Killjoy Battles

“Oh, that clock! Old killjoy. I hear you. Come on, get up, you say, Time to start another day. Even he orders me around. Well, there’s one thing. They can’t order me to stop dreaming.”~Cinderella

The Killjoy. Everyone knows one. Everyone has them cross their paths once in their life.

Sad to say that I have them in droves. Inside my social circles and family. It drives me insane to the point where I come here to WordPress and blog about it late at night.

In a recent blog post, I talked about the end of the sledge hockey season for the Austin Blades. And the great possibility that the team has to join the Houston team throughout the summer so as not to get rusty over the hot months.

Earlier this evening, GOOD NEWS came from the Houston team as they were able to pinpoint where the USA Hockey Disabled Festival for 2014 will be held.

The 2014 tournament will be held in Marlborough, Massachusetts just outside of Boston. It was a bit disappointing as I had hoped that it would be held in Florida. I was hoping to meet a colleague there. But instead, I have the opportunity to meet YouTube personality, AskCarrieLee. (And maybe Michael Buckley from WHATTHEBUCKSHOW, if I asked nicely.)

I found both of them online probably six or seven years ago, and I’ve been able to establish a personal friendship with them both in one degree or another. So I think that it would be great to meet them in person as well as show them this magnificent adaptive sport.

Nevertheless, the excitement and joy rushed over me like a tidal wave. And I began to contact people who follow my sledge hockey career here locally. Friends and family both, I began to tell them that we just found out where the next tournament will be at.

Apparently I need to enunciate better over the telephone. “Boston” sounded like “Austin” to some of them. Oops!!

I have a full year to prepare and save and do what I need to do to fund raise in order to be able to participate. I really hope that I can, it being the tenth annual tournament.

But all I ran into was a bunch of killjoys. People just crushing my excitement, joy, and enthusiasm.

I sat there getting lectured about how expensive it is to travel to this tournament. And this was something I am already aware of. I received more lectures of the fact that I would fail in earning enough money to go, if I attempted this on my own as well as there’s nobody around here locally that could help.

Where do these people get the guts to say stuff like this to me?? Most importantly, why am I just sitting there listening to this garbage???

It occurred to me that these kinds of people are the exact types of people that I honestly don’t need to be associating with. All they do is troll my life, my joy, and my excitement. Looking for a way to knock me down out of the stars when I have gone shooting up in the air for them. 

There’s no law that says that you have to listen to these depressing and negative people. You can walk away from them. And most likely, you probably should. If all that they do is bring you down when you are up, then the influence of these people are not necessary and they will hold you down and not allow you to succeed in anything….. if you let them!

So yet again, I am swinging the blade to cut and sever these kinds of people from my life. Those who have been nothing but negative, must go!!! They should all know that sledge hockey is very important to me. It is something that I excel in as well as enjoy doing. And for them to try and cut me down and say that I shouldn’t do it or cannot do it? Its uncalled for and so yet again, I edit those who have any influence with me at all.

To support and love me is to support my dream in this adaptive sport. If you’re not on Team Dambreaker, then you don’t need to be anywhere near me and involved in my personal life.

 

 

National Honesty Day

Really? I mean, really???

The last day of April is evidently National Honesty Day. Does anyone know how or why this became a holiday and how it is national??

How does anyone celebrate National Honesty Day?

You cannot force people to be honest with you. Especially if you are the kind of person who isn’t honest with themselves.

Who comes up with these insane ideas? This holiday is about as worthless as Talk Like A Pirate Day. Some people will actually talk like a pirate but it doesn’t last long at all.  How do you celebrate being honest?

Is cake involved? Are we supposed to throw a party or go out to a restaurant to eat? And then the following day after today is May Day. Does anyone know how that holiday is celebrated??

I keep referring to a poster that I had hanging on my wall as a teenager: JUST IN CASE YOU NEED AN EXCUSE TO PARTY!!

But #1- it was a joke. #2- It actually was more of an educational tool as it explained how certain people were born on that day or if something that we all know and use today was invented. And even some funny facts about our nation’s history. #3- IT WAS A JOKE!

