Too much on my mind. I’m still tired from vacation. My mother-in-law is a little under the weather. The wife is sick. My favorite daughter had to go to the doctor because she’s sick. I’m just tired and glad I’m not sick. I also have a personal issue to deal with this week that’s hanging over my head.

Plus I have a bundle of writing that I’d love to get done but just haven’t had those free minutes here or there to take care of them. It’s frustrating. I want to write, but just am unable.

Not want, NEED! I have things waiting for me to get them done. I need to do some recording. All that fun stuff. Once this week is over I should start having free time once again until the end of the month when I take another vacation up North this time to Oregon. I need to try and crank out as many words as possible between now and then. This week just isn’t cooperating. I’ll see if I can do some words tomorrow but I’m not holding my breath.

Stress and lack of time. That’s what’s happening to me this week. I’d love to tell you more about it, but like I said, there just isn’t time. I don’t even have time to download pictures of ducks. Dang!

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Am I having trouble getting back into my writing because of writer’s block? Pfft, please. I’m stressing out because I just plain don’t have time right now to write. As I mentioned I’m busy taking care of a personal issue that will be resolved this week. Once it’s done I’ll be free (hopefully) of personal issues for a while. I’m hopeful, but sputtery truck is having other ideas.

We took Sputtery Truck to Palm Desert and now it’s having an oil pressure issue. It stays level for the most part, but will drop when the truck idles after running for 30-40 minutes. This is new and might be as simple as an oil pump, or it might be Satan trying to take over my vehicle and make me pay for something I did wrong in another life. I’m guessing the first. On the plus side the check engine light has been off for the past couple of tank fills so it’s possible that might have run its course.

So on while on vacation I didn’t do much in the way of posting. Well, I posted, but I didn’t really post much due to being so freaking tired and crazily busy. We did so much while on vacation. We had a total of 7 rooms (6 studios and a two bedroom). The studios ran from Saturday to Saturday. The Two bedroom ran from Sunday to Sunday. So we drove out Saturday morning and came back the following Sunday. A total of 8 days in Palm Desert. The coolest day was around 101, the warmest around 107. We really had a great time spending it with the wife’s family. The kids loved playing in the pool and going and seeing the sights. Each day we’d spend at least a little time in the pool (we visited all three at the resort) and we tried to get out and do something every day.

We went up the tram to 8516 feet and looked back down on Palm Springs and Palm Desert. This is where I had my little tumble. Yes, I fell on my ass. I fell HARD! I saw stars. I blacked out for a moment. I tried to get up because I didn’t want the little ones to see I’d fallen and gotten hurt. I fell back down. I had trouble getting up. My nephew, the one pushing the table I was pulling, tried to help me up and that was not easy. I’d lost feeling in my leg for a minute and couldn’t put any weight on it. Then I got that severe pain nausea and putting my head between my legs didn’t really help. I still have the pain when I sit wrong or twist wrong. I’m sure it’ll go away. The Millican said the stars and blacking out is due to a concussion. I feel like a sports star now. Except I just fell down. On my butt. Hmm.

Another thing we did several times while on this vacation was play spoons. If you’ve never plays spoons you’re missing out a fun game. You only need three things. A deck of cards, a table full of people, and one less spoon than you have people. You deal out the cards until they’re gone. Everyone should have 5 or 6 cards when you’re done (doesn’t need to be even). The spoons go in the middle of the table (a round table works best, but any table will work). Then someone yells ‘GO’. This is when you get to look at your cards. You need to move quickly. Passing one card to your right, picking up one from your left. The goal is to get four of a kind. Once you have four of a kind you grab a spoon. OR! If you see someone grab a spoon, you grab a spoon. The one person without a spoon is the loser and gets a rousing dose of pointing and laughing at how slow and clumsy they are. Yes, everyone will get laughed at one or more times. There are a couple spoon strategies. One is to keep track of your cards and work for the four of a kind so you get your spoon first. Bragging rights are always fun. Another is to watch the spoons and just keep the cards rotating. Your watchful eye will almost always ensure you get a spoon. Another strategy is to fake getting a spoon in the hopes of getting someone else to grab a spoon and point and laugh at tricking them. Spoon grabbing can be sneaky (to see how long people keep playing until they realize a spoon is gone) or lashing out and yelling something like “PAZAH!” or something equally moronic.

Drinking is encouraged while playing spoons.

We also took a trip out to Palm Canyon. We’d (the wife, my favorite daughter, and I) been to Palm Canyon, the resort, many times but in late July or August. It’s so hot they actually close the canyon to visitors. This time we got to go in. It is great back in there and not too spendy. We took snacks and sandwiches and lots of water and watermelon. We had planned on spending as much time out there. The kids were having a great time in the pool so we figured they’d have fun playing in hot sand. Well.. Ok…we hoped for water.

We got lucky and the guides pointed us to a natural pool up the Andreas Canyon. There was a small stream and a nice little depression. At its deepest it was waist deep and got down to shin high. It was perfect for the kids. The played, chased bugs, swam, ate, chased lizards. I got to see a hawk (or another bird of prey) eating something up on a cliff. It was on the cliff, not me. I also didn’t get in the water because I was still healing from my earlier fall and didn’t want to fall on my keister again. Instead I played with rocks and built up the dam and others joined into the fun.

