rejoices
Random word list:
underliking
ill-effaceable
flower-embroidered
ped
rejoices
Word chosen: rejoices
Definition: To feel joyful; be delighted.
Free association word list:
happy
joyful
Joy
My Name Is Earl
Randy
Earl
Prison
Uncle Nathan
son’s name
nice
helpful
giving
caring
wise
generous
donations
charity
water buffalo
scary woman
warm bowl of water
not going there
Vince
J.J.
skating
youth
fun
careless
Word chosen: Uncle Nathan
Writing:
My Uncle Nathan was my mom’s little brother. After a long hard life, he passed away in early 2000. I don’t remember the date, but I remember the day. I was out of work, and I had two job interviews that day. I was dressed nice, had tons of copies of my resume with me, and I was ready to go get employed. I decided to check my email one last time before leaving the house to make sure that nothing had changed on the time or location of my two interviews. I only had one new email, and it was an email from my Aunt Jane telling me (and others) that my Uncle Nathan had passed away.
I was crushed. Nathan was my favorite uncle growing up, and into adulthood. I knew that I needed one of these two jobs that I was interviewing for, so I pushed back my tears, and focused on what needed to be done. Once I was done with the interviews, and I was safely home, I re-read the email, and sat in my chair and cried for quite a long time.
My Uncle Nathan grew up in an abusive home. My biological grandfather was an abusive drunk, but my mom told me that the massive violence that he was capable of was never directed at my mom or Nathan; they were too young. However, he grew up watching this violence, and I’m sure that affected him. Fortunately for everyone involved my biological grandfather bailed out when some of the children were very young, and my Mama Stella managed to find the great man, Papa James, that I grew up knowing as my grandfather. I never knew that he wasn’t my real grandfather — wait… He was my real grandfather, but just not biologically.
Back to the point…
Nathan always had an awesome work ethic. He was always employed. He always had hard jobs though. He was a mechanic, welder, construction worker, and things like that. I don’t say that in a derisive way, though. I have respect for anyone that shows up for work on time, puts in an honest day’s work, and then goes home to be a good man. I don’t care if they are a brain surgeon or a welder. A hard day’s work goes a long way.
When I was fairly young (maybe 7 years old or so?), my Uncle Nathan was driving past a cop writing a ticket, and his work truck back fired. The cop thought that Nathan was firing a gun at him, and immediately chased him down. When Nathan pulled over, he cop yanked him from the car, busted his head open on a curb, and started cuffing him so violently that Nathan’s wrists were slashed open. Nathan, trying to defend himself, knocked the cop down. The cop hit his head on the same curb, and was knocked out. In a moment of panic, my Uncle Nathan ran. He jumped back in his truck and took off.
When the cop came too, he radioed out about an “armed and dangerous” criminal on the loose that had “assaulted” him. Nathan was caught not too much longer later, and he was convicted of assaulting a police officer. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison. This devastated our entire family because we all knew that there was no way that Nathan would ever do something like that except for in self defense. I remember driving all the way across Texas to Huntsville a few times during his incarceration to visit him. He seemed beaten, broken, and down. I know that he was putting on a brave face for all of us, and we seemed to genuinely cheer him up a bit. It’s hard to be cheerful in a place like that though.
Nathan, being the man that he was, was released early for good behavior. I was around 9 or 10 years old when he was released. He hopped on a bus, and came home to Midland. He never told anyone that he was coming home. His very first stop wasn’t my Mama Stella’s house. His first stop was to see my mom and me.
I remember being the first to the door to open it when the doorbell rang. I opened the door, saw Nathan, and screamed in delight. Nathan charged through the door, grabbed me up in a huge hug, and was so happy that he was crying. Mom, Jill, and my step-dad jumped to their feet at all of this. Mom was so happy that she started to cry right away too. My step-dad, who had never seen Nathan before, thought that we were under attack or something. My mom had to hold him back while things were explained. It was like our family was complete — for a while — again.
I remember that we all went out to dinner that night, and Nathan ate a huge steak. He hadn’t had a good steak in a very long time. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had any spicy or greasy food in his system for a few years. The steak really tore him up, and he ended up throwing up for a while that night. Once the grease was out of his system, he was back to normal.
We spent the next week driving everywhere together. He was seeing old friends, family, and just talking to me. Looking back on it, he was trying to recapture a sense of normalcy. We never did talk about his time in prison. He always wanted to know what was going on in my life. He was probably the first adult to treat me like an adult, and this may be one of the reasons that I love him so dearly. He would intently listen to me ramble on about elementary school, GEM, friends, computers, and all sorts of other stuff. He always told me that he knew that I would make it big because of my smarts, and that he was very proud of me.
This made me very happy. I finally had someone that was treating me as an adult instead of a kid. This is probably part of what helped me stay on track. I knew that someone was proud of me, and had high expectations of me. I could disappoint myself without much repercussion, but there was no way that I was going to let Nathan down. No. Way. Ever.
The years passed, and Nathan moved away, but he always made a point to stay in touch. During the low times in my life, I would avoid him because I didn’t want him to see me failing. Maybe if I had talked to him, he would have had some words of wisdom for me to help me out. I just didn’t want him to see me that low. I didn’t want to disappoint him. I couldn’t let that happen.
