All I need now is a gun rack…

I guess I am going native, I picked up a trailer so that I can transport my rototiller and firewood. LOL

Carry-On 4 ft x 6 ft Trailer, 2000 lb GVWR – | Tractor Supply Company

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Goodbye to a classmate, part II

Another.

one month later and I have to say goodbye to yet another friend. I told myself that I wouldn’t let what happened with Vicki happen again, yet it did. I was a little closer to fulfilling my promise to myself Bill Straman found me through Facebook and was able to catch up with him a little bit. We talked about getting a beer together, and even though he lost one of his legs to diabetes he said “Don’t get out for months at a time but I’ll make an exception for you “. I told him that I would bring some homebrew over instead once I had a batch ready. A few weeks later it was, and I contacted him about getting together. “I’ll have to pass, feeling weak and under the weather. Thanks, was the last I heard from him.

Bill was a really great guy in my book, he loved tossing baseball and academically he was an inspiration me. He got me to take Anatomy in my Senior year and though it was one of the hardest classes I took in high school I can still remember that the human body has 206 bones and can name at least one muscle on every main region of the body.

It may sound cruel to say this, but it seems appropriate since Bill was the person that turned me onto Queen – “and another one’s gone, another one’s gone, another one…” Well, you know.

Bye Bill, sorry you didn’t get to taste that homebrew, it’s really good.

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Good bye to a classmate

I was at my daughter’s middle school play Beauty and the Beast last Friday and I was reminded of the time that I was in the Senior play my last year in high school. I was reminded because at the end of the B&B I was wondering if the two kids were going to kiss. It would seem appropriate if they did, since Belle and the Beast did fall in love to break the spell. The reason I was reminded of it was because at the end of M*A*S*H Hawkeye fully plants a major smooch on Maj. “Hotlips” Houlihan. I played Hawkeye and Vicki Mullikin played Hotlips.

Spring 1983
Ok, so here I am thinking to myself, I should try out for this Sr. play because I heard the parties were good (e.g. someone inevitably sneaks beer into the party). I tried out, and to my complete surprise the director Mr. Bill (?) called me and one other guy, Grover Tipton, back to re-audition. I thought “crap, did I suck that bad that I needed to re-read just to even get a walk-on part?” I found out that the Mr. Bill couldn’t decide between us who got the lead! Oh man. Well as luck would have it I looked more like Alan Alda (tall & skinny – I only weight 145lbs.!) so I got it. Maybe some iota of talent or gumption helped, who knows.

Vicki was perfect for her role too, she was loud, boisterous, popular and very pretty. She did a great job in the role. I don’t remember if it was in the script or if it was something that the director added in to finish off the end of the play with something provocative, but at the end I was supposed to kiss Hotlips. Sorry, not kiss, that sounds like a peck on the cheek. I was supposed to plant one on her, grab her, bend her over backwards and lay one on her. I freaked. I mean here I am, some skinny geek who was not really that popular, or athletic, or well much of anything outside my small circle of friends. I was even worried that Vicki would even tell Mr. Bill “no way, not gonna do it.” Well, she didn’t, and I got to kiss her four times. The whole play was an incredible experience, not just the kissing part, and Vicki and I actually became friends for a little while afterwards.

Now.
She’s gone. Saturday morning I got an email from Debbie Kohl-Kremer, another classmate that I connected with over the past couple years, asking if I had seen Vicki’s obit in the paper. I couldn’t believe it, I was just thinking about her the night before. She passed away peacefully the night before that. She was in a freak accident at Lake Cumberland in 2003 where a 40′ tree fell on her. Her husband Bernie swam 2+ miles in frigid March water to get help. Help came in time to save her, but it left her parapalegic. I guess she had complications. She was only 44.

I went to her visitation, and met her husband and son. they are doing as well as anyone can, I suppose. I told him that our family has a boat on Cumberland and that their story of the accident was legend down there. I also told him that the heroic courage he displayed that day six years ago is the kind of courage that will also help them get through this. I am sure it will.

I guess that this will start to become more common, losing friends, classmates, eventually family. That’s part of life as we all know.

Like Debbie said to me – “I’m going to use it as a reminder to work less and play more.”

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Math CAPTCHA

I was looking for a good CAPTCHA schema that would work in Classic ASP, this is it. Ian and I modified it to use AJAX and jQuery so it runs a little smoother. With the original author’s permission I think that we will redistribute it (or let him). Anyway if you are interested check it out.

http://image-genesis.com/captcha/

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Family Photos

I have been working on archiving my “baby albums” recently. I posted them on Facebook because I love the tagging feature they have, but I also wanted to post here too since I can put up larger versions.

Old Family Photos c.1965, c.1966, 1967, c.1968, c.1969 – 1984 (still to come), c.1985, c.1987 c.1988, c.1989.

More to come as time allows (summer is here so I am spending more time outside than in front of the computer on Saturdays!)

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