Max

I am an avid animal lover in general and can safely say that dogs are my most favorite of all. I have had dogs in my life, for almost all of it, but we have found the funniest and I dare say the smartest dog yet, in our Boxer, Max. He has the best temperament of any of our dogs, even though he is a bit rambunctious when people come into the house to visit. He loves people so much that he has a hard time containing himself when they come to visit.

We moved my Mom into the apartment that is attached to the rear of our house. Max (and our two Schnauzers too) love it when they are allowed to visit her house. Sometimes, she leaves a trail of goodies on her floor that they love picking up for her. Whenever Max manages to get back there, he will sniff around all of the apartment and provide all the kisses she can take. A few days back, he made it back there too late, she had already ran the sweeper and picked up all the goodies. No problem, he just came back up to our house and picked up a mouth full of food from his bowl, carried it back to her house and dropped it on the floor. Then he proceeded to to have a nice little snack with Nanna.

He is has proved himself to be a great sharer, he loves to share any little tidbits that you are willing to give him. He is excited when the girls get to eat because that means that he is going to get to share with them too (they eat a different food than he does). But one of the funniest things to watch is while he is eating his food (Rachel Rae made it for him.) There are times when he will take a mouth full of food and will drop it on the floor next to him for the girls to share with him.

It's fair to say that I have gone completely goofy for this big clown. Having him around reminds me a lot of having a five year old living with us. I never would have thought that a Boxer would be such a great companion, but he has most definitely proved that they are one of the great breeds. I like to look for humor in life, because it helps me to forget about the constant pain that I live with. This goofball has most definitely provided enough laughter in our home to pay for his keep. I can't imagine not having a Boxer in my life from now on. They are worth all the extra food we have to buy to keep them fat and happy

Where Has Common Decency Gone?

I was made aware of a terrible story a few days ago on my Facebook account. It was the story of the decline of common decency in this age of "Me". It seems that our society has devolved into a state that is nothing short of repulsive. People are so wound up in their own little worlds that they have stopped caring about the needs of their fellow man.


This story was about a funeral procession that included a horse drawn hearse carrying the dearly departed to his final resting place. As the cortage proceeded on it's way, there was a woman in an SUV who apparently had to be somewhere fast and had no intention on allowing a dead man slow her down. As a result of her haste, she proceeded to pass the procession in the oncoming lane of traffic. As she reached the hearse, at the front of the line, she came head on with oncoming traffic. To avoid a head on collision, she attempted to swerve back into the lane she belonged in. She misjudged the distance and found herself on top of the horse that was pulling the hearse. The violent collision took the horse down and left him mortally wounded. The emergency personnel on the scene decided that the humane thing to do was to put the horse down where he laid.

The tragedy of the situation, other than the obvious outcome for the horse was the horror that this poor family was forced to witness on this very solemn occasion. This woman's lack of common decency will forever be burned into the minds of the loved ones whose desire was to provide the dearly departed with an elegant ride to his final resting place.

Reading this story has brought back a very touching image that was burned into my memory when I was a little boy. Our family had just lost one of the most important people in my life, my Grandmother, Sallie Hickey. Granny, as she was known to us, was without a doubt one of the most gentle and loving women that I have ever had the privilege to know. Her passing was a devastating event in my young life. After her funeral was over we got into the limousines and began the procession to the cemetery out on the edge of town. As we were proceeding from the funeral home, working our way towards the highway that leads to the cemetery, we passed an elderly man, who appeared to be a farmer or a rancher in the area. In a show of respect for my dear Granny and her grieving family, he had pulled his car to the side of the road, stepped out and stood beside it. He then removed his cowboy hat and stood with his head bowed as we passed by. Even as an eight year old boy, I understood what his gesture meant. What he probably did not realize was the fact that his act of respect was witnessed by a little eight year old boy whose life had just been turned upside down. His act of common decency was forever burned into my mind and has worked to help shape the man I am today. I just wonder what message this woman's selfishness left on any of this Gentleman's grandchildren who witnessed her act of disrespect.

We truly need to return to the age of common decency that used to be the normal way of life in America. We need to slow down, turn off the cell phone and think about those who are around us that may be in need of our compassion. You never know what message you will place into the heart of a child whose world has been turned upside down.

... and that's my two pennies!

And The Flames Get Stoked....Some More

Our World has been twisted up on it's ear for the past few weeks. The Religion of Peace is taking the heads of children and their families in Iraq, just because they refuse to convert to Islam. Hamas has a death wish for the people who cower under their boots, by picking a fight with Israel. Our Border is under siege by the hordes coming from who knows where, and for what purpose under the smoke screen of un-accompanied children flooding in from Central and South American countries. The Texas Governor, Rick Perry, turned himself in to be booked in on two trumped up felony charges for doing his job and upholding the Texas Constitution. As if that is not enough, Missouri is engulfed in a week long race riot over the shooting of an unarmed 18 year old man. I am sitting here with a whirlwind of opinions swirling around my head on everyone of these topics, but I am going to start out with the riots in Misery.

