Proud of Casey.....

Perhaps you have run across this picture which has been prominently displayed in print media and around the Internet. A proud Marine saluting the Commander-in-Chief on his inauguration day. Well we're very proud of this particular Marine for it is our friend Mary Kelley's nephew Cpl. Casey Owens whom I wrote about months ago when he was wounded in Iraq. Casey lost both of his legs and suffered extensive injuries when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb...one of Casey's buddies was killed. Casey has been in the news several times as a demonstration of great courage and the will to move on with his life and continue his service to his country. Casey has met President Bush and was acknowledged

by him during the inauguration. We're so very proud of Casey and his comrades in arms. America has none better. Oh and....Mary tells us that Casey is accomplishing one of his recovery goals this weekend. He's going skiing! This time on "bucket skis"....but hopefully soon it will be on the real things with his new legs.

Photo History....

With a population of about 100 thousand friendly souls, I don't know if Midland is a small city or more of a very large town. But I do know that for our size our arts and culture venues and events are amazing. This Saturday Julie, Jack and I will be attending a talk by and later having dinner with, Adrian Cronauer, of "Good Morning Vietnam" fame and then early next month we'll be attending a talk by world history maker, former Defense

Secretary Robert McNamara. But last night I attended a lecture and exhibit featuring two of my favorite subjects, history and photography.

One of our facilities, the Haley Ranching Heritage Library and Museum is currently featuring an exhibit of daguerreotype photos by Santa Fe artist Robert Shlaer which recreate the 1853 final trip west of historic explorer John C. Fremont. Mr. Shlaer was in town last night to give an indepth discussion of this work.

As the Amon Carter Museum describes the exhibit...."In 1853, explorer John C. Frémont led an expedition from Missouri to California in an attempt to locate a route for the proposed transcontinental railway. Tragically, the work of the expedition's original photographer, Solomon Nunes Carvalho, was lost to fire not long after the trek's culmination.

In this exhibition, Robert Shlaer, who from 1994 to 1998 retraced Frémont's route, recaptures the journey using one of the most beautiful and demanding of all photographic processes. By referring to engraved illustrations, period maps, and an account of Frémont's expedition written by Carvalho, Shlaer magnificently reconstructed Carvalho's lost work."

The time and attention to detail that Robert put into these works is stunning. Based on his studies, each shot was taken from as near to the exact original location as possible and the use of the daguerreotype process made the accomplishment of this feat all the more difficult. Though Robert had a leg up on the chemical systems necessary for this antique photo process.....he is a former Bio Chemical engineer. I enjoyed meeting Robert, bought a beautiful limited edition book of his journey [which he signed] and he invited us by his studio in Santa Fe the next time we were in town.

One Amazing Month.....

I've just returned from my now daily 1.5 mile walk around the small lake a block or so from our house. Today's walk was filled with gratitude for I was thinking that precisely one month ago at that exact time I was waking up at Midland Memorial Hospital with 4 "locks" in my arms discharging intravenous fluids into my body. I had a trach tube stuck down my throat to aid my recently collapsed lungs in pumping oxygen and I had 3 large tubes protruding out of my thorax draining large amounts of fluids from my lungs and surrounding environs. Not to mention that my rib cage had been cracked and my chest had been cut completely open exposing my heart which had been stopped to perform the by-passes. And this was just my upper body.

Down below, on my left leg, I had five sutured wounds where a foot or more of veins had been removed to be used on my heart I remember waking up in no small amount of pain and discomfort primarily due to the way my back and shoulders had been stretched for hours while I was on the operating table. Then I was told to try and not move for the next two days. The discomfort of all that was something I can't describe but the reason for the operation as outlined by my cardiac team was that the blockages I had and especially the blood clot in my cardiac artery could be fatal.

So as I walked around the lake today in the bright warm sunshine and admired the rafts of wild ducks as they winter over in West Texas, I could not have had more gratitude for the outcome of my ordeal and especially for all those who made it bearable. And as I walked at a goodly pace just 30 days after this operation I still am amazed, truly astounded, by the miracles of modern medicine.

