June 25th 2009 was meant to be an exciting day with the first ever NBA draft for the Oklahoma City Thunder. With the Thunder getting the third draft pick it was sure to be a great day.  It was a Thursday that was going to be a Friday for me because I was taking off work on Friday.  What a sad day yesterday with the loss of two famous people in our country yesterday and three in the last week.  Those who have read this blog know that I am anything but a celebrity worshiper.  In fact, I often chastise others that do engage in celebrity worship.  With that said, I have to admit that Michael Jackson was a huge part of my teenage years.  When his Thriller album came out, I was in 10th grade and I will never forget the impact he had on my teenage years.  For the tough guys that I tried to emulate, it was not cool to listen to his music though we were all closet Michael Jackson fans. I remember no one would admit to listening to his music yet he sold more albums than anyone in history.  Someone was buying them.  I remember listening to his music and then when my friends would come over I would quickly switch the radio back over to the classic rock station so my friends would think I was cool.  Looking back I would never choose that life style again where I could not be myself.  For that reason to this day I cannot stand classic rock music.  I sometimes forget with my own kids the pressure that people put on you as a teenager.  The pressure they put on themselves to fit into the group.

Though he made some mistakes, I cannot deny his impact on my own life.  In fact here I am at 43 years old and I have more than 20 mp3’s of his songs on this very computer I am typing on.  He made some terrible choices that I would hope that he regretted afterward.  I know I have made some huge mistakes in my own life that I would change if I could do them again.

Farrah Fawcett was a part of my younger years with her role in Charlie’s Angels. Later she was in several movies including the Burning Bed.  That movie was a wake up call to anyone that considered being a spouse abuser for sure.  I remember all my friends had that famous bathing suit poster on their walls.  I never had one myself because my parents would not allow that at the time.  I often wondered what makes people act so crazy with celebrities and I still do.  In this case however, I lose any sense of rationale.  No one can deny that Michael Jackson was unusual and in some cases lacked some common sense.  Nevertheless his existence brought back my teenage years.  When I say he lacked some common sense, I refer to his continued exposure to children even after being accused of child molestation.  Most people would take that first accusation as a lesson to not put themselves in that situation again.

In all fairness, if this had been anyone else I would be less likely to give him a second chance in the same situation.  That double standard goes back to the nostalgia that he brought back to me.  This amazing news was just hours after hearing of the death of Farrah Fawcett and just two days after Ed McMahon.  Farrah’s fight with cancer was such an opportunity to shine the light on this disease to get people involved in finding a cure.  This opportunity was cut short with the loss of Michael Jackson, ironically by a heart attack.  Both heart trouble and cancer are the two largest causes of death in the United States.  I know it sounds like I am speaking in a way that Michael Jackson’s death was unfair to Farrah.  It may seem that way because I do have an emotional connection to both of these diseases.

I lost my mom in 2005 to a heart attack and my mother in-law in 2002 to cancer.  My mom had a serious heart attack when she was only 29 years old.  This attack caused permanent damage to her heart and she suffered many heart attacks over the next 30 years.  My incredibly supportive dad stood by her side stressing out for years.  He was so stressed at times that he looked terrible.  I really loved my mom and miss her so much.  It has never been the same since she has been gone.  My mother in-law had many illnesses over the years and one day we found out that she had cancer.  By then it was too late to do anything.  My mother in-law was a very good person and my wife is just like her.  Ever since then my wife has been actively involved in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.  This helps her feel like she is doing something for her mom because she never had time with her own mom.

This blog post may seem a little down but a death always brings this out in me.  Michael Jackson was so big during my most influential years that it is difficult to believe that it is true.  With such a big event, this will certainly go down as one of the biggest events that I will always remember…even bigger than Elvis Presley’s death.  When these things happen it really makes me begin to think and put things into perspective.  It makes me think about our purpose on this earth.  Did we just simply land here by accident'?  Was there an explosion one day and living creatures just evolved from no where?  Is there purpose?  It can make a person begin to think of their value in this world. 

In my case it makes me thankful for what I have.  I have Jesus who died for my sins so that I would have a chance to be forgiven for my mistakes, and bad choices.  I for one believe we are not an accident and someone put us here for a reason.  This person is God.  Anyone that is honest with themselves and looks the creation of this world would have to admit that it is so well designed that it had to be done on purpose.  Just look at a tree leaf and see the awesomeness of HIS creation.  God is almighty and deserves a glory greater than all of man could give him.  He is honest, just, powerful, forgiving, loving, and fair.  I think he deserves our true worship.  With all the emotional feelings that a singer can give us, it cannot compare to the glory that God deserves.

