My grandfather passed last week. He had a good life and went quietly at 94-years-of-age. I can only hope that I have such a long life and leave so many people with fond memories. Tomorrow is the funeral and I said I’d like to say a few words… but now that it’s crunch time I’m coming up empty. Lots of memories and fond thoughts, but nothing that really formats itself nicely into a memorial. I’m half tempted to just go from the hip and see what comes out; but I have a tendency to ramble and I’m not the only one speaking so I don’t want to ramble on. I need something short, sweet, and ideally, something that’ll make folks cry. Making folks cry at a funeral usually means you’ve hit your mark.

So I’ve come up with some of my most vivid memories surrounding him and admittedly this is a purely personal list. Now all I’ve got to do is weave this into something good.

• Slingshots made out of tree branches and bicycle tire tubes
• Fishing, catching fish, turtles, ducks, and even one time my cousin Jim
• Taught me how to ride a bike and how to maintain that same bike and all the bikes that came afterward
• Handy with a wrench or a hammer
• Church going, honorable, honest, admirable
• Corn and strawberries right out of the garden
• Pipe smoke in the evening
• Sleeping in his chair while the baseball game was on
• Waking up with the sun

I’ll work on it a bit more and whatever I come up with I’ll post later.

Kirra, who’s moved back with us, went away for the weekend. I don’t know what she did or where she went… does it really matter… probably not, hell, she’s 21. She can do what she wants.

Tasha and I didn’t do much. We went and saw Prince of Persia on Saturday. Not a great movie, but it was what it was, an action movie based on a video game. And I think for that it did what it set out to do pretty well. Lots of jumping around. Lots of sword fighting. Lots of CGI. It’s not going to win any awards, but I thought it captured the game nicely. I’d see the next one, if the make another.

Sunday, Tasha’s friend Jen came over and visited for a bit.

We had some leisure time and there’s nothing wrong with that.

born in Conway, Arkansas, he raised his family in the Pontiac and Avon Township, MI area before moving to Florida.

Husband of the late Thelma; father of Therman (Judy), David, Shirley (Larry) Anderson and Glen (Judy) Nichols; cherished grandfather of eight and great grandfather of six; brother of the late Geneva Barnard and Vaughtie Nichols.

Mr. Nichols retired in 1972 from GM with 36 yrs. of service, a member of the First Baptist Church of Lady Lake, FL and former member of Rochester Hills Baptist Church.

He enjoyed gardening, bowling, fishing, family gatherings and his churches.

Funeral Service 2 p.m. Thursday at Rochester Hills Baptist Church, 3300 S. Livernois Rd., Rochester Hills with Visitation at the church 12:30 p.m. until time of service.

Memorial contributions to Cornerstone Hospice Foundation of Lake & Sumter County, 2445 Lane Park Road, Tavares, FL 32778 would be appreciated; arrangements entrusted to Pixley Funeral Home, Rochester. Please leave condolences at www.pixleyfuneralrochester.com

Chevy has said that there were no actual changes made to the Camaro’s V6 engine that resulted in a power increase. Rather, Chevy says the current 304-hp rating was conservative and a new SAE certification resulted in 312 hp. So that means anyone who bought a 2010 Camaro V6 shouldn’t feel shortchanged, as their engine is just as powerful as the 2011 model that will start production on June 7th. Chevy also says, that buyers will be able to pick up any trim level in Chevrolet’s new eye-searing Synergy Green – a color that was previously limited to the 1LT car. GM has also made the Camaro’s heads-up display standard equipment on all 2LT and 2SS models.

These the changes aren’t exactly earth shattering, but they should be enough to keep the Camaro near (or even at) the front of the muscle car pack for now.

BTW, here’s a pic of the car with it’s new gas cap and stripes.

At some point in the future I’ll actually take some good pictures of this car

I’m a big fan of the way my posts get imported into Facebook with that giant RSS feed logo or my PSN card. Makes every update doubly annoying. Gotta figure out how that works/why it’s happening and make it stop. And I didn’t really do anything, but the twitter posts are getting imported once again.

