MWNews 271

 Remind me to tell you about New Zealand. I put this note in here, so when I actually do make this entry, I know what it was about. I’m on my phone and don’t have time to type, so it will have to wait until later.

Well I am back on Tuesday. Not knowing when I did the last paragraph, that probably doesn't mean a lot to you or me. But I am back to work and ready to type.

I wanted to tell you about our trip to New Zealand. It was about six months ago and we did quite a bit while there, so it might take more than one entry. Depends on how much I type, or remember. I am hoping I have not already mentioned it in my latest blogs, but that is a possibility. I seem to recall typing something, but since I just started doing this again, I don't think I did that. Enjoy the ride.

We were planning, or I was planning, something for our anniversary. Nothing special, or actually something more special than what we usually do. Now that I have access to my retirement fund, I can plan things and not worry about saving the money. That is replaced by the overwhelming worry about spending my retirement money. But that is another story.

At first, I was just going to plan a short, five day cruise. We have never been on a cruise and three days seemed do short and seven too long, so five was it. The problem with that is, you don't actually go anywhere. Not a problem if you like being confined on a boat for that long, but I was not sure I would not just get bored after a couple of days and want to do something else. Which, on a boat, is not possible. I was afraid I would just spend all my time eating, or drinking or just sleeping and not really doing anything that was really fun. And, you have to do it all with a constant crowd around you. And, I did worry that Juanita would be spending all her time in the casino. That was a very strong possibility. Bottom line is, I don't think a cruise is for me. Maybe I am wrong and maybe I will find out someday, but the prospect of spending five days confined to a boat just does not really appeal to me. Of course, next time I bring it up will be to tell you how our latest cruise went, but that will depend on how much money I spend from my retirement between now and then.

I started looking at other possibilities. I would like to go back to Tasmania for a bit. Or even go someplace else in Australia but that didn't seem all that special and it was something we could do on a normal basis after I retire. Not really a vacation I should plan. 

I considered Bali or Vanuatu or one of those type places, but I hear so many mixed reports about them that I was not sure about those either. They are cheap and close, but that means they are cheap and close. And hot, or so I understand. I know people love to go there, but then I hear reports of all the problems they had when they were there, so it kind of puts me off vacationing there.

I even considered Japan but that was too much and not enough time to go there with the limited amount of vacation I have. Two weeks would seem good but that is kind of expensive for that long and Japan is relatively expensive as it is. Speaking of expensive, I thought of going to Dubai, but that is one of the most expensive cities to visit in the world. I would love to go, but Juanita does not. I might plan a trip anyway, someday but I want the kids to go with us and that doubles the price, so I am not sure that will ever happen. If I have one great vacation left in me, I want it to be Disney World. I would have to do that before I get too old to enjoy it and work around the kids schedules, if they have schedules. Right now, they do not. That is a very expensive trip, but if I only go one place, that would be it.

I then thought of New Zealand. It's close, it's cheap, and we have family there. Seemed like a good fit and Juanita thought it was a good idea. So we went, with the kids, and spent a week there with Anna and her boyfriend. Probably could have spent ten days, but I only had a week and I think Juanita had less, so I made it a week. We got to see a number of things, but not everything we wanted to see. Maybe a return trip someday.

And now that I have spent time telling you all the places we considered, people have come into work and I think I am going to cut this short. Start another entry tomorrow, maybe. I tried typing these at home again, but I cannot type on William's new colourful keyboard. It just has too many problems that I cannot handle. So for now, it is work when I have the time. 

Hope to talk again soon.

Later

MWNews 270

Hard to make entries, or continue my effort to cleanup all the misspellings and mistakes from previous entries, during the holidays. I thought I would have more chances, but I am being forced to sit at my desk and I am surrounded by people who will wonder what I am doing. Trying to get this one in before anyone arrives. Not that I mind them seeing it, just not letting them know I do it at work. 

Been pretty uneventful lately. Maeghan is currently at camp. We sent her to camp for the summer, or winter, or whatever season it is right now. It is Queensland, which means it is hot, all the time. I think we had a day when it was 8 degrees Celsius. By the way, how do you make the little degree symbol on the numbers. I think I looked it up once but I don't remember and can't be bothered to look it up again. So I just wrote the word degrees. But it was 8 as the lowest I think. It was around 10 in the mornings for about a week. That is all the winter we get. I am thinking Queensland might not be the best place to retire. Since that is a number of years from now, I don't have to think about it now.

The lights just went off in the office. I am hoping it is just because I am not sitting under a sensor to tell it someone is here and don't turn off the lights. I am assuming since my laptop and screens are still working, it is not a general power failure. Yesterday, we got an email that they had shut the power off to one of the buildings, after they had shut it off. You would think that is probably not that big a deal, but we are IT. We have equipment in that building. It should not just be shut off without warning. I haven't heard if they have turned it back on yet but when they do, we have to go over and turn everything back on and make sure it is working. And I say 'we' but really, it is everyone else. I am not required to do a lot at work. With no students, I am not really required to do anything. I am not sure if that is by design, or preference, or just an accommodation to my advancing years. I never get asked to do anything. I make it plain that I prefer it that way, but I also say I will do anything they need me to do. I guess they don't need me to do a lot. 

And I am typing this into this blog that no one knows about or no one reads, but if they come in and see me typing in it and ask what it is and then go to it and start to read, they will see this entry and wonder why I am telling everyone this. Maybe I should wait to publish this entry until after any initial acknowledgement of the blog takes place. You know they will go to it, read the latest entry, nothing else I am sure, and see that I talk about work and maybe discover any secrets I might have put in here. Have to be careful about what I say, I suppose. But when has that ever influenced me. More than you will ever know, I am sure. Enough of that, back to your regularly scheduled program as I think someone just came in. They are probably wondering why the lights are off. 

It was just the maintenance workers. They asked why I sitting here in the dark. I told them it allowed me to sleep easier. They just took a cabinet out of the bosses office. Maybe I should have said something. Hope he emptied it out first.

Maeghan is at camp. I think I wrote that sometime ago, but can't remember. And I have lost the ability to type. Maybe a stroke. I am going to take a break. If I don't come back, think happy thoughts for me.

Been longer than I thought it would be, but apparently it wasn't a stroke. Or, at least, it was one I am ignoring. Really strange. I was typing but the keys just seemed to be random keys. I knew what I wanted to type, but it would not do it. I typed the last message before I left with one finger. Even that was hard as I had to look at the keyboard and deliberately pick the letter I wanted to type. I am ignoring it.

Maeghan is at camp. Just in case you missed it. It is some church camp that she has to pay for but she is a councillor there. Not sure what exactly that involves. I think she has fun, but it is camping, so how much fun can it be. Old man talking I suppose. I know we used to go camping quite a lot but I would never have called it fun. Or at least, fun for me. Everyone else had fun. I had to do all the work, so my back was always sore, I was always bent over, and there was dirt and grass and wind everywhere. Not a lot of fun, but enough fun that we did it multiple times. And it told me that I spelled councillor wrong, but when I went back to check how to spell it, it gave me three different spellings that all look right. I picked the one you see but I am still not sure it is correct. 

I don't know when Maeghan gets back. William is planning on staying at his friends this weekend. That means I have the weekend free to do what I want. Not that William being there ever stops me from doing what I want, but I am thinking Juanita and I might go to one of the new American restaurants that has opened. Bubba Gump Shrimp recently opened. The is also a Firehouse Subs opening soon in the mall. I don't mind taking William, I would prefer it, but he is so picky I always feel bad when there is nothing really on the menu that he will eat. I mean, a sub sandwich, he only eats ham and olives on it at subway. Not really worth the price for just that. And a seafood restaurant, forget it. He might eat the fries but nothing else. I am not sure what to do about that. He doesn't eat anything and that will be a real hinderance in life, especially if he has a girlfriend. They are not going to want to restrict their diet to what he eats or places he will go. I have no idea what he eats when he is at his friends place. He is almost 21 years old, but what can I do to make him at least try other things. He never does. He won't even eat spaghetti sauce because it has onions in it. He will eat pesto, and cheese sauce but no tomato sauce. I think he has even stopped eating it on pizza. BBQ sauce only. What can I do. I know I didn't eat onions until I was about 18 or 19, and there are several things I eat now that I never used to eat. Brussel sprouts, cabbage, spinach, lots of things that I love now but never used to when I was a kid. I keep thinking he will grow out of it, but no signs of that happening anytime soon.

