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Posts Tagged ‘humour’

Number Ten

Posted in Lifes Observations, tagged , , , , , on December 19, 2009| 3 Comments »

This will be my 10th post and it is going to be self-indulgent after all this is a journey about me.  Have I learned anything from any of this?   I’ve made a few observations.  I’m petty sure I was taught this in high school but it only hit home once I started this blog, the ending is always somewhere in the beginning.  Writing, like everything else takes on a life on its own. All I can really do is have an idea and start typing, it doesn’t take long before the story heads off in its own direction. I can try and nudge it one way or another but usually I end up having to change words around to accomodate the new direction. If and when I try to nudge it back to my orignal intent the words feel wrong.  An easy example of this can be clearly seen (from my perspective) in Magical moments. The entire post was supposed to be comedic in nature and focus around the raccoons climbing up my wife’s leg.  Instead that theme turned into one line.  While I hope folks found the entry funny the point turned into something quite insightful,   I got as far the raccoon climbing my wife’s leg and from there the story sat in my draft file for a week and a half without an ending.  Eventually I looked back at the beginning and discovered that the moment that the wildlife people live for wasn’t just the release of animal it was the success of a process.  I was able to add a little of the reality or at least the reality my wife and I go through and some of the elements that make it special.  So the story took on its own life and the ending which had eluded me was right there at the beginning.

The person who inspired me to start a blog, or at least who managed to get me off my arse and start writing manages to post 3 times a week Mommy said what? which is amazing seeing as she has the boy, the girl, the husband, the job and a life. My goal is twice a week with the hope of three times. Each time I bring a post to completion I panic, while I have plenty to draw from I go blank.  I don’t want to fall into a rut of similar posts. I refuse to rant and plenty of my posts turn into rants.  I file them away because with some thought I can turn them around.  It takes a day or so to come up with a post.  Then it takes an hour or so to get it to the screen then there is the countless times I go through it over and over again unfortunately I can’t do that in one sitting.  I end up going over it several times throughout the day and then some.  Sure enough I manage to make my self-imposed deadline without much sacrifice.  When I finally publish the post I am happy with it.  Obviously there is always room for improvement, but that is what the next post is for.  

I am quite surprised by the number of people who follow my blog and even more surprised by who some of them are.  My biggest worry in starting this is who is going to read it?  But does it matter?  It must I check on my stats every time I turn on the computer.  It is always a little ego boosts.  On top of that there is a number of people who get the blog sent to them by email I’m not sure if WordPress counts that as a hit or not.  But I know they are there even if they don’t comment on the page itself.  I really am thankful for my readers and hope you continue to read and enjoy.

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It really is a small world

Posted in Small town life, tagged , , , , on December 13, 2009| 3 Comments »

This is not a work related post. The story however begins at work.  I called a local golf center to narrow down an issue they were having and schedule a time for a technician to go and resolve the problem, we made all the necessary arrangements and I went on with my day.

That evening my wife and I were meeting Sparrow, the director of the wild life rehab center and some of her volunteers for dinner.   There was one couple we had never met but we seemed to have a lot in common.  Imagine our surprise when we realized that he was the person I had spoken to earlier that day to arrange for a technician to come out and fix the problem he was having at work.  Such a small world and it was getting smaller.  Later my wife was talking about her work in the agricultural dept.  It turns out the very same day he had spoken to my wife about some soil samples he wanted analyzed!  What are the odds that we were eating dinner with somebody we had never met before yet we had both spoken to during the day on totally unrelated issues?    It is a small world, and it is about to get smaller.  It turns out that they were interested in purchasing a house just two doors away from ours, unfortunately somebody else beat them to it and the house sold before they even put in a bid.  But we had fun imagining how we could have set up a release site for the animals between the two properties.  But wait, the world was yet to get smaller.  Two years later the house came up for sale again.  We contacted our friends and they were still interested in the propery and are now our new neighbors.  Yes the same one featured in hospital and yes the very same who became attached to the raccoons in Magical moments.  Guess what? the world continues to get even smaller.  At the neighbours house-warming party we met the realtor, the realtor’s husband is an aerospace engineer who teaches at the university, (we didn’t know such a program even existed at the university).  He was from Spain so we got to exchange war stories about immigration and had a lot of fun.  Months later my wife and I went through a lot of time and effort trying to purchase two laptop computers from a company who’s online department  messed up the order in more ways than I thought was possible.  Our saviour was a sales rep at the local branch of the store who along with his manager managed to fix everything.  The day we were able to pick up the computers we were chatting with the sales rep and found out he was studying aerospace at the university and surprise, surprise one of his professors was our next door neighbours real estate agents husband.  Yes, the wold keeps getting smaller.  This week I found out that the new hire at my work previously worked with my neighbor. Why am I not surprised?

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Hospital

Posted in Lifes Observations, tagged , , , on November 26, 2009| 7 Comments »

Stardate 11/25/09 11:09 pm Mount Nittany Medical Center, emergency room, State College Pa.

Evening started out easily enough sitting around watching TV rejoicing in the fact that tomorrow is a holiday and I took the day after that as a vacation day and then it’s the weekend. Four days off in a row. Suddenly it happens, the phone rings. I hate phones they make loud sudden noises and when you go to shut them up there is somebody on the other end wanting to ‘arghh’ talk to you. The horror!

Well it was my neighbour on the phone, it would have been so much better if it was the neighbours I don’t like, (funny, they never call. I should probably like them). Her husband is away, she had to put her cat down  and she is feeling horrible, has been home all day can’t eat and has been throwing up and really needs a ride to the emergency room. Like I said, good thing my wife and I really like these people or she would be finding her own way. We changed into our respectable street clothes, grabbed the neighbour drove like a crazy people over the thick as pea soup fog covered mountains praying the entire time that a deer doesn’t jump out in front of us, stopping twice only long enough so our neighbour could go stand in the ditch and puke.

My job now is to sit in the waiting room, I’m reasonably sure I can handle this task.  Not many people here tonight and between it being bear hunting season, buck season, drunken thanksgiving and of course smack dab in the middle of the h1N1 scare I kinda thought that this would be the bustling place. Wrong!

My observations;

The people sitting behind me are way to comfortable. They even brought a picnic dinner. I think I’ll go sit closer to them.

Based on the attire of those that do manage to show up it appears that I overdressed for the occasion. Jeans and a T-shirt are out, PJ’s and fuzzy slippers are in.

Uh oh Pregnant lady just walked in. I can assure you I’m not birthing no baby no matter how much they beg. Coast is clear an orderly whom by the way didn’t look that orderly just  took her away.

The public water fountain is making me nervous. In these days of wide spread pandemics, epidemics and academics you would think in a hospital they would do away with such a barbaric device. There are these little hand wipe canisters every two feet and posters on the walls teaching you how to cough without spreading germs, (putting your nose and mouth into the crook of your elbow appears to be the accepted method) But by all means go ahead and use this water fountain that every sick person has been touching WITH THEIR MOUTHS.

I’ve walked another two circuits of the waiting room, not much to report except the two EMT’s standing on the other side of the glass doors which I am forbidden to pass through are far to young to be out this late never mind driving and saving people.

My wife and neighbour are coming through the glass doors on their own volition and my neighbour looks  better than she did when we brought her in and my wife is as beautiful as ever.

All that’s left is the drive home through the thick as pea soup fog covered mountains with the leaping deer and all will be good.

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