s. He has passed control of this .. uh .. blog .. to me for the duration. He has left me some pictures to entertain you this weekend while we honor the fallen warriors in our military but other than that I have no idea what I am doing here. After all I’m just a ghost.
Perhaps, I can call upon Mr. Tannenberg and Mr. Stanley to assist me over the next several days? I will keep you updated on the Skipper’s whereabouts and condition as I am able. For now, carry on, my fellow Americans. This weekend, remember those who died so you could be free. They made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our “shining city on the hill” alive and flourishing. Honor them. God bless you all and God bless America.
Posted by Ronald Reagan's Ghost
on 05/27/2005 at 02:13 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - May 26, 2005
RESURRECTION!
HE HAS RISEN FROM THE OPERATING TABLE!
GOD HAS SPARED THIS HEATHEN INFIDEL!
Allan,
Thought I’d sneak back into “action” slowly.............
Doing pretty well all things considered.
No pain meds since last Saturday and most of my left over “pain” is actually from leg strain in walking with the walker and leg exercises--sometimes feel like I just ran a marathon!
The pre surgery pain (real pain) is gone--I am healing quite well except for 2 staples that caused a small infection in their area= taking antibiotic for that.......I have a RX for pain & muscle relaxor but I suspect they will end up being trashed as I will not (hopefully) need either.
This past Monday, I did get a scare-- started seeing spots across my vision--just in my right eye......saw an eye doc in the hospital Tuesday night--he did a check bedside (with limited equipment) and the “floaters” in my right eye (the one that was whacked in the wreck)............so from discharge yesterday, I went directly to his office for a complete eye exam. Good news, there is no tear in the retina base just some “protein globs oozing out and floating around in my vision----I just have to watch for any changes in the “floaters” making sure it doesn’t evolve into a black sheet, aka :retina detachment!
Home heath nurse will be coming in to change and examine my surgery site........and I start PT with my “old” PT this afternoon.
All thing considered, doing real good 10 days post opt. (I was only in the acute bed for 1 night--the rest was in Rehab)--I still have a lot of weakness in my left leg - -no nerve pain, just exhaustion in the legs ache.
Probably will start blogging by the weekend and I’ll do some blog visiting this evening.
Looks like my sister kept everybody well informed--she has all email returns printed out---I’ll read them later...and I certainly appreciate (in advance of reading them) the thoughts.
Being a catholic hospital (requested no visits and my request was honored......until one after noon this woman (volunteers wore purple smocks, was at my door asking if I wanted some ‘special’ prayers...oh shit! But then I saw who was going to pray--it was 2 rehab dogs.......alapsa--what ever and a sheltie! As I talked to the dogs I advised the lady I had folks all over the world looking after me............on Sunday, would you believe, I was petting a rehab PIG (a baby)--full grown it will weigh 900 lbs!
Well, that’s a current update-I will be writing a “diary” of my stay from memory and a little creative addition for the blog.
My sleep was GREAT last night since I entered the hospital----they wouldn’t allow me to bring my
bongyou-know-what to the hospital--but I quickly found it last night--thus the good sleep!I’ll be visiting tonight!
OldCatMan
PS: Looks like a low 6 figure amount (over and above bills paid) could be my settlement!!!!! I found out that even thought the asshole has a 100K per injury max—MY AUTO insurance not only has uninsured benefit IT ALSO HAS an underinsured benefits so that if I need more than the guys insurance, my underinsured benefit kicks in!
Posted by The Skipper
on 05/26/2005 at 06:24 PM
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Permalink • Wednesday - May 25, 2005
Rhyme For BMEWS Members
Note: I offer my sincere apologies to Mother Goose, The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, et al. for plagiarizing and destroying one of their children’s rhymes. OCM should be getting out of the hospital today. Everyone get your party hats on.
Posted by The Skipper
on 05/25/2005 at 11:38 AM
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Permalink • Monday - May 23, 2005
OldCatMan Update
From OldCatDude’s hospital we have another update from his sister ....
He is doing very well. Walking with a walker and without a walker tender. Good but extremely officious OT’s.
He has been working on his walking every few hours. He has very little pain, a little weakness in his left leg, probably a result of all the exercise he had not been getting prior to his surgery.
Once his back surgery heals, he should be walking quite normally.
Evidently the recovery for such intense repair work is reasonably lengthy.Given the edict of no BLT...bending. lifting or twisting.
No Chubby Checker for him.
The back muscles have to heal as well as the repair work itself. (Not to mention the staples holding the incision together.) Ouch.
They removed several disks and did a lot of spur cleaning.
He seems in excellent spirits AND has enjoyed being waited on hand and feet. Sampled almost all of the menu and met some interesting people. For all his hermit like lifestyle he is quite a sociable being.
He is due to be released on Wednesday after an evaluation tomorrow. The animals miss him terribly and I will not mind his presence either.
Thanks for all your good energy. I reported all your emails and I have them printed for him to read.
-- NotSoOldCatMansSister (Karen)
Posted by The Skipper
on 05/23/2005 at 12:36 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - May 19, 2005
OldCatDude Update!
