Stories and other stuff

For a guy who likes gadgets, you wouldn't be able to tell by the type of phone I carry. I have a very basic i335 phone. This is a good phone for me because it's just a really simple phone that doesn't even have a camera.  It makes phone calls and I can kind of check sports scores on its very ineffective internet browser.  It handles being dropped pretty well. One thing it does, though is let me save photos to a file stored on the phone and I should be able to download them to a computer. I have some pictures on my phone I wanted to keep, once I figured out I could actually save them from the text messages they came with.  My phone has a USB cable port so I figured I'd just plug in the phone and copy the pictures to my Mac.  It's a newer phone, so it should work, right? I plug the phone in.  They're not compatible.  Time for plan B. I have this Dell PC.  It's old by computer standards because I've had the thing almost seven years.  It's mos...

I missed the games yesterday.  I forgot to DVR them, too, so I'm just out of luck.  I did see the play in the Pittsburgh/Baltimore game where everyone thought the play was dead, except that one guy who smartly picked up the football and ran to the end zone. It seemed the whistle didn't blow.  When everyone else quit, one guy, one very smart guy, didn't and scored an easy touchdown. I really enjoy playoff football.  All year, everyone was talking about Atlanta who met the resurgent Packers and judging by the score, that was just a beat-down!  I was surprised the Steelers/Ravens game was as high scoring as it was for two teams noted for great defense. I'm excited to see what happens with the Seattle/Chicago game today; equally excited about the Jets/Pats game, too.  A 7-9 team is two games away from the Super Bowl. One thing I really missed was my fantasy football league this year.  It's fun to talk a little smack with your friends during a frien...

I meant to post this blog earlier in the week.  It was written on December 30, 2011, on the outbound leg of my trip.  For the younguns' I embedded a link to the Western Airlines birdie on youtube.  Instead of champagne, he's getting pizza, but you'll get the idea. My first experience with flying was as a boy flying to California aboard Western Airlines.  Western Airlines is defunct.    Delta took it over a couple of decades ago, but I digress. My mother bought my sister and I new clothes for the flight.  She insisted we dress up for the trip.  Of course this was the decade of the ‘70’s.  A little bird on the tail of the aircraft during TV commercials, holding a glass of champagne, assured us that Western Airlines was the oooonly way to fly.  I have a good memory for dumb stuff. People dressed up for the flight. Today as I write this, I’m at 31,000 feet, headed to an undisclosed location.  I ran away from home.   I can’...

editorial note:  I decided the name of the airline wasn't important to the story so I removed it.  I added a bit of a detail about the end of my night.  One person who reads the blog will find it funny. Hi gang, Well, I'm home.  Betcha most of you didn't know I was gone.  I ran away from home over the holiday.  I wanted to celebrate the New Year the right way and had a fantastic time.  I'm not writing about how I celebrated the end of 2010.  I'm happy it's over, though. as I'm sure several of you are.  2011 started out much better and I know it will be better than the last several years have been. I do want to talk about my journey home, though.  I caught a connecting flight in Las Vegas last night and it's this flight I want to talk to you about. When the plane came in at Las Vegas and there was no ground crew to meet it.  It sat just outside the gate waiting for ground personnel to marshall the pilot to the gate.  Those...

To my readers: I'm taking a few days away from the blog.  I do this from time to time.  In the past, it's been because I needed the time to get my head together.  Not so this time.  I'm working on some things and thoughts are kind of rolling around in my head like a box of ping pong balls that have been dropped to the floor.  They're just kind of bouncing around everywhere and I'm just waiting for the balls to quit bouncing before I pick them up. I have a few stories to share, but they're not finished stories.  Life this week is kind of like watching a really good movie and having to pee.  We've all been there before.  Do you leave the movie and go or just hold it?  Well, the "movie" is really good this week, so I'm just going to hold it. If I don't make it back to the blog for a few days, treat this as your invitation to share your story, your New Year's Resolution, or whatever you feel like sharing. I will give you a clue abou...

You just never know what's going to happen at Christmas.  It's been a rough year for the Coops.  I wasn't really in the usual holiday mood, although I've had the Christmas Spirit more than I ever have before in my life.  I know that doesn't make sense.  I have joy in my heart but I didn't have any real happiness about Christmas.   That all changed this afternoon.  I was minding my own business when it happened.  Something just kind of caught my eye, and it was love again at first sight.  When I first saw her, my heart started racing.  My excitement level went way up, and I got butterflies in my stomach.  She's beautiful, smart, and makes a great cup of coffee.  We had our first "date" this evening and I can tell you, it's a match made in heaven! Before you either get angry (wife!) or think "here we go again", I'm in love with my new coffee maker!  My mom gave it to me for Christmas and my sister hooked me up the the little co...