This has gotten way too long. I should probably go, maybe do some work. And, there are some very large leaves or branches falling outside my window and I need to find out where they are coming from. I am assuming someone is trimming the trees outside the office, but it seems kind of strange and merits some type of investigation. 

So I will be going now.

Later

MWNews 269

I was thinking. Same day as the last entry but I thought I would start this one with this new thought I am having.

What if I let the kids do their own entries. I could give them access and they could write things in here that they are interested in. It's worth a thought. 

I have always worried about what will happen to this after I stop writing in it. Some one will need to save it, or print it, or maybe they can just take over. Do their own thing. It would have to be Maeghan or William as that is the only thing that would make sense. It is worth thinking about. I enjoy it so much and I think they might also. If not this one, then start their own. putting these things down and getting to go back and re-read them is a really good way to make yourself cry. It also allows you to really miss the old days. I cannot recommend it enough. 

Well have to go. I will continue this entry later, if I am not in the hospital. I am just about to leave work but wanted to write this down somewhere and this seemed like the best place to do it. 

Next day. I am feeling fine. Don't even have the lingering pain I was having in my upper chest that I have had for about two weeks. And yes, I did tell the cardiologist but he said it was nothing to worry about. It wasn't related to the heart. Now I am not so sure, but who am I to disagree with the doctors.

I have been thinking about the idea of the kids taking over the blog. Not really taking over, but giving them the ability to add their own entries. I am not 100% sold on it yet, but I will give it some more thought. I think Maeghan might do it, but she has a lot of her own things to do, so she would be more likely to start her own. I would encourage her to do that. William, I am not so sure he would have any interest in it. First, he is not the best speller or writer there is and I think it embarrasses him. I would say the only way to get better is to do it. I know he has at times written things and had Maeghan read them, but I have never seen any of it. So, maybe he does like to write. After I think about it for a while, I will discuss it with him, or them. 

I just read an article about what has happened to the blog. In general, not this specific one. You don't hear about them anymore and you certainly do not see them unless you know a specific one you are looking for. There aren't a lot of places you can go to look for things, or maybe just look for a random blog. There are specific topic blogs, but they are usually part of something else. Like something that is written in support of a video or web page or a business. Not just a random blog about a random topic. They do exist, but no central place you can do a search for them. 

Used to be, I could go to a web page, I think it might have been this one, Blogger.com, and I could hit a button that took me to a random blog. Then hit it again and go to another. Maybe that still exists, but I have not seen it in a while and don't know how to do that anymore.

I do know they do not show up in searches. Or they are not high in the algorithm to show up in someone's search. Or, at least, that is what the article was saying. You can still monetize them, but the methods appear to be outdated and replaced by other ways to make money at it. I suppose that is the real cause of the death of the blog, no way to make money at it. You can only make very little money writing these. There are better ways to do it now. I've never looked into it for this blog, so I am not sure it would be something I would want to do. Maybe, but I think the only way is to put adds in it and I am not a big fan of that. And besides, who would read it. I think what I saw was around $2 for a thousand views. This blog has had 8000 views in 20 years, so I would have made $16. Pretty much a bargain if you ask me. That is something I will think about, for my later years.

Right now, I am just waiting for all the students to go to class so I can get a coffee. They should have already gone, but I am getting a steady stream of late commers asking for things. I think I might be sage now, so I am off to the break room.

My coffee is not hot anymore and more students have come in. I was stopped by the director who seems to have a fascination with baseball. I like baseball, but he thinks since I am from America, I know everything and follow everything about it. His son plays and wants to play professionally, so he keeps asking me advice on how he should go about doing that. Since I have no idea how to do that, I don't have a lot of advice, but he keeps asking. So I spend 15 or 20 minutes every time I see him answering questions about what I think of different things. I don't really mind, but I don't really have anything to say that would really help him and my knowledge of baseball has severely waned since I have been here. I only get to see YouTube highlights and I don't follow any of those except the major headlines and the Rangers when I get around to it. I enjoy it, but don't really follow it. So my coffee is cold.

I have spent the last couple of entries talking about myself. That will probably be a trend, or more than a trend, going forward. The kids are grown and I don't have the daily interaction with them. I'll try to keep this up to date with what is happening to them, but in order to keep this blog going with more entries, I will probably have more to say about myself than anything else. Probably talk more about the past as well. I enjoy writing it, and usually have interesting tales and stories to tell, even if I have to make some of them up. They might seem made up, but they are real to me and I am assuming most of them are based in actual fact. I just don't remember all the details.

But I enjoy it, and I will try to keep doing it. For as long as I can, and probably for some time after I cannot. Maybe I will write some entries that can be published after I am gone. Might be a good way to say some of the things I cannot say in here but should be said somewhere and if I am gone, there are no consequences to me afterwards. I will just allow others to be amused while I am not here. Sounds like a plan.

I am going to close this one now. Without saying anything about the kids. I'll think of something soon. Might even be later today as I do not have a lot of work to do and it is the last day of school, so I will get bored and probably start a new entry. Just a gamble on my part, but if you stay up late and eat ice cream, you might be entertained by some other nonsense I report.

Until next time,

Later 

MWNews 268

 I'm starting this without any real idea of what I am going to write about. I know, you thought that is what I always did. But really, I normally have one or two things I want to get to each time. Not that I always get to them, but I have a vague idea of something. This time, no idea. Just thought it was time to write and I started. Have to go open the doors in a moment. In fact, someone just walked up to the door, so I have to go let them in. Give me a chance to go get my fruit and nut bar I set on my desk for breakfast and then forgot it when I walked out here. Vague and not interesting, but I'll be back at the start of the next line I type.

Back. It took me a bit longer. I actually did some work while I was standing. Reset the laptop charger station and brought out the staff loan laptops. And I should have checked how many loans I needed. Turns out I need seven and I only have two, so I am about to scramble around trying to find some more. I have some that need to be rebuilt on my desk, so I need to do that before staff begins to arrive.

I am back after a few hours. Been a busy morning. I do have a tale to tell and no one knows about it except what I will write in here. Something that happened in the intervening hours. I should tell someone one, but I have no plans to do so, so if anyone actually reads this, it will come as a surprise.

I went to the cardiologist yesterday. Been over a year as they keep cancelling my appointments. Since I had nothing to tell, they had nothing to say. Put me on a different medicine and cancelled one that I was not supposed to be taking. It is possible I did not have an accurate list of my medications. The doctor certainly didn't, but I gave him what I had, which is from over a year ago. I don't think there are any changes to the list, but I need to make sure and update it when I get home.

He kept asking me if I had switched from one medicine to another. I remember that happening in the past but I could not tell him when it happened and what I switched from and to. Kind of thought he would have that information but he seemed to think that was up to me to keep track of what I was taking and why. That is another thing I have been complaining about for a while. The doctors keep asking me why I am taking the medicines I am taking. Since they are the ones that proscribe them, I would think they would already know that, but they never do. Gets very frustrating. Isn't that what the doctors are for, to keep track of my health and monitor how I am doing with what they proscribe. Maybe I am just cynical or confused. It has bothered me for any number of years. Medical professionals. I know they have a lot of things to remember and do, but if the case load is too much, cut down on the number of cases. Maybe there is a doctor shortage but I can certainly testify there is a good doctor shortage.

But let's move on.

What happened today, shortly before the first lull in the amount of people asking for immediate help, I got a pain. I had told the doctor I had no pains or symptoms recently and he said that was good and he was cancelling any follow up appointments I might have had. I only needed to come back if there was a problem. But anyway, that was yesterday.

Today, I had one of the worst chest pains I had ever had. It was really bad and I was not really doing anything at the time. Sitting at the front desk, a few dozen students around but not asking me to do anything, just waiting for class to start. 

This pain started with a stiff pressure on my chest. You get those sometimes, it is called angina pain, but they do not last very long and they are not that bad. This was bad. It got bad, then worse and then started radiating. I did believe I was having a heart attack. Of course, I didn't tell anyone. I walked into the back, whispered to one of my co-worked to watch the front desk, and went and sat in the meeting room. I took my spray and sat there. I was thinking there was no way I was going to be carted off in an ambulance in front of the whole school. I knew if I called for the nurses, they would immediately call for an ambulance. I probably should have, the pain was bad. 

