"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." -Ronald Reagan
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For Mom
As a child, our mothers play so many different, important roles in our lives. I remember my mom as many different things; a caregiver, a listener, a teacher, and more recently, a friend.
When I was a little kid, my parents got divorced. Though my dad stayed in the picture, it was my mom who took care of us. She worked very hard to keep a roof over our head and food in our stomachs. For a while we lived in a little house in the town of Stead adjacent to Reno. My mom had had to get a roommate, so she shared a room with me in my bunkbed. I got the top bunk, of course!
Eventually we moved into a little apartment in Reno. Most of my memories from this time period are a little vague, but I do have a memory of my mom taking us out one night to this pizza place that sold freshly-made frozen pizza and the video store. We got King Kong on Betamax. It was a little family night for my mom, my little sister, and I, and I remember it as being awesome. My mom worked hard for those little moments, and despite the pressure she was under, she never let us see it get to her. I have a feeling God had something to do with that too.
I remember when my mom first started dating the creepy guy who rode his motorcycle to church. Who would've thought that they'd get married? I guess Mom quickly saw in him the love and kindness that it would take me a little longer to realize. He made her happy, and he immediately worked to begin taking care of us, his new family.
We moved into his two-bedroom mobile home, which they had moved from his old retirement home trailerpark to one that us kids were allowed to live in. Let me tell you something; I had been in that trailer when he and Mom had still been dating, and it was creepy. One lonely couch and a barbell on the floor. No TV!? How did this guy live? Mom was able to take that tiny trailer and turn it into a home. It never felt too small for us, even after our family started to grow and Mom had my new little brother Jordan. Pop was taking care of us now, and Mom didn't have to work anymore.
It was around this time that my mom decided that she wanted to start homeschooling. She gave us the choice, of course, and of course we picked the option that seemed to mean that we didn't have to go to school anymore. I still remember our first day of school in that trailer; we had all of our school supplies right there along with shiny new books and stuff. It was a learning experience for both us and her. She was patient with me, which is good because I was often trying to convince her that the book was wrong and I was right. Sometimes it worked; she was convinced back then that I would go on to be a lawyer.
Towards the end of our time in Reno Logan was born, and it wasn't too long afterward that we learned that AT&T, where both my dad and step-dad worked, was closing down shop in Reno and offering to move people to different office branches. Pop and Mom chose to move to Dallas, while Dad picked Phoenix. This would be the first time that our parents weren't living near eachother, and weekly visitation would be no more.
The kids all went to Dallas at first, and Mom and Pop got a very nice house in Irving, not too far from the Cowboys stadium. It was our first house all together, and it was the first time I'd had my own room since the old apartment in Reno. I remember Mom let us pick out posters and framed them for us; got us sheets and comfortors for our beds as we wanted, and all that stuff. Once again, she turned an old house into a real home, full of warmth and love that is hard to replicate.
At some point, I think a year later, my little sister and I visited our dad over the summer. During that time, he convinced me that I should stay there indefinitely. I loved my dad, and he held a lot of sway over me. I still remember the fear I had of making that call to my mom to tell her that I wasn't coming back. I still remember telling her; I can remember her voice cracking on the phone and telling me that she had to go. It makes my heart ache to this day, because there are few people I care about more than my mom.
I did end up staying with my dad for several years. Went to high school, met my future wife, all that stuff. My mom was always there, even if it was just peripherally. I knew that if I had ever wanted to come home that all I had to do was pick up the phone and call her, and that she would've done anything to make it happen.
These past few years, I think that we've grown much closer. We only live a few hours away from eachother now. They're still living in that house in Irving, and I am in San Antonio. We see eachother every few months, and try to talk on the phone once a week or so. Particularly now as I make my journey back towards God and Christianity, she has been there for me, willing to drop what she's doing and talk to me about this or that. She's now a friend to me as much as anything, and I cherish that relationship with her the most.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom. Whatever happens for the rest of our time here in this life, I want you to know that you were the best mother that you could be, and we love you very much for it.
