Texas City Names

I guess we name our cities after the things we are familiar with

Sun City, Texas 78628

Sunrise, Texas 76661

Sunset, Texas 76270

Sundown, Texas 79372

Sunray, Texas 79086

Sunny Side, Texas 77423

Monday's Missives

• Recently (today is 02/08/2016) I had determined to buy a particular piece of outdoor equipment that listed for 120 bucks. As I was about to log onto my REI account to order it I took note of a similar product that was 30 dollars. It wasn't my favorite color (read- it didn't look as cool as the first product) and lacked a feature or 2 the other had but it was one fourth the cost and would do the job 93-98% as well as the more expensive product. It had me buffaloed. I still have not ordered either.
• Update (02/16/2016) so I went back to look at the object of my consternation. The 30 dollar one was no longer listed- at all. Assuming it was sold out but wanting to think the purchase over I went back later to reconsider the more expensive product. What was the first thing I saw? The 30 dollar product was then listed for 69.95...
• A person we knew as aunt when I was a kid has died. She was one of the few remaining links to my childhood. Her name was Daisy. I called her Daisy Duke or Daisy Waisy which made her laugh. When I visited her a few years ago in a hospital and then later a nursing home she would tell staff I was her boyfriend. She was hilarious and awesome. Road trips to her house in East Texas were a big deal when I was a kid and came as often as not from me and my sister wearing our parents down with begging to go as being their idea. In the yard of my ancestral home there are still multiple 20 foot tall evergreen trees my mom mucked from East Texas and carried back to Decatur in Coors cans that had the tops cut off by my dad.
• Someone I know is being asked to be involved in a wrongful termination/whistleblower lawsuit. Said someone has asked my opinion. My well reasoned and articulate response was, Avoid that like the plague. She is going down and wants to take you with her. She wasn't smart enough to consider the consequences for herself when she got fired and doesn't care at all what this would do to you.
• Trust me; I'm almost a lawyer.
• Recently I met somebody whose husband died 8 years after an IED blast near his head caused him to start having severe seizures. He had 5 children.
• Occasionally I still have a dream where I am suddenly transported to my Humvee in Iraq. It is dark except for the ghostly glow of the dash lights. As I look over at Blake my driver I know he is going to die. He looks ghastly. Every time I glance back at him he decays a bit more. He asks me for a dip and I oblige by handing off my can of Copenhagen. There ain't enough for both of us sarge! he says. I'm good man, save enough to freshen up my dip and I'll be good. I reply. He hands the can back to me and without saying a word he smiles through shattered and missing teeth. His face is shredded. I take a dip to add to that already in my mouth. It tastes good but also oddly salty with a bit of dirt flavor. I glance back over and see him starting to slightly slump to the side. I know I am killing him by trying to savor this moment. While looking down to my map (which I can't really see) the Humvee whines and kicks as it shifts. The terrain to my right looks like the surface of the moon as moonlight lights the desert floor. Tears start streaming down my face. I don't want this moment to ever end. I don't want this moment to go on another second.
• Then I awaken.

Spark In The Park After Action Report or A Weatherford America Story

• There were too many people engrossed in their phones. Really- it was sad. There were a few teens walking around trying too hard to not look enthralled with the fireworks. They wanted to look too cool to be impressed.
• It was a thrill to see Tommy Alverson but Charlie Robison stole the show- he was great and his guitar player is awesome. He played Star Spangled Banner a la Hedrix (except better). It was the first time I ever heard it played live on a guitar.
• My kids got up on the stage with some others and sang Hey Soul Sister with Sunshine Emery. It did my heart good.
• There were a lot of new babies there.
• Omigosh it was hot and so humid!
• Sheps Place had a food truck there. I have only eaten there once. It was OK- not great but pretty OK.
• Tommy Alverson worked for Miller before becoming a full time musician.
• Maybe they have better things to spend there money on but the crews and performers RVs I saw were old, raggedy looking things.
• I spent a fortune on bottled water which was thankfully only 1.50 a bottle. Cities should formulate a cap for how much is charged at venues- I have seen bottled water at other places priced at 4 or even 5 dollars a bottle.
• So. Wrong.
• Tommy said of Craig Swancy, I always told him if he sold enough amps and guitars he would make something of himself. I didn't know he was going to become a politician.
• Craig is the mayor of Weatherford and owner of a legendary music store here..
• During the finale they played John Wayne (I think) speaking the pledge of allegiance.
• Sometimes I feel like you have to pick moments to hold on to as some day they will be all you have. Last night was one of them. I intend to never forget that nearly perfect time and have a feeling my children will long remember the experience we had July 4th, 2016.

Monday's Missives

• Uh, the attempted murder of a civilian by a US soldier. I was the principal witness and first to report it. A response I cautiously use in mixed company as an answer to questions such as, What was the weirdest/wildest/saddest/scariest etc. thing you saw in Iraq?
• Yes, polite dinner conversation comes to a screeching halt.
• Strictly speaking it involved a discharge of a weapon multiple times into the cab of a vehicle unnecessarily, without provocation and without regard for whether the person inside was killed or wounded. The shooter was wanting to gitsum so he set the shooting up to have plausible deniability- he just didn't know there was a witness.
• Lasers have gone from huge (and hugely expensive) research objects to cheap key chain curiosities in my lifetime.
• I think I'm going to get braces for my teeth.
• "How many women have you ever kissed?" A question asked of my friend recently by a woman he's dating.
• They're in their forties.
• I have intentionally left out for the most part political talk on this blog. When I realized that political thought is a part of me and I should put those thoughts here so people could get to know me and I could look back on those thoughts later I determined to write more about my political thoughts. To make up for lost time and as a bit of a goof I thought it might be interesting to write every day or every few days for a month on the same post and then publish it later. I tried it. It looked like a psychotic rant- if I accidentally died in a car wreck and caused some kind of conflagration the news would have called it a, "rambling manifesto" and ask, Why did he try to take as many people out with him as he could when he killed himself...
• My nursing buddy won't hardly look at me much less speak to me. The reason why is yesterday (04252013) we got into a screaming and cursing match when she was wrong and wouldn't turn loose of something and topped it off by basically saying I was lying and remembered something incorrectly. She also did these things very publicly trying to make a fool of me. 
• The short answer is- I let her get under my skin.
• Win an argument-  lose a friend.
  

  

  Zac's first selfie.

  
  
  
  
  

  

  These acorns came from a tree I know was planted the same year or a year or two prior to my moving to Weatherford.

  
  

  

  Leaves of three, fill your pockets with me... No, wait that can't be right. Leaves of three, won't hurt thee...

  
  

  

  Found in the woods near Sunshine Lake. It is either a hide for an animal trap or the hut  of the remnants of a tribe of very tiny native Americans.

  
  

  

  Mmm dakn gobble gorfin! var ernge? Translation: Dad this orange is  good! Can I have another?

  
  

  

  Here, have some cleavage. Just don't tell friend-girl I showed it to you. I pronounce it in the manner of the French-  Cleh-vahge.

  
  

  

  What is that!? Friend-girls reaction to seeing this plant.

  
  

  

  Retarded vandalism.

  
  

  

  Somebody either left Sunshine Lake with less clothes than they came out with or they drowned.

  
  
  
  

Chicken Wash?

Hen an apparent escapee from the Weatherford First Monday flea market across the street from this automatic car wash.

I Love You Funky Town

"FORT WORTH, Texas - A 20-year-old woman faces an aggravated assault charge after she bit her boyfriend, broke a picture frame across his face and swung at him with a sword during an argument about him not doing the dishes, police said."

First paragraph of an AP story on MSNBC.