THE MAJOR’S LIFE BLOG

Are you ready ?  Here’s what I’m talkin’ about !

1.  It’s a cool, dark, and stormy Tuesday afternoon in Homestead. We’re still in a drought if you can believe that. We need a lot more rain than this to get ourselves out of this fine mess !

2.  My brother and his lovely wife got me addicted to the TV show TMZ while I was at their house in Texas. I watch it almost every night now. I never saw a single episode of it before my recent trip to Texas.

3.  I never realized how much I actually like iced coffee … before I started drinking iced coffee !  I’ve made the new Homestead Starbucks a Monday afternoon tradition (right before the weekly Life Pointe Church staff meeting).

4.  Irony ? - A coworker of mine standing barefoot on an old chair on top of a hard floor while updating our building’s safety bulletin board !

5.  Yesterday I picked-up the new premium fish fillet sandwich from Wendy’s, and I brought it back to work. I microwaved it (to get it a little warmer than it was), and it emitted a wonderful smell that attracted a small portion of my coworkers. They adored that smell. It probably smelled better than it tasted. It was a fine sandwich, but I wouldn’t consider it to be ‘premium’. If anything it was perhaps a bit overpriced.

6.  Watch this cool Life Pointe Church promotional video from this past Sunday morning. I’m not in this one. I told Jesse that I wanna be a lovable babyface in his videos rather than a miserable heel. Travis alleges that I have a loyal cult following at the church. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a not so good thing.

7.  Every Sunday morning at Life Pointe Church I manage to get myself in to a whole bunch of pictures, yet they never see the light of day. I challenge you to put those pictures online, or send them to me and I’ll put them on the blog here.

8.  Here’s my brother in a recent text message to me describing what he had to deal with regarding his beloved dog Buddy - ‘… on Saturday he ate grass outside then ate insect killer that I sprayed, then vommitted BRIGHT YELLOW PUKE in A CIRCLE in the living room’.

9.  My 2002 HP Pavilion laptop is dying a slow death. I can see myself buying a brand new one sooner than I thought - like before the Summer is over. I may even donate this old laptop to the church once I buy the new one.

10.  Got ‘Rock Band‘ ?  I’ll be the lead vocalist. I’m good like that !

It’s great to be back home in Homestead. I’ve been home for a little over 24 hours now, and I’ve used this (Satur)day to relax and return to a more normal routine.

I’m looking forward to a lot of ‘normal routine’ things during this upcoming week. I’m looking forward to serving at Life Pointe Church for 3 hours starting at 7:25 AM tomorrow (Sunday) morning. I’m looking forward to attending the 10:30 AM service right after that. I’m looking forward to blogging the ‘Life Pointe Church Sunday Morning Tossed Salad’ on here tomorrow afternoon. I’m looking forward to returning to work at 6 AM on Monday morning. I’m looking forward to the weekly staff meeting at the Life Pointe Church office suite right after work at 4 PM on Monday afternoon. I’m looking forward to a visit from the Orkin dude on Tuesday afternoon because he keeps my home bug-free. I’m looking forward to hangin’ out with my Life Group at 7 PM on Wednesday night.

I’m looking forward to all of these things and everything else in-between that makes this Life the best Life that I could ever imagine. All of these great things are possible because of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He has made this Life especially for me. I am forever greatful of Him and what He did for me, and what He is doing for me. There is no-one and no-thing that is greater than Him !

This morning I didn’t get out of bed until (a SHOCKING) 9 AM !  I’ve already set my alarm clock for 6:30 AM tomorrow (Sunday) morning. Despite the late ‘getting up’ time this morning I’m gonna try to get back to bed at a reasonable time tonight (such as 10 PM). It felt so great to be back in my own bed last night. In fact it felt so great that I was in it for nearly 12 hours (from 9 PM to 9 AM) !

May each and every one of you have a safe and peaceful Saturday night, and until we hang out again here on the blog or LIVE and in-person - remember this (and turn up the volume LOUD !):

You know you want it, so don’t let me be the one to deny it:

1.  On this dark and stormy Tuesday afternoon in Homestead I actually heard the following overused phrase from a coworker - ‘I think this is gonna be a really bad hurricane season. This could be the worst one yet !’ Remember when Hurricane Andrew destroyed Homestead 16 years ago this August ?  That was one of the quietest Atlantic hurricane seasons in modern history. It only takes one powerful hurricane to wreck havoc with your life as you know it. If we have an all-time record 30 named storms this season, yet none of them strike land anywhere near you then what kind of hurricane season is that ?

