Swiss Cheese.

            A week has passed and I’ve survived it. That in and of itself is a miracle. But what just happened is truly a remarkable experience. Something I’m sure we’ve all went through at one time or another. You see, while being ill for the past two days I’ve simply lost track of time. It happens to all of us in one form or another. But in this case, it is truly at tragedy of comedic performance.

            As stated, I’ve been ill. I’ve had a one hundred and one degree temperature off and on for over twenty-four hours and I’ve been fighting the good fight with all sorts of over the counter medicine. Including the liquid-green-death known as Nyquil. So, in the late afternoon of today, Friday, September 26, 2014 when I went to bed between four and five pm. I figured I’d be free and clear to work on Saturday.

            This was a good plan, that is until I woke up and looked at my alarm clock it read 6:30. I figured I was late and I rushed through the house trying to pack up all my belongings for a days work. Two BC powders down my throat, glass of water, morning meds, daily bills, part time clothes, phone, and various other sundries needed for getting through the day. It wasn’t until I left the house that I realized my family wasn’t there. As I rode to work I marveled at how light it was outside and how little traffic there was.

            Once at work I went through my normal routine. Only stopping to text my wife that I hoped she was okay and that she had had a good night. After all my start up work was finished I checked my phone and I had a message from my betrothed it said “Call Me.” So I did.

            She was at a restaurant with a friend with our daughter, I was at work and she informed me it was Friday night. I denied that fact and insisted it was Saturday morning. She was adamant about the time of day and which day of the week it was, so much so that I had to remove the phone from my ear and check. She was right. I was twelve hours early in my work day. All because I didn’t have the where with all to check my phone when I woke up.

            This is why I like military time. It’s easier for me to understand. Everything is on a twenty-four hour scale and when I look at the time it tells me whether it is am or pm just by the first numbers on the clock.

            Of course all of this could have been avoided if I’d been a bit more diligent in my morning routine, but tell me, when you wake up, are you as diligent as you are before you go to bed? I’m sure each and every one of us have woken up late in the evening from a nap or early on a weekend morning and felt we were late for something just because of the anticipation we put upon ourselves.

            Thankfully, with my swiss cheese brain and down to earth mate I’m covered for now. But what happens when I don’t have that lightning rod of a mate around? Will I be the guy walking around haphazardly looking for things that aren’t there? Will I be directionless? Hell, will I even remember to put my pants on before stepping out onto my porch for all the world to see? Am I to become the crazy asshole on the block where kids and neighbors cross the street just to avoid going near the place where the long haired, wild eyed, freak lives?

            I guess so. After all, I am nothing but a product of my own imagination and environment.  When the day comes where I have no checks and balances, I’m sure I’ll be in the care of some sort of professional service with people who are trained to deal with the likes of me. If they can’t, well, then they weren’t so prepared were they.

Have a great week.

A Broken Week

            Once again I find myself at the end of a long week, sitting on my porch and contemplating my life. What gives? I don’t know, I really don’t. It’s been a crazy week here. I’ve dealt with broken phones, broken animatronics, broken trains, and broken people. Yup, that seems to be my week in a nutshell. Broken.

            I’m like a magnet for broken things. It’s not like I sought this position out, it just happened. Like the sun rising or setting, or the law of gravity. All very hard to explain but all have to be accepted in the course of our lives. So if you’ll bear with me while I sort out the broken week in my head and on the page this diatribe of my life will all be exposed.

            In the not too distant past I received a phone call from a friend telling me his wife had passed away after a long bout of cancer. To be honest, they were both my friends. I’ve known them both for over ten years and I saw them at least twice a month for several hours each meeting. They were volunteers for me at the museum. Both very passionate about trains and engaging with the general public, especially the children who expressed interest in trains.

            I was sadden but not surprised by this news, but somehow, I was shocked even with the knowledge she’d been sick for quite some time. I just figured I’d always have time to see her, talk to her and she would overcome her illness. Stupid me I suppose. Life is a terminal illness and even though our expiration date isn’t tattooed on our skin for anyone to see, it’s there nonetheless.

            Like a good friend, I attended the viewing. I barely made it through the painful event. I don’t like them, never have. The person in the casket rarely looks the way they did in life and even though I have a cornucopia of happy memories, the permanency of the situation only brings to mind the things I wish I could have said to them. Or things I wanted to teach them, experience with them and things that I could have learned from them. Those regrets disappear in the last fading breath when no one is looking or listening. She was a good person who lived a good life and fought the good fight only to lose. Leaving behind an army of family and friends who pretty much feel the same way.