Posted by ZombiePete on Sunday, May 10, 2009 @ 10:46:14 EDT (7 reads)
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Self Improvement
Well, my running career ended pretty much before it began. I guess God decided before I was born that my family would never be winning any gold medals in running events, because I have learned that us Michaelsons don't really have the knees for it. I was in agony last weekend when it really started to rain, and the pain lasted nearly all week. My Uncle Rick called it the curse of the Michaelson genes. I guess I'm going to have to bust out the elliptical trainer that we bought for the heavy stuff, and stick to walking when I'm outside. I hate the elliptical because I'm stuck doing it inside; I want to get out into our neighborhood.
Speaking of self-improvement, a couple weeks ago my friend Shad and I agreed to start a Bible study together once a week, since neither of us is going to church and we need the encouragement. Since then, I invited one of my employees named Billy to join us, and the three of us had a really great fellowship yesterday. It was incredibly refreshing, and I thank God that He's opened this door for me. I am just now starting back on my path back to salvation, and having these two incredible brothers there to support me is a real blessing.
I think that what I really found fascinating about our study is that, at first I thought we were just going to tear through the material that we had and run out of conversation quickly, but after going over really just a couple of verses we got into such in-depth conversations that we basically talked for an hour-and-a-half. There's so much depth in everything in the Bible if you open yourself to it, and there are so many different lessons in just a couple of chapters. Right now we're looking at the authority of the Bible and I myself found it interesting how self-supporting it is.
I am really looking forward to a long and prosperous relationship with this study group.
Hillarie is cooking dinner as I write this and it's making me hungry, so I guess I'll cut this short. Glad it's the weekend!
Discuss in the Forums
Posted by ZombiePete on Friday, April 24, 2009 @ 19:15:11 EDT (4 reads)
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Running Tired
I just went on my first walk/run in a long time. I mean, a long time.
It was about 2.5 miles, which doesn't sound like a lot until it's been nearly two years since you've seriously done any aerobics like this. I was using the eliptical trainer that we bought a year ago for a while, but the novelty of running in-place for 30 minutes at a time wore off pretty quickly.
As I've mentioned many times before, we live out in the country. It's the perfect place to actually get outside and move. Except for the fact that there are no sidewalks and when I have my headphones in I am oblivious to motorized vehicles behind me. I learned quickly to start walking on the left side of the road today.
When I got home I did some sit-ups and push-ups, too. Sit-ups have never been an issue for me, even though I have developed a bit of a gut thanks to years of ridiculously delicious cooking. Push-ups, on the other hand, can get me pretty quickly. I used to have pretty good upper-body strength, but have completely let all my workouts go since I got out of the Air Force. Not to say that I was ever a shining spectacle of physical fitness, but it's a bit ridiculous now. It's easy to ignore it when you've been at a mentally-demanding job for eight or nine hours when you get home and want to do absolutely nothing.
But I'm 27-years-old; turning 28 this summer. If I don't get in some kind of shape soon, I'm going to get to that point where it becomes infinitely more difficult to workout.
So here I am, sweaty and tired, sitting with my laptop writing about how I'm sweaty and tired. My goal is to do this everyday when I get home from work, take Saturdays off for fun and frivolity, and then start again on Sunday afternoons.
I can do it if I really want to; it's just a question of forcing myself to do it. We'll see.
Posted by ZombiePete on Sunday, April 05, 2009 @ 19:12:59 EDT (32 reads)
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Site Update - Maintenance Tonight (3/26/09)
I will be performing some maintenance and upgrades to the site tonight, which may cause a few outages or site slowdowns. I will hopefully be starting them sometime around 6pm CST.
Not expecting many if any visible changes; most of this stuff will be security patching and background stuff like that.
