This Day In (Future) History

Paul Newman passed away at the age of 83. He placed second at the 24 Hours of LeMans in 1978, oh and he made some movies or something.

Gas was $3.57 a gallon here in St Charles.

Lisa and I went to Oktoberfest and paid $10.00 each for a Miller Lite and a commerative mug. The mug is pretty nice but the beer was like water. We didn't get to stay late because it is a worknight

The Word Obvious Comes To Mind

A big day in celebrity journalism today, these are two headlines I noticed on the E News website.

"Clay Aiken Coming Out" and "Officer, 'Barker and DJ AM shaken after crash'". No shit?

Take That Jack Johnson

After weeks of enduring VH1 and Jason Maraz and Jack Johnson strumming on their stupid accoustic guitars there's been a devil horned shot of Gibson/Marshall relief. VH1 just premiered the new AC/DC video! Thank God. Of course it's the same AC/DC video and song they've been doing their entire career but I don't care.

The Aftermath Of Ike

It started raining Saturday night. I went out to the garage and the big box was sitting against the truck. I scratched my head trying to figure out who had moved it and it took me a minute to realize that it was floating on a puddle of water. I opened the garage door and the water flowed out and joined the torrent pouring down the street. The wind was shaking the truck all the way to work. It was a cool day actually. I liked being secured away in my truck and I was glad I have an indoor job now.

The news said the Missouri River rose thirteen feet. It was a biblical rain. Almost.

Geni Again

I've been working a lot on Geni lately. My Dad sent an envelope of documents. Dad has been sending me mail in the red, white and blue flat rate envelopes for as long as I've been away from home. The thing that makes that note worthy (since I'm sure he's not the only one to use these) is that he makes it a point to mention that he's sending me my mail in a flat rate envelope. To most an envelope is a means to an end but to Dad the envelope is the journey. It's one of the eccentricities I love about him.

As you might notice, Geni has been making me more introspective than usual. Tracking ancestors is a sobering and slightly depressing pursuit. If you're one of those people that would rather not contemplate your own mortality Geni is not for you.

The documents in my flat rate envelope were small in size but were big parts of my grandparents lives. They were the birth certificates, the marriage license, report cards, news paper clippings and finally the death certificates. My favorite was my Grandfather's military records. I've always had a great deal of pride that he served in Europe during WW II.

As excited as I was to have all of this juicy information to record for history's sake, I started getting a little sad when I realized that once my brothers, my cousin Carrie and I are gone there won't be anyone to remember my Grandparents. And of course thinking that thought leads to the inevitable, "I don't even have kids, I'll really be gone fast." Even celebrities don't stay around forever, just look at Walter Connolly? He was a pretty big name back in the 30's.

Oh well. Here one day, gone the next.

Tracking The Celebs

I saw Nelly a couple of days ago from a distance. I was excited until I found out it wasn't Nelly Furtado and I realized I don't really know who he is. The guys I work with say he's a nice fella and comes through all the time.

I also saw Sean Michaels (the wrestler?) last week. I didn't know it was him, I don't know who he is either, but he looked like a celebrity. Once again I found out later from one of the TSOs who couldn't stop drooling.

Just Like Shia LaBeouf

Little Winnie has grown up and is making the world safe for sexy nerds.

Aawwww

@ Yahoo! Video

Places I've Been (Up To 2000)

While going through my old filing cabinet I came across a "resume" I was compiling for work way back when (on Wake Island). It had a lot of my old jobs listed. I wanted to record them before the paper was lost.

• Ft Sill, Oklahoma with HFA - April 1993 to Oct 1993
• Pueblo, Colorado with HFA still - November 1993 to Feburary 1994
• Ft Ord, California (Oceanside) from March 1994 to April 1994. I met Dan here again after kind of knowing him in Tech School.
  
• Ft Sill, Oklahoma again from April 94 until November 94
• During the down time I was working at Pizza Hut in Zanesville
• Jefferson Proving Grounds, Indiana for a company called PRC - April 1995 to May 1995
• Camp Simms, Maryland (southeast D.C) back with HFA thanks to Don Mears - July 1995 to August 1995
• Ft Devins, Massachusettes from August 1995 to October 95. That was an interesting time and still kind of a favorite of mine. I first met Andrea there.
• Ft Meade, Maryland from October 95 until February 1997, a long one. We had a huge blizzard in Feburary 96. Also my last job with HFA.
• Ft Wingate in Gallup, New Mexico for CMS - April 1997 to September 97. This is the job I got my Vmax on.
• Ft Ord again, this time with the IT Corporation (my employer for the next ten years). This was from September 1997 until December 1997.
• China Lake NAS in California - December 1997
• Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. My first of many visits there over the years. January 1998 until April 1998. I went back and forth between Ft Ord and here for awhile.
• Wake Island, Hawaii - June 1998 until August 1999. I could write several entries on this island by itself.
• Ravenna Army Ammunition Plant in Ravenna, Ohio. My one and only job in my home state, although I did return there briefly before quitting Shaw earlier this year.
• Edgewood, Maryland - November 1999 to January 2000.

That's pretty much where my list leaves off. I'm going to try to go back and fill in seven more years of information. It'll be hard, especially those one or two week (or sometimes one or two days) jobs.

Another New Obsession

Like most things I do, I've latched on to something I've had around for awhile but never really gave much thought to. Bryce invited me to join Geni earlier in 2007. I didn't think much about it although I thought it was a cool idea. I kind of forgot about it for awhile. I was still getting email notifications for anniversaries and birthdays but I usually just erased them as a nusiance. Finally a remainder for Bryce and Leanne's 9th anniversary came and for some reason I thought I would send them a greeting so I went to the homepage and checked out all the new features Geni has added in the last few years. While I was there I decided to add my in-laws and something got me interested in updating the family tree. And now I can't stop. The next step is to buy a scanner so I can start uploading those old family photos. I hope whatever form the internet takes in the future Geni is still there.