Who needs jet fuel?

2004 Special Olympics Plane Pull

In September of 2004 I participated in The Plane Pull for Special Olympics and my team came in third for the low body weight competition. Matt Higgins and I pulled together at first and got the 737 rolling but when the front wheel of the plane hit a small manhole cover in the tarmac, the plane stopped dead in its tracks.

We were then joined by Eileen Bretz, Chris Battiloro and John Cuzzo who helped us get it rolling again and over the finishline within the two minute requirement. Weiging in at 1,155 lbs we came in third place.

Back then I was an easy 275 lbs and was lifting heavy in the gym on a regular basis.

I tried again in 2005 without any success as I was harboring a knee injury and simply could not pull. Coupled with a bad choice in footwear, I was worthless.

I did not pull in 2006 or 2007 for reasons that I can not recall. However, this year I feel as though I am ready to pull and even though my weight is down to 255 lbs, my lifts in the gym are easily as strong as they were back then.

Unfortunately, they are calling for rain, which should make things interesting. I raised $250 for the team and the team raised over $4K….all for a great cause.

Hopefully I’ll post some pictures tomorrow and have a trophy to show off.

Wish me luck!

I Need Another Job to Support My Charities

Besides donating regularly to my church and my alma maters, I try to donate money to various charities as much as possible.

I like to think that the list of donees is pretty long and includes the ASPCA, Audubon, Ducks Unlimited, 3Bays, Christian Children’s Fund, Children International, just to name a few.

Not having made my millions, my donations are usually at the basic level since I prefer to spread my donations around rather than choosing only one or two.

What troubles me is the vast amount of solicitation that I receive from some of the organizations continually asking me to give more.

One of the worst offenders is definitely the ASPCA. Every day it seems I receive another piece of mail containing some gimmick like stickers with my name on it, an offer for a fuzzy sweatshirt or most recently a sheet of magnetized stickers that I could use to spell cute phrases on my refrigerator based upon my preferred pet.

It seems to me that they must spend more money on postage and materials than my meager donation can ever subsidize.

I love little fuzzy animals but I simply don’t want to donate more than I choose to do, during my annual flurry of donations around December 31st.

Almost as bad as the ASPCA are both Christian Children’s Fund and Children International. Both of these organizations are already getting close to $25 per month yet they feel the need to solicit me at least once every few weeks with a horrible tale of children suffering somewhere or with another request to provide something for the two children that I sponsor. As much as I would like to give more, I can only do so much.

I wish that these organizations would spend more of my money supporting the cause and less asking me to give, give, give.

I might even be willing to give more if I could somehow stop them from the bombardment.

Of course I’ll continue to give and each year I’ll try to find another charity or two to join the list but I find the charity that simply sends me a quarterly newsletter letting me know how my money is being spent far more pleasant than the charity that feels as though they can extract another donation by inundating me with solicitations.

 

When Ladies Were Ladies and Men Held the Door…

 

I have long been a fan of the Gilded Age.

It all started when I was helping my good friend Christian move some furniture after college from his house in Cotuit down to Washington DC.

In his bookshelf was a paperback copy of The Great Gatsby and I recalled jokingly how I was supposed to have read it in high school.

Thank God for Monarch Notes!

Christian, being far more scholarly than I, said that it was a must read and let me have it and with that I got turned on to Fitzgerald and eventually to Edith Wharton and Henry James.

As embarrassing as it is to say, I found out that I am a romantic!

In my younger days I was what I would call a very impatient romantic, for lack of a better way of describing my impetuous behavior. For me, the act of courtship was high art, or at least I wanted it to be.

Lately, Kerry and I have been watching the Jane Austen series on PBS and loving every episode more and more. Ms. Austen epitomized what I am referring to regarding the interplay between men and women and the amount of lustful desire that they could froth up by being very proper.

They would all have heart attacks if they could see how we behave today!