As a kid I used to build dams anywhere I could so this was a lot of fun, but we couldn’t stay there all day. We’d gotten there earlier enough but when we walked away from the shade of the palms and the coolness of the water we got the full blast of hot air. Wow, I didn’t think it was that much cooler but it was at least twenty to thirty degrees cooler by the water.

The family left on the 7th day and the Millicans arrived the night before. With the two bedroom we had ample room for everyone and it was great fun having them out. We spent some time at the pool, time napping (there were many naps while out at Palm Canyon) and ate much and finally went to play at one of the local casinos. It was the Morongo Casino. No, you didn’t read that wrong. The Casino is called MORON! GO! And we went and lost a bit of money. It was a rather sketchy casino. We saw a person carrying their girlfriend (we assumed) who was holding her nose as if she’d been hit. They were being followed by security. I saw two guys talking up a couple of girls in extremely short skirts and got bored and walked off. Gee, I wonder what their profession was. The guys looked astonished their negotiations failed. We also saw three people in three different places in handcuffs. Yeah, it lived up to its name. It was fun to be out with the Millicans, but next time we’ll find a better casino to attend.

Finally there was time to come home. We cleaned, packed, and hit the road. We had breakfast at Burgers and Beer. Oh hell yeah! If I wasn’t driving I totally would have had another beer for breakfast, but being that we were driving home I had to pass on a beer. I did have enough throughout the week. We took the back way through the mountains and just enjoyed the trip home.

I also read a lot during the week. I finished a number of works that I will review in the coming days. Next week will see the start of a new weekly update where I’ll speak my mind on a given topic. Have a topic for me? Send it along. I’ll also begin with my daily writing prompts as well as my daily duck. That’s right, you’ll see more from me. Got a picture (or more) of ducks, send them on over. Seen the ducks in the news? Send them on over. Got a great story about ducks? Send them on over. This won’t always be about me. It’ll be a lot of fun. If you have a writing prompt send those over as well? If you send me either I’ll be sure to send link them back to you. You don’t have to have a blog or be an author to participate. This is just for fun.

I need to get at some actual writing.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

I’m not just saying that. Last week was vacation. It was relaxing. I did a LOT of things I hadn’t done in Palm Desert before and many things I’d done before. Some time tomorrow I will write it up. For now my brain is much. I’ve got the computer set back up (I had packed it up when we cleaned the house before we left on vacation.) It feels like meeting an old friend.

My daily updates I did on either my cell phone of my tablet. I wasn’t really a fan of either. They worked better for reading as I pounded through two and a half books and a few short stories. Lots of reading happened and it felt great. Been a while since I cracked a book and got through it so quickly. I’ll be writing book reviews for everything I read.

We didn’t see any movies. We did see a lot of sights and it’ll be fun to write about them. Not as much fun as actually being there, but fun to recall them and see what I do recall about the events after they all happened.

This week will be hell week. It’s 4th of July in the states and I have Wednesday off, but Monday night and Tuesday night I have a LOT I need to take care of. It will be up very early for the day job, work my ass off trying to get caught up with everything that happened while I was out, and working off on getting a personal issue resolved before Wednesday or on Wednesday. Fortunately once this issues is over, it’s over. It’s been hanging over my head and it’ll be nice to see if gone.

I also need to record and assemble the next episode of the Action Pack Podcast. Yes, it’s my fault it’ll be late again. But once I have my personal issue resolved, it’ll be full steam ahead until my vacation at the end of July. Yes, another week off. Hopefully I can get a crazy amount ahead of my word count again. That’ll be nice to be as far ahead of the game as I was.

Then I need to meet with my writing partner, Mr. Plested, and we have a secret project we really need to get working on. I have a website to redesign for my aunt. I have to get My Teacher is a Werewolf out into the wild. I need to get Moving at the Speed of Thought out into the wild. I need to get a lot of writing done.

July is shaping up to be a crazy busy month and it’s only the first! I love it! I’m as relaxed as I’m going to get and I’m ready to sit and do some typing! I also need to get my daily duck posts going. Get my weekly article going. Get my daily writing prompt going. Record a couple more Unorthodox Writing Tips for Mr. Plested.

Yeah, I’ve got my work cut out for me. I’d better get at it. Or go to bed and get at it tomorrow. I think that’s a better idea.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Today I get another year older. My wife and my favorite daughter surprised me with a few things. First was letting me sleep in until 10. I haven’t done that in a long time and after this week I needed it. I just needed to shut down for a good long time and I woke up feeling quite good and ready to go. They then surprised me with breakfast in bed. That was awesome.

There won’t be much celebration today, and that’s fine. Today I took the day off from work. Last night we went to the Del Mar Fair. Here’s a breakdown of what I ate.

One and a half 1/2 pound polish sausage sandwiches

One fried oreo (we all shared)

One fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich (oh yea!)

