Summer Daze

This time of year always takes me back to the summer between my 10th grade and 11th grade in high school. I remember getting into the album Signals by Rush so intensely that summer. One of my favorite songs by Rush is on that album. Here's a wordle for ya from the tune: The Analog Kid.

Miles will be home from Camp McCall tomorrow morning. I look forward to his stories! We have a way to send him emails every day and I know he is enjoying his week in the hills. Dylan and I head that way on Monday. Tomorrow we are going to another Greenville Drive game with Susan and her family. That should be a blast and Susan and family finally get to meet Keller. He didn't even know he had so many cousins! Shadow said "great, more people taking my sleeping chairs" :-)

See ya!

Well They Say...

Albuquerque (Neil Young)

Well, they say
that Santa Fe
Is less than ninety miles away,
And I got time to roll a number
and rent a car.
Oh, Albuquerque.

I've been flyin'
down the road,
And I've been starvin' to be alone,
And independent from the scene
that I've known.
Albuquerque.

So I'll stop when I can,
Find some fried eggs
and country ham.
I'll find somewhere where
they don't care who I am.
Oh, Albuquerque,
Albuquerque.

“Our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him”

(2 Corinthians 3:18 MSG).

See ya!

Tuesday Morning

Well, I see the iPhone formatting leaves some to be desired. I was typing in an email, I will try using the iPhone on the actual blog page next time around. Just got back from a great long walk with Tricia and Keller. Keller walked back from the playground trail head without a leash this morning. We had an early start and he did fine. He's a good boy; but, he has some ADHD and you have to be very vigilant, which Tricia found out last week :-)

Full speed ahead this week with work. I had a conversation with my Mom this weekend about work. I really am happy and more challenged with work when I have too much to do and believe me, I am there now! Makes the days go by very fast, especially when you work at home. I am enjoying the challenge and feel like we are making some progress too! That's always good!

Mom is feeling better and up and about but still in discomfort, especially at night. I had the joy of changing her dressing on Friday as it was raining too hard when Amy had to go to work and Pete didn't feel like he could handle it. I guess my nursing experience kicked in! She still has staples and bruising too. She's been sleeping in her chair in the living room. It takes a while to bounce back from two major surgeries, regardless of your age. She's in good spirits; but, wants to get out and do more. It's a bit frustrating to be limited as she has always been on the go. See my comments about work in the last paragraph, no need to worry about how I got that work ethic. Dad was the same way too, always on the go and looking for the next thing.

Speaking of the next thing, Africa is just around the corner. I am going to call our dentist and orthodontist this week to solicit donations of toothbrushes and toothpaste. That's a big campaign they are working on right now. The last group had good success with promoting some basic dental care and we want to make sure they have a good supply to keep the momentum up.

Well, time for work. Quick note, I finished the book about Andrew Jackson, American Lion. Well, I read the first half and skimmed the second half. Way too much detail for me; but, I would consider it the definitive history on the subject at hand. It was an interesting view of what it was like to be President before the Civil War and another history of the events that lead up to the Civil War. I now have a new book from my VP at work called The Exceptional Presenter. He sent it to my 2 consultants; but, they never read it. It was sent to me yesterday. I do look forward to picking up on more presentation skills. That's my bread and butter right now and there is ALWAYS room for improvement.

See ya!

Hey now

Too tired to go back in the office to post in the blog, so I will try
my first iPhone post!
Worked a short day since I was still feeling a little under the gun
from the stomach bug from the weekend. Yesterday's drive home was way
too long; but, Dylan and I had a good time. We had a good time at
ADBC yesterday and a great time talking about Africa after church at
Logan's. We are getting closer and still have a few details to finish.
Got my travel insurance today. Really cheap but oh so worth the $3.30/
day! I am working on getting our per diem money wired ahead now. Got
my sleeping pills and malaria mess today from my doctor.

Miles went off to Camp McCall today. He will be home on Friday. He's
gonna have so much fun. Dylan and I go next week!

