Say What?

Yay! I actually got some Rachel-time Thursday morning. She and Missy were in town Wednesday night to see a concert and rather than drive back to Rochester they chose to spend the night at our house. I got home from the all-night shift Thursday morning and caught a quick couple hours of sleep before coming down to spend some time with them before they left. I was tired but I'll take what I can get. We sat around the kitchen table talking and drinking some dynamite coffees. Well, at least mine was dynamite. Theirs were kind of boring. I don't think either of them even took me up on my mini-marshmallow suggestion. I was pleasantly surprised when they both confessed to really liking my blog :-) ...haha...oh and I promised them a shout-out! So here it is—Rachel and Missy...you rock! But seriously, I can't think of a better compliment! They had their morning faces on so the best I could do of a photo of them for the blog was as they were walking away, boring coffees in hand. ...

My countdown to retirement widget is registering 346 days remaining in my career but it's quite likely that I'll be adding another year onto that and shooting for a January 2015 date instead. It just makes good economic sense for us. We've got a couple of home improvement projects that I'd really like to accomplish before packing it in: a screen-porch and deck off the back of our home and new windows throughout the house. Did I mention that my truck is 12 years old? Oh, and there used to be a young woman who lived with us that I vaguely recall feeling a sense of obligation toward but I'm not sure what's become of her. Anyway, I think another year on the boards can go a long way toward making good on those wants. We'll see. We went out with friends yesterday afternoon and ventured into Minneapolis to tour the American Swedish Institute. (But before we left we made up some killer cups of coffee for the road. We're really enjoying our Keurig coffee mak...

I received an email from a producer at KARE 11 a few days ago requesting permission to use the video I took last year of the Crashed Ice event in St Paul for one of their upcoming news segments. He was hoping I had the raw video file to use but unfortunately I don't. I gave him a link to the video on my Vimeo channel (since deleted because I was a bad boy) where he can download the HD version. He thinks he may be able to use it. Cool! We're back to hit-or-miss slot times at Foci due to a cracked crucible in the main furnace—the new one. Not good. I'm hoping we'll find a way to get in there most weeks as I just don't like being away from it for very long. I need to keep progressing. I suppose this will give me a chance to begin working on developing my sandblasting skills on the days when we're not able to blow glass. That may be the silver lining in this for me. I think Tammy would like to try her hand at that as well. I spent our time at Foci Thursday afte...

I got a text from Tammy late Sunday morning just as I was getting to work and hurrying to find a cubicle for my laptop. She was at church working the information desk and had met a homeless couple who have been living out of their truck since last February. They spend much of their time hanging out at Walmart to stay warm in what's been a very frigid winter. Tammy said they were in need of at least a shower and a hot meal and she was wondering if I had any problem with her inviting them home to get them out of the cold for a few hours. My first reaction was a concern that she was maybe getting into more than she was prepared for and that I wouldn't be there to help. They were complete strangers to her. She assured me that everything would be okay. They were in their 50s and appeared a little mentally challenged she said—just simple people with very little to live on, trying to get by. There's no way I could or would say no. They followed her home where she spent the next ...

We said goodbye to another retiring controller today. Bill Szydlo is off to greener, more serene pastures. Congratulations, Bill! Reference my post from yesterday about Mike. There's an update I added tonight at the end of that entry. From early on, 2012 has been one that has taken me off my intended path and forced me to adapt, but more than anything, it's also caused me to at times ponder more seriously my own mortality. Up until January 20th of this year I seldom ever gave much thought to that but now I find myself distracted or haunted by those sorts of thoughts more often than I care to admit. Had my experience with bilateral pulmonary embolus been a one-off ordeal, that would've been entirely different and I'd have moved on. But I don't know that it was. Chances are good that I'll never suffer an episode like that again but chances were much more in my favor before it ever happened that I'd never go through that experience but I still did so I fin...

I made my way through the Bible once again this past year, both Old and New Testaments. This marks my 7th journey through both books but rather than feeling like I have a better understanding of all I've read, I feel just the opposite, especially concerning the Old Testament. I'm not sure I'll go back there anytime soon. I think in the future, I'll explore books that delve into explanations of what I'm struggling with, some of which I've written about over the last several months. My faith is still intact although I'm feeling more confused than ever. I suppose the easiest way to say it is that I've become someone who has more questions than answers and those questions leave me bewildered. Also troubling to me is the way we Christians pick and choose those parts of the Bible we want to strictly follow while ignoring other even more meaningful scripture such as how Jesus calls us to help our fellow man or how he taught passivity while abhorring aggressio...

I drove down to Rochester yesterday morning to bring Rachel back for Christmas. Our time is going to be so limited with her though as she leaves for her dad's home tomorrow. She'll spend a couple days there before making her way back to Rochester and her job at the assisted living center. We got to chat on our drive back and that's always so nice. She brought up the Newtown school shootings and asked me what I thought about it all. So much has already been said and I don't want to get into that here except to say that we're drowning in guns here in the US and I'm afraid it may be too late to stem the tide of senseless killings. The gun guys have won and easy access to firearms is there for just about anyone. And now we're all stuck with the constant drip, drip, drip of senseless deaths day after day. Get used to it. Sad. Anyway, Rachel mentioned how she'd read something Morgan Freeman had written on Facebook about the Newtown school massacre which r...