A couple Australian Battered fried potatoes

Chocolate covered bacon!

Root Beer float

I feel like I ate a lot more than that. I’m sure I’m forgetting something. For me, the fair is about eating. Sure there are rides, there’s a lot of shopping you can do. One thing we did pick up was a portable boombox. This thing is pretty cool. You hook it up to your ipod, iphone, mp3 player, and they attach and sticky pad to anything hollow. A cardboard box, a pizza box, a Styrofoam cooler, nearly anything and it turns that item into a speaker. I have yet to try them out, but them seem really cool.

The fair is a lot of fun. On July 4th Weird Al will be at the fair so I may end up going back for that. Admission is free unless you want to sit closer to the stage. Even them they’re only around $30 and limited to a small number of tickets. I’ll worry about that when I get back.

Get back?

Yes. I’m going on vacation for a week. A week away from the computer. A week away from everything. I’ll probably still do a small daily update while I’m on vacation just to keep the daily updates flowing out. I’ve got an unbroken streak going. I don’t want to break it now.

We’re heading to Palm Desert for a family vacation with my wife’s family. There will be a lot of us. Not sure how many, but it’ll be a bundle. No matter how may go we’re going to have a great time in the heat and by the pool. There will be much relaxing and much eating. I might even get in a work out or two. After all that fair food I need to do some working out.

It’s time to start packing and getting prepared. We travel tomorrow! I might even be able to get a picture of a duck or two. To tide you over until I get back, there is this little news snippet the Millican sent to me.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/20/5000-ducks-traffic-china-video-photo_n_1612455.html

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

George. My mom still has his last name. He was husband #4. She was wife #4. He had 6 daughters. Three from his second wife. Three from his third wife. His nickname was asshole. Some days it was literal, others it was more ironic.

I met George when I was 13. He was an interesting character. He lived in an apartment under Pier 65. Not sure why the bar was called that, but that’s what it was called. My mom, recently divorced, broke, and with no where to go, moved in with George and Jon and I came along.

When I say broke, I’m not kidding. George was in the same condition being recently divorced from the mother of one of Jon’s ex-girlfriends (I think they still talk). As far as I know his first three kids barely knew he was alive and certainly never knew when he was dead. The second three, two of them really didn’t care, the third didn’t until much later in life when she realized that much of what he mom said about his was fabrication and lies.

My mom worked at the Pier and George was a handy man there. He built brick walls, fixed things, built a massive deck. He also drove a big yellow rig called Old Yeller. He would pick up a load now and again and haul it all over. My mom stayed home with the boys. Until my dad called and Jon and I moved out.

That was a tough day for my mom. George was a great guy though. I was excited to move and because of my experience with Loren, I wasn’t ready to trust another step-dad even though he and my mom weren’t married yet.

Once Jon and I were out of the house he and my mom drove truck all over the country. They would pick up something here, drop it off there, pick up something else. They were on the go a lot. George was making good money and loved to pay for everything in cash.

Sadly that also included child support for the woman that lived in his house with his three kids. She didn’t like to see him happy and hated my mom for making him happy. She sued him for back child support and because he’d always paid cash, lost everything and then some. That included Old Yeller.

That might have slowed him down a little, but George and my mom (both not wanting to get married for a fourth time) bought a bar together. The Cajun Queen named for my mom who had loved New Orleans. They had big plans to open it as a bar/restaurant. The bar part happened and that’s pretty much where they stopped. Times were slow and to make extra money George would take on any jobs that he could. He did construction, moved houses, built houses, laid concrete, pretty much any odd job he could manage to keep money coming in so the bar could stay open. He never got to drive truck again, but that didn’t seem to bother him.

Jon and I called him every father’s day. He wasn’t my step-dad in that I didn’t know him. He would always pass the phone straight to my mom when I called. We didn’t have a lot in common. But I still called to wish him a happy father’s day. It wasn’t until much later that my mom told me how much that meant to him. His own kids that lived in the same city never sent him cards, called, nothing. Except one, as I mentioned, later in her life.

One of my fondest memories of George is he and I taking my favorite daughter fishing. I think she was 5 or 6 at the time. Such a peaceful day. He tried to be patient with her, but when he got frustrated (I didn’t know this) he would tell me, “Jay, can you help her?”. At no time did he seem frustrated and upset. He even joked about it later at the bar how such a little girl had her daddy wrapped around his finger.

George had been diagnosed with cancer shortly before my grandpa passed away. He had gotten his lung removed, but said he would be back for chemo, and never went. When my grandpa passed away, he said he’d made a promise to grandpa to get that chemo he’d been putting off. After the funeral I went to George and gave him a hug. The first hug I think I ever gave him. I thanked him for everything he’d done for my grandpa over the years and for always being there for my mom. My mom later told me, “He hugged you. He never hugs anyone!”

George went back to the Mayo Clinic several times. They had planned to do a scan and see what type of treatment they could start for him. Sadly the cancer had gotten nearly everywhere. It was in such an advanced stage that the best they could do was give him medication for the pain because when the cancer is as bad as he had it, organs start to shut down in the most painful manner possible.