I waited my five minutes and took another spray. The rule is, or I have always been told the rule is, spray when the pain starts, wait five minutes, spray again if it is still there, wait five minutes and if there is still pain, call the ambulance because you are having a heart attack. The pain started to go away. Well, not really go away, just not as bad as it was. I sat there for another 10 minutes. As I said, I was not going to have an ambulance show up at school and take me out on a gurney. That is what would have happened. I probably should have let it happen. I didn't.

After about ten minutes, it was just a dull ache. I walked out to the front. No one seemed to notice anything, so that's good. I decided to go get a cup of coffee. Amazingly, when I got the coffee, it helped a lot. First sip and most of the pain started to go away. Not sure how or why it worked so fast but by the time I got back to my desk, I was feeling ok. No longer a need for an ambulance or the need to tell anyone what had happened. I wasn't fine, but it was tolerable. 

Of course, if anyone is reading this, they are in a panic. While I am not fine, I am tolerable. As I write this and look back on it, I should have gone to the hospital. I might still need to. This is one of the worst episodes I can remember. I am kind of afraid of it coming back. I will definitely go immediately next time. No waiting for the spray to kick in, no giving it a couple of goes. Just head for the hospital, hopefully without having the school involved. The reason I don't want to the school involved is one, the embarrassment. Every student will know that I was taken away in am ambulance and they will forever be treating me differently. And, I don't want the school asking me for medical updates and it affecting how and where I do my job. If it comes to it, I will quit, but I want the decision to be mine, not because they are concerned for my health. I get enough walking on tiptoes when they are around me or they need something done. Yes, it is nice not having to do a lot of things, but I don't need the pity. I am not that old and feeble. Maybe I am, but I refuse to bow to the inevitable. 

That is my story for today. Not that I am entirely comfortable at the moment, I still have a lingering pain. But I only have an hour left before I leave for the day. If it stays for the train ride home, I will consider going to the hospital. Don't know what I will tell them, but maybe they will do something. Means I won't work tomorrow and Juanita will probably not work, so we will have no income for the week. We need it, I can't keep relying on my retirement money to bail us out before I actually retire. That's another story.

I was going to say something else about today's events, but I can't seem to remember what it was. I do have the fear that I actually had a heart attack today. That happened a few years ago. I had similar incident while I was doing contract work out of town. I stopped working back then and tried to get my helper to do everything. When I got back, I told my doctor and he put me in the hospital. They said I had had a heart attack in the past couple of weeks. Not sure how they knew but it could be the same thing just happened. Not that I want to go into it too much, but I have never found any of the heart attacks I have had to be terribly painful. Yes, there is pain, but not the crushing pain I have always been told they were like. It just kind of hurts. There is nothing you can do to make it stop hurting but the pain itself is not that bad. But who am I to say. Six, maybe seven heart attacks later and open heart surgery, I probably am just getting it wrong and don't remember the pain. I know today's was bad.

I am going to run off and go. I know there was more and this is in no way the plan for today, but I will save it for next time. I never get to write. Next week is the start of school holidays. Only two weeks, but no students. Maybe I will have more time and have a better memory of what I want to write. 

Until next time,

Later

MWNews 267

I have been going back through the old entries and trying to fix them as when I re-read them, there are a lot of mistakes, misspells, and errors that need to be corrected. It is very slow work. The main problem is whenever I make a change and update it, it takes me back to the most recent entry. So I have to scroll down to the entry I was editing and open another one. My problem is, I don't remember which one I was editing, so I have to check whatever I open to see if I have done it and then try to find the one I should actually be working on. It is very time consuming, to the point where I might not do it anymore. Maybe after I retire. I will have plenty of time then and won't constantly be interrupted by the little people. But as I am having trouble typing today, I will stop for now and get back to it when I am a bit better. 

Ok, let's see how it goes. If it wasn't for this fly that keeps buzzing between me and the screen, I would be a happy camper.

William has decided he is not going to look for a job until after his birthday. He says since we are going on a trip, he has to wait so he has the time off. That's his plan and he is sticking to it. Unless I intervene, I suppose. Demand that he get a job now and worry about time off later. The problem is, we need to start looking for a smaller place to live. Our rent is extraordinarily low, but it should be lower and it can be if we move into a two bedroom instead of a four bedroom. Not a lot of difference in price, since ours is so low, but it will be lower. Starting next year, I will no longer be working and will be officially retired. Can't afford, nor do we need, such a large place. So he has to be either moved out or paying rent. Doesn't matter which but something will have to change.

Our real problem will be the dogs. Not a lot of places accept two dogs, one of which is a large dog. That could be a sticking point and make moving not feasible. Another issue is the amount of stuff we have. Enough to fill a four bedroom house and a two car garage. Half of that will have to go. It will be an issue on which half goes. The argument I will face is I will be told we can just get a storage shed. I am really against that idea and I do not understand why so many people use them. I can see their uses for some things, but just as storage for overflow in you house. If you are going to pay for storage, then just pay for a bigger house. Giving money to someone just to keep things you will never see or probably use just does not make a lot of sense to me. Pay for the larger house, not a room you have to go visit to see your stuff. But storage places are big business and I see a lot of them around, so it must make sense to someone. I am probably not seeing the big picture.

Maeghan is moving forward with her getting a car. Or getting closer. She is just about approved to take lessons. Once that is done, NDIS might pay something for modifications to a car, but they need to see that she can drive first and has a need for modifications to a car. Just a lot of bureaucratic nonsense and paper work if you ask me. She can't get the help unless she proves she needs the help but she can't prove she needs the help until she can prove she can get a license. How is she supposed to do that. I am guessing there is some semblance of a plan behind it all, but since she has been hammering at this for over three years, it doesn't look hopeful. I am still under the impression that I will end up paying for it and then, maybe, NDIS will pay for the next one. I don't know. Doesn't make any sense to me, but then again, it never has. I am the do it yourself generation and we do not depend on the government for anything. Government help is nice, but not something we depend on. Once again, just being the curmudgeon. (So far it has not told me I spelled that wrong and I did it in one go. That doesn't seem possible.)

 And in my effort, I am going to try to end this early. I know I keep saying that, but it requires dedication and discipline on my part, something I don't have a lot of, so I just keep rambling each time. But this time, maybe.

I miss Maeghan. I wish William and I did more things together but we don't seem to have the same interests or maybe I am just too set and impatient to do what he likes. But I wish it were different all the time. Missing Maeghan is part of my life now. I hate that I have gotten used to it. It might be going back to these old entries and reading them again. Those times are gone and are never coming back. Doesn't stop me from missing them. 

Having typed two more paragraphs since I said I was going, this will be the last. I just keep telling myself that I have so much more to say, but it will be later, after I have forgotten what I was going to write. My new life style.

Until next time,

Later

MWNews 266

 Going back and trying to fix the old blogs is going to be a problem. I can go back and try, but every time I make a change and save it, it takes me back to the top of the list. And since it does not load the entire list each time, I have to scroll down and then load some more to get to the earlier blogs. All that to say, it is going to take a long time to fix everything. I will continue to hammer away at it.

I am starting this entry shortly after I posted the last one. I do not expect to finish it for a couple of days. Then again, the students are rioting tomorrow, so I will have time to do other things instead to catering to their every need. I have other stuff planned, but I might find the time to do this. For now, I am going back to attempting to edit everything. 

Another distraction I am having is today is the day they practice RiverFire, or whatever they call the thing they are doing tomorrow on the river. It means they have military planes flying over at really low heights. They come over the school and sometimes, they seem way too low. Each time one comes by, I have to go out and watch it so I can warn everyone it might hit the building. It takes up a lot of my time. 

I am going now. Be back tomorrow.

I'm back, several days later and typing on the home keyboard. Which means I am using this keyboard I can't type on. But what's new with that. I can never type on any keyboard. It's a lifelong challenge. I have no idea what I was talking about or what I had planned. Once again, we are off on an adventure. But I do plan on keeping it short, which means it will be way too long again. I can never stop typing when I want to. Always one more thing to say or one more thing to explain. Even now, it is getting too long. Let's continue.

Yesterday was Father's Day here in this land. It is not Father's Day in places where it doesn't count. I have no idea why there are differences. Everyone can agree on Mother's Day but they don't seem to be able to get together on one Father's Day. Conspiracy for sure.

