Canopyflyer

I was getting ready to leave my girlfriend’s apartment. We had gone out for a walk and ended up having dinner. It wasn’t a formal date or anything, we had been together, officially, for nearly 6 months by that point.

We hugged and just kept hugging. Not petting or getting frisky, just holding each other and enjoying each other’s company for the final few moments of the evening.

It just came out, I said “I love you.”

She tensed and was silent for what felt forever. Long enough to start thinking I just either ended our relationship, or caused serious damage.

Just when I was about to disengage from her, she relaxed looked up and gave me a very very nice kiss and said; “I love you too.”

At the time I lived nearly 20 miles away from her and I do not remember the drive at all.

That was 21 years ago. We have two teenage boys now and happier now than we were back then.

In case someone wonders why I didn’t stay with her that night, it was a weeknight. We both had work the next day and she had an earlier morning than usual. The following weekend we spent the whole time together.

All of these movies my family sits down and watches at least once a year:

Harry Potter series… All of them.

LoTR/ Hobbit… All of them.

Paul

Strictly Ballroom

Princess Bride

Music Man 1962 version

Court Jester 1955 with Danny Kaye

In a surprise announcement the German airline Air Lingus announced they are merging with Connie Kalitta’s freight line Kalitta Air.

The new passenger/ freight line’s new name is:

Connie Lingus

The new airline’s tag line? “We go out of our way to lick the competition.”

Bacon

Bacon and eggs

Bacon and pancakes

Bacon and French Toast

Bacon and waffles

Bacon and toast

Bacon and Omelette (especially if the omelette has bacon in it.)

Bacon and Bacon

If I had been a member of Monty Python, we would be calling email spam… Bacon today.

This goes back over 30 years. Was at a bar with friends after our volleyball league. The bar had two levels, with the second basically a large balcony that over looked the lower floor. We were on the upper level and arranged where I could easily see the tables on the first floor.

A couple caught my attention, as I was people watching and it looked like there was some tension between the two. The woman got up to go the restroom, just as their drinks were being delivered. As soon as she was out of sight the guy put something in her drink. I immediately got up and headed for the restrooms and waited for her to come out. Fortunately, the restrooms were out of direct site of their table.

When she came out I approached her and of course I received the standard; “I have a boyfriend.” I told her I didn’t care about that, but that I witnessed her “boyfriend” putting something in her drink. Then handed her $10 to buy a replacement on me and told her she needed to buy a new drink and not let it out of her sight and that I would not approach her again. I went back to my table.

About 10 minutes later she showed up at my table, handed me my $10 back and told me I probably saved her life. The guy she was with was a new boyfriend and she had been getting bad vibes about him. She pretended to take a sip of her drink, then handed it to her “boyfriend” for him to try it as it was “sooo goood.” He flew into a rage, the got into an argument and he left her at the bar. He was driving. I offered her a ride home. No, I didn’t stay with her, two other people were riding with me that I also had to take home.

She and I did become good friends. She asked me out and we dated a few times, but it was pretty obvious to both of us that it would never work. We stayed friends though and she did meet her husband in my friend group. They got married had a couple of kids, whom I was an official Uncle to. Both their kids are now married and have their own kids (yes, I’m old).

The old “boyfriend” never showed his face again. So I have no idea what happened to him, if anything.

I’ve not had any side effects from gaba, so haven’t explored alternatives.

I did have the steroid shot procedure, but it had zero effect. Day to day my condition is manageable, I just won’t be skydiving any longer. One hard opening and it could make my situation a lot worse and yes I am a former skydiver. So that’s not really a joke.

Never do anything permanent to my body, unless it is medically necessary.

People come in and out of life… Let them.

Do not date at work.

Under absolutely no circumstance do I mess with people in relationships.

Friends that are dating:
If they break up and I’m interested in her… I give one month per year of time, one month minimum, before I approach her. That helps prevent hurt feelings, it also prevents being the “rebound”. Although, one time it cost me a possible relationship as she broke up with her fiancee’ and immediately approached me. Unfortunately, she never came out an positively stated they were broken up and it caused quite a bit of awkwardness on my part. She ended up hating my guts, but honestly I probably just dodged a bullet.