            The army who screams for closure and answers. Only to be answered with silence. Sometimes in that silence we hear the voice of reason. Most times, we don’t. I’ve only heard that voice once. Was it my conscious? God? The Ghost of the dead? I can’t answer honestly. I just know that I received peace when the voice showed up and whispered to me the answers to all my questions. Hell, maybe it was my ID speaking reason for one brief moment… Nah, I’m not that deep or in touch with myself.

            So, yeah, her death fucked me up pretty good for more than the fair share of the week. Then life started to take over as if to say…”Snap out of it you stupid Polak! You have a life and responsibilities.” And just to prove that point, in one day, I had a train break down and an animatronic figure its sixty year old internal linkage has suffered enough metal fatigue to warrant it to stop working.

            The train, easily fixed… just need to order parts. The sixty year old linkage, easy fabrication job. That’s when I realized the linkage that wore out was older than my now dead friend and her surviving husband. Nothing lasts forever, I just wish I could have fixed her as easily as I fixed the animatronic figure. But, I’m not a doctor, humans aren’t made of metal, cloth, cardboard and Styrofoam. Nope, we’re flesh, blood and bone with complex systems that require billions of cells to keep changing and moving. Cells with menial yet important tasks that keep us upright… then again, sometimes those cells decide to pull a Sarah Palin and go rogue. They turn on the body and decide they want to replicate and grown in crazy ass ways that make doctors across the world scratch their heads in collective unity and rich at the same time.

            Sometimes, especially at times like this, I question the intelligence of our creator. And if some ass out there says “Oh, he did that so others could appreciate their lives more.” I say to them “That’s more cruel than the torture suffered by anyone during anytime during the course of human history.” I’m serious… think about it for a minute… let’s say you have two dogs… you  abuse the shit out of one in front of the other just so that the one who is not abused is more thankful he’s not abused? What sort of mentality is that? Also, why the hell aren’t you behind bars… You shitheel.

            But I digress.

            My phone… Yeah, my five year old phone. The third phone of my life… it somehow got knocked off my bedstand in the middle of the night and the screen cracked. I thought about upgrading but then I’d have to change my unlimited data plan that I’m grandfathered in. So I spent the coin on the insurance premium and got a free upgrade without having to change plans. This also got me thinking about my dead friend and her husband. After all, he is still young, older than me but still young enough to eventually date again. Not now or even this year. But eventually he may meet a woman and want to spend time with her. After all, we are social creatures and desire the company of friends and the intimacy of others. So, if he can get an emotional replacement when he is ready, why shouldn’t he. After all, as Mr. Jefferson said “Life is for the living.”

            So yeah, it’s been a broken week with all paths leading back to the same destination. Death and Life. Two things that go hand in hand and no matter what we do, we die and leave behind in people a void that will eventually have to be repaired or filled. Right now, I don’t want either. I just want to get to a point where all I remember are the good times running trains, explaining cigars, motorcycles and how horror stories are one of the purest forms of storytelling about good versus evil man has ever created. All the while listening to valid differing opinions with an open mind from a woman who I respected and loved and her loving husband who is now without his life partner.

            Have a great week.

Reading Aloud

            A few months ago, at my primary job, I was called into a meeting whose topic was horror stories. You see, here in my adopted town, each year we have a celebration known as “The Ghost Walk”. People come from all over to walk through Old Towne and hear ghost stories dating as far back as the revolutionary war. It’s a lot of fun for people of all ages. However; some folks in our community have expressed opinions that the watered down, stale stories are getting quite old.

            The outcome of these opinions was to develop a two night event where local writers would read an original ghost story. These stories were to be geared toward an adult audience. The meeting was a bit… tense. Not because of the other members there but because I have a strong view of how this sort of thing should be handled. When I expressed my opinions and told the others that I wanted to bring in a pal of mine to help raise awareness and use his connections to the local horror community I was met with a brick wall of negativity.

            I explained how getting known genre writers involved would be advantageous to promoting this free public event. How the horror fan base works and the following that some writers have. These words fell on deaf ears.

            When I left the meeting, after endless moments of discussion about vetting writers and their stories and how to locate up and coming writers, I had an idea. An idea for a story and an idea on how to bring in my friend to assist.

