BORED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So.....

I typically try to stay away from this stuff but it was a slow few minutes at DUMC and i went along with it ....

A new thing is going around where you go to Wikipedia Random and the first article you get is the name of your band. Then "Random Quotations" and the last four or five words of the last quote on the page is the album title.Then you go to Flickr and on the Explore Last Seven Days the third picture is your album cover.

Here is mine

Band Name -Organization in Europe

Album-As The Naked Truth

Album Cover-Three Lemons Picture

OSCAR!!

So.....
I used to be a big fan of award shows....Used to watch them all the time. The Grammy, The Emmys, The Oscars, The Tonys(yes that one too)....but then a few years back I just sorta stopped.
I think it was around the time that Saving Private Ryan lost best picture to Shakespeare in Love....but in the same year Steven Speilberg won best director for Saving Private Ryan??!?!? HUH?
Anyway....award shows do nothing for me. Dont get me wrong...There are some aspects that are enjoyable to watch. Like the part where they give an award to someone who has done alot for folks over the years.......Using your influence and name recognition to help others. This year they gave an honorary Oscar to Jerry Lewis for all his work with the MDA. That was a good thing....
Also, the late Heath Ledger won for his role in last years Batman movie....That was nice to see. He was a great talent.
But at the end of the day I typically dont decide to see a movie based on the fact that someone in that movie won an Oscar or the movie itself won.
Dont get me wrong I will still watch parts here and there ....As i said some parts are enjoyable .

But....Let the work stand for itself....Thats what Brando and George C Scott did ....they refused Oscars because they said they did the work....made the movie and it was over...
Move on.

Alone ....

"We need others. We need others to love and we need to be loved by them. There is no doubt that without it, we too, like the infant left alone, would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness and even death"

Leo Buscaqlia

So......

I am tired of being alone....

I have a wonderful family. I have the best friends(you know who you are ) but I am ready to come home to someone....So,I am ready .

I am ready to have someone in my life that is here....In Montgomery or whatever city we find ourselves in...

I am ready to go to a party with someone .....

I am ready to not just a date here and there but to have someone in my life that is a little more constant, LOST anyone ?

I am ready to be invited to a party or wedding or function and have the people who invited me know that I am not coming alone.....

I am tired of being a third wheel.....

I want someone in my life on a more constant basis that can get to know my wonderful friends and family.

A few of you know how I feel about these things and you also know what a struggle it has been for me in my life....I dont go into things very lightly. Especially regarding things like this ...but as I said ...I think its time.

I worry about alot of things ...I worry about who is going to take care of things for me one day when I no longer have the ability to do it for myself.

I worry about money....I worry about job futures....I worry. But you hardly would know it....

I also worry about being alone ....

Church Bells Are Ringing .....

So....
I posted the other day about my visit recent visit to Tuskegee and how incredibly sad it was to see the town now .....
Well last weekend I had a dream that involved a part of Tuskegee and wanted to post here about it to get folks opinions about the dream...

I was in my old home church in Tuskegee...First Presbyterian Church. It was packed with folks...the aisles were full of folks chatting and catching up ...the doors were open wide with people streaming in....

A little about my old church ....it was built in 1887ish ....is a classic looking white clapboard church with tall soaring stained glass windows and a tall steeple in the front.....brick front poarch area with tall white columns. Inside the front door is a set of steep stairs to your right that lead up to a small balcony that over looks the sanctuary. Off to the sides of the balcony are two small rooms that were never used when I grew up...there is a small center room, with glass front doors where you can go in and pull the cord that was attached to the bell.

Ok ....so I am there and notice folks from my current church are also there doing things here and there and someone tells me that my dad is upstairs in the room with bell rope.
I turn and head towards the stairs and get there and someone says I cant go up ....I say ok .
I again go back and try again ...again told no.
I keep trying different ways to get up there and no one will allow me up to see him ....I go out into the sanctuary and look up and can see a shadow of someone in the room .....
I go back to the stairs and then for some reason I am at the top of the stairs but not allowed onto the balcony.....I hear the choir singing and then I wake up ...

So what does it all mean ?