If you're interested about the makeup of this site and want to know more about where I got a lot of the pieces that make it work, visit Raven PHP Scripts. They have what I think is the best PHP-Nuke distribution around, and Raven and his team are constantly keeping it up-to-date and secure.
Posted by ZombiePete on Thursday, March 26, 2009 @ 09:35:00 EDT (5 reads)
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Clap On!
On March 28th, at 1930 CST, all the world is supposed to shut off their lights in a show of solidarity against the evils of global warming.
The image above is what I guess is supposed to be a banner for the event. I find it ironic that it says that "your light switch is your vote", and the light switch in the image is flipped up.
Hill and I have talked about it, and we agree with how we're going to vote. For that hour, we are going to turn on every light in the house and enjoy whatever is on television that night on every TV in the house. Clearly, our vote is that...well, I don't really get what it is that we're voting for, to be perfectly frank. All I know is that I love electricity, air conditioning, and all the trappings of civilization.
It's funny that so-called progressives accuse people like me of standing in the way of progress while at the same time urging people to live like it's the stone age again.
Posted by ZombiePete on Sunday, March 22, 2009 @ 17:36:25 EDT (35 reads)
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Tea Time Baby!
It's great to see that there are so many people who still care enough about their nation and can see through the lies and destruction that Obama, his administration, and his Congress is wreaking on this nation.
Not being a big watcher of television news I have no idea how these events are being covered by the drive-by outlets, but I know that I haven't seen much mention of them online except on Twitter (the #tcot and #tlot feeds) and other places where Libertarians and Conservatives gather.
I'm not kidding here; I honestly believe that we are now on our way towards having a more powerful and, yes, totalitarian government than we've seen in U.S. history. Maybe Obama will follow his hero Lincoln's example further and suspend habeas corpus for U.S. citizens. Afterall, he could make the case that those of us who are speaking against him and his policies are "rebelling", right? Then lookout; maybe they'll set up some special prisons just for us rebels.
Sounds paranoid, right? I would have thought people sounded paranoid if they'd ever told me that the government was going to start setting and limiting the pay of private citizens. Targeted citizens no less, as I don't see them saying anything about athletes or movie stars. I would have thought people sounded paranoid if they'd ever told me that Congress was going to try and create a targeted punitive tax against private citizens who received a bonus from their company. Bailout or no bailout, that bothers the hell out of me.
Didn't want them to use that money that way? Shouldn't have given it to them IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!
Whatever problems that started the recession now pale in comparison to the government's response.
Posted by ZombiePete on Sunday, March 22, 2009 @ 16:59:33 EDT (24 reads)
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Lack of Style
I went and got my haircut today. Now, I hate getting my haircut. I don't know why, but I always have. I tend to put it off until my hair starts to look ridiculous, which makes the actual haircut itself take longer, so my procrastination doesn't help.
Making it even worse, though, is that I seem lately to always get "stylists" who have no personality. I try to talk to them and I get grunts in response. I try to joke around and they half-smile. No conversation, no friendliness, just in-and-out silence.
I know Hill prefers that in customer service people, but it irritates me. Look, we have to spend fifteen minutes together; we may as well be friendly with eachother. It makes me uncomfortable to sit there with a chick running her fingers through my hair in silence. Sounds kind of dirty, actually.
While I was out I also got Hill her birthday items (it's on the 2nd of April, but there's no hurt it getting it done now). First, I had to go to Wal-Mart to buy new contacts anyway, so I got her the DVD of Twilight. Yes, that one. The one all the tween girls went gaga over a few months ago. Hill read the books and really liked them, and since I refused to take her to see it in the theater for fear of being ostracized from society, I bought her the DVD so we could watch it in private shame.
I also bought her a new iPhone, which is the real present I guess. She needed a new phone anyway, as her 1st gen iPhone was not acting that great. She'll really like the 3G, since it's the only internet she has at work.