They took me to Pepe's. It is supposed to be the only true Tex-Mex place around here and I have always wanted to go. We never have because they want a bunch of money for something that should be half the price. And most Austrians think Guzman and Gomez is a Tex-Mex place. Think Chipotles, although I have never been to Chipotles. Basically burritos, so it is kind of tex-mex but not really. No refried beans or chips and salsa, just over-stuffed burritos. I like GYG, but I don't think it is Mexican.

Pepe's was Tex-Mex. All the normal stuff you would find there. It is just way oversized. Maeghan had a chimichanga the size of her plate. Huge thing, with rice and some kind of carrot onion salad. Everything had the salad on it. It was not very good but her chimichanga looked good.

William had nachos, or as a continuing complaint from me, what passes for nachos for the past 30 or 40 years. I won't go into it, but pouring cheese sauce over chips and piling other stuff on top of that is not a nacho, but that would take me too long to explain so let's just say, he had chicken nachos with nothing else on it. It comes with hot sauce, but he said he didn't want it. It looked ok but could have used the sauce and maybe some onion or beans or something else, but that is how William eats. No vegetables, no sauce, no anything. 

Juanita had a seafood burrito, with no sauce on it. Just some melted cheese. I didn't get to see a lot of it but she only ate the inside with the seafood, shrimp, scallops, maybe some crab. I am not sure. It also came with the salad and rice and re-fried beans. She only ate the seafood and offered me the beans and rice. I would have eaten them but now we come to my plate.

I ordered the enchiladas. The normal order for enchiladas is one enchilada, rice, beans and salad. Your choice of chicken, beef or re-fried beans. Re-fried beans seem a bit strange, I would have preferred cheese, but it was not on offer. Thinking one enchilada was kind of stingy, I went for the double order, my choice of two enchiladas. I ordered one beef and on bean. I still thought that would not be enough, so I ordered stuffed jalapenos as well.

First, the plate wasn't that huge, but it was large. It was more of a shallow bowl than it was a plate. And if was completely full. I had the salad on one side, the enchiladas in the middle and rice on the other side. all covered with some type of enchilada sauce. I say enchilada sauce, but it appeared it was the same sauce for all dishes. Everything they brought to us and other tables was covered in it. I had basically what I thought was a bowl of it, covered in cheese. 

I started with the rice, but I like to have my beans and rice together, but I could not find the beans on my plate. I did notice I had three enchiladas but thought that was a good thing, so I didn't mention it to anyone. I did take some beans off of Juanita's place and had it with my rice. I then started in on the enchiladas. I started with the one near the rice. I noticed it was all beef, nothing else. Barely even a tortilla. Lots and lots of beef. I decided to try the other enchilada. It must be said that at this time, I did not know there were three. I just thought they were really big. I mean really, really big. And, by the way, the salad stuff was on that side and I did not like it. It is not that I didn't like it, but the carrots were raw and very hard. Kind of a sharp contrast to everything else on the plate and I ended up just pushing them to the side.

When I tried what I thought was the second burrito, it was full of beans. More beans than there was meat in the other one. A lot of beans. And you could kind of tell there was a tortilla there, mainly because part of it did not have sauce on it so it wasn't overcooked to non-existence. I ate a few bites of that one and then tried one of the jalapeno poppers. The popper did not have a lot of taste and very little jalapeno taste, but it wasn't bad, just kind of bland. Maeghan had a couple of them, but I could not convince Juanita or William to even try it, even though it was basically capsicum and not jalapeno. 

At this point, I still had not discovered the beans that was supposed to come with my meal. I wasn't troubled by it as the enchilada had enough beans in it to cover for the lack of separate beans on the plate. I then tried the middle part of the plate, thinking that must be where the beans were. It turns out, this was a second bean enchilada. Full of re-fried beans. Two giant enchiladas full of beans. I never went back to Juanita's beans. 

Everything was good, if not outstanding, but better than anything I had had in Austria. By the way, it is a running joke that I make that any time I refer to Australia, I say Austria and I say Austian instead of Australian. It is something I have done with the kids for years and I now do it without thinking, which on occasion, gets me in trouble with real Australians as they don't see the humor. Funny to me, probably not to anyone else. But back to the meal.

It was good. I liked the beef, the sauce was ok, the rice was authentic and the beans could have used a bit more flavor or even salt, but they were good enough. The fact that I had a lot of beans did bring me to the last point. I could not finish the plate. It was too much food. I can eat a lot of food, but this was just overwhelming. I left probably a full enchilada on the plate. It was part of two of the bean ones, but together, they made almost a full enchilada.

This is apparently the reason for the high prices. The meals are huge. Maeghan had trouble finishing hers, Juanita barely ate any of hers but that is another story for another time and William did eat all of his but he hardly had anything left after he took all the good parts off his order so there wasn't that much to eat to begin with. I was stuffed. Too much food. Everyone else had finished a full 15 minutes before I finally gave up and said I could not eat anymore. Maybe it was me getting old and not eating as much or maybe it was the entire meal, but it defeated me to finish it. Juanita said she was proud of me for getting as far as I did, or actually, she was proud of me for not being able to eat it all because she said in the past, I would have no trouble eating all of that and then ordering dessert. William did want dessert but none of the rest of us wanted anything so we didn't order it.

And it was good. Not the best, but what can you expect, we do live in Austria. It was still expensive, but it might have been worth it. Maybe next time, order the single enchilada and some smaller things, but I enjoyed it. I am glad we went or glad they took me there. I don't think it was because it was Father's Day, but the place was packed. Completely full, with people waiting outside, and this was at noon for lunch. I can't imagine what it might have been like later. Maeghan had made reservations for us, so we went right in, but as we were the second ones in, by the time we ordered, every table was full. 

We will have to think about going again, but maybe. They could use some advice on spicing but good, basic Tex-Mex if I get the craving again.

Now that this entry is much longer than it should be and most of it was about me and what I ate, I will have to go. Lots of stories and lots of tales for you amusement, but some other time. 

Until next time.

Later

MWNews 265

 I have noticed that these entries seem to be longer than I think they are when I am typing. I thought I was typing short or medium entries, but these seem to go on for a while. I will have to learn to shorten them up so I can get more entries into the blog. Now that I am typing on some kind of regular basis, it would be nice if there were more to show for it. 

I am back at work, typing when I am supposed to be working. Not for long though. Once again, I cannot type because I cut my finger. I suppose no one knows about when I cut my finger before. I might relate that story sometime soon. Thought for a while I had cut it off, but no, just the tip and it is not even noticeable now. Yesterday, or maybe the day before, I cut a different finger and I have a large bandage on it that makes it hard to type. In fact, it is getting so bad that I have to end this for now. At first, it was going ok, but as I type more, I am typing faster and making more mistakes. Then having to go back and correct them. So, frustration being my middle name, I am going to leave it until I get home to take the bandage off. I was going to do it today, but it started bleeding again and I did not want it bleeding at work, so I left it. The bandage is all red and full of blood but I just tell them that is the color of the bandage. 

So it's tata for now, or at least until you read the next sentence. 

I am back, two days later. I have been reading the old blogs again. I cannot imagine how frustrating that is for people who are just reading them for the first time, if there are any of those people. So many typos, mis-spellings, wrong words, and bad grammar, it is barely legible for me to read them. I think I am going to make a project of going back and fixing all the issues. Probably a life long endeavour, but re-reading them, it is really bad. Someone should have mentioned it. 

What that also means is I might be slack in creating new entries. I hope not. It is fun and these are probably not any better than the old ones, so it is a never ending cycle of going back and fixing the old problems. But I think it has to be done. I will get to it some day.

For a bit of fresh news for those who are just joining us, I will try to think of something. It has been a few years and I need to catch up. Lot's of things to talk about. I think the main problem is going to be where to start. I have no idea. I will start with the present and try to remember things to type as I go. There are birds gathering outside my door and that usually means there is food out there. They will sometimes wander in to this room and I have to go chase them out. For now, I am keeping an eye on them. I can't see the floor out there, only the railing where they are sitting. A tangent for sure.

Did anyone notice there are pictures on the new entries. Probably not since you are reading them now and the pictures will already be there. I think I have decided to keep the pictures. It just did not look right. But, to solve the no pictures available on the work laptop, I am going to write these and then put the pictures in when I find the time at home. That way, I have access to more pictures. I think it is a good plan. Keeps me from having to type these on William's new keyboard and I get more recent pictures in place. Not that there seems to be a lot. We stopped taking pictures like we used to, or I did. I think Maeghan has a lot of pictures but she has a lot of pictures from her friends and her life. Not a lot of her and William. They probably won't do me a lot of good. I will follow through with it the best I can.

