I had a dream

About 20 minutes ago I woke from a rather lengthy dream. I was attending my high school class reunion, a day long afair held at a large hotel (actually the setting varies throughout the dream). At first, there weren't a whole lot of people there I knew, except my brother (why he was there I dont know). He and I hung out together for a while, then he disapeared from the dream. A few other people I recognised popped in and out of my dream, some from school, others from life. The two really interesting things in this dream were these:

The dinner buffet was beginning and Jonathan and Rebecca (who suddenly showed up in the dream) walk up next to me to get in line.However, instead of lining up with them I go upstairs to get changed into more appropriate clothing. I realise that under the jeans and shirt I have on is a suit and tie. All I have to do is peal off the outer layer.

As I am walking through the reception area prior to the buffet being ready, I happen into a guy I haven't seen in years. It is just a brief encounter, but the whole reason I decided to immediately get up and record part of the dream. As the guy and I approach each other, we smile as if we are happy to see each other, shake hands, and give each other a guy hug (shaking hands, 1 arm around the other guy with 2 or 3 quick pats on the back, release). Standing there next to him (and some other guy that I am pretty sure I knew, I can't remember who he was but I'm rather certain that he was a member of the football team), I notice but don't comment on his nice dress shirt and his tie. I also remark that I don't remember him being so tall (maybe 8-10 inches taller than me).

Does any of this mean anything? Who knows. Dream interpretation is not an exact science, if it is a science at all. I know that in most of my dreams that I have briefly remembered when waking there are some commonalities. Often, as in this dream, the settings change instantaneously. In this one, Jeff and I are walking down Old Taylor Mill road then turn around to find ourselves in the conference room of a hotel. Often, people in my dreams will turn their face away from me, then turn back and be something else. Analyse that Sigmund.

Having said that, I wonder if the part about the suit being under the jeans has anything to do with me finding a new job. Could it be that deep down under the blue jeans, dirty t-shirts and cut up hands is an executive (suit) wanting to come out? Or is that just what I want it to mean?

I am sure about one thing though. The guy I encountered at the reception never wore a tie, not even to his own funeral. I had a lot of respect for the man when he died and that respect has even grown since. There have been numerous times I've thought about him over the years, wondering what he would have done in a situation or how things may have been different if he had not had that accident. But this is the first time since his funeral that I clearly saw his face. When I woke, I realised that he was not in my graduating class and he probably shouldn't have been in the dream (same with the kids, Jeff, Vicki, Kelly and others). Something else also struck me, easiest said this way: Denny Klier, I wish you were still around and you are missed.

The passge of time

Looking at Kelly's blog, I noticed that it had been 7 months since I last wrote anything on here. Then I got to thinking about the amount of time that has passed since other events in my life.
It's been:

-Nearly 50 years since I came into this world. (How I could be that freaking old, I don't know).
-About 44 years since my throat knew what tonsils looked like (and my earliest memory).
-About 42 years since I could see without binoculars hanging off my nose.
-Also about 42 years since the first time I "drove" a school bus (sitting on dads lap), the first 2 times I went to the emergency room (busted lip at school, gashed knee).
-About 41 years since we moved into my parents current house.
-37 years since I first strapped on shoulder pads.
-36 years since a surgeon removed a small piece of my knee (now there's a funny story) and probably 36 years since I actually stood with my weight evenly on both feet.
-34 years since I first actually drove a school bus (not sitting on a lap).
-34 years since I truly learned about anatomy (you'd think that after 34 years of repeatedly doing different versions of pretty much the same thing, it might get a little old. Not the case!!!).
-32 years since I graduated from high school.
-28 years since I graduated from College.
-28 years minus 1 week since I first said "I do".
-About 25 or 26 years since I won State and local school bus driving competitions (called road-e-o's).
-21 years minus 1 day since I spent my first night working at DHL.
-between 20 and 21 years since I essentially said "I don't" (not really sure of the official date).
-20 years since I finally finished my thesis and completed grad school (need help sleeping, try reading my thesis).
-About 18 years since the last time I went camping in the woods (Avg overnight temp: -10).
-16 years, 2 and 1/2 months since I met this beautiful woman named Kelly (another real good story).
-About 15 years since a STYX concert at which a certain young lady said, and I quote: "are you kidding?" when I proposed to her (this was the second try, the first attempt was postponed when River Bend flooded days before the scheduled concert, allowing me to go ahead and buy gutters for the house).
-14 years (minus about 3 months) since I knew for sure that I would not have to wake up by myself every morning for the rest of my life wondering if there actually was the right woman out there for me.
-12 years and 3 months since I knew for sure that I was finally going to get to try my hand at being a daddy.
-11 years and 2 months since I knew that I got to try being a daddy with a daughter.
-5 or 6 years since we "discovered" the Vineyard Church's.
-5 and 1/2 years since the last time I climbed into an aircraft without passengers.
-2 and 1/2 years since I found myself living on the North side of the Ohio river.
-Almost 2 years since I got my head cracked taking a Jesus bath (getting baptised again).
-I think a year (maybe 2) since the holes appeared in the ceiling of our family room (Someday, I will fix that).
-1 day since the dinner Kelly fixed was chosen only because I had a few days earlier mentioned to her that it was something I'd like to have in the future.
-2 hours since I kissed my wife (too long).
- About an hour since I started typing (also too long).