Holidays are usually made to commemorate certain things and people. We celebrate our parents, our families, our birthdays, our anniversaries, our most important events in our history. We even have our own personal events in our lives that we reflect upon when the “anniversary” of the event arrives. But nobody goes out of their way to attempt to make it a national holiday!!

National holidays usually are not set aside for a specific personal attribute.

National Honesty Day shouldn’t be a holiday.

It is ridiculous. Honestly it is.

How Is The News Decided?

“If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly.”~ Thomas Sowell

So apparently, WordPress wants to go ahead and post a blog post that has nothing in it. Sorry about that. I will continue to “edit” and keep writing.

Most recently in the news, NBA player Jason Collins has come out of the closet to announce that he is gay. He is the first openly gay athlete in any major American team sports.

I am sure that for Collins, it is a wonderful thing. The homosexual community is out in droves celebrating him and his decision to be public about it.

Here is my question: Why is this news???

There are millions of men and women who are homosexuals. Many of them become public with their sexual orientation each and every day. And most of us never hear about it.

So then why Jason Collins? Just because he plays in the NBA??

I can only imagine that Collins struggled with his decision to come public with this. But I do not understand why in the world this has to be front page news and a topic for discussion for a time to come.

What about the guy down the street who owns the gas station who came out publicly about five months ago? Where’s the press on that with him?

The fact of the matter is that there are so many other men and women who are homosexuals and whether or not they decide to become public about it… we don’t hear about it in the news every time someone decides to be public about it.

I can almost bet that there are other people who are homosexuals, and the general worldwide public doesn’t even realize it. Not everyone who is gay, will come out. It is a matter of choice. Collins made the choice to come out publicly. And that most likely took courage and strength. Kudos to him for having that strength and courage.

My point is that what Jason Collins does in his personal life… is private. And it should be private. Whether he wants to tell his family or relatives or friends that he is gay is his own choice. The media and news should NOT be so damned involved in it as they have been lately! My own personal life and the life of millions will not continue on lacking anything if we do or do not know about it.

But if Jason Collins WANTED the media to know about it, again, that is HIS choice. I just think that the media is just taking on too much of an interest in this particular case. If he wanted the media to know, then report it and move on to the important topics of the day that surround us. Someone’s sexual orientation is hardly breaking news. But I wish Jason Collins well in his sports career and hope that he finds his happiness that he was seeking.

Returning Fire From The Corner

“Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.”~  Carl Sagan

In local news this evening, a story was broadcast about a bus driver who dropped off a 9 year old child at the wrong bus stop.

The child was unharmed. But it naturally and understandably unnerved the parents. Now the mother is calling for that driver to be fired from his job.

The local network posted this story on Facebook and asked for opinions of whether or not the people agree or disagree with the mother’s ranting about how the bus driver should be terminated from his job. And it just got worse from there by the mother.

From time to time I do like to weigh in and participate and tonight I did with two words — Mistakes happen.

Before I knew it, up to about 10 or 11 people had hit that “LIKE” button to my brief comment and opinion. At last peek, there was 24 and probably still the count rises. So I assume that meant that these people agreed with me.

So I had moved on. No more than an hour later, I received a notification that someone replied to my comment. And shortly after that, I had no less than three messages in my inbox on Facebook. ALL of them, were from people who disagreed with my comment that I had left on the issue.

However they all went as far as to say things like I am stupid. I am insensitive. I lack the ability to care for children. And so on.

And that can’t be true. After all, if I lack the ability to care for children… then I don’t think that my sister would entrust me with her children as she goes to work every Saturday.

The only thing that these responders got right was the fact that no, I am NOT actually a parent. However, I am an uncle. And for the niece and nephew that I often sometimes watch as my sister goes to work, it is the closest thing that they’ve got to a father or another parent since their father, my brother-in-law, passed away last year.

Most of these people who had the guts to send me any kind of correspondence like that said something along the lines that they wished I would die. And the day that I did die, it would clear out the spoiled gene pool.

