• Tag Archives Estate Executor
  • “Time is shortening. But every day that I challenge this cancer and survive is a victory for me.” Ingrid Bergman

    One of the things that I often feel guilty about is not doing anything for cancer research. My father passed away from esophageal cancer on February 11, 2009.

    In an effort to advance cancer research on his behalf (with admittedly little effort on my part) I downloaded Folding@Home which is a computing project that is similar to SETI – in that you download work units to process and then you return the results to a master server. It’s called “distributed computing”. The essential effect is that everyone who downloads the program performs a small part of a larger puzzle, which can then affect the larger whole. Folding@home’s focus is analysis of folding proteins which have links to many diseases – including cancer.

    It’s got some hardware requirements, and since I recently rebuilt two PC’s, I’ve got enough horsepower under the hood to put it on both. If you’ve got an older computer, you might want to check if you can run it – it can slow down your PC if you don’t have the processor or RAM to run it.

    If you’re reading this because you know me, or because you’ve lost someone to cancer, or know someone who has cancer, I would ask that you download Folding@Home and let your PC do some work for solving the cancer puzzle. I built a team so that anyone who knew my father can contribute directly in his name. Once you have downloaded the program, you can configure it so that you belong to team # 169588.

    Thanks for your time.


  • “I’m rather enjoying the whole process of reinvention, … To be able to pretend to be something that I’m frankly not is very liberating and exciting.” Hugh Laurie

    Everyone should embark upon a reinvention of themselves at some time in their lives. I think the world would be a much better place.

    A lot of the unhappy people in the world are merely upset with themselves that they didn’t step out, achieve anything, change themselves, or learn something about the world they live in.

    With some of us, it’s a slow work – in – progress.

    Have I personally achieved everything that I’ve ever wanted? That would be a “no”.

    Do I feel like I’m moving in the right direction? Sometimes. Some times faster or more slowly than others.

    Getting older means redefining yourself, (hopefully) figuring out who you want to be – and being that person.

    With all that said, I was thinking the other day about those “reinvention” type stories. Guy moves on from high school…..re-invents himself as a different person in college…….girl moves to a different town……..re-invents herself as a different person.

    I was wondering if that one was one of the reasons why my father took me to tour all those colleges that were out-of-town. Maybe in some small way.

    We did discuss it one time, but I never got an exact reason as to why I was going anywhere at all.

    Should have just stayed in town, and gone to U of H. Although, of course, my life would be completely different than it is now.

    Like “Back to the Future”…..


  • “Looks like you’ve lost the keys to the clue-mobile” Martin Poulter

    Right now it’s a quiet time.

    Coffee maker is warming up……waking up from a three hour nap. I had to work today – and yesterday – so I’m pretty out of it. Is it Tuesday?? I have to quit taking that Xanax – it keeps knocking me out.

    Memorial Day.

    Traded in the Hondas on Saturday….and got another Honda.  I’ve been asked what I’ve named it, but nothing has sprung forth as fitting. I’m tending to call it my “mid-life-crisis-mobile”. But that’s a little wordy. Actually, I only half heartedly call it that. I went through a lot of different choices before I picked it and several of those cars were definitely mid-life-crisis worthy. The last one I weeded out before the Honda was the Mazda RX8. Unfortunately, the RX8 Renesis engine has a rather disturbing trend of burning up engines when using manufacturers recommended oil weight.  While the rotary engine is simple, I don’t think that rebuilding it every 30,000 miles is something I wanted to do.

    Plus, I know Honda cars pretty well – starting with my blue Acura back in the mid-nineties.  I know what goes wrong with them, they’re reliable, good with gas, not going bankrupt…..

    mlcm

    It’s a 2006 Civic SI……It’s really fast. And black.

    I didn’t realize that it’s faster than my brother’s mini Cooper until I looked it up.

    While I did have a Cobra alarm on the Acura (as anyone who was concious in the 90’s remembers the destinctive 6 alarm wail of), this will be the first car that I’ve installed Lo-Jack on.

