I guess our scrimping and saving and scavenging has finally paid off. We close today on our new home. We had hoped to have a home within three years, and we’ve been married almost 2 1/2 so we’re ahead of the game. Bill’s plotting now to buy a boat. I’m trying to convince him to forget the boat till we get our new debts under control. More heat. More air. Water. More gas to get back and forth to work and gas prices on the rise again soon? Let’s not rush into another toy just yet! The grand moment is at 3PM. After that we will be emptying our storage unit and moving lots of stuff to the garage and office. Hey $30 is $30 and we will have room for the stuff. Thomas is still not thrilled about leaving his one true love Ashely, and Zack can’t wait to come up this weekend and start arranging his closet. (Nothing can go on the floors till we get the carpets cleaned which is scheduled for next Wednesday.) We’ve been packing boxes, scrubbing and painting our little shoe box in an effort to unclutter and make it more appealing to a buyer. Our goal (we are into setting goals) is to have it sold for the balance of the loan by the end of the summer. After that the spare cash runs out and we eat Ramen Noodles.

Inbetween arranging for the closing and move, we’ve continued the daily grind. Thomas had an appointment with a psychiatrist Tuesday. He’ll be seeing her again in a month and in two weeks he’ll see a counselor with oodles of drug experience. Thomas is still clean, but we are concerned about the stress of the move. I played soldier for a couple of days in Atlanta. I’d hoped to hook up with Tom for a drink, but that didn’t happen. Briefed the Commanding General Sunday afternoon, performed with the band Sunday evening/night, drank after the performance and sat thru many very boring briefings on Monday and Tuesday. My boss was VERY happy to see me back at work yesterday.

Zack got his report card last week. His lowest grade was an A. He’s happy, I’m happy, life is good.

Bill’s convincing his stores they need LOTS of bread. After all, we’ve got a new mortgage to deal with. He’s working alot and sleeping a little. We’ve taken to text messaging each other when we want to communicate. Yes I am exaggerating…..just a tad!

I’m ALMOST wishing I worked in molding still where the over time was abundant, but happy to get an extra two hours on Saturday when we do our monthly inventory. Then I can come home and pack the hutch so we can move it Saturday. That and a roll of toilet paper, and we’ll all be camping out in Easley Saturday night.

I hope everyone is doing well. I’d forgotten my passwork when I wanted to comment on dad’s post about his Army day, so now that I have a new password and can write again, THANKS, DAD, for serving this great nation of ours.

God Bless America.!

I realize that this is the greatest blog in the wholed world, but – if anyone’s interested – I just updated mine.

My life is quite gripping, you know….

No, I’m not talking about the basketball thing which apparently costs companies $600 million in lost productivity every year. I’m just referring to the month in general. Since the last time I posted anything here, I lost a friend, played host to the folks, learned that my untouchable company is getting touched, bought a car, sold a camera….and still haven’t gone camping.

On Monday, March 6th, I received the news – along with the rest of the world – that AT&T had voiced their intention to buy BellSouth, the company for which I’ve worked for the last 8 years and one that I thought was far too large to ever be taken over. Believe it or not, that’s sort of a bonus for me when it comes to selecting where I want to work. Since I moved to Atlanta 16 years ago, I’ve gone through 4 “strategic alliances,” and I’m really not into doing that. Silly me – I thought BellSouth had planned to buy AT&T a few years back. The tables have apparently turned, and in all likelihood I’ll be sweating out yet another merger in the next year to eighteen months. Oh joy.

This happened, incidentally, just about one week after I’d been informed that I was immune from the most recent round of layoffs within BellSouth management. Yep. I got to breathe easy for a whole week….

On March 8th, David Willard passed away after fighting a long battle with cirrhosis of the liver. Dave, also known as Dewey, had been a good friend for over 20 years and – while we were both aware that his prognosis was not good – his death still came as somewhat of a shock. I had talked on the phone with him just the previous Saturday night, when he called me to talk about a basketball game. On Wednesday the 8th, his sister called me to let me know that he’d gone into the hospital suddenly on Tuesday afternoon and had died about 24 hours later. It’s a strange feeling to know that someone that you’ve known since high school is gone. Must admit that shed more than a few tears.