A Ghost Story

The above picture is from WAY above Tuskegee....really the best picture to show you ...

So.....

Last Sunday I had to travel to Tuskegee for a funeral. It seems the only reasons I ever really get back to my hometown are for funerals.

We got there a little early for the graveside service and we decided to take a few and ride around town ...What I found was distrubing.

Tuskegee is full of ghosts ....not the traditional ghosts of old Hollywood. The ones in old white sheets floating around ...Tuskegee is full of old memories of days and things long past.

We rode down north main street and headed around the town square...Still being protected by the young faced statue of the civil war solider. Facing north and ready to defend.

Turning onto south main street we rode slowly by the building that once held our old family business....Windows now boarded up and the building stripped of anything to denote that a family ran a good, decent business for nearly 60 years in this place ...

Grass growing high in the adjacent parking lot ....a parking lot where I fought many a battle against invading "bad guys". We never again have the imagination in our lives that we had when we were kids ....

Continuing south we saw what was left of the old high school gym ....it burned a few years back and has never been rebuilt. My parents attended dances here, they had ball games there , they enjoyed life there .....and its gone...dark and runied.

Empty lots here and there along south main street that once held beautiful old homes..Gone mainly from fire over the years or abandonment ..... families like the MacGregors,Allys,Segrest, Ensleys,Ramons and Filinggim ....family names that continue in other cities....but how many of those family members know where their roots used to run deep.

Turning onto Wallace drive and coming up the slight hill that seemed SOOO steep as a kid I see my Nana'd old house ....yard run down,vines growning up the side of the house,broken windows. It was 10 years ago that we were last in that house...So sad.

Going down Lake street headed towards the old city pool my mother started telling me stories about summers at the pool.

She said during the summer everyone would go there and take swim lessons or just hang out and over the Labor Day weekend there would be a Pool Dance. Teams of folks would showcase the stuff they had learned during the summer...folks would take to the high dive and attempt to look gracefull as they fell into the deep end of the pool. As they got older my mother said the teens would stay in the balcony on those warm nights and flirt with boys...letting the boys buy them Cokes and frozen Zero candy bars.

I have always hated the idea of seeing a ghost....being scared...Last Sunday I saw real ghosts and I was not scared ....I was sad.

Is It Live Or Is It Memorex??

So....

Its Friday and I decided to take a few moments and give my thoughts on the weeks events ....

On Tuesday of course history was made with Barack Obama becoming our 44th president....No news there right ??

I mean, I was sitting there watching the tv and I mentioned to Nick that I was kinda emotional....Silly ? Perhaps but all I could think about in that moment was how I had the chance to see this happen..and so many others did not ...why me and not Dr King ? Why me and not Viola Liuzzo? Why me and not Swerner,Cheney and Goodman? They were not there because they died for something they believed in ....they gave it all to help their fellow man or woman. They drove cars, they registered voters ,they marched, they boycotted buses so that one day a person of ANY color could vote without being harrassed. So that a person of ANY color could one day serve on the city council. So that one day a person of ANY color or background could just possibly be elected to the office of president of the United States of America.

I was emotional because I missed my Dad terribly on Tuesday. My dad loved politics and the whole process. He loved following the news cycles. I listen to NPR because my dad listened and said it was good stuff. He would have been so excited about last Tuesday....he loved the pomp and ceremony of events like inaugurations. He would have been thrilled last Tuesday.

I was emotional because my Nana was not here to witness history last Tuesday. A women who first taught me was it was to be a democrat. A women who said that discrimination in ANY FORM was and is wrong. A women who stood beside her husband at their house as a cross was burned in their yard in Tuskegee... all because they said that not allowing blacks into school with whites was wrong.

The last time I saw her last May she told me then she really liked "that Obama ".... She would have loved last Tuesday.

On a lighter note I heard on NPR Friday afternoon that the beautiful music played by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Izhak Perlman, pianist Gabriella Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill, right before the presidential oath was actually not live.

YEAH ...THATS RIGHT ...NOT LIVE......

