Tag Archives: happiness

In the “God loves my school better than yours” department…

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Excerpt of an email from my father:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton has announced he will resign at the end of the month as the program wraps up a lengthy NCAA investigation process.

A news conference was called for 11 a.m. Tuesday.

“My family and I love the University of Tennessee, and we love Knoxville,” Hamilton said in a statement. “We have poured out our lives over the last 19 years to try to make this a better community, a better athletic program and a better university.”

Hamilton did not say in his statement why he was resigning, though he has faced criticism for the coaches he hired and fired during the past three seasons and for NCAA violations committed by those coaches that resulted in a major investigation into recruiting.

During his eight-year tenure, Hamilton fired coach Phillip Fulmer and replaced him with Lane Kiffin, who left the Volunteers after one season to coach at Southern California. Hamilton also hired and fired men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl, who turned the Vols’ program around, but was accused by the NCAA of lying during its investigation.

Hamilton has said several times since revealing in September that the NCAA was investigating Tennessee’s basketball and football programs that the violations the Vols were facing were the result of a few coaches acting on their own accord.

Tennessee has since been charged with 12 major violations, and Hamilton and other athletic officials will meet with the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions on Saturday.

“The University of Tennessee’s athletic programs have experienced great success under Mike Hamilton’s leadership,” Chancellor Jimmy Cheek said. “Mike has led our teams to success on and off the field. Mike is a man of high integrity and deep faith. His contributions to our campus and its faculty, staff and students will live on for many decades, especially his positive influence on our student-athletes. We will miss him.”

Entschuldigen Sie, Bitte. There’s A Bitter Taste In My Mouth.

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Pardon me while I dig a sprout from between my teeth.  Sehr gut!

On condition of anonymity, after receiving a hefty bribe, a U.S. government official allegedly told me that the words “France” and anything French have been banned from the official AmED [American English Dictionary].  Further, the U.S. government has retracted its claim to have freed France the country near Spain from Germany during WWII and has ceded the country near Spain to Germany in exchange for Germany extending an unlimited use of the words “twitter” and “facebook” to German language speakers/writers.

Congrats to the Danes, who proved that the Viking spirit is still alive in the name of Tycho Brahe.

I’m a little behind on my big behind in thanking people who’ve interacted with me in business or purely social situations lately, including Dr. Tom, Cheryl, Sandy, Imaria, Kristine, Ray, Kisha, Billie, Dawn, Leonard, Johnnie, Marlin, Jason, Lativia and several who are working on nursing or business management college coursework.

Congrats to Chestney for being the first person on her mother’s side of the family to get her high school diploma – we’re proud of you, young lady.

Welcome to the new era of CV gaps – I miss the old days when employers such as myself readily accepted excuses for employment gaps like: “The period of unemployment from 1969 to 1991 on my resumé?  I was following the Grateful Dead.”  We had more varied workplaces which enhanced creativity rather than goosestepping employees afraid to take time off for miniretirements.

C’est la vista.

A little bird told me that a rocket team has already secretly launched a small vehicle toward the Moon which will deposit the first Earth-to-Moon food delivery package, possibly containing fresh bread and muffins from David and Cheryl Walker of Atlanta Bread Company.  The first humans to retrieve the package will find a winning lottery ticket.  Or something like that.

Time to apply a little elbow grease and get back to work.

= = =

I leave you with this spot of humour:

A redneck with a bucket full of live fish was approached recently by a game warden in Central Mississippi as he started to drive his boat away from a lake.

The game warden asked the man, “May I see your fishing license please?”
“Naw, sir,” replied the redneck. “I don’t need none of them there papers.  These here are my pet fish.”

“Pet fish??”

“Yep. Once a week, I bring these here fish o’mine down to the lake and let ’em swim ’round for a while. Then when I whistle, they swim right back into my net and I take ’em home.”

“What a line of bull….you’re under arrest.”

The redneck said, “It’s the truth, Mr. Gov’ment Man. I’ll show ya! We do this all the time!!”

“WE do, now, do WE?” smirked the warden. “PROVE it!”

The redneck released the fish into the lake and stood and waited.

After a few minutes, the warden said, “Well?”

“Well, WHUT?” said the redneck.

The warden asked, “When are you going to call them back?”

“Call who back?”

“The FISH,” replied the warden!

“Whut fish?” asked the redneck.
MORAL OF THE STORY:

We may not be as smart as some city slickers, but we ain’t as dumb as some government employees.  You can say what you want about the South, but we never hear of anyone retiring and moving north.