My brother picked up a PS3, and unlike when he had a Xbox he’s online with it. I’m thinking I’ll be getting my football on… nope, not gonna happen. He doesn’t want to buy Madden 10, he’s going to wait for Madden 11 to come out next August. That’ll work nicely for me, in that Kevin and Jay have probably decided never to buy a Madden game again. Without them I won’t have the leverage I need to get Denis to buy next year’s game. Joel might be coerced in if everybody else was playing, but without them, it ain’t gonna happen. So all my football dreams are shattered. It’ll probably end up being me and my bro playing Madden come next year… I love it when a plan comes together.

Zachary is involved with a girl now, according to his Facebook page, I have no other details. Haven’t heard anything more about Tyler and his lady friend, beyond him wanting to borrow the car. Karin… yeah, I don’t know what she’s up to. Kirra is making noises about coming to stay with us, she’s saying end of April, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Rascal (Crooktail) is doing better, swelling is gone and he’s actually got some flick in his tail at this point, but it does have a nice crook in it about an inch-and-a-half from the base. I keep meaning to take a picture, but I’m lazy and forgetful.

Tasha and I have decided not to move. We’re going to stay put for another year. We’re in a nice enough place and the rent isn’t going up all that much. It’s mostly a financial decision, seems like the bills always roll in when you’re saving your pennies for something. We  don’t hate it here, we’d like a house, but Tasha is just getting regular paychecks again and we’re going to just sit tight for another year. As a plus, none of our friends will have to relearn where we live. I am toying with the idea of getting a second carport, it’s silly but I think the one next to us is available and that’d be almost like having a two car garage and as such my bike wouldn’t be nearly as crowded and I wouldn’t have to worry about the neighbors bumping my car.

That’s it for now.

Tasha headed out to the east side of the state to visit Karin for her birthday. I was going to go with her, but then we have the fiasco that is traveling with the dog. Where does the dog stay? Where do we stay? How much time to we have to set aside for dropping the dog off and picking the dog up? And then there’s the problem of each of us wanting to do different things and only one car. So despite what I told my boys about coming out there, I’m staying home with the animals. Maybe I’ll go out next weekend, and definitely the weekend following, I’ve  gotta teach the boy how to drive a stick and give him some practice time. Doesn’t that sound like fun… nerve wracking, parental fun.

I was going to get up and do some calastetics, eat some breakfast, and then start writing. That didn’t happen. Instead,  I got up made coffee, played some Xbox and got caught up in creating custom paint schemes in Forza Motorsports III, then started fiddling around on the internet and playing with my webpage (tweaking WP Themes can be an all day thing), before I knew it the dog was asking to be let out and it was 5:00 PM. So we went for a walk, had some dinner, and here I am now putting up a blog post. Not exactly the day I had planned, but not a bad day by any stretch. Just not as productive as I’d imagined.

I finished listening to The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett today, I didn’t enjoy it as much as The Maltese Falcon. It jumped around too much, at a couple different points I had to check my files to make sure nothing was screwy, but everything was okay and I just had to listen twice to get the gist. I’m not sure but I had a real problem differentiating the hero in this book, Ned Beaumont, from the Falcon’s, Sam Spade. Maybe it was the narrator, but they seemed pretty interchangeable (distractingly so) to me. But that noir was still there and it was a nice change from the paranormal and fantasy stuff I’ve been listening to of late.

Now the dog wants to go out again… Probably wants to get rid of that pepper. Ha ha. Later.

We went and saw Shutter Island this afternoon. It was a decent movie, though it seemed a bit long. But it’s the kind of movie I don’t generally go to see at the theater. There wasn’t anything about it that made me say, you gotta see this one on the big screen. For me, I could have watched it at home on the telly and enjoyed it just as much. Theater movies should have lots of cool special effects that make you sit back in your seat and go wow, cool. This isn’t one of those movies. This one is more a period-thriller, and for me that doesn’t warrant the big screen and the theater ticket pricing. But Tasha wanted to see it and I wasn’t a hundred percent sold on what I’ve seen of the Wolfman, so we went. It was a pretty good movie, good acting, good visuals, but neither of us really got what we wanted out of it. That’s about all the review I can give it.

