Busy?

I must have been really busy to not blog for two whole weeks! Not really. I've found that this has to be a habit..especially when you don't have a fan base for whom to blog. I started writing a pen and paper journal today and I've hit it up twice today. I also plan to use it to record some of my strange dreams. And I go through periods where there are tons of those!

Last night I had a dream about some really dry grass. It was still green, but very brittle. I'm talking about lawn grass, not the mind-altering kind. For some reason, I thought the grass was on holy ground, so I was really mad that it had gone dry. This dream looks strange on the screen, but it's kind of normal in my dream land.

Oh my...I just saw an ad for a new season of Deal or No Deal. I'm a gameshow freak. I love them. I went to the Price is Right in Hollywood for my 30th birthday! I cannot stand Deal or No Deal. What a freakin' waste of time. And Mr. Germophobe Howie Mandell who won't shake hands with anyone...I thought he was annoying on St. Elsewhere back in the 80s....time has not changed him. Except that he has no hair. I used to love Who Wants To Be A Millionaire when Regis Philbin hosted it. He added an edge to it and Meredith Vieira cannot match it. Plus, it's only 30 minutes now where it was an hour with Regis.

I obviously have nothing of importance to talk about today. When I do, I'll be back.

Cars

They are most people's second largest outlay of money. I am car crazy. I even give them names. My current car is Greta. Ask just about anyone who knows me...I'm usually talking about the next new car I'm going to get. But boy, can they drive you crazy! This is what my 7 year old VW Golf looked like on the 4th of July 2006:

Pretty isn't it? Here's the same car, exactly one month later:

It's not much cleaner either!! It's hard to believe that the same problem reared its ugly head one month to the day after it's first manifestation. The problem is with the window regulator clips inside the door. The fine folks at Volkswagen extended the warranty to 7 years to fix this problem...unfortunately, it happened 3 months too late. When this happened, I screamed at the top of my lungs using some expletives and dropping some F-bombs. That's the effect cars have on us.

Maybe I'm a little too particular about cars. When I first got it and for a few years after, I would park far away from other cars. The first time I got a rock chip, I ran to the dealership to by touch up paint specific to my car. A month or two after buying my car, I drove up to Pennsylvania for a wedding the same year the locusts came out. My poor car was bombarded with locust carcasses and a spot remains to this day. It was like my child had been injured and permanently scarred. I got very angry when a co-worker told me my then new car reminded her of a Dodge Omni she once owned! During her first scheduled maintenance, I had the service guy look at the windshield because it seemed a little wavy to me. Almost all windshields are like this. I wouldn't even pass gas in Greta. I had her valet parked one time at a hotel in Pittsburgh. When she came back, the driver's side mirror had swiped another car...a white one. I called hotel security to have it investigated. Yeah, I'm that crazy. I feel like I'm being unfaithful if I go to a car lot to check out what's new. And sometimes my car will be hard to start right after that.

Maybe this obsessiveness about my car has allowed it to remain in good condition for so long. But really, if you look at it, a car is just metal, rubber, plastic, foam and fluids all put together in a package that keep you relatively safe while travelling at speeds humans never thought they'd attain while still on the ground. We put total trust into these things, carrying precious cargo daily. They don't have a soul, yet it kills the soul when something bad happens to them. I have a strong emotional bond with Greta and the day I trade her in will be very sad. I'll feel like I've betrayed her. I don't get mad at my house when I have to get a plumber or a repairman. Car repairs have a totally different impact on me. I'll pace the waiting room at the service department anxiously awaiting word...like a parent or spouse or other family member would do while waiting for their loved one to come out of surgery. Or if I do leave her there, I'll constantly check my phone for missed calls or voice mails just dying to know what's wrong.

Are there others out there like this? I hope so. If not, maybe I need some help. So boys and girls, keep your autos maintained well and remember to give them words of encouragement when times get tough. They'll love you in return.

Breakfast Buffet

So....

I'm killing a little time before work, and I'm hungry, so I go to Shoney's for their breakfast buffet. You can hardly go wrong with eggs, hash browns, gravy, biscuits, bacon and a bunch of other yummy breakfast goodies. Breakfast happens to be my favorite meal of the day. I'd probably pick a good hearty breakfast over lobster. It would be close but I think breakfast would win. So I walk in, get to my table, order the buffet and coffee and get up to get my breakfast. I go to the stack of plates which I note are much smaller than they used to be and now they are some sort of plastic instead of the fine china they were previously cast from. I start scooping some eggs onto my fine plastic plate when I see a girl I was in high school with. We weren't really close but she was close to a friend that was close to me...so there was some related closeness there. Anyway, she invites me to her table where her husband, her two children and her mother are sitting. I get the rest of my breakfast feast and go to their table and start eating and conversating.