Yo Yo Ma said during an interview Friday afternoon that on Sunday they recorded a version of the piece just in case something happened and then went on Monday morning to rehearse at the Capitol. They soon realized that it would be MUCH MUCH too cold on Tuesday for them to perform anything that sounded worth a dang. He said that while playing the piano Gabriella Montero noticed that the keys were sticking down and the violin and cello were already sounding bad within a few minutes of being outside.

So what do you do???

They put soap on the bows ,the clarinetist pretended to play and the piano was rigged so that the keys could be played but no sound came out.

Who knew ??

On a much much lighter note ....LOST returned this week and as usual it was a VERY interesting show. I will not even begin to wade into the deep end of the WHAT IF pool but if I had to make one prediction I will say this ......Whatever is going on on the Island might be VERY VERY SIMPLE and easily explained. How bout that for a kick in the teeth. .....When its all said and done at the end of Season 6 we will all realize that the whole thing was made up in some austistic kids head as he looks into a snow globe or Jack Shepard will wake up in a bed with Suzanne Pleshette and Bob Newhart.

Go figure huh ??

180.....What Are You Doing This weekend?

So.....

I complain about my job .....I get frustrated with it from time to time ....I get down when I spend most of a day sitting with a man who has fairly advanced dementia trying to remember how long he has been married or in the house he lives in or what day it is.....I get upset when parents cause me headaches and kids cause even bigger headaches.

Then I sit back and remember that I have wonderful job that allows me to be home with my nephews when they are sick, to be off on a Tuesday to see Barack Obama sworn in, to take off early some days, to go in late some days, to have every Friday off, to travel all over ...

And speaking of travelling ....I will be headed here this weekend....

Lake Junaluska at sunrise .....

The youth group is headed to Western North Carolina for our first ski trip in 4 years and everyone is super excited about the trip. Should be a fun COLD weekend.....

Have a great weekend !!

Cold Feet......

So .....

My feet get cold at work sometimes....No big news there really...Nothing to really report but they do get cold but I cannot stand to run the heat in part of the building where I am located just to warm my sad little toes....

So I found a space heater just like the one pictured above in another office and "borrowed " it for a few days.....

I just wanted to share .....and speaking of sharing

I would also like Mr Lucas to share his English Breakfast menu with me ....I have heard mention of it being cooked twice and was just wondering ....

and speaking of all things english.....we are on quite the hot tea kick around DUMC....alot of mornings instead of coffee we have been having hot tea made right in my office with a tabletop kettle.....The tea makes for a nice change

Anyway... thats about it ....was a little bored here at work and decided to share .....

BARRACUDA.......

So....

Mr Lucas gave us a run down of things in his life and I thought I would do the same....

2009 has started pretty good as far as alot of the things I mentioned a few weeks back are concerned.

No smoking for me since Jan 1 around 4am.....I woke up and smoked two cigarettes and crushed the rest of the pack.

I started this week cooking each night. So far this has been really good and has also helped me with my goal to not be on the run so much. By the time the meal is done and ready for consumption, I am pretty much home for the night.

I have eaten out ONCE this week with a friend.....Usually by Friday I would have had upwards of three meals out with folks during the daytime and maybe one or two at night. That's crazy I know and I am trying to do my part of cutting back. Just gotta stick with it...

I am currently reading a great bio of Franklin D. Roosevelt. There is alot of new insights into the man and his family. Next up is a bio about Andrew Jackson and then one about Ben Franklin. Ahhhhhh...fun stuff.

I read a great article the other day about a guy who has written a book about how the size of things in the US has changed over the last 40-45 years.

He bought a house built in 1939 and went to place his dishes in the cabinets and found that the doors would not shut....his plates were a little too big for the shelves. He started researching and found that plates in the US started to get bigger in the 1970s....so cabinets got bigger! While not all cabinets were smaller he found that many were ...so he did some more digging and found that

• Fast food drink cups-Small is now Kids cup,what used to be medium is now small, what used to be large is now medium and two other catagories are usually used for the larger drinks. When McDonalds was just starting in California in the 1950s they had ONE size drink and it was about 12ozs.


• Most restaurant portion sizes are enough for three people. He did research from Chilis, Applebees, Macaroni Grill , Red Lobster etc.