I recently watched the movie Atonement, set just prior to World War II. Based upon the movie, it seems pretty clear to me that the War was a watershed moment concerning romance, as it seemed to change everything between men and women.

Before the War, the genteel nature of men and women was still holding on, albeit tenuously, but after the War the sexes seemed to be catapulted into a time where women were fast and men were pigs.

Immeasurable death and carnage must do that.

I do remember that the Monarch Notes for Ernest Hemmingway’s A Farewell to Arms said something about “Carpe Diem” aka “Seize The Day”, which might have signaled the beginning of the end…

After all, if you know that you might die in a few minutes, you may as well throw propriety to the wind!

It would be nice however, if something came along to help the pendulum swing the other way again.

It’s not like the end is near…

At least not that near!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for ankle length swimsuits again, but a little more modesty and politeness would certainly go a long way at rekindling a little romance between the sexes, which could only be a good thing.

Snow Day!

 

Waking up this morning I looked out of the window and there was a good 5 inches of fluffy white stuff covering everything outside.

I was supposed to drive to Norwalk today to visit a prospective client and was out shoveling my truck from under its wintery coat when my boss called and told me that the meeting was off.

Like a child back in school, my heart lifted and the same feeling came over me that I remember when my mother would come into my room to announce the wonderful news!

Back then, I would jump from my bed and ready myself for a day of fun in the snow. Now, all I want to do is crawl back into bed and get some much needed rest.

Unfortunately, working from home when I’m not traveling, it’s not a day off by any means.

After making a breakfast that more than replaced the calories that I burned while shoveling, I’ve now fired up the Laptop and I am sitting with a cup of coffee reviewing my never ending to-do list.

Perhaps I’ll knock off a few of the lingering items and then go outside and play in the snow with the puppies.

Message in a Bloggle….

 

Posting a blog entry is much like putting a message in a bottle and setting it adrift…

You never know if it will be found and if it is found, by whom…

Now that I’ve been blogging for a while and enjoying the fact that I get a random email or two out of it, I was checking out my WordPress Blog Stats and I was fascinated by what I saw.

First of all, I’m not writing this bog to become popular; I gave up on trying to be popular years ago…

Nevertheless, one of my entries seems to get the most activity time and time again and I was intrigued by what it was.

Drum roll please!!!

It happens to be the entry entitled “It’s Texas Time”.

As it turns out, WordPress lets you see the search terms that bring people to your site and so I get to see what people are searching for that brings them to that entry.

The Texas entry gets found based upon terms such as “A picture of Texas” and “Texas Flag” as well as many others but nonetheless, they find my blog and I am given the chance to show off my wares.

It’s obviously the popularity of the great state of Texas that people want….not me. However, I’ll take the traffic any way that I can get it.

Alas…

Not that I’m trying to be popular, but I think that I’m going to end each entry with a litany of words like Texas, Laser, Dog, Cotuit and so on and try to think of some other key words to put in there that might drive traffic.

I’m sure there are a few words that would get me noticed but it would probably be the FBI that takes an interest in me…

I’ll avoid doing that…

Where Do Pelicans Live?

A few months back, when visiting some dear friends at their stunning new home in Stuart, Florida, we had another occasion to coin a phrase; a pejorative one of course.

As we sat sipping cocktails while sitting at a lovely waterfront bar during an afternoon sun shower, we all noticed how rather disgusting pelicans seemed to be relative to other birds, not that all birds are not somewhat disgusting.

While projecting these attributes onto certain people that we know, we collectively coined the phrase “Pelican” to politely allow us to talk about those people, without really talking about them.

So, if you ever hear people referring to pelicans in unusually human terms, I only hope they are not talking about you.

Have you seen this man?

If so, buy him a Captain Morgan and Cranberry!

First Blog

It’s January 2007 and I’m determined to start a Blog. I have been inspired by David Churbuck who seems to keep a very interesting Blog at www.churbuck.com. My Blog will be about life as a single father, trying to write either one of my two novels or about the things I like to do such as boating, travel and so on.