Hello out there…
Didn’t have any real news until today.
Guy is detubed… no IVs....no morphine...(shucks)
Moved to the Rehab unit..Sitting in a chair trying to be nice to the OT people
who assume patients are clueless.
“Can you put your sockie on? Argg.
The oldcatman does not need occupational direction.The PT folks....have him walking with the walker....
The bizarre pain in his upper legs is gone...Yahoo!
Still some muscle uncomfortableness, but they haven’t been used in almost a month.
Stitches are healing well.
Everyone is very optimistic.
Good news all around.He is having fun with the “order what you want” menu.
As much as he likes to be a hermit, I think he is enjoying all the attention.No word on when he can escape, but his progress is excellent.
My guess is next Monday or Tuesday.
He spotted a computer in a rec room today...wouldn’t be surprised
if he commandeered it by tomorrow.Thanks for all your good wishes.
NotSoOldCatDudesSister
Posted by The Skipper
on 05/19/2005 at 09:37 PM
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Permalink • Good Grief!
Don’t any of you guys have jobs or anything to occupy your time? My posting crew really got busy today, I see. Stan just went ape-s**t and everybody piled on.
Actually, I’m glad someone took up the slack aboard the USS BMEWS. Your captain had his hands full all day building three major database instances on raw file systems on a terribly underpowered AIX server. If you don’t know .. don’t ask - it was painful, to say the least.
I just now got home and checked the blog and saw all the activity. Amazing. Simply amazing.
Anyway, I’m off to decompress so carry on men (and women). The Skipper is retiring to his cabin for the evening.
Did I mention I have a special surprise for this weekend? I didn’t? Well, shame on me. I have some pictures from last February’s Mardi Gras in New Orleans and a contest that was held to allow young ladies to .... ahem .... show their boobies. The ladies got into the spirit of the thing and painted their .... ahem .... breastesses up right nice. This ol’ sea dog got a charge out of the portfolio. Stay tuned ....
Posted by The Skipper
on 05/19/2005 at 06:33 PM
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Permalink • Sunday - May 08, 2005
This One’s For You, Mom
he phone rang at 4:22am, Friday morning, September 20, 1991, jarring me awake from a sound sleep. I groped for the light by the side of my bed, turned it on and picked up the phone. It was my brother, “Allan! Are you awake?”, he asked. “No, but I’m trying”, I replied cautiously. “Get up and meet us at the hospital. They just called and asked all of us to come down there immediately”, he stated in a somewhat agitated voice. “What’s wrong?, I inquired. “I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me. They just asked me to call you and Judy and get down to the hospital”, he replied. Somewhat uneasily I told him, “OK. I’ll meet you there in about fifteen minutes.
Hanging up the phone, I hurriedly got dressed, stumbled out the door into the dark, got in my car and drove to the hospital where my mother had been in ICU (Intensive Care Unit), and later in a private room for the last five days. I wondered what could be the matter? I had just talked to mom a few hours earlier. I had called her the previous night after I got out of class around 11:00pm and she seemed in good spirits. In fact, the hospital was supposed to release her today and we had talked about my taking her for another ride in my fast car .. among other things ....
I walked up the stairs to the nursing station and went up to the nurse’s desk. I told the nurse there who I was and she gently guided me to a private little office next to the nurse’s station, closing the door behind me. When I entered I saw the doctor standing there looking quiet and calm. My brother and his wife were off to my left, hugging each other and my sister walked up to me, grabbed me by the arm and said, “Allan .... Mom is dead.”
The world reeled around me, my legs turned to jelly, my knees buckled and I fell backward. Fade to black ....
veryone called her “Annie-Dee”, after her first name and her middle initial. She was born in 1927 in a small town in rural South Alabama just thirty miles north of the Florida border. The middle child of six children, she learned early that life was tough. The country was about to slide into the Great Depression but the rural South was already there and had been for decades. It would only get worse in the coming years.
Her daddy was a poor sharecropper with a mean disposition and his children were spawned by him for one purpose: to become farm hands. Cheap labor, so to speak. Every one of the children was sent to school as soon as they were old enough but granddaddy pulled each one of them out when they finished the Sixth Grade. He figured that was all the education they would ever need. Once out of school, they became farm hands, boys and girls alike. Everyone worked from sunup until sundown. Can any of you kids today imagine living with no electricity, having to pump water from a well and sharing a single outhouse with six brothers and sisters? If you wanted butter, you had to milk the cow and “churn” the milk. What you ate is what you grew. If crops were bad, you lost weight. In those days, this was the “poor folks diet”. This is the life Annie-Dee was given. It had to get better.
After 1945, the boys came home from World War II to find Annie-Dee and the other “girls” still working the farms all by themselves. One of these “good ol’ boys”, who had served in the infantry under General Patton in Europe, caught her eye and in 1946 they got married. She immediately became pregnant. The pregnancy ended suddenly a few months later when a mule spooked while she was sitting on the back of the wagon the mule was hitched to, throwing her to the ground and fracturing her hip, causing a miscarriage. If not for that mule, I would have not been her oldest child. I wonder what my older sister would have been like? That is why I cannot condone abortion. The birth of each human being is too special to just throw away in a premeditated manner. But I digress. This is not about me. It is about my mother.
