I HAVE MOVED!!

NEW BLOG HOME AT www.redriverpak.wordpress.com

Stop on bye.....

Two more examples of me NOT being the only Idiot in the area...

Two more true little nuggets from recent Dallas area news. First, our weather yesterday was interesting to say the least. While it was sunny and hot, the wind was also blowing, and blowing, and blowing. There were gusts up to 53mph during the day and they only got worse after dark. The airport was a zoo with thousands of stranded travelers because it was too windy for the planes to depart or land. There were numerous power outages, trucks blown over, and thousands of homes and trees were damaged.
The US Women's Olympic Softball team played a game in Fort Worth last night. After the game, the park that the game was held in erupted in flames as a large grass fire raged out of control. What started the fire? The post-game fireworks of course! Fifty mile and hour winds and the Idiots in FW decide to go ahead and shoot off the fireworks as planned. I am speechless. I am without speech. There are truly bigger idiots than I out there in the world after all.

Second story is of a Dallas roofing company. There were hired to remove and replace the roof of a house in the Dallas area. They did this with one small problem. They did the WRONG house. They removed the roofing from a perfectly good house. Obviously, when the homeowner came home and found her roof missing, she was a little ticked. The roofing company apologized profusely for their mistake. What did they do next? They offered to give her a "real good deal" on a new roof! Even though it was totally their fault, they had no intentions of replacing her roof for nothing! The roofing company owner even appeared on the local news and said that the homeowner was "crazy if she thinks we are going to GIVE her a free roof!" The reporter doing the interview had her jaw hanging down to the ground, dumbfounded that this IDIOT could actually be serious.

Welcome to North Texas. Idiot capital of the world!

Congratulations to Sen. Barack Obama for being the first African-American nominee for President in our countries history.

It is entirely possible that this coming winter he will be elected President.

Early next year could feature his inauguration and swearing-in ceremony.

He could start the first 6 months of his Presidency by signing into law new bills that will radically change our government and country.

By next fall, our country may be steering an entirely new course in the world.

On December 12, 2009...Deep into President Obama's first year in office, Sen. Hillary Clinton could possibly call a news conference and formally concede the primary election that occurred a full year and half earlier.

But she probably won't......

Another little birdie leaves the nest

Hannah graduates from High School on Friday. We are all extremely proud of her. Look out real world, here she comes........

The Blue Light: Part 3

Preface: This story is true. There has been great friction between my wife and I over my posting of these happenings but in a time of such fear, curiosity, and confusion, I find it hard to post anything humorous and just want to get this story out there. My wife is a schoolteacher and we live in a tiny town leaving her with a fear that her co-workers will find out about this and she will face ridicule and isolation. As far as we know, no co-workers except her Aide Teresa even know of this blog so I am confident she will be fine. Teresa knows me as a lighthearted jokester so Teresa, if your reading this, you just go on right ahead and continue to assume this is all one of my wild stories. (It's not) If by chance, sometime in the future, these posts all disappear from the blog, you can assume that someone at my wife's school has found out about this story and I have removed it to shield my wife.



So, there I was, standing in the doorway of the bathroom in the middle of the night, staring at this weird little glowing blue light hovering over my wife and son as they slept in our bed.

Just as eager as Mattie is to follow me into the bathroom, she is also in just as much as a hurry to race me out of the bathroom. But not this night. I turned and saw Mattie hunkered down in a far corner of the bathroom giving me a look that indicated there was no possible way she was going out of the bathroom with me.

I stared at the Blue Light for probably 30 seconds as it just kind of meandered back and forth a couple feet above the bed. "What the heck do I do now?" I thought briefly about yelling and waking up my wife and son but that would have probably only sent them into hysterics and would have resulted in no one ever sleeping in my bedroom again. My next thought was try to slip across the room to where my digital camera was charging and then try to get a few photos of this thing, whatever it is.

I decided to try the camera route and let my wife and son continue to sleep.

I slowly shuffled across the room, lit only by the light from the bathroom, and made my way to my camera. The Blue Light continued to hover in basically the same place and did not seem phased by my approaching so close to it as I made my way to the camera.

I reached the camera and turned it on, trying desperately to muffle with my hands the "Whirrrr" sounds it made as it powered on. The Blue Light still remained clearly visible above the bed.

First, I raised the camera and took a couple rapid shots without use of any flash. A quick glance at the LCD screen showed that I had just taken two completely black photos. Even with the small amount of light from the open bathroom door, there was still not enough light to expose a picture and no sign of the Blue Light was visible in either photo.