In the interest of keeping these short, I am going to leave this entry without saying anything. I think that might be a trend I will start. Lots of entries but no real information. Probably a bad idea, but for now, I am going back to start the revisions on the old entries to make them more readable instead of continuing to write filler. I always try to write things when I remember them, but it never seems to work out that way. Maybe I will try to writing myself notes again. That worked once, a long time ago. Being half way to senility, it is hard to keep a train of thought for any length of time. I will just remain crazy end eccentric and hope all goes well.

Until next time,

Later

MWNews 264

William

I’m trying to type this on my phone, which means one finger typing. I’m sure I will get tired of this very soon, but right now, I am sitting in a coffee shop in the shopping center waiting for Juanita to return. So, I have some time.

I wanted to tell the scariest story from William’s past, one that still haunts me to this day. I’m hoping he reads it someday so he can understand the abundance of caution I always have for what he does. I don’t say he needs the concern, but I wish he understood where it comes from.

William has always been a little reckless. Not that he thinks so, but I feel he sometimes does things, and probably more than sometimes, without thinking it through. He just reacts or acts without thinking. I know, just a typical boy, but there was one occasion that brings me nightmares and I can’t stop thinking about it when he does some of the things he does.

Don’t get me wrong, William is a very levelheaded, cautious kid and I think the acting without thinking might turn into a strength as he gets older. But for me, he is still that little boy who scarred me for life. Not really his fault, it’s more about me, I just want him to understand why.

And since I cannot see what I am typing on my phone because of the limited real estate, I am going to have to stop before it drives me any crazier. I’ll get back to it as soon as I can. It’s not like I will forget the incident that happened, but I will have to tell it later. 

Of course, I am assuming I have never told it before. The issue is, I think I have told some things in here but as I am rereading them, I see some things that are missing well after when they should have been reported so my memory seems to have failed. Maybe I said this exact same thing in an entry but for now, I will type it again. I am only up to William being about one and this took place when he was about five or six. He can't really be held accountable for it, but it is a defining point for my life.

But now I have typed more and still can’t see what I have typed, so I am leaving it for now.

I am back. I am sure you missed me more than I missed you. No, that's not right. Take that, reverse it, now we are good. And by the way, I hate doing this on my home computer. William got a new keyboard and mouse. He uses the computer the most and he thought I would like it, but I do not like this keyboard. The keys are small, raised too much and have too much give. I like bigger keys, something you can't get anymore, not as much play, and since the keyboard it lighted from below, I can't see what each key is, so I have to rely on touch and experience to actually type with any speed or accuracy. A tough call. He thought I would like it and did it for me, but until he reads this, he will not know that I don't really like it, to the point that I might go get the old keyboard, which also has small keys but is a bit flatter and easier to see and touch type on. But on with the show.

We were living in Tasmania at the time. Not together, but next door to each other. A long story I will not go into. We were getting ready to go somewhere and my car was parked across the street; I have no idea why. We went out to the busy road and were waiting for traffic to clear so we could cross.

As we were about to cross, a big truck was coming. I wasn't really paying attention, just waiting for the truck. Maeghan, and I do not blame Maeghan for anything, was arguing with William about who was going to sit where. I have no idea why that was happening as they both always sat in the same seats each time. Probably something I am misremembering again.

William was getting ready to cross, Maeghan was waiting with me. I think William looked away for a minute, and Maeghan said it's clear and acted like she was going to start running. William didn't even look, just turned and started to run. The truck was just about upon us. Juanita was standing beside William. I don't know how, but as William started to take off, Juanita grabbed his arm and stopped him. I have no idea how she did that or how she reacted so quickly and it has never really been made a big deal in the family. But I remember it. I can see it in slow motion when I close my eyes. I can see it in my dreams sometimes. I get very, very upset each time. But I hide it from everyone.

I know, if Juanita had not grabbed him, he would have been right in front of that truck. If he had not been killed by it, he would have been severely hurt, to the point that he might have been permanently disabled. Speculation on my part, but I think he would have been killed. It haunts me all time.

I know, it was an isolated incident. It should not bother me so much. But when I see William about to do something without thinking about it, I am reminded of that time. I am reminded, that there was once a time when he would have acted and the consequences would have been the worst thing that could ever happen.

So, William, I sometimes get upset with you. I sometimes am harsher than I should be and I do not always support you like I should. But that scares me. I am afraid and I do not know how to handle it and sometimes I do not know how to advise you or make things easier for you other than to say no or yell at you for doing what I think might be a stupid thing to do. Because I see the worst moment I have ever experienced with you flash before my eyes and I just want to stop it from happening again. It is not your fault. You may or may not be doing anything wrong. I try to believe you have thought through whatever you are doing and have made the best choice you know how to make. Right or wrong, you know what you are doing, even if I don't recognize it. I support you, but I am scared. Scared for my little boy who I almost lost because of a stupid mistake. I don't want that to happen.

I want to be proud of you. I am proud of you. I see a good person turning into a good man. I see you learn from your mistakes and take actions that are good and helpful to others. Please forgive me. I just want to make sure you think about what it is you are doing or want to do, and then do them to the best of your ability.

I love you William.

And now that I have made myself cry again, why do I keep doing that, I will let this entry go. Until I find a better way to type on this keyboard, I guess I am stuck with doing this at work. I will give it another try, but this is not helpful. It is hard to type. But until next time.

Later

MWNews 263

 You know what I regret most about this blog. That I didn't keep it up over the years. I am going back through it, reading all my funny posts and mistakes I made, but I see that there are months and years when I did not post. Looking back, I really regret that. At some point, this was really, really good. It changed over the years and I wish I had chronicled it more closely. I am at the end of the day now and I will have to get back to this later, but I just thought I needed to say that while I was thinking about it. Regrets and recriminations, we all have them. It would have been nice to have more of this to read. 

Well, I'm back today. Not sure what kind of time I have. Lots of changes at work and no one knows how it will all shake out. Ideally, I would take over, but that is probably not something I want to do. I could make the arrangement to run it until I retire, but that is a lot of learning on my part and I am just not up to that. I say all this because I have more to do at the moment and don't know when I will get back to this. Already been interrupted twice while I typed this paragraph. 

Back to the hunt. Juanita came back from her one day trip to Tasmania. And that will be all I say about that.

I had a long lunch with Maeghan while she was gone. We just had lunch. It was very nice. Not sure if we discussed anything other than nothing. I did ask about her friend, the one she lives with. I have the sneaking suspicion that they are not getting along. Maeghan said they were but I still have my doubts. I worry that if they stop being friends, Maeghan will have to move and that presents a whole lot of other issues. She likes living in Beachmere but I am not sure there are other places to live there, plus it is not really a place you can get in and out of without a car. The busses are not reliable and when you take the bus, it adds a couple of hours to the trip before you actually get anywhere. If you miss the bus, you might as well not go. Could be 30 minutes, could be an hour before the next bus. And, they don't run at night, so you have to be home before dark. It's just not a good place to live if you don't have a car.

Along those fronts, Maeghan might be moving forward with getting a license and a car. I don't know all the details but she seemed pleased that something has happened. I think it is just another new person from NDIS working with her and making all the same promises but I suppose we have to wait and see if anything comes of it. I am perfectly willing to help in any way I can, but it hasn't come to that yet. I'd buy her a car if NDIS would pay for the modifications but that is still in the air. I'd buy the modifications if Maeghan wanted to buy the car. The limit I have is I can't do both. I could, but then I would have to die when I am 70 as I would be out of money. Still willing to do it, but I am holding out for NDIS to actually do something before I go that far.

William is still discouraged by the job market. Or I think he is. I don't know if he is actually looking. He or his mother have not mentioned it lately. I know he is keen to get something, but I am not so sure he knows how to do it. Yes, I should be helping him. And I have said many times, I will do it when the time is right. Meaning, I want him to figure it out. It does no good if I do it for him and then something happens to me and he has no idea how to do anything by himself. I think he can figure it out, but as it hasn't happened yet, I am starting to get more and more worried about it.

I don't remember if I told you about the road trip he and his friends were planning.  I am not sure I should. Since he can't drive, he is more a passenger on the trip, but apparently they cooked up this idea recently and say they are going to do it.

