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Timothy S. McTaggart's Archived Blogs Jul-Sep 09

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I had to write a check today as I got groceries, just so I could write the date 9/9/09 on it. I have been off facebook for more than a week after my laptop computer conked out on me. The browser on this old desktop isn't up to date enough to get into things like facebook. I'll be back eventually, but it's nice to be doing other stuff. I passed the half century mile marker day without much fanfare. However my laptop computer conked out, so I may finally be in the market to upgrade computers, but we'll see. Call it a birthday present when I get to it. My band has a gig at Sealey Flats again this Friday 11 Sep 09. Had a great gig last time there and we're looking to better that if we can. Hope to see you all there. More later, stay tuned.

As I sit here contemplating birthday eve while writing another blog, I once again have a load of laundry churning. It's on the last spin so I'd better hurry up. Got back in from Menard a little more than an hour ago after doing some more electricity work. May get there eventually. At least not as hot this weekend as it was last weekend. It was miserable working there last weekend -somebody probably needed to follow me around with a mop. The weather cooled off last night though, and I am most appreciative of that as we venture into late summer. I got in touch with Rudy, an old friend again in the last few months and we finally traded E-mail addresses this weekend. Hope we can catch up on some stuff. This last week was a bit crazy with a crashed computer on Wednesday that made things difficult for our users, at least until we got up and running in a redundant configuration. Swapped out the motherboard on the ailing computer on Friday. Estimated time according to our engineer was one hour. We finally had things up and running and left the site about five hours later. Bleah! Next topic, I recorded a special that ran on CNN a couple weeks ago in which one of my fellow former AISK students was involved. This would be Marnie Gustavson and her endeavors working with PARSA in Afghanistan. I sent her an E-mail with my 'Bravo!' after this aired. I think it'll take awhile for her to catch up on her E-mail. I spent my birthday eve at the ranch with the parents. Hot dogs, refried beans and a Lone Star was the fare. Great way to launch into the next half-century of my life. Further reports on this next half-century to come. It should be exiting. Stay tuned.

As my last load of laundry churns in the three-year-old Kenmore front loader in the apartment, I once again contemplate catching up this blog. So here we go. With exception of the occasional complaint from my right shoulder, the case of shingles from last month has dissipated. It probably helped that I spent a couple more hot weekends working on the back of the house in Menard. Hopefully that sweated or cooked out anything remaining. I still have rotted wood in one window and window sill to address, and then the complexities of figuring out how to jack up the back wall, which has sunk better than an inch. I'm still working on the engineering for that one. May need to call in some bigger guns. Speaking of complexities, I finally quit recording the UCM (United Campus Ministries) board meetings after it became apparent that the Methodist folks were only interested in unloading their share of ownership of the property. Seems they just want to get out of there now, and I must say good riddance. For the most part they have ceased from making preposterous claims about the whole UCM endeavor and I was therefore assured that I wouldn't need to sustain the same efforts to document the UCM board meetings. The UCM needs a lot of healing (not to mention removal of daggers from Nancy's back) given the absurd sequence of events, rumor mongering and other negative things that the Methodist district wielded on the place in their effort to start their own college ministry somewhere else. It sure was enough for me to see the light and move on to another denomination. The UCM is in fact healing and regaining a student population now. Good things are happening there. My new church must also lend the UCM thanks and appreciation, as we were able to use the facility for our Sunday meetings for a couple of years. But despite our support of UCM we too, move on to another place to meet. See the webpage at http://thegatheringsanangelo.org for more details on the new location. On to other things new now... I got 'for real' internet running at my house in Menard now and set up a wifi router so my laptop (as well as the occasional free loader) can now get decent bandwidth there. I can log into that wifi router from here (San Angelo) to check activity on it. So far I've noted at least one neighbor's computer taking advantage. I like to leave my wifi routers open and just log who all gets on them and where they go. Definite source of amusement. Now on to my amusing musical endeavors. My band, The Flinchers along with Monty Branham played an extremely hot and sweaty outdoor gig a couple weekends ago at Mysteryfest, which was a benefit to help someone pay their medical bills. I hope despite the heat that we were able to help them out. The following weekend we (The Flinchers) and a few folks sitting in played at Sealey Flats on Saturday night. It was one of the best gigs yet and the crowd wouldn't let us quit for the night. We must have done about six songs as encores. Ed Hull, a friend and fellow musician sat in with us too. It was one of those magic nights where everything came together and sounded great and the crowd just kept wanting more. It was a soul satisfying night for me as well and I was just glad that the folks were enjoying what we were offering. That's about all I know at the moment. See you next blog entry.