The cat, Rascal, is being a bit more social and seems to be sitting with a bit more ease. His brother seems a bit stir-crazy for lack of anyone to play with. We’ve stopped giving Rascal the pain meds, because the trauma seemed worse than his pain, and  I think he seems to agree. There’s still some swelling in the tail, but it seems less with each day.

I saw a red camaro with white stripes at the dealer today, and I rather like it. But I’m still conflicted about white vs. black stripes. In my mind I see white, but the popular opinion seems to lean toward black. Tasha doesn’t get it. She thinks it’s dumb to get the car striped. But then I think throw pillows are dumb and completely unnecessary. I guess it’s a boy thing. If I have my way, and you know I will in the end, I’ll get the stripes, a brushed aluminum gas cap cover, the extra gauges on the console, and maybe the upgraded 19″ or 20″ rims (if I can find them used for cheap). It may not happen now, but I’ve got the car for five more years, plenty of time to play around with things.

I was looking at my checking account ledger, apparently I’ve renewed my Xbox Live account. Now if I just had someone to play with. Or rather someone to play the kind of games I like with. So many consoles, so few good games.

I spent some time yesterday consolidating six notepads of ideas into a single notebook. I gotta say, I’ve got some good ideas. Now I just need to get my ass in gear and do something with them. Writing seems like the logical choice of action, but it’s so damn hard to get myself motivated. But then, hasn’t that always been my biggest problem. Plenty of ambition, not enough drive. So once again I find myself needing to work on my discipline and hold myself to the grindstone; be it in my writing, my fitness, or my finances the struggle continues. Later.

And it’s payday. Gotta love that.

Rascal is doing better, still lots of swelling and he’s still sore despite the medicine. I think he’s actually more distressed about taking the medicine every 8-hours than he is about the tail. Funny thing is that after we give him the medicine he foams at the mouth for 5-minutes. I tried to get a picture, but he ran off and drooled under the bed.

I came home, hopped on the computer and started checking email. The cat jumped up on the desk, as he always does, and sat right in front of the monitor. I picked him up to put him back on the floor and he howled like I was killing him. It was quite startling. As he was scampering away I noticed that his tail was down and not moving around nearly as much as usual. I tried to get a look at it, but every time my hands got close to the base of his tail, he’d twist away. I knew something was up. I watched him a bit more and the more I watched the more obvious it was that there was a problem. So when Tasha came home we bundled him into the cat carrier and took him to the veterinary clinic.

We were there for almost three hours. It cost almost $400. And much to my disappointment, the cat didn’t get a tail cast. Wouldn’t that have just been amusing as hell! Apparently, they can’t do much with a broken tail except x-ray it and give you some pain medicine that the animal will fight-like-hell to not take. Whatever the case, he broke the tail behind the hips and as such there are no other problems, just a funny crook in his tail from now on.

What we wouldn’t do for our animals. Later.