Then, I went into Idiot mode and switched on the flash. I quickly fired off three shots in rapid succession and this resulted in the room being quickly illuminated by the equivalent of 3 lightning flashes. Both my wife and son were jolted awake by the flashes and each quickly sat up in bed, still half asleep. After my own eyes had readjusted to the near blinding of the flashes, I noticed the Blue Light was gone. I quickly scanned the room but no sign of it was visible anywhere.

In unison, Tyler and my wife both angrily asked me what I was doing taking pictures in the middle of the night, with my wife being slightly more profane in her choice of words as to why I was up with a camera. I sheepishly apologized to Tyler and helped him lay back down as I covered him up as my wife sat a few feet away still glaring at me.

I quickly turned the preview LCD on and clicked through the three photos. Nothing! I had three brightly-lit photos of two sleeping family members and the headboard of our bed, but no Blue Light was visible in any of the pics.

My wife, watching me flip through the pictures, suddenly put two and two together and the anger in her voice for being so rudely awakened quickly turned to more of a fearful tone.

"It's back again isn't it?" she whispered as she reached over and stroked Tyler's hair as the boy was already fast asleep. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and I could tell she was beginning to softly cry as she nervously looked around the room.

I nodded YES to her and held out the camera then slowly nodded my head from side to side to indicate that I had gotten absolutely no picture of the darn thing.

My wife curled back up next to Tyler and layed back down as I, camera in hand, slowly walked through the darkened house back towards Tyler's bedroom. Reaching the bedroom, I slowly walked in, camera held out if front of me, heart beating so fast I could sense each rapid beat through my throbbing temples.

The room was dark. No Blue Light. Nothing.

I slowly walked the rest of the house looking for the light but could find nothing out of the ordinary. The one room I did not check was that of my 18yr old daughter Hannah. Hannah is scared of her own shadow on a sunny day. She knows of the Blue Light appearances in Chillicothe years ago and although she never personally saw it, that was enough to freak her out for years. We have not told her about these new occurrences. Though she is on the computer for hours each day, she looks at any websites outside of MYSPACE as being for nerds and geeks so it is easy to say she does NOT read this blog. She is graduating this week then moving away out of state so I figure I will tell her all this in a few weeks once she is settle a thousand miles away in Indiana. It will still freak the heck out of her.

Finding no sign of the light, I went back to bed. I slid Tyler towards the middle of the bed as best I could and layed down, eyes open, in the darkened bedroom.
I could still feel my heart pounding and noticed that I was sweating like a dog. I tried closing my eyes but found that any slight noise in the house would cause me quickly open my eyes and scan the room, fully expecting to find the Blue Light hovering above me.

The last thing I remember of that night was the faint sound of Mattie snoring from the bathroom floor. The cat that would follow me like a shadow all day and all night, had still not come out of the bathroom. Obviously, she too had seen something that spooked her and she wanted nothing to do with it.

The Blue Light: Part 2

I was right. The wife went ballistic when she found I had indeed published the blog about the Blue Light. As far as she is concerned, the whole world and her entire family has always felt that I was a basket case, but now she fears that she also will always be looked at as an easily spooked nut job.

The Blue Light had indeed returned to Tyler's room. My wife and I had a dilemma, What do we do about it?

The first thing we did was to try to determine if what we were seeing was indeed real and make sure we were not just seeing things. So, we did what all rational adults do, we set up a paranormal "stakeout" in Tyler's room. (Start Ghostbusters theme song now....)

We started out by having Tyler come into our bedroom to watch a movie on TV with my wife and myself. Towards the end of the movie, Tyler was getting sleepy and was dozing off, so we clicked the TV on to a kids channel and told him to relax in bed while I went to show Mom something on the computer in the computer room across the hall from his bedroom.

Instead of going into the computer room, the wife and I went straight into Tyler's room. First, we set about completely shutting his blinds, unplugged everything in the room, made sure all his battery powered toys were off, and then closed the door to his closet. My wife then got a thick comforter from the hall closet and we proceeded to drape the comforter over Tyler's only outside window so that no light whatsoever could get into the room from outside.

My wife then sat on one end of his bed and I sat on the other so that we each had a straight line of sight to each half of the room. With the faint sounds of our bedroom TV filling the quiet house, I leaned over and switched off the lights to Tyler's room. We were now sitting in complete darkness, except for a faint bit of light poking through under his door. I fumbled in the dark for a pillow and tossed it onto the floor at the base of the door until now, all light was completely gone from the room.

