Goodbye and Farewell

One of the most important people in my life died a few hours ago.

I was fortunate in that I had time before and at the end to let them know how I feel...felt.
I will not be online very much for the next couple of weeks while I grieve. I expect to be back mid-January.

May everyone have a great holiday season and a bright New Year.

Don't wait until its too late. Say it now.

Prophetically Speaking...err, Writing

Its going to be a scary six weeks while my niece goes into kindergarten, my 'baby' brother goes to college, my new house gets rewired, my new assignment goes through and the two major political parties in the USA hold their nominating conventions (which I will be covering in a way by doing AP rewrites).

Soooo, I won't be around any of my blogs much (I have 16 and this is a primary one!) while I try to decide how much caffeine can be inhaled before I start twitching like Howdy Doody.

If I find something good in my travails online, I will be sure to share, otherwise--Aloha!

Tis the Season

I'm getting this out of the way now before I forget later.

Happy birthday to two of my brothers who have back-to-back birthdays this week. The e-card is in the mail.

I'm not particularly big on my own birthday. Its in the summer and stopped getting celebrated around the time my fourth sibling arrived.

I do like making a big deal out of others because I think everyone deserves something special on 'their' day but after this year I think I will cut back. As my dobtor {sic} friend pointed out--I have been doing for years but no one reciprocates and for family, thats pretty sad.

So enjoy your days guys. I'm sure your friends will make it worthwhile.

Like a Phoenix Sinking

So its been a few months since I last posted here. I got into a snit about the new controls and took my words elsewhere (I have 11 other blogs to blather).

All was well until I decided to move. I still haven't sold my old house, the new house is complete chaos and the only computer I was using up and killed its motherboard right before the start of NaNoWriMo.

Which meant I wasn't blathering to anyone but my over-stressed doctorate-candidate friend, who had their own problems.

Lots of scrambling later, I have a working computer to hopefully finish NaNo and be a good ML. Which means I can also go online and blather wherever will have me. Hence the new post on here.

Between here and my LJ, I will catch up-- but I don't expect anyone to be as interested as I once was.

The title of this post refers to my favorite mythological creature. Only instead of rising from the ashes, I'm sinking in a pool of frenzied chaos. Maybe I can rise in the New Year.

The worst fear...

of a single writer living alone. At least he didn't have cats. Mine would eat me, I'm sure.

Mummified body found in front of blaring TV

Mon Feb 19, 2007 9:19am ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Police called to a Long Island man's house discovered the mummified remains of the resident, dead for more than a year, sitting in front of a blaring television set.

The 70-year-old Hampton Bays, New York, resident, identified as Vincenzo Ricardo, appeared to have died of natural causes. Police said Saturday his body was discovered Thursday when they were called to the house over a burst water pipe.

"You could see his face. He still had hair on his head," Newsday quoted morgue assistant Jeff Bacchus as saying. The home's low humidity had preserved the body.

Officials could not explain why the electricity had not been turned off, considering Ricardo had not been heard from since December 2005.

Neighbors said when they had not seen Ricardo, who was diabetic and had been blind for years, they assumed he was in the hospital or a long-term care facility.

Another end, another beginning

2006 A.D. is nearly over. In about 13 hours, another gregorian calendar year will be upon us all.

I like endings, they mean new beginnings for me. There is always a chance, as long as you're alive. I forget who said that, but I'm taking not taking Alive as a for-granted status these days.

I do make resolutions, but realistic ones that I can achieve in a few months before the Resolution Blahs set in. For example, in 2006, I lost 80 pounds. Mostly from bronchitis, walking (and confining) pneumonia and a MALT lymphoma in my stomach, but I had lost 25 lbs. by June when I received my first (in a still-growing series) diagnosis.

I had resolved to lose at least a pound a month by walking an extra hour every week. Its really not hard to find a measly hour in a week. Everyone gets a 152 of them every seven days. Park your car at the back of the store lot and walk. Five to ten minutes every trip. Walk to deliver messages instead of emailing someone down the hall. Three minutes (of walking, chatting don't count even if you are standing) for each visit. When you do your laundry, walk the basket from bedroom to facilities twice. (Obviously this doesn't work too well if you don't have them in your residence.) For me, my basement stairs were an extra challenge given my furballs love of "Try to Trip the Human". And of course, walking the stairs instead of taking the elevator less than four floors adds mightily to the tally.

Today I'm making a list of Things I Want to Accomplish as part of my Resolutions.

Publication is at the top of course, but I have realistic mini-goals that I think I can resolve to implement. Hopefully Jason Sizemore will agree to be my first domino! (He's the owner/publisher/one of the editors of Apex Digest, a SF/Horror mag containing excellent short stories.) What plug? I see no plug, only a Clever Self-Made Opportunity. (Clean up your drink snorts, I run an unsticky-blog.)

I also want a Clean House. This means getting rid of the things my mother, owner of a four-level house (full attic and basement), has been storing in my itty-bitty 850 sq. ft. bungalow for Years. I love her, just not enough to keep her crap anymore. For this, I am enlisting Brothers. I bribed them good at Christmas.

I am figuring out just how much effort I want to put into my Online Life. Hence, the recent "what am I gonna do with this blog" questions. I've decided on a three-post-a-week limit with no minimum requirements other than Not Living Solely to Have Interesting Blog Material. I'm also going to reduce how much time and attention I spend on messageboards. We'll see how long that holds out!

As for the rest of the list, well, those items are a tad more personal and I'll be keeping 'em a bit closer to the vest for now.

Whether you're going, coming or trying to figure out what meaning of Aloha you want to use, have a good one--or at least figure a way to improve the one you got.