Happy Birthday to our very first Granddaughter, Tiffany!

Today we send out a happy happy birthday to our Tiffany Marrie, first grandchild, and mother of our first great granddaughter. I'm not sure when it is appropriate to stop sharing the actual years attained in the birthday game but suffice it to say our Tiffany is still a very vibrant young woman. A person told me this past Sunday how blessed we are to have most of our immediate family so near to us. He said that because of what he reads in my blog each day. We do consider that to be a huge blessing. Our Tiffany did quite a bit of her growing up in the very house that we still live in. I know when I visit my mom and dad I can walk down the hall to where I slept as a boy. A lot of memories are connected to places where we spend a lot of our time. Tiffany can do the same at our house because she spent a lot of time with us and now her little sweetie, Madelyn Joy, gets to do the same with her Paw Paw and Maw Maw, our eldest and his wife. I suppose Tiffany gave us the opportunity to try out our grand parenting skills. We mostly did what came naturally but we will never forget how much joy she brought to us, and we are thankful for her, for her husband J.C., and for our Madi girl. Happy Birthday Tiffany and may God add His blessings to this, your special day. Love, MiMi and Poppy.

It's Thursday, April 5, 2012. As you know, I am always looking for new material. I read where a soon to be released E-Book about Governor Rick Perry's run for the Republican nomination is going to blame his lapses into dumbness during the debates on his taking painkillers for his back pain. I hope for his sake that this is true. I watched his melt downs and mix ups and I will tell you in my opinion he must have taken a whole bottle. All I can say is good luck with that one Governor. I'm not so lucky in finding a convenient excuse for the stuff I tend to get upside down and backwards but maybe it could be the time release arthritis strength acetaminophen interacting with the fish oil, or maybe not. There should be a good excuse in there somewhere. Good excuses. They are pretty hard to come by these days. Here's a few that might give you some food for thought. ~ I didn't complete that report because it required that I do calculations. My calculator runs off of solar power and it was cloudy yesterday. ~ I am not going to give you my excuse. Rather, I am exercising my right to remain silent. ~ I did not make it to work on time because I had a horrible dream about being fired. I was so exhausted I overslept. ~ I didn't make our appointment because my left turn signal was broken. Since I didn't want to break the law I had to take a route with only right turns. ~ I did think about making dinner but I know how much you enjoy cooking and I never want to deprive you of things that bring you joy. ~ I have a perfectly good reason for putting the empty milk carton back into the refrigerator. I did it for you. It was my way of reminding you that we need milk. ~ Oh well. Those may not be the greatest of excuses but I think they will play about as well as someone trying to claim their painkillers turned them into a momentary village idiot.

The Empty Suit

I know some of you think I have something really serious against Governor Perry. I do not. I have voted for him every time he has run. Not because of my confidence in him as a political leader but mostly because he is a Republican, and here in Texas, Republicans do embrace some conservative values. Wearing that label does not mean any person is highly competent and it certainly does not imply they are fit for the highest position in our land. It has been my view from the get go that Mr. Perry was pretty much an empty suit, but he has, with a few major bonehead decisions as exceptions, done a reasonably okay job in the role of governor. We all are entitled to our opinion. For those who have not followed his administrations over the years, when he showed up on the presidential scene, they immediately saw a white knight in shining armor. I understand that. He looked very presidential and sky rocketed to the top of the polls. Then he began to speak. The rest, as they say, is history. I too have experienced a little of what it must feel like to be a pygmy among giants. When I was in Chicago doing a consulting project I was asked to act in an advisory capacity by attending a roundtable of noted expects in the computing and telecommunications field. We entered the executive briefing room. There were leading professors from high profile business schools, software architects, technology company presidents, along with the brightest from the company I was working for. Some of these folks were pretty famous for their innovative thinking. I was introduced as the hired gun there to help them evaluate all that was to be presented. Hello? If I had had a handful of painkillers I would have seriously considered seeing if they might be able to help. I didn't, and somehow I made it through that meeting without having to show the full measure of my own lack of expertise in the many disciplines represented. And, let me just say I was very, very thankful for that. Now, we all have more pertinent matters to attend to, so let's get out there and get them done, with God's help, of course. Amen.     ....More later.