More Gratitude

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A nod of thanks to many in the past week or so, including the marketing/sales managers of the following assisted living facilities:

  • Tammie Robinson-Lindsey, Gardens of Huntsville, 10310 Bailey Cove Road, Huntsville, AL 35803, 256.880.1515
  • Michelle Anderson, Country Cottage, 4200 Chris Drive, Huntsville, AL 35802,256.880.1101
  • Kerri Grimes, HarborChase, 4801 Whitesport Circle, Huntsville, AL 35801, 256.650-1155
  • Dana, Clare Bridge at Hampton Cove, 6379 Hwy 431 S, Hampton Cove, AL 35763, 256.564.8383
  • M.M. Tweedy, Regency Retirement Village, 2004 Max Luther, Huntsville, AL 35810, 256.852.0033
  • Susie and Tara, Brookdale Place, 2815 Carl T Jones Drive Southeast, Huntsville, AL 35802, 256.881.6111
  • Michelle Bolling, Emeritus at Kingsport, 2424 N John B Dennis Hwy, Kingsport, TN 37660, 423.288.8600
  • Barry Simmons, Wellington Place of Colonial Heights, 400 Professional Park Dr, Kingsport, TN 37663, 423.239.0022
  • Sherry King, Remington House, 640 Rock Springs Rd, Kingsport, TN 37664, 423.239.8803
  • Sandra Brown, Asbury Place – Steadman Hill Campus, 1300 Bloomington Pike, Kingsport, TN 37660, 423.245.1067

Time to start looking up at the early morning sky for the last view of the Space Shuttle Endeavour and the ISS reflecting light in the same part of the sky.

And then continue to write the next happy, fun chapters of the history of our species in this part of the galaxy.

Reviewing The Recent Past

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While researching some messages from the not too distant moments behind us, I found the following interesting text:

Message-Id: <8905301533.AA19062@hpfcla.HP.COM>
Date: Tue, 30 May 89 10:58:05 edt
From: Eric Haines <eye!erich@spruce>
Subject: Rapture or Rupture?

Author: `Rapture’ will be on Sept. 1
————————————

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A retired NASA engineer who predicted that the
beginning of the end of the world would occur in 1988 now says his forecast was
off by one year.

Edgar Whisenant said born-again Christians will be taken up into heaven Sept. 1
in the “rapture.”

Whisenant, 56, created a stir last year with the publication of “88 Reasons Why
the Rapture Will Be in 1988.” He estimated that he and the World Bible Society
here gave away or sold about 4.5 million copies of the booklet. “The Final
Shout–Rapture ’89 Report” is to be released this week, he said.

—–

So, does anyone know the address of the World Bible Society? It’s not in
_High Weirdness By Mail_.

–Eric Haines, 157th Incarnation of the Inexorable World Egg

It helps us to know what we’ve said to understand what we will say and do in the future, no matter how strange-sounding, weird or nonconventional.

For instance, in writing a storyline that takes all of us into account, the silent majority is just as interesting as the loud edges.

If Tina Fey wants Sarah Palin to remain in the public eye so she can keep making money the old-fashioned way, we can accommodate her wishes until she becomes a wealthy director/producer behind the camera, but does that mean Comedy or Relative Conservatism wins?

In the New World Order, what do the shareholders in the business of politics want?  Government handouts during lean times or fighting for jobs in a competitive environment where government props do not exist?

And if there is no “either/or” involved, can we put the concept of politics aside and deal with the fact that politicians are symbols of people’s dreams and desires, switchboard operators or gatekeepers of the flow of diverted money-based information, nothing more?

“I WILL KEEP YOUR HOPES AND DREAMS ALIVE,” leaders shout in unison across the ages.

Time for more meditation, this time away from our species and into the bigger universe of non symbolic/memelike interaction of states of energy, unplugging from our shared madness of imaginable pasts/futures.

What if the Apathy Party held a convention and nobody attended?

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The existence of this post betrays its existence.

At the same time, the Anarchy Party is planning to…well, wait, isn’t anarchy about the lack of organisation?

The list goes on.

Poking fun at ourselves with complicated symbology is the best form of innerspecies flattery.

Pretending to be enraged/mad or insane/mad or happy/dull or unsharpened/dull.

Or just plain mad/dull.

Rewriting Lysistrata and the Art of War for the seventeen-thousandth time.

Or perhaps happy/mad.

The pursuit of the pursuers of happiness – that’s the sole purpose of the Patriot Act.

“By God, man, don’t you know my version of the Great American Way is the only true path to happiness?”