The Convention...

As I've mentioned previously, I'm a dedicated member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Dedicated not only because it literally saved my life, but also because I like the precepts outlined in our program of recovery and probably most importantly, I just like the people. They're my kinda' people. We're all mostly alike even though some don't have high school eductions and some of us have advanced college degrees. We're still alike.

Like my Army friends, we people in AA have a common set of experiences that are unique to only people like us. Tragic experiences, touching experiences and quite often side splittingly funny experiences. If you have ever known a full fledge drunk then you'll appreciate the situations that only they [we] can get into. You can't make this stuff up.

And so for the last two nights Julie and I have been in attendance at our annual Midland "Mid-Winter AA Conference". We had 800 chairs set up at the Holiday Inn, and the two nights we attended the 8 o'clock speaker meeting......most all of the seats were taken. We invite speakers from all over the country to share their "experience, strenght and hope". That is, their story. The story of what it was like for them to be addicted to alcohol and/or other substances and the story of how they found their way out of this living hell. These are some amazing stories, and like me, many of these speakers count themselves lucky to be alive, much less have bountiful lives today. I don't make it through any one speaker without a tear coming to my eye. A tear of remembrance of how it was for me, how similar parts of my own story are with the speakers, and mainly because of the gratitude I have for AA and the people seated around me...the two things that saved my life and gave me a second chance at things.

I love to go to the conference every year to see people I haven't seen in years, people who are instrumental in my recovery and people who I just like alot. And I/We like to laugh and there is much of that. In fact I recommend that even if you don't have a problem with alcohol that you go to an AA conference some time. You'll learn a little something and you will hear some of the funniest stuff imaginable.

In the AA "Big Book" our real problem is defined as this...."Selfishness and self-centeredness, that we think is the root of our problem". Tonight I got to enjoy a little AA approved self-centeredness, I got to stand up with the "old timers". An old timer being one with more than 10 years of sobriety. We count down by decades. "All those with over 50 years, please stand up"....and believe it or not there are some. Then comes, "all those with between 30 and 40 years.....all those with between 20 and 30 years". And then came my group....."all those with between 10 and 20 years, please stand".

I'll have to confess, it does make me awfully proud to stand up with the old timers. But what it really does is shock the hell out of me to be doing so. Years ago I remember thinking that if I ever got one year completely sober it would be a miracle. If you could have seen what I was like 12 or 13 years ago, you would not have bet a plug nickel that I would even be alive much less clean, sober and happily productive for almost 11 years now. Such is the power of the program of AA and why I love to be among my kind at the convention.

A Kinky Governor.....

In an interesting move, one guaranteed to make Slatts in Geelong Australia happy, it looks as if Kinky Friedman will throw his Texas Jewboy hat into the ring as a candidate for Governor of the State of Texas. Following in the footsteps of luminary governors Arnold in California and Jessie Ventura in Minnesota, Kinky just may have a chance, though in Texas an independent is a long shot to be sure. I think he might be worth a try and it would certainly be an interesting experience! I would have to consider giving Kinky my vote...after all any man that has his own large scale dog rescue program is far more qualified than the typical professional politician in my books.

Kinky is seeking the governorship for several reasons including, as he says "I want to be governor because I need the closet space." And he wants "to fight the wussification of Texas." I consider these to be two very valid reasons. Good luck Kinky.....and I'm hoping that high on his platform will be state funding of rescue ranches for dogs like his very own Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch.

Update: Address Book....

Thanks for all the helpful hints and comments about restoring a wayward address book. I ended up making a .csv [text, comma delimited] copy of the address book residing on my office computer then installing it on my home computer and "importiing" this text file as a new Outlook address book. It worked fine, except that I had so much personal information on my home address book that won't be replicated by using the office version. Oh well....at least I'm back emailing.