His memorial was in Greenville on the 10th, so Jenny and I drove up to pay our respects. I did pretty good through most of the service, but did sob a bit near the end. At one point, a song was played that I had played for Dave a couple of years ago on the way back from a football game. David ended up playing the thing about 9 billion straight times in my car, until I finally told him to cut it out. I later burned a copy of the CD for him. When I asked his brother why he’d played that particular song, he said that he’d just found the CD among Dave’s things and decided to play it for no reason. Kind of freaked me out, to be honest. But in a good way.

The following Monday, I had a couple of our mutual friends over to my house and we had sort of an unofficial wake for the Dewman. Told a few stories, hoisted more than a few beers, played playstation, grilled some steaks, stayed up late, and took Tuesday off to do more of the same. It was a nice time.

I believe it was the weekend after that that Mom and Dad finally came down to Atlanta for a long-delayed visit. I was a tad nervous, as it was the first time they’d seen the house since Jenny and I divorced, but I apparently haven’t destroyed the place too awful much. I must admit that I took a bit of pride in showing them to their quarters – a guestroom that I refinished last year. Prior to that, it had been a disaster area used mainly by Jenny’s and my four cats as a great big litterbox. When I redid it, I had to throw out the carpet, paint the floor and floorboards, and install hardwood – just to get rid of the smell of urine. I also painted the walls and ceiling, put in some curtains, a bed, chair, lamps, shelves, dresser, nightstands, etc. I’ve always been pretty pleased with the result, but this was the first time that someone actually STAYED in the room.

Dad was quite helpful during the visit, assisting me in mounting my television (a big flat-screen job) on the wall on Saturday, and helping to hang three sets of very wide (72″) mini-blinds on Sunday. I also got to show off my 17-gazillion btu grill on Sunday, making burgers for the three of us. Of course, I ended up serving them raw and had to recook them, but hey….I tried.

Sometime around the 15th, I got my annual bonus from Bellsouth. While not as substantial as last year’s, it was still a nice little chunk of change, and I took advantage of it instantly by paying off my car. Got my tax refund a few days later and was so excited about the number of digits in my checking account balance that, when a friend said he wanted a new digital camera, I immediately offered to sell him one of my older ones that I rarely use. For those of you who don’t know it, I’ve got (well, I *had*) three pretty expensive cameras, so unloading one of those is going to make my financial self feel quite a bit better.

I’ve been trying to find a weekend to go camping for about 6 months, but so far it hasn’t worked out. For a long time, it was beautiful all week and rained all weekend. When I finally got a nice weekend, it happened to be the one set aside for Mom and Dad’s visit. Thought about it again this past weekend, but it was just too cold. And next weekend I’ve promised to take care of a friend’s cat, so that’s out too. Oh well…maybe I’ll get a chance sometime in April.

At work, much of my time recently has been consumed by a major rewrite of our external website. Additionally, we’re ramping up IPTV (trial is set for August), so I’m getting to build a lot of servers and trying to make myself valuable. Still looking forward to vacations, though – the first decent one is planned for Memorial Day weekend and the week following it. Also looking forward to spending some time in Canada with Cy and T in July, and I’m hoping to go to Maine again this year.

But for now, I’m still in Atlanta and still working.

And that should get you all caught up in the fascinating saga which is my life.

Political Science for Dummies

DEMOCRATIC
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.

REPUBLICANISM
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk
the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow
and produce twenty times the milk. They learn to travel on
unbelievably crowded trains. Most are at the top of their class at
school.

GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give
excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don’t know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch. Life is good.

INDIAN CORPORATION
Cows are sacred.
But you have lots of goats.
You send these goats to American schools to learn how to become cows.
When the cows come home :), they form corporations.
The leaders of these corporations go back to America and say that Indian “cow” milk is better and cheaper.
American cows say they aren’t going to produce any milk unless they get greener grass, better fences, and studlier bulls.