They want to go to Chucky Cheese. I have no idea why. I explained that Chucky Cheese is a place for little kids. It has nothing for adults. He says it would be cool to go there. Somehow, he and his friends decided they wanted to go. I told him there were places around here that were exactly like Chucky Cheese but you know how that goes. They want Chucky Cheese. And I am tired of writing Check Cheese so hopefully, this will be the last time.

The fact that they have convinced themselves that they want to go there is not the strange part of this tale. It gets totally weird from this point. 

When he told me they wanted to go, (almost typed it again), I said there isn't one in Australia. Actually, his mother told me they wanted to go and I told her there wasn't one. She had William tell me what they were planning. I assumed, since it was a road trip, they might want to drive to Sydney because there might be one there. Not an unreasonable trip, about an 8 hour drive. But no, not in Sydney. So then I assumed Melbourne. A much longer drive, but it could be an adventure. It would take them at least three days to get there, two if they pushed it really hard. So they could take a week, go to Melbourne, and then come back. A bit long but he is twenty and he needs to get out more and see the world.

No, not Melbourne. It is in Perth. To give you some idea of what that drive is, imagine New York to Los Angeles. It is minimum of 48 hours driving. That does not include anything else and assumes you can just drive. But let me tell you about a drive to Perth. To do the 48 hour driving route, you have to go the straight line. Not the around the coast route, which would pass through all the major cities in Australia, but the straight route. Through the desert. Across the outback. In the native lands. Yes, you would pass near Uluru, beyond that and much of what is before that, is desert. Several stretches where there are no towns, no buildings, no road in some places, that require you to bring your own petrol. Stretches where there is no petrol for 500 kilometers. Roads that are subject to being washed away if it rains. Places where you can drive for hours and never see anything but desert. Not big sandy desert but rough, flat, scrub brush desert. It is not something you ever want to do.

Yes, trucks and some crazy people do it. But they do it because they have to, not just on a whim. This is harsh country. No one lives there. There is nothing. I have driven a small part of it once, going south to north and not east to west. We went through one part that was 350 kilometers with no towns. At the end, we came to a town and had to spend the night in the car waiting for the petrol station to open in the morning. We were told not to stop in that town. I thought we had to because I was not sure we could make it to the next one. There were no shops, abandoned buildings, very few houses, but some truck filling station that we waited at to see if we could get petrol from them. Along the way, I went through one stretch of road that was perfectly straight for a length of time I had no idea what it was. I tell the story of seeing headlights in front of me and turning off my bright lights as we approached. 20 minutes later, we finally met the other car. It took that long and I could see them that far away that it took us driving towards each other for 20 minutes before I actually needed to turn my brights down. A really desolate place.

But that was, or as far as I know still is, their plan. Four friends, only three of which can drive and they are on their learners licenses which means they cannot drive at night. In an old car that frequently breaks down just driving around Brisbane. Going across the Australian outback with no hope of being able to contact anyone if anything goes wrong. There is no cell coverage out there. I don't even think you can get satellite coverage. It's that far gone. If you were looking for an adventure, this might be the one that you will remember. Kind of rough for the first time out.

Hopefully, I have dissuaded him from this. I don't really know yet. He hasn't mentioned it nor has his mother. Might mean they just don't want me to criticize it again. Another thing we will just have to wait and see.

I have been given a lot of work to do, so I have to go. This entry might be entertaining, if not coherent. It does have to end now though. Not even a chance to go back and reread it for clarity.

Later

MWNews 262

 I have been reading though the old entries, from the beginning. Some of it still makes me cry, but it seems I cry at everything these days. I miss the kids. Not that they are not around and I can pretty much see them anytime I want, but reading through the old stuff and the old antics they used to get up to just brings back a lot of joy and happiness we had. I am just up to the point where William was born. I know I had heart surgery around that time, so I am wondering what I might have typed into this thing about that. Probably nothing, but we will see.

For now, I will continue to add to it. I am thinking I need to add the pictures back. It just doesn't look good without them. Probably use the same pictures over again as I don't want to go back and look to see if I am repeating, and I have been away for a while so I don't know which ones I have used. It will be individual pictures of each of them instead of them together as I have a lot of those that have never been in here. I will have a look when I get home, or sometime this weekend, or next week, or whenever I get around to it.

Juanita is going to Tasmania this weekend. She is going to see her friend who has been diagnosed with cancer. I told her we were going in November for her birthday, but she insists she needs to go now. so I have the weekend with just me and William. William never wants to go anywhere so it will probably be just me. I have asked Maeghan if she wants to go somewhere but she hasn't answered yet. She might before I finish this entry, so I might have an update. She will probably say "I don't care" which what she always says, but maybe there is some place she wants to go and has not had a chance since she can't drive.

That is becoming a bigger and bigger issue. Neither William or Maeghan can drive. Maeghan because she needs special modifications to the car so she can drive it and there does not appear to be a lot of places that have the cars to do the driver training she needs. And, it is turning out, that NDIS is not going to pay for any of it, which is what they were originally designed to do but they have changed all their criteria and support when they found out people were actually trying to cheat the government. Imagine that. So they have overrun the original costs they had planned for and are now revamping what is and what is not covered and who is eligible for it. Driving does not appear to be a necessary service. Their attitude appears to be you can just take the bus and driving is not necessary. But the parameters are still being defined and it might get better. Maeghan had to fire her support company because they were incompetent. Long story I might tell, but they were not doing the things they said they were doing and were not filling out required paperwork that was needed to get Maeghan's benefits. I think they were one of the companies that were cheating the government, turning in false claims and false information so they would get paid but were actually doing nothing for their clients. All speculation on my part, but she has a new support worker now and hopefully, she can get things done as they should be.

I need to get William into driving my car. I have been reluctant as the car was brand new, but it is two years old now, so maybe he can learn to drive in it. He says he is too tall to drive but we have explained that a lot of people are tall and they manage to drive. William is 6'7". I am not sure what that is in Australian measurements but it is tall in American. I could probably do the conversion, but then what would the readers do. 

A big issue is there are not any places where you can go to learn to drive. Things like stadium parking where there is a lot of space where you won't run into anything. There are shopping centers but they are busy during the day and usually closed off at night. Plus, most of them are parking garages and not suitable to learning to drive. I just don't know of a place where he can get used to how the car moves without the threat of running into something, or someone. But, I need to find something soon because he really needs to learn to drive.

So does Maeghan. It is more important that she learns to drive as she is not mobile unless someone takes her to where she needs to go. She can take the busses and trains, but that is a flakey situation that requires a lot of extra time to get anywhere. If she could drive, she could go anytime she wants. She does have the money to buy a car, and NDIS is supposed to do the modifications to it to allow her to carry her wheelchair, but that is becoming more and more iffy as well. She is not sure they will pay for it, and it costs almost as much as a car will. It might come down to me paying for it, but that is my retirement money and I am becoming more and more scared of spending that as I get closer to retirement. I don't have a way to build it back up unless I just keep working. And I do not want to do that.

I am ready to retire. I am tired. I am burned out, and I no longer want to work in IT. My body says I shouldn't be working anywhere, but if I can find something simple, I would gladly take it. Of course, this job is supposed to be simple, and for the most part it is. Nothing really major and mostly just repetitive, which I don't mind, so this would actually be the job I should stay at, if I am going to continue to work. But that brings up the current situation in that a lot of the people up here have recently quit. They quit for good reasons, better jobs, but it means they will have to hire more people. People that I might not get along with or might require me to do more than I am willing to do at this point in my career. I can't go through that again. I can get used to someone new, but waiting for them to get used to me, and possibly not liking who I am and what I do and expecting more from me, I am not ready to do that again. Hopefully, six more months, but we will see.

Maeghan still hasn't replied and I am about to have to go into a meeting and then go home for the day. I guess that means I will end this and probably not get back to it. I have a lot of what has gone on for the two years I was away, or I think I do. Maybe even some of it will be about the kids. I intend to keep cranking these out as fast as I can but maybe not as fast as I would like. I enjoy it, except the crying part, and I hope when the kids inherit this, they will too. I know they will. I'd like for others to enjoy it but then again, why would I. It is for the kids. Not for me, or maybe mostly for me, but for the kids. To remember and look back on things they might not have known and might enjoy reliving from my perspective. See you all again real soon.

