It’s that time of year again. My last year before I hit 30. Mom ate lunch with me today. Chili’s. West End. Good times.
I can remember those birthdays where I looked foward to them. And its not that I don’t look forward to good times with my birthdays anymore. I enjoy spending time with family and getting a chance to go out to eat. But as you tend to get older, you tend to see life passing you by and seeing if you’re missing it. Another year over another one to begin.
I told the kids in class tonight that I was 29. I think they thought that was old. Maybe I’ll loose touch with them. Maybe I’ve put up an extra set of barriers by revealing my age.
Anyways I’m too tired to write anymore. See you later.

I may need to get glasses. I find myself squinting at the computer screen alot. My right eye is weaker than my left one, so I end up shutting it in order to read small print.
Last time I went to the eye doctor I was in college. It was mostly because of Tom Seal’s Old Testament Themes class. It was in Ward Lecture hall, which is a big arena type hall. Dr. Seals would put the answers to the test on the overhead screen and I just couldn’t read it. So I made an appointment to see the eye doctor.
The doctor said that I had a slight stigmatism, but it wasn’t bad enough to get glasses. It may have gotten worse since then, with my continued use of computers. My granny always told me “Don’t sit so close to the TV because it’ll make your eyes go bad.” I don’t know if I believed her or not. Is it the same way with computer screens? Or is just that I’m getting older and my eyesite is bound to fail. I’m the last member of my immediate family not to have to wear glasses or contacts.
So I am contemplating life with the hassle of contacts. I might dread that. I might break down and get lasik surgery.
Then again, I don’t know if I’ll need glasses or contacts. Glasses could turn me into Supernerd, as if I wasn’t your stereotypical computer geek already. I might get those Buddy Holly style glasses, if only to look like George McFly. Ha!
In elementary school there was this black girl who everyone picked on. She wore those coke-bottle thick glasses. These were the days before wide spread use of contacts and it wasn’t available or just not practical for a 2nd grader. None the less, most people made fun of her because she was different. She didn’t make all that good of grades and was held back at least once…maybe twice. Now I look back at it and think how cruel we were to that girl. I’m sure she might have had low self esteem because of it. She had a dedicated mother. I remember seeing her at school many times, helping out with the room mothers. Later on the girl must of have developed more self esteem and eventually everyone forgot about her situation and she ended up getting some friends and moving on. No one bothered her anymore.

I voted today. Not that it made much difference. Both candidates are shoo ins for their party nomination. It gives us something to talk about. Gives news fodder for the Today Show tomorrow morning. Gives us some kind of sound byte tonight. But it is kinda good to go back to my elementary school and see how small the gym really is, compared to how big it once was in my mind’s eye. It is one of the few times I get to go back.
Voting isn’t hard. Senior citizens are there to help out. And when senior citizens are there to show you how to do things, you know that it couldn’t be that difficult. And they didn’t ask me if it was my first time voting (such is the case in times past). I’ve been voting for 10 years now. I guess my age is showing.
We use those electronic voting machines. Those type that you really can’t mess up. And yet people still leave them unattended, without voting. It shouldn’t be that difficult to vote. At one time I really enjoyed those old school voting machines. The ones with the leavers and black curtain. I can remember as a young child being taken into those voting machines while my mom cast her ballot. I longed for the day to vote and to shout out “Pass the shampoo!” from behind the privacy curtain. But ever since the late 80s technology revolution we haven’t seen those old school voting machines. Instead we opt for these bionic voting machines. I’m still waiting for online voting via the internet. Sure would be nice.

The fog was thick in places as I drove to Scottsville. A friend of mine was supposed to be preaching, but as I unfortunately found out, he had a sore throat. It was singing night and I was asked to led a couple of songs. It was the first time I had done that in a while. Maybe since camp.
I anticipated a foggy night when I drove back, but it really wasn’t all that foggy until I got closer to home, on Green Hill Road. And why is it that the fog gets denser if you turn on your bright lights? In any case sometimes it really was beautiful or as beautiful as it can get in rural Sumner County during dusk. Can’t wait until the time change in April.
Melissa is in the hospital with an infection. Probably due to the c-section. They went to the emergency room Saturday night. They didn’t need any visitors today (needed the sleep instead), so I stayed away. Probably visit tomorrow.

During my growing up years everyone seems to have their favorite stuffed animal. Girls have stuff animals more than boys. Yet I did have one when I was very young. It was my Pooh bear. My mom still has it somewhere or another. That thing is worn out very much. Its once yellow outside has become dirty yellow. Washed quite a few times.
So when I went to see my niece for the first time, I stopped by Target to buy her a gift. Several stuffed animals were around. I considered getting her a Kermit the Frog, but it was for ages 3 and up. The Pooh bear, however, was for ages 0 and up….apparently no edible parts. So it was appropriate that the first gift I give to my niece was a Pooh bear. Maybe she’ll remember it. Maybe not.

