Thanksgiving Day. A time to reflect on the riches in our lives and to pause to give thanks to the Lord for the blessings that have been bestowed in our lives. I give thanks for my wife and family. I give thanks for the freedom that we have in this country to pursue our own way with limited intrusion by our government. I give thanks for the many friends and acquaintances that touch my life daily. I give thanks for the opportunity to gather with friends and family today and celebrate all that has enriched my life and to give thanks to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, for all that I do and all that I am. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.

I did a real "husband" thing recently. My wife loves to decorate the house and she enjoys color and texture and she has the real right brain thing going on. She is the creative one and I'm the person who thrives on order and the pursuit of perfection in an unperfect world. Darla bought some new bathroom towels recently and changed the look of our master bath with new rugs as well. The theme changed from green and burgundy to dark and medium blue. I got the medium blue bath towel to use along with the dark blue towel that sits with it for looks (not to be used except in an extreme emergency).

I was showering the other morning and noticed that the shower had a small spot of fungus that was starting in the grout of the tile and I decided to blast it with a shot of Tile-X. While I had the bottle, I went ahead and gave the shower a good spraying and wiped down the tiles. Unfortunately, I was wearing the new medium blue towel and rubbed my backside across the tile as I was getting in to the shower to wipe down the walls. My new medium blue towel is now medium blue with a large bleached-out spot on the back. When I realized my faux paus, my immediate reaction was to run back to the mall and get a replacement towel, but I'm a grown man and I felt I could admit my mistake and then replace the towel.

Well, so far i've admitted my crime and have yet to replace the towel and to Darla's credit, she's only brought my offense up twice to me. I publicly admit that I'm a bonehead and deeply apologize for my indiscretion with the new towels. And yes, I do have an SUV and a golden retreiver. I'm no longer cool, but then was I ever really?

It is another week of work leading up this time, to Thanksgiving. I'm trying to get caught up on my inspection writeups and marketing call reports. Darla is off work this week. She went to visit her grandfather yesterday with the boys and is off to visit her hairdresser today and pass on some of our money to this person for keeping her beautiful. The wind is supposed to kick up this week, but so far it has been sunny and calm. The forecasters have been predicting a huge wind storm over the last three days that seems to have fizzled out. No complaints here as I have 21 trees on my property and most of them are deciduous.

This past weekend was quiet and enjoyable. We had David's football banquet on Friday night. He won the award as the Most Valuable Defensive back and was a Captains Choice for offense.They have one for offense and one for defense. The hardest award to swallow was that the other quarterback made MVP of the offense. He threw for 369 yards for the entire year with three touchdowns, seven interceptions, five fumbles and -26 rushing yards. Hard to believe we only won three games with him as the offensive star. David WILL likely be the starter at quarterback for his varsity team next year according to the head coach. They don't have any junior qbs and he wants an ATHLETE at quarterback. Adam, the other qb, is a good passer, but is slower than an Arkansas cowboy doing calculus and is flat out afraid of contact. David creates contact on both defense and offense and the Varsity coach has noticed.

I had a good trip to Reno last week. The gambling part is fun, but I think I enjoy it too much. I can play for hours on end. I lost early on this trip, but hit another Royal Flush, this time with only five coins in for $200. I had hit the Royal Flush two months ago with the full twenty coins in and won $896. This is on a nickel poker machine. Not bad. The weather was great up in Reno and I was turning the territory over to my Phoenix based marketing rep. When the agents asked why, I said that I was taking over the Bay Area territory, but really my gambling problem had more to do with it. Just kidding.

The ant-festation in our house is winding down. We've again put borax out and we are slowly killing the colony. It gets old, but at least it's not termites. Right, Dad?

Both David and Daniel are involved in basketball. David is the starting shooting guard for his JV team and Daniel is a reserve center. As much as I'll miss football, there is some contentment in sitting in a heated gym watching basketball when the weather is cold, rainy and blustery. I'll miss the football, but not the nose running cold that permeates your body. Besides, I have a moustache and it's a bit messy.

I will add more to this later. Jennifer is doing well in the Army. She just passed her Hummer test, so she can drive the military Hummers. She took the beast off road and I think it was considered work, but she had a ball.

Finally, I have a good friend, Tami Tuel, who is going through some medical difficulties with some partial blindness in her vision. She is being tested and will be in for an MRI tomorrow. Please pray for her. She has been an angel in my life and I can only ask God to hold her in his arms now.

