Break Room Upgrade?

A couple of months ago we all thought it was a great benefit when our snack vendor for our break rooms where I work diversified by adding breakfast and lunch items and a refrigerated vending machine. Items were neatly displayed and dated with a visible “rot date” and the vendor responsibly rotates old or underselling items and replaces them with new, fresh items.

This diversification is an apparent success because now our pleasant work place smells more like an international food bazaar. I love pepperoni, but having to breathe it all afternoon is a little more that I want to deal with while I’m trying create sales materials. Why can’t we all just go out for pizza, or cheeseburgers and come back with only bad breath. Now we have bad building!

Off the Beaten Path

Sometimes taking a turn off the well travelled and comfortable path is a fortunate one to take. Today it was fortunate for us. We were taking a lazy day off just enjoying riding in the sunshine and being outdoors. We’ve been looking for some extra closet space in our too much un-closeted 1950s house. We took a purposeful turn off the Crouse bypass today and ventured into the town of Crouse. The Mem’ry Lane Antique & Finds shop held just what we had been looking for.

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Come Spirit

Tonight at 7:00 PM the Grace Emmaus Community has another monthly Gathering. It will be at Central UMC in Shelby, a usual gathering spot.

Enough of the mundane details but I pray that the Holy Spirit will rain down on us to make this evening fill with love, joy, and the Holy Spirit as it was during my Original walk in the spring of 2005. I love this community and the group of people that are in it.

Idiots of the Year

Ruby and are are jointly nominating each other as Idiots of the Year – People of Wal-Mart Division. We had meticulously planned this Thanksgiving weekend getaway. About 30 miles out of Shelby when we realized we had forgotten a few things. — no problem, we’ll stop at Wal-Mart and get the things we need. This is the first time that I have seen a Wal-Mart parking lot totally and absolutely full. Most of this blog post was actually written on my iPhone while I was standing in line waiting to check out of this Wal-Mart from Hell.

Did I mention this was on Thanksgiving Day, about 8:15 PM. This was the first Black Friday Thursday. All we wanted to get we’re just a few essential toiletries and contact lens supplies. The management of this Wal-Mart had assigned the household and toiletries department to be the waiting area for those people waiting for the large plasma TVs to go on sale at midnight. These people were smirking at us as we tried to peer around them to find our toiletry items. What an inconvenience we were to them.

Since I can’t get an Internet connection in this hotel room and I’m typing without my glasses on my iPhone.  I’ll continue this blog post later. I hope that you will return to get a well written complete post from me.

The Middle of the Night

Sometimes Ruby and I can find the smallest things funny. This is one of those things that could have gone either way, but thankfully ended up on the funny side.

We had only been in bed a short time when I felt her move away from me. I realized it was more than just turning over or shifting position, that she was getting up. I called out, “Are you OK?”

It was about then that I heard the thud of her hitting the floor. She hit the floor really hard, not with a graceful thunk but with a multi-thump thud. You know, one of those sounds that sounds like it could result in multiple laughs if it was in a slapstick comedy routine, but this was late at night long after the jokes and gags should end.

My wonderful beautiful wife Ruby had somehow become groggily awake enough to think that she could see that we had left a light on in one of the closets and she was getting up to turn it off. In doing so she somehow missed the step stool that she uses beside our bed. This causes her entire body to plummet in noisy sequence to the floor.

Now my question was even more appropriate as she lay laughing in the floor. I was glad to hear her laugh because I knew she couldn’t be hurt much if she was laughing like that.

She wasn’t hurt but we did have a good laugh.

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Saturday Night in Southwest Virginia

Cold rainy foggy Saturday night in January. Being guided through the nifty by my wife reading directions I had clipped from the web into evernote. Finally after many curve and tops of rises that sometimes looked like the road would drop us into the great abyss. Then we saw the faint light of a traffic directing flashlight waving us into the most unlit parking lot of the CFF. From the outside it does just look like a large country shed. Maybe it’s some sort of a plant or a farm shed or even a shed for some coal mining equipment fond in this area.

After we entered we were surprised by what we found. A very sophistaced “country auditorium” filled with state of the art electronics and sound equipment lot of memorabilia from the Carter’s souveniers and junk food concessions to satisfy anyone the crowd was filings in and fill the thousand seat auditorium. Between the seats and the stage there was dance floor that was filled during most numbers with people dancing.

Mostly clogging, some rocking, shagging, twirling, or jitterbugging or just moving to the music. On woman brought her dog and danced with him all night. I did notice her moving a little more quickly when she danced with a man. One dog, “Lucky”, just wandered in unseen by the ushers, offering no ticket or price of admission other than his friendly tail wagging. Lucky was an old dog and moved very slowly but found a great place to be out of the chilly wet Virginia night. The band said they had been on the road more than two weeks and needed a dog petting break.

This was a wonderful family friendly evening where we can all celebrate our Southern Mountain traditions and music. Anyone can dance, with or without partner. This was one of the most enjoyable evenings that Ruby and I have had. It’s only about 3 hours from Shelby.

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Police officer saves man’s life. Hopper named ‘Hometown Hero’ after performing CPR on wreck victim | police, hopper, saves – The Star Online : The Newspaper of Cleveland County

Police officer saves man’s life. Hopper named ‘Hometown Hero’ after performing CPR on wreck victim | police, hopper, saves – The Star Online : The Newspaper of Cleveland County.

This was in today’s (09/24/11) Shelby Star. It’s a great story especially when I lived it!