American companies start buying Indian milk, and ship tankers of hay and feed to India so the cows can make even more milk.

The American cows lose their jobs, and become wallets for the American corporation executives.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two.
You don’t milk them because you cannot touch any creature’s private
parts.You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find
alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he’s French, other times he’s Flemish. The
Flemish cow won’t share with the French cow. The French cow wants
control of the Flemish cow’s milk. The cow asks permission to be cut
in half. The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one but accidentally
vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can’t figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegals.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

For all of you who reside in this land of comparative peace and freedom, just thought I’d let you know that twas on the 19th of March 1952 that this fearless soldier, all 135 pounds of him, embarked from the port of Seattle. His mission? Why save the world for democracy, what did you expect. I’ll never forget the feeling of wondering how in heck I got into this predicament. Hey, I joined the army ’cause I was hungry, not to go fight someone! However, Uncle Sam saw the wisdom of sending me off, and even provided me a sendoff with a full Army Band. The stirring march they played (to bolster my courage I presume) was a then current popular tune entitled “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You!!” However, once I got used to the idea of possible combat, I enjoyed the 14 days (except for the first two which I spent hanging over the rail) aboard the USNS Marine Phoenix. And that’s this week’s exciting episode from The Life of This Day.
Other than that, started going back to the Y after a lay-off of 8 or 9 months. Not too bably out of shape. I’d been trying to walk a couple of miles on a regular basis, but found that my foot was giving me trouble so thought the arobic equipment at the Y would be a better form of excercise. Greenville Chorale has started rehearsals for it’s April 22 concert. Real tough (for me) stuff including Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, in Hebrew< and Tres Cantus Laudendi, by Mack Wilberg, in Latin. I think, if we behave ourselves, they'll let us try English next year.
OK, now I typed all this (and my one finger is sore) so let’s see if we can get it on the Blop page of all Blog Pages.

So, it appears that March is almost gone. I discovered this when I finally turned the calendar page this morning, confirming that February is over. I’m not sure how this happened. One day I was on a beach in Mexico sipping the “vacation size” margarita, and now I’m staring April right in the face. It’s somewhat disconcerting, to say the least.

Somewhere along the line I’ve had to read about a gazillion resumes and conduct interviews to try to find a new Director for the United Way. I was told when I agreed to be the Vice-President of the Board that I wouldn’t have to do anything, but somehow that morphed into chairing the Search Committee – replete with an entire briefcase full of paper, endless e-mail messages, drafting those wretched “thanks, but you’re not our type” rejection letters and drinking enough coffee to keep a small Dominican plantation in business for years to come. (It turns out that other committee members love early morning meetings…hence my increased consumption of caffeine.)

On the totally fun side, however, a neighbour of mine who is a retired actor (he had an ocassionally recurring role on Seinfeld among other things) has asked me to work with him on a new project. He has, in the past, created and presented a one-man show about Mark Twain. He’s now interested in doing something about Lincoln, and when – in the course of conversation – we discovered that each of us had just finished reading “Team of Rivals” he suggested that I help him out with the research. YES! This will be good. I’m up to my ears in books that focus on the speeches and writing of our friend Abe, and next week Warren (the actor) and I will start brainstorming his program. I’m psyched.

The Cornwall Historical Society is taking some time, too. We’re supposed to be creating an exhibit about Merino sheep for the Vermont History Expo. I have cleverly delegated all the work that needs to be done to my co-chair (a fellow by the name of Tall) who has created (yet another) committee, and they’re off and running. My work here is done.

How very interesting that the Vermonters in the Day family have spent not one single hour on the slopes this winter (a lack of snow will make skiing way less fun), but that the Nashville contingent did. I respectfully suggest that in future, coming to Vermont to ski would be a more satisfying experience than one in North Carolina (well, except for this year…) And if Leumas wants to go fast – no problem. That’s what former ski patrol uncles are for.