Ken

It is Monday morning. The backyard is littered with leaves and branches and my hard work of vacuuming the backyard with my leaf vacuum on Saturday afternoon seems, in retrospect, a complete waste of time and effort. It is a bit overcast with a high, thin fog and the sun is struggling to break through.

The weekend was interesting, if not dynamic. Darla and I were able to put a large dent in our Christmas shopping as we were up early on Saturday morning and off to the local Galleria for a day of shopping. Friday night saw the last of David's JV football games for the year. The entire coaching staff had been pink slipped during the week due, I suppose, to complete incompetence. It seemed that they were out to prove the athletic director a genius as the team stuggled through yet another game of inept play calling and bizarre substitutions. For those who don't know, David plays quarterback and strong safety. He lost his starting qb position three games ago after a fight before a game. David was knocked unconscious and ended up with a mild concussion. The backup qb had been elevated to starter and unfortunately is one of those players deathly afraid of physical contact. In this game, the qb threw an interception in the first series and it was run back to the goal line. When David finally was put in, he lead a brilliant drive to the 10 yard line, where he threw an interception. The coach grabbed David as he was leaving the field and yelled, " If my quarterbacks can figure out what the f**k is going on, we might have a chance to win this game!!" One of the parents behind me asked what he said. I said, " He said I'm a FAT ASS!" ( THe coach is pushing 300 lbs and is a lard). Darla and those around me laughed having put up with this dough head all year. What I didn't realize until later was that the coach's wife was sitting behind us.Oh well.

Saturday night, I decided to take Darla to dinner. We stopped again at the Galleria and put our name in at Max's Opera Cafe. We wandered the mall for forty minutes looking at Crate and Barrel and the Home Design Company and The Bombay Co. We were finally seated in a dark corner of the restaurant and I noticed that the spot light above our table was burned out. I ordered and enjoyed a Fresher sandwich of barbecued brisket with red potato salad and Darla had a smothered chicken sandwich (smothered with mushrooms). Our problem was that once our food was delivered, we were invisible. I couldn't get the waiter to refill our drinks, he had to be asked twice to get us "to go" boxes and he took 15 minutes to bring us the bill. We were finished eating for twenty minutes before we finally flagged him down to get the boxes and then I had to ask him again. When he finally brought the bill, I told him that it must be hard to see us in the corner with the light burned out. He didn't quite pick up on my sarcasm as he said, "No. I can see you fine, but we need to replace that bulb". Apparently the fixture was not the only dim bulb in the restaurant. Our meal came up to $28.96 and I left a $1.04 tip and wrote on the bill: "Terrible service. We felt like lepers." Hopefully he got the point, although he probably just thinks I'm cheap.

We returned home and watched a movie. Buddy, our golden retriever, came in and took up residence on his rug by the door. About ten fifteen, Buddy began to seizure and crawled over to me on all fours and had a terrified look in his eyes. He ran down the hall and hid in our room and I had to run him back out where he hid behind the couch. I went in the kitchen to get him some water and the counter was filled with ants, crawling and pulsating in the dim light. I have to admit I came close to losing it at the point and sprayed ant spray like a foaming maniac. We have a pest control service, because an ant nest was built inside our walls. I had the service out five days in a row and we finally solved the problem by placing borax in several spots in the house where the ants took it back to the nest and killed the colony. This was back in the Spring of this year. With the weather change, they're baa-aack. The pest control guy will be out after lunch today when we will resume our acquaintance. Buddy seems to be over his latest problem. he had a bad bout of Parvo as a young pup and still has seizures occasionally. It is not fun to watch and I feel so sorry for him.

So that was our weekend. I hope yours was a great one. I'm off to Reno and will be back Thursday night.

Friday...glorious friday!

The weather had finally turned cold as Halloween 1962 approached. Frost was dusting the rooftops and the leaves were scattered on front lawns and piling up in the street in Vancouver, British Columbia. Halloween was less than a week away. The chance for this 7 year old to dress up as Popeye and load up on candy followed by fireworks in the alley ( a tradition on Canadian Halloween nights) was almost too much for me. I was bugging my Mom and she ordered myself and my eight year old brother out of the house. We got together with a couple of friends from the neighborhood and tried to find something to occupy our time. As we walked down the alley behind our house kicking rocks and being bored, my eyes travelled to a very well kept pumpkin patch in the back yard of one of the neighbors. We hadn't got a pumpkin yet and there were so many in the patch. They wouldn't miss a couple would they?