So what's this all mean?
1: Time passes quickly, enjoy all you can.
2: I'm getting old (or at least what I would have called old when I was a lot younger).
3: Take notes. It's impossible to remember everything, including the stuff that completely cracked you up, pissed you off, or caused tears at the time of it's occurrence.
4: Life happens while you are busy. (first one restated).

VWS and me

Last week, several at church were asked to talk about the effect VWS has had on their life. I've thought about this and this is what I've come up with.

1. The most obvious-this church had a large part in our decision to move north of the river. Without getting into it too much, we were given the option of reselling this house at cost after two years if we decided not to stay in western hills. As much as living in northern Ky. has it's advantages, I can't move the whole church body there with me so I guess I'm stuck here in the land of the buckeye.
2. For the first time in my life, I actually sat down and started reading the Bible. While I haven't read the whole thing, I did most of the Bible in a year thing.
3. Never would have I have imagined that I would get up at 6:00am on Saturday mornings to get together with a bunch of other guys to talk about our lives and the role God is having in them.
4. I always had a belief in God and Jesus, but I didn't really think that they got involved in our lives. I'm starting to see that they are more involved in our lives than I would have ever believed.
5. I've seen my wife's spirituality grow, along with the friendships she's developed through the Vineyard.
If I tried, I'm sure I could spew out a few more things that I could trace back to our decision to get involved with Vineyard West Side. But these are the ones at the front of my mind.

HAPPY GNU YEAR

Happy Gnu Year!

A quick story. The first New Years Eve Kelly and I spent together as Mr. and Mrs was on a cruise ship docked in the port of Nassau in the Bahamas (our honeymoon was a month after the actual wedding). In Nassau they have the "Junkanoo" festival and parade on New Years Eve starting about 11:00pm and continuing well into the night. We intended to go ashore and watch part of the parade so we thought it would be wise to get in a quick nap that evening. I was the first to wake up, at about 5:00am. We obviously didn't get ashore,but the parade was still going strong when Kelly woke later New Years morning.

Aside from the ship, the parade and the warm weather, this New Years Eve is likely to be spent celebrating much like that first one. Sound asleep. Boy, are we getting old (or just boring).

God, help us be all that you want us to be in this coming year. Give us the strength to deal with the inevitable adversities we will encounter and to recognize and enjoy the blessings you send our way. Amen.

Happy New Year to all!!!!!

Hollywood and elitism

One of the blessings (or curses) of spending a large portion of your day slapping the same color paint on a different wall is that it often gives you time to let your mind wander. The other day I was thinking about Hollywood and that sometimes the stuff they think up for an episode of one of the cop shows can be pretty sick. What kind of mind comes up with this stuff? And, not that I have ever been a prude, but why is it that there's so much sleeping around in Hollywood? Why does it seem that every show has to have at least 1 homosexual, a broken marriage, fatherless children/single moms, an extramarital affair and/or blatant casual sex?
Anyway, on Wednesday one of the topics of discussion on the radio was Roman Polanski. After being convicted of rape and sodomy 30 (?) years ago of a then 13 year old girl who he got drunk and fed drugs before attacking, Polanski took off to Europe to avoid serving his sentence. After all these years, the government is trying to extradite him back to the US to serve his sentence. At first, I wondered why, all the sudden after so long, they are finally trying to do something. With the high regard that I hold the current Administration, I naturally got the idea that Polanski is just a smoke screen to get attention off the health care thing for a while. But that's a topic for another day.
Yesterday morning it was reported that at least 150 of Hollywood's big wigs had petitioned the Governor to drop the whole matter, because Polanski is an Oscar winning director and (my words) is too important to be subjected to the inconvenience of jail time. He remains one of the Hollywood elite, be he a dirt bag or not. Last night I read that Whoppi Goldberg was lamenting that what Polanski did was not "rape rape". What? He had forcible whoppi with an underage, drunk and drugged girl. Though a 13 year old can't legally give consent, he still didn't have it.
So, what's up with the Hollywood elite? I am sure that the 6 normal people in Hollywood would want Polanski jailed, even while feeling sorry for him for what Charlie Manson did to his wife. But what about the rest of them? Does being in the movie/TV industry make you any better than the rest of us?
At least Mel Gibson is out there to provide some balance. God bless him!

Messy renters (or "what people learn")

Working for the people I do, my days are made up mostly of either rehabbing a newly acquired property or repairing an empty rental unit. Last week one of the rentals (a 2 family) became empty, due to evictions in both "apartments". The first floor had been rented by a single woman with a couplee of kids. The upper floors were rented by her sister. Between them, there were 2 female adults, a couple of teens and a few younger ones. When the first floor family was evicted, they just moved up stairs. Last Wednesday, they all had to move out. Both were evicted due to nonpayment of rent.