            I wrote the story and called my pal. Now, first off, the stories are basically flash fiction and have to be about ghosts. If you ever read any of my fiction then you know I usually have a strange take on the subject matter. The story I wrote has the same feel as all my other tales. Meaning, you don’t know what it is you’re getting into at first. My pal, he was a wealth of knowledge and offered a great many ideas. We set up a meeting, talked things over and then shared our ideas with the powers that be.

            That’s when I got frustrated and pretty much walked away from the whole project. But, I was not dissuaded enough to forget about my story and the submission. Nope, I wrote it and submitted it. When I got an email that told me I had been selected as a reader I was a bit surprised but I also felt a bit of vindication.

            This week I received another email giving me the date and time for my reading. My first public reading at an event that as of this writing has not been advertised. So, maybe I’ll be reading this tale to an empty room. Or, maybe the room will be filled with just writers who will pick apart my tale. Or, the room could be filled with friends, family and strangers. Any of those situations are fine with me. I’m not afraid to stand in front of people and talk. I am concerned about goofing up the words I’ve written though.

            What I mean to say is, I can speak in public easily. Reading in public is a completely different beast. It’s not scary so much as it is a pain in the ass to track the words and make sure your brain doesn’t skip over what is written. I suppose I should practice. Maybe even try to memorize the words over the next month. Nah, that’s not really my style. I’m a fly by the seat of your pants kind of guy.

            Lastly, if you’re interested in coming out to the readings then by all means feel free to do so. Come watch yours truly either make an utter ass of himself or succeed in something he’s never done before. The readings will take place on October 18^th at the back of the Portsmouth Arts and Cultural Center starting at seven pm.

            I hope to see you there.

            Have a great week.

Redacted Explanation

            Fall is officially here. How do I know this? Simple, football is on television and the kids are back in school, also, not so importantly to some, the election season is upon us in all its evil, gory, mud slinging and pooh flinging glory.

            A few days ago I posted my weekly blog. It wasn’t a great blog, nor was it a bad blog. To be truthful, it was a blog about a conversation I had with someone I’ve known for about twenty years. It was a very informative conversation and I followed it up with a letter from one of our founding fathers to another founding father.

            The subject of the blog was about our government and their actions towards the people of our country. After I wrote it, posted it and then shared the link on my facebook page and twitter page, I also included a link on my cousin’s page and asked for his opinion. (I rarely do this, but I trust him and I value his opinion.) His response was a bit disturbing. He said “It looks redacted.”

            I quickly opened my blog site and was shocked to see that the blog did look redacted. I then opened up my tools and saw the body of the text was in perfect form. I then checked my formatting on the blog site, it was fine, and then I opened up my word file and saw that my formatting was as normal as it always is. I had no choice, I deleted the blog from the web.

            If I were a paranoid person, I’d say someone didn’t like what I wrote or that my site had been hacked. But I’m not that paranoid… But I’m not stupid either. It’s hard for me to believe that a guy like me, who only has twenty-four registered followers and only a bit under twenty-four thousand site hits is a threat to anyone. Or, that my words have deep impact in any bunker of any government agency anywhere. I understand that I am a small fish in a small pond and I’m comfortable with that. In truth, while getting large royalty checks in the mail, having to have an unlisted number and a super-private email along with separate social media sites sounds somewhat attractive, I just don’t think I’m up for that type of life. A life living under a microscope, a life that brings new friends every day and in some cases people who have ill will towards you. Hell, I have enough people who hold bad thoughts towards me as it is and I’m just a nobody with a small blog and a few short stories published. In truth, my truth, I’m don’t feel as if I’m a great writer in the style of the men and women I grew up reading.

            So what happened?

            I don’t know.

            And I’m not going to question it too much. I’m not going to try and investigate it nor am I going to complain about it. What I am doing is letting you, my dear readers know, Yes, I posted a blog last week, but something went wrong and now in response to the “error” I’m posting this blog instead. A blog of explanation without any true answers. I hope you don’t mind.

            Have a great week.

Southern Cries.

