That’s a photo of Miss Ukraine in costume at the Miss Universe pageant.
I’m just saying, when I worked at Southwest Airlines, you didn’t see the kind of mess they are in now.
We had a surprise waiting for us when we got back from our church’s Christmas Eve service. Two-inches of running water. My first thought – It’s the evening of Christmas Eve, ain’t no way I’m gonna get anyone to come out in this literally freezing weather. My second thought – This is going to make for a memorable Christmas.
I was grateful that I wore my Merrill hiking shoes. I think they are ugly, but they are the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever owned, and they never need breaking in. This time, I paid a little extra for the water-proof version. The downside to them is they don’t vent well, so my feet sweat a lot in them. However, if you come home to a flooded garage, they come in quite handy.
My washing machine is in the garage, and that seemed to be where the water was coming from. I turned off both the hot and cold water to the washing machine, but the water didn’t slow. That meant I had to start moving stuff out of the way to find the source of the water. I don’t have the tidiest garage, but my kids are troopers and helped me move stuff out of the way. When I finally moved the washing machine from the wall, I was able to see water gushing from inside the wall. Thankfully, when I moved in, I made sure to ask the landlord’s management company where the shutoff valve is and kept their emergency contact number.
I called the emergency contact number, and per the greeting, someone should be manning the line. But I know it’s Christmas Eve. Thankfully, I kept the cell phone number of one of the rental property’s client manager. Thankfully, he picked up. He said he was on call, but in a rush to get out of the office, left the “on-call” phone in the office. But, he said I did the right thing in tracking him down.
While I’m grateful to be living in a house, it’s not one I’m very proud of. There are many things wrong with it. For instance, the garage slopes the wrong way, so none of the water was draining out. My son reminded me that I owned a small wet-dry vacuum, so I was able to use that to get three couple of inches of water out. I think I emptied that thing at least ten times.
When a plumber was finally able to come the following afternoon, we found the culprit to be shoddy repair work. A PVC piped used to for lawn sprinklers was used instead of one used for indoor plumbing.
I love watching the Kennedy Center Honors. It was great seeing Christian music (which I have a love/hate association with) get a spotlight with Amy Grant’s induction. Her music reminded me of a happier and more confident time in my life. Of course, it was great to see my favorite band be honored as well. I’ve never been one for Borat. I liked that Eddie Vedder was part of the festivities, though I thought it would have been Bruce Springsteen. But Springsteen inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
It’s still hard for me to listen to U2’s music. I’m not there yet, but one day I will get lost in their music again.
As of right now, I feel like my best days are behind me. You have no idea how much I want to be proven wrong.
I’m sorry for only one post this week. I took the week off from work to spend it with BoyGeeding and DaughterGeeding. We went to the Dallas Stars game on Wednesday and had a blast. It was the perfect mini-vacation we all needed.
Things didn’t start out great for the Stars game. Since it was my son and daughter’s first hockey game, I wanted to get there early so they could take in all the pregame festivities. But when we got the the arena, the door was locked. It turns out the game was scheduled to start at 8:30 pm. When I bought the tickets, I noticed the game time said 8:30 PM. Not putting much thought into it, I thought it was referencing Eastern time. When you live in the central time zone, a lot of time you see events are scheduled for Eastern time and just know to adjust for the hour difference. The older version of me would have really let this bother and loom over me. But, Keith 1.5 moving to 2.0 took it in stride and tried to make some lemonade with the lemons I plucked.
One of the many things I hate about divorce, especially a bitter one, is all the “firsts” you miss out on with your children. There’s nothing like experiencing firsts with your children, you know you are making a memory and increase your bonding. Thankfully, I’ve been a part of many of their firsts when we were a whole family, like to the beach, Disney, and major sporting events. I still dealt with a little sadness their mother didn’t tag along, she deserves to experience their first hockey experience. But, she has made it known if I’m a part of anything, she will not be a part of it. I don’t think any parent should miss out on any firsts of their children because of some sort of disagreement.
Going into it, DaughterGeeding wasn’t all that excited. She even asked, due to my mistake of the start of the game, if we could leave early. I reluctantly agreed. However, she was enjoying the experiencing so much that when it hit third period, she asked if we can stay for the whole thing. That sure did warm my heart.
BoyGeeding had a lot of good hockey questions. I wished I knew more about hockey to answer them.
I wonder why I’m not more of a hockey fan. The Dallas Stars really do put together a great product. The atmosphere was pretty wholesome. Compared to the TCU football game we attended last year, there was a lot less cursing and drinking.
The American Airlines Center (it’s hard to believe it’s been around 21 years, it’s held up grate) has an option of buying a souvenir cup. But the cup comes with free refills. I’m not sure what I paid for it. I should be more disciplined paying attention to price when buying certain items. Most of the time, for stuff like this, I ignore whatever the price and just deal with it. Tickets for our nose bleed seats set us back about a hundred each. Of course, Ticketmaster will add in their convenience fees for each individual ticket, then you have parking to pay for, then you realize why you don’t do these things more often.
Since we were playing a Canadian team, the Canadian national anthem was sung. To my surprise, the singer went immediately from it to the Star Spangled Banner. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought it was one long song. I do love the hometown bit of when you get to any part of our anthem that references “star” the whole crowd emphasizes it.