They did not completely destroy the building. They just did their best to make as much of a mess of it as they could, and this was before they were informed that they had to leave. Of course, I had to go help clean up after they were moved out. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to get pictures of the mess they left, but this might give a clue: (preview shows a lot of space below the pictures before the rest of the text. Just scroll down).













In the some of the black bags are left behind toys and clothing (quite a bit of it). There is also food found on the floor, used feminine products that were thrown in the bathroom cabinet, dirty diapers that were thrown out the window and the leftovers from someone taking a dump on the middle of the floor (they weren't too happy about being evicted). These were some very classy people.

One of my favorite of their exploits is breaking a hole in the porch floor so that they could just throw their trash under the porch. This after requesting and getting new garbage cans paid for by the owner (which would get filled, then not taken out to the street for at least 3 weeks). When I cleaned out under the porch, I got a clue as to where the rent money went:









(In case you can't read the labels, only one of the cans contained cola.)

Someone in the family was quite fond of beer (not that I have anything against that). I hope it was one of the adults.

It may sound heartless, but for the most part I have little sympathy for the adults that got evicted. I do feel for the kids though. Not so much that they might be homeless, I think they had somewhere else to stay. Mostly I feel sorry for them because of what their mothers are teaching: it's ok to not take care of the place you live and to live in a mess. It's ok to be an overweight, lazy single mom with no job. It's more important to have that fancy tv than it is to pay the bills.

I guess I should probably feel sorry for the mothers too, they probably learned their lifestyle from their parents.

I'm back (and have something to say)

Over the last few months, the topic of "health care" has been the focus of much national attention. Conservatives and liberals calling each other names and refusing to even consider each others opinions. I've been listening and I have a few thoughts of my own.

First, the debate isn't really about "health care", it's about health insurance. I defy anyone to find a country with better overall health care than the U.S. How often do we hear about people from other countries coming here to get treatment for some major ailment? My bet is a lot more often then Americans going elsewhere for treatment.

Some believe that it would be a good thing for the Federal government to provide health insurance for all of us. I don't and for many reasons. One, I prefer not to have the Government involved in my personal business. I don't want Nancy Pelosi or any of her minions to have the power to look through my medical records, for any reason. Also, I've seen how well the government runs things. Social Security, Medicare and other Federal feel good programs are broke or nearly broke. Our highways, bridges, dams and other infrastructure are in disrepair and often poorly managed. Our President himself even pointed out that the Post Office (a quasi government agency) is struggling severely while FedEx and UPS are holding their own. And now we're contemplating letting them control health insurance?

The role of the Federal government is not supposed to be much more than protecting us from our enemies and providing the infrastructure to allow us to have a opportunity to make the most of ourselves. To ensure equal opportunities, NOT equal results. It is not to provide for us from cradle to grave.

I also have a problem with the notion that our employers "owe" us health insurance. The only people any employer "owes" health insurance is those who are covered by a union (or personal service) contract that includes health insurance benefits. Just because someone decides to employ me, that doesn't automatically, magically make them responsible for my health insurance, any more than they should be responsible for my car, house, boat or any other insurance. If they decide to provide a benefit of that type, great for me. If not, I can either do without, find insurance elsewhere or get a job that does provide insurance.

There are a few things that I think could be done to improve the situation:

1. Instead of the employer (for those who are covered at work) requiring all employees to chose from a few select plans, giving the same amount of money (maybe in the form of vouchers) to each employee to use to secure their own plan (which could include the employer provided plan). Such monies would be exempt from income tax (as it is now) provided it is used for health insurance. Unused moneys would be taxable as income.

2. Do something about the malpractice suits. If the hospital makes a mistake, they should be financially responsible for monetary and other damages. However, these huge amounts people are given in "punitive" damages are causing the rates doctors pay for insurance to go up at a rate of at least three times inflation. Their rates go up, their fees go up, insurance costs go up and then, premiums go up (and doctors practice defensive medicine, ordering test after test to protect themselves in case of a law suit). Put a cap on punitive damages so that people are not essentially winning the lottery just because a doctor made a mistake. And if lawyers were not permitted to use punitive damages to calculate their fees, they might be a little more selective as to which case they actually take.

3. If a person has more than one job and they each provide health insurance benefits( or a husband and wife have both have jobs that provide for health insurance) figure out a way in which the benefits can be combined at a reduced overall cost to the employers (and to the worker)

4. Remove the percentage cap on the amount of medical expenses that someone can deduct from their tax's. Premiums, co-pays, meds should all be deductible at their full cost if we are going to provide for any deduction at all.

These are just a few ideas that could be considered. But whatever, I don't want Uncle Sam deciding what coverage I'm going to have, who I'm going to get it from or what specific benefits must be covered. (If an insurance company wants to cover abortions, for example, and I don't want any of my money going to these procedures, then I should be able to find a carrier that doesn't cover them. On a side note, I'm not sure that insurance companies should cover birth control pills, condoms or Viagra. Why should my money be used, in part, to pay for someone ese's "fun"?).