            As most of you, my dear readers know, I was on vacation just a few short weeks ago. I traveled halfway across this country and returned a more relaxed man. You know this because I shared this trip with you. However, while I didn’t want to go initially, I did manage to enjoy myself. I spent a lot of time resting, sitting in a hot tub or by a small fire pit with a nice blaze to chase away any blood sucking pests. I enjoyed the other insects, butterflies, lightning bugs and lady bugs. But something was missing; something I didn’t realize at first. Something that made sitting alone on a darkening patio as the sun slips west and earth rotates seem lonely. A loneliness I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

            Upon my return to my adopted state and city, as I crawled out of the car, more exhausted than I should be, I was greeted by a plethora of sounds that immediately made me feel more comfortable. These cries of the night creatures was more comforting to me than any sound I’d heard while gone. It was the sound of crickets and cicadas. I’m not saying the Northern states don’t have these little creatures but they don’t have them in the quantity the South has them.

            As a matter of fact, every year I look forward to the cries of the new brood of cicadas, the crickets will always be here. The one creature I didn’t miss while in the North, is the always persistent blood suckers. The ones that infect the area where I live are almost immune to any and all sprays, candles and flowers. I hate them little buggers, I eat lots of garlic, spend tons of money on repellent and they still manage to build up an immunity to the defenses I’ve put up. But still, I was home and the familiar sounds of the days and nights. A song if you will. A song only Mother Nature and temperate climates can bring to us.

            It’s funny the things we miss without realizing it. This is a perfect example. While on my holiday I relaxed and enjoyed the minutes, hours and days as they passed. But somehow, someway, my ID kept nagging me about the small things I was used to that were not present anymore. No matter how hard I tried to figure out what was wrong, what was missing I just couldn’t wrestle down the missing piece of my life. That is, until I arrived home and realized what had been missing.

            As I write this, I’m on my porch, smoking a good cigar and my citronella candles are out, my mosquito spray can is empty and I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt to prevent too many bites. I’m surrounded by blood suckers and other winged vermin and I’ve got the bites to prove it, but you know, I’m home, I’m on my porch and I’m happy. Regardless of the itching from the bugs who’ve been trained by Ninjas.

            I hope you, my dear reader, are in a similar place, a place where you are happy, comfortable and relaxed… without the flipping pests.

            Have a great week.

            

Waiting 101

            For a little over fifteen years I’ve been working part time as a waiter in a small, family owned, casual, fine dining seafood restaurant. From what I understand, this is rare in the food service industry. One waiter working at one place for that amount of time is either family or crazy. I’m not family. As a matter of fact this was my first food service job, outside the ninety days I spent in the vegetable preparation room onboard the USS Austin (LPD-4). This was also my first introduction to dealing with customers. Sailors aren’t too demanding when it comes to food. As long as the hot food is hot and the cold food is cold, they are happy.

            In all this time, fifteen plus years, I’ve accrued thousands of stories of customers, co-workers, managers and cooks. This blog is not about my co-workers. This is about customers and what I’ve been able to understand about them.

            You see customers are a funny sort and when I get a new table and I approach it, I never prejudge them. Nope, I save that for after the bill is paid. I try and give every person I wait on the same good service as the previous ones. When they pay and leave, and when I’m checking out the tip they left for me, that’s when I judge them. To me, there are three kinds of customers, good tippers, average tippers and bad tippers. And as a waiter who has known many other waiters, this seems to be an industry standard. We all remember the good tips as well as the bad ones.

            Now, if you’re an average tipper or a good tipper, you waiter or waitress will always do right by you if you are a returning customer. As for the bad tippers, if they return, well, the service they receive drops proportionately to the amount of tip they leave. Drink glasses will go unfilled, some food will arrive before other food, and in some cases, some food will just never show up. Bad tippers will rarely have a good meal when they return to a restaurant for a second, third or even fourth time. Word gets out. We talk to each other and we know who is difficult and tips shitty and who is difficult but tips well. The good tippers will always have a better meal and service.

            After all, when a person is making two dollars and fifteen cents an hour and is expected to move heaven and hell just for a lousy ten percent that the customer thinks is more than deserved, well, let me come to your work and pay you on your performance at whatever rate I want to pay you.

            I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time if you couldn’t tell and so I thought I’d try a little experiment. A few months ago, an elderly woman came in to the restaurant with a pre-teen girl and a teenage boy. She ordered one meal for herself and a couple of sides for the kids. I gave them the same amount of attention as I would anyone else. When the bill was paid and they had left I looked at the tip, it was less than ten percent. I wasn’t upset or angry, I just shrugged my shoulders and moved on.