I am not going to focus a whole lot of attention on the details of the shooting other than to say that I believe that the policeman involved was justified in his actions. As the details come trickling out about what happened, we see that the young man that was killed was not an innocent choir boy as many in the black community and the liberal media would have us believe. Did he deserve to be killed for the strong armed robbery that he had committed just a short time before meeting his Maker? Absolutely and unequivocally not, and that was not what landed him on the coroners slab. He was killed because he was a thug, short and sweet.

There seems to be a whole lot of thuganomics being practiced these days and more than not, they are being practiced in the streets of our Black Communities. Why this is, I cannot say but it has been a growing phenomena that plays out daily on our television screens. Now, I know that it appears and maybe it's true, that the police in America spend a lot of time focusing on young black men in our cities. I cannot say for a fact that it is a systemic hatred of blacks that fuels the uptick of stops and arrests in our black communities. I would hope that it is something like that, because there could be a way to stop it from happening through a crackdown on bad cops. However, it appears to me that the focus on young black males is so hot because they tend to be the ones who, more often than not, are practicing thuganomics in those areas.

Believe it or not, I was once a young white punk. I had my run ins with those of the blue persuasion, but I learned pretty fast that they really wanted to put me in the klink just for doing stupid stuff. So what did I do about it? Well, I stopped doing stupid stuff. It wasn't too terribly hard to do. I was never tossed for having weed in my pocket, not because I was white but because I was smart enough to know that if I were to be caught with it in my pocket I just might go to jail. It never once crossed my mind to jump in through the window of a cop's car and try to take his gun away, that would just be complete stupidity... and the only thing dumber than that would be to charge the man after he gets out of his car and can put a line on me. Yeah, even I was smart enough to figure out that a dumb move like that would get you shot, at the least and more than likely killed, since they are trained to take an aggressor completely out.

Life is not so hard, even dumb punks like me could figure out how to stay alive and out of jail, just don't do stupid stuff. I don't want to see anyone killed by the police, that is a terrible thing for your family and friends to have to deal with. You don't have to be a thug, it's just a ticket on the short ride to the big house or the slab. Your mom and them are going to be splattered all over the TV crying about how good of a boy you really were... and I'm sure you were a good boy at one time but while you are laid out on the slab, you are just a thug who lost a stupid game. It just ain't worth it!

... and that's my two pennies for tonight.

January 11, 2013

Sad News

Tragedy struck out little town last night, four people lost their lives in a house fire. The details are a little sketchy right now but they are saying it was one adult and three children, ranging from the age of just a few months to eleven years old. My heart goes out to their family and friends who will be touched by this tragedy.

And The Idiot Of The Year Award Goes To...

This paranoia, over guns, that the Nation is in right now really needs to stop! The mass hysteria that has been fueled by the current Administration and their cheer team, the main stream press, is ridiculous to say the least. Case in point: Yesterday, an unarmed man in the DFW area went to his son's school to test their security protocols. He walked up to the greeter at the drop off area in front of the school and said that he had a gun and that his target was inside the school. The greeter, who had no way of stopping him allowed him to pass on by. Once inside he went to the office and informed them of his intentions. The school officials knew the man because he is very involved in volunteering in school projects, so they did not feel that there was a real threat and basically ignored him. They did not call 911 while the incident was happening, nor did they lock down the school as is their protocol in such a situation. Needless to say, the police were informed about the incident and the man was arrested with a charge of making a terroristic threat.

What is really sad about this is that the very dad who cared so deeply about his son's welfare will more than likely spend most of the kid's life sitting in the Grey Bar Hilton. It came out that his actions will cost him his career as a Paramedic with Care Flight, where he spends his time being a hero in so many people's lives. Sometime I just have to sit back and scratch my head as I look at the stupidity that we as a people are capable of.

I know it's early in the year, but I bet that this act will be able to hold it's own as future idiots throw their hats into the ring... it's gonna be a long year!  

Welcome

Welcome to Marty's 2 Pennies!

This is the place where I try to put my thoughts into some sort of form that the reader can understand. There are a lot of political issues that I feel are necessary for discussion, but this is not a "Political" blog. There are many religious topics that catch my attention that I want to share with the world, but this is not a "Religion" blog. There are times that I will write about other topics like working in my garden, or cooking or maybe even home repair, but this is not a "Home Making" blog. This blog is about my thoughts on all of these and many other issues and thoughts that I feel the need to put my two cents into the mix. I am sure that there will be many times that I ramble on and on, but I certainly hope that whatever I write will be thought provoking and entertaining. So, I welcome you to my little slice of madness and hope that you enjoy it.

Below, you will find a bunch of blogs that I have written over the years. You will also notice on the right hand side of the page, a listing that contains all of my pages in chronological order. I hope that you are able to have smooth sailing as you cruise my pages!

Back in the saddle again! or Hey Big 0, where is my stimulus package?