I am teaching Dylan (and Tricia) how to play chess. They are playing
each other now and practicing the moves. Night moves...

See ya!

via iPhone

Weekend in Sumter County

Dylan and I are in Sumter this weekend spending time with my family. I had to come down to Tuomey (my old hospital) to help teach ACLS for nurses and doctors. It's an easy check and pays for the gas to get home and spend some time on the farm. Tricia and Miles stayed home and went on a "date" to see the new Harry Potter movie together. Dylan and I got to swim and eat some country cooking too. Although my Mom is still recovering from her surgery and very sore, she is able to give directions and orders to Amy, who did a fine job with the field peas and okra and corn bread(mmmmmm). My favorite had to be the fresh tomatoes and cucumbers (could be a meal in of itself). A nice chocolate cake and coffee to top it off!

Dylan and I are going to look on Amazon in a few minutes for Harry Potter books that his Aunt Amy is going to buy for his birthday.

Tomorrow we are going to church at Alice Drive and we are going out for lunch with the Shipes family. Scott and I went on the Africa trip last year and he is one of the two folks from ADBC going again with us this year. We have some planning to do in our lunch meeting. It's exciting that we are about 1 month away from returning to Africa. I am looking forward to the work and the adventure and it's always great to have Scott along to keep me laughing.

Here's a picture of Scott and I climbing the Kgale Hills in Botswana last summer!

After lunch, we are going to head back for a quick swim and rest before heading back home to Greer tomorrow evening. Miles is heading off to Camp McCall on Monday for the week. It's his 2nd year at McCall by himself and he is very much looking forward to the week of fun and adventure. Well, that's the update. More soon! Love you all!

See ya!

VBS

It's VBS week at Freedom Fellowship. Tricia and I are movers for a group of 14 1st graders! We are the Coyotes! So, you probably won't see many posts this week unless I can find some time during the work day. Which doesn't look promising from here.

Dylan and I are heading to Sumter this weekend. I have to help teach the ACLS class at Tuomey, my old employer. It makes a few bucks for me and Dylan gets to swim in Nana's pool. Miles has camp on Monday, so he and Mom are going to hang around and go see the new Harry Potter movie while we are out of town.

Hey, did you notice the new Google Voice icon at the top of the blog? It's a neat new service from Google that allows you to link all of your phones with one call and it has a preview feature so you can know it's from Google Voice and it allows you to make cheap overseas calls too and free text messages! So, give it a whirl if you feel like talking. There is no charge for long distance calls.

I also added some of my Youtube videos on the blog too. Ok, that's about it. It's hot and muggy up here this week. Must be summer! Hey, the Drivin' n' Cryin' show was great and LOUD! My recording turned out great too, nice to see those guys again. Brings back some old memories of a far more innocent and free time for me. Rockin' in the Free World!

See ya!

Certifiable!!!

Yes, once again, I am certifiable. I passed the CPHIMS exam yesterday. It was not an easy exam and required me to put on the old thinking cap. Lots of questions that forced you to eliminate 1 of 4 answers: "A-1,2,4 only B-2,3,4 only C-1,2,3 only D-1,2,4 only" or putting a sequence of events in correct order, etc. I was challenged considering I didn't study using any of the recommended guides and I didn't pay for the practice exam. The cutoff for passing was 65. I scored 68! But, 66 is still passing and all that matters is that I passed!!! I am now a Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CPHIMS) and will be for another 3 years. I won't have to take that exam again as long as I maintain my continuing education credits. I can now add to my signature lines on Outlook and work is ordering new business cards too! Glad I didn't have to retake the exam since that $300 would have come out of my pocket. Iatric paid the 1st round! If you are on Facebook, you probably saw some of my friends getting the CPHIMS exam confused at first glance with a CHIMP exam. I guess that explains a lot about my friends over there too ;-). Regardless, I will take the jokes since the pressure is now off. I would have felt like a CHIMP had I not passed the first try.