• The largest beverage container at 7-11 will hold 64 ozs of soda. Many folks will have two of these in one day. WOW that's alot

He suggests that people at home use salad plates to eat off of ......ordering a to go container as soon as your food arrives at the table in a restaurant and placeing at least half in it to take home. Ordering water as soon as you sit down and start drinking it ....by the time your food comes you will be full and won't eat as much in one sitting.

Anyway these are some good ideas I think ......its all in our heads alot of the time and reminds me of the scene in JAWS where the mayor of Amity is talking to Chief Brody about trying not to cause a panic...

Mayor-" Martin its all psychological, you yell barracuda, folks go HUH?! WHAT?!, but you yell shark and you got a panic on your hands...it's psychological"

The same can be said for alot of our problems with eating ....it's all in our heads...we see a bigger plate so we want to PILE IT HIGH...we see a bigger cup and we say I WANT THAT ONE....Its about changing our habits and I am trying to do that ...

Anyway ...headed to Bham tomorrow for the day. Yall have a great weekend !!

My College Can Beat Up Your College......

So.....

The other night the topic of "cheaper" schools came up ....Cheaper, second rate, two year colleges, etc ....you get what I am saying.

The main discussion being had was that folks who go to these schools are not smart enough to go to another school. Perhaps they just took what they could. Maybe they did not have the money to go to a big school. Whatever the reason it was decided by some at the table that folks who attended "second rate" schools were failures.

My response to this is..... WTF??

First of all, for any of us to sit around and decide that someone is a failure because of where he or she went to school is CRAP. For us to decided that your school is not as good as my school is also CRAP. People should be applauded for going to school...for trying to better themselves. For looking past whatever has possibly held them back and to make the choice to move to a different place in their lives.

Someone at the table was really joking on Jones School of Law at Faulkner U in Montgomery. I have a couple of friends who went to Jones. My lawyer went to Jones and has done quite well for himself and his family. My mothers boss went to Jones and he is now a federal judge for the US Middle District of Alabama.

The main thing is this ....What does it really matter to you or me or that guy or this women where anyone goes to school?

Also, what if you dont go to school and decide that working with a city collecting trash is what you are going to do ....or maybe you become a fireman or a police officer. Maybe you join the military and go fight the wars and battles that MANY of us would just as soon forget about.

But perhaps, just maybe by my going to a two year school before I did anything else makes me less of a person....but something tells me it was ok. I am not the only one who did it and wont be the last.

What goes down....Must go back up.....

So.....
I got my passport today in the mail. It would appear that the log jam of applications has been taken care of at the State Department. It took them ONE WEEK to the day ....
So whats next? I think I am going to plan a big trip....It will be overseas.....It will be later in the spring, after Easter for sure. More details will be forthcoming but for now I am very excited about my prospects in the next few weeks.

I understand things...Or like to think I do. But for all that is holy I dont understand gas prices. I mean I get supply and demand. Thats the first thing you learn in economics.....but we have had a few months of gas prices going down....slowly but surely they have fallen. I paid $1.38 for a gallon of gas the other day in Auburn. $1.38!!!!!!!!!!! Then today at many stations around town I see gas literally jumped 10 cents over night. In some places around town this fall and winter it took a couple of days for the price to DROP 10 cents ...maybe a week and then over night the price goes up ...QUICK!?!?!? How does that work ? How do the gas companies and oil companies determine how to raise and lower prices?? Why do prices go up quicker and not down just as quick? I understand that supplies worldwide are down...I understand that the trouble in Israel and other places in the mid east affect the price....I get it. But I dont understand how prices JUMP up and then crawl back down .....I am stupid I guess but please someone explain it to me

I want to see ALOT of movies .....too many to mention really but I dont think I will have the time or the money to see them all. I will wait like I usually do and get them on Netflix.

Anyway ...thats all I got tonight

What Are You Doing New Years......

So.....

It's a few days before the official beginning of 2009 but I thought I might be kinda busy the next few days so I am posting some end of the year stuff now.

I love watching TV. No big suprise there ....so here is a listing of what I thought was the best stuff on TV this past year.