            Then, a few weeks later they came in again, I waited on them again and I gave them just about the same amount of service as I had last time. The result was the same. I chuckled to myself knowing that this woman who reminded me of a walking talking toadstool would never be satisfied by anyone in the food service industry.

            Tonight, they came in again and once again, I was their waiter. I chuckled to myself and thought “I’m going to try an experiment.”

            My experiment was this, I was going to give them nominal service and see exactly how much of a virago she was. Once again, when she ordered, she ordered herself a meal and some extra sides for the kids. No meals for them. Just French fries.

            I didn’t make sure her drink was always full, I did ask her if everything was okay and satisfactory, I didn’t offer anything extra and I made sure that when she was snapping her fingers at me when I was talking with other customers that I did not hear her. After all, her first tip had been only two bucks and her second tip had been the same amount. What sort of crap am I willing to put up with for two dollars? Not a lot apparently.

            By the time she had finished eating, spilling crumbs everywhere, while her kids made a sticky mess on the glass tabletop with ketchup and salt I delivered the bill at her request. When they left, I looked at the bill, I didn’t get a tip, I was out two bucks. I laughed and knew my experiment had been a success.

            On the flip side of this coin, I had some regulars in tonight that I wait on at least once a month. I always give them the same good service as I do everyone else, they are regular tippers and nice people. Not too demanding, fun to talk with and are always smiling. Very steady, normal people who are just making their way in this world. If they ask for something extra, or need more of anything, I’m more than happy to get it for them. Not for the tip, not because they are regulars but because they treat me like a living, breathing human being. They know that I am a person and treat me as such. Which goes a long way in this world. That is something the Toadstool lady with her thick, coke bottle glasses doesn’t seem to get.

            It’s all about respect and understanding. Most customers get it, some don’t. The ones who don’t will never have a good repeat experience because they don’t treat the waiters with respect. You see, a please or thank you goes a long way in this world when dealing with waiters and waitresses, hell even calling them by their name garners a certain level of empathy that will make your dining experience a hundred times better.

            Do I think the toadstool lady will be back? I hope so. Do I think I will wait on her again? Probably not. Which is no skin off my nose. To me, she has no respect for me or the other customers in the building. After all, if I’m taking an order from one table and you’re snapping your fingers at me to get my attention, then it is clear you don’t care about me or anyone of the other diners in the place. So, you can wait just like I have to.

            Is this cold and callous? Maybe, but I do know that in all my years of waiting tables I’ve become a better customer when dining out. Also, I’ve become a pretty harsh judge of waiters and waitresses in all the establishments I visit.

            I guess what I’m trying to say is this, if you’re out at a restaurant and you want great service from your server, be a great customer. Learn their name, call them by it and if something is wrong don’t get pissy, just talk to them as you would want to be spoken to.

            Have a great week.

Enrichment through Reunion

             So, I went on vacation. Yes, me, the idiot Polak with a 70 IQ, that’s 70 in euro’s, and it was a vacation I really did not want to go on. Why didn’t I want to go on vacation? Simple, I hate driving and I knew if I left the places I worked at would burn to the ground. Seriously, I truly believe that when I’m not at my job, shit will just fall apart. I’m sure some of you out there feel the same way. Also, if you do feel that way, then you know even though you are not at work, your mind still is. Matter of fact, if you are like me, then you check your work email every day even though you are not there, you even respond to said emails and plan your return accordingly. Yeah, that’s what I did. I have to because something inside of me just can’t let work go. Can’t breathe because the weight of responsibility is heavy upon my shoulders. Work is most of what I think about… the trains, the motors, the repairs and the problems that have arisen, will arise and the solutions both simple and complex that my brain can think of.

            That’s just how I’m wired I suppose. I’m a 1 surrounded by 0’s sometimes. Not my fellow team-mates mind you but most of the people I come into daily contact with. (That’s binary talk if you don’t get the connection.) There is something in me that just can’t let go. Even on my days off I usually end up at the museum for a few minutes. Just to check things out. When there is flooding, snowfall, a noreaster, I’m the one first on scene checking to make sure all is well and nothing is damaged. It’s an affliction I can’t seem to shake.

            However; occasionally, once in a great while, after years have passed, I am forced by family, friends and coworkers to unplug from work. Which I do reluctantly. I did so this past week. (I still checked in electronically but I did disconnect.)