As a thought...there has been some good TeeVee programming on at the start of this new year. Last night I watched the History Channel's presentation of "The French Revolution", a good summary of that long and tortured event. Don't ever listen to the French say that we in the U.S. are bloodthirsty maniacs. The founding of their republic was run by some really murderous whackos....and I don't think that they've ever gotten over it.

Simply vanished.....

Well it seems to happen about every 3 years on this computer. Outlook 98, my email program, just simply malfunctions and I lose everything to include my address book.

This happens while I'm not even actively on the computer. I come back into the room, turn the monitor on and there is an "fault" message big as day staring at me. One always seems to have a plethora of choices in these cases to try and save some data, and I usually make the wrong ones. Apparently, because everything has just simply vanished. I had close to 300 names, addresses and phone numbers, not to mention email addresses. Frankly I have most of these duplicated on my machine at the office, but some I do not and will have to wait for the vanished parties to contact me in order to get their information again.

The last time this happened I was able to recover much of the missing information but quite honestly I cannot remember how I did that. After 3 hours of searching the Internet trying to refresh my memory I'm about to give up and just say "screw it". I'll manually recreate most of the email addresses from my office computer and not worry about the rest. However if anyone has a down and dirty secret about restoring an old address book I'd love to hear your comments. I have both .pab and .wab files, the problem is reconnecting them to functionality. I hate it when crap like this happens.

Shiver me timbers....!

I think that my circulation has not come back up to snuff since the operation three weeks ago. Except for a couple of days when the temps were in the 70's, I've been terminally cold since I've been home. It has been chilly outside, in the mid to low 50's and today falling into the 40's, but I used to love cold weather. Age has mitigated that feeling and so now I'm longing for the pleasure of strong sunshine and the high 70's to warm up these old hands and feet. Posts to the Blog have been lacking.....it's hard to type when your hands are "froze up"!

Not much interesting going on anyhow. Except, that I heard from one of my old 25th Infantry Division soldiers.... circa 1972. Mike, "Andy" Anderson found me through one of my old websites and left a message in my Guestbook almost exactly one year ago. While visiting the old website I noticed his post with his enclosed email address. Luckily he had not changed e-addresses in the last year, so that when I emailed him I heard back from him several hours later. Andy sent a recent photo of himself which is really strange. A very familiar face, but one that has 33 years added on since the last time I saw it. I remember Andy as a 19 or 20 year old, he's now probably 52 or 53. Andy had some very kind things to say about his time in my [our] platoon which made me feel good. Good to know that as a young 22 year old Lieutenant, perhaps I was not as much a goofball as I remember. Andy has done well with his life since the army and has been a law enforcement officer, teacher, newspaper editor and mentor in Bisbee Arizona. Really nice to hear from someone I spent so much time with so long ago.

Excuse me now while I go warm my hands.......

Good Company....!

The other day I was over at Hugh Hewitt's place on the web where Hugh was talking about the interesting possibilities that Blogs offer for all sorts of real time communications assignments. If you have read Hugh's book, "Blog",

you know that he spends some time espousing the corporate use of the medium. One of the examples that Hugh gave was the ingenious use of "buzz" that Blogs can create in marketing such things as upcoming films. And as a current example he named the forward thinking firm of Grace Hill Media that was in fact using this technique to promote the film "In Good Company".

Grace Hill Media is offering free tickets to screenings of the film to those Bloggers who emailed and asked for them. Like me. Unfortunately, Universal Pictures decided that far West Texas is not a hot enough market to test the movie and so I won't be attending. However, and just as interesting to me, today I recieved a surprise package from Jonathon Bock, the President of Grace Hill Media.....a really nice "In Good Company" movie hat and "T" Shirt. A high quality hat and "T" shirt I might add. I won't be attending the screening, but I have to say that the movie trailers on TeeVee look interesting, and now that I have a personal connection to the film, I'll be much more likely to see it. Grace Hill Media is on the Blog ball....

A brighter day....