    Needless to say, car thieves like fast cars with fast engines.


  • “He’s had success, and she’s making us feel like he was a broke hobo that played a guitar on the street.” Justin Jones

    Sorry – it’s been pretty quiet at Chez Dave.

    Been working with the beneficiaries to get some stuff wrapped up. I have an appointment with the accountant tomorrow.

    Went to see a friend of my brother’s band at Pearl. Hung out with Ross and just goofed off. Drinking Pearl Lite.

    ……Vine Swinging Hobos……

    Ross

    I’m eating possibly the worst chicken fajita nachos ever. I just can’t stop.


  • “Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.” Ludwig van Beethoven

    I find it intensely interesting that human-kind insists on doing things that nature has clearly designed for us not to do.

    Case in point: Jalapenos and Peppers

    Met my ex-father in law last night for dinner. He was late, so I ordered (and consumed) a plate of fried jalapenos. When he got there, we ordered a sampler platter that included habanero hot wings.

    Needless to say, an hour later, my stomach/intestines/et al were in subcutaneous flames.

    If I was thinking it hurt yesterday – WOW – today has sucked.

    Anyway.

    I went and bought a wedding gift for my father’s girlfriends granddaughter’s wedding. Confusing?

    Also needed to finally get a nice suit to appear fully respectable at the wedding. I walked into the suit place and told the guy, “Okay, this is my first suit, and I’m going to be going to a wedding. I want this suit to say, “I respect your union of holy matrimony while simultaneously saying that I want all the bridesmaids to want to have sex with me.” He was quickly stunned, looked away as though about to laugh, then said “Okay, gotta get it back together, time to be professional”. So we worked on it a bit, he went to help another customer, and Tam called. She wasn’t doing anything, so I asked her to come help me pick a suit. As I was wandering around, the salesman said, “Do you need some more help?”. I told him that my ex-wife was coming by to help me out – “but not with the sex part”. Again he was stunned and tried very hard not to laugh.

    When she came in and I had some final questions, and he met her and shook her hand. He said, “I’ll pray for you” to her. LOL!

    As we’re walking away to get the fittings etc, I asked her if she thought it was odd that he was going to pray for her. She said it was, but then I explained the situation and Tam thought it was hilarious.

    The new Green Day CD is great! It’s a freaking great follow up to American Idiot.

    *EDIT* Forgot – one of the accounts was distributed (the main one that I was worried about) so now I’ve got a lot….less…..to…..worry…..about.


  • “I’m getting too old for this….” Danny Glover in every lethal weapon movie

    SNAFU! FUBAR! SNAFU! FUBAR! SNAFU! FUBAR! SNAFU! FUBAR! SNAFU! FUBAR! SNAFU! FUBAR! SNAFU! FUBAR!

    But really folks. It’s not just SNAFU. It’s not just FUBAR. I shall now dub this trip SNAFUBAR.

    SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!! SNAFUBAR!!!

    My happy little ass woke up this morning at 5am to begin the lengthy drive to Corpus Christi. Made it to Corpus around one. Left around three after convincing the helpdesk it wasn’t our problem. Found out about forty minutes later (after driving away) that I would need to go back because they’re complete idiots and couldn’t grab me before I left.

    So I’m in Houston. Sorry – I forgot the camera, it was either the camera or the coffee – and we all know which way that willow would bend.

    I’ll be here (briefly) tonight and tomorrow morning while I get some estate stuff done (briefly) then I drive back to Corpus. SNAFUBAR!!!!!

    Then, I’m feeling pretty tired as of RIGHT NOW, so I’m probably going to have a layover in Austin Saturday night. I can’t handle eleven more hours of driving in one day. This should give me a nice chance to hang out…..before driving back to Austin on Tuesday for GirlOnTop‘s FPIA show. Be there or be square people!!!

    SNNNNAAAAAFFFUUUUUUUBBBBBAAAARRRRR!!!!