            My family and I drove halfway cross the continental united states to attend a family reunion made up of people I don’t know and some I do as well as some I have not seen for thirty years. Upon arrival at our destination, I tried to relax, sleep and basically decompress from life. The first day was easy. I was exhausted from traveling and driving. Food was eaten but not tasted. Sleep was deep but fitful and conversations were had in short, staccato bursts.

            The second day was spent in a fugue state of eating too much, sitting in a hot tub and trying to find solace and privacy in an attempt to sort my thoughts. That is when the pain started. I felt my muscles starting to release the pent up tension of years of work and stress.

            The third day I woke up and the pain in my tissue was worse, I could barely move and even the warm water and jets of the hot tub barely made a dent on what was going on within me. Once again I ate too much, I talked too much but yet, I managed to write a bit. (See previous blog.)

            The fourth day, I actually woke up feeling human. I felt as if nothing in my life was too extreme or important and could wait another day. I can only think that what I felt then was what most people feel. I had no worries, no stress and no fires to put out. I was surrounded by my family, water and the feeling of actually being part of something larger than the life I had left behind so many miles away. This is when I met many of the strangers whose blood I share. I didn’t get to talk to them much, but spend a lot of time soaking up the sun, lazing around on an inner tube and splashing in the water. Upon my return to the cookout, some relatives had left, others lingered. I chilled, ate some more and made an attempt to connect with the blood of others.

            The fifth day, I introduced my daughter to the wonderful yet terrible food of White Castles. She loved it. However; we were not alone, my cousin and two of his offspring came with us, his offspring devoured the sliders, cheese fries and onion wedges as quickly as a swarm of locusts go through a corn field in the middle states of our country. This day also brought more family into my life, people with whom are only a state away yet I’ve never truly met. We had things in common but we didn’t really speak of them. Instead we enjoyed the glow of long lost relatives in a comfortable and healthy setting.

            Day six brought the thoughts of moving on. Of a twelve hour drive home and packing away my clothes and gifts. Memories of the recent days filled me with morose thoughts and dreams where I had made different choices in my life. Decisions where I didn’t stay on the eastern seaboard and moved back to the Midwest. Where I hadn’t worked for a shipyard, a machine shop, a police department or a museum. Where I had gone back to my roots and gotten a dead end job working in a factory that produced goods and services for the masses.

            When all was packed away, with the exception of a pair of jeans, a tee-shirt, my bathing suit and Freddy, I went to the hot tub and spent almost two hours reflecting on the people who I rarely see who seem enamored with my existence. It felt good to know there are people out there who have a vested interest in me and my shenanigans. Those shenanigans seem to be far and few inbetween nowadays. I don’t have time to get up to no good now. Nope, I spend most of my time figuring out issues and problems that are presented to me by someone who is trying to hide the fact that their five year old just broke an unbreakable coated aircraft cable.

            Day seven brought an early wake up, last minute packing of the vehicle, hugs, kisses and promises of staying in touch. Endless miles later, with my Zune cranking out a mixture of Willie Nelson, Clutch, Led Zepplin and Sea Shanties, I was standing outside of a Harley Davidson Dealership with six more hours of road ahead of me. My mind wasn’t on the journey, it was on my family.

            A family who seems to love me no matter what, even though distance seems to keep us from being close we still manage to understand the earthreal connection that runs through our veins. Whether I’ve met them in the past, present or will know them in the future, we have an unbreakable bond.

            Right now, as I type this, my small mind can’t even comprehend the ripples of the connections that have been made over the past week. I do know that I’m grateful for reconnecting with my long lost cousin in Seattle. Our late night conversations and our need for intellectual stimulus, I believe was fueled by our time we spent sitting on a patio, a driveway and in passing by our love for all things scientific, natural and obscure. It was truly an honor and a pleasure to find someone who is as smart if not smarter than the general public.

            It was also a blessing to meet the folks who live their lives in the general humanity of life. People who try to eek out a living and pay bills in order to survive. People who try to keep their heads above water and keep the one true thing that is important to everyone in this life real.

            It has truly been an honor and a priviledge to see some old faces as well as some new. I feel more blessed and honored to have met these great people. People who I would never have had a chance to meet otherwise.

            Thank you all for a great week. You have enriched my life more than you will know and more than I will ever know.

            For all you non-family members reading this, take pleasure and do what you can to meet the blood of your life. Learn from them and cherish the brief moments you have with them.

            Have a great week.