[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
ozma914's InsaneJournal:
| Thursday, December 17th, 2009 | |
| 4:27 am | next week's column: Santa's Spirit A guy can write only so many Christmas columns, so for the past few years I’ve looked back to see if any of my old ones were worth a reprint. In other words, I got lazy. Here’s one of my favorites, from 2006: SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK ( “You’re striking out on the stealth thing, Santa,” I told him, while wondering how soon my alarm clock would go off. ) Current Mood:  contemplativeCurrent Music: Here Comes Santa Claus |
| Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 | |
| 3:21 am | good news and good news The doctor thinks I only have a sprain to my knee, so no extra testing for now. He gave me a knee brace, a 9 day supply of Celebrex for the swelling, and instructions to take it easy for a week or so. He also confirmed what I'd already discovered about my prostate readings, which is that my PSA test of 5.6 is just barely over the normal range and nothing to be all that concerned about; I'm officially putting any worries on that subject off until my urologist appointment on January 14. Oddly, my knee hurts a little more now -- I suspect the swelling was actually padding the injury and masking the pain, a bit. I didn't stop to think that Celebrex isn't a pain reliever, so I need to go looking for my ibuprofen. Better news: Emily got all A's in her most recent college semester -- 4.0 grade point average! Yay her! Smart girls are hot. ;-) |
| Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 | |
| 12:59 am | When Emily and I got down to Fort Wayne yesterday morning for my urologist appointment, we found out the lady from the health clinic gave me the wrong date -- it was supposed to be January 14, not December 14. I'm looking at this as a good thing: My guess is that if they were really worried about my PSA rating they would have gotten me in right away. Most likely they're waiting a month to see if the reading changes any, which would tell them a lot after getting a baseline to go by. So we did some shopping instead, and when we got back to Albion I stopped at my regular doctor's office to make an appointment for my knee. They were able to get me in the same afternoon, but we'd both been up more than 24 hours by then so I changed that to this morning, instead. I have a feeling an x-ray will be the result ... On other health news, Jillian's H1N1 seems to be all healed up, and Emily's cracking the whip on my cholesterol ... not that I won't cheat a little over the holidays, 'cause that's what holidays are for! ;-) |
| Friday, December 11th, 2009 | |
| 10:29 pm | next week's column: The Mustache Who Saved Christmas or: A Hairy Situation Santa’s back! I announced his demise in my last column, but some good elves -- I’m thinking my daughter Charis and her boyfriend -- reconditioned the jolly old elf while I was in Missouri last week. They cleaned his graying beard, replaced his burned out bulb, and removed the wrinkled, unreadable “Ho ho ho” from his hand. When Emily and I arrived home there he was, waving from the front yard: jolly again, cleaned up, and maybe a little tipsy from eggnog. So, to celebrate, I present you with one of my occasional attempts at poetry. Here’s the story of another time when the Christmas spirit was saved, inspired by my girlfriend’s nickname for me as well as, possibly, too much pasta just before bedtime. THE MUSTACHE WHO SAVED CHRISTMAS ( You don’t free a mustache, everyone knows – They’re usually led around by the nose. ) |
| Friday, December 4th, 2009 | |
| 4:45 am | Ozma's presence will be sparse for awhile. For a variety of reasons, I won't be around much for -- oh, probably the next month or so. All seven of my regular readers are aware that this isn't uncommon, and it just means RL will be overwhelming for awhile -- all I ask is that, since I'll try unsuccessfully to keep up on my friends lists, please hit me with an e-mail if there's something I need to know. Very rarely do I go a day without checking e-mail! One of those days will be next Wednesday, when I'm heading down to Missouri to pick up Emily; she'll be spending Christmas break with me, and a weak later Jillian will be here for her winter break. Yay! However, my mind is completely blanking on what to get them or anyone for Christmas, which I hear is coming in a month or so. On a much more down note, Jillian's actually here right now, thanks to getting sick at school; the doctor thinks she has H1N1, and since she has asthma, the flu's a bit more serious for her than for most people. Still, she seems to be doing okay, and plans to put up Christmas decorations here with her boyfriend (!) this weekend. My knee, sadly, is not doing better, but I think the swelling and stiffness is due in part to the cold, wet weather we've been having. None of me does better in those conditions. Frankly, that's been overshadowed by the fact that I'm scheduled to see a urologist mid-month due to high PSA readings; what Public Service Announcements have to do with prostate problems, I have no idea. ;-) I'm approaching the time when I should be hearing back from the two novel publishers I submitted to earlier in the year. Considering all of the above, you have to wonder if high PSA readers are caused by stress. So, yeah -- kinda busy. Please don't defriend me! In the immortal words of Ahnold, I'll be back. Meanwhile, a fun link to 20 outrageous Sue Sylvester Quotes, from the TV show "Glee": http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,2032385 The most recent episode was a killer! Not one, but two smack-downs, one of them a long time coming. On a more "huh?" note -- GoogleGate? http://talkingabouttheweather.wordp If not before, I'll be here with my next column! |
| Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 | |