• LOST. This show just gets to me in so many ways, some good and some bad. But when LOST is bringing its A game there might be nothing better on TV. My favorite episode of the whole year was "The Constant ". Watching Desmond going back and forth in time with Penny made me cry...


• MAD MEN on AMC is another show that is so amazing to watch. Watching the lead Character of Don Draper played by Jon Hamm, come apart was breathtaking. Watching the character of Peggy Olsen, played by Elisabeth Moss, become a real character with real depth was wonderful.


• CHUCK on NBC is a smart, witty show that always entertains. Chuck easily plays the part of good guy trying to make it.


• The great comeday of 30ROCK. Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin are so natural together. If you are trying to decide between 30ROCK and The OFFICE...take 30ROCK any day of the week. And lets not forget all the guest shots on the show this year....my favorite was the cast of NIGHT COURT showing up ....priceless.


• JOHN ADAMS on HBO. History never looks so real as when HBO takes a stab at things. David Morse who plays Gen George Washington was fantastic.


• TRUE BLOOD on HBO. You want to watch a good show about vampires living among us ??? Skip TWILIGHT and watch this gem on HBO.


• The OLYMPICS on NBC. Specifically the swimming parts....I am an admitted Winter Olympics fan but I even got caught up in PHELPS mania this year. I was on the edge of my seat when he was going for a couple of those gold medals.


• The magic maps on CNN. John King enjoyed playing with those a tad bit too much but it sure was fun to watch at times.


• The Presidential Election coverage. Perhaps this type of election only comes once in a lifetime...I dont know but I am so glad I was a part of watching the great folks on CNN and NBC as they sat back after Obama was announced the winner. They let the visuals speak for themselves. Good reporters know when to shut up.

I did not see enough movies this year to really give a good reporting on anything. THE DARK KNIGHT was good though.

On a personal note 2008 was an up and down year in many regards. I deepened my friendships and made some new ones. I also lost some friends along the way ...That saddens me on a level that is hard to describe. I wish those folks the best in their lives and hope that one day we can have a beer or cup of coffee and laugh about the whole thing.

My Nana died in August of this year and it has really affected me more than I orginally thought ....This was my dads mother. Nana was really hard to describe if you did not know her but she was the first person I looked to and realized that "hey, shes a democrat and I like what she has to say about things". She cut my hair till I was 14 years old. She made the best chocolate cake, hands down. She put orange flavoring in her sweet potato casserole. She was stubborn. She was funny. If she liked you , she liked you. If she did not ...then you pretty much knew it. She endured alot. She never gave a wrapped gift. She smoked menthol cigarettes but never inhaled. She loved politics. She was on the city council in Tuskegee for 8 years. She would drink a beer or a glass of wine. She loved her family. She loved new houseshoes and Vicks Vaporub. She hated company to stay too long...it made her nervous. She put granny smith apples in her tuna fish salad....I gotta stop cause it makes me cry but goddamn I miss her.

I had the extreme pleasure of becoming a Godfather this year. My heart and thanks go to N and L for honoring me with this ....I cant wait to watch Harper and Lily grow over the years.

If you did not hear about it ....I went to Alaska this year and it was AMAZING.

So ....What does next year bring for me ?

I intend on stopping smoking, again. I quit for 8 months this year and then started back....its gross and stupid and I will be stopping for the new year.

I intend to finally get serious about my health and weight. No more excuses. I feel like crap and look it also....2009 will be a year of serious changes for me.

I intend to set reasonable sleep routines this year. Its been about 15 years since I had a good sleep pattern and I am sick of it. I vow by March to be going to bed by 11 each night. Goodbye late nights....it was nice knowin ya !

I intend to get back right with my monthly budget. I got off track at the end of the summer and have felt it the last few weeks. Budgets are good things and I intend to make a better effort at it starting in January. Brown bagging, less beer and Jack Daniels, staying home more....it all adds up. Think of the travelling I could do at the end of the year with the money saved by being a little more conservative with what I have...

And speaking of staying home more....I intend to do just that, stay home more. I am getting more and more to the age of wanting to slow down and take it easy. I stay in the road. I am not becoming a prude or anything but I vow to slow down in 2009.