Give yourself the respect you deserve. Corollary: Behave in a manner that you can respect.

There are more, but this is what I have time to type out right now.

54M with a L4/L5 bulge here. Happened 4 years ago.

Been on 900mg Gabapentin ever since. The bulge is non-operable as it is not large enough. I know what you’re thinking, if it’s so small, what’s my problem? The bulge is sitting perfectly on the nerve (sciatic?) going down my right leg. Ever since, my right leg has felt partially asleep and with out the gabapentin I get a lot of lower back pain.

I have a few other issues due to it as well. Using the full strength in my right leg results in painful cramps throughout the entire leg. I don’t have the full control over the leg. Walking over rough ground can be interesting, because the leg isn’t doing exactly what I tell it to do. It’s not enough to stop me from doing things, but it can make hiking interesting at times.

Yes, I did physical therapy. Even to this day, I still do the exercises the therapist had me doing.

I’m about 15 pounds overweight, but I am active.

This is the way I’m going to be for the rest of my life, barring some procedure being developed that makes correcting a bulge like mine safe to correct.

Reddit who?

A bowl of petunias.

Professionally, not at all. My company doesn’t use Crowdstrike. Unlike one of my former employers who had thousands of systems down for days. The Field techs there made a killing in overtime.

Personally: My (54m) oldest kid (17m) was stuck at Laguardia for 10 hours. Fortunately, a great gate agent at LGA got him on a flight that evening, with a first class upgrade, to get him into an airport about 1.5 hour drive from the house. I picked him up at midnight and home by 1:30.

How do blind skydivers know when to deploy their chute?

When the leash goes slack.

Here is a derivative of that one:

Two guys walk into a bar. The third one ducked.

What do you get when you pull the wings off of a fly?

A walk.

No and I’m already to that point.

It’s just my two older brothers that are left. One is a narcissist and not worth my time. The other is a rabid Gravy SEAL who would rather have Kyle Shittenhouse as his brother than me.

It’s not just politics that separates me from them, there is a lot of family history of disrespect and attempted abuse.

It was the Halloween boogie 1999 at Skydive Greene County in Xenia, OH. We were jumping a CASA 212’ which at the time was the largest jump ship in the US. It was Sunday morning, first load of the day and I was sitting up by the cockpit. The previous night was filled by a party and a ton of beer.

At about 9000 feet my bowels started rumbling, at 10k I released. All 30 people on the plane started gagging. The pilots opened the rear door to air out the cabin. As any pilot will tell you, a fart at altitude is a dangerous thing.

The Drop Zone Owner warned us that if he catches the culprit, that person would receive a permanent ban from the DZ.

I was suspected, as were a couple of people that had been sitting near me, as that part of the plane is where the smell was most intense. But no one fessed up.

I jumped there for another 7 years.

Hrast is Croation for Oak.

Quercus is the genus of the oak tree

So his name is Oak Oak.

I’m currently playing in two D&D 5e campaigns.

Silver-Dragonborn Cleric, Twilight Domain named:

Argentus

The other is a Shadar-kai Circle of Moon Druid. His name is:

Hrast Quercus

Oh god, the bowling alleys. The stink of cigarettes, soggy fried food, and machine oil that didn’t just destroy your clothes, but actually permeated your soul.

Both of my parents smoked. My two brothers and I would take a pair of scissors and cut the cigarette in front of their faces when they would go and light up.

I don’t remember how long it took to get them to quit, but they finally did.

It’s just not the health aspect, but smoking is just absolutely disgusting. A smoker just stinks to high heaven and they make everything around them stink long after they leave. How they are not completely mortified by that, I will never know.

Then add the expense and the deleterious health impact.

It begs the question…

What the actual fuck?

Just finished the fourth complete rewatch of Faracape for the family. For me personally it was my 8th rewatch. By far my favorite sci Fi series of all time.

After that we watched Firefly.

Just started Stargate SG-1. Second time for the family, 3rd time for me.