When I finally got my life back on track, I was in San Antonio, and he was in Austin. We saw each other about once a month, and he was back to telling me how proud of me he was. He always had a different junker car that would barely make it around. I’d always ask him what happened to his hold car, and the story was the same, “Someone else needed it more than me, so I gave it to them.”
Life took some turns for me, and I ended up in Colorado by way of Montana. I never did talk to Nathan again after I moved to Montana. He didn’t have a phone, and I never did have his address. I thought of him fairly often, but after the email that contained the announcement of his death, I wished that I had put some effort into contacting him more often.
Nathan was an important part of my life, and I wish he was still around to tell me how proud he is of me. I wish he was around to see the next Nathan, my son, come along, and watch him grow up as he watched me grow up. I miss him dearly. I have a handful of photos on my cork board in my office, and Uncle Nathan is one of them. He’s at the top of the board, above all of the cruft and miscellaneous stuff that I have on my board. He’s at the top because he is one of the most important people to me in the world.
Looking forward, I can only hope that I manage to raise my Nathan to be as kind, generous, helpful, hard-working, diligent, and wonderful as the uncle that I remember so fondly.
wahine
Random word list:
flavanilin
night-prowling
forepad
trasy
wahine
Word chosen: wahine
Definition: (in Hawaii and Polynesia) a girl or young woman.
Free association word list:
hula skirt
luau
food
roast pig
pineapple
fruit
fruit cake
breaking a tooth
dentist
oral surgery
implants
bone graft
not fun
expensive
broke
paycheck
income
401k
retirement
old age
endless vacation
RV
road trips
travel
good times
summer vacation
Word chosen: Road Trips
Writing:
When I was a kid I spent most summers with my paternal grandparents. There were some exceptions, but not many. During these summer vacations, my grandparents and I would pile into the RV of the year*. Our destination was always Colorado. I’m not sure why.
We’d trundle across New Mexico heading for different parts of Colorado. We’d head to Colorado Springs, Durango, Pueblo, and various scenic parts of the state. The trip there would invariably take a full week. We’d stop at every little cafe, historical marker, scenic outlook, and tourist trap. Every. Single. Year. It got to the point where I would know what historical marker we were at without even getting out to look at it.
Thinking back on it, I’m sure that my grandfather was just looking for a chance to get out and stretch his legs. He had to sit in the driver’s seat the entire time while I was free to romp and play in the back of the RV. I’d spend most of the time reading books, or coming up with some great** D&D adventure.
After creeping across New Mexico, we’d finally reach our destination. We’d spend about a week there. I always had a blast hiking, fishing, rafting, walking the small towns, and just hanging out with my grandparents. It’s one of the more innocent times of my life, and I really miss it quite a bit. I can sometimes recapture those moments in memories, but they’re distant and fading.
Maybe with the coming of my son in less than three weeks, I’ll be able to re-experience those wonderful times through his eyes. Everyone seems to want to live vicariously through their single friends that come home with a different hottie every night, but those dreams are behind me. I no longer envy those friends, but I don’t find them pathetic either. They are what they are.
I now look forward to the days where I can recapture a little innocence, wonderment, and excitement at “the new stuff” (even if it’s old to me) through the life of my son. Most people ask me if I’m nervous, anxious, scared, or frightened at the prospect of having a child. I do have a little of that, but it is background noise compared to the things that I’m looking forward to with excitement, eagerness, and longing.
* – My grandfather always seemed to find something newer and better every spring, and he would trade in the old RV for a new one.
** – The word “great” is relative. I’m very sure that my first hundred attempts at creating a D&D adventure were anything other than “great” by any standard. They seemed great to me though. I was always known as the guy that could use the widest variety of creatures in a single dungeon. Of course, there was no logical explanation for the zoo-like collection of critters, but my players didn’t care because even the “wild dogs” that were roaming a 10×10 room on the 4th level of the dungeon came with at least 2,000 GP worth of treasure. Yeah. I know. Pathetic. Don’t scoff. I was in elementary school, ok?
kerygmatao
Random word list:
ruberythrinic
kerygmata
smouse
nucleoalbuminuria
Tonawanda
Word chosen: kerygmatao
Definition:
The preaching of the gospel of Christ, esp. in the manner of the early church.
Free association word list:
proselytize
Bibles in China
Mandrake (nickname for a friend)
green berets
Iraq
war
fairness (as in love and war)
sports
World Series
Rockies
pitchers
wussy!
Titus
dad
Word chosen: Bibles in China
Writing:
A friend of mine, Mandrake, decided that he wanted to see the world. He tried to do this by becoming a Merchant Marine with the hopes of getting paid to travel the world. Turns out that those are the cush jobs that require 20+ years of being a Merchant Marine. He did his year stint to pay off the schooling, but it was in the Bering Straight aboard an oil tanker. Yep. He was even there during the harsh winter. I don’t envy his time aboard his ship.