• Tasha and I drove to Florida and back, saw and spent some time with the parents and grandparents and didn’t have any drama until we were headed home.
• I decided to give Forza Motorsport 3 a chance on my Xbox 360 and I have found that it is very good
• We celebrated Christmas at Tasha’s Sisters
• My dad was diagnosed with small cell cancer
• The DROID died and was replaced with a refurbished unit despite being only 35-days old.
• We spent New Year’s Eve with Dawn and Mark
• Tasha’s contract at work went from short-term to long-term and then went to shit…  I hate that place
• Tasha celebrated one of the big birthdays
• The laptop died, went to HP, and came back none the worse for wear… though I’m annoyed that 8-months in I should have to go through that.
• I won the Super Bowl in our 1st and Ten Franchise (Madden 10), and then Jay and Kevin dropped out because they hate the game.
• Watched Avatar, despite wanting to dislike it I both enjoyed and was impressed by it
• The bright red camaro got a speeding ticket, okay, I got the ticket, but I was driving the car
• We’ve started looking for a house to rent, rent-to-own, or land-contract (our lease is up end of April)
• Joel picked up a PS3 and my brother said he was going to, but I’ve not played a game with either of them
• Watched The Book of Eli and was less than impressed, the annoying church folk behind us didn’t help
• That rascally ground hog saw his shadow, thus heralding six more weeks of winter
• Watched Legion, left wishing there were more angels and less zombies, did not give me what I was looking for, I was not impressed.
• Denis made it to the Super Bowl in our 2nd and 10 Franchise (Madden 10), I didn’t even make the playoffs.
• The New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl for the first time in their 42 year history
• I’ve listened to a bunch of audio books and started keeping a list, just have to figure out what to do with that list. Right now I’m listening to and enjoying the Night Angel series by Brent Weeks.
• And tonight, I filed my taxes and got a refund even without claiming a child

So a lot has gone on and none of it has been shared with the blog, not sure how I feel about that. I find that I’m spending too much time on the computer after work and not doing anything. I need to get refocused and reinvigorated. So the first step is this one, writing a blog post. If I’m going to be on the computer I can at least be productive. My intention is to be far more regular with these posts and to focus them on some topics that are not my day-to-day grind. We’ll see what happens. Later.

Karin and Jan are going to take care of the house and the animals. We thank them both and wish them good luck.

We’re packed. Audio books have been chosen. The hotel is reserved. The car is gassed. And the parents have been notified of our imminent arrival. I think we’re good to go. We’ve got no real plan, other than to be home next Saturday, but I think we’ll both be glad to get away from our day-to-day for a week. And as a plus I get to spend some time in my new car.

NaNoWriMo is a bust this year. I blame it on a lack of commitment. I haven’t given up on the story, despite what you’re not seeing on the word count bar, but this month just hasn’t been a good one for my writing.

Enjoy your holiday. And if you venture out to the stores tomorrow, I hope you find what you’re looking for.

Did I mention that my iPod Nano got stolen out of my van? I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to look it up. Whatever the case, I’ve been looking for a replacement. I considered just getting another Nano, but that seemed lame. I toyed with the idea of getting a Archos 5 Internet Tablet, that would be sweet, but I’d want the big 500 gig one and the price is a bit more than I can swallow. Doug keeps praising his iPod Touch, but I can’t bring myself to get one. However, my Verizon plan has been up since September and I haven’t replaced my phone… Do you know where this is going? I decided to get a phone that would serve as a media player. I went and got myself a Motorola Droid.

I don’t get excited about phones, cameras, GPS gadgets, or mp3 players, but I gotta say this thing is pretty sweet. It does all of those things. It says, “droid,” more than maybe you’d like, but I expect I can shut that off. It’s got a 16 GB microSD card in it, so it’ll hold as much stuff as my old Nano, but it does way more than my old phone and my iPod together. I think it’ll be a good deal despite the additional charges that Verizon get’s for signing me up for the email service. Oh well, what do you do. I already put a couple audio books on it. I’m as giddy as a school boy.

Not much writing last night, though I did do some editing and I’m feeling better about what I’ve gotten so far. No writing at all tonight, so I’m going to take the weekend to get myself up to where I need to be. I think that means something like 13,336 words by Sunday night. It’s alot, and it may be more than I can do to catch up all at once, but I think I can take a good-sized chunk out of my deficit and put myself back on track. Like I said, doing the little bit of editing last night made me realize some of the bits that I needed to flesh out a bit more. What I was writing read more like a verbose outline than a story. So we’ll fix that and get Joshua Hale back in the action and get this party started.

In other news, I got the approval for my vacation. We’re going to Florida at the end of this month.