This is more accurately what I look like, or at least what I looked like at a Falcons gig last summer. Pretty groovy with the shades and all, what? For some of you this may come as a surprise since your memory of me is based on pre-gray hair, pre-gray beard, pre-pretty darn fat.

If you want, you can go to http://www.thefalcons.us/oldliveaudio.htmand hear some bits of the band. I recommend the ones featuring "Carry On." That's one of my favorite songs that we do.

Man, now that I know how to insert pictures I'm gonna have to find some good ones to use in posts. Stay tuned.

Hallelujah!
Thanks to B. I now know where to go to post a new blog so I can include a picture. This is old hat to all of you, but new to me, so please be patient.

I decided that this is the official picture of Goostermon, even though it is actually a picture of Animal from the Muppets.

While this does not resemble me, I like the picture and he's holding drumsticks, so thats good enough for me.

Thats all for now.

Has anyone else noticed that Blogging is the high-tech version of CB radios? We all have a "handle" and send our thoughts out into space for anyone to "hear" who is on our same frequency. The only difference is that we are not limited to real-time conversation. I guess instant messaging is more like a CB radio. Well also, a difference is that we are not ragged truckers with missing teeth making lewd comments to each other about chicks we pass in cars as we toodle down the highway. Well, okay another difference is that we don't give each other traffic info, or the location of speed traps, or opinions about the merits of the country fried steak at the truck stop in Memphis, IN. I guess another difference is that we are not all on speed just to stay awake, most of us know nothing about spending 18 out of 24 hours everyday alone in a moving vehicle, or the typical travel time between every major city in the country.

Okay, there ain't hardly nothing the same about us and CB radio users. Forget I ever brought it up.

Okay so we go to this event at my wife's school (Mother of Good Counsel = MGC) called Taste of MGC. It is a lot of fun and frollicking (sp?) but can be expensive as you will see. Tickets are $25 per person to begin with. It is held in the gym and all around the walls on two sides are about 12 or 13 restaurant representatives with free samples of their food. So there is pizza, and sirloin steak wraps, and crab bisque (yum!), and turkey pot roast, and Jambalaya, and pork with red cabbage, and donuts and ice cream and, and,and .... Now all this is teeny little portions so you can try just about everything. This is really quite fun, with the possible exceptions of it is so crowded that you can lose a wife in the blink of a crab bisque bite if you are not totally vigilant.

Then, in the middle of the gym is a rectangle of long school-type tables. These are covered with baskets full of goodies in shrink-wrapped plastic. This is a silent auction where you sign your name and put your bid on a piece of paper, and then check back to see if anyone has out-bid you so you can bid again, etc. The short-term version of ebay. Also there are things like a dinner for four, or a night for two at casino Aztar (which also included passes to Blue River canoeing, Marengo Cave, Squire Boone Cave and other stuff). I wanted to win that one but did not - which is a good thing, financially speaking, as you will see.

Now drinks are not included in the $25 ticket price. I actually think that is a strategic error on the part of the event putter-oners. We used to go to these things at St. X (called X-Travaganza, BTW) and the drinks were free ... a very smart move because drunken people cannot WAIT to outbid each other on total nonsense. But I digress.

So we buy tickets and get some wine ... actually my wife gets wine ... I have another diabolical plan. See they do not sell whiskey, and whiskey (with ginger ale) is my drink of choice, except when I like to drink wine which was not that night. So, I brought along my trusty (and sneaky) flask of good old Jack Daniels. Well I can't tell you how juvenile it feels to sneak into an elementary school bathroom to mix up a high ball amid all those urinals that are 12" off the floor. Now THAT is just wrong.

So here we are, alcoholic drinks in hand and all this food and friends and frivolity. Now it is VERY crowded, as I already said. And you have your sample of crab bisque which takes two hands to eat. There is hardly anywhere to set a drink, so the only intelligent thing to do (question on the "intelligent" part, as you will see) is .... drink it! So we do. Then we eat a little, eat a little more - and DANG I'm thirsty. So it's back to the bar for another ginger ale and wine, back to the restroom for the mixing of the high ball amid the urinals, etc.

Now, repeat the last paragraph a few times.

So now, here we are, well-lubed, so to speak, replete with food of every type, and we start looking at the silent auction stuff. Did I mention we were pretty well lubed? Well, in that condition, and since it IS, after all, a fund raiser for the school, and since, after all, people ALWAYS come along and outbid us on stuff, we just start bidding. This is the part where it is really great that I didn't win the Aztar trip .... BTW, I was only outbid by $5.00 ... praise God (the one who may or may not exist depending on the outcome of Bleaches survey).

I suppose that, all things considered, in the end we really got off easy. My lovely actually won a basket that she didn't even remember bidding on with some not-so-attractive jewelry, etc. But that's not all. We actually won THREE baskets, and one was so heavy I had to move the car closer to the gym just to take it home. I was capable of that task, but Susan volunteered to drive home - and I be letting her!

