Bag of Randomness

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    • At least it didn’t happen on Thanksgiving – Early yesterday morning WifeGeeding informed me that the garbage disposal wasn’t working.  I hit the reset button on the bottom of it and thought I was in the the clear as it started up but nothing would drain, which resulted in a trip to Home Depot to rent a drain snake.  Everything would have went well if the PVC pipe covering outside to the kitchen line didn’t break when I was unscrewing it.  I was trying to gently unscrew that thing but the sun and weather made that thing pretty fragile.
    • The TICKET was reporting that the Cowboys will be wearing blue jerseys at home, is Jerry losing his mind?  I know they often wear a throwback jersey on Thanksgiving but I’d really be surprised if they were wearing blue.
    • Now that’s a big quesadilla
    • I guess we started Christmas early as we watched Rudolph last night.
    • Some of you asked via email if I ever blogged about my mother’s passing.  Yup, here and here.  I don’t really write like that anymore I don’t think.
    • My first Thanksgiving without my mother was when she took a trip to Vietnam.  That one is easy to remember because that was when Miami played Dallas on that snowy Thanksgiving day and we all remember what Leon Lett did.  But my favorite Thanksgiving memory is probably the second one without my mother, the one in which she died a week prior.  We left the turkey on the table and forgot and one of us forgot to push our chair in.  DogGeedingII took advantage of it and the next thing we know is we see him gorging with delight on a turkey about his size.
    • One of the crazier battles of WWII involved American soldiers, French prisoners, and German soldiers defending an Austrian castle against an SS division.
    • ‘Person of Interest’ is getting better and better, I just wish it was on a cable network so they could get away with more stuff.
    • A Transparent Cabin Built of Wood and Mirrors
    • Rachel Held Evans brought up a few interesting questions regarding Obamacare and religious liberty.  It’s stuff I thought about, but she’s able to write much better than me.  For instance, if the owner a company can make decisions regarding the healthcare coverage of his/her employees based on religious conviction, what’s to keep an employer who is Jehovah’s Witness from refusing to cover blood transfusions?  And if evangelicals want to prevent abortions, shouldn’t they embrace birth control which would help prevent unwanted pregnancies?  I know some folks don’t think all birth control works the same way, and she lightly touches on the topic.
    • Vladimir Putin spying on Reagan as a KGB agent
    • The latest Christian health/diet trend – The Daniel Fast
    • Someone had the idea that if you have very young children, you should DVR all the latest and greatest cartoons.  When the kids get old enough to watch them, by that time, all the toys associated with that old cartoon will be on sale and they will think it’s the latest and greatest.
    • I watched the first episode of Netflix’s ‘Orange is the New Black’.  It’s different and interesting enough for me to watch the next episode.
    • Black Friday Death Count
    • I keep hearing rumors that the next U2 album will drop in March. Who kno
    • Kentucky Fried Chicken Candles Sell Out in 1 Minute
    • Georgia juror form lists ‘slave’ as occupation
    • Bad Santa – Mall Santa Claus charged with groping elf
    • KKK distributes recruitment fliers to predominantly black, Hispanic neighborhoods‏
    • Composite of Texas State Capitol between dawn and dusk‏
    • 50 Reasons We’re Thankful to Live in Dallas‏
    • Taylor Swift, Bon Jovi, and Prince William sing ‘Living On A Prayer’ – YouTube
    • What a Real War on Christmas Looks Like
Posted in Personal | 5 Comments