Pretty courageous of them. Pretty rude of them as well.

My short but brief comment had a point. And I was really trying to give the benefit of the doubt to the bus driver. The fact that so many others were screaming that they agreed with this mother and that basically this driver’s head should be severed and put on a stake was actually overwhelming. But the thing is, is that none of us who were leaving their comments and opinions were actually there when it happened. So we honestly cannot say one way or another to what happened during this unfortunate situation.

As I stood there with my back in a corner, I fired back in my retort that knocked the wind out of my assailant’s sails and put the fire back in her own camp.

Could I have defended myself? Of course. And I did. Could I have fired back with as much venom as these people had given to me? Sure, but that’s not what I did. Instead, I rather took upon the lessons that my own dear mother taught me when I was young whenever someone would pick on me in school or come after me with such violent intent.

One woman said in her response about the gene pool being cleaned out of horrible people once I were to die. Taking the advice of my own mother from many years ago actually took the wind out of this woman’s sails and then others who had noticed the exchange focused their barbs on the woman… telling her that she just got owned. I mean after all, there was not another thing that the woman could say to me in response. NOTHING!

Again, my retort to her was short and sweet in a different pair of words: Thank you.

I did have a momentary relapse to consider that there just might be a few people who would disagree. And as I said, many people were taking this story so freakin’ serious as if it had happened to them personally, when the reality was that it did not. It is as if someone makes a mistake or does someone else wrong that the person who was wronged is just allowed to fly off of the handle and then they decide to just kill everything with fire. The mother wasn’t there in this case, so how can she rationalize such a decision to attempt the termination of this bus driver????

The last time that I checked, I still lived in the United States of America…. where there is a freedom to express your own opinion. And there is that freedom to disagree with me if you feel the need. As well as the freedom to express how your own opinion differs from mine.

But wishing someone to die goes far beyond extreme. People often don’t understand, realize, or forget that even on the Internet to wish someone harm or death can be criminal, should someone wish to take it that far to bring criminal charges of being a threat by the use of terrorism. Especially if they tell you that they intend on making it happen. And that did happen in the privacy of messages sent to me in the inbox on Facebook.

This will not deter me though. I’ve received so many death wishes/threats in the past 12-18 months from random strangers that it doesn’t bother or phase me as much as it used to.

So we can go on with life now. We are very capable of expressing our opinions when we feel the desire to speak up. But we must never forget that there will be those who disagree, and it can feel like stepping on a land mine.

I will not allow this to stop me. As well it shouldn’t.

 

2012-13 Season Ending

This past Saturday, was the ending to the 2012-13 sledge hockey season. The team got together and went bowling and had an awards ceremony. I was not there, but this is the award I received.

It was very unfortunate that this passing season I had not been able to get much time to be on the ice and participate with the team. But I did what I could.

Between getting sick, being in the hospital again, and wiped out from babysitting my niece… it just added up to short season for me.

Nevertheless I am hopeful for this coming summer. Even though we won’t have ice time locally, we have been invited to join our brothers and sisters in Houston.

As a matter of fact, in about two weekends from now the Blades will be going to Houston to participate in a few scrimmages with the team in Houston. They are being kind enough to put us up in a rather nice hotel and even giving us the opportunity to socialize and join in fellowship at a Houston Astros baseball game on Saturday evening.

All three days: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we will have the chance to still do our thing even after the official Blades season closer. And I think that is going to be such a fun and awesome time. If you are in the Houston area or are going to be then we will be playing the second weekend of May.

There’s also talk among the more prolific players of the Blades to put together a Bowl-a-thon soon. Hoping to make it into a fund raiser where the team will bowl and collect donations at a few pennies per pin that was played. I have done something like that before. And even though bowling is not really an interest of mine, this really sounds like a fun event. So to some of you who know me and follow my hockey career closely: Save your pennies for me!!

Of course I think it would be hilarious if we had someone donate $1 per pin and then find ourselves a ringer. But that’s just me. I don’t like bowling too much and I think that my best game was something like 160-170. But that was over a decade ago.