  • “We will come and make a longer trip soon,” Christopher Shays

    Thanks to the ultimate (non) wisdom of my company, I’m taking a road trip tomorrow. Not just a road trip –

    a rooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddddddddddddddd trip.

    Friday, I drive from DFW down to Corpus Christi to service a customer that has exactly one store there. This is around a seven hour drive. They have a screwed up printer and, lucky me, I took off time early in the week to be crazy, and now I’m back at work. Or more succinctly back to a rooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddddddddddddddd trip. Being middle management means that I pretty much just take off when I want, but it also means I’m first up when some ugly task rears its head.

    Oh well.

    From CC, either I drive back home, or swing through Houston to see how much I can accomplish.


  • “Experience is what allows us to repeat our mistakes, only with more finesse!” Random

    Arrggh.

    I may have made a critical mistake and burned some financial documents that I needed for the estate. It’s not enough that emotionally I’m having to forge through this stuff, but then to have done something pretty stupid like that?

    *sigh*

    So, instead, I’m stalling again and updating my wordpress.

    I’ll tell a little story about how one time I was robbed at gunpoint. (This is not the funny story that I previously mentioned).

    This was probably 1995, when I was working at Kay Bee Toys at Westwood Mall in Houston…..when it was still a mall (barely).

    Finally, I had gotten around to getting Monica (not my friend Monica – she worked at the toy store with me) to go out on kind of a proper “date”. Monica (#2) is the daughter of my surrogate mother Chris who took care of me at the poolhalls from 1990 onward. Yes, I semi-dated the bartender’s daughter. Such a stud.

    Anyway – it was about 4:30pm or 5:00pm and if I recall (daylight), Monica had been grounded for something, and wasn’t supposed to be out. I picked her up in the Olds station wagon (such a cool dude was I). I don’t recall having a plan of where to go – either go eat or something, but I needed cash. It’s still daylight – so we stop at the ATM at Hillcroft and Beechnut. This ATM is no longer there, the bank turned into a wing joint. So, I think I got out $60 bucks – although it might have been $200. I don’t remember.
    So, I’m getting back into my car and doing the “lean” where you’re putting your wallet back into your pocket, and I’m looking at Monica. All of a sudden I feel something on the back of my head. I hear the words, “Give me everything”. I move very slowly and I’m looking at this black dude who’s got a gun digging into the back of my head. I freeze and just drop my keys in my lap. He calmly says, “Pick them up, and give them to me”. I give him my keys, my wallet and the cash I had pulled out. He calmly leaves along with two of his buddies that were keeping lookout.

    Kind of freaking out, and not being able to drive anywhere, we get out of the car. Slowly.

    There’s a white dude at the ATM pulling out cash – who had been doing that the entire time not even noticing that we were being robbed. I say, “We were robbed!” He looks a little surprised, but kind of shrugs his shoulders. I was a little irritated, but what the hell did I expect him to do?

    So we went to the Little Ceasers pizza at the end of the strip (Ty will know which one I’m talking about) and called the cops. The cops pick us up, take us up to my regular poolhall which is right up the street and drop us off. Monica gets picked up, and Brian picked me up. He was hungry, so we go right back to the same ATM (where my car is sitting) and he gets out cash. Man we were stupid.

    Chris was SUPER pissed. She still brings it up sometimes when I see her. I did kind of date Monica off and on from then, but it never really went anywhere.

    Monica (#1) might remember me having to get all the locks changed at the Toy Store since all my keys were stolen.

    The cops did come by the Toy Store and showed me some pictures, but the guy that actually held the gun to my head was not in the pictures.

    So that’s that story.

    After I tell the story, and people usually say something like, “Wow, that’s crazy”. I have to remind myself that I was EXTREMELY lucky that the guy was calm. If he had been a jittery crackhead, I probably would have been shot – dead. All these stories about “invincible” teenagers makes me think of that day.

    Just because it makes me feel better, Lucy always jumps into my lap when I’m on the computer:

    lucy