“I don’t know, boss.  I’m too busy cleaning your floor while earning less than minimum wage and getting no benefits in order to feed my kids who dream of anything better than what I’m doing, even if they simply become slaves to technology and monthly roaming rates like you, rather than my parents, who were slaves to the dry soil and fickle weather of my home country, which inspires many there to seek the easy life of drugs and gun running, which your country buys from us and supplies to us, respectively.  But, hey, I’m nobody, right?”

To stay on my path, which includes sitting here and watching a cicada body trapped in a spider thread spin in the wind, is what it is, neither THE way nor just any way to live in happiness and peace.

A person my age is the most-recognised political executive of the Western Hemisphere.

To control a vast network of people hidden from view is like being in charge of the Apathy Party – no one cares to know the truth because it would shatter every dream or wish we have in saying we are in control of our personal destinies.

I overheard an elderly person make a toast with a glass of wine:

“Here’s to those who wish me well,
The rest of you can go to hell.”

Then they proceeded with a fashion show at the assisted living facility, including a lady who wore a hat made of pill bottles, much more inventive than any of the haute couture creations that pass for wearable art these days.

I’m in a wickedly vicious mood, wanting more out of life than what a passive, nonadventurous, monotonously monogamous, family-oriented, suburban existence offers.

Let the moralists cry over the sex crimes of the IMF chief and others who make good conformist news headlines.

Quite frankly, I am not them, although I live among them and support their subculture like any other.

At the same time, I suffer buyer’s remorse over putting my mother in-law in a “cruise ship” firmly planted in the middle of urban sprawl, wondering if she’ll get the intellectual stimulus she’s enjoyed at a small town pace her whole life.

And finally, not worried about readership, I return to the life I had, coordinating with my network of nonconforming individualists to herd the lives of most of the rest of the seven billion of us states of energy hanging out around this orb, none of you fully aware of what’s really going on, some of you getting a rare glimpse behind the illusions you were handed in your formative years.

Time to complete a few tasks for my mother in-law’s move and then meditate on nothing in particular – the best part of being inactive and uncaring in relation to the voices of extremists and whiners.

“All I want is a 30 share and a 20 rating”

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Ahh…the house of cards is showing it’s emporial, temporal clothing again.  I wouldn’t trust U.S. or Chinese companies, or any international banking/investment groups right now.

Would you?

I sure wouldn’t allow the stench of auditors in my house.

Should I be mad as hell and not going to take it anymore?

Time to bury the rest of my money in them Mason jars I done drunk all my moonshine out of.

Good thing I got my money out of the mattress afore that there tornado took it away!

DSK has proved the IMF is a joke and the global currency market is full of whoring menfolk that my momma and daddy said to shy away from ‘cuz they ain’t never got your interest in their interest, know what I mean?

Glad I just finished my occasional viewing of “Network” – the Committee wants me back on the job now that I’ve just about got my mother in-law all settled nice and snug in her own instant community.

A nod to that actor/dancer, Kirstie, who lost all that weight, and all them other folk who earn a living in front of bright lights in the big city.

Keeps us country folk happily glued to the boob tube while we count our pennies left over after eating fast food on Googlefied EBT cards next to the cash-checking place that takes our weekly unemployment benefit payout for a small 25% fee.

Life is good, ain’t it?

My satellite in the sky guarantees the only real solar system currency that’s valid on any spaceship – no funny money involved.

Lucky Sincere Trust: The Giving Best Family

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Is there a theme/purpose for today’s blog entry?

Why am I sitting here externalising my thoughts?

Actions speak louder than words.

As a product of these times, I am connected to the few percent of the living examples of my species in total, dead or alive.

I can speak actively and write passively or three other combinations of active/passive existence.

Possible theme/purpose

In agreement with her family, my wife made the final call about living quarters for the rest of her mother’s life.

A three-story building containing one floor of memory care (i.e., Alzheimer’s/dementia residents) and two floors of those who require assisted living, including a la carte levels of care based on time management studies of individual resident’s daily assistance needs.

Many places we visited during the informationgathering/decisionmaking process offered in-house services such as beauty/barber shop, exercise classes, religion studies, shopping/community excursions, housekeeping/laundry, basic “cable” television, telephone and electric/water/sewage/garbage utilities.

All provided three meals a day, trained staff available 24/7, socialising events and medical alert technology.

Thanks to Kerri, Lawanda, Leonard, Rob, Brenda, Madeline and others at HarborChase for their help ahead of my mother in-law’s arrival.

Thanks to Michelle, Tara, Diane and Tayasha at Country Cottage for their input into my wife’s decision.

A harrying, emotional couple of weeks with logistical issues yet to resolve.