I truly wish the best for Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Ed McMahon and hope they were blessed enough to know that Jesus died for them and they had purpose.  I have watched countless interviews over the last 24 hours about how Michael Jackson as much money and fame as he had still desired purpose.  God loved him and that is the greatest purpose a person can have.  If he could have ever realized this, deep down it would give him a sense of value that a trillion dollars could not compare.  As bad as we all were at following the guidance that God has given us, he loved us enough to come to us in the form of a man to die in our place.  If that ever gets into your spirit, it will bring tears to your eyes that anyone could really care for you that much.  I feel blessed to have been able to know this revelation.  I feel blessed to have such a wonderful wife for the last 20 years.  God also blessed me with two incredible sons that I would never trade for anything on this earth.

It is interesting how a death can make you think about things that we actively try to avoid thinking about.  I have never met any of these celebrities but their loss made me think about what is important.  I hope I am not the only one that feels this way.  I know I am not because I scrolled across the radio this morning and I heard many stations that spoke of the death of Michael Jackson as an event they will never forget.  I heard those on the local sports station saying the same thing and they are famous for belittling celebrities all the time.  I have heard them make fun of him many times though this morning I heard the same people discussing this event seriously as a moment they will never forget.  In the end, this in my opinion is a good thing because death is something we all will face some day and many do not wish to think about it or their purpose.  Events like this make people think of them and can make people think about what is really important in their lives.

Today I took off work so I could go to the doctor to get the results of a heart echo that I had last week.  I often have these anxiety attacks where my heart starts racing and I feel short of breath.  Since I lost my mom from a heart attack, I often worry about them.  After talking to many of my family members I find that I am not the only one that has them.  It is scary when they happen and it makes me feel like I am not able to breath.  I found out later that the accelerated breathing makes it worse.  My results came back this morning and my doctor said that it looked normal.

Well now that I have pretty much “bummed out” everyone with my blog post I guess I will get on with a great weekend.  Remember to recognize what you have and be thankful for them.  It is too easy to focus on the bad things and miss out on the great things and people you have around you.

This week has been very busy with having to work overtime the last two weekends in a row and working two hours overtime each day.  Some point this week, my HF antenna fell from the tower and landed on my next door neighbor’s power line.  Both the antenna and her power line were insulated so it was not a big deal for it to lay there a couple days because I just have not had time to work on it.  As you can see below, it is the antenna on the top and to the left.  It is an Alpha Delta DX-LB Plus 6 through 80 meter dipole antenna that was quite expensive.

What happened was that I had the antenna suspended on a pole off the side of the tower at 50 feet by a pulley and a nylon rope.  Some time this week, the rope broke sending the antenna to the power line below.  Well I hoped the neighbor would not notice it until I would have time to fix it but she did.  The night before last she came to the door about 8:00 pm and told us how concerned she was.  Of course I had already showered for bed because I had to be up at 4:00 am.  Well the next morning I got up and I was on that tower about 40 feet up at 5:00 am trying to pull the antenna off the wire.  Because the antenna has large traps on it, the antenna did not want to cooperate.  I eventually got it down but not after getting every dog in the neighborhood wound up.  Man I have the most stupid dogs that live next door to me on three sides.  These dogs will bark non stop for hours on end.  If I did not sleep with a fan next to my head, I would never get any sleep.

For the life of me I cannot see what the attraction is to a loud barking dog.  They have all the appeal of a wasp in attack mode.  Oh well, I did manage to get the antenna down without destroying it though it is all tangled up.  I hope to be able to work on it within the next few weeks and get it back up.  I really am not up to climbing the tower any time soon because my feet have been hurting a lot lately.  So this means that I will not be on the radio in the near future.  Do you hear that lady next door?  When your television is not working right, it is not me.  Just kidding.  She is okay but she does think it is me sometimes when it is not.  That is part of the way of life when you are a ham rado operator.  People will see your antenna and just assume that it is you that is messing up their television.  I have been watching TV and not even have the radio turned on and people come to the front door and accuse me of coming in on their television.  It just comes with the territory as my dad can attest to.  He has had similar experiences at his house with false accusations

For the most part, things have been going fine around here except for all the overtime.  Some people love working overtime but not me.  I believe that time is the only resource that you cannot get more of.  You can work and get more money but you cannot get more time.  Fortunately my overtime is limited in scope and I work with some great people.  I am looking forward to not working next weekend.  Well I think that just about covers my week.  I thought I should post an update since I have not posted much lately.  I will try to keep this up to date more so you will know how things are going.

This morning I woke up to go to work and was still itching pretty bad though you could barely see it.  This evening when I came home from work I noticed something was different.  No itching at all!  After four and a half weeks it is finally on its way out and all I can say is thank God!  This has been a rough month with the never ending itching and even worse the allergic reaction to the medicine. 

