Can you believe it? 09.13.14

 

                Today is Saturday but this story begins on Thursday.

                It was a typical Thursday with one exception, the weather people were forecasting rain. We definitely need the rain and they were saying that we had a 70% chance.

                Do you know what 70% chance _{(or any % chance)} of rain means? That prediction means that 70% of the area should receive rain.

                The weather people were also saying the temp would drop dramatically when a cold front arrived. Wow, rain and a cold front at the same time, how could it get any better than that.

                Friday came and the weather people had changed their tune, now the rain was going to be south of us but we were still going to get the cold front on Saturday.

                Friday was a good day to work outside, the temperature stayed in the low 80s and it was cloudy most of the day. I clean the weeds out of a flower bed and removed some cactus that was beginning to hang outside the flower bed, making it difficult to mow and weed eat.

                Removing parts of this cactus plant, requires special attention, if you do not want to be impaled. I used a set of long handled pruning shears _{(36 inch handles)} to cut the cactus parts off the main plant. I used my pickup and reach tool _{(36 inches long)} to handle the cactus safely. When not working with cactus I use the pickup tool _{(aka old person don’t want to bend over and pick stuff up tool)} to pick up sticks from the ground prior to mowing.

                That statement made me think of something I had not thought about in a long time, “Pickup Sticks”. I assume in today’s technical world, that a game like pick up sticks would just be boring.

                If memory serves me, and it still does, the pickup sticks were kept in a can like container about ten inches tall. There were about 30 or so plastic sticks, each slightly thicker than a tooth pick, they were about 9 to 10 inches long and various colors. 

                I am fairly sure this game would be considered as a dangerous game in today’s overly cautious world. Now that I think of it, kids today would not know how to safely play this game, heck they aren’t allowed to play dodge ball using soft round rubber balls, because someone might be hit with the ball.

                Even worse than that, everyone can’t be a winner in dodge ball. Your government _{(owners of your schools)} doesn’t want children to be ranked as winners or losers.

                Darn, you have gotten me completely off the subject with your old time games, let’s try to stay focused for the rest of the story.   

               

                After successfully removing the cactus without being impaled, I decided to tackle another outdoor project on this cloudy Friday. Cloudy is important, as I am to either have a long sleeved shirt on or wear sun block when out in the sun. Also when you don’t have a lot of hair on top of your head, you can easily get a sun burn up there.   

                I have been wanting to rework the black berry vines making them more accessible from both sides. This accessibility would make it less hazardous when attempting to pick one of the huge berries for personal consumption.

                This project was filled with risks. I would need to remove a trellis and then two plastic fence sections from within the man-eating plants. I was able to remove those items and I was attacked only once during the extrication process. I can show you the blood on my shirt.

                Next I needed to install two T post to which I would attach clothes line wire that would support the large vine _{(some of you may not know what clothes line wire is, in the olden days people would wash their clothes and then hang them out to dry on wires that were stretched between to post)}.

These T post are 7 foot tall and I was required to stand on top a four foot ladder to drive them into the ground. _{(Not a smart thing for a senior to do)}

                Now came the difficult part, I had to go to the, “ACE store” to get the clothes line wire. Why ACE, it is one mile from the house and the DIB store is 6 miles away.

                The clothes line wire is coated in a green plastic. I attached the wire to the posts with four levels of the wire and then realized, I was not going to be able to get the thorn laden, black berry limbs through the wires.

                I then removed the entire fifty feet of wire and started over. This time I was weaving the wire through the bush, attempting to support the various limbs as I installed each of the four levels of wire.

                The weight of the black berry bush and the fact that each wire once installed, was pulling the post toward each other, cause me to install a length of plastic conduit between the two posts. This was done in an attempt to keep the posts from leaning toward each other. I will later replace the plastic conduit with a thin walled metal conduit.

                What seemed like an hour project took me 4 hours. Partly because I was being cautious _{(thorns galore)} and partly because I had not taken time to plan the project prior to starting.