As you can clearly see, life here is not overly exciting, aside from local politics which would be more boring than amusing to anyone who doesn’t know the entire cast of characters – from the statute-spewing farmer to the zoned-out zoning administrator to the Cape Cod transplant (who hasn’t entirely grasped the fact that Cornwall is somewhat different than Hyannis). It’s probably a sitcom in the making, but in the meantime it’s just a series of ongoing phone calls – mostly having to do with the best way to kill mosquitoes. Give me my gavel. I’ll show ’em.

Hi, guys. It is me, the
NON-ALL-STATE LOSER.
that is right..
I can now admit it and feel OK as a person…
as a MAN.
Anyhow,
here is a picture of
Wesley at rehearsal.
Yes, I am a proud Dad!
He really is quite good.

Well, our Samuel isn’t going to live somewhere else like William is, and he didn’t really change his name, but – in keeping with a long tradition of writing Day names backwards (starting with Serca Elppa Snosrettap) he created his first email address. And, for those of you so inclinded, he would love to correspond (new email acct and nobody to email!)

His email is: leumasyad@yahoo.com

So, ydnic, gerg, enniad, yrral, mot, yar, and yelrihs – welcome another backwards boy – leumas. By the way Adam’s address is madayad2@yahoo.com

I survided my weekend, but on the way home from church on Sunday, my power steering pump went bad – which, I found out yesterday, is because the rack and pinion unit had gone bad (even though it was a brand new unit). Of course the useless extended warranty wouldn’t cover the power steering pump because it was “consequential damage” caused by the aforementioned rack and pinion. They raised my blood pressure as I attempted to pry out of them what I felt I had paid for (i.e. COVERAGE), but those insurance-nazis didn’t listen to reason. So, I took what I could get (which did cost over half of what I paid for the insurance) but, I really wanted it all taken care of.

Today…a “wintery mix” as they call it locally…that is rain, snow, ice. And it will be 70 in a few days I’m sure. But, if that storm keeps rolling across the nation that was in Kansas yesterday…VT will probably get more than a “wintery mix”…probably get a couple of feet of snow!

Did I mention that we went skiing last month? We went to Banner Elk, NC. Had a blast! I hadn’t been skiing since I was a kid! We had friends from Pensacola who offered to share a big house with them at Sugar Mountain Resort – which had been given to them for a week. So, we took it! Marilyn wasn’t feeling well and didn’t ski but, the boys were ski machines. I started them on the bunny slope…and tried to teach them how to stand up, then how to stand up after you fall down, then how to walk up to the J lift (boys kept going backwards in line…knocking people down like bowling pins).

After a half a day of mastering that…we went up a notch and got on the lift. This was frightening to me…as it had not drop down bars and I had a 10 yr old and a 7 year old with heavy skis on who had never been on a lift chair…and you’re 40 or 50 feet in the air with nothing in front of you. Fortunately my friend’s kids were more experienced so he helped me by riding with one of my boys while I got them used to it.

It was interesting to watch because for the first time in his life Samuel (you know him as Leumas) could do something better than his big brother. He was a fish to water (probably due to a low center of gravity…). Adam was somewhat intimidated by the speed…and the crashing (which he did frequently). Samuel, however, just FLEW down the hill scaring the living daylights out of me. On his first time down the intermediatte slope he just went into a tuck position and went straight down the hill. It became apparent that he was not going to make any attempt to slow down…and in a couple of minutes would burst throught the Ski Lodge windows traveling about 50 miles an hour.

So, I got behind him and starting yelling, “Sit Down!! Sit Down!!” And he did. But, he sat right down on his skis…and continued picking up speed. So, I got up beside him and yelled….”Lie down!!!” (Seven year olds can do this….)…he just lied straight back until his back was on the snow…arms straight out…snow flying everywhere and he came to a powdery stop. I came up to him to see him covered in snow…lieing on his back, staring straight up at the sky. “Are you okay”, I asked? “Cool”, was his one word response.