During this time I had two very big events my life and that was graduating OU and the other was seeing my family in New Mexico for the first time in 21 years.  The enjoyment of both of these events were a bit lost because of having the most severe poison ivy outbreak known to the human race.  For those of you that saw it, you know what I am talking about.  For the rest of you, I will spare you the pictures but I do have some. :)

While we were gone on our trip my oldest son Kevin was a hero.  He did not get to go with us on our vacation because he forgot to tell his boss about it until it was too late to let him off.  I was upset for a while but that was changed when some bad guys broke into our house while we were gone.  My son captured two of the three and the police caught the other one.  Everyone of them were over 18 years old so we are pressing charges.  He walked in on them inside the house.  Just yesterday he was at work and helped to capture a thief at his work.  I told him that being a police officer may be his calling.  The bad guys come right to him.  I am so proud of him and the way he handled the situation.

Now that I am feeling better this weekend I have to work tomorrow.  That is okay because it will be a short day.  I am working a straight eight hours from 6:30 am to 2:20 pm.  That should go fast and I will be able to squeak by with a decent weekend after all.  Our WIN System repeater was blocked this week because of a stray signal that was mistaken for intermod.  This happened once before in 2007 when a local ham was transmitting amateur television (ATV) on 439.25 MHz.  This local ham is very close to the repeater antenna and has a very high gain antenna.  I am not sure if that is what happened this time or not.  Another possibility is that another new ham was trying to get into the repeater with a handy talkie (HT) and was not getting into the system very well.  I am hoping that was the scenario because that is an easy one to fix.  We have since been unblocked but we are reluctant to connect back up until we confirm the source of the signal.

Just the other day I posted about the new Microsoft search engine Bing.com and how cool it was.  A story came out today that shows that in just three days, it has taken the number two search engine spot world wide over taking Yahoo.  I have mixed feelings about this because I have always loved Yahoo and still think they are very relevant.  At the same time I am really pulling for Bing to succeed.  I really do like the way it operates.  Well I have rambled long enough so I will get this posted.

Those of you that know what the last month has been like at our home, you know that I have gone through the most miserable time with a poison ivy outbreak.  I have had it for four weeks and it finally started getting better this week.  I went to the Emergency Room in Las Cruces, New Mexico and found that the medication that I was taking was making it worse.  This week I have been recovering almost miraculously in New Mexico to a point that most of the itching had stopped.  We drove more than twelve hours yesterday and got home around 5:00 PM.  Last night I started feeling some itching again and today I am getting some red blotches on the skin.

There is something in this house that still has poison ivy on it and I am afraid to touch anything.  My wife just washed down this desk thoroughly but I am starting to get another outbreak and I cannot afford it.  I have been off work for three days before I went on vacation and now I cannot afford to take off again.  Today we will have to go through this house and clean everything to prevent this poison ivy from spreading.  I am already going to have to throw away a pair of shoes that I was wearing when I cut a tree down at my dad’s house.  I walked right through all the poison ivy while wearing them.

You would think that after being awake for more than 24 hours yesterday that I would be able to sleep soundly.  Last night I had to take an Ambien and two Benedryl pills and I still had a hard time falling asleep.  This morning I have a pounding head ache and itching all over.  God, I think I need your help on this one.

This week we spent with our family in New Mexico for the first time in 21 years.  My mom’s side of the family lives in New Mexico and we hardly ever get to see them.  Since I lost my mom in 2005 it has been a long time coming regaining our contact with her side of the family.  It is so expensive to go on any vacation yet it is so worth it.  My wife and kids have never met them and they are such a special group of people.  Tomorrow morning we are leaving before daylight to go back home.  We have had so much fun and I have taken more than 700 pictures.  I will likely only upload a few but everyone of them are priceless to me.  I would like to thank my cousins Phyllis Ann, Fern, John, Mabel, Aron, Amanda, Bambi, and the countless children that filled the house for making us feel so at home.  You have made my family from Oklahoma feel like they belong even though this is the first time you have ever met.  I am truly blessed to have such a family that I do.  I only wish my oldest son Kevin could have been with us but he had to work.  He was not able to come with us though his staying at home was a blessing in disguise that I cannot discuss online.

I also had a great opportunity to see my brother in-law at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas today.  He was gracious and we enjoyed seeing him.  As with the rest of the family the worst part was not having enough time to have a quality visit.  Ernie, we truly enjoyed seeing you today and we love you for taking such good care of my sister.  I could go on and on but since my son Jordan wants to get on the computer, I will conclude with a big thank you to God for giving me such a wonderful family.  To think that I almost let a terrible poison ivy outbreak convince me not to go on this vacation.  Thanks to my wonderful wife for snapping me back to reality and going anyway. 

Again, thank you family for the warm welcome,

Paul

My dad bought this Honda Nighthawk new in 1988 so he could drive to and from work while saving on fuel costs.  This motorcycle has been sitting in a shed for many years collecting dust.  He decided to sell it but to a family member.  He has not ridden the motorcycle for several years but he hated to get rid of it.  We took this picture the night before he got rid of it on October 11, 2007, so he could keep the memories.