               

                As you can see, I will need to rework the border. Instead of a 4 X 4, possibly two feet wide and 6 or 8 feet long, in line with the posts. 

                Let’s see now, we have covered Thursday and Friday what about Saturday.       

                Today is Saturday and the weather people got the cold front right. The outside temp is in the low 60s. A dramatic drop from 95 down to 62, which is a shock to one’s system. I will need to find a long sleeved shirt when I venture outside.    

 

I hope your projects are without thorns.

 

Don Ford

_{For those persons who enjoy pointing out my grammar errors, I do know that one should use either the number (1, 2, 3, etc.) or the word for the number (one, two, three etc.) and not switch between both. Thank you for reading the stories, and then for noticing.}  

               

This week's letter is B 09.11.14

 

                This week’s letter for Alex’s class is, “B”. Yes he is learning his alphabet a letter each week. They have show and tell in which they are to bring something that begins with, “B”.  Alex found a bug, which begins with “B”, and I suggested he take it for show and tell.

 I do not know what he took for show and tell, his mother may have had a better “B” object.

                Staying with the theme of “B week”, I have created another most perfect wood working project.  I had purchased a board (17” X 48”) during a sale to employees at my past employer. I believe I gave a dollar for the board which I immediately saw as a top for a bench.

                The board sat around the garage for a couple months and finally I decided to do something with it. The board is not too large so I decided on a small work bench with a couple shelves. Putting pencil to paper I made a plan and then, “skillfully executed the plan”.

                I purchased 6 boards of various sizes, marked them for the sawyer. You guessed it, I am the sawyer. (Boards and screws increased the cost of this most excellent work bench.)

All boards cut to proper dimensions, I began the assembly process which went without problem and very quickly.

                Since this is a small work bench and not a piece of furniture, there was no finish work needed on this project, which speeded up the construction.

                It doesn’t look like much, but it is solid and should serve for years to come.

                For those of you who are beginning to learn your alphabet, there were several “B words” used in the above story, did you see them, _{(board, believe, bench, bottom, began, but, bug, bring, begins, better)} did I miss any?

 

May your day be filled with bright, beautiful, blooming, bougainvillea.

 

Don Ford

                _{I hope you did not go back and search through the story for that missing, “B word”. If you did you have more time on your hands than I do. Maybe you should volunteer your time somewhere, then you would not be looking for the “B word” in a blog posting. Although these blog postings are some of the most informative on the internet, you should have more to do than look for the “B word”.}

 

 

Try not, Do, or Do not 09.10.14

 

                Yoda said _{(and I am paraphrasing now)} “Try not, do, or do not”.

                                                                                              

            While talking with a friend that I use to work with, he noted that he was going to quit smoking. I said, “Outstanding, I am happy for you”. He commented, “You use to use chewing tobacco, how did you stop?”

            I said, “I will be happy to tell you”.

            I had used chewing tobacco for years, I was as addicted as anyone could be to the nicotine. My employer had a no smoking or chewing inside the building policy.

I realized it would be easy for me to have a chew in my mouth while driving to work and forget to get rid of it before entering the building. Even though I was the first person to arrive at work each morning, and no one would know if I entered the building with a chew in my mouth, I would know, and I did not want to break the rules.

During this time I was also serving as interim manager at another location, which caused me to travel almost every other week.

To complicate things even more, my youngest son was getting married.        

Tobacco / nicotine for us addicts, is a real stress remover. I use the term addict because at some point I realized, that what I considered as enjoying a chew, was in truth a craving for the chew, caused by my addiction. 

I explained to my friend, that at one point I had stopped using tobacco for about 3 years, and due to a very stressful situation over a period of time I began to use it again. 

I also told my friend, I believed that I would need to stop using tobacco if I wanted to keep my job, and I did want to keep my job. Acknowledging I was addicted should have been enough of a reason to cause me to quit, but it wasn’t. Now that I think back on this, not wanting to be addicted was part of the reason for quitting.