I saw something on my blog today that I deleted.  It was a comment from someone using the name "Nobody's Fool" and it was there just to start trouble.  The comment was inferring that I'm portraying myself as something I'm not, in my opinion.  I deleted it, and would do it again.  Not because I'm hiding something, which I'm not.  What I'm also not going to do is let my blog turn into the circus freakshow from this fall again either. Attacking the messenger when you don't like the message is an old trick.  I don't think talking about my faith or random things that happen to me is preaching, but if you do, then I'm simply going to ask this question:  So what? Are any of us too good to have someone share God's word with us?  What do I have to gain by telling you some of these stories?  Quite frankly, the baby sock story still has me freaked out.  I don't think that's preaching.  I'm just telling stories.  What you get out of...

There are three apple trees in the "back 40".  They live right next to each other.  Two are red apple trees, one is a yellow apple tree.  Two days ago, as I looked out over my back yard, I noticed something unusual. The yellow apple tree still has most all of its leaves. The leaves are brown.  Yet the stems are still hanging on to the tree.  Today is December 21.  We've had strong winds over the fall, enough that all the other trees in the neighborhood are barren.  It's just this one tree.... I can't help but wonder:  Why?

Well, I went out and did my part today to help the economy.  I went to one store to get something and they didn't have everything I needed.  I went to another store and they didn't have everything I needed either, so I had to make a second trip to the first store to finally get everything I needed. I went to the grocery store.  Today, butter was on sale for $2.  Last night, the same butter was $2.88.  Just my luck, but prime rib was on sale for $3.99 a pound so Christmas dinner is tucked nicely away in the freezer. I did some Christmas shopping today, too.  I'm nowhere near done, but I'm closer today than I was.  Progress. I like this time of year because people are more friendly.  A very nice young woman at JC Penney could tell I was lost, so she helped me find what I needed.  They had exactly what I was looking for and I was surprised at how affordable it was.  I paid half of what I thought I would for what I wanted. You wouldn't...

Well, this will make you laugh.  Someone from Pakistan left a comment on my blog.  Whoever it was cut & pasted text from one of my posts and when you clicked on the name to look at the blogger ID, it took you to a website for jobs in Pakistan. Really Pakistani guy?  My poor little blog? I keep telling you, it's fun because I just never know what's going to happen next.

I suffered through this stupid cold for two weeks.  I go to the clinic yesterday and actually get to see my own doctor.  Turns out I have a sinus infection.  Two weeks of feeling like crap, a blossoming addiction to cherry Nyquil, and not being able to breathe get wiped out by taking one dose of an anitbiotic that comes in a horse pill size.  I only have to take 19 more of these but at least I'm feeling a little better today. I had a house guest yesterday.  The lady from the Tax Commission stopped by to have a little chat with me about some things.  She didn't remember me at first but after a few minutes of conversation, she started putting everything together.  She was nice and told me we had the house decorated cute for Christmas.  That's all June. I did stop on the way home from the doctor's office and supported my local train shop.  I bought two light bulbs for my Christmas tree train and some little plastic clips to hold the track to...

I'm not feeling bery bloggy today.  I hab a code. I cant' breeb.  My head feels like it's going to blow up.  All I want to do is crank the heat up to 80 degrees and stay in bed. But I can't.  I have a class at work I HAVE to go to.  So I'm doing something I absolutely detest.  I'm going to work sick and I get to share my cold with the people in class with me.  How nice of me... and how lucky for them. Really, this bothers me.  I feel bad enough and I don't want to make anyone else ill.  Unfortunately, though, I have to have this class.  It took them a year to schedule it and my boss actually yanked someone else out of this class so I could go.  But then, life is full of these little dilemmas.  Sometimes, we have to do things we would rather not do, for the greater good.  So, I'll be sure to pick up some hand sanitizer on my way to work, cough only on me, and take some drugs for the cold.  I'll do my part to not in...

