ATM Terror

May 19th, 2012

Today I went to the ATM at my friendly local neighborhood bank. There I approached the machine, inserted my card and punched in my pin, specified checking, and then my measely amount only to have it spit out a receipt stating that the transaction couldn’t be completed.

Well, not being known for my financial wizardry to say the least, I rushed home in a terror of those visions of emptied accounts which should have been fairly substantial to find precisely what I expected in the balance department.

The abrupt nature of my dismissal by the bank’s ATM was disconcerting to say the least in lack of any explanation other than the “transaction couldn’t be completed”.

Needless to say I shall be repenting for my most recent spate of cursing and snarling and the obligatory gritting of teeth with drops of spittle forming at the corners of my mouth.

The tragedy is I may never know why the ATM decided to be so brusque … or cryptic.

Sometimes technology simply tries to give you a heart attack.

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Posted in Consumers, Places, Technology, Things
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Icons, Singers, & Eras

May 18th, 2012

Donna Summer, ‘Queen’ of an era I’d just as soon forget passed away yesterday at the ripe old age of 63. Hell, I’ll be 63 soon enough. She passed from lung cancer and had the ability to hide her infirmity from her significant fan base for the duration.

  
Donna Summer
December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012

I remember her heyday. She was an icon of that genre of sparkle and coiff teched with theatrics and lights and sounds that could only be called ‘disco’ … which I utterly detested along with everything that went with it: the glitz, the glam, that accursed movie …

However, I could be caught listening to Donna Summer’s music periodically and I certainly did not find any fault with her music — reserving it all for that “image” with all the white patent leather, polyester bedecked leisure suit larry’s and their superficial dumbass babe’s who were part and parcel of the notion that it was okay to be stupid as long as you were dressed well and your makeup was right.

Anyhoo, not to belabor the point she rode the popularity rocket to the stars and made a bundle and I only wish that she could have been around longer to enjoy it all … for even icons and singers of eras gone by can’t take it with them.

Hers was quite a niche in the world of music and there haven’t been any iconoclasts quite in that genre she occupied since.

Rest in peace.

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Posted in Music, Obituaries
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As I Slowly Sink into The West …

May 17th, 2012

I must have suffered a relapse. The ghost of cigarettes smoked in the past seems to be declining to leave my wretched burning lungs — that nasopharyngealsinuspulmonary thing I have going on appears reticent to relent.

So yesterday I’m sitting at my desk hammering away at various projects which have been backing up due to my recent infirmity only to have a repeat performance of those bothersome sniffles, cough, hacking, gacking, and what have you I thought I had shaken.

My cohorts at work are none too happy about it either. It would seem that they would just as soon have Typhoid Dave stay home. My normally congenial fellow application group member was particularly adamant regarding the passing of germs in the office being unsatisfactory.

The group leader was mostly amused. My quandary is that the work is getting done; I was cleared by my physician — and then today you’d think I hadn’t felt any better for months.

So … I left ten minutes early came home and put the symptoms to bed for a couple hours. I’m feeling better now … but I’ve been at this place before with this particular illness. I’m popping mucinex and vitamin C and hoping for the best.

I intend to return to work tomorrow. However, with the director telling me that perhaps the workplace is not the appropriate venue for convalescence we’ll play it by ear and see how tomorrow goes.

As for the rest of you out there — don’t smoke. I quit long ago and it’s still making me sick. I could certainly use a little less coughing, sneezing, and malaise. Hope nobody else gets it or my butt could be in a crack … right along with everything else.

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Posted in Health
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Immortal and Universal

May 16th, 2012

I am from a rural Aiken County, South Carolina community called “Hollow Creek”. It is about 30 miles from each of the three closest incorporated municipalities:

Columbia
Aiken
Orangeburg

Closer still is a town called ‘New Holland’ and there is what I perceive from the names and religious persuasions to be a Pennsylvania Dutch derivation … a Mennonite church lay on the outskirts and a number of the inhabitants resemble dutch people I’ve encountered on the West coast and elsewhere during my travels.