I now had a reason to quit. 

 

When will I quit? I was traveling to the other location every other week, and with my son’s wedding coming up things were going to be hectic if not stressful. Coincidently my last trip to the other location was the week before the wedding. I decided to quit at midnight the day after the wedding.

I now had a date and time to quit.

 

How would I quit, was the next question. I considered the patch and nicotine gum but decided against them. Those products are great for some people, but it seemed like a crutch to me. For me, reducing the nicotine intake was not quitting. I decided to quit cold turkey.

            I now knew how I would quit.

 

            I knew from past experiences that this was not going to be easy. I began telling family and friends that I was going to quit in an effort to, more or less warn them, that I would be in a bad mood, even worse than my usual bad mood.

            I would later learn, that telling others that I was quitting was one of the best things I could do. I actually had their support.

            The day came to quit and I took half a case of tobacco out to the trash can. I had been purchasing the tobacco wholesale by the case. I was somewhat surprised that I felt good about putting the tobacco in the trash.

I now had a desire to quit.

 

            As I noted earlier, telling others I was quitting was a good thing. During the first couple weeks I received long distance calls from friends asking how I was doing. Those around me would ask daily how I was doing and said they were proud of me.  I wanted to quit, and I did not want to let my friends down.

 

            To my friend I said;

Don’t try to quit, do quit or do not quit. In my opinion if you are using the word “TRY”, when talking about quitting tobacco, you are setting yourself up to failed.

Set a date and time to quit. Set a date of no more than two weeks away, (two weeks allows you time to improve your mind set and to tell others). Dates that are too far out can easily be forgotten. 

Have a reason for quitting. This reason must be, “your” reason. If you don’t have the desire to quit then don’t try.  

Tell everyone that you are going to quit and the date. Tell family, friends, co-workers, neighbors.

Decide how you will quit. Use the method best for you.

 

            To my friend who quit, I am happy for you. 

 

Don Ford

 

Trash talking 09.08.14

 

                Trash talking; insulting or boastful speech intended to demoralize, intimidate, or humiliate someone, especially an opponent in an athletic contest. 

                Trash talking, is it a sport? 

                It seems as if trash talking can be considered fun for some, if not a sport. Why do people feel the need to indulge in trash talking, does it make the inferior feel superior?

                If you watch TVs “The Big Bang Theory” you will have seen Sheldon’s attempts at trash talking. Obviously, Sheldon’s attempts at trash talking is less that successful, but it allows those of us who do not participate in the exercise, to somewhat understand what it is.

                If you will allow me to change the subject just for a moment, I would like to show you a couple photos that I took this morning prior to taking Gabi to school.

 The owner of this web does not give up, this web has been in the same location and being improved daily. I would say he or she is a true artist. The spider moved away from the center of the web when I approached to get the photo. The shadow in the back ground is a tree, and the early morning sun was providing the lighting for the web.

 Gabi, just noticed that I had her in my sights. She has her kitty shirt on and is ready for the daily rigors of second grade school life. Yes there is pecan leaves just above and to the right of her head.

                Back to the trash talking. There are many things that people can indulge in without getting involved in trash talking. Everyone knows that I try to refrain from this activity, preferring to talk about only good and positive things, always building others up.

                What started me thinking about trash talking, you ask. Well it was my wife who caused me to start thinking about the subject. I know, you would not think of my present wife as being involved in this, but she does. 

                Frankly, I find it irritating and sometimes offensive, especially when I am not involved in a conversation with her. She starts talking, and all I can do is listen.

Yes I have told her what I think about it, but my comments do not seem to change her position.

Just this morning as I was preparing to go for my morning walk, my spouse of 45 years started with, “the trash talking”. Her comments were demoralizing to me, it was intended to intimidate me, and yes I was humiliated. All I could do was listen.