I sat there, staring at nothing but pitch black darkness and slowly turned my head from side to side, straining to see any sign of the Blue Light. From the rustling on the bed next to me, I could tell my wife was also eagerly searching out any sign of the light.

Nothing.

We sat there, without saying a word to each other for at least an hour and saw nothing but darkness.

My wife, beginning to sense that maybe we were indeed crazy, gave up shortly thereafter and wandered back to our bedroom and crawled into bed with Tyler. I stayed behind and stayed in the dark room, still hoping that the curious little light would make another appearance.

I sat for what had to be hours. Sitting all alone in complete darkness can sure play tricks on your mind. I found myself seeing shadows that I knew could not be there and could hear rustling sounds from all over the house that I am sure all had rational explanations. For one thing, we have 4 cats and most of them enjoy prancing around the house at night so I was sure that the sounds were the cats, the air conditioning, the ceiling fans, the refrigerator, traffic outside, the wind, and a combo of all of the above. But I saw no sign of the Blue Light.

It must have been 2am-3am before I finally gave up and left the room. It is a straight walk down the hall, across the living room and then into our bedroom. I could see the flickering lights from our bedroom that indicated that our TV was still on so I figured my wife had left the TV on so I could find my way back to the room without tripping over any furniture or dozing cats. Plus, If you had just spent part of your evening in a darkened room looking for a ghostly light of unknown origin, you don't want to lay in total darkness, so I figure that is why she really left the TV on for me.

I entered our room and found my wife curled up on top of the covers, laying on her side, facing Tyler who was face-down sound asleep in my side of the bed. My wife's left arm was draped protectively over Tyler's shoulder and both were sound asleep enough that neither of them stirred a bit when I shuffled into the room.

I found the TV remote buried under Tyler's leg and clicked the TV off. I then felt my way around the foot of the bed and went into the master bathroom and closed the door behind me.

Standing at the sink, I heard a faint "meow" from behind the door and realized that I had left Mattie outside the door. Mattie is one of our overfed, lazy cats and has a crazy habit of always having to follow me into the bathroom no matter what the time of day or night.

If I was to dare to go into the bathroom to take a shower and left Mattie outside, she would cry and scratch until her paws bled until someone would open the door and let her in.

So, here I was at the sink, and now Mattie is crying at the door. Not wanting her to wake up Tyler and my wife, I quickly grabbed the door and ripped it open so the cat could run into the bathroom. I opened the door and right on cue, Mattie vaulted between my legs and into the bathroom. I went to quickly close the door then froze.







Across the room, clearly visible, the Blue Light was hovering about 2 feet above my bed, right above Tyler and my wife.

The Blue Light

This a true story. It involves a true incident that happened about 5 years ago while we lived in Chillicothe. No one in my family talks about this story and my wife will probably kill me for writing about it now. Due to a recent event, I feel the story must be told.

Late one night, Tyler, then about 6 years old, came shuffling into our bedroom and whispered to my wife and I that he had seen something in his room. My wife asked him what he had seen. Tyler explained that he had awakened and noticed a faint blue light in his room. This blue light was suspended in the air and was moving slowly around his room. As my wife and I got up out of bed we both explained to Tyler that it was probably just lights reflecting in through one of his windows.

We all went into Tyler's room which was located at the very back of the house. There is nothing behind the house itself except for open farmland and trees, beyond which lies a major highway about a mile away. As I entered the room, I was sure that this blue light was most likely lights from the highway shining through the curtains or reflecting off a toy or something in his room.

My wife, Tyler, and I all entered the room and looked around. We saw nothing. We did have the hallway door open and there was some light shining in from the hall, but there was no sign of any blue light or anything out of the ordinary. Tyler continued to insist that he had actually seen the light. To calm him down and show him everything was alright, we closed the door to the hall and we all stood in his darkened room and looked around.

There, about 3 feet away, about 4 feet off the floor, was a small, glowing blue light. It was light blue in color, was nearly transparent, and was probably 2-3 inches in diameter in size. Although I was actually shocked to see anything at all, I was again sure that it had to be a reflection from the window. I moved towards the window and looked out. It was completely dark. There was no traffic coming down the highway that may have beamed light into the room. The blue light still hovered in the room. My wife saw it, Tyler saw it, and here I was looking at it. I moved over so that my body completely blocked the window. The light still hovered in place. My wife and I moved around the room and looked for anything at all that may have been casting the blue light. We found nothing.