I thought having virtual Christmas lights on the jumbotron the entire time was an unappreciative and unnoticeable bit.
They do a cool little t-shirt drop by attaching them to mini-parachutes and dropping them from the rafters.
I’m proud of my kids for many things, but one thing I take pride in is how well they act in public. They might be a little soft-spoken and shy, but they are well-mannered and respectful.
Posted inPersonal|Comments Off on Bag of Randomness for Friday, December 23, 2022
BoyGeeding was talking to me the other day saying cash and gift cards are the worst present a kid can get for Christmas. I asked what would he rather get, $10 or underwear worth ten dollars for Christmas. He chose the underwear.
I went to Grapevine Mills Mall yesterday and was surprised how certain stores controlled the amount of people inside. They literally had a line of people waiting to get inside, but were only let in, one at a time, once a person left the store. I’ve never seen anything like this before. How did this become a thing? Fire code, I guess. But the mall wasn’t as crowded as I’ve seen it during malls’ heyday.
Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my neck or spinal surgery that saved me from paralysis. Below is a video I recorded of me a few days before surgery tying to walk unassisted and throw a football. I’m happy to report I’m almost entirely healed. Heck, I thought I made remarkable progress just nine days after surgery. Up unto last week, I was still experiencing symptoms. The most visible being the shaking of my hands and jaw as I tried to drink from a mug or bottle. I thought that was something I was just going to have to love with, but as of last week, that problem started to dissipate. I’m grateful for where I’ve come a year ago, both psychically and emotionally. I still have a ways to go on the latter, but overall, I’m progressing. For instance, I’m still very much hurt my ex, knowing I don’t have any family, wouldn’t lend any assistance when I asked her for a little help regarding my surgery. I thought just being the father of her children she would have respected me enough at such a vulnerable time in mine and their lives.
I really like that new Tom Cruise commercial where he thanks for fans for watching Top Gun: Maverick. He amount of calm he has as he falls out backwards from a plane is simply amazing.
Something many probably aren’t aware of is the recorded laughter played at the very start of every SNL cold open. It annoys me because it’s so unwarranted.
The NFL provided two gems of a game on Saturday. We got to witness the largest comeback in history and a snow game, which came down to a last second field goal. As much as I enjoyed watching them, I wish I could have been with my son to bond over those historic moment. Divorce prevents such things and is evil.
Meanwhile, college football provided us with something called the Jimmy Kimmel Bowl. I’m not kidding, there’s a bowl game named after the current talk show host. And yet, some people still argue the college game is better.
It’s been interesting watching the Harry and Meghan Netflix special. I’m proud of Meghan for talking about her struggles or challenges with ending her life. It takes courage to talk about that stuff, and I’m proud of her husband for the support he’s given her. When I let down my guard and talked to my spouse about my challenges and struggles, thinking the world would be better off without me, she used it against me to take our kids away from me. Right when I needed her most, she abandoned me. So much for better or worse, or death do us part. Yes, I’m still hurt by the betrayal and I’m still healing from it. What happened didn’t just affect me, it affected everyone in my immediate family, which is no no more.
But don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for where I am right now. Especially compared to a year ago when I was facing paralysis. I’ll expand on those thoughts next week.
William Randolf Hearst had the news papers. Jeff Bezos has The Washington Post, not to mention Amazon.com. Elon Musk has Twitter. Rich people like to control the narrative.
“Don’t get angry. Be silent. Avoid regret.”
Bono, The Edge, and David Letterman were all spotted together at a pub. Sounds like a joke, but it’s true.
Lee’s bill aims “to establish a national definition of obscenity that would apply to obscene content transmitted via interstate or foreign communications.” According to Lee’s office statement, the Utah senator believes that since “obscenity is not protected under the First Amendment and is prohibited from interstate or foreign transmission,” it is time to review the standards set in 1973 that eventually have allowed for the production and distribution of sexual content to be legal in the United States. According to Lee, “the Supreme Court has struggled to define obscenity, and its current definition under the ‘Miller Test’ runs into serious challenges when applied to the internet.’
The law, Measure 114, grants county sheriffs and police chiefs discretion to determine who qualifies to purchase a firearm under a new permit-to-purchase program. But Measure 114 lacks criteria clearly defining what disqualifies applicants, details on what makes someone a threat and what data can be used by law enforcement in making that decision. That’s a problem for activists who have critiqued law enforcement, particularly in the racial justice protests that took place over the past two years.
The National Assembly has decided to do away with the traditional method of calculating age, by which babies are born one year old, to standardize the country’s legal and administrative system
Several motorists who were speeding through an elementary school zone on the Florida Keys Overseas Highway received an odorous onion as a reminder to slow down from a county sheriff’s deputy dressed as the Grinch.
Come for the claim that Trump was a better president than Washington and Lincoln, stay for the "Trump digital trading cards" pic.twitter.com/qEKWYpgXL7
— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) December 15, 2022
Be sure to watch the whole clip, it’s worth it.
#Breaking New much clearer video, courtesy Kitt Wilder, of STOL variant F35 B model landing JRB Fort Worth, and pilot ejects. Condition of pilot still unknown. @CBSDFWpic.twitter.com/BeERIeyhtO