You be the judge and decide if what she said was trash talk.  Here is what she said, “Today is trash day, don’t forget to put the trash out”.

 What could I do? If I ignore her I will not get supper. I had no recourse but to put the trash out, even though I find it offensive.

Have a blessed day!

Don Ford

 

You are not allowed to run over them 09.07.14

 

                I have commented on this in the past but obviously, it still has a tendency to irritate me. I speak of those inhabitants who walk in front of a vehicle in parking lots and on street corners but never look to see if there is a vehicle approaching or not.

As I understand it, the pedestrian has the right of way when they are in a walkway and the driver of the vehicle must be watchful for these inhabitants. Should this, “rule of right of way” apply in all situations?

Take for example, a recent situation where I was turning left off a busy five lane road onto a two lane street. I was in the turn lane with my turn signal on waiting for traffic to clear. Everyone knows that I am a safe driver most of the time all of the time.

There happen to be a sidewalk along this five lane road and there were two female subjects walking north bound approaching the street that I was attempting to turn onto.

I often notice the female of the species, especially when they are young, pretty, well-formed or dressed scantly, which these two had none of those attributes.

They appeared to be dressed in some type of garb which hinted that they were attempting to exercise, or wanted to be seen as exercising. Understanding the working of some inhabitants, so called brains, I was careful not to make the turn even though the traffic had cleared. My assumption was correct, both of the female subjects stepped from the sidewalk onto the street, _{(yes they were in the cross walk)} without turning their heads to see if there was any traffic coming their way. Possibly if their mouths had been shut, one or both may have thought of their own safety and looked for the possibility of an approaching vehicle.

I often wonder if these inhabitants are the parents of the pre-teens and teenagers who walk in the streets, usually in small groups, with complete disdain for all vehicular traffic.

 

Propose new ordinance in the State of Texas, House Bill 403-J-17.

Cameras will be installed at all cross walks and any person who does not look both ways before proceeding onto the crosswalk or walkway will be fined $417.00 first incident. This fine will be imposed whether there was vehicles in the area or not. _{(The funds raised from these crosswalk fines will be used to pay for the crosswalk cameras)}

If an inhabitant of any age, preparing to walk in a crosswalk or walkway, does not look both ways before stepping from the curb, it will be legal to run into them, but not run over them, with your vehicle.

If an inhabitant of any age, is walking on a street or parking area and is not in a designated cross walk or other walkway, it is legal to run into and over them.

Any damage that occurs to one’s vehicle while running into or over an inhabitant, will be reimbursed by the inhabitant that was ran into or over.

 

May you always look both ways?

 

Don Ford

 

_{From the fertile mind of Don Ford; the above was written with the hope that you would think of it as funny.} 

 

Signs in sky 09.06.14

 

                I do believe in signs from above, always have and always will.

                I doubt if people in today’s world, could live without signs. Think about it, how would that fool in the car in front of you know how slow to drive, without a speed limit sign.  How could you find a public toilet without a “rest room” sign?

By the way that sign, “rest room” is somewhat misleading. Think about it, have you ever been able to rest, in a public toilet?

As I stated earlier, believe in signs from above, but I do not always know what they mean.

As an example I presented a posting, “X marks the spot 02.15.14” _{(you might want to go back and re-read it to bring yourself up to speed)} about the fact that there was an “X” in the sky, directly over my head.

Now I wasn’t sure what the “X”, directly over my head meant, but I believe it meant that yours truly is, “A Treasure”. If X marks the spot on the treasure map, and the X was in the sky over my head, it is plane to see that “I am a Treasure!”

I knew you would not go back and look up the old posting so I brought the photo proof to you. That X was directly over my head, which makes me a Treasure, how could you see it any other way?

                OK, so the other day I was sitting on my rocking chair contemplating all the many complexities of today’s world when something caused me to look up to heaven. What did I see this time? No not another X but the clouds had formed a head of a bird. Another sign to me, but what does it mean?