The funk of mild depression seems to be waning the last several days as I start to feel better and stronger and as I am able to reassimilate into the more active world. I've been at the office for several hours each of the last days and this afternoon Julie, Jack and I took a trip to our public library. The more I'm out in public, the more normal I feel and thusly my spirits are lifted.

Today I visited Dr. Patel, the genius surgeon, who took me apart and five hours later put me back together again two and a half weeks ago. He inspected my numerous incisions and pronounced all healing properly. The leg wounds especially are amazing. Some of these deep cuts are now just little more than red scars whereas just weeks ago they were ragged gashes. The human body and it's healing properties is amazing. We had a long chat with Dr. Patel who appologized for having to delay my surgery on Christmas Eve, but as it turned out God needed the good Doc in another place that night more than I and today we were elated because the final result of that drama was realized. My surgery was delayed for hours because Dr. Patel had been called to an emergency case in Odessa, a heart attack victim younger than I who had come into the hospital clinically dead. Dr. Patel brought him back to life and today the man awoke from an induced coma and will survive to thank Dr. Patel himself. We thanked Dr. Patel also, and I continue my prayers of thanks for all the people who took such good care of me and for all those friends and family who continue to offer their best wishes.

It's hard to be depressed when you're grateful.......!

Official medical update....

Dr. Brown the cardiologist this morning gave me a thumbs up and all systems go for further normal activities. Thankfully, he wants me to walk as much as I feel up to, so this means I'll be able to take, at least, the Big Gold Dog on his regular walking schedule. The small wild dog will have to wait to resume her walking schedule as I don't want to chance her pulling my arms from my newly knitted together rib cage.

The Doc says that everything looks good and he has faith that I know what kind of diet to follow and the sort of aerobic exercise program to pursue, which I do. I have decades of running and bicycling under my belt and I look forward to pursuing that course again. I also look forward to driving again and Julie gave me back my keys today so I am now typing this note from the office. It was somewhat odd to drive again after a two week hiatus, but it's only one mile from home to our building, so no major traffic to negotiate. Don't tell Julie, but it does hurt a little to turn the steering wheel, especially while parking. But it sure does feel good to hit the open road again!

Medical update.......

Not wanting to bore the readership with my medical condition I have been mute for the last several days, but since the condition dominates my activities and I do get a few emails asking about said condition, I thought I might add a note concerning my recovery.

In a word, it's going fairly well, although after two weeks of being hospitalized and/or a semi-invalid I'm ready to start back into a completely normal active life. But that's not to be for now. I go to the cardiologist tomorrow morning where I'll be given further marching orders about what I can and cannot do......like drive.

However, I am generally feeling much better and somewhat stronger on a daily basis and my lungs appear to be coming back to capacity with much less coughing and shortness of breath. My stamina is also more long lived and I'm walking with the Big Gold Dog a little further each day. It will help when the weather warms up as it is supposed to over the next several days. Julie dropped me off at my office yesterday afternoon for about an hour so I was able to have a change of scenery and to catch up on things with my partner Del who had just returned from Christmas in England. Otherwise I try and keep as active as I'm allowed, watch some TeeVee, catch a short nap each day and try and keep myself from thinking depressive thoughts about the long road back to good health. But, I feel I've turned the corner on feeling excessively bad and so things are indeed looking up! I guess it's time to go run my three miles and knock out those 150 push-ups so I'll report back later.........

Happy New Year.....

Happy New Year indeed. That's about all I can muster up today in the form of witty bon mots. I've been in rather a vegetative state for the last two days, not so much in pain really as just a post operative illness that renders me rather ineffectual at most anything useful at all. Such as thinking. Which is sad really since all physical activities have been banned for the next week, thinking was all I had. But I suppose that yesterday and today was custom made for someone with a lack of cognative skills due to illness and pain medication. Football on TeeVee for twelve straight hours was custom made for someone in my condtition and I have taken full advantange of it though I have slept through a few key plays.

I got up from the TeeVee to write this short note and to see if my legs still work. Now with both accomplished, I must get back to the television and to whatever bowl is being featured now.......