I intend to spend more time with my Brother this year.....We dont do enough together.

I am going to England and Scotland sometime this year. I got my passport ordered. In the planning stages right now but its looking like sometime in the spring.

I want to take a few here and mention a couple of yall by name...To Nick and Laura, WOW, there are no words to really express my love to you both. Yall are my heart and soul and I would be lost without yall....and to Nick thanks for being my brother and friend. To Jason, our travels, our stories, our fun together only gets better. Cant wait to see England with you buddy. To Luke,Jackie, John and Laura, our friendship only continues to grow and I love every minute of it...LOST is just around the corner....I love yall.

So that's it for me really .... I hope 2009 is a wonderful blessing to not only me but to all my friends and family. My best wishes to each of you for the NEW YEAR!!

Gee the Traffic is Terrific.....

So.....
A few things on my mind ....
On Saturday we celebrated our family Christmas with my WHOLE family. Aunts, uncles, cousins, yada yada yada ...This event was held at my Grannys house here in Montgomery and in a word it was ....stressfull.
Our family has grown to the point that when we do all manage to get together nothing seems to go right. One family is VERY late, one aunt is upset because the kids dont seem to want to eat, I am stressed because people around me are stressed. Christmas with my extended family is not fun....I hate to say it but its true. Gifts are given because people feel like they need to or have to give gifts...not because they want to give gifts. We decided this year to forgo drawing names and to just focus on my Grandmother. It was decided that the kids would get something but for the most part they get PLENTY at each of their own homes on Christmas and so we would cut back on that also....Yeah well it did not work out quite that way.
We tear through eating....we tear through gifts and then folks leave. Its maybe a few hours and thats it ...we are done....gotta move on to the next thing. I remember when I was younger we would literally spend the whole day at my grandparents on Christmas. I miss those days ....

I am also tired....I dont have a monopoly on being tired. Most of my few readers out there are tired also...we work, we play , some of us raise families.
I want to take it easy for the next few days .....I want to just sit and enjoy the tree, I want to read some.... I want to listen to my Christmas music. I want to go to Christmas Eve service and enjoy that...
I seem to go all the time....I am never at home at night during the week. I blame no one but myself because if any of you know me well enough then you know I sometimes have a hard time with saying no to things.

Anyway ...

So This Is Christmas .....

So ....

I decided it was about time I posted something new......Last year about this time I posted about things of Christmas that were special to me. It was good enough for then so I think its good enough for now also...

A few of my favorite things ..

• Watching my nephews in their Christmas play at school.




• Picking out my tree.




• Holiday movies. Watching with friends, drinking coffee, laughing, sharing.




• Going shopping. Yeah, I know many folks complain but for me its part of the season to get out there and be among all those people.




• The houses decorated with lights. From big displays to small, I always find enjoyment in riding around and looking.




• Making fudge. The peanut butter kind ...very tasty.




• Egg Nog.




• Reading A Christmas Carol.




• Going caroling with the youths from church.




• Finding new versions of old christmas songs to enjoy.




• Seeing the stockings I helped my Granny make when I was a little boy. They still hang on her fireplace mantle each year.

"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew: "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

Fred Scrooge's Nephew from A Christmas Carol

And thats my tree up above ...The red ornament used to hang on my Nanas tree and the Santa CLaus is my favorite ornament.

Merry Christmas !

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.- MARK TWAIN

So.....

Mary Tyler sent up this assignment
Here's how it works:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline (or make a different color) the books you LOVE - mine are in Orange! 4) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them ;-)The premise of this exercise is that the National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below:

I would like to add that The Adventures Of Huck Finn was not on this list ....BAD SLIGHT there against Mr Twain.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible(parts)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare(parts)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis(parts of the series)
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (didn't finish it though)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

A Change.....

So....
Coach Tuberville left today from AU. In a statement released to the press he said it had been a good run and he truly loved Auburn University and the city of Auburn.
So what does this all mean .....