You’d never know it. I talked to him several times over the phone. Toward the end he couldn’t remember day to day who’d called. I’d get updates from my mom and she was mentally and physical worn down at this point. Just like with my dad, the waiting was the hardest part.

George, who also had served in the military, got a 21 gun salute at his service. I have one of those bullets as well. He and my grandpa were two peas in a pod. Two loud-mouthed Pollacks that didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought and as much as those two “bickered like old ladies” as my mom used to say, they got along better than any two people I knew.

Losing George in such a short time after my Grandfather was incredible painful. I wish I could have said words at his funeral, but my throat locks up and I can barely breathe when I get emotional. I was barely able to speak at my father’s service and wasn’t able to finish what I wanted to say. I was, however, able to stand on the stage while a good friend of my mom and George, Danny, gave a wonderful Eulogy. I was amazed at just how many people turned out. It was standing room only. You would have thought a celebrity from McGregor had died. You would have been right.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

I told you this was going to be long, didn’t I? Father’s day this year has given me a lot to think about. Sorry if all of these posts are emotional, but it was all part of my growing up.

My grandfather came from Poland as a little boy. His father was Mike Adamski. During WWI (yes, one not two) the Poles were looked down upon in this country and Adamski Grocery was vandalized multiple times. Mike changed his last name to Adams and there were no more problems. Amazing how people didn’t realize it was still Mike that owned the place.

Grandpa did his time in WWII in the Navy. One of the jobs he described to me was going around after a brutal sea battle and taking a hook to fish out the dead bodies.

Once out of the Navy he married my Grandma. She’d been recently divorced from a man I never met. My Grandpa adopted my mom and raised her as his own. Never once did he even think she wasn’t. My mom called him dad until the day he died. I called him Grandpa until the day he died. He was a Pollack and my mom gave him a hard time for many years about that even when she married a Pollack.

Grandpa retired from the post office. He worked as a mail carrier for many years, then went on to be a mail handler. My Grandma worked at Honeywell and they both retired around the same time. Their plan was to move to McGregor to be around their grandkids as much as possible during their retirement and watch us grow up.

Well, if you read the past two posts, things fell apart with my mom and Loren and Jon and I moved off to live with my dad about a year or two after Grandma and Grandpa moved up.

Grandpa was the most patient person with Jon and I. He taught us how to fish and didn’t care if we made mistakes, dumped the bait bucket, lost lures. It didn’t matter what we did or what we caught as long as we were there with him. He had a pontoon that we would load up and watch fireworks on the Fourth of July from the lake and we’d BBQ and fish from the boat until late into the evening.

He’d give us jars and encourage us to catch fireflies. He would take us outside to walk the dogs on Christmas eve and we’d always miss when Santa would arrive and bring all the presents.

We lost Grandma only a few years into their retirement. She’d smoked and drank nearly her entire life until she started having heart trouble. Then she quit both cold turkey except for one beer a day per doctor’s orders. Where Grandma lacked height (around 4’6) Grandpa was huge! Around 6’6’ or 6’7’ and he weighed in around 350 pounds. When he lost her, it was as if he’d lost everything including the will to live. He carried on for many years, though. We only lost him a few years ago.

My mom’s husband, George, did everything for my Grandpa. I mean everything. He’d go over and they’d talk for hours, joke, laugh. I think it’s because of George that my Grandpa hung on for so long, but I’ll talk about George tomorrow.

Grandpa always called me ‘Pal’. I think he also called Jon, Pal when we’d call because he’d never know which one of us he was talking to. He and Jon would talk endless about sports. I wasn’t big into sports so I always found a way to talk about them with him because I knew he was so passionate about them. Grandpa would spend all day watching any sport that was on once Grandma passed away. It was his way to while away the hours as he waited, and waited, and complained, and waited.

Even without teeth he loved his steak. And ham, and all the meats he wasn’t supposed to eat but couldn’t find a way to avoid them unless my mom cooked for him and sent him heals he’d have to heat himself. During the winter my mom wouldn’t drive the ‘Floe’ road to go see him because the road was mostly ice so George would go out once a day just to check up on him, step on his oxygen hose, and help with anything he needed.

Until the day he found Grandpa on the floor in the bathroom. He’d had a major stroke, his eyes had gone white. Over the past few months he’d lost a lot of weight to the point of being gaunt. He faded quickly.

I flew home to see him. I went with my mom to the hospital room. The nurse tried to rouse him, but he wouldn’t wake up. I stood there, holding his hand, looking at the shadow of the man I’d known. A man that loved to hunt and fish, and just look at nature because it was there. His breathing labored, his pulse erratic. The nurse said he’d been awake and somewhat coherent that morning because she told him I was on my way to see him.

He sat up. He took a deep breath and looked me right in the eye. His eyes were white. Not gray, not colored in any way. They were white. His face relaxed when he was me and he laid back down and let that deep breath out.

I thought for sure that was it, but he started breathing again, slowly, but steady. His pulse still fluctuated up and down. My mom and I left after that. The nurse said he’d been like that the past couple of days and she’d call if anything happened.