Ice time may be done for us here locally. But I think that if we can get to Houston at least once or twice a month during the summer months then we will be in terrific shape for the next season.

I only hope that some of the other team members can continue to come up with excellent ideas for fund raising like this. Bake sales are great, but good grief it takes a lot more than people can imagine. This is new and exciting for the team.

 

 

Photo Frenzy

This one photograph caused quite the frenzy the other day on Facebook.

One early morning a few days ago, I saw this posted from one of those random Facebook fan pages. And I went ahead and clicked on the “share” button. And so it was posted onto my own personal Facebook profile.

Then moments later, I left home to go into the community room to get some coffee. I drank the coffee at the table (because the rule of “no food/drink” still exists and someone has to obey it, even if the other neighbors will not!!) and then I jumped online on one of the computers there.

When I signed back into Facebook, it was like hell was starting to break loose over this one image.

I found the photograph amusing because the woman was out in the the cold and snow and ice. However, many people were up in arms about it for the simple fact that the model was naked.

Let’s face it. My monitor at home isn’t the best, and I honestly had not recognized the fact that she was naked.

There’s nothing in the photograph that would expose any genitalia. And she is wearing something on her legs. Does that make it naked?

One person accused me of posting pornography on Facebook. Another person questioned my ethics. And even another person was threatening to have me reported for posting inappropriate images.

I believe that if I would have been able to see that clearly she was exposed in her “bikini regions” that I most likely would not have posted it. But even if I deleted the photograph, the damage apparently was done.

One person even sent a message to my Facebook inbox stating that she didn’t like my post and she wanted me to delete it. But when she wasn’t specific and I asked her to elaborate, it came to this photograph. I could tell that she was just overwhelmed with disgust.

Rather than deleting the photograph at that time, I removed her from my friends list. She had only been there for about two days and in my opinion …. wasn’t all that social with me.

I don’t make a habit of going so far as to posting something on Facebook that I know is against their rules and terms. And I know that I am not the worst offender as I have seen other posts that are far worse than this one.

I didn’t make any comments about it at all. I didn’t say anything about how hot the model was or whatever. I just simply clicked on the “share” button.

But no. Since I did something “different” then I guess that means I am one of the worst people on the planet. And that I need to be shipped off to Alcatraz or Australia.

Every one of us has different interests, tastes, and likes. We’re not all the same. What is “pornographic” to some is art to others. And I am not going to start a debate of whether or not this is art or porn or whatever, but like I said I liked the contrast and it was amusing to view it and think that she must be freezing with standing out in the snow like that. But then obviously finding out that its just a scene that was created to look like she was outside in a winter wonderland.

Once again proving that you simply are just not capable of pleasing all of the people all of the time.

Good grief!!!

 

 

Downsizing My Joy

“I remember, my mom didn’t have any help, so if she needed to be somewhere after school, we’d just go down to the neighbors’ and she’d give us a snack and make sure we did our homework. There weren’t any latchkey kids.” ~ Jennifer Garner

It has been tough lately for me. Things went wrong and now I’m stuck in suffering to try and make it through from day to day.

However last Friday, a friend and colleague had come to my rescue without even realizing it. She had gone to buy groceries and actually kept me in mind.

She probably didn’t spend more than $10 on food, but it wasn’t about how much money, but rather the compassionate heart that she had for me and came for me in my unknowing time of need.

Included in the bounty of food were two boxes of Little Debbie Snack cakes. She bought me Honey Buns. At the printed on package price of $1.79 … it was probably the most expensive item that she bought.

But it got me thinking about the decline of Little Debbie products. Two boxes had to be bought in order to have a full dozen.

As a child, I remember seeing Little Debbie snacks and back then one box would actually contain a full dozen, or at the very least have ten in a box.

What in the world is going on? Why of all reasons did they reduce the total amount of products in a box?

I understand that times have changed since I was a kid. I mean after all, a full dozen of some snack was selling for only 99¢ and now they are selling for just under two dollars.

But why jump the price and REDUCE the quantity?

I’d love to go over to Little Debbie HQ and let them have it!! Honestly, I would.

