Voices In The Darkness

Early this morning, about 4:20 AM, there was a tremendous clap of thunder that absolutely shook the house. The house was shaken so much it activated a hand held Whack-a-Mole game that we have. So after the thunder boomed and woke everyone up, you heard "Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Missed me!"

Flashback Friday #238

Were Moving? (Part II)



Hello. It's so nice to have you drop by again. Pull up a seat, grab a snack and lets get going.

In my last post, I told you that I'd give you the description of our new residence. Here comes. For starters, it was a 1972 model (but I can't remember the manufacturer). Since this was 1980, the trailer was only eight years old (I didn't even have to use my fingers for that). It was aqua & white and had a front enterance that led directly into the living room.

As you walk into the living room, the first thing that catches your attention is the orange shag carpet. The carpet in the old house was a gray berber, so this took some getting used to. The living room had a pop-out section that made it wider than the rest of the trailer. As you look up, and to the right, there is a series of small windows in a raised section of the roof, kind of like a small skylight. To the left, there's a huge mirror on the wall (to make it look bigger?)

The kitchen was on the left as you walked in. The same aqua that was on the outside is also on the inside on the refrigerator and stove. A tiffany lamp hangs from the ceiling where the table was to be. There was an air conditioner unit in the kitchen. This was the first time we had ever had air conditioning.

As you walked through the living room and entered the hallway, my bedroom was the first door on the right. It was less than half the size of my old room. I could extend my arms and touch the side of my bed and the other wall, which was a built in closet with two sets of two drawers beneath it. I would be going from a double bed down to a twin size. However, the twin size bed was actually a set of bunkbeds.

The next room on the right was the bathroom. Guess what? More aqua,. All the fixtures (sink, tub & toilet) were aqua. The washer & dryer also went here.

Across from the bathroom door was the "back door". I guess it was built like this in case someone fouled the bathroom so bad, that it needed to be aired out. Don't laugh, we actually did that a time or two.

Lastly came mom & dad's room. They had a series of built in shelves/dressers on one side and their clost on the other.There was also room for their double bed. A second air conditioning unit sat in their window. With both units on, that tin can stayed pretty cool. Seeing that they rarely slept with their door shut in the old house (seeing that they didn't have one), keeping thier door open at night wasn't a problem.

It was going to be a chore fiting all the stuff from our house into that trailer. It was going to be such a chore that it never was finished. The old house became a large "storage shed".

Happy 4th of July All You Science Geeks

Everyone like to watch  & set off fireworks on the Fourth. I figured if you're going to blow off your hand, you'd like to see the science behind it.

Flashback Friday #237

We're Moving?


Welcome all to another exciting post about my teenage yeras. It's almost as much fun as watching paint dry. Anyway, today's post deals with us moving.

All my life I had lived in the same place. I remember the brown house that we lived in before we built the basement to what would be Dad's "Dream house" That was directly behind the brown house. We lived in that for a year while the brown house was beind demolished. Plans were to add onto the basement until it became a whole, habital house. This never happened. The old man that lived next door died and Dad was able to buy his property at a really good price. We moved from the small basement with blankets serving as walls to a full house. Dad filled in the basement and covered it up.

Dad was forever making changes & inprovements on this house. Not all changes were improvements. Like George Baily's house in "It's A Wonderful Life", our house was an old, drafty house. During the winters, we normally hung a blanket in the doorway and spent most of the time in the living room. That way we didn't have to heat the whole house to a comfortable temperature. Needless to say, nobody stayed long in the bathroom (that is after a bathroom was installed, about five years after we moved in). Entry door locations were moved. Room locations moved. Changes all the time.

We lived in that house from the time I was five until the day Dad came home and told me we were moving. This was less than six months away from my 17th birthady. Moving? We can't move. All my friends are here. I've seen how the new kids at school acted. I didn't want to go through that. Would we be moving closer to Westerville so my folks wouldn't have such a long drive? Dad was very closed mouth about it.