Ma and I went to have a beer after that. Before she took a drink she pointed skyward and said, “Ma, it’s time to come and get dad.” We toasted to Grandpa and talked about other things to get our minds off of the events of the day.

The phone int he bar rang. The bartender looked at my mom and said. “It’s George.” The nurse had called to say that my grandpa had passed away about an hour after we left. My mom looked at the clock. It took us 40 minutes to get to the bar. 20 minutes we’d been there before the call. Had Grandma heard? I got a chill.

We cried, we signed, we were happy he was finally resting. I stayed home until after the funeral. He was buried with my Grandma. He received a 21 gun salute as his funeral for his service in the Navy. I still have one of those shells. George and I laid the headstone the following day.

My Grandpa loved ducks. Had pictures of them all over his house. When you walked in there was a painting of his old dog Duke, and a clock with ducks on it. It’s because of my grandpa that I’ll do that daily duck post. I know I joke about it, but it will happen 🙂

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

When my mom remarried I, obviously, got a step-dad. I could say a lot of bad things about Loren, but I won’t. It’s father’s day so I’ll try to concentrate on the positive.

I was never what you’d call athletic, strong, graceful, coordinated, quick thinking. Unless you said it ironically. I was a very slow learner. I wasn’t built for manual labor. I didn’t like getting dirty. I didn’t like to kill things.

So when we moved up to McGregor with him it was because he loved to hunt, fish, ice fish, snowmobile, play football/baseball/softball, cut down trees, build houses, roofing, construction, fix cars, tractors, grow gardens. Loren was a man’s man through and through. If it was the manly thing to do, he more than likely did it. He loved to read westerns, watch westerns, action shows.

He was quick with math. It came second nature to him. He could do a bid on a job very quickly and know how much the material was going to cost, give an estimate over the phone based on a customer’s measurements, hang up, write up the estimate, then head off and do a full bid on the job based on his own measurements. It always fascinated me to watch him do the numbers in his head and then redo them on the adding machine just to check his numbers.

In our back yard we had a dump (a really big hole) and people would come by and drop stuff of to ‘dump’. He would go through things like cars and appliances and strip our anything of value and put the rest in the big hole. It was his intention to fill it in with solid material and over the years we got about half-way across a nearly acre wide hole. When it would fill up, he’d push and pack and then get a truck load of sand and fill in up to that point.

In the back acre where I grew up he’d built a pole barn. He had some help from the neighbors and up it went. Being terrified of heights I had no desire to go up on the roof, but he had me on a scaffolding handing him tools, screws, whatever he needed. He had slipped at one point and I caught the pneumatic screw driver and he landed on the scaffold and laughed. Climbed back up, and kept going. It was at least a 25 foot drop to the ground below and I thought I was going to lose it being up there.

As much as we would play during the summer and winter, there were chores and Jon and I did our share. My step-dad would drive us out into the woods where he’d have bought the ‘tree rights’ to an acre lot. We’d cut down all the trees to clear the lot. We’d strip off the branches, Loren would cut the tree into parts and we’d load that tree onto a truck to haul back to the house. We’d dump off one load and depending on how late in the day it was, we’d head back out for another until the lot had been cleared.

Then it was back at home where we’d split the wood. Yes, with axes. It was a blessing the day the wood splitter arrived and we’d spend the day cutting wood. Stacking wood. Getting ready for winter. Sure I had free days to go and do things, but when there was work to do, that came first. It was never easy work and I would go to bed tired, sore, and exhausted.

Remember when I said I wasn’t strong? Well I never felt strong, but all those days of lifting logs I’d built up muscles I didn’t know about. I was 180 pounds in 7th grade, but I wasn’t fat. But because I was big, dumb, and wore glasses, I got a lot of flack from kids at school. It made growing up in a small town hard.

Sadly, I got some of the same at home. I never told my mom until long after she’d left Loren, but Loren would do many things kids at school did. He’d call me ‘stupid’, ‘an idiot’, smack me on the back of the head when I didn’t understand something. Again when I’d start to cry because he wasn’t raising no cry baby. He also drank and at times that would be a problem.

To his defense, I don’t think he ever meant to be mean or cruel. I know he’s still around the McGregor area and I hope that he’s doing well. Since he and my mom have parted I’ve never had any contact with him. Being that I was a kid things were magnified for me as that was my little world. That’s all I knew. I got abuse in school and abuse at home when my mom wasn’t around. If my mom was there, she dealt with Jon and I, but in a different manner. We didn’t have a lot of money, but he and my mom both worked to keep food on the table and with three growing boys (Loren’s son lived with us for a couple of years) it wasn’t easy. We ate, and ate, and ate some more.

Like I said, I think he did the best he knew how. Every night we got a hug and a kiss before we went to bed. He taught me to read. He tried to help me with math but didn’t have the patience. He taught my brother how to play baseball (he was the little league coach), but had a hard time with me because I found the game dull and didn’t enjoy getting yelled at when I did something wrong.

