Across Valdez Bay

Across Valdez Bay
Originally uploaded by Germburner

A picture standing at the Valdez Civic Center, looking across the bay at the snow covered mountain.

The Big Trip

In the morning, I get to take a big trip. I get to leave the house around 350AM, and will fly from Amarillo, to Denver, to Seattle, to anchorage to Valdez. It will be a good trip, although I am not looking forward to spending a hole day and then some traveling.

Today was church day, so I went. It was an okay service. I got to thinking that I do not remember anywhere in the bible where it says, "worship must consist of 3 Hymns, 1 offering/offertory, a 20 minute sermon, and prayer time.". Don't take me wrong, it is not that I am opposed to this, however, I do not know what Impact it has on the congregation. We call it the worship service, aside from the hymns, there is not much crowd participation.

...and the winner is...

...and the winner is...
Originally uploaded by Germburner

A picture of Cap's Soccer team. They called themselves the Tigers, and everyone had fun. It was a good season... I am sure we will play again in the fall.

3 Ring Circus

Today, I felt like I was in the middle of a 3 ring circus. It is now ~1000 PM, and I am finally winding down. A fact that would not be bad, except I walked out the front door for work @530 AM. Don't get me wrong, the day went by fast, and it was good, just long.

So now it is me and mazie, patio, Dr. Pepper (my best syb for a "Tasty Beverage"), chips, hot sauce, and my iPod.I suppose that I have reached the age of reflection. For instance, I remember the days when phones had cords. Microsoft was virtually unknown, and the Apple IIC was the bomb.

Today, I am sitting on my porch with my cell phone, that I can use for E-mail, the internet, text messaging, alarm clock, and actually make a phone call with. On the table is a iPod, which has 5 movies, probably 20 Audiobooks, and ~1,500 songs on it. Do you know how much space that would take up with CDs, or Cassette tapes, or even the "Vinyl" record. I cannot remember the last time I placed a call on the home phone.

Mazie the Wonderdog

Last night Mazie the wonderdog decided to wake me up at 3 am. She had to take care of business outside, and I don't mean barking at the moon. The last several times I have let her out, I have had to bribe her to come back in. For some reason, she thinks the perfect time to run up and down the fence and back at something is between 1200 am and 600 am. Which does not impress the neighbors. So I found myself, in a tee shirt and boxes standing in my back yard with the dog on a leash. (It is the best way to get her in the house). It was quite the adventure.

The Waiting Place

"You can get so confused that you'll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,headed I fear, toward a most useless place. The waiting place... ...for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or the rain to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the show to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting" - Oh the Places You'll Go by Dr.Seuss. I am certain that our church is in the waiting place. Not sure what to do, not sure where to go. A group of people that are very continent, and oblivious to the situation.

Pandemic?

I feel like the world is standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, waiting and watching to see what the swine flu will do. Will it be an epidemic, like the 1917 flu, or like the regular flu, of 2009. It is hard to say, I do think that Egypt might have over reacted by killing 300,000 pigs. The amount of information, and the speed which it is spread is amazing. This single item will aid more in preventing a world wide epidemic, that the paper masks you see on the Tele.

By now, everyone should know the WHO is not who, but the World Health Organization.

I was talking to a fellow at work, and he said that he had spent$ 20,000 on his daughter's wedding. I was shocked, to say the least, you could by a Harely for that much money. (Not that I am looking for a harley, I am just saying that is a lot of money for a wedding. I guess that if you have enough money it would not a so alarming. I am thinking that I would have to be a millionare before I dropped that kind of money on a wedding.

To many people spent more time worrying about the blessed day, instead of the blessed life afterwards.

On a side note, it rained today.

Spring has Sprung

I think that spring has sprung here in the ole texas panhandle. I have spent the majority of the day outside, in fact, I am on the back porch right now. I trimmed back the rose bushes, which is always fun. Like of like crawling through a "Biohazard" container at the hospital.

Cap had a soccer game this morning, he played almost the hole game until a knee injury took him out. No permanent damage, he is good as new right now.

Working on learning to play the guitar, I have a book from the 60's, that is not to helpful. I recently learned that like skinning a cat, there is more than one way to play most chords.

The Kick

The Kick
Originally uploaded by Germburner

Cap kicking the ball inbounds at his first soccer game.

Soccer Game and Random Thoughts

Today was Cap's first soccer game, and I hoped that I would have some pictures to upload. Unfortunately, the pictures are still on the 2GM SD card that goes in the camera. Evidently, I have managed to fill up my hard drive. It is an 80 GB (small for today's standards) but 8 years ago, it was the bomb. (I think that word probably went out of style 8 years ago as well.) Of the 80 GB, 50 GB is devoted solely to either Pictures, or Music, Audio books, and videos on iTunes. It is a shame that I did not make the jump to apply eight years ago, as there software is supposed to be better for most of the things that I like to do on the computer. iTunes, Photos, and writing. Not that I am writing a book or anything, although, this may become a book sometime of the other.

