Bag of Randomness for Monday, November 20, 2017

  • Here’s the Imgur story behind that picture: In 1995, my great-aunt gave me a stuffed cat. It was my absolute favorite, and slept with me every night through my childhood. When she passed, we found out she had bought an identical cat and kept it in pristine condition for two decades. The years of love certainly left their mark.
  • Thanks to all of you who did the DNA math and help me realize I still qualify for being half-Asian. Just think, as I kid, I wanted to be white so I could be just like the others, then, I thought I was less than half-Asian and I was upset. Ha, funny me.
  • A bit of a ‘Stranger Things’ thing happened Saturday afternoon. BoyGeeding and GirlGeeding were playing with their walkie-talkies and all of a sudden there was a third voice. Some nine-year-old boy named Jay started to converse with them. It was cute and innocent, but suspicious me wants to make sure it’s not an adult pretending to be a kid.
  • Later that night the wife and kids wanted to eat at Chick-fil-A. I recently ate there so I decided to go to the neighboring McDonalds’s and bring my food over so I could eat with the family. I know it’s a bit of a taboo to bring food from one place and eat it at another but I was being a rebel that night. After I finished my meal, I wanted a refill of my beverage but didn’t want to walk back to McDonald’s, not to mention Chick-fil-A’s beverage dispensers are located behind the counter. So in the spirit of the ten-dollar bets (YouTube) from one of my favorite television series, ‘Ed’, I decided to bet WifeGeeding ten dollars if she would take my McDonald’s cup and go to the Chick-fil-A counter and ask for a refill. She smiled, thought about it for about four seconds and went for it. The Chick-fil-A employee politely turned WifeGeeding’s request down but said she would happily do it if she had a Chick-fil-A cup.
  • On another fast-food related note, I saw a young man ask the manager of a Whataburger if he could get a job application. The manager went to the back and returned with a laptop and had the kid do it online. It just reminded me of trying to find a job when I was a teen and having to ask for paper job applications. Times have changed, yo.
  • I don’t want to jinx myself, but I can’t recall the last time I’ve heard a car alarm, maybe over five years?
  • My favorite part of the Eagles/Cowboys broadcast last night was the commercial with Joe Theismann and Lawrence Taylor. At the time, I thought of LT as a big mean “I’ll bite your head off and spit it out” type of football player and for him to react the way he did at Theismann’s injury meant something was really wrong. Obligatory link to the event. If any of you young folk want a quick reference to the play, just think back to watching the Sandra Bullock movie The Blind Side, it’s the first scene in the entire movie and emphasizes the need to protect the quarterback’s blind side, the side he has his back to when he throws.
  • I’m a little late commenting on President Trump’s speech where he reached for a Fiji water bottle, opened it, and drank from it. I’m not poking fun at him, but I finally realized why it felt out of place. Usually at the White House when a president is speaking you see an actual glass of water nearby with a white paper cover/coaster on top, though sometimes it’s actually placed on a shelf inside a podium. (Hey, these are the things you learn when you are into presidential history.) It’s a small bit of detail by the White House staff I always thought showed formality and some kind of etiquette. So I’m wondering if this was a staff mistake or if Trump simply prefers having that particular water nearby or something else.
  • A bit of Dallas history – Backstory: The mid-century bowling craze birthed the Bronco Bowl
    • I got a kick out of this nugget: “When it opened, the Bronco Bowl set a record for having the largest “housewives league” in the nation with 72 teams. They rolled at 10 a.m. on Fridays — there was a free “nursery” for the littles.“
  • Spot the differences. Downtown from Reunion Tower in 1987 and 2016.
  • I got a kick out of Troy Aikman calling out a company on Twitter for selling authentic Troy Aikman merchandise that’s not authentic.
  • A friend sent me this U2 article from The Irish Times, which is a good read for any U2 fan, though you have to register to read it. It’s a bit deep and touches a lot of areas. Bono hints he had a health scare, something more than that bicycle accident, that made him and Edge think more of mortality and their time left on Earth. It also touches a bit on politics like the time he met with VP Mike Pence and feels like he can trust and work with the man but doesn’t want to meet with the current president because he can’t take him at his word.
    • There are clues about his state of mind in Songs of Experience, U2’s imminent album, their 14th, which has tracks written for those he cares about most: his wife, Ali; his four children; Jesus. It’s the dark lyrics, full of nods to death, that linger.
    • “My curiosity takes me to dangerous places, and I’ve been nonchalant about that,” he admits. “Partly because of my faith, but then I felt that faith go out of reach. It was last Christmas, and I was surprised. Belief is preposterous, but I have it, and I thought, ‘I’m experiencing fear!’. “It was new, and I realised I don’t want to die. I want to spend more time with my kids. There are songs I want to write, stuff I can be useful for. Then, when I admitted I was afraid, my faith returned.”
  • 83-year-old retired Anderson County Marine keeps promise made in bunker in Vietnam
  • This is one athletically impressive couple:
Posted in Personal | 1 Comment