Still, the Mennonites are there living quietly and not known for the collusion, subterfuge, stolen wills, and dirty dealings characteristic of having one too many insipid inbred corrupt individuals in their midst. Lucky them.

Somebody get me my deer rifle …

I once read about an Anabaptist Mennonite martyr named Dirk Willems. His story is particularly sad due to the nature of his passing and that streak of treachery which has followed us all from then until now.

Willems was a native of Asperen, Gelderland in the Netherlands. He was baptized as a young man, thereby rejecting the infant baptism practiced at that time by both Catholics and established Protestants in the Netherlands.

These developments and the fact that he was converting others to his “non Roman Catholic” faith caused him to be first condemned by the Catholic Church in the Netherlands and then arrested.

He escaped from his prison which was in a residential palace escaping by rope he made of knotted rag. Crossing the frozen moat he was pursued by a guard who fell through the ice and would have surely died had Willems not returned and rescued him.

The rescued guard was grateful and wanted to let him escape. However, the local mayor ordered him to pursue the alleged heretic Dirk Willems and he was held until he suffered burning at the stake near his hometown on this day in 1569.

He gave his life to save another though that other was persecuting him for his faith. I should be so noble.

Today he is revered by the anabaptists — that group of religious individuals which include the Amish and Mennonites and he is a folk hero in his home town of Asperen as well.

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Posted in Religion
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The Crud Strikes Again !

May 15th, 2012

Today I’m headed to the doctor’s office for a regularly scheduled appointment. I have no idea if the respiratory issues of the past two days are significant or not — I don’t know how I acquired this mess of productive cough with pain. The malaise and sleeping all day yesterday … but we’re going to talk about it.

My sister is safely in the care of our mother. She’s worse off than I am — and I’m a total mess. Hopefully there will be answers for both of us; but probably only theories and good grief I could use a little less hacking and gacking and more of a nice even healthy feeling which has escaped me over the duration of what has been a stressful few days.

This being said, I hope you and yours are happy and healthy and doing fine.

I’m sure not.

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Noscomial Infection ?

May 14th, 2012

I went to visit my sister in the hospital yesterday. She looked a little rough as though she had been through the ringer … and she has. It seems that the extended spates of coughing have resulted in fairly severe pain — I have experienced such episodes myself … and I find myself somewhat ill with a mildly productive cough and bit of a sore throat.

Given the fact that I’m not predisposed to any sort of psychosomatic compunction I’m of the opinion that I picked up some random bug while at the hospital. I just hope that I shake the thing before it gets too bad. So I’m going to ‘up’ the vitamin C for a while and tend to the matters of covering my mouth when I cough and those other hygienic things that a friend at work might entertain … seeing how he tends to cough and sneeze without bothering to cover, look away — or anything.

I suppose this could be incubating since Friday when he let me have a nice sneeze and cough combo in my office.

Nosocomial infections are caught at a hospital. This may well be germy office visitor residuals.

We’ll see how things go regardless.

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Posted in Health, Places
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Happy Mother’s Day 2012

May 13th, 2012

A Mother’s Love

Thank you for watching over me
All of the sleepless nights you lay awake
Thank you for knowing when to hold me close
when to let me go

Thank you for every stepping stone
And for the path that always leads me home
I thank you for the time you took
to see the heart inside of me

You gave me the roots to start this life
and then you gave me wings to fly
and I learned to dream
because you believed in me

There’s no power like it on this earth
No treasure equal to its worth
The gift of a mother’s love

Thank you for every sunlit day
That filled the corners of my memory
Thank you for every selfless unsung deed
I know you did for me

Thank you for giving me the choice
To search my soul till I could find my voice
And I thank you for teaching me
To be strong enough to bend

You gave me the roots to start this life
And then you gave me wings to fly
And I learned to dream
Because you believed in me

There’s no power like it on this earth
No treasure equal to its worth
The gift of a mother’s love

I thank God for a mother’s love

Jim Brickman

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