Here I am, hot wired into the Internet once again! We got our DSL up and running, once again, and all is right with the world. All except annoying little things, like pirates jumping ships in the Indian Ocean and our apparent inability to do anything about it. Or, maybe, the fact that tax time is upon us and we have to pay for these morons in DC to screw up our nation even more.

I am personally miffed about tax time this year. Our son is working a construction job where he is considered contract labor, so no money is held out of his check to cover taxes and such. We have known that he needed to hold back money to cover his tail, but alas, he did not and now the wolf is knocking at the door. What really stinks about the whole matter is the fact that if you are a contract laborer, you are required to file as self employed. This means that you are responsible for paying the bill that most business' are required to cover for their employees, like FICA and Medicare. Wow, they really sock it to ya, to say the least. Normal people who work normal jobs pay somewhere around 7% of their income for these taxes. The poor schmoes who decide to go at it on their own are doomed to paying around 15%. That is a lot of freaking dough!

Now this is where the rub really comes in. We have been shown, over the past few months, that if you are a mega corporation with billions of dollars to blow, you can mismanage your investors money and get a nifty stimulus package bailout from our new friend Barry O. While, us poor peons down here in the real world, where you wonder where the next scrap of bread is coming from, are stuck counting pennies to pay the bill to feed the pigs. Do I sound a little jaded? Good, that was the color I was working on.

But hey, we got our DSL going, so that's a good thing and that's my 2 pennies!

Broken Wings

I had surgery on my shoulder yesterday. Let me explain what happened to get me to this point.

Back in September, I was having a get together at my house with some family and close friends. We had retired to the front yard, where we have a nice porch swing and several chairs to sit on. Well, apparently, the chairs had decided that they were going to throw a rodeo that night and didn't bother to let any of us know about it. I mounted on of the frisky white ones and then someone pulled the chute. that little heifer started bucking for all she was worth and managed to toss me off in 2 seconds flat. I did a back flip across the grass and landed on my left side with my left arm pinned under my body. As I laid there in pain, the support crew ran out and made sure that the little booger didn't come charging after me to inflict more pain. I got up from the mud, dusted off my jeans, found my had and put on my best face for the crowd as they cheered me on.

I had bruised my ribs pretty well and my shoulder felt like a 1000 pound steer had sat on it. Although my ribs eventually healed the shoulder kept causing me problems. I went to the Doctor before Christmas and she took some x-rays and gave me some Naproxin, which seemed to relieve some of the swelling, but the pain was still present. I went back in February and they ran a CAT Scan and found that the bone structures were sound so they decided to send me to the surgeon. He said that he needed film of my muscles and tendons to see if I had ripped my Rotator Cuff. Since I have a neurostimulator implanted into my hip, for my never ending back pain, an MRI was out of the question ( the magnets would suck it out of my body, or some other terrible thing like that). So I was able to undergo a great little exam called the Arthrogram. This little torture treatment is designed to make you shut your mouth and quit complaining about your little problems. After all, there are people in China who are starving and have it worse than you do. I am positive that the Germans in WWII devised this treatment to pry information from captured spies. They began by laying me on the x-ray table and shooting pictures of my shoulder joint in several unnatural positions. This was followed by pulling the Floriscope down as close as they could get it to my body (I'm severely claustrophobic) and taking what seemed to be a 3 foot needle and shoving it 4 feet into my shoulder joint. Then it was time for the truth serum. The injected a cocktail of iodine and what smelled like arsenic into the joint, making sure that they hit every available nerve on the way down. I think they managed to hit some of the nerves in my toes to boot. Then it was time for the contortionist portion of the act once again. They re-shot all of the pictures of my shoulder joint with the contrast dye in place this time. These pictures showed that I had a moderate tear of the Rotator Cuff which would require surgery to repair. Yipeee!

So that leads us back to yesterdays adventure at Harris HEB.

They wheeled me into the ER at 12:50. As the nurse placed the oxygen mask on my face I noticed the clock said 12:55, the next minute I looked at the clock and it said 1:50 and I had been magically transported into the recovery room, where I found myself gasping for air as they pulled the breathing tube from my throat. Finally things started coming into focus as the pain monster in my right shoulder said," good morning sunshine, we're about to get better acquainted." Thankfully, there was a full compliment of angelic nurses there with syringes full of Demerol who were more than happy to chase the pain monster away. I was sent to my room for an hour to wake up then it was time for the trip home.

So now, I am sitting here at 2:30 in the morning wide awake because I have had such a large amount of drugs during the day. Wow, for those of you who know me, you know that I carry a fully stocked pharmacy with me wherever I go so for me to make a comment that I think I have taken a very large amount of drugs in the past 24 hours is really something.

So, you have just completed reading the ramblings of an inebriated, postop Arthroscopic survivor. I would like to take a minute to warn all my friends to avoid having this procedure as a form of entertainment. I would suggest that you take in a movie or something along that line. But if you find yourself the victim of a Chair Rodeo gone bad, go see my bone doc', he managed to get this done very quickly with a lot less pain than I was really expecting.

By the way, no chairs were harmed in the telling of this story...and that's my 2 pennies.

L8er
~marty