Well, I've put it off just about as long as I can.  I've wrestled with the decision.  It's cost me sleepless nights. I've been torn between what I want to do and what I guess I ought to do. I've been wrestling with the decision for weeks.  I know what the right thing to do is.  I want to do right, I suppose, in this circumstance, even though my heart isn't exactly in it.  What I want to do, I guess, isn't the thing I ought to do.  How many times in life have each of us faced those circumstances.  Prolonging the inevitable though has come at a cost.  I guess that's the way of the world, too... one of these days, I guess I'll learn the lesson. The signs are clear.  I can't put this decision off one more minute.  It's the day I have to decide... so there's nothing left to ponder, nothing left to think about.  The time has come! It's time to go out in the cold and hang the Christmas decorations on the front of the house!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

WOW!  A blizzard.  I can't remember the last time we had a good 'old fashioned' blizzard here in Utah.  Usually it's a midwest thing.  It's been so long, I don't think people remember how to deal with one!  Well, ready or not, here it comes.... We're as ready as we can be on Lark Circle.  The snow blower has been serviced.  The winter gear is out and ready.  The furnaces are cranked up, warming up the cavernous house.  Wood is next to the fireplace and blankets are available to bundle up and keep warm, in the likely event the power goes out.  The truck has a full tank of gas because I have to go to work today.  No closure yet and I hope they don't wait till it gets here before they get smart and call the whole thing off for the night. The family of pussycats is hunkered down.  June fixed them a place to stay warm and dry, so no worries there.  Moo, the fat little one that likes me may become part of the family tho...

As promised, today's topic is just up to you....if you have something to share about what you're thankful for.  I'll get the ball rolling.  Today, I'm humbled and just thankful for God's grace and forgiveness most of all.  It's been a rough year, but in my heart, I'm truly thankful and full of joy at God's willingness to forgive us when we fall. What are you thankful for this year?

We were telling war stories last night at work.  One of my favorites was being in Alaska and going on a fishing trip.  We, by sheer dumb luck, happened to catch the front end of the red salmon run on the Russian River one summer.  We had several guys and a van and some free time so we were able to go fishing while we were TDY to Anchorage.  We had a great time, caught a bunch of fish, and experienced "combat fishing", Alaska style.  It's a favorite story of mine. As I thought about all the places I've been, I looked back and most of the time, we traveled in a pack.  Not by choice... inevitably the aircraft maintenance guys always got assigned a van.  They figured we all loved each other so they'd assign us a van to transport us here, there, and to work.  If you're just going to work, vans aren't a bad way to go.  When you're downtown, off base, though, it's a little tougher to get a group of guys to agree on where to eat, what to do, where ...

I believe in the power of prayer.  Not just for praying for ourselves, but people we know who are hurting, some beyond any measure that I can imagine. I'm taking the rest of the week off from the blog.  It's not a week for pithy comments, stories about my dog, or anything else.  It's a week for prayer and reflection. Please join me in prayer this week; remembering friends and family who are facing trials, that they may be comforted by God's presence in their lives. God bless, Dale

I was sitting outside having a smoke (I know, I gotta quit!) last night when this little mouse scurried by.  I watched the little guy for a few minutes and with the weather changing, I thought about being a mouse. A mouse has a hard life.  He lives in a hole in the ground and has plenty to fear.  A mouse is on the menu for so many critters.  He has to hope he's not out trying to get just a little something to eat and get taken out from above by a bird.  On the ground, he's got to dodge humans, cats, and all manner of four footed creatures and snakes (I hate snakes!) that would love to make him a snack. Look at what we do as people to keep mice at bay, understandably.  Having a mouse in your house is messy and they carry disease.  So we set out traps to get rid of them.  We call them vermin.  The mouse, though is just trying to do two things, stay warm and get something to eat. As I watched the mouse run across the field, dodging this an...

The best thing about October is baseball.  I'm excited. Baseball starts tonight...Phillies/Giants.  I kind of wish the Cardinals were in because I love to watch how Tony LaRusa manages a fall game.  You see all kinds of things in the fall that you don't see normally.  Last night, I watched the Rangers blow a huge lead to the Yankees.  I saw it coming.  I've seen it too many times before.  The Yankees, as much as I'm not a Yankee fan, are still one of the best late inning teams in baseball.  They just find a way to win.  I just knew they would win last night.  Sometimes, you just get that feeling. You notice I said baseball starts tonight.  One thing I really dislike about baseball is the DH rule.  Real baseball teams make the pitchers hit.  It adds something to the game.  Back in the '90s, the Atlanta Braves had a pitching staff that could hit!  It makes the game fun to watch when pitchers can help themselves....