In the end we had a nice big bottle of Woodford Reserve (that me and a guy named Bart had to crack 'cause the flask was long gone), about 10 bottles of wine, a bunch of those little whiskey sample bottles, a purse, some gift certificates, a picture, a scarf, a bunch of italian cooking stuff, and God (same one as before) knows what all else. But it was a LOT of what else.

The total on the night was I think $335. For that kind of money we could have had the best dinner at Ruth Chris, lots of great wine and a night on the town in a damn limo.

Man, these Catholic Schools know how to throw a fund-raiser.

PS Almost half the money was for the big basket put together by parents of Susan's fifth-graders, so we were practically obligated to snag that one. So I don't feel quite so silly. However, we'll be eating brats and beans for a while all the same.

PPS I also forgot to mention that there was a band at the end, they were great, people were in a very happy mood (including us) and we had a fabulous time. And the school really needs (and deserves) the moola, so ..... it's all good.

Well, here's the thing about focusing on things I'm happy about. It really works ... but I ended up so happy that I bought my wife a car! Actually, this is a good thing and needed to happen, but it can kind of sneak up on 'ya. Like we went out Saturday morning in sweats, got coffee at Starbucks and decided to just mosey on down to a little car lot near the house. Low and behold! They had a car we liked .... go figure. But - since we are mature thoughtful people - we did not rush right in and buy it, we went to two different lots and looked there as well. But the bottom line is that by 5:00 that evening we had closed a deal and drove off with a 2005 Camry. It was a very good deal, and I'm happy we did it, but you'd think after all these years of buying and selling things that I'd show just a little more restraint. Exactly the opposite is true. I spend so much time buying things (my job is purchasing), that once I know that the deal is as good as it is likely to get, I see no sense in waiting .... BAM. Sign here, sir. Also, where we live (Hurstbourne Parkway and Taylorsville Rd. in Louisville, for those familiar) there are literally more cars for sale in one small area than I bet anyplace else on earth. It's nuts.

Susan was a wee bit nervous about the whole process, but in the end trusted me and now is very happy with the car. This is her birthday present, and it is a good one, except for all the times I'll now get to say, "No, sorry we can't do that 'cause we have a new car payment." I hope it still seems like a good present then! She was also very patient and good through all the negotiating, which can be difficult for a lot of people.

T.'s blog about things to be happy about made me want to think about things to be happy about in my own life, particularly since I haven't been acting particularly thrilled lately, even though I am mostly pretty darn happy.

However, I had to go to a doctor today for a shoulder problem I'm having, and it is not the easiest thing to write about things to be happy about under those particular circumstances. But I decided to try, especially since my poor wife is worried that I'm not happy.

Here goes:
The doctor visit was good and made me happy because:
I didn’t have to wait hardly at all.
He was very nice.
He confirmed everything that Dr. Neeley (a chiropractor) said, firming up my already confident confidence in him.
I don’t have to have surgery on my shoulder – at least not now. (I have “significant” arthritis in the joint and two bone spurs that push into the rotator cuff – that’s what causes the pain.)
He gave me two cortisone shots into the joint, and I’m hopeful that they will help.
I was afraid the shots would hurt a lot but they didn’t.
He gave me an Rx for a new anti-inflammatory drug that might help.
He told me to start taking vitamin B6 - maybe that will help, too.
He gave me explicit instructions regarding exercise – what to do and what not to do.
It is clear that the exercise I was doing aggravated the problem – a lot.
Now, I know how to proceed.

More and even gooder reasons to be happy:
Just talked to BB – he is planning on going back to work at least part-time on Monday.
He is signing up for more school today – classes begin Monday.
So, he is really feeling much better.

Also way good reasons:
I love my lovely wife.
She loves me back.
It’s Friday.

All-in-all .... MUCH better than it could be.

As the new year starts I've got loads of feelings (mostly good, but not all), wishes, fears, and even some confusion going on. The Christmas season came and went like a speeding train, and it actually went far, far better than it might have. I gained back some pounds between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I'm still down a lot from my high in 2005. It remains to be seen if I can get back on my program and continue the weight loss. Still ~ 50 lbs. to go! Man, that is A LOT of treadmill time.

I decided to stop playing drums at church .... maybe for a while, maybe for good. I haven't felt real connected playing there. I've played in church before and it was a powerful way to pray and worship, but anymore, at this church, I just feel like I'm doing a lame job and not really helping the music all that much. The music is great, I'm just not great for the music.

On the other hand, I'm still in two bands (The Epics and The Falcons), and will continue with both. Playing is such an important part of how I see myself, and a source of pride and satisfaction. It doesn't really make sense financially 'cause I spend about as much as I make, and when you figure in rehearsals, etc. it doesn't pay much. But it is still important and I'm lucky I get to do it with such talented people. Music is a very good thing. It is also a way to make a tangible contribution to the world ... it is great to see people dancing and having a good time, away from troubles and work.

More to say, but out of time.