Bag of Randomness for Friday, November 17, 2017

  • I’ve been dragging my feet on renewing the hosting services of this website which is due to expire on Dec. 3, 2017. My heart hasn’t been into as of late and I used to make enough advertising revenue each year to almost break even. When I started this thing I didn’t have kids or other responsibilities and it was a great way to keep me entertained. In some ways, it helped me find myself. Now, it’s a bit of a burden. A lot of that was revealed to me when reading the article at the bottom of this post. Looking at the stats, I average 378 unique visitors a day, so I might still have a small audience, but in today’s world, I don’t know if those are spam bots or whatnot. In my prime, I was somewhere between 2,000 – 4,000 but can’t really remember. This blog has allowed me to broaden my perspective by being exposed to differing views and making new friends, some I have personally met from places like New York, Canada, Europe, and even Cleburn. I’ve felt this way before, and usually right when I want to call it quits something pulls me back in. For instance, yesterday someone left a comment stating he was friends with my father and served with him at Fort Wolters.
    • “I as [sic] a Lt was stationed at Ft Wolters in the early 60s – one of my friends at the 864th engineers was WO Geeding.”
      • The comment was made yesterday but it was placed on an old May 2016 post which didn’t reference anything about my father or Fort Wolters, so that’s a little odd.
      • I thought all my father’s friends and anyone who may have served with him were dead. Remember, Dad was born in 1923.
      • I’m reaching out to him. There’s a lot I’d like to know. Remember, Dad had me late in life, he was 52 when I was born. I only knew my father as an older man and really knew nothing about his military career, he retired in 1968, I believe. I’ve heard stories of what my father was like during that time in his life from an older cousin, but that’s family, so it’s biased. I wonder if others thought my father was nice, funny, mean, professional, and I’m sure there may be things I really don’t want to know.
  • Since I’m talking about family, I might as well confess to something and admit a lie. Well, maybe it’s not a lie, it’s just I didn’t really know the truth until now – I’m not half-Asian. I’ve scratched the genealogy itch here and there and took an Ancestry.com DNA test. I’ve been sitting on this for about a month, and truth be told . . . I’m only 40% Asian. I’m not really the half-Asian I claimed to be. I’ve misled you, and for that, I’m sorry.
  • Bob and Dan of The TICKET did a Reddit Ask Me Anything and answered questions live on air. Two of my questions were answered, one of them actually started the segment. Even though Bob answered my second question I think Dan forgot since Bob got longwinded with his answer.
  • Ellie Kemper is one of them – A Photographer’s Old College Classmates, Back Then (2000) and Now (2017)
  • GIF – This dog’s owner is being interviewed and you can tell the dog is camera-shy.
  • How Abraham Lincoln’s Work Habits Keep Doris Kearns Goodwin On Track – The historian and political commentator shares the productivity secrets of former U.S. presidents—plus a few of her own.
  • The Atlantic – The Ignorance of Mocking Mormonism – It’s precisely the beliefs of Latter-day Saints that critics dismiss as strange which produce the behaviors those same critics often applaud.
  • Why the Nazi Party Loved Decaf Coffee – The Third Reich pushed decaffeinated drinks as official state policy.
  • I read this Dallas Morning News article yesterday-  How Gordon Keith made peace with his grief. If you’ve lost a parent, you’ll really connect with it. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing I put the parts I connected with the most. Funny thing, I would have forgotten today is the anniversary of MomGeeding’s death if it wasn’t for this article. Damn, eleven years sure does fly by.
    • My chief enemy that keeps me from writing has always been me. And when my parents died, the sharp edges of my mind just got worn off and I became dulled. I couldn’t think and therefore I couldn’t write. That’s what depression is when it becomes a herculean effort to do anything.
    • Something you find out about grief is that one of the unintended injuries is you end up having to be the therapist for the other person’s grief. They want to help you, to feel useful to you. In return, you have to make sure you are making the consolers feel that they were helpful. And that depletes you.
    • In all my investigations, including the ones after my parents’ death, it feels like life does just boil down to the Serenity Prayer. It’s comprehensive and up in cross-stitch in everybody’s home. But if you want to know how to live a happy life, read the Serenity Prayer and learn how to be in the moment. Those two things cover it all.
    • But when you are post-parent-death, that earlier part dies too and you are born again.
    • I started letting go of things I used to feeling so attached to. Belongings began to feel like a big sack of rocks that got too heavy if I had to drag it all with me – whether physical objects or emotional ones.
    • You spend the first half of your life trying to build a Big Life and then it’s the Big Life that breaks your shoulders. So I find myself craving a simple life, which is probably not great for a career. But I just want to do something that’s meaningful.
    • But it’s amazing how much energy I will expend to avoid doing what I’m supposed to do. Whether it’s writing 800 words or disposing of a Diet Coke can. If I’d just do it, I’d feel so much better on the other side.
Posted in Personal | 12 Comments