Now the youngest child, 3 months old, is in her dad's arm while he is trying to eat. She gets a little fussy so dad passes her along to mom. This is about 20 minutes into our meal. I figure "she must know how to calm her down" or "I bet he wants to eat the rest of his breakfast so he gives the crying kid over to mom." Well, the next thing I know, my friend lifts up her blouse-shirt thing and discretely places her child's mouth onto her right bosom!! Let me insert a disclaimer here. I FULLY SUPPORT BREAST FEEDING AND DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IT WHEN IT IS DONE DISCRETELY IN PUBLIC!!! That being said, I was not prepared for it and for a few moments I was in shock. I found it difficult to maintain eye contact, partly because I was afraid that if my eyes wandered, I'd be perceived as a pervert, but then I started thinking that if I didn't make eye contact while talking, it would be rude and she may take her child away from her little breakfast buffet. I mean we were having ours, she certainly had a right to hers. I've been around breast feeding before, but I usually knew what was going on and would turn my head or leave the room at the start or finish just to make the mother more comfortable and more at ease. Well, baby ate at her buffet for a good while and I eventually became at ease and the subject never came up. We all finished eating, including baby and they were off to doctor's appointments and I had to go to work. It was a great breakfast and I was really glad to be able to spend it with old friends.

When I decided to blog this experience, I googled La Leche League so that I could insert their logo into the blog. Well, while I was there, I discovered that this week is WORLD BREASTFEEDING WEEK!!! How neat is that?? So, the moral of this story is, we all gotta eat, whether its from the Shoney's buffet or the b.o.m.b (buffet of mom's bosom). It's all natural and all good. I'd much rather see a baby at the breast than one with a bottle of formula. Just one suggestion...let folks around you know that you are perfectly comfortable feeding your child in front of them and that you hope they are not uncomfortable and if they'd like to turn their head while you start and stop, that would be just fine!! So here's a shoutout to the league:

http://www.lalecheleague.org

picture it

The following is an experiment. One of the first local blogs I've seen is that of Rick Lee. You can see it @ http://rickleephoto.blogspot.com/ He's bills himself as a commercial photographer and from what I've seen on his blog, he's very, very good. In the summer of 2005, I bought a digital camera that I'd been salivating over for more than a year. It's a Canon Digital EOS Rebel 6.1 megapixel beauty. I've yet to discover all that it can do, but even in it's most generic mode, it takes awesome pictures. I'd love to learn more about it and I bought a book, but books and I don't get along, especially if I'm the least bit sleepy. In this blog, I'm going to share with you a few of what I consider my personal best, and they'll be chronological, from the time I purchased the camera up to the spring. Again, I may border on putting you, the viewer to sleep, but hopefully you'll get something out of my pictures. So, here we go....

This was taken in Wilmington, North Carolina in June of 2005. I really like the lighting and the clouds and setting sun give a heaven-like appearance.

This is what I call "luck o' the Irish" I was fortunate enough to capture a rainbow my first hour or so in the city of Dublin. Awesome!!

This is not King's Island....it's the real deal and another lucky shot! The night sky was awesome...crisp and clear.

From one great city beginning with a P to another. Now we're in Pittsburgh, PA at Point State Park. The fountain, fed by an underground fourth river, is located at the convergence of the Monongahela and the Allegheny rivers forming the Ohio River.

I think this is enough for now. I've posted a lot more on flickr, a great photo hosting and sharing site. If you'd like to see more of my photographs, visit www.flickr.com/photos/jeghiz

Until the next blog......peace.

Random acts of blogness

Way back in the early days of the internet, I had a blog. I didn't call it a blog. Blog wasn't even a word then. I called it a journal. In my journal...uh..blog...I posted a description and commentary on every flying lesson I took. I had a blast doing it and made friends from all over the world who had somehow found out about my journablog. So here I am again...this is my first post and I really don't have a lot to say. I know myspace is the big thing now and maybe I'll do that later. For now, I'll tell you about myself. Maybe it'll interest somebody...maybe it won't.

I'm 33 years old and have spent the last almost ten years of my life working for the United States Postal Service. I'm a supervisor for a computerized mail processing operation. It wasn't the work I dreamed of doing when I was playing in the sandbox, but it's a good job and a great company to work for and a big bunch of people who are like family to me. And we all know that family isn't always "The Brady Bunch!" When I'm not doing my paid work, I can be found taking pictures of something, or playing some sort of musical instrument. I've recently found handbells http://www.agehr.org to be my new favorite type of music to perform. By the way, that's my first hyperlink. Is hyperlink still a good term? It was in my first journablog.

Ok, I'm boring myself so I'm probably boring some reader out there who is getting ready to google something.

When I figure out how to make this a photoblog, I plan on doing a lot of that. For now, happy 1st of August and if you're so inclined, let me know what you'd like me to blog about. You, the content-hungry huddled masses yearning to eat from the buffet of yummy blogs. Ok..that's enough. Until the next time....peace!