| 4:31 am | next week's column: Scary Santa Stays Stashed Warning: VERY frightening zombie Santa photos from last year within. You've been warned -- this might put you off the Jolly Old Elf forever. SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK ( So I blew up Santa Claus. Boy, I’ll bet that sentence put me up on some kind of terrorism watch list. ) Current Mood:  stressed |
| Friday, November 27th, 2009 | |
| 2:29 am | next week's column: Orange You Glad for the Lions? SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK ( You people from areas that aren't buried under snow three months out of the year, you'll just have to trust me on this. You people who are younger than 30 might have a little trouble with it, too. ) Current Mood:  hungry |
| Thursday, November 26th, 2009 | |
| 6:08 am | The first joke of the Christmas season: Stolen shamelessly from ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} makd:2009's First Christmas Joke Three men died on Christmas Eve and were met by Saint Peter at the pearly Gates. "In honor of this holy season", Saint Peter said, "You must each possess something that symbolizes Christmas to get into heaven." The first man fumbled through his pockets and pulled out a lighter. He flicked it on. "It represents a candle", he said. "You may pass through the pearly gates", Saint Peter said. The second man reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He shook them and said, "They're bells." Saint Peter replied, "You may pass through the pearly gates". The third man started searching desperately through his pockets and finally pulled out a woman's panty. St. Peter looked at the man with a raised eyebrow and asked, "And just what do those symbolize?" The man replied, "These are Carol's." And So The Holiday Season Begins...... |
| Monday, November 23rd, 2009 | |
| 3:31 am | next week's column: Thankfullness, Without Much Sarcasm A little thing to be thankful for: A strawberry growing by the house in the back yard, on November 22 -- *very* late in the season for anything to even be alive outside.  SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK ( Happy (almost) Thanksgiving! I’m thankful for you, the reader. Writing a humor column is better than therapy. Without someone to read it, where would I be? And what are you thankful for? ) Current Mood:  thankful |
| Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 | |
| 4:50 am | Noble County Relay for Life Prepares for 2010 Fight Against Cancer Just a preliminary report, we'll be moving in to high gear after the holidays. Anyone living in the Noble County area, we could really use your help -- and anyone living anywhere else should check out assisting with your local Relay For Life organization. It takes a lot of work in many different areas to get these events off the ground. ( Cancer never rests, so the Noble County Relay for Life is once more jumping into the fight against it. ) |
| Monday, November 16th, 2009 | |
| 4:51 am | next week's column: A Fevered Reaction to Swine Flu On an unrelated note, my traditional Christmas icon might have a curse word in it this year. THE word, the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the F-dash-dash-dash word. This is not a reflection of my opinions about Christmas (it concerns Santa's naughty list); it's just that Emily made me a really, really great icon this year, and I'm very happy with it. You'll see, come Thanksgiving ... ( A special note: Avoid getting your hands too close to someone else’s face. If you’re paying so little attention that you don’t know where your own face has been, you sure as heck don’t know where theirs has been. ) Current Mood:  blah |
| Monday, November 9th, 2009 | |
| 4:51 am | Fire Guts Steinbarger Lake Home (writer doesn't get pictures because he's getting roasted inside.) I was about five feet into the house, kneeling in the doorway between the enclosed porch and the living room, seeing a wall of dark gray smoke and feeling pieces of ceiling fall on me. That's when the room on the other side of the doorway flashed over. Suddenly I saw really well, although all I saw was a solid wall of flames. I'd somehow gotten it into my mind that the room ahead was a small one, so I opened up the nozzle with the expectations that the flames would quickly be knocked down. Unknown to me, I was actually throwing my steam into an L shaped room that went all the way to the back of the house, and which was now engulfed in fire. I whipped the nozzle around, throwing a couple of hundreds of gallons of water a minute into the superheated atmosphere, and the fire laughed in my face. "There's fire over to our left!" yelled the guy who was backing me up. Unknown to us, the fire over there had already burned through the wall, so we were seeing flames in the next room. But since the fire two inches from my face was going nowhere, I had troubles of my own. After a minute or so -- it seemed a lot longer -- the steam conversion worked, and the fire died down. But there was an instant before that -- and this has never happened to me in my 29 years of firefighting -- where I thought to myself: "What the hell am I doing here?" By the time my air tank ran low we'd knocked down the fire visible from our position. I crawled out, dumped my air pack, looked up to see how we were doing, and saw flames roaring out of the roof right over where we'd been working. That's when the IC and I pulled everybody out. I played Safety Officer for the rest of the fire. By the way, propane tanks are still trying to kill me -- later that morning I found a charred tank that someone had carried out of the same doorway and left outside. How was your weekend? ( The New Era article on the fire: ) |
| Sunday, November 8th, 2009 | |