Anyway, to make a long story short, her husband proved to be a hard-drinking, con-artist who gambled away every paycheck he ever got. Running away from the law for writing bad checks is how I came to be born in North Carolina in 1949. After a year of abuse and starvation of both her and me, mom decided to pack up and head back to Alabama, where she filed for divorce - something that was unheard of in those days. A year after that, another WWII veteran came chasing after her. He had served in the Army Air Corps and was now in that new bunch called the “Air Force”, planning on a career in the military. My mother was an extremely beautiful woman in those days. It is no wonder the guys couldn’t stay away. That marriage lasted until 1978 when “dad” died of leukemia. He is the only father I ever knew. I never saw or heard from my natural father.
Which kinda brings us up to 1991. My mom and I had always been close but never very affectionate with each other. She always had a distance about her that was hard to break through by anyone. Tough life .. tough ol’ broad, as some would say. I loved her dearly but never told her so because I was afraid she would be embaressed or laugh at me .... until the night before she died.
She had a massive heart attack on September 15, 1991. She called me early that Sunday morning and asked me to come pick her up and take her to the hospital. I quickly figured out that something was dreadfully wrong with her so I burned up the roads getting to her house and getting her to the hospital (in the “fast car"). The doctor’s only confirmed what I already knew. For the next five days, she appeared to be getting better and the hospital said they would release her that Friday.
At that time, I was working full-time and taking classes at nights and weekends at a local university to complete my Bachelor’s (and later Master’s) degree in Computer Science. I got out of class around 11:00pm and called her before going to bed that Thursday night (as I had been doing every night, all that week). We talked for nearly an hour, remembering good times and of course I had to tell her about my classes. As I started to hang up, a weird sensation came over me and I before I said goodbye I blurted out, “Mom .. I love you.” Silence from the other end. I held my breath and waited anxiously. Then a small voice came back that will reverberate in my mind until the day I die, “I know, Allan. I know. I have always loved you and you have always loved me.”
That was the last anyone ever heard from Annie-Dee. Sometime in the wee hours of that Friday morning, the whole front wall of her heart, which had been badly damaged by the attack on Sunday, literally “blew out”. She died suddenly, in her sleep. I am happy that I was able to finally tell her how I really felt and proud that the last thing she heard in this world was an expression of love.
I realize this was quite a long piece and was very personal (this will be my only post today - Mother’s Day) but I have an audience of thousands of people each day here and I need to get this message out to you all: love your mother and don’t be afraid to tell her you do. Call her today and talk to her. Send her some flowers .... and don’t just do it once a year either. You never know when you will be in my shoes. Will you be able to be at peace, as I am?
Pardon me but I have cried a river while writing this piece. I need to mop up the mess on my desk and keyboard. Here is a final flower for my mom, who sits with God. I hope she can read this and is proud of me. I’ll see her again one fine day ....
And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return’d to Earth!
Though Earth receiv’d them in her bed,
And o’er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.
I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove
That what I lov’d, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
‘T is Nothing that I lov’d so well.
-- George Gordon, Lord Byron
Posted by The Skipper
on 05/08/2005 at 04:22 AM
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Permalink • Friday - May 06, 2005
Stay Tuned ….
This Sunday is Mother’s Day. I have a special post planned for a very special woman who has passed away but who made me the man I am today. Are you planning anything special for the woman who brought you into this world?
I hope you’ll join me on Sunday, May 8 for a very special tribute to .... my mom (and maybe yours too).
Posted by The Skipper
on 05/06/2005 at 06:47 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - May 05, 2005
Important Bulletin!
The Skipper will not be wearing pants tomorrow. You ladies have been warned ....
Posted by The Skipper
on 05/05/2005 at 07:56 PM
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Permalink • Memo To Steel Turman:
Bad news, ol’ buddy. Phoenix says if you don’t get well and get your dumb ass back here and talk to us, she is going to have to go running back to the arms of “Raymond” and his gorgeous gourds ....
Yikes! Steel, I’m begging you to get up off your sick bed and save this woman from a fate worse than death. Jeez! This ugly dude’s got some big, hairy gourds. Are you up for a battle for the ladie’s hand? If not, we will witness a tragedy ....
Developing ....
Posted by The Skipper
on 05/05/2005 at 05:48 PM
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Permalink • Important Bulletin
All right! Enough is enough. Right now, two of my blog-friends are down and out in pretty bad health .. OldCatMan and Steel Turman. I’ve had enough of this crap. You grumpy old farts need to take better care of yourselves. OCM is having surgery today to correct a pinched nerve from his auto accident a few months ago. Steel is under the weather too. Both are in need of a little cheering up. I’ll keep you all updated but for now just pray for these two infidels.
Posted by The Skipper
on 05/05/2005 at 09:47 AM
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Permalink • Five Most Recent Trackbacks:
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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