If anything I learned a good work ethic from him. Loren always put work first. Not only was he a roofer/contractor/wood cutter, he also plowed the roads for the Shamrock Township for many years. If it was snowing, he was on the roads plowing. He took me along on a couple late night runs. He would run machinery to harvest wild rice during the season. Those were very long days. He’d come home broken, sore, beat, and all he wanted was a beer and foot rub. Sure he had a temper and my brother and I took the brunt of it when my mom wasn’t home, but I turned out alright.

I was able to put that chapter of my life behind me. I learned how to be strong. I learned how to escape. I rode my bike, I did track and cross country (I ran lots) and I read. I read any books I could get my hands on. Loren read very quickly and I tried to imitate that when I read. I may not have liked him as a father. I may not have enjoyed anything that he enjoyed. I may not have turned out anything like him at all, but he was still a part of my life and my past and part of who I am is because of him.

I’ve chosen to take all the positive of his life and apply to mine. I try to be more patient. I try to be more understanding. I try to contain that anger I feel inside from time to time.

Loren, you’ll probably never read this, but I do still think about you from time to time. I hope you’re doing well. I hope your life has become what you wanted. I bear you no ill will for anything I may feel you did wrong in raising me. If anything, I think you for making me stronger than I ever thought possible.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

I didn’t know my father growing up as a kid. Oh, I’d met him, but I didn’t know him. I talked to him once or twice a year on the phone and met him every few years, but my mom and dad had divorced when I was young. I think I was three. My mom remarried when I was five and we moved a few hours away from where my dad lived. I was born in Minneapolis and we moved to McGregor. The backwoods of Minnesota.

My dad wanted to be a successful businessman. He worked long hours, took many trips to Europe to raise business, and struggled to be a father. My mom felt it was best if he went and followed his dream and they went their separate ways. They always stayed friends and still talked on the phone from time to time. We attended his wedding in 1980 to my step-mom and later when my Uncle Ray (whom I’d never met) passed away. For the most part we never saw him and I always wondered what he’d been up to.

My mom’s third marriage (my dad was her second marriage) fell apart many years later when I was 12 or 13. At that time my dad knew my mom was struggling financially and offered to take ‘the boys’. That’s when my brother and I got re-introduced to my dad. I learned everything I ever wanted to know about him at the time.

He was born at the Mole Lake Indian reservation in Wisconsin. He had brothers and sisters (Uncle Bob is one of those) but I’d never met any of them. To this day I’ve only met Uncle Bob. A story I covered some time back. My dad had moved from Minnesota to Colorado. I knew the name Universal Dynamics and I had been to his business once. I didn’t recall what it was he did. I knew it had something to do with teeth, but that was about it.

Before he was 20 he had gone to a business school for minorities. He graduated and was the only person in his class to actually start a business. For years he’d been working at Udell Dental Lab in Minneapolis and had taken courses to learn the trade. He started up his own business that, for a time, competed directly with Udell. Eventually with his overseas trips, attending conferences, and learning from people who invented many of the dental appliances used today, he became one of the best known names in the business. Udell Dental lab was a huge success, but my dad got remarried and didn’t want to be running a huge business with so many employees. He wanted a simpler life so he sold the business and moved to Colorado with his wife.

Kathy had been one of my dad’s top technicians. I never heard the story of how they’d met, but they were a great match being married for nearly 30 years. They moved to Colorado and started up Murdock Laboratory. When my brother and I moved there they ran the business as a mail order business out of the basement. A few times a year my dad would still attend conferences to keep bringing in business and to keep the Murdock name out there. Even though he worked hard, he still tried to make time for holidays and small vacations.

Getting to know my dad was great. I got to learn many stories of his youth and how he got to where he was. A lot of hard work and becoming the best at what he did. Spending time in the basement lab watching him work bending wire and creating works of art that helped to straighten people’s teeth amazed me. He tried to get my brother and I interested in the work, but it was something that I just couldn’t pick up.

I do, however, have my dad to thank for my current job. He handed me a book when I was 13 on how to program the TRS-80. I never looked back and have done a lot of computer work and website work for my dad over the years. I still maintain his website that I’ll soon be giving a facelift.

In 1986 my dad decided that he was tired working for himself and shut down Murdock Laboratory and we moved back to Minneapolis (minus my brother who’d joined the Navy). He went back to work for Udell Dental Lab; the place where he got his start. I went to visit it with him several times and it was a cave. Apparently the same cave it was when my dad had started working there and most of the same people were still there making appliances, crowns, and bridges. He was hired on to manage the company for the owner and his son.

In a matter of two years my dad turned the company from a one million dollar a year company to a multi-million dollar a year company. He was on the road a LOT going to many local dentists and paying visits to drum up more and more business. They redid the entire interior of the building, upgraded all the equipment, hired a lot of staff and completed changed the face and reputation of the company.

Then my dad asked for a raise. For all his efforts he didn’t feel he was adequately compensated. He gave Udell and ultimatum. “I get a raise or I walk.” Udell said “You could get hit by a bus tomorrow.”. My dad quit and told Udell “If I got hit by a bus, I wouldn’t be taking away a lot of the business I’ve brought in here.”

