A Major Family Change

Based on growing tension and feelings of being belittled and criticized by one of the biggest hypocrites on the planet, I may now be ending any relationship I have with my father.

In the past 3 years his words have driven away his youngest brother, his oldest son, and now his middle son. All the while he continues to embrace and develop his relationship with Jason Morhaus, the son of his wife and her first husband, who openly calls my father "Dad." So where he has burned bridges with his two biological sins, he has built one with this person. I suppose it's not unfair considering he had his life ruined by getting my mother pregnant with Peter and having to marry her as a result. Apparently he never actually loved her, and since his situation was irreperable, he went ahead and had two more kids with my mother before finally leaving her for another woman.

Sp on New Year's Eve 2006, I look forward to a new life without a father.

Happy New Year!


Evebody hurts - REM

Friday Flashback - Story Videos

Here are three great songs that had concept videos to add a little story line.


Berlin - No More Words


Shadows of the Night


.38 Special If I'd Been The One

ManCard Renewal

My Man Card Renewal is complete with the achievement of today's 2 and a half hour power shopping.

I left the house roughly at noon and hit the mall for about 5 stores and then a local plaza for 4 more, got a full tank of gas, lunch from Taco Bell and was home at 2:30.

I have alwqays operated this way in regards to Christmas shopping. It does not usually include Christmas Eve, but with the work schedule I have maintained recently, leaving me too tired to do anything after my shift, it became a necessity today.

I am happy to report that most everyone I encountered was in good spirits. Lines were not too long, traffic was only snarled due to poor arrangements of patterns in the Target center in Woodstock, and a lot of people responded well to me as I was wearing jeans and a UCF t-shirt topped off with a puffy-banded santa hat and my RayBan shades (kinda Blues Brothers style).

So we'll be off to visit a local church we've never attended, Shiloh HIlls Baptist Church for their 5pm Christmas Eve service and then home for some Chinese food and wrapping gifts and watching movies. Amy will be pleasantly surprised with some of what I came up with for her. Let me simply say a lot of her gifts revolve around her comfort levels.

I Believe in Blueland

Tonight I attended my first professional hockey game. I have never been a fan because it's difficult to follow on TV, especially with the camera trying to keep up with the action and not seeing the whole rink. I enjoyed this live experience very much,

Thrashers 5, Devils 2.

Victory.

Scotch on the Rocks (Scottish bands who make guitars sound like bagpipes!)

Big Country - In A Big Country


Slade - Run Runaway


I really liked Big Country, this song and their follow-up single "Fields of Fire" which you can also find on YouTube. Slade was a flash in the pan in the USA, but the song was fun and I have no idea why the video includes a guy doing the caber toss and the lead singer in close-up playing with his tongue, but enjoy these.

My eyes

My eyes are bugging me. It's been going on for a few weeks where I have to squint to focus even with contacts. Now it's causing headaches which makes me irritable which is not good for work.

News/Talk 750 WSB's Chris Krok takes on a taser

Atlanta radio station News/Talk 750 WSB's nighttime Talk Host, Chris Krok wanted to show you why it's good that police use taser or stun guns to control criminals. He allowed himeslf to be shocked live on the radio Wednesday, June 21, 2006!

Fifteen Years or so Flashback/Flashforward

Debbie Gibson Foolish Beat (live concert)




Debbie Gibson - What You Want



Miss Deborah "Debbie" Gibson broke into the american pop music scene in 1987 with the debut ablum "Out of the Blue." A decade and a half later, she was still trying to make a place in pop music, but her talents have translated better in a career on Broadway starring in such productions as Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Grease, Funny Girl, Cabaret, and Les Miserables. Here's an early one (what cute bangs) and a more recent pop ditty.

Michael W. Smith Christmas Concert

with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

one word..... AWESOME

fav song.... EMANUEL

thing to look for... Michael Olsen new artist on Rocketown Records debut album coming in February.

Friday Flashback - Yeah, it's for charity, but....

Chicago Bears Shuffle


In honor of the pending playoffs and the fact my Culpepper-less Dolphins stopped the Bears 9-0 start this year, we set the Wayback Machine for 1985 and let the hilarity ensue.