Last random thought before I pack it in: we saw Knowing yesterday, which is the new Nicolas Cage movie. We both thought it was an awesome movie that was absolutely ruined by the ending. I thought that the ending was so lame that I actually left pissed off by how lame it was, because everything outside of the last five minutes was so cool. Not even Cage's bad acting was ruining it for me until the end. Oh man, I am getting all pissed just thinking about it again. I know some people are going to love it, and the ending is going to be right up their alley. But for Hill and I, it was...just awful.
Posted by ZombiePete on Saturday, March 21, 2009 @ 16:28:20 EDT (7 reads)
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Long Weeks, Short Years
I have to say, I think this was one of the longest weeks I've had at work in a long time, and I'm not even there today!
There were a couple of things that made it so, some of which I can't get into here. Suffice to say that I had a couple nights of little sleep, on top of the normal pressures that go with the crap associated with work. Nothing I can't handle overall, but the time off is going to really help.
I took today off to spend with Hill, and to a lesser extent to decompress a little. Later in the day when we get the chance we're going to see a movie; "Knowing", I think, which I've heard is supposed to actually be pretty good. There are a couple movies that have come out this weekend that I would like to see, which is nice because it's been a pretty bad year for movies so far.
There hasn't been a whole lot else going on with us lately. My sister announced officially on Facebook that she's about 11 weeks pregnant, which is crazy and exciting and kind of weird for me, being her older brother. When I think about her I remember her as a little kid, and it's hard to imagine that she's now a few months away from being a mother. My own journey towards trying to become a parent has been a bit more difficult than her own, so I have had to contend with my own jealousy regarding her situation, but it's nothing compared to how happy I am for her. Please, no need to comment on that; I know that it will eventually happen and whatever. Just getting my thoughts out there.
On a completely different note, I am on the home stretch of the first season of 24. What a show. I was pretty surprised that they managed to shoe-horn an amnesia sub-plot into it with all the other insane things that are happening. Considering how melodramatic they have to make everything to get the episodes to fit the "real-time" format, the acting is all pretty decent, and the movie feel that the show has right on target for me. I can't believe, frankly, that I haven't been watching this show now.
I have a lot of catching up to do.
My brother Jordan also (finally, you little procrastinator) got me his schedule for the summer, which was cool. He's going to be staying with us for a couple of months, so I guess now I'll have someone here to do manual labor and stuff. He thinks he's coming down here for an internship at my office; little does he know that he's really going to be laying down my new floor and pet-sitting on Friday nights.
I'm working on getting him a job at a pub near Fort Sam, which from what I hear can be a pretty lucrative deal. When I was first thinking about it I was like "he's too young to work at a pub!", but then I realized that he's now around the same I was when I joined the Air Force and got married.
What the hell is happening to time, man? I'm only turning 28 in July (I can hear my mother moaning "only!?") and already I feel like time is just slipping by. Hill told me that I needed a vacation yesterday, and I laughed and reminded her that I'd just had a vacation in June...which was now almost a year ago! How can that be? I just realized yesterday that in July I'm celebrating my ninth wedding anniversary. Wow!!
Oh well. This is life I guess. Fortunately for me, all in all, it's been a pretty good one.
Posted by ZombiePete on Friday, March 20, 2009 @ 13:52:00 EDT (7 reads)
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I Do It With Ubuntu! Wait, What?
Well, after months of waiting for Orb to finally create a Linux version of their TV streaming application, I came to a decision this week that I was tired of being a prisoner to Windows because of one application. When you get right down to it, how important is it that I be able to get TV on my cell phone? I have said it before, and though sometimes it feels like a rationalization, in the end I really didn't use it that much. Mostly just to show people that I could, and no one really cared I don't think anyway.
When SteelToedKodiak brought me a copy of the Windows 7 beta on Wednesday, I decided that it was time to get back to the operating system that I really want and reload my PC with Ubuntu. It was probably partly because I had just loaded my new laptop with the Linux-based distro, but I was feeling the urge to wipe-and-reload (an urge only us computer guys get, I guess), and with the Windows disc in my hand, I now had a real reason to do so.