My dad once again started up Murdock Laboratory. It was a scary time for him. He had a new house he and Kathy were spending a lot of time changing from a run down house to a beautiful masterpiece of old world/new world, I have moved out (I also joined the Navy) and he had to start all over. He had to begin attending conferences, bring in new clients, and of course contact a lot of old clients, many that had been with him since Universal Dynamics. Once again business was booming.

I kept in touch with my dad, went back to visit for the holidays, called once a month just to stay in touch. That’s mostly how I knew my father was from our phone calls. We talked for a couple of hours and would talk about any range of topics. Even when I got married and had my baby girl, we still had a long distance relationship. He always felt he’d be able to spend more time with the grandkids when he retired. It didn’t matter when I called, how often I called, or how often I visited. I could always hear my dad’s smile in his voice. Not just a smile, but a smile that said “Everything is great and I’m so happy you called.” When I visited there were never enough hugs. Not just a hug, but an embrace that said “I love you, kid. I’m so happy you’re here.”

He moved the business back to Colorado. He always loved Colorado. Yet again it was another fresh start for Murdock Laboratory. He and Kathy built an incredible house in Grand Junction. They had planned to work long enough to pay off the house and retire and enjoy the fruits of their labors. All those years working so hard to get to the finish line.

Sadly he never made it there. Squamous cell carcinoma. It’s a skin cancer. It’s easily treatable. Lots of people survive this type of skin cancer. The only people that don’t are once that get it in their lungs. The x-rays showed what looked like a chest hit by a shotgun. Dozens of large and small dark spots in his lungs.

My dad stayed upbeat and positive. “We’re going to beat this. Nothing can keep a Murdock down.” The first round looked positive. It had nearly cleared away and the doctors gave it a little time. It came back, but not quite as bad as the first time. A second round was started right away. My dad still remained upbeat, positive, and I could hear the smile in his voice over Christmas when I called and he finally told me about the cancer he was being treated for.

I hadn’t known. It hit my hard, but he sounded so positive how could I even begin to worry? I called him two, three, four times a month to get updates. Yes, I was worried about my dad. What kid wouldn’t be in that situation?

His prognosis after the second round wasn’t good. It had no effect and the cancer was growing once again. I went out to visit my dad. He still looked like my dad. Sounded like my dad. Worked like my dad. He had down days after the chemo, but that was just a side effect. He felt great. He was going to beat this.

The third round of chemo my dad had to stop going to work. He had been heading carrying a box and fell down the stairs. That was his last day in the office. Instead Kathy would being his some work to do at home and if he would fight to stay sitting at his kitchen table and get his share of the work done.

My brother and his family, and I with mine all went to visit with my dad. We spent a week there and had a great time just seeing him, seeing him with the grand kids. Enjoying every moment. He pulled my brother and I aside one day to let us know that he’d been given three to six months and it was looking like it’d be more on the three month side due to the effects the chemo had on his body. I had expected the news, but it was still so hard to hear. He’d been so confident that all would work out in the end.

I went to visit my dad again. It was hard. His hair had started to fall out. He’d lost a lot of weight. He struggled to stay awake. I worked from his house for a week keeping an eye on him. Each morning he’d come out and we’d hug, he’d smile. He’d sit in his chair listening to morning talk radio while I worked. He’d drift off to sleep, but each time he woke up he’d have one of those smiles for me. A smile that said “I love you kid. I’m so glad you’re here.”

I had to go home at the end of the week. I told Kathy I would be back if she needed me.To call with any news. I hugged my dad four times before leaving and heading home. I called each day to see if there was any news. I had everything set up to fly back at the end of the week. I just needed to make sure everything was in order at home before I left.

I didn’t make it back in time. He’d had a bad fall and had to go to the hospital. I’m not sure if it was the fall that hurt him or if something went wrong inside. It didn’t matter. In a matter of hours he went from weak and frail to critical. The doctors gave him medication for the pain and he slipped away, struggling to tell Kathy something. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for her to be at his side as he went. She called. I cried. I cried hard.

I changed my flight and flew home to help with the arrangements and for the funeral in Colorado. There were still happy times remembering life, and hard times knowing those happy times were now behind us. Many of his colleagues came to his funeral. I wish I had been in better spirits to meet so many people that he’d known over the years. One thing I learned was just how much my dad talked about my brother and I to all the people he knew and how much he talked about his grandkids. Yes, we talked a lot, but I never realized just how proud he was of his kids and how much he made sure everyone he knew, knew how much he loved his kids.

I knew my dad was a Shriner, but he was an active member since the late 60s. He was in the Corvette club (they drove mini-corvettes in parades), he was in the pipe and drum band (playing drums, not bagpipes), and donated much of his time to helping the Children’s hospital. He was also the president of the Lutefisk where husbands and wives would meet once a month for lutefisk and aquavit (strange white fish and turpentine). The wives would always give their aquavit to their husbands.

But I digress.

There were parts of my dad’s life that I didn’t know and will never know. The parts I did I loved and I’m sure the parts I didn’t I would also love. He always had a huge smile for me, my brother, any one he knew and even for many that he didn’t know. He didn’t just hug, but pulled you in for an embrace. Even though I didn’t spend much time with my father, I learned a lot about life from him. Even now that he’s gone I still learn from him and remember things he did.