Feliz Navidad Y'all

So it's Sunday. Amy worked last night so she came home and crashed after we watched a bit of last night's SNL. I rarely, I mean VERY rarely watch SNL, but the host was Lost's Matthew Fox and the musical guest (big stretch here for that term) was Tenacious D. Really now, can anyone call this music? It's campier than anything even Spinal Tap put out. I got points later in the evening though because I recognized the guy who is not Jack Black as an actor in "Elf."

Amy goes to bed and I stay up to read the paper. All is generally well except for a headache and Lucy being in destruction mode. She decided to steal and destroy the sleeve for Amy's new Season One of Beverly Hills 90210 and the bag and wrappers from my morning trip to Mrs. Winners for some steak biscuits. Of course she does this by waiting til I go to the restroom and then runs out the doggy door to have free reign to run from me in the backyard. She is definitely smart enough to know to do this when she is unattended while you are on the commode, and sometimes there's just not enough time to get her in her kennel before leaving the room.



So after catching and disciplining her, I go upstairs to lay down for a bit as we have until 1:45 or so to be out the door for the event of the day, the Chick-fil-a Roswell Town Center Christmas Party. Really not a party, but just free food and comraderie on the expense of our owner/operator Jim. For some reason Jim chose to hold it at a Mexican restaurant in Alpharetta (about 4 miles north of our store). The food was very good, but I just didn't get the choice of the venue. The cool thing though was a connection for Amy.

We have an employee named Brannon who came with his fiance Melissa. It turns out they met while Brannon worked with BSM at Georgia State University and one of the staffers there (I think this was mid-late 1990's) was someone Amy knows from Union University. She'll have to explain who it was on her blog or in a commenton mine for y'all to find out who it was.

So anyways, we were there til 4:30 and then took a cross-country route home so Amy could see "The Castle," a private residence in Roswell that is built like a miniature castle complete with gnomes on the fence posts acting as sentries. We proceeded north and west finally coming to I-575 in Canton which is about where the hills become mountains.

We made it home stopping at Publix to pick up the postage stamps Amy left there Friday and some sodas and we finished the trip home driving through the neighborhood to see what houses had added Chritmas lights this weekend. I made her the promise we would work on ours on Wednesday so they'll be up before our Christmas party on Sunday.

It seemed the right thing to do, so me made calls to family tonight. We started because my mother called us as we were walking in the door. We then called my brother because Mom told me our nephew Basil had surgery on Friday and we had not heard about it prior to her call. Basil is fine, though like his father and uncles he has had to have tubes placed in his ears. He is just shy of 17 months old and has had two infections already in his short life. It's an outpatient deal now lasting only about 4 hours where it was a much bigger deal back in the 70's.



We also called my father's house and spoke with my step-mother. She too was unaware of the surgery so I think Tim may be in trouble with Dad on this one.

Amy and I settled down to watch "Elf" after viewing a portion of the Casting Crowns concert I recorded from GMC last night (we were at this particular show they taped). So we did not make it to either of the free Christmas concerts we could have gone to tonight (Newsong with Rachel Lampa and Todd Agnew or Natalie Grant) but we had a good time together and now I must get to bed for I have to get up for work in 6 hours.

And Guest Starring.....

This week's Friday Flashback features 80's videos with special guest stars, actors you know from movies and tv helping out their favorite bands, or at least those willing to pay them. Not wanting to overdue it, I selected four favorites. Others not included are Danny Aiello as Madonna's father in the "Papa Don't Preach" video and Chevy Chase in Paul Simon's "Call me Al."



Its tricky - run dmc (featuring comic duo Penn & Teller)


Starship - Sara (featuring Rebecca Demorney)


Bobby McFerrin - Don't Worry Be Happy (featuring Robin Williams and Bill Irwin)


mike and the mechanics - taken in (featuring Richard Belzer)

Belzer also appeared in the video "Can't Cry Anymore" for Kansas (from thier Power CD). That video also featured the USC Marching Trojans Band which had previously appeared in the "Tusk" video for Fleetwood Mac.