Bag of Randomness

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  • That’s what I look like when I wake up.
  • I heard someone mention that we dedicate an entire day being thankful for what we have and then the very next day go ape buying stuff we don’t have.
  • For the first time in my marriage I was asked to go buy feminine products which really didn’t bother me.
  • In the U.S., our postal carriers’ driver’s seats are on the right side of the postal vehicle, the opposite of all other domestic vehicles.  In the U.K., are their postal carriers’ driver’s seats on the left side of the postal vehicle?
  • ‘How I Met Your Mother’ was really cute last night as the entire episode rhymed.  I saw a funny photoshop of the show in which the title was changed to ‘How I Got Over Your Aunt Robin’.
  • I have an insecurity that I’ve never really revealed, mainly because it’s embarrassing and is one fear that would tear me to pieces if someone used it against me.  Somehow after ten years of marriage WifeGeeding pointed it out and I haven’t been the same emotionally since, and it seems like one of those things I just can’t get past.
  • I did blow my lid at WifeGeeding yesterday morning which I kinda feel bad about.  I was in my upstairs office with the door closed working and when I walked out I saw she left the baby gate open and I saw BoyGeeding trying to make his way down the stairs.  For you non-longtime readers, MomGeeding fell down those very stairs seven years ago and died from those injuries a week before Thanksgiving.  Sometimes those stairs still creep me out as I walk by them and I don’t want any sort of repeat performance.
  • I finished Double Down: Game Change 2012 a couple days ago.  I like the first book better, but it was still interesting.  One random thing that caught my attention was that Obama calls Clinton “Bill”.  For some reason I thought all presidents refer to each other as “Mr. President”.  I also found reading on a device with e-ink much more enjoyable than an actual book.
  • I’ve given more eulogies than weddings I’ve been in.
  • I’ve heard many great reviews about Korean bath houses.
  • ‘Left Behind’ Movie Releases New Poster
  • I thought a lot of people were overrating RG3’s performance last year, so this new meme cracks me up.
  • The best space heaters according to a physicist
  • Texas Monthly tries to answer why Texas is such a philanthropic state.
  • How ESPN transitions retired athletes to on-air personalities.
  • Yahoo! employees don’t even like Yahoo! Mail
  • Adam Sandler’s ‘Thanksgiving Song’: Explaining the 20-year-old pop culture references
Posted in Personal | 2 Comments

DIY Death: Natural, At-Home Funerals And Their Boomer Appeal

WELLFLEET, Mass. – When 20-month-old Adelaida Kay Van Meter died of a rare genetic disease last winter, her father, Murro, gently carried her body out of the house to his wood shop in the pines near Gull Pond. He placed her in a small cedar box and surrounded her with ice packs. For three days, the little girl’s grieving parents were able to visit her and kiss her and hug her. Then, on the third day, after the medical examiner came to sign the last bit of paperwork, Van Meter and his wife, Sophia Fox, said good-bye to their baby, screwed the lid on the box and drove to a Plymouth, Mass. crematorium, where they watched the little coffin enter the furnace.

“We took care of Adelaida when she was an infant, we took care of her when she was healthy, we advocated for her in the hospital, we took care of her when she was sick,” her father said. “Why wouldn’t we take care of her when she was dead?” Sophia Fox added: “There was no way I was going to hand her over to some stranger at a funeral parlor where she’d be put in a refrigerator with a bunch of other dead bodies. This way was so much more natural. We saw the life leave her body and we were better able to let go.”

Death remains a topic that many of us would rather avoid. And when it comes to the actual nuts and bolts of caring for the dead, most of us tend to think it’s best — and furthermore, required by law — to let professional funeral arrangers handle the arrangements.

Well, it turns out that in most states it’s perfectly legal to care for your own dead.

