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Yet Another First World Problem
I love playing games on my tablet. It's a weakness, and potentially an addiction. I've played some games for a year or more. I remember one game where I legit reached Level 100 - it was a growth and development game where you boosted folks in your "clan" and they boosted you, and you got more and more powerful. Then it crossed the line to where ( Read more... ) -
Duties of a Sgt. Major... of a sort
In the HBO miniseries Generation Kill (based on the book of that name written by Evan wright, a reporter who was embedded with the 1st Marine Reconnaissance Battalion as they invaded Iraq and drove on Baghdad in 2003), we are acquainted with the battalion's Sgt. Major, John Sixta. Sixta later did some outright horrible and heinous things (for ( Read more... ) -
A Reflection on Angels for Christmas Night
As I write this, The Kat and I are settled in for a long winter's night (that hardly counts as one - it's 5 degrees out there, and foggy as all get-out!) for Out Of the Cold. We have two guests this evening, and we are hopeful that they are so full of turkey and other good food, thanks to a local business that catered supper for them, that they ( Read more... ) -
A "Last Post" Post
A lady died yesterday morning. That's not unusual. 1.93 people die every second of every day in this far-flung world of ours - some die by violence, in wars, killed horribly by those who consider them an "enemy"; and others just die because their bodies have had enough and it's time for them to rest.
Captain BB was in that latter category. ( Read more... ) -
Some Days You Just Need To Cry
Today is going to be a hard day.
Today, some of my colleagues will learn that I have failed to grow this congregation. I've even failed to maintain this congregation. I'm going to lose this congregation.
In some ways, it was lost long before I got here. It was lost when the younger generations walked away and didn't take their parents' ( Read more... ) -
Nightmare Summer, Autumn Edition
Just over a year ago, I had my first full-blown anxiety attack.
We were in Baltimore, at the hotel where we were waiting overnight before boarding the ship for our Caribbean cruise. In the middle of the night, I woke up feeling like I was smothering, and I couldn't settle, couldn't get back to sleep at all. I woke The Kat, and she took me ( Read more... ) -
I Like To Move It, Move It! (Should I hear a grinding sound when I do that...?)
A few weeks ago, as I said in a FB post, I started at the Academy of Martial Arts in Brampton. It's a school that does a variation on Goju-Ryu style karate, where Goju does not mean "fifty" but, rather, "hard/soft". It's a significant departure from the styles that I've been training in for the past number of years.
We started with Can-po when ( Read more... ) -
"Two nights (and) we look like idiots..."
This was what was said by John Spencer in his amazing role as White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry in the penultimate episode of The West Wing's sixth season, "Things Fall Apart". The DNC to appoint a nominee for the 2006 presidential election (as per the show's universe) was deadlocked among four candidates, with none receiving the required ( Read more... ) -
A Slightly Out-Of-Sync Rant
I wrote this on a friend's wall recently, but I need to reproduce it here (in a slightly edited/expanded form) because I'm looking for input of a sort.
I struggle with calling myself an "ally" in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights and recognition, partly because I don't accept every position that seems to be coming out of the various movements (and I ( Read more... ) -
A Patient's Patience
So, yesterday, I spent a couple hours in the care of our local hospital.
Yes, only a couple of hours, because I came in with pain in my chest - not "chest pain", per se, but "pain in my chest". When I woke up in the morning, there was an ache in my chest, above and to the left (as I consider it) of my left nipple. Not heart... at least, it ( Read more... )