Homeward bound!

As most of you know My wife left me...For the week and went to spend some much needed time with friends. This left me alone with Addie and my Mom for a week. I must say I missed her very much. I would get 2 or 3 calls a day, but I really don't like to talk on the phone with someone I miss, it just makes it worse. On the upside my Mother took care of Addie and I was able to work in my art studio for a solid week with little distraction and was able to complete a new outdoor sculpture in a little under 2 weeks, a new personal best!

As the week went on I started to realize how much i depended on Chrissy. Not for the cooking(LOL) or her domestic mastery, or for keepng track of all the things i misplace... But for her conversation. As I said I didn't have much to say on the phone, and honestly I like the long chat when you get back together about all the things that happened while you were apart. But I realized she is an integral part of my thinking and doing process, she sits and glazes over and absorbes my mindless rambelings and in doing so helps me figure out what to do, and for this I am eternally grateful.

So at last she is coming home, should be there when I get home from work and that is a very good thing, I think, we'll need to discuss it!

100,000.8

Well its done...

This actually went down as a great birthday! This last week was my schools spring break and it felt like I really had time to take stock and enjoy my birthday week.

It was rocky to start but the fam really helped out by taking the kids out of the equation and giving Chrissy and I some much needed adult time together. The weekend was also boosted by the ever nostalgic return to our old High school(now a middle school) for Chrissy's triumphant return to the floor as a Voyager. I had way more fun than I should have watching her practice in the kitchen all week between naps and feedings. In her glorious fashion she waited until she had just enough time to learn it(only took an hour or so) and I must say, 13 years and 2 kids later she was awesome and you ladies out there should be disgusted!

The trip down memory lane was aided by a trip to a local bar in Vinton where libations and stories flowed easily, a great birthday eve!

Saturday was marked by my daughters greatest gift, sleeping in! cake and presents followed. I finally received my long awaited guitar this year! For those who don't know I have been asking for one for every major gift giving holiday for 6 years and finally it was my time! And it didn't stop there! My wife takes these things very seriously, so I have a guitar, stand, picks, how to DVD and book lessons, an encyclopedia of chords, and the piece De la resistance "The essential J R Cash" song book. How can I fail!

The afternoon saw us out to a movie (boring to some but a rare commodity in our house) The "watchmen" did not disappoint, however anyone looking for a action packed comic book thriller be warned! The psychological intensity of an early montage of the film set to Dylan's Times are a changing almost brought me to tears.

Now on to the main event!!!

Here Ye, Here Ye,

The greatest display of St. Patrick's debauchery this side of Southey is, (imagine drum role) PETERSBURG IA!
It was insane. Starting just afternoon the annual St P's Bike Ride from Dyersville to Petersburg was underway. As we sat in the living room we watched as green clad, tutu wearing, beer drinking, bead toting, crazy hat sporting revelers pedaled past our house to the local community hall and the local bar for a "pit stop" before either sleeping it of in a lawn or perilously trekking back in to D ville. We made it out to the Hall and witnessed a great small town tradition, the ridiculously drunken hillbilly dance party! Needless to say the invites are out for next year, these people definitely follow the work hard play hard mantra!

Til later
J

3 decades down...

Well as some of you surely know my birthday is fast approaching. 7 more days and the tens place on my odometer will chunk over another digit... To me this is a little like watching the old family car roll 99,999.9 here it comes, the anticipation.... 100,000 miles whoo hoo who'd have thought our old car would roll 100,000 miles. Where have we been driving? Think of all the places we must have went... Work, home, work, 2 to 3 treks to iowa from Massachusettes a year. That 3600 miles treking through Colorado, Wyoming...

All to quickly the reminicing is replaced with...Well crap now our car is officially old, the kelly blue book just dropped like a rock, and that new car smell is definately replaced with that what the hell did we throw under the seat smell???

While my wife lovingly assures me men become more attractive as they age, and the ladies at the grocery store still like to card me for boose(they ask if I wouldn't mind so they look diligent to their bosses) I can't help but notice it takes a few more days to recover from a basketball game than it should...

I'm not really that pesamistic, I know the best is yet to come. All and all I'm doing well. I weigh less now than when I graduated College, I eat healthier, I travel more, I am in better shape.

But I am also in limbo. I'm not a new car with all the cool stuff, and I am not that well maintianed classic either. I'm that 85 Dodge Omni that has been way to taken care of waiting to come back into style.

In the background this birthday is a little bittersweet to me. My father passed away at the ripe old age of 62, which means next year I will be half his age and I can't help but wonder if he thought it was half over on his 31st birthday??? I know I am not at risk or as unhealthy as my father. I have learned a lot from the examples before me but I think when ever a tens spot turns over you have to double it and think. Where will you be then, will you have done as much as you have up till now? Or more. I know for me the goal is to do more, live more, love more.

It's a tall order but who better to fill it!

JR

Are the good old days around the bend?

Last night on my way home from a Faculty Student basket ball game(we won, we are undefeted! Faculty rule students drool!!!) And I was listening to NPR on point discussing the affects of the economy on the youth of our country. The discussion covered the emediate and long term affects of living in and through a recession/depression. It was interesting to hear the testimonials from highschool students. "now I have to think about the money I spend..." "my college education is a good investment but maybe a state school would be better since I will actually be able to pay my students loans when I get out". As I listened to these "harsh realities" I couldn't help but think. Welcome to the real world. Everything that I was hearing just made me think Duh, this is my life. This has always been my life.

Its getting bad out there peopel are having to budget their houshold bills!!! People are having to decide if they need 400 channels of cable or food!!!
People are getting a taste of what a majority of the worlds population already deals with on a daily basis and it evidently doesn't taste good, but medicine seldom does.

I remember just 2 years ago haveing a conversation with a student in class.
me: Yes student x what do you need?
SX: I need to leave and go to my room.
me: What for?
SX: I need my Ipod, I cant work without it.
me: You what your Ipod?
SX: I need it, I need to listen to MY music....

While I do understand that there are many truely suffering from job loss, and uncertainty, I see the current situation as the dirrect consiquence of the glutany of the last 15 years. Of course our economy is dropping like a rock its backbone is finance(smarty pants investors inventing ways to magically conjure up money from nothing but thin air) and industries like ringtones. A huge portion of our economy is bassed on sh*t, imaginary sh*t and sh*t NO BODY NEEDS!

The good news is the youth who have up to this point not really been challenged are in many cases grasping and dealing with the reality. parents who bought their child complacency in the past are forced to have tough conversations, thats right, parents are talking to their children!!! Children are LISTENING!!! It gives me hope that the "me" generation is getting a good dose responsability before they graduate highschool and college.

jr