• It means that you can have decent seasons and then miss the ring one year and you are out.
• It means that you can have your program clean and clear in the eyes of the NCAA but none of that really matters cause, well you lost 7 games this year.
• It means that folks will return next season to root for a team. No matter what ....
• It means that once again we find ourselves looking at the clock ...stroke of midnight and boom we are a pumpkin again....
• It means that the professors at Auburn will still be grossly underpaid, cutbacks will occur and programs will be lost. BUT due to football revenue new venues will be built, streets will be widened to accommodate more fans for Tiger Walk, concrete will be poured but you and I cant afford the $60-70 dollar ticket next year.

I am disgusted by the whole football thing actually ....the drama and suspense off the field. Not just at Auburn but at Notre Dame and Washington. The list goes on....

We live in a world where people are losing jobs, tensions are high all across the globe, the world AIDS crisis is entering its 4th decade and we are upset about Auburn football.

Dont get me wrong ...I listened to the radio Wednesday afternoon just like many of you ....I got upset at it all ....I was pissed off

Then I had a chance to speak with a women at church whos companion of 9 years is laying in a hospital bed dying ....He most likely wont live to see Christmas. It hit me that I was being nuts worrying about the coaching job at Auburn. It hit me that if Auburn never wins another game it wont matter to this guy in the hospital...it wont matter to me either. Some of us live and breath Auburn football...and thats fine. I dont want anyone to take what I am saying as passing judgement in any way...It's just, ..I dont know .

I have literally been an Auburn fan since I was born...Both parents were AU fans and me and my brother really had no choice in the matter. I remember the days of tailgating in front of Drake Infirmary right behind the north endzone scoreboard. Before they took all that space away and provided more parking for "donors".

I will be the first to admit that my fervor for Auburn Football has not been the same since my Dad died....but tonight was the first time that it dawned on me that football just does not matter to me anymore . Will I never watch another game ....of course not . I will watch games but I will never again watch with the interest and zeal of this past year. That chapter in my life ended today.

I am going to try to direct my passion to other things now ....being a better son and brother, being a better friend, being more passionate to causes that really matter, trying to repair friendships and relationships....as the Auburn Creed says ..I believe in the human touch, which cultivates sympathy with my fellow men and mutual helpfulness and brings happiness for all. If I put just half the the energy I put into watching Auburn play into these other things ....things will be better.

Just my thought.

Good luck to the new coach ....you're gonna need it!

A National Day of Thanksgiving.....

So.....

The First Thanksgiving Proclamation
In the middle of the Civil War, prompted by a series of editorials written by Sarah Josepha Hale, the last of which appeared in the September 1863 issue of Godey's Lady's Book, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated on the final Thursday in November 1863
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully
acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
A. Linclon

It was not until years later that the date became an official recognized federal holiday. In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that Thanksgiving would be the next to last Thursday of November rather than the last. With the country still in the midst of The Great Depression, Roosevelt thought this would give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas. At the time, it was considered inappropriate to advertise goods for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. However, Roosevelt's declaration was not mandatory; twenty-three states went along with this recommendation, and 22 did not. Other states, like Texas, could not decide and took both weeks as government holidays. Roosevelt persisted in 1940 to celebrate his "Franksgiving," as it was termed.
In 1941 Congress passed a law making the holiday the last Thursday in November and President Roosevelt signed it into law that same year.

Here are a few of my favorites Thanksgiving Quotes

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving. ~H.U. Westermayer

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sam Seaborn: Well over three and half centuries ago, strengthened by faith and bound by a common desire for liberty, a small band of pilgrims sought out a place in the new world where they could worship according to their own beliefs - and solve crimes.
Toby Ziegler: Sam...
Sam Seaborn: It'd be good.
Toby Ziegler: Read the thing.
Sam Seaborn: By day they churn butter and worship according to their own beliefs, and by night they solve crimes.
Toby Ziegler: Read the thing.
Sam Seaborn: Pilgrim detectives.
Toby Ziegler: Do you see me laughing?
Sam Seaborn: I think you're laughing on the inside.
Toby Ziegler: Ok.
Sam Seaborn: With the big hats!