After he was done with that, he joined up with a group that paid his way into China, but the catch was that he had to smuggle Bibles into China along the way. Before he left I had asked him what the punishment was for doing such a thing. I got the answer that I expected: Death. He did add that it was rare for the Chinese government to execute a Westerner for this offense.
He vanished off to the Far East to smuggle some bibles, and was apparently very successful since he made it out alive. I never did hear his stories about the smuggling operation, but I did hear that when it was time to come home, he wasn’t ready. Instead of hopping on the first flight home, he packed up his stuff, took what little cash he had, and started walking west. He ended up hiking across Asia, the Middle East, and into Europe where he then hopped on a plan and came home. I’ve heard this story third or fourth hand, so I’m not sure of the accuracy of it, but it’s a damn good story either way.
After his trip across the world, Mandrake joined the military with the goal of becoming a Green Beret. He made it through the training, and worked his way to where he was being considered. There was a single higher-up in the food chain in the Army that refused to sign the paperwork. Mandrake could have fought the rejection, but he just wanted to be a soldier. Rather than hold up his deployment, he accepted being assigned to the Rangers, and shipped off to Iraq.
That was well over a year ago, and he’s been in Iraq up until a week or so ago. He just made it home to thee States, but he hasn’t managed to make it back to his home town just yet. I’m eagerly waiting for him to rejoin us (however briefly it may be), so that I can hear some more of his stories about the world.
I know that he made it home physically intact. I just hope and pray that he didn’t come back mentally or emotionally broken. I’ve heard more and more stories about veterans seeing so many horrible things that they just can’t cope with civilian life. We have big fancy words for it: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I prefer the World War One phrase: Shell Shock. You’ve experienced so many horrible things that your mind just can’t cope with it. There are so many things that the mind can handle before it snaps. Different people have different levels of stress that they can handle before permanent damage is done. I just hope that Mandrake didn’t come near his limit.
NaBloPoMo Code
Just in case there’s a fellow Linux geek out there that wants the code that pulls five random words from the standard word list that exists on most Linux (and Unix) boxes, here’s the Perl that I whipped up…
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
$|++;
sub shuffle {
my $array = shift;
my $i;
for ($i = @$array; --$i; ) {
my $j = int rand ($i+1);
next if $i == $j;
@$array[$i,$j] = @$array[$j,$i];
}
}
print "Loading used words...";
my %usedwords = ();
open F, "used_words";
while () {
chomp;
$usedwords{$_} = 1;
}
close F;
print "DONE\n";
print "Loading dictionary...";
my @allwords = ();
open F, "/usr/share/dict/words";
while () {
chomp;
next if (defined($usedwords{$_}));
push @allwords, $_;
}
close F;
print "DONE\n";
print "Shuffling dictionary...";
shuffle(@allwords);
print "DONE\n";
print "Finding words...";
my @words = ();
foreach my $count (1..5)
{
push @words, $allwords[$count];
}
print "DONE\n";
my $print_words = join "\n", @words;
$print_words .= "\n";
print "Saving words to used words list...";
open F, ">> used_words";
print F $print_words;
close F;
print "DONE\n";
print "\nRandom Words:\n";
print $print_words;
Enjoy!
PS: Use at your own risk. I accept no responsibility for the use (or misuse) of this code. This code is guaranteed to do nothing more than take up space on your hard drive. If it eats other files, formats your hard drive, installs a rootkit, cures cancer, or destroys the world, then it’s not my fault.
NaBloPoMo
I’ve signed my doom for the next month. I just signed up for NaBloPoMo, which means that I should be posting every day for the month of November. I’ve been meaning to sign up for this for about two weeks, but I keep forgetting. Someone mentioned to me that it was nearing that time today, so I finally got off my tookus and signed up.
I’ve been really really slacking with the blog lately, and maybe this will kick me into high gear.
I thought about doing a “conspiracy theory of the day” set of blogs, but I decided to avoid doing that. I have several books (plus the Internet!) on the topic, but I just don’t have time to do the proper research on the conspiracy theories. Maybe I’ll throw in one or two here and there, though.
My plan is to do free associative writing. I’ve written a Perl script to pull out 5 words from the Linux dictionary word list (/usr/share/dict/words). I’ll pick one of those words, and then free associate single words or short phrases about the word that I pick. I’ll do that for about two minutes, and then I’ll pick a word/phrase from my list, and write about that for at least 5 minutes, or until I’ve exhausted my thoughts on the topic… whichever is longer.
There are 479,625 words in the file. That should result in some interesting things.
If this is your first time here, and you want to know more about me, then read through the archives. I think you’ll get a pretty good idea about who I am from my writings.
Here’s to hoping that I can post 30 days in a row!
PS: My son is due on the 21st, so my posts around that time and after that time may revolve around him… Just a fair warning.
MIA
Yeah. I know. No posts the last two days of last week, or over the weekend. I’ve run dry of ideas (but Kiara has given me some, and life has given me some.) I’ll start posting again tomorrow. Hopefully, I can keep going for a few more weeks now. Good think I wasn’t in that NaBloPoMoZhaKin (or whatever) contest. I just can’t seem to remember to post on the weekends.