Tyler slept with us the rest of that night.

Although he was scared to sleep in his own room the next night, there was no sign of the blue light and he slept uneventfully.

A few weeks later, my Mother was staying with us for a short visit. During the night, Tyler again came into our room in the middle of the night and stated that the blue light was back. My Mother heard the commotion and was awakened in an adjacent room. We explained the whole story to her. She had a smirk on her face that indicated she was sure that we were all just pulling her leg and were making the whole story up.

She went with us as we all went back into Tyler's room. There again was the blue light. It was hovering in a different area of the room but was still clearly visible to all of us. My Mom was shocked. She also looked around the room for any source of the light but could find nothing.

I went the light and passed my hand through it. Normally when a light is reflecting in, if you pass your hand over the line of sight of the source, the light should be reflected onto the top of your hand. Place a flashlight on a table and point it at a wall. Pass your hand in front of the light. At some point, the light beam will be right on top of your hand and will block the light from reaching the wall. This theory did not prove true with the blue light. I passed my hand through it but at no point could you see the glow on top of my hand. We moved around the glow from every angle and it never subsided or was blocked.

Three adults and one little boy were royally freaked out.

Tyler spent the next 6 months seeing the blue light on a few occasions but we then moved away from the house when we left town to move to Bridgeport.

My wife's sister, Leah and her family, bought the house from us. We did not want to freak them out or scare them, so the blue light was never brought up. Tyler's cousin now lives in that room and though Tyler goes up there to visit quite a bit, he is still very hesitant to sleep overnight in that room. As far as we know, Tyler's cousin has never said anything about seeing a blue light or anything strange in that room.

That was 5 years ago.

We now live in a house a good 150 miles away from Chillicothe. The other night, the unthinkable happened. Tyler came into our room late in the night and walked over to my side of the bed where I was laying watching TV. He whispered in my ear and grabbed my arm, wanting me to follow him. We walked through the dark house to his bedroom.

There in the middle of the room, was the pale blue light, slowly hovering in the darkness.

Five long years have gone bye, and now it's back.

Whatever it is.

What the experts can't say about the Election

Last night, like many nights this year, I spent half the night watching Election results on CNN.

I have noticed that the political experts that appear on TV commenting about the Election Results are severely constrained in what they can say, so as to always be seen as "politically correct".

I wish they could just say what we all already know and are thinking about the Democratic Race.


A large number of American Voters will NEVER vote for a Black Man.
A large number of American Voters will NEVER vote for a Woman.
A large number of American Voters will vote for John McCain just because he is the White, Male candidate.

Those are the simple facts folks. It's sad that the so-called "Most Advanced Society" in the World still faces this reality.

"911 Emergency....What credit card will you be using today?"

True Story heard on the local news tonight.

A Dallas City Councilman wants to pass a new city procedure that would require 911 Operators that receive calls for Ambulance or Paramedic assistance to get a credit card number from callers before dispatching assistance.

Yes, it's true. I can't make this stuff up.

A possible future call.


Operator: "911 Emergency"

Caller: "Help!! I'm on fire!! Help!!"

Operator: "What card will you be paying with tonight sir?"

Caller: "Aaarrrrgggg!! Help meeeeee!! Aaarrrggggggg"

Operator: " Sir we take Visa, American Express, Masterc......"

Caller: "Aaaaarrrrggggg.....I'ts....a......V....IIIIII....sssssss...Aaaaaaaarrrgggggggg Help Me Please......Number.....672....aaaaarrrgggg...76.......Oooooowwwwwwwwww....4327............expires 5/11......Aaaaaaarrrgggggg For the Love of God Please send help!! I'm burning!!!!"

Operator: "Let me repeat that sir....Visa 672764327 Expires 5 of 2011?"

Caller: " AAAAAArrrrrrggggggggg The Pain!! The Pain!!.....Aaaaarggggggg!!"

Operator: Thank you sir...I have your confirmation code...do you have a pen handy?"

Caller" I'm coming towards the light Mama...aaaaarrrggggg...I'm comin towards the light!.....Aaaaarrrrrgggggg"

Ouch!

Spiritual thoughts by Carl the Greenskeeper

"So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the 18th and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice."