Anyone else annoyed by this or am I just rambling on a Sunday afternoon… knowing that I must do whatever it takes to make it to the end of the week??

 

Explosion Moment #01

“Life is hard. People can be cruel. Trust is easily broken. We all make bad choices in our lives… But for crying out loud- life never was meant to be easy. People are always going to be different. And just because you trusted and got burned doesn’t mean EVERYONE will burn you. And you have the free will to change your choices, if one proves to be wrong. Quit living your existence in your aquarium full of your own tears. Learn the lessons given to you. And free yourself from your enslavement!”

Captain Red Pen

This morning I found myself involved in reading an article online that was talking about a specific interest of mine that dealt with a few people that I know by name.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I know these people personally, but I have traded correspondence with them in many different times.

And as I was sitting there happily with the opportunity to learn more about these people, the flow of the article had a hiccup as I noticed a typo.

Then it happened again. Another typo. And then another. Then another. Then another.

Five, six, even seven times that I recall with these grammatical errors that kept happening.

It obviously wasn’t just a simple typo. Apparently the conjugation of the word “debut” was tripping the author up pretty bad.

Or at least it was tripping me up from being able to read it with comfort and pleasure.

And I understand that everyone on the planet is going to slip and have some kind of error once in a while. Some more frequently than others.

The joy suddenly was gone. It had vanished. The thought of getting to know someone by this article was washed over by the insurmountable number of writing errors. Like I said, it wasn’t a typo… like typing the wrong key on the keyboard next to the appropriate one by mistake. This was horrible grammar and bad language skills.

It was then that I thought about introducing an alter ego.

CAPTAIN RED PEN

Able to catch and mark errors in a single stroke!!!!

Although I am pretty sure that Captain Red Pen would not be a beloved character for any comic or book or story. As a matter of fact, I kind of believe that Captain Red Pen would be somewhat hated and loathed. Hated by those who suffer under the indictment of the American education system and/or their lack of simply trying during their education. 

A mistake is one thing. A full article of them is another. And it just takes away from the message that the author was trying to put across to their readers and makes them shake their head thinking about things other than what they were just reading about.

But how do you feel about it? Do you find it helpful or just annoying when people come to you and point out a mistake that you made?

I am kind of on the fence about it. I get really frustrated when things like the events of this morning happen. But then again if I was to be writing on something that was really important, I would want to know if there was something that was needing correction.

One thing is for sure about me, reading the constant error of the word “DEFINATELY” really just sets fires to my bushes!!!

D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y

Not definately. And not defianetly.

So I may just mull around the idea of Captain Red Pen coming to life. I’m sure that we’ve all had a moment or two in life where we really wanted our own red pens to come to the surface. Some of us has had the courage to use it, others have not.

What do you think? Tell me in the comments below.

 

 

 

Administrative Professionals Day?

“When things haven’t gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention.” U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson

Happy Secretary’s Day!

But wait, its Administrative Professionals Day? What the heck?!? What’s the difference?

The difference is that there’s more to say than the word secretary.

The gorilla shaped idiots who thought of political correctness said that it is better and more legal to say administrative professional than secretary.

I think that political correctness is the biggest joke since the time that people have been inquiring as to why the chicken crossed the road.

The English language was just fine without political correctness!!! Granted there may or may not have been a few terms that would threaten a person’s individuality by offending their gender or whatever, but secretary is not a word that is offensive at all!

How in the world is the word library offensive? Now its an educational resource center. GIMME A BREAK!!! We already know that the resources inside of a library are educational.

Even in my own world, other people believe that it is better to use different terms rather than use the term physically handicapped. I am NOT “differently abled”!!!!!!!

So you see the only thing that political correctness does, is make you have to say more words to describe something that had a perfectly good definition in the first place that could be defined in a word.

But still no matter what they call them, today is the day to celebrate those who help out all day long in the work place.

If you want to a see a list of ridiculous changes by the politically correct movement, it can be found in the link below. As well as a few humorous examples between the sexes.

http://www.bored.com/pcphrases/