So I’m back in Menard this evening. I am contemplating finishing up where I was replacing rotted wood last time. Still some places where I tore off rotted siding and haven’t put replacement up yet. Should get that done tomorrow. I still have a window sill to do and possibly other stuff on a window frame. More on that later. Alfonso is back in here working on putting insulation along exterior walls and some other things. I’d hoped he would tackle the rest of what I was doing on the back of the house but that seems not to be the case. So I’m back on it in the morning unless otherwise informed. One reason I am writing another blog so soon after my last one is to give an update on my employ with my company. I did mention that I was not ready to write off my current employer. In my last blog I also mentioned that I had been on a conference call in which pay cuts had been announced. It was not pretty. I have since been contacted as to what the actual damage to my paycheck was going to be and it appeares to be some minimal amount that could be done and still technically be called a pay cut. I won’t mention the exact small figure I was told since this is a public blog. I am trying to read between the lines as to what is going on, but I suspect that bunches of politics are in the equation. I think someone higher up is sticking up for us line folks, at least where I work and I greatly appreciate their efforts. If one of you folks happen to be reading this blog, I hope you will take note. In the meantime I will continue doing the best job that I can to support our site. One thing about my employ, even if I am driving a desk is my appreciation of air conditioning this time of year. The days have been 100+F. Of course this weekend I’ll get to work outside in this stuff as I have done for several weekends. It is good to sweat some of the junk out of the system that accumulates from an office job. Later tomorrow I expect to find the river at Eight Mile crossing and let it take care of some other office job related shtuff. I am surprised I haven’t clogged up the river downstream when I have done that before. It even seemed to help my case of shingles a couple weeks ago. The sunburned feeling and muscle aches are still there but the red blotches have largely faded since then. More later. Thanks for reading.

Since it was barely advertised this year, I wasn't sure that there was going to be a fireworks display out at the lake. Turned out there was though, so Nancy and I watched it from the distant vantage point of a bank parking lot almost two miles away. Subject parking lot was full of other spectators and the display was impressive even from that distance. A local radio station played a program of patriotic music during the fireworks display. We could hear that radio station from several nearby parked vehicles. It was interesting to note that a few Michael Jackson songs were played before and then after the fireworks display had concluded ('Beat It' played right after the finale - maybe it was a hint to folks to go home, who knows...). Given our vantage point, it was actually quite easy to circumvent San Angelo's only real traffic problem and 'Beat It' home within minutes rather than the normal hour or so. In years past, I've always hung out for awhile watching the idiocies of snarled traffic eventually dissipate before hitting the road myself. For some reason I was not expecting Michael Jackson to last much longer. Still the news was a bit of a shock. But now I think I can celebrate his music in clear conscience, knowing that the absurdities and perversions of his odd life are now finally over. I did enjoy some of his late 70's and early 80's work before things got completely out of hand and were air played to death. I will probably lift my ban on his music if and when I fire up my pirate station again (see link off my main page for 100.9 FM). Rest in Peace Mr. Jackson and thank you for the music. About the same time of his passing I came down with a case of shingles (and I have a metal roof on my house... bad pun... okay...!). So this is supposed to be aftermath from my extremely brief encounter with chicken pox in Kabul circa 1973. To get an idea, think of what feels like an extremely bad sunburn, except it's red blotchy lumps along one of the nerves coming out one side of your backbone. Muscle tension and a dull ache also seem to be part of the montage. It is supposed to go away in a few weeks though. I made the observation last week that I now know why old folks go around looking pissed off. I guess it could be worse and if this was the only thing involved with getting older, it'd be a bargain. Vicks Vapo-rub seems to work well on settling down the red blotchy stuff. Sitting in the rapids at Eight Mile crossing also did well in addressing the aches. I did that two nights last weekend when I was in Menard working on the back of my house. Had to rebuild one window sill and replace some rotted siding. There's a bunch more to be done and we are enlisting Alfonso our long-time carpenter for this now. More on that later, but before I go onto the next subject I may say that the temptation to tackle that one full time myself is definitely there. This is why: last Monday our company announced pay cuts during a telephone conference. One of my fellow systems specialists with 12+ years of employ at another site was so disgusted that he put in his notice right there on the conference call. It will be at least another week before most of us find out the extent of the damage to our paychecks. Times have changed and I am most disappointed that my company seems to have lost sight of taking care of its employees. I had hoped we could hold out longer on that one than most of the corporate world has done. So it's time to update the resumé and start cruising the web for places of employ. I'll have more later on the cumbersome nature of the US government employment website usajobs.gov. It'd be good to get back into the GS system though if I can. But I'm not writing off my current employer yet and I hope that we can find an amicable solution. I know times are goofed up for now and I can deal with a reasonable amount of whatever it takes to help them hang on. The key word is 'reasonable'. So as I approach the half-century mark next month I expect this all to key into my mid-life crisis. Well, what the bleep anyway. My 'post-Munky' musical endeavors seem to be going just fine. We kept the folks entertained at the Steel Penny last Friday night. For some reason that helps give me hope for the future and I have faith that the almighty will be there to give me my next set of orders. Stay tuned.

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