Thus we began learning about inertia. Adam never gave up and got much better. But, the first time we went to the top of the mountain Adam, Samuel and myself stood there looking at the valley WAY down there…Samuel just goes into his speed skiing stance and bolts down the mountain…so, I had to send my friend after him. Adam, however, stood there going…”Dad, I don’t think I can make it!” ” You HAVE to make it”, I responded…”we can’t sleep up here, and there is no other way down”.

I can still remember the first time I went on a “real” ski slope in VT as opposed to the hill beside our house. I was probably in third grade…it was at the Snow Bowl…and I can still remember my sense of inimidation when I got off the lift…turned around and saw how high up the mountain I was, and realized that I had to ski down the whole thing! It can be intimidating. And, so it was for young Adam.

So, off we went down the mountain. Ski 15 seconds and then Adam would fall down (usually mostly on purpose as the speed would begin to scare him). Of course then trying to stand back up again took 5 minutes. We had been doing this for a while and not even 1/3 of the way down the hill when we hear yelling from above and to the right. It’s samuel (with my friend) on his way up for his second run down. Samuel made it down three times to our once.

So, we had a little 3 day break doing something that we had never done before. I was a tad apprehensive too…hadn’t done this forever…when I fall will my bones bend…or SNAP!? Never found out. I just didnt’ fall down (well okay…once coming out at the top of the lift…Adam drove into me and we wiped out…they had to shut down the lift cause we piled up in the middle of the area where everyone exits the lift).

I WAS, however, REALLY sore! At night time we went “tubing” (flying saucer bottoms like we had when we were kids…with inner tupe sides….very comfy and very fast). That was really fun.

Our first night, we brought the boys (it was our boys and the other family’s boys – they have a 10, 12 and 15 yr old) to a Japanese Resturaunt which amazed them (we don’t get out much…).

So, then we came home to Thompson’s Station and I walked around like an old man for a day wondering if that discomfort was worth the fun. But, it was.

That’s what I did on my winter “vacation”?

Don’t forget to email Samuel…

Hi, everybody. No witty post today (as you wonder, when did he EVER have a witty post…) We were granted two more days with William

when Adoption Services decided we should meet with William’s new family on Saturday for an hour or so,; they will then leave and come back and take him home with them on Sunday afternoon. So, we are going to enjoy tonight and tomoorw night with this sweet little boy that you have all had the chance to meet. We did find out today that his new name, after adoption, will be Wesley. They don’t know that we have a child named Wesley. Kind of funny.

We are going to miss William very much, and continue to wonder why (or how) we wer chosen to do this job. We covet your prayers as we (the family) must watch him go. We covet your prayers for him, as he starts a new life. And we all covet your prayers as a child somewhere is getting ready to start their life….with us.

Have a good day, and hug your kids.

Well, it’s 6:15 a.m. and I’m getting ready to head up to Cincinnatti (sp?) with Lindell for a worship service up there tonight, and a Q&A session with folks tomorrow morning. Home by 9PM Saturday. Then, up at 5:15AM Sunday to go schlep all the gear we need for church into the YMCA gymn before I teach an 8:30 class…which will go for an hour and fifteen minutes. Then we have a 2 hour service…over around noon afterwhich I oversee the reverse schlepping of all the sound sytem, chairs, children’s church stuff, signs, banner etc…back to a warehouse around the corner.

Then, I’ll meet the family and a weekly special guest (someone that we don’t know from church but, want to get to meet and talk too a little) for lunch…around 1:30-1:45ish. Do lunch, get home around 4:00…and crash. At this moment, as I type…THAT is the moment I’m looking for…planning for…savoring. It is my goal. If I can just make it until Sunday afternoon…I might be able to do nothing — but wait, the lawn needs to be mowed, aerated, over-seeded, mulched, my attic needs more flooring, and I can’t find my office from the clutter in it. Thank God for a day of rest eh? Okay, maybe I’ll aim my sights for Monday, when I can go back to work.

Have a nice weekend everyone!