Nl: Drivin' n' Cryin' "Honeysuckle Blue", can't wait to see them tonight at The Handlebar! Getting pumped for that show. Should be a perfect summer night for music too! I just found out that Dickey Betts from Allman Brothers fame (he was a founding member and part of the group for their first 31 years) is coming to The Handlebar in October. That will be a packed house!

I finished something today that I started over 10 years ago: the 50 State Quarters map. The Montana quarter had escaped me for too long and I had to place an order on eBay to finish the collection. That was worth the $1.98. We have the completed map up in the boys' room. Somethings take a while to complete and that's the lesson I was working on with the boys today when we finished the map.

Tomorrow marks 20 years since my first Grateful Dead LIVE experience: 7-12-1989 at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC. My high school friend, Marty Proctor, and I drove up there and had life journey in the process. I knew the tunes for the most part having initiated myself into Dead tapes and albums the 2nd semester of my freshman year at Clemson. My entire summer revolved around that trip to DC. I was determined to make it after not getting a ticket to the Atlanta shows that spring. I didn't have a car then either! I had a few hundred dollars in cash just itching to be spent on anything and everything in the parking lot. Back then, the Dead were crash cities for a few days and bring the entire travelling circus of campers and parking lot carnival along with them. This was the last tour they were allowing concert goers to spend the night in the lots after the show. It got ugly after this tour with cops pushing us out not long after the music was over. But, for this weekend, we had the circus lot all to ourselves after the music. I'm sure 1/3 of the lot Deadheads never made it into the show or ever had a ticket, other than a miracle or two each tour. Any way, on the way to DC, we stopped at a hotel in Northern Virginia to sleep before hitting the show. I got paranoid (I hadn't been away from home too much at this point) and put my wallet in my pillowcase in the hotel that night. Of course, I didn't remember the wallet until we had gone about 5 miles down the interstate the next morning. Long story short, I never got the money or the wallet back. I did get my license and Clemson ID sent in the mail a few weeks later. The hotel owner felt sorry for me and gave me $20 for gas. We used that $20 to drive to Richmond to find an ATM that Marty could use. These were the days of no cell phones and regional ATMs (remember that headache?). We made it to Richmond, got some money and headed back to DC. This was NOT how I envisioned my trip to Mecca!!! But, I think it was also part of God's plan to keep me from going on the rest of the tour that summer and keepin' me tied to home.

Since the band was still in Philadelphia, the travelling circus had not arrived in DC yet for the most part. We spent the day before the 1st show walking around DC and riding the subway, my first experience with that big city mode of transportation. By the time the music started on that 2nd day in DC, I think Marty and I were about cross eyed from lack of sleep and way too much of everything else. One of my Clemson buddies found us in the lot (don't know how that even happened). Despite all the hassles and fried brain cells, I do remember an incredible sense of joy when the band took the stage. There was magic in the air and it wasn't just that strong odor we all smelled either :-). This was when Garcia was focused and his playing and singing on target. The band was loose and tight all at the same time. The mass of people swirling around that open air stadium rushing the field, running from the security, the loud music and colors everywhere were imprinted on my brain for life. One large Garcia smile punctuated by Phil's bass lines and the 2 drummers were all it took. I ended up seeing the band another 39 times until 1995 when Garcia passed away. My last show was Memorial Day 1995 in Portland, Oregon. In my mind, complete bookends. The uptight insanity and confusion of the East in 1989 compared with the peaceful mellow vibe of the West Coast spring in 1995. The band had changed and so had I. What happened in those 39 shows (and a few more where I didn't get a ticket and spent the night running from cops on horseback (only in Washington of all places)), I can't do justice with words in this blog. It was a great way to see the country with friends, the ones on stage and the ones travelling the highways with you. My summers at Clemson were milestoned with Dead shows, spring breaks too. I would see the band in the DC area a total of 7 times; but, there was never another one like that first in 1989. In other words, what a long strange trip it turned out to be...

See ya!