Later

MWNews 261

 My health has deteriorated in the past few years. Or, it hasn't gotten better. I feel awful. Tired and ackey most of the time. Physically, I am not sure what is going on. Am I just getting old or is there something wrong. I don't know and I do not know how to tell a doctor. I say things and he wants me to go for tests. They don't find anything or they recommend I go to physical therapy. I have tried physical therapy. They tell me to go home and do some silly exercise or something. I do it and it never helps. I still feel lousy. I don't know what else to do. I have tried exercising on my own, but that doesn't last very long before I get tired of it or something happens and I get out of rhythm so I have to start over again. It's all my fault but, in the end, I still feel bad.

My back hurts, my knees hurt, my ankles hurt, everything hurts. Exercising makes it worse. I feel really bad for longer after I do it. Maybe it is just me and I am not doing enough, but it is kind of hard when you are in so much pain, you can't continue and you just want to take a break. So I skip a day and then I skip two days and soon enough, I can't do it anymore and I have to start the whole routine over again. It is very frustrating.

And yes, I know, that is everyone's problem and everyone has the same complaints. But I didn't used to be that way and I could finish everything I wanted to do. So it must be the getting old problem and there is nothing I can do to fix that.

I also have heart issues over and over again. And the threat of strokes because I keep getting TIA's or TAI's or whatever it is you get that is like a mini stroke and indicates you are at risk of getting a real stroke. I have them about every three months. Doctors tell me I need to go to the hospital immediately so they can check me while it is happening but it never happens when I can immediately go to the hospital and by the time I get there, they say they are guessing it was a TIA but they are never sure. Very frustrating.

But that is all physical stuff, and is by no means all the physical issues I am having. The real problem is mental. I think I am fast approaching mental incapacity. Dementia. It is bad. Real bad. So much so, I keep having disturbing thoughts. I do not want to lose my mind. It is all I have ever had. I was always, or most of the time, the smartest one in the room. Didn't matter where I was or who I was with, I knew I could out think anyone, or had more knowledge than anyone around me. Arrogance on my part, but that doesn't make it not true. It didn't matter what subject or what anyone was talking about, I always knew something about it and generally I had more knowledge than the person who was speaking. I always tried to not speak my mind and let them discover that I could help if they needed it, but in my mind, I knew it. Again, genuine arrogance on my part, but that's me. The smartest one in the room, if only in my mind.

I am not that anymore. I am not the smartest one in the room. I am learning to live with it. Sometimes, I think I should get more involved and learn about what others are talking about, but then I think I am old and will retire soon, so why learn something new just so I will have no use for it when I do retire. I debate on the usefulness of me learning something new and whether it will make me happy or not. Most of the time, I come up with no, too much effort for too little gain. Makes me look stupid most of the time, but I can live with that. Or, I think I can. I am trying to live with it.

I think the biggest issue is, what if I can't. What if my mental state and my inability to remember what I am saying in the middle of saying it, indicates that I no longer can learn what I need to learn or what I need to do. It faces me all the time. Am I still capable. I don't know and I am afraid to find out. So I stay in ignorance and let others do it. 

I know that at times, I am truly brilliant. I give little speeches that are inciteful, accurate, and come up with real solutions to problems. So I know I can still do it. It is just that 24 hours later, I have no idea what I was talking about or why I was saying or doing whatever it is I did. People come back to me and say they thought that was a good idea and I have no recollection of what they are talking about. I cannot elaborate on it. Again, it makes me come off as ignorant and not helpful. But I don't remember and no amount of trying ever seems to bring it back. The ideas are gone and the seeming knowledge and insight I had is no longer there. I forget it. It's gone. Maybe I come up with the same idea months later, but I don't remember ever saying anything about it.

You know I have lots more to say about it. I will eventually. But for now, this self pity has gone on long enough and I need to go to lunch. Maybe a sandwich will help. I have salami and cheese. And pickle, I love pickles. I even have a t-shirt that says I love pickles. It says, 'I love pickles and chilis and maybe three other people'. I get comments on it every time I wear it. It is a lot of fun so I have to save it for when we go out or go somewhere so people will be amused and tell me they feel the same way. It is a lot of fun.

But this does mean I am closing this entry. I will be back to talk more about me, I mean the kids, later. It is Friday, so maybe I will do it at home on the weekend. That will never happen, but maybe. I do feel like playing some Civilization. Can't type and play at the same time, but maybe I can figure out a way.

Later

MWNews 260

I am finding it hard to believe I am typing this again. Making new entries into the blog. I always knew I would be back some day, but didn't think it would take two years and since it has, I can't believe I have started. I wish I could do it more often

This one isn't a childhood story. Just general mayhem. I am going to wing it and probably just type a little and then get back to it as I can. I might tell a few stories, but that is what this is for. I just don't know where the muse will take me. 

I think I am noticing something a bit different in the font that is being used. Can't be bothered to go back and compare, but something about it looks different. Probably just my imagination. But something is different. Can't tell what.

I have also debated on putting pictures back in. I always had trouble doing that since I am doing it at work and it is hard to get the pictures onto my work computer. Not hard, just not something I wanted to do. I probably won't do it, but I might, if I ever do this at home, go back into the entries and add the pictures from my home computer. Just depends on how interested I am in doing it. One thing I have thought, over the years, is the pictures might be why people look at this blog. Pictures of kids and stuff, if you know what I mean. I have always debated it but decided it was better to have the pictures and ignore the ramifications. Might have been a bad idea, but it is too late now, unless I go back and delete them all. I will decide when I get older. 

Oh wait, I am older. And, I am uncomfortable with the pictures being there. I watch some YouTube videos and a lot of them have blurred out the kids in the pictures. Most of them haven't, but there are quite a few that have. I understand it was at the direction of YouTube. I will definitely do it if I am told to do it, but for now, they are there and I am debating continuing it. It is a whole lot easier if I don't, but we will see. 

Maeghan is going to University now. She has two years left. I don't know if I talked about that before. She is studying Graphic Design. She decided she didn't really want to do the kids thing anymore. I think she might change her mind at some point, but for now, this is what she wants. She got a HECS debt to afford to go to University. Not sure how much it is. It is fairly expensive to go. I won't go into HECS debts but here in Australia, you can get your schooling paid for and they don't want the money back until you get a job. Then they take some percentage from your check to pay the debt. I am not sure how it works, but it allows anyone to go to school if they want to.

She has taken one programming course, along with all the other art and design courses. She hated it. Not sure if she realises that Graphic Design is more than just drawing. She has done some stop animation movies, or shorts, and will have to do a bunch more. She has to draw each picture and then put them together. It takes forever but I think she enjoys it. We will see if she completes the course and where it leads her. I know she will complete it, but two more years might seem like a long time to go.

William is now a certified security guard. He just got his certificate this week. Been about six months of work and a lot of fees, but he has the card now, so he can apply for jobs. Problem is, most of the jobs he has found require two years experience. I don't know how hard he has looked, but I think he is already getting discouraged. I might have to help him at some point, but that goes back to the old thing I am trying to do. I want both of them to be able to do things on their own. Not depend on me to do it for them. Maeghan is doing ok, she should ask me more often, but she is trying to get it done on her own. 

William is trying to do it on his own also, but I keep having to do the computer work for him. Filling out forms and stuff. He has done a lot, but if it is something new, he asks me to do it and that takes forever because I am old and don't want to do it. But I help when I get in the mood. He applied, followed up and did most of the paperwork for the security guard stuff, but in the end, I had to help or look over the work to make sure it was done correctly. He actually did it better than I did as I didn't know some things that he did, so I think he will be alright. As long as he does not get too discouraged about the progress in finding a job that will hire him straight out of class. I haven't looked yet, but maybe he can do it on his own. I can't help as I have never done it before, but I can show him some better ways to look.

I think he needs to get onto Centrelink and get them to do some things for him, specifically, pay him some money while he looks. I think they should have already done that, but that is a whole other story I will not get into. They might also help him find a job. They are supposed to do that, or they used to. Now, I think it might be that they just provide a computer for you to look up jobs. He doesn't really need that. Maybe he can do it all on his own, but if I ever get better, I will eventually try to do it for him. My feeling is, he has about six months left before I plan to retire and then I can help him fulltime. And that brings us to me and where I am at.

I did have a lot more in this entry, but it was about me. I decided to make it a separate entry. That will make this one and the next one short, but I thought it would be better that way. Don't know why, but it is about to be done now, so no going back. For now, that is all I have to say. Look forward to my sad story in the next issue.