Full Article

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Bag of Randomness

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  • Per Michael Beschloss, that memo above are President Johnson’s notes from his first meeting with what had been President Kennedy’s Cabinet, 50 years ago yesterday.
  • Scott Murray was chosen to emcee the JFK memorial event?!
  • The weather has really screwed up two major television events in the area.  You have the Super Bowl a few years ago, and on Friday at the JFK memorial even a flyover had to be cancelled as well as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra participation because of the clouds, rain, and cold weather.  Overall the memorial service went well, but having the orchestra play with the Naval Academy Glee Club instead of a keyboard would have been more touching.  But at least the bag-pipers got to play.
  • An interesting view of the ceremony.
  • Someone drew and placed a lifesize John John at the JFK Memorial in downtown Dallas.
  • A lot of the overflow crowd was directed to watch the events on the big screens at Victory Park.  KTVT reported numerous audio visual problems, which was funny because that area is controlled by rival WFAA, and WFAA’s PR firm stated they weren’t aware of any issues.  But the Internet thought it was a poor idea as those big screens are actually four screens put together, which made for cross-hairs on JFK numerous times during a memorial video.
  • And some thought there was an inappropriate/humorous Dallas tourism ad that was badly placed on Texas Monthly’s website, just read the small print after the headline.
  • I knew the Parkland doctor that treated JFK also treated Oswald, but I didn’t now that years later he would end up treating Abraham Zapruder.
  • There’s a tradition in Dallas and for almost all slain police that the surviving spouse receives the flag off the coffin, somehow that was overlooked for J.D. Tippit’s widow but DPD finally presented her one on Friday.
  • JFK’s first letter as president had been to the Kennedy children. His second had been to the head of the Secret Service commending agent Rufus Youngblood who immediately after the first shot was fired in Dallas, threw himself on Johnson and his wife onto the floor of the car. CBS News
  • The Dallas Morning News had an article about a Secret Service agent that was assigned to protect the Oswald family after the assassination.  LBJ actually made the order and the agent could not find a funeral home in Dallas to take Lee’s body.
  • In this LA Times article, it’s stated that before the end of 1963, Oswald’s mother received over $6,000 in the mail from various individuals show that the sins of the son would not be visited on the mother.  I plugged that amount into the inflation calculator and that’s almost $46,000 in today’s money.
  • I didn’t know that Jackie Kennedy granted an interview a week after the assassination.  Things in that interview that stood out to me:
    • She thought Jack’s last expression was so neat and wonderful even as a piece of his skull was coming off.
    • She’s specific about being covered in blood and brains.  She knew he was dead but tried her best to hold his brain in.  She mentioned nothing about it was repulsive to her, and that kind of reminded me of the time my mother kiss my father before the closed the casket for the last time.  I thought it was touching, but kinda repulsing, but then again, I never lost a spouse.
    • Even though she was calm and repose, the docs tried to give her a sedative.
    • He was put in the coffin naked.
    • Everytime she got off the plane in Texas she was presented yellow roses, but in Dallas she was given red roses which she thought kinda funny.
    • She regretted wiping the blood off her face for the swearing in photo.
    • She really only wanted two things to honor him after his death, the eternal flame and the his name on the side of the nose of the Saturn booster rocket.  She was advised that the name on the booster wouldn’t be dignified and it was arranged for Cape Canaveral to be named Cape Kennedy, which later returned to its original name and the space center being named after him.
    • She talked about John Jr’s interest in airplane and thought he might one day be a pilot or astronaut.
  • George Stephanopoulos stated “There is no family in American politics who is quite on par with the Kennedy’s.”  I’d have to respectfully disagree with him as the Bush family has two presidents, one governor, a mafia kingpin (Barbara), and I’m sure I’m missing a few other Bush family accomplishments.
  • How the University of Minnesota golden gophers distract opposing kickers‏
  • It was funny listening to Baylor fans for the past week.  After the Tech game many were leaving AT&T Stadium talking about who they deserved to be in the national championship game and couldn’t wait to throttle Alabama.  But as the week went on the reality of their soft schedule, lack of away games, and weakness of the Big XII this year started to seep in and most started to rightly fear Oklahoma State.  Baylor has a good team and their fans should enjoy the season, but as I’ve been saying all year, because of their overly soft schedule and how they like to run up the score on weak opponents, they aren’t that good.
  • For the last week/week-and-a-half Barry has been blogging about Judge Jerry Ray chastising a Tarrant County jury.  I actually went through the whole Mineral Wells school system with his daughter and we were both in the same graduating class of 122 students, but I don’t think I actually said more than five sentences to her, which is kinda sad when you think about it.  I think a lot of that had to do with her father getting my favorite coach fired.  The way I remember the story is that she was playing junior high basketball and that coach said a curse word.  She told her father and with him being a prominent member of the community was working to get the coach fired over the issue.  Keep in mind, this is all coming from the memory of events of me as a junior high kid.  That coach had a good relationship with my family as he coached my brother about a decade prior and called one evening.  When I answered the phone and heard my coach on the other end I thought I was in big trouble as I didn’t know anything about this issue.  The first thing Coach told me was that I wasn’t in trouble and he just wanted to talk to my father, as it turns out, he was trying to get some trusted members of the community to vouch for his character to save his job.  Well, he got fired, or maybe just didn’t want to deal with the small town politics and just quit.  His wife continued to teach in the school district and they both remained in Mineral Wells, but he drove to a new coaching/teaching gig in Joshua for the rest of his career if I recall correctly.
  • “Jesus’ Toenails” are Only Going for 99 Cents on eBay
  • The last time a guillotine was used for execution in France was 1977.  A doctor on the scene stated that the head remained responsive for 30-seconds.  There’s actually video footage of the event, but it’s not really graphic as you only seen the back side of the event.
  • I’ve noticed that Yahoo! is starting to make their video web presence more visible, but I don’t think the interface is as intuitive as it should be and they seem to be focusing on more professional made stuff, for instance, this ‘Royals’ parody of on white girls.  There’s been such a backlash on YouTube lately because of their advertising measures and forcing users to be a part of Google+, Yahoo! has a real chance to do something.
  • Sony files patent application for a “Smart Wig”
  • San Antonio may have the River Walk but Menard, Texas has the Ditch Walk.
  • Study: Men With Attractive Wives More Satisfied In Marriage
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