The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

When we moved back to Pennsylvania our girls were both quite upset at moving during their High School years. One of the people who helped them most during this time was the youth leader at our church. She had an awesome connection with the kids as did her husband who always helped out with youth events. While Becca worked as the youth director at our church, her husband Tom was a Seminary student.



After Tom graduated from Seminary they left our church and moved to California, where Becca's family was and where she had been accepted to Seminary. Tom got a youth Pastor's position at a church there. A little over a year ago they had a baby girl.



On Saturday Becca and Tom were returning from a mission trip with several youth from their church. A pick-up truck pulling a trailer swerved across the lanes of traffic and hit the church van they were in head-on. Becca and 3 of the youth died in the accident. Tom and several of the youth were seriously injured. Tom is now in the hospital, his pelvis, his legs and one arm and several ribs are broken. He also has 3rd degree burns on much of his body and is in a medically inuced coma. He does not yet know that Becca is gone. Their baby is with Becca's parents.



This all seems so sensless and has our whole family very upset.



Rest in Peace Becca, you will be sorely missed and will be rememberd fondly in our hearts forever.

Damnit...Imagesinwords turned me on to Meez.com and now I'm addicted.



I just can't stop!

It was time for my annual physical examination today. The good news is that everything is OK, heart, lungs, blood pressure etc. I also have to be evaluated for sensation in the extremities due to my diabetes. This is done by tickling te feet with a piece of monofilament while I''m not looking, and telling the doctor when he's touching various areas of the foot.



The worst part with a physical for a man of my age is the "digital rectal examination". GRRRR



I also was told that since my oldest sister passed away from colon cancer at age 53, I must undergo a colonoscopy for cancer screening. OH JOY!

I went to the Opthamologist today for my yearly eye exam. For most people this would just be a routine pain in the ass...For me it's a little piece of Hell right here on Earth!



I was born with severe strabismus, or "crossed eyes". One eye pointed one direction and the other eye a totally different way. This was corrected by 4 operations between the ages of 2 and 10. Even before the operations began I had to have dialation drops put in alternate eyes each day from birth until my first operation. The reason for this was to confuse the brain. If the brain recieved in focus information from both eyes pointing in different directions for any period of time, it would realize something was amiss. Once the brain realized that the eyes were severely misaligned it would pick one eye to see with and 'turn off" the other one.



So from as far back as I can remember I was being taken into dark rooms for people to fuck with my eyes.



Due to my long spooky history with the above, I HATE going to the eye doctor. Since I developed diabeties 17 years ago, I have to have my eyes examined for retinopathy every year. On the bright side My vision hasn't changed, my cornea looks normal with no signs of cataracts, I have no signs of glaucoma and my retinas look "perfect".



I'm good to go until next June.

We drove to New York to visit Gina's Dad for Father's day. We drove up Friday evening and returned Saturday afternoon.



The lack of driving skill, over aggressivness and lack of courtesy was amazing. We almost got into 3 wrecks withing 10 minutes of starting the trip home.



Someone passed us from directly behind by strattleing the line between the right lane we were in and the next lane, which was occupied by an SUV. Since the SUV didn't see him and thus stayed in their lane, he just moved to the right forcing me to swerve onto the shoulder. 1 mile up the road he exited into a rest area and got in a long line to get gas!



About 3 miles up the road we were in the middle lane and a car carrier truck decided to swerve into our lane. There were no vehicles in front of him and no apparent reason to have to be in the center lane at that moment. He swerved so violently that the right side rear wheels of the trailer came off of the road! I had to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting him.



A few more miles up the road we were passed by a small sedan going very fast. He then proceeded to weave in and out amongst the cars in front of us, causing the slamming of brakes and swerving.



What is wrong with these people?



I now remember a major reason why we no longer live in that area!

My cilvil war reenactment group took part in a Flag Day ceremony at the local American Leigon post.



Flag day is the day they designate to destroy old unusable flags in the prescribed method of burning. We were charged with the actual burning of the flags.



Most flags today are not made of natural fabric. The majority are Polyester or Nylon. Do you have any idea of the toxic gas given off when polyester and nylon burn? OMG, we all just about coughed up a lung. We had our annual regimental cook out and a business meeting after the ceremonies. The nasty plastic from the flags was still burning and emiting noxious fumes after 3 hours!



HUZZAH!

The past weekend I was an adult leader for a Boy Scout camping trip. One of the first year scouts was dropped off for the trip by his father. A few weeks ago the boy's mother gave the Scoutmaster a list of foods this kid would eat. We all talked to her to see if he was allregic to certain foods, had some medical condition with dietary restrictions...The answer was no, he just wont eat anything not on the list.



The other adult leader for the trip did the food shopping for the weekend. He didn't know about "The List". While talking about the plans for the weekend while packing up to leave the scout cabin, I asked the other leader if he bought "List" foods for this one kid. He said "What List?". The kids dad overheard us and said "Just give him what ever you have...He won't starve!"



All this kid would eat over the weekend was hot dogs and fruit. The other kids were making comments to him, but nothing out of hand. While the kids were talking they naturally mentioned TV shows and music they listen to. This kid had never heard of ANY of it, as he is only allowed to watch "educational" TV. He also has NO strength. He had to get others to open water bottles for him. All he does after school is homework and then educational TV.



His Dad seems to be pushing him into the scout program to epose him to more than just the living room and hot dogs. The Mom seems to want to keep him "under control".