I’m only just scratching the surface here. There are so many memories about my dad I’m glossing over or missing (like his finicky eating habits that would have you laughing) or his affinity for telling shaggy dog stories by a campfire. My dad was a complex man. He left us too soon.

Like I said yesterday, telling about my dad would be a long story. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about my step-dad. Ducks will have to wait for another day.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Today I spent with my favorite daughter, the wife, and several of the wife’s family. It was a WONDERFUL!!!! Day. And more exclamation points!!!

We went to Hillcrest for breakfast at Chocolat. It’s a little French place that servers some incredible food. It wasn’t busy so unlike other places we called (reservations? What are those?) we didn’t have to wait 2 hours for a table. In fact we didn’t have to wait at all. It was great.

We then did some shopping for our vacation to Palm Desert next weekend. Then did some more shopping. And finally landed at my Father-In-Law’s house to wish his a happy father’s day. It wasn’t planned as we had planned on celebrating next weekend when all of us (the wife’s entire family more-or-less) are at Palm Desert. There was food, there was playing ball with the dog, there was watching of baseball. It was grand fun.

The entire day I thought about my dad. How I miss him. Over the next few days I’ll be posting daily updates about my dads (My dad, a couple step-dads, and my grandpa). It’s far too much to post in one blog so I’ll spread it out over the week.

This weekend no fiction writing happened. Because I was thinking so much about my dad I went to his site and started doing some updates. There are still a lot more that I’ll be doing there, but while I was there I decided to visit my Aunt Debbie’s website (http://filtertechsystems.com) and grab the source code of all the pages and redo her entire site. I had a lot of fun doing it. There’s something relaxing for me when it comes to digging into someone else’s code and cleaning it up, streamlining it, making it more readable, stripping out all the extraneous code, and putting it into a better framework.

I think I’m done for now with the pages. I’m going to send them to her for an opinion. She doesn’t know I was going to do this so it’ll be a surprise. Once the final design is done and the site goes live (if she wants it) I’ll let you know. For all I know she’s hired someone else to take care of it. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens next.

I had a great day. Thank you to all who wished me a happy father’s day. Happy Father’s day to you if you are a father. I hope you were able to celebrate with your father. If you don’t have your father anymore I hope you at least thought about him and enjoyed the memories. I know I did and I’ll shore those over the next few days.

I’m tired, it’s time for bed. No ducks were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

There are some days I feel like I’m letting things slip a little. I’ve become too focused on the writing and letting little things pass by that are becoming bigger things. This weekend I’m going to remedy some of those personal items and get them taken care of.

Next weekend It will be vacation time. There will be no time for writing so I will be writing as much as I can before that. I’m currently 59,000 words ahead of schedule for the year so I’m not worried about the annual goal, but I’m 3000 words behind on my JuNoWriMo goal and I want to stay close on that one before we go on vacation. I’ll be knocking out some words tonight. I’m about to write another Maus chapter (those go so fast) and another Slick chapter (now that he’s met Maus and Willie those will go smoothly as well). I know I’ll be able to knock out a lot of words.

I’m also going to be revamping my father’s webpage. It looked good when I first did it, but I know I can slap a new coat of paint on it and make it look a little better. I’ll be putting some jQuery on it and I’ll drop a link when I’m done. I’m also going to revamp a website for my aunt’s business. She’s been telling me for years that she’s going to get someone to do it, but she hasn’t so I’ll build a new site, host it, and send her a link to see if she likes it. It’ll be fun to do some basic web design for a change instead of massive web applications that take months to complete.

My Favorite Daughter also needs to work out today. We’ll run, practice some volleyball, do some light weights, and she has a conditioning sheet of exercises to do. All that and she’s studying for finals. Next week she has three days of finals and she’s done with the 9th grade. They grow up way too fast.

Last night we went to dinner with the Millicans. We went to the buffet at the Barona Casino. They do have the best buffet in San Diego. I ate until they needed to roll me out of the joint. With all that food I had some crazy dreams last night and I think it was a combination of the upcoming vacation with my wife’s family and some illnesses that have been going on. I slept in this morning and tried to finish my dream, but the dog was having none of that. She saw me open my eyes and it was play time. It was a very personal dream or I’d share the details here.

So I’ve got a lot going on and a lot to do today. I’ll keep you posted on how it all goes.

I’m done hating on Prometheus. It was a great visual movie. The first half with David was brilliant. There were a lot of good things about the movie that I wish had followed through to the end, but hey, it’s a movie. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life hating on it. Just like Avatar. Maybe they’ll write a better sequel. We’ll just have to wait and see.

All this and I have duck pictures to download. I’d better get at it. I plan on have a month of pictures and a month of writing prompts before I get those out into the wild. Those will be out on a daily basis just to get a little more content out there. I’m also working on a new weekly article. Got something besides ducks or writing you’d like me to talk about? Let me know! I’d love to hear from you.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!