Later

MWNews 259

William

 I should mention that when William was born, I was preparing to go into the hospital for open heart surgery. So not only was Juanita dealing with the pain her pregnancy was causing, she had to worry about me and surgery. 

I am pretty sure her parents were here at that time. Someone was here with her. The birth itself was nothing really to write about. I don't remember any issues, other than William was in the wrong position again, so they delayed the birth for a week or ten days. I have no idea why, it was going to be a cesarian again, so what difference does the position of the baby have to do with anything. I suppose I just don't know enough about it.

And come to think about it, how was I able to take all that time off work. I was off for I think two months. I was working at CSC but had only been there for a while. How did I have that much time off for this. And was I restricted when I went back. I was in charge of stuff, so how did that work. I don't remember and I don't really care at this time, so let's leave it at that.

William was the baby. Maeghan loved the baby. I do remember stories about him having to eat every two hours. Juanita would have to get up and feed him all the time. He was big and getting bigger. I suppose it didn't really effect me as I did not have to feed him, but I am told it was every two hours. Actually, I have no idea if that is a lot of not. How would I know. Seemed ok to me, I'd like to eat every two hours, so if you can get away with it, go for it. William had the right idea.

Me not being able to lift him or anything was probably also a problem, but I don't remember it being an issue other than getting yelled at when I did something I was not supposed to do. A quick story about what I am sure I have written about before.

The most painful thing about the surgery, and they told me there were a lot of things that would be bad but I never noticed them being that bad. The worst thing was when they pulled the staples out of my chest and leg. Especially, around the ankle. That hurt. I think it is because they cannot really numb the area, just the skin or something, but when they pulled the staples, and they are giant staples, when they pulled them out of the bones, that hurt. Just wanted to mention that again, in case anyone is thinking of doing it. The operation, don't remember it, but the staples, that I remember. But that is my story and not William's.

The problem with William didn't start until he started moving. Crawling, scooting, and then walking, he was always on the move. All the time, anywhere, no matter what else he was supposed to be doing. He would crawl around his bed. He would try, and eventually succeeded, to pull himself up on the crib. He just always wanted to be moving and investigating something. You had to constantly watch him. Turn your back for a moment, and he had climbed out of his crip, climbed up on something, crawled somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. He was on the move. Even if you were holding him, if you turned your attention away for a second, he was trying to get away and into something. 

Around the house, it was not really a problem. You just had to watch him and make sure he didn't get into the cabinets, or up on the counters, or under something. He would open a drawer in the kitchen and climb up on it, then open another drawer and climb into that and then he could reach the counter and would get up on there. I think he only made it a couple of times before we caught him doing it, but getting into the cabinets, you sometimes wouldn't notice and then spend time looking for him and where he went.

The big problem came when we went out. We like to go out for coffee a lot. Just go to the shops and sit and have a coffee and relax. That ended with William. It was two years, maybe more, where we did not go anywhere. He was just too much to deal with. One of us would have to constantly keep an eye on him while the other had coffee. It was not fun. He never did the screaming kid thing, but he did not stay still and was always trying to get out to explore. Strap him in, he would struggle and struggle to get out and a lot of times, he would figure it out and get himself out of the straps. 

He was just curious I guess, and not just in what we were doing. He would go to other people and join them or climb over them to get to something if we would let him. He would just make a nuisance of himself so eventually, we would just have to leave and go back home. After a while we just stopped going. For about two years. It wasn't bad but that kid was the definition of rambunctious. And I have no idea if I spelled that right. It says it is ok but it gave me three options and all of them looked right, so I went with that one.

I don't think William ever grew out of it. He just learned to do it without bothering other people of making a nuisance of himself. He just became William. Curious, always asking questions, looking into things on his own. I know with Maeghan and all the attention she got from doctors and everyone else, he felt kind of left out and I am sorry it had to be that way. Maeghan always had something we were worried about and had to talk about so he didn't get to be involved. I think it has affected him more than we realise over the years.

I am very proud of William. He does things that I would never think to do or think about him doing them. I don't want to bring religion into it, but when we have gone to church or a meeting or something, he talks to people, asks them what is wrong or tries to talk to them and help them. It is just amazing. I don't really want to encourage it, but it is sometimes one of the most amazing things I see. 

He doesn't have a lot of friends, now or ever. He is a bit too sure of himself to really make friends that stay with him. I have always thought he would grow out of it. It is just typical kids or boy stuff. Always has to have a word in the conversation and really tries to express his opinion. Problem is, most of the time he is wrong or exaggerated or just not really straight with the facts. But he tells it to you like it is the only thing that means anything. I love William, but sometimes he is just wrong and I don't want to discourage him from expressing his opinion so I just let him go. But it gets him in trouble with his friends.

William, if you ever read this and I doubt if you ever will, I love you and I am very very proud of you. I am waiting for you to set your life up and get into what you want to do before I really let you know how I feel and try to guide you but I feel I have left it too long. I don't want to discourage you. You keep doing what it is you do and eventually, you will find people that appreciate you for you and not the over-exaggerated stories you try to tell. I have seen it with all teenagers and kids and especially boys, but I know you will become better for it and I will continue to be the most proud of what you have accomplished. Don't let anyone ever tell you you are disadvantaged or anything. You are special and you will make a good life for yourself. I love you.

And with that, I will end this entry. I think I have told most of the stories I wanted to tell. I will now move on the general entries like I used to do. Or, maybe not.

Later

MWNews 258

 Maeghan

Maeghan's second operation was a bit more complicated, or so we were told. They were going to try to fix the split in her spinal column up near her neck. This is the one they had been waiting for. It was the one that would determine if she was 'normal' or if she would be paralysed or worse. I say this over and over, but I don't remember when this happened or how old she was. I am pretty sure it was before she was 3, but I don't know how much younger, or maybe older. I don't know.

The operation itself was supposed to take about 8 hours, I believe. A long time with not a lot of news from the room. I don't know how many doctors were to be involved but I think there were a lot of observers. I am vaguely remembering this, so I am probably getting some of it wrong.

We had to go through the putting her under again. I don't remember if she was walking yet. She didn't walk until she was about 2, so it could have been before that but I don't think so. She was walking and talking. She was always talking. I have probably gone through some of this in the earliest blogs so I should go back and read them to make sure I am not contradicting things. But I won't, go back that is. So if I tell the story differently, the earlier ones are more accurate, so ignore them and try to follow along with the new story.

I really have no idea what they actually did. It was to fix her neck. What that involved is beyond me. Strange that I have not done more research on it. That is what I would normally do, but phones were not what we have now and I was probably using an old flip phone. I know I had the Nokia Navigator back then, for a long time. I loved that phone. But it did not have internet and I am pretty sure no one had heard of an iPhone, so looking things up was not an option.

Juanita seemed to think that Maeghan's spine was split into three but I don't know where she heard that. Maybe they said something at some point or maybe we were just looking at pictures and we didn't know what they were showing us. The surgeon that was doing it said there was just a split and he was going to attempt to repair it. I don't know, but no one ever said three so I will discount that as Juanita misunderstanding what was happening.

I don't remember watching William, so that is why I think it was before she was three. William was born when she was after that, so I think it was when she was two or something. Guess it doesn't really matter.

Maeghan came out of the operation with no issues. Then again, how would we know. We had been given so many warnings about what could and probably would happen, that just having her still with us was the happiest we had been. The doctor came out and was all excited and said everything had gone really well and they had fixed everything. He seemed really pleased so we were really pleased. He said things would show up later in life but for now, everything was good. She wasn't in danger of losing her ability to walk or anything for a while, so it was all good. They had stabilized it and she didn't have any outstanding issues. She still had the fused spine in the lower part of her back, so she would still be small, but for now, she was fine and has been ever since then. Still don't know what the ramifications are for the future, but it was all good back then.

Which brings us to the walking and talking stage and Maeghan being the cutest thing that ever was. I have told those stories before and I might go into a few of them again, but we were happy at that point and could focus our attention on having William and making sure Maeghan was ok.

This entry is kind of short and I was going to go into the whole shoe debacle, but I think I will just end it being short. I might have to actually go back and read some of the other stuff so I know what can be repeated and what needs to be told. Not sure when, I am once again doing this at work, but should be soon. Maybe even today. I need to continue the William story, so that will take some time. William didn't have any problems, he was just such an adventure and I need to emphasize that a bit more than I think I have in the past. 

But that can wait. Have work to do.

Later