| 6:15 am | Train Jumper Claims to be Jesus Ligonier, Indiana (Albion New Era news) Police on a traffic stop in Ligonier early Thursday were surprised when a naked man covered in blood approached them, claimed to be Jesus Christ, and announced he'd just jumped off a train. Part of his story was apparently true: Police tracked a trail of blood back to the nearby Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks. Apparently the man did, indeed, jump off a passing train sans clothes. The injured man was later identified as a 23 year old Elkhart resident, whose name wasn't released. He was hospitalized with injuries that included serious facial trauma including deep lacerations and several broken teeth, according to the Ligonier Police Department. Ligonier Police had stopped a car near Cavin and Richmond streets, and were doing a drug investigation when the man approached them at about 1:14 a.m. He reportedly identified himself as Jesus Christ and claimed that he'd jumped from the train as a way for repenting for his sin. Officers quickly called for medical assistance, and Noble County EMS personnel treated the victim while Ligonier firefighters set up a landing zone in the nearby parking lot of Millennium Industries. He was flown by Samaritan Helicopter to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne, and admitted for treatment. Norfolk Southern Police are continuing an investigation into the incident and also looking for the clothes, which were reportedly left behind on the train. Police believe it was a freight train, which the man got onto in Elkhart, and that it was traveling between 30-35 mph when he jumped off. He remains unidentified because at this point no charges have been filed against him. Meanwhile, the original traffic stop led to two arrests: Seth Ryan Adkins, 22, of Ligonier on a meth possession charge, and 22 year old Tazza M. May of Cromwell on a Marijuana charge. |
| Thursday, November 5th, 2009 | |
| 4:08 am | next week's column: Thank a Veteran SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK ( Yes, I know Veteran's Day isn't actually until the 11th; but I've got a deadline. Appropriately, this will actually come out in the newspapers on November 11. ) Current Mood: thankful |
| Friday, October 30th, 2009 | |
| 5:05 am | next week's column: News From a Strange Planet SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK ( So far fourteen groups have claimed responsibility for starting the fire, including the cast of Saturday Night Live. ) Current Mood: silly |
| Thursday, October 29th, 2009 | |
| 5:28 pm | an ode to H1N1 A man once hid out in a flue Wondering what he should do He thought he was fine escaping the swine 'Till a bird came to be with him too. |
| 3:11 am | ah -- FLU! I'm officially flu-proof. Well, maybe ... but in addition to my regular flu shot, last night I took the H1N1 vaccine via nasal spray. There's been no problem thus far, except for the third arm that's started growing out of my neck -- and won't that be useful, in the long run? |
| Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 | |
| 5:29 am | epic annual fail My head is going to explode. Specifically, my sinuses are going to explode out through my forehead, which will make for a fine piece of Halloween themed special effects. Should I have it filmed? I'd forgotten how much my sinuses swell and ache when the weather gets cold, and the non-drowsy sinus pain med that used to work doesn't seem to be doing a thing now. Still another reason why this time of year sucks ... can I have summer back? No? In other news, I was thinking of having a personal NaNoEdMo this year -- Yep, a whole month of editing and sending out those other stories that I need to get in the mail if they're ever to be published. All I have to do is get my house cleaning and winterizing chores done by November 1st, and I can probably have all that stuff done within three or four weeks. What do you mean, November starts Sunday? Current Mood: blah |
| Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | |
| 6:22 am | grandkid pics! And animal stories Ironically, the day after posting my rodent column I had back to back animal encounters. While I was at work a big orange cat appeared at the door of dispatch, loudly proclaiming it was very unhappy and needed love (and food) NOW. He let me pick him up while we called the humane shelter, but wasn't too thrilled about it and had his claws ready for action when I wouldn't let him down. Still, cat scratch fever is so less scary than spider bite allergies. Now, at the beginning of his shift one of our deputies hit a deer as he was driving toward the office. My theory is that he felt guilty about the poor thing (even though it got up and ran away), so he adopted the cat and took it home. When he opened his garage door to get a cat carrier, the first thing he saw was a mouse run by him. Looks like Mr. Cat has his work cut out for him. Cut to last evening. Jillian has come home from college for fall break (yay!) and was sitting on a chair in the living room when a mouse leaped across the room, literally right at her feet, then ran under the chair. There was a squeak -- someone squeaked. I headed for the kitchen for a mouse trap, and as I walked back into the room the mouse walked across the floor again, climbed up onto the sweatshirt Jillian left on the floor, and just stood there in front of her. We quickly concluded it was sick, or insane, or possibly had read my column and was screaming "You killed my father! Prepare to die!" I'm not proud of what happened next, but ... well ... there was a broom involved. I wonder if there's a statute of limitations on how often I can write columns about small animals? Meanwhile, since I've been feeling kind of blah lately, here's the one thing that always cheers me up: Grandkid picspam!!!! (Photo by mom) ( Brayden, Grandpa, and Hunter ) |
| Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 | |
| 3:51 am | next week's column: To Rodent, With Bug Honestly, I have no idea where the James Bond thematic thing came from. It just -- crawled into my head. SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK ( The only thing I can figure is that it was scurrying around down there, trying to negotiate a truce between Dr. NoMouse and GoldSpider. The door opened and, before it could react, the mouse equivalent of a ton of clothes dropped on its head. ) Current Mood:  intimidatedCurrent Music: "Ben" |