CJ : I need you to pardon a turkey.
Bartlet : I already pardoned a turkey... aren't I gonna get a reputation for being soft on turkeys? ...
CJ : They sent me two turkeys. The most photo-friendly of the two gets a Presidential pardon and a full life at a children's zoo. The runner-up gets eaten.
Bartlet : If the Oscars were like that, I'd watch. ...
Bartlet : CJ, I have really no judicial jurisdiction over birds.
CJ : Yes, I know that, and you know that, but Morton Horn doesn't know that.
Bartlet : He's in high school and he doesn't know I can't pardon his turkey? CJ, if we don't and I mean completely overhaul public education in this country...
Bartlet : Morton, I can't pardon a turkey. If you think I can pardon a turkey, then you have got to go back to your school and insist that you be better prepared to go out in the world.
Donna : You can't pardon a turkey?
Bartlet : No. I tell you what I can do. I'm drafting this turkey into military service.

Anyway folks ....I have much to be thankful for today and all the other 364 days of the year. I hope yall have a wonderful day.
Love to all

Pop some corn and dim the lights ......

So.....

I was tagged by Mary Tyler to let everyone know the top ten movies that I have to watch if they are on TV. You know the kind...you are flipping around and they happen to be on or someone suggests a movie and you always tend to mention of of these classics...

1. Gone With The Wind.


2. The Godfather


3. The Godfather II


4. Silence of the Lambs


5. The Breakfast Club


6. Love Actually


7. Junebug


8. Its A Wonderful Life


9. Almost Famous


10. Mr Smith Goes to Washington

So there ya go ....

Leaving on a Jet Plane.....

So....

This is old news by now but come on folks how CRAZY NUTS was it that the CEO's of the Big Three auto makers flew on private jets to Washington DC to ask for money. Money they need to help shore up the failing industry.

They could not have taken ONE jet?? Maybe the CEO of Ford calls the CEO of GM and the conversation goes like this .....

FORD GUY

" Hey man, you going to DC to ask for an insane amount of money too"

GM GUY

"Heck yeah brother, they are handing out money left and right, I want in on this"

FORD GUY

"I hear ya...Listen do you think we should all three take our private jets to DC or maybe jetpool it and all fly together on JUST ONE JET?"

GM GUY

"Well, I dont know man, the thought of flying first class on Delta gives me the willies"

FORD GUY

"True dat my friend...Three jets it is ...see you in DC. Wear a nice tie you know they are gonna have us on TV...and hit me up later and lets short sheet that prick from Chrysler"

Get a clue guys and realize that in order to compete with Asia you have to change your ways of doing business. Realize that this problem did not start a few weeks ago ...its been simmering on the back burner for YEARS!!

3 private jets ....WOW !

The Wagon Queen Family Truckster .....

So....

Tonight I was over visiting the Mielke's after church and we got to talking about all the cars/trucks we have owned or had the pleasure of driving since we became 16 years old.

My first car was my mothers old car and it was a 1980 or 82 Buick LeSabre. That's a lighter version above. It was a dark milky brown color with dark brown interior and a huge bench seat in the front. IT WAS A BEAST and it almost got me all the way through high school. The engine blew my senior year and after that my dad bought this....

A 1978 Chrysler New Yorker. In a word it was WET. For some reason something leaked ALL THE TIME and the front carpets were always wet. Not damp but wet...squishy,soppy,smelly wet. In the summer if you ran the air conditioner(which did not really work) and then got out and left the car in the heat...the moisture would build up inside and condensation would form on everything. From outside you would think two teenagers were going at in the backseat with the way the windows fogged up. On a side note I did feel alot like a Chicago gangster!

So I graduated and someone at Lou Gultz Motors decided it was a good idea to give me a loan and I purchased this ....

A 1994 Ford Taurus. It was a good decent car that ran really good but man did I put the miles on that sucker and at about 110,000 something went screwy with the transmission.

You would be sitting at a red light and when the light changed to green and you hit the gas the car would just REV up real high and there was a clicking noise....after about 10-15 second the gear would shift and the whole car would lurch forward....Violently!

In 2004 I bought a used 2001 Monterro Sport and have been driving it ever since ...It is a good car. Foreign made cars are just better. Its got almost 100,000 miles on it and i have had no troubles out of it ....

So there ya have it ...my car history....so its your turn ..

Tell us what you drove