No wonder he was closed mouth about it. Shortly after he told me we were moving, a semi-truck pulled up with our new house. We were going to move into a house trailer. Dad had purchased a trailer and pulled it in next to the house. He said as soon as he got the water, heat & electricity hooked up, we'd be moving in. He let us take a quick tour as soon as it was stabilized. A complete description of our new digs comes in my next post.

Flashback Friday #236

I Read It In The Yearbook (Part II)



Welcome back. I know you've all been waiting with bated breath for the conclusion to this saga. My question is, why have you been eating bait?

Anyway, I told you of a signature in my yearbook that caused me to pause and really wonder about a possible break-up. You saw in my last post that it wasn't the one from my girlfriend, Toni, that I was refering to. It came from my best friend Bart. It reads as follows:

"To (my real name), A very good friend of mine that I could do without for a while. Have fun with Toni as long as it last. You better make sure that's pretty long because she is a real sweet girl. Not as sweet as Dawn though (they hadn't broken up at the time of this writing)."

Oookaay. I'm not to sure about that first sentance. My best friend is saying that he could do without me for a while? What's up with that? I wonder if it has anything to do with him & his family getting all churchy or am I really that annoying? I really like Bart and I'd hate to lose him as a friend. What am I to do?

Flashback Friday #235

I Read It In The Yearbook



Greetings one and all and welcome to the online cure for insomnia.

There's an old Marvin Gaye song called "Heard It through The Grapevine" about a guy hearing from his friends about a coming break up. What does that have to do with my post? Glad you asked.

It's tradition that when the yearbooks come in, you have you friends sign it. I always had my named embossed on the cover to make sure I got mine back. The yearbooks came in while Toni & I were still dating, so you'll see that in some of the notations. Here are a few of the things that were written about me during my Sophomre year. All are actual quotes except for the "To (my actual name),".

"Your a real sweet guy who knows what your doing.Stay cool. Love ya!"

"A nice guy I like alot. Good luck in the future. Say HI to Mr. Magoo for you. I hope we will be friends always. Good luck always."

"To a real nice guy who is a lot of laughs.Good luck in life.I have a feeling you'll need it."

"To a neat nice far-out kid that I have know for a long, long time and hope we will always be friends. Good luck with whomever."

"To a super cool guy who's got taste cause we both like Cheech & Chong. Good Luck always."

"To a good friend. Good luck with everything and everyone you want!"

"A real cool guy & funny too. Good luck with Toni. Stay the way you are."

"To a real nice guy that is C-O-O-L."

"To a very nice guy. I hope that we will always be friends. Good luck always and with everything you do. Remember me always."

"To a very strange & weird person who is one of my friends."

And then there was this from Toni:
"To a very nice boyfriend who I really like & admire, you're the best as far as I'm concerned, you won't have to worry about me disappointing you cause I never will. When I leave next year, please keep in touch (if I decide to ) I never forget you.

OK, My girlfriend is talking about leaving. She didn't say anyhing to me about that. I read about it in my yearbook. However, that's not the really odd signage in my yearbook. More about that in my next post.

A New Accomplishment

If you were a member of The Cheezburger Network a couple years ago, you would know about the collectibles that they offered for going to different sites & pages in their network.When they made the announcement that they were discontinuing the collectible program, there was a scramble to complete sets of those that had missing collectibles. I completed all 82 set and gave away 902 to others in need. When this ended, on of the Cheezpeeps developed a site that offered four collectibles per week for those that enjoyed the chase. The difference being is that the member created the collectibles and voted which ones made the cut for the set.

What does this have to do with anything, you may ask. Recently I made a colletible and it was voted in as part of the set. It recieved the second most votes. It was the first one I made that made the cut. The category was Bad Hoomin (that's Bad Human for those that don't speak LOLspeak). Here it is:

Translation: Who is this "Work"? And why do you spend so much time with them?

That's my dad's dog Coco and, yes, he is sitting in Dad's briefcase.