Ellen Sue Williamson – born January 8, 2003 11:54PM. 7 pounds 3/4 ounces. 20 inches long. Woooohoooo!!!!

Melissa is having the baby. She went into the hospital at noon today. I got down there at around 5:30PM, in enough time to go out to eat with Mark and my dad to Wendy’s. They started making Melissa start pushing at 8PM. However the baby was turned the wrong way, so they told us at 11PM that they were going to do a c-section. I knew that would take a longer time, so I left to come home to get some sleep. The roads have been wet due to the snow. I saw a car on the side of the road on Saundersville Ferry Road on my way home tonight.
More will come later.

“If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.”
–Martin Luther King, Jr.

My grandparents are buried at Mt. Pisque cemetery in White County, TN. It was decoration day up there. It is a day to bring flowers to the graves and sit around and eat lunch with relatives still living. A reunion of sorts I guess. I was reacquainted with my 2nd cousins and became aware that I had a bunch of 4th cousins (those girls climbing the trees).
My grandparents died in the 1980s and I barely knew them. Being 7 and 8 when they died makes for limited memories of them. I wish I had known them better. Now many of my forgotten memories come from photographs.
Besides my grandparents’ graves, 2 other graves always stand out in my mind at that cemetery. The first one being “Ernest Grant, Chief Lone Wolf.” (1898-1951) So the story goes, the chief had a toothache. He wouldn’t let a dentist pull the tooth and he ended up dying from it somehow. Infection I guess. His picture on his grave shows him in full Indian headdress. I always look for his grave.
The other grave – Horace Nixon Rowland, Jr. (1952-1985) shows a Corvette on the front of the grave. I always wondered how a 33 year old man suddenly looses his life. Was it illness? A car accident? I don’t know. I thought it was cool he had a Corvette on his gravestone.
I was made to feel unwelcomed by the cemetery church. The church is in the middle of the cemetery. They make sure the church is locked up (including the area’s only restroom) during the decoration celebration. This forces visitors to either use the antiquated outhouse or just hold it until they get home. The nearest public flush toilet is a 5 minute drive down the road. Thanks, guys. This annual decoration day is possibly the highest concentration of visitors to the church grounds. Mt. Pisque church could be a very friendly church, however my only interaction with the church is the fact that the church restrooms are always locked.

Speed kills coming down the mountain
Speed kills coming down the street
Speed kills with presence of mind and
Speed kills if you know what I mean
–Bush – “The People that We Love (Speed Kills)”

While running some errands today, I got a speeding ticket. In Lebanon. 51MPH in a 35MPH. I don’t live in Lebanon. I have no idea how fast the speed limit is in Lebanon. The cop was unsympathic to my plight.
I guess this is the part where I complain about how it wasn’t my fault. Maybe you’re expecting it. Somehow part of me always seems to think the cops should have something else better to do….catch drug dealers….spy on terrorists (this is Lebanon isn’t it….there are alot of terrorists in Lebanon). Anyways for some strange reason there’s a 35MPH limit in this certain part of Lebanon. I don’t know. Has there been any tragic wrecks on this part of East Main Street which would warrant this? Or is this just another means of lining the pockets of the Lebanon politicians?
Still I don’t consider myself dangerous. Just unlucky. At the wrong place at the wrong time. Certainly the jerks that ride up and down my suburb in their 4 wheelers going 70MPH. How about catching those Evel Knievel types that seem to do motorcycle wheelies on the interstate? They’re more of a traffic danger than me doing 51MPH in Lebanon.
I have a list of places where I don’t speed. Andrew Jackson Parkway. Lakewood. Parts of Old Lebanon Dirt Road. And now the entire city of Lebanon will be added to this list.
I was watching Rain Man last night. There is a great movie quote from it:

“That man right there is my brother and if he doesn’t get to watch “People’s Court” in about 30 seconds, he’s gonna throw a fit right here on your porch. Now you can help me or you can stand there and watch it happen.”

There’s an inconsistency with this. Wasn’t the People’s Court a Syndicated program? At least in 1988? It had no permanent network home. Raymond was used to watching People’s Court in Cincinnatti. So it came on at a specific time in Cincy. During the course of the movie Charlie and Raymond were driving across country. Somewhere in the Midwest, who even knows when People’s Court was on during that vicinity? Why would it be on at the same time in that vicinity as it was in Cincy? Am I thinking too hard on this?
Anyways that quote is hilarious. That and “Kmart Sucks” were some of the best quotes from the movie.
Meanwhile The Afghan Top Level Domain Launches