I have no clue how these people think they are raising a healthy kid.

Last night I had my final band practice for the season. We play at our outdoor service and picnic on Sunday and they we are off until September. Gina dropped David off at Boy Scouts and then went to a meeting. Chissy went out with her boyfriend. Allie was home.



Afetr band I picked up David from scouts and headed home. When we got home there was a bag from a grocery store on the kitchen counter with a note: "David, some girl dropped this off for your science project". Inside the bag was 4 containers of raspberries! So I ask David, "What is this about? He says "Oh yeah, I have to make smoothies for science class tomorrow, we have 5 bananas, right?" Of course we had NO bananas in the house. So I ask him "When were you going to mention this?" and the reply is "I think I told Mom before dinner." so I ask him if there is anything else he needed and he says no, just bananas. So at 10:00pm I go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of bananas. By the time I get home, Gina has returned and David asks, "Did you get Orange Juice?" WHY THE HELL WOULD I GET ORANGE JUICE? I ask, he says "'Cause you need it to make the smooties!" GRRRR Gina agrees to get O.J. first thing in the morning.



This morning Gina runs out for O.J. and I got to help run the "Smootie factory" once she got back.



Why the hell can't kids give you some warning about this crap?

I woke up at 4:00AM Sunday. We were all going on a trip organized via my employer to the “Autism Speaks 400” at Dover Speedway in Dover, DE. We got to the parking lot at work at 5:15 just as the bus pulled in. We loaded up and headed on down to Delaware. We made record time and were in the parking lot setting up for our tailgating party by 9:00. We walked around the track area, and it started to drizzle. We looked at all of the souvenir trailers and the marketing displays, got our bags full of “free stuff”, and it started to rain lightly. We wandered back to the parking lot and had lunch and it began “raining”. We sat in the bus for an hour and a half and the rain stopped. The F-16 jets did their “Fly-over” and it stopped raining. We went to go get into the track, made it right to the gate, and the skies opened up with pouring buckets of rain. It let up a little and we trudged back to the bus. Then, it REALLY rained! The race was postponed until Monday. We rode home in the bus as it rained some more.



We all woke up at 6:00AM on Monday. It was kind of damp and drizzling out, but the forecast called for clearing. I called my boss and told him I wouldn’t be in. The girls called their boss and told her they wouldn’t be in. We called David’s school later and told them HE wouldn’t be in. Gina doesn’t work on Mondays, so, no worries there! There was a traffic mess on I-476 due to a wreck, but otherwise the ride to Delaware wasn’t so bad. We had to drive, as the bus company was sold out on Monday and did not have a free bus. We got to our exit for Dover, DE and it took us an hour and a half to go around 2 miles to the parking lot. We didn’t get into the track until lap 15. The race was not that great, as far as I was concerned. Dave, Gina and My driver, Dale Jarrett had a blown engine and finished last. Allie’s driver, Dale Earnhardt, Jr had two bad tires and finished poorly. Chrissy’s driver, Tony Stewart, got in a wreck and then was purposely run into on pit road and also finished poorly. Martin Truex Jr. won the race, and it was his first win. At least that was a bright spot. The weather did eventually turn sunny and it was a nice day. It took us around 2 hours to get out of the muddy parking lot. The high point of my day occurred while getting out of the lot. This pretty yuppie boy tried to cut me off to get in a line of cars getting out. Too bad for him he cared more for his shiny new Beemer than I did for my 14 year old Saturn! I then proceeded to let EVERY car attempting to get into line cut in front of me! It was PRICELESS seeing him seething in my rear view mirror!

This past Saturday I went along with my son on his 6th grade class trip. We went to Dorney Park in Allentown, PA. I was surprised at how few people were there, we got on most of the rides with little to no waiting in line. Every other time I had been there the lines for the major roller coasters were hours long. David has always been frightened of roller coasters and thrill rides. His S.O.P. would be to get all excited about going on a ride, wait in line for an hour, and then try to back out as soon as it was time to get on the ride. I don’t know what happened to him between the end of last summer and now, but he is a coaster freak now! We went on every looping, twisting, upside down, spinning, falling, whirling ride they had, and he kept wanting more! We had an awesome day!

I can’t believe it’s been over a week since I have made a journal entry! I can’t even REMEMBER what happened during the week last week, so I guess I’ll just start with what I can remember..



Friday I took off from work to help at “Olympic Day” at my son’s Elementary School. They have an entire day devoted to “athletic” competitions. The entire school is divided into 3 teams who compete against each other in 18 events. They go around by class to each event and each class is split between the 3 teams. I was in charge of “Field Hockey Frenzy”. The kids all lined up by team and had to run out into a section of the field and find field hockey sticks marked with their team’s color. They went in a relay, one at a time until they got all 13 of the sticks in the team color. In the meantime, others on their team had to make a ‘teepee’ with the sticks, by balancing them against each other. The first team to stack all of their sticks, or the team with the most sticks in their stack when time was up, was the winner. It was funny watching the strategy the kids came up with, and how it seemed to change with their age / grade. Second grade on down seemed to work well as teams, focusing on working together to get the task accomplished. 3rd and 4th graders seemed to be totally focused on themselves. They got into arguments on the best way to stack, who should stack, who should go look for sticks etc. The 5th and 6th graders went back to teamwork with 1 or 2 kids being exceptions, wanting things done their way. A fascinating study in sociology could have been done!