We climbed over the fence and picked out four of the smaller gourds and pulled them free of the vine. I wondered how we would explain the pumpkins to my Mom when one of our friends said how lucky it was that we found these pumpkins laying in the street. That sounded good to me and we climbed back over the fence and carried our treasures home. Not noticed in the excitement was the neighborhood crank, Mrs. Gandolph, who stood on her porch watching our departure with what I'm sure was a scowl of distaste mixed with pure evil on her face.

We arrived home flushed and excited at our discoveries. Mom was overly interested in exactly where we had found the pumpkins and were they definitely in the alley and not the backyard. We acknowledged that the pumpkins were indeed in the alley. Mom again asked us if we were sure. We looked at each other and said certainly. Mom sent both of us to our rooms to wait for Dad to get home. Like a dope, I got out my Quik Draw McGraw coloring book and went to work on the Hannah Barbera cartoons and waited for dinner. My brother, having a keener sense of reality, stole out of his room, admitted the theft and blamed me for the idea.

Dad arrived home from work tired and cranky and was met by Mom who explained how Mrs. Gandolph had called her and told her of our adventure in the neighbor's yard. She said that Darryl had admitted the theft, but that I was adamant in my denial. I had to endure the sound of my brother's punishment next door at the end of a wooden spoon as I realized for the first time that the gig was up. Tears formed in my eyes and I had developed a full blown sobfest by the time Dad finished with my brother. He asked me where we got the pumpkins and I tearfully and shakily told him the truth. He told me that coming clean was the right thing to do, that he was proud of me and that I should drop my pants and turn over on the bed. The stinging blows hurt, but not near as much as missing the "trick-or-treating" that Halloween. We were forced to march with the pumpkins back to the neighbor's house that night and admit our folley and arrange to rake leaves for the neighbor and Mrs. Gandolph. The owner of the patch was a nice lady who told us to keep the pumpkins and next time just ask her if we wanted one. We begged her to keep them knowing our fate if we returned home with the pumpkins.

Mrs. Gandolph sat in her front window watching us as we raked leaves the next day and she must have been cleaning the house, because I swear she was sitting on a broom.

Jimmy crack corn and I don't care.

It is with trepidation that I set my fingers on the keyboard and begin to tell this story. It is a chance for me to purge my feelings of fear and shame. I was ten years old and had a walk of over three miles to school and back each day. I would often ride my bike, but at times I'd just walk to feel the cool air of Tacoma, Washington in the fall. I would join with friends and we would laugh and make the journey seem somehow more than simply getting from one place to another.

I was late getting out of school having stayed behind to help my favorite teacher clean the chalkboards and prepare for the next school day. I was about half way home, carrying a broken tree limb and thinking about having a bowl of Post Alpha-Bits when I got home when it suddenly hit me. An overwhelming and cramping need to go to the bathroom. If it had been number one, I'd have ducked down an alley and peed on a telephone pole, but the need was more urgent and more private and I'd need toilet paper. I walked on trying to think of other things when a particularly strong wave of cramping hit me and with dread, I realized that this baby was going to be born before I reached the safety of home.

Suddenly and uncontrollably a torrent released from my bowels and the moist and implacable heat of a fresh bowel movement filled my backside. I duckwalked the final few blocks to home with a sweat breaking on my brow and a deep fear of discovery filling my very soul. I arrived to find my Mom and brothers gone. I stole away to the safety of my room and changed out of my pants and underwear. I placed the soiled underwear into a grocery sack and ran to the bathroom for one of the first afternoon showers of my life. I quickly and thouroughly cleaned up myself and the tub and rushed back to my room. I carried the offending sack of steaming underwear to the yard where I buried it behind my Mom's rhubarb plants.

It was the following Spring, that Mom found my underwear while working in her garden.

This is the first in a very random and not very well documented blog. I am, like many, a busy and often unorganized person of moderate computer literacy. I tell people that I'm a fish with feet when it comes to my ability to handle computers...and I say that as a self styled Christian man! I just got back from a wonderful weekend of sun and fun in Carmel, CA. I played golf at the famous Poppy Hills golf course in Pacific Grove and thoroughly enjoyed spending time with my wife, Darla, and best friends, Tami and Jerry Tuel. My golf could have been better, but I parred six holes and birdied number 9 and some pros don't do that at the AT&T Classic. Nice. Ciao.