Which leads me into a random thought, do you think that people really analyze what they are putting on the Internet these days. I mean, that picture of you doing the keg stand that is on facebook, is that the best thing. Those sorts of pictures seem to resurface. I will be honest, if we had all of this neat web based interaction when I was in college, you guess it, there would be a picture of me drinking out of the "Liter". The Liter was a beer stein that my college roommate made during pottery. It got its name quite frankly because it held a liter of liquid. Aside from the water that was used to check the volume, the only other beverage it had was beer. The thing to do, was drink the liter in 3 minutes, and then take the dreaded triple shot of Goldschläger. Yikes. (Perhaps I should edit this out in a few years, or hide my blog from the kids.) It certainly was not the brightest idea that some of us had, but compared to others in the dorm we were saints.

Back to the soccer game, Cap team did okay, they hustled up and down the field. (A phase that I have used since the game ended, which secretly means, "they got spanked.") Everyone had fun, and Alana, Ben and Zoe stayed an extra day and came to the game. I did take something like 373 pictures at the game, and I am certain that some of them will be great pictures.

I ordered an additional hard drive for my computer, it has an extra spot, so that is the direction I decided to do. Compared to developing 373 a 500 GB hard drive is a drop in the hat.

Canceled

Canceled
Originally uploaded by Germburner

Picture of the flight status board at the Amarillo Internation Airport. I still find it interesting that it is called an Internation Airport. It is as if, Devner, Las Vegas, or even Houston is a foregin country.

The Big Trip

With. Passports ready, and bathing suits packed the entire Patman clan headed to two airports this morning. The rendezvous point: Nasasu (the Bahamas). Mission: Patman Family Fun Weekend! Well one blizzard and a blowout an airplane wheel, caused mayhem. A late winter/early spring blizzard shutdown the Amarillo Airport. Meanwhile, the plan with the Nebraska folks had a blow out while taking off. They could not get rescheduled, so the mission was aborted. We had a good time at Natty's, and are getting ready to go to sleep at the ole Holiday Inn Express.

Three Amigos

Three Amigos
Originally uploaded by Germburner

The Three Amigos, hiding under the tree.

The Patman Family

The Patman Family
Originally uploaded by Germburner

Cousins

Cousins
Originally uploaded by Germburner

1966

I have a 1966 Ford Mustang sitting in the driveway. It is in decent shape, needs some body work, new paint, and new weather stripping. I just can't decide how or really where to start the project. Current the instrument panel illumination lights are out, the front speaker on the radio, and something is out of balance. That is not to mention needing new seats, and a head liner. Perhaps, I should just go buy the replacement bulbs at the "wmart" after story time.

The Passing

http://www.amarillo.com/stories/031609/obi_obits12.shtml

Bartender Song

It snowed a little today, and I have to say, that I miss the 70 degree March days now that it has turned cold again. I was pretty happy it was Friday, had an all day meeting at work, which was okay. We had a little working session, and put some music on, and I heard a song by Rehab, Bartender Song (aka Sitting at the Bar), and that pretty much describes how I was feeling towards the end of the day. It was a long week, I actually got home before 6:00 PM tonight, and was pretty pumped about that fact. The bed is sounding pretty good, and the Psychedelic Furs, Love My Way, is just not doing it for me.

Soccer

Cap and Crash are both going to play soccer this year, and they are on the same team. We had the first meeting tonight and it went pretty good. I am not the coach, I don't know that I would be very good or really have the time.

It was a cool almost cold day outside, but fortunately there was no wind, which is unusual.

Panoply

A few weeks ago at church we sang a song with the word, "panoply" in it. I had to get out the dictionary to look up the definition. The word was in one of the hymns that was sung by everyone. I just find it interesting, the songs that are selected in the year 2009. That would be 9 years after "2000 - Space Odyssey.

The Bishops Message

Today, being Sunday, I went to Church. Although sitting here thinking about the phrase, "I went to Church," does not accurately describe what happened, or what should happen during worship. I can honestly say that today, I did more than go to church. I participated in the worship service, I worshiped God in his house today. While I was worshipping God, Brother Johnny, mentioned a recent message from the Bishop of the Northwest Texas/New Mexico Annual Conferences. It was really exciting to read, and he was pretty blunt about what Church's should be focusing on. There is a link below.

The Bishops Message

Music

The other day, we were listening to the music that I have store on Itunes. I had started it on shuffle, so there is really not telling what it would play. It was the most peculiar song order, we went from some Christmas song, probably O Come Emmanuel, to The Beasty Boys, Sabotage. At this point I would like to point out that Amy was not to please with the change in music genres, and I myself found it to be like going from 0 mph to 60 mph in 1.1 seconds. It was an abrupt shift. I like music, I like a lot of different music, and there is some of this music that Amy does not like in the least. What is more troubling for Amy, is that I can have two radios going at the same time, in the same room, playing different music. Or, that I can listen to the radio scanner, while listening to the radio.