Bag of Randomness for Thursday, November 16, 2017

  • WifeGeeding was listening to Christmas music on the radio yesterday yet she’s the one who rolls her one good eye into the back of her head when Christmas decorations go up so early. I keep Christmas music away from my ears until the day after Thanksgiving.
  • Kids today won’t be able to comprehend we actually needed two keys to a car, one to start it and another to lock it.
  • The only thing I’ll say about President Trump drinking a bottle of water while speaking is he wasn’t drinking water from the U.S.
  • Amazon just revealed the most popular Kindle books of all time
  • A “glitch” on U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s website asked for visitors’ Social Security numbers
    • An error on U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s website temporarily required visitors to submit a Social Security number in order to send a comment to the Texas Republican’s office.
  • I was sorry to hear the LiberallyLean family lost another dog, that’s two in a very short period. Both George and Corby shared separate stories yesterday of having to put down their dogs. We’ve had OtherDogGeeding for twelve years. He’s a rescue and his eyes were damaged from abuse. He could see decently for most of his life but now he’s always running into things or when he begs for food, he’s close to me, just facing the wrong direction which is equally sad and cute. He will notice when you turn on the light and will quickly flinch. I had to take him to the vet this week for a bad ear infection and also discovered his hair loss is due to a thyroid issue, so now I have to give him medicine twice a day for the rest of his life. The pills are only about ten bucks a month, so it’s very manageable. The thought of having him put down briefly crossed my mind, though WifeGeeding has thought it’s been time for at least the last six month. But as long as he’s not suffering, has some energy, seems to still be enjoying life, continues to show signs of his personality, and care doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, I’m not going to give up on him.
  • This post on Salon may stir things up and reminds me of something similar I wrote a little while back.
  • There’s got to be a funny joke about Trump and the Republican’s mascot to go along with this story but I can’t think of one – Trump admin. to reverse ban on elephant trophies from Africa
  • How the Science Channel is rebooting MythBusters with a new team
  • Sports Illustrated – Inside the Locker Rooms of Smaller Schools Paid to Take a Pounding From College Football Powers
  • I caught a little bit of a documentary about the sinking of the RMS Lusitania and decided to research the captain, William Thomas Turner. As you may recall, the Lusitania was a British ocean liner that a German submarine sank in World War I. Captain Turner survived that attack but he and his wife separated and lost touch with each other. She and their children emigrated to Australia and then Canada. Ironically, his son killed when at sea by a German submarine during WWII.
  • Another part of the documentary that stuck with me was the butchers who worked three decks beneath the galleys. As the ship begun to sink, most rushed for the stairs, but several of them thought it would be a good idea to use the meat elevator which delivered meat to the galley. During the ride up, the ship lost power and they were trapped to death. That’s a nightmare, especially for anyone who has a fear of drowning and are also claustrophobic.
Posted in Personal | 3 Comments