                I naturally grabbed a camera and took a photo of the “Sign”. To me it is the head of a hawk. Why would a head of a hawk be revealed to me? What does it mean? 

                The next day during my morning constitutional, I had stopped down the street to talk with Larry. As we were talking a hawk flew over and I quickly pointed it out to Larry. Possibly two minutes later as we were solving the world’s problems, the hawk flew overhead again this time with a bird in his talons.

                What does it all mean?

 

I hope your signs are easy to understand.

 

Don Ford

 

 

The last place I looked... 09.04.14

 

                I had been looking for some booklets, that I had put in a safe place, with instructions as to how to program my hand held radios _{(aka walkie talkie)}. I am sure that this never happens to you, but I can put an item somewhere for safe keeping _{(so I can find it later)}, then I forget where I put it. 

                There is some good that comes from me looking through all my old files and storage places, and that is, I threw away some old unwanted junk. Don’t get me wrong, there is still plenty of stuff to be tossed out.

                I had looked for these booklets for three days and had just about given up ever finding them. I opened the right hand top desk drawer. This drawer contains miscellaneous items (junk drawer) where I keep a pack of gum for Alex. There is a file folder that has been in this drawer for at least a year if not longer. I thought it had some old receipts in it so I decided to go through the receipts and toss out the oldest.  

                You guessed it, when I opened the folder there were the booklets I had been looking for. Yes, there was a couple receipts in the folder that were quickly discarded.

 

                The last place I looked! 

                Have you ever thought about that statement?  When you are looking for something it is always in the last place you looked.

                Why is it always in the last place you looked? Because, “you stop looking when you find the item”.                 When you stop looking, it has to be in, “the last place you looked”.

                                                                                                                                                  

   It is a terrible burden that I carry, having to explain these things to you.

 

For that one person who said, “That aint right”, I will further explain.

If it isn’t in the last place you looked, one of two things has taken place.

<   1)   You were not focused on your search and over looked the item the first time you looked in the place where you later found it.

<   2)  You are a little crazy.

 

There is a good chance that both of the above apply if it wasn’t in the last place you looked.

 

I hope it is in the first place you look.

 

Don Ford

The Killing Fields of Texas 09.01.14

 

                Today is September 1^st, and we all know what that means. It is time to clean your guns, purchase ammunition, get your camo covered stool, and get your camouflaged clothing out.

                You will need a place to hide to do this killing, preferably along a fence row that borders a grain field that has been harvested. Another favorite place to kill is close to a pond or standing body of water. Your victim needing to drink, does not like to drink from running water such as a creek.

                Normally you will team up with others to do this killing. I am not sure why this killer will not go it alone, are they afraid? Possibly, but more likely they have the need to have others see the killing shot.

 

                This morning I went outside and started my mooring stroll. Although it was light enough to see it was not yet sun rise. I began to walk slowly down the street and as I was meditating on the meaning of life and other important topics, I was suddenly aware that it was officially sunrise.

                How did I know it was sunrise, you ask? The gun fire started.

                It is about one mile as the, “Dove flies” to the city limit. It is amazing the amount of shooting one hears on opening morning of Dove season. What was surprising to me was that occasionally there would be a shot that sounded as if it were only a couple blocks away.  I hope there are not idiots shooting doves in the city limits.

                The entire time I was walking I could hear the shot guns going off.

Imagine if you will, a 200 pound man with a 12 gage shot gun, camo on and hiding in the brush along a fence row, waiting to ambush the unsuspecting 4 ounce dove. 

 

Yes I use to participate in this annual killing, but no longer. Arriving home after you kill the doves, you basically take your thumbs and rip out the dove’s breast. My first wife would take about 8 dove breasts and put them in a pan of dressing and bake them. Properly cooked, dove is good.

 

I hope your holiday is better than the dove’s.      

 

Don Ford