You see, I wasn't going to run the beta software as my main OS, so I wanted to load it into a VirtualBox machine. So I decided that I could reload my main machine with Ubuntu and load up Windows on a virtual machine, thus allowing me to continue to use the few Windows apps that I really care about (sans Orb, which I know from experience doesn't run well on a virtual PC). Like, for example, iTunes, which I use to keep my iPhone updated and full of right-wing propoganda podcasts.
So on Wednesday night I went for it. Backing up anything that was important to my external drives, I dropped the Ubuntu disc into the drive and went all-out, completely wiping my Windows partition and booting up the new OS image. It took about fifteen minutes, and then I was back where I belonged.
After updates and installing VirtualBox, I installed the Windows 7 beta into a 20GB partition on my hard drive. I recently upgraded my system to 3GB of RAM, so I dedicated 1GB to Windows to keep it running smoothly. The Windows 7 install took about twice the length of time as the Ubuntu install, and it reminded me a lot of Vista though with much less interaction. When it finally booted it came up very smoothly. The only thing that didn't work immediately was the sound, and it took me a couple days to figure out a solution for that (just downloading the RealTek AC'97 Vista drivers while using the PulseAudio virtual hardware in VirtualBox). Otherwise, it was relatively pretty easy to get into.
I find Windows 7 to be very similar to Vista. I don't like the file browsing; I find that it's not intuitive enough for me. Actually, I take that back; what I don't like is how disorganized it feels. Some people would probably call me crazy, but I like being able to control my file system, and Windows 7 feels like it takes that control away in favor of its own way of handling files and folders. It's hard to explain without sitting down and showing what I mean.
I also don't like the new menu bar. I liked the old quick launch in Windows XP and used it frequently. Now it has a much more limited quick launch-type menu that bunches application...squares, I guess, next to the circle start menu (like the one in Vista).The tray is less-useful too.
It feels like Microsoft is trying to "simplify" Windows and make everything feel less technical and more organic, which I guess they feel is more intuitive for the masses. And maybe it is, but not for me.
I don't know; maybe I'm being picky or not really giving it a chance. All I can say is that, after a few days of using it, I just don't care all that much for it.
I did get HandBrake and stuff working in Ubuntu, and I ripped my first DVD today: Disc 4 of 24 season one. It's nice being able to rip directly from the disc instead of having to rip the DVD into VOB files then converting them with HandBrake like I did in Windows. I also got uShare working again, which is what I use to stream my video collection to my Xbox 360. The weird thing is that the Xbox won't play mp4 files through uShare, but if I change the extension to .mov, then it plays the files perfectly. It has something to do with uShare, but I haven't figured it out yet. In the meantime, I have no problem changing the extensions so that I can continue to watch my movies and stuff on my Xbox, which I consider to be my 360's main function. I can't remember the last time I watched an actual DVD.
So that's that. I have my computer back now, and can run it how I want to without being held hostage by a small tray icon. Maybe Orb will come out with a Linux version yet, but in the meantime, I'm done with them. Besides, there's always Slingbox...
Posted by ZombiePete on Saturday, March 14, 2009 @ 20:17:05 EDT (30 reads)
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Supplement This!
I came home from work yesterday early and found that our dogs Bennett and Reggie, who were being allowed to stay out as a test for Bennett, had gotten into Bennett's joint supplements and eaten almost all of them. It was a big can of like 70 that they ate. Much to my chagrin, Bennett had puked giant puddles of supplement, dog food, and mucus in big puddles all over my office and the living room.
Vomit is my mortal nemesis. I can't mess with it without gagging and choking. Dog crap doesn't bother me at all, but the vomit gets me everytime. Nevertheless, Hill wasn't home so I powered through cleaning it with our little water vacuum thingy. It was horrendous, man.
I can't wait until we get our laminate floors down. I really need to get cracking on that.
