ARCHIVES - 1996 to FOREVER

I usta have a watch that would synch with the computer, and it would also hold all of my contact info too. But during one of the battery changes, one of the buttons got stuck and it would never work again. I really liked it too, dammit. Digital with a 24-hour readout, real handy when you'r working nights.

Anyway, I futzed around most of the morning and early afternoon, then got ready to go to the 5th annual Topeka Heartshockers picnic. And it was fun. Held in an old barn north of Topeka, but still in the city limits, it wasn't much of a problem to get to.

We sat across from a couple, and Karen had worked at BC/BS with the male; and we found out that they only live two blocks from us. The female is about 20 years younger than her husband, and of course he's the one with the heart problem. He has been shocked twice, but both times he had passed out beforehand, so he really didn't know what happened until they got the reading from his defibrillator after he got to the hospital.

That's the way I want to do it, pass out first, then have Thor fix me. Lots of horror stories about shocks, of course. "Like having a mule kick you" was the most common, but most of those people had probably never even seen a mule. O'well, sounds good.

One old duffer there had been on the beach at Normandy 50 years ago today. I didn't get a chance to talk to him, he was constantly surrounded by people asking him questions. Maybe next time, if we're both still here....

After we got to eat, Karen and I went for a drive in the country. Kansas sure is pretty this time of the year, it gets really ugly, though, in the middle of the summer. We did lots of country roads, and finally hit 75 north about 15 miles from Topeka, after making a long loop to the west on a lot of country roads. Driving around and gawking is fun, but we don't do it too often, probably should do it more, and we would but for the price of gas....

I usually don't think about my dad very much, but I got an email from Sears today about what to get your father for fathers' day, and somehow or another I started thinking about him. I don't think that there was a fathers' day when he was alive, maybe there was, I can't remember. Anyway, I kinda wondered, if he was alive, what he would want me to get for him.

Problem is, of course, I never really got to know him that well, dammit.

22:52...
Man, the time really slipped away from me there!

I have a songbook, about 50 songs, and I go through them at least once a day, practicing. And it's really fun, 'cause they're all songs that I like to listen to, so I like to play them too. And damn, this is such a slow learning process! At this rate, I figger that I can get some help in maybe two years. Heh, piano lessons at my age.

I didn't mention that the barn where the picnic was held had a lot of antique implements, both restored and not. Pretty interesting, reminded me of some of the museums that I've been to in Oklahoma and Kansas, just some regular people collecting stuff and displaying it, not to the public necessarily, but to private parties and generally anyone who asks.

Warmish here tonight, we just turned on the AC, suypposed to be real warm tomorrow. Which reminds me, on our drive we saw planty of wheat that almost ready for the combines. Supposedly there was a lot of freeze damage, but what I saw looked good. Needs about a week of sunshine, though.