My wife and her co-worker Teresa are having a joint garage sale at our house this weekend. Seeing as how my wife is the worlds biggest pack rat, we have about 5 years worth of junk piled up in the house ready to be shoved off onto unsuspecting idiot junk collectors.
So, last night Teresa and her family come over with a truck full of their own junk to submit to the garage sale and what happens?
My wife starts looking through Teresa's junk and is going "Ooh I want this...Ooh I have to have this...Ooh Oooh Ooh...", while Teresa is on the other side of the garage looking through our junk going "Oh boy I gotta have this...and this...and this...." etc.
So what happened with the garage sale?
We swapped our junk for Teresa's junk and both women are happy as clams. No need for a sale now.
Women hurt my head!

From Great Sis-in-Law

I received this via e-mail from Leah earlier today. My Niece Emily is in Kindergarten. She recently did a drawing when the teacher instructed the kids to draw what they love most about their Mommies. Emily's dad has a job that takes him out of town quite a bit but he was home in Chillicothe very recently. While visiting the school, Leah was pulled aside by Emily's teacher and shown this drawing that Emily had done. Boy will she have a good laugh about this when she grows up!

NBA Fan of the Week

You gotta give this NBA Fan an "A" for effort! In a recent NBA Playoff game between the San Antonio Spurs and the New Orleans Hornets, Spurs player Tony Parker found himself at the free throw line. It is customary for those fans seated behind the basket to try to distract the opposing players when a player is attempting free throws. People will wave towels, flash signs, scream, yell, whatever it takes in order to get the player to miss the free throws.

Tony Parker of the Spurs is married to actress Eva Longoria. As you can see by the pic below, a Hornets fan decided to use EVA herself to try to distract Parker's free throws.

It worked.


He missed both shots.

I will now attempt to juggle a Cat, a Duck, and a Chainsaw. Repeat. A Cat, a Duck, and a Chainsaw.


MEOW WACK WACK VROOOM MEOW WACK WACK VROOOM MEOW WACK WACK VROOOM SPLAT WACK WACK VROOOM WACK WACK VROOOM SPLAT VROOOM VROOOM VROOOM......

OK, SO I NEED MORE PRACTICE.

The aging factor

When I was in High School from 1979-1983, I had a bedroom that was a source of envy among all my male friends. Adorning nearly every inch of my walls were posters of every Hot Babe from Television, Movies, and Music. Even male friends of my Dad would walk into my room, turn slowly around, and just mutter..."WOW!".
I just turned 43 this week. I know that is older than some of you, younger than some, and alot younger than a few of you. Problem is, I still feel like a 20 year old deep down inside that is trapped in this broken down, aging body. I got to thinking.....if I am 43....then how old are the women that I worshipped in High School? I was shocked!

This made me feel real old, real fast!

You ladies might want to show this to your husbands in order to make them feel real old also.

These were some of the ladies on the wall....




Loni Anderson of WKRP is 62!




Rocker Pat Benatar is 55.




Stevie Nicks is 60.




Model Cheryl Tiegs is 61.




Suzanne Somers is 61.




Tina Louise is....74!!! Giiinnnggeeeerrr!!




Farrah is 61.




Debbie Harry is 62.




And the kid of the bunch, Donna Dixon of Bosom Buddies, is only 51.

What has 50 legs, 29 teeth, 312 tattoos, 27 GED's, and 2 kids under each arm?

The Pharmacy line at our local Wal-Mart.

Call me an elitist snob, but I will happily pay the $10 co-pay at my preferred pharmacy to be able to walk right up to the counter and get my meds rather than waiting in the "gene-pool experiment" line of people wanting the $4 prescriptions at Wally World.

Library Rules according to Mr Bookman

Well, let me tell you something, funny boy. Y'know that little stamp,

the one that says "New York Public Library"? Well that may not mean

anything to you, but that means a lot to me. One whole hell of a lot.

Sure, go ahead, laugh if you want to. I've seen your type before:

Flashy, making the scene, flaunting convention. Yeah, I know what you're

thinking. What's this guy making such a big stink about old library

books? Well, let me give you a hint, junior. Maybe we can live without

libraries, people like you and me. Maybe. Sure, we're too old to change

the world, but what about that kid, sitting down, opening a book, right

now, in a branch at the local library and finding drawings of pee-pees

and wee-wees on the Cat in the Hat and the Five Chinese Brothers?

Doesn't HE deserve better? Look. If you think this is about overdue

fines and missing books, you'd better think again. This is about that

kid's right to read a book without getting his mind warped! Or: maybe

that turns you on, Seinfeld; maybe that's how y'get your kicks. You and

your good-time buddies. Well I got a flash for ya, joy-boy: Party time

is over. Y'got seven days, Seinfeld. That is one week!