2.  We’re getting a lot of much-needed rain today here in Homestead. I totally dig that. We need every last drop of it and then some to pull us out of this extended drought that we’re in. We could really use at least three FEET of rain (that’s right - 36 inches) over the next three months !

3.  If you think that you haven’t seen that many mosquitoes out and about thus far this Summer then check again by this weekend. Let me know if you can feel them biting you in a few days.

4.  Last Thursday I celebrated the 23RD anniversary of my United States Air Force / Department Of Defense career. Time flies when I’m having fun !

5.  Last Friday I celebrated the 13TH anniversary of me living here in my current home here in Homestead. This is by far the best place that I have ever lived in my entire life / Life.

6.  For those of you who are new to my blog let me explain. When I refer to the last 22 months of my Life the word ‘Life’ is always capitalized. When I refer to the 39 years before that the word ‘life’ begins with a lower-case ‘l’. When I write about my ’life / Life’ I’m referring to my previous sad, miserable, and directionless life, as well as my current Life - full of glory, joy, and purpose for I have been saved and reborn again by the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s all symbolic, but it also keeps it all in perspective.

7.  My next laptop will have at least 2 gigabytes of memory in it. My current laptop has exactly one-fourth that amount. I think that I will finally buy a brand new laptop sometime between now and the end of the year. I’m actually not looking forward to it. Once I buy that new laptop this blog may suddenly go inactive for about 3 to 5 days because it will probably take that long to transfer all of my files over from this laptop to that laptop and also install and configure various programs. There’s a lot of work involved there. If I knew that it would be really easy then I would probably already have a new laptop by now.

8.  Ela O. called me on the telephone this afternoon, and we talked for exactly 7 minutes and 29 seconds. She made me laugh hysterically, and I returned the flavour. The telephone is my least favourite electronic device that I could easily live without; however, when I see that it’s Ela on the other end (via my Caller-I.D.) I know that I should be prepared to laugh up a storm with her. She has every reason in the world to be sad and miserable, yet she is one of the happiest and most joyful women I know in my current Life. She’s got a whole lot of purpose remaining in her Life here on Earth on God’s fantastic journey !

9.  Ela tried to pull a fast one on me during that telephone conversation by telling me that I was being assigned to make coffee this Sunday morning at the Life Pointe Church Café. We have quite a few Medical Doctors and Registered Nurses that are part of our LPC family. They would be put into action and forced to go to work on their fellow brothers and sisters if I were to make coffee on Sunday morning. We would need a couple of shuttle buses to transport the victims from the movie theatre to the hospital. I stopped making coffee for the general public in 1989 - not because I made anyone sick or anything like that - but because I could. Nowadays I actually make my own instant coffee for myself on most mornings. It would probably cause irregular heartbeats for most normal healthy humans.

10.  The Sun is now shining brightly and baking the atmosphere directly above my neighbourhood. That only means one thing. Prepare now for another ferocious thunderstorm with torrential downpours in about an hour.

You waited 168 hours for this ?  Let’s see if it was all worth it.

1.  Last week was the biggest week in history for this blog. Nowadays we are averaging more than double the amount of unique hits to this blog in a typical Monday to Sunday week than we were less than 3 months ago. Today (Tuesday) became the biggest Tuesday ever in the history of this blog before I even turned on my computer this afternoon !  THANK YOU FRIENDS !

2.  Speaking of friends Pastor Travis called me ‘clueless’ in his blog today, and it’s the nicest complement I’ve received all day. I’ll accept the complement because I did a much better job late last night before I went to sleep talking all about Trav to God. Trav is one of the most sensible persons that I have ever met in my entire life / Life.

3.  Paul - There’s no need to be jealous. The person that was going to take me out to Lunch for my birthday today fell ill and had to postpone it, so I ended up eating ‘grocery store grub’ from Publix. Actually it was rather decent tasty - chicken tenders, macaroni and cheese, and juicy corn. YUM !

4.  Yesterday (Monday) I went to Panda Express (spur-of-the-moment decision) for Lunch and I received poor service. As usual they had little to no selection of foods available to choose from for the various entrees. I completed and submitted a survey online stating my dissatisfaction with their Lunch service and product. We’ll see if it gets any better in future visits. If the customer service and the food selection doesn’t improve then I’ll just stop going there.

5.  Speaking of the Atlanta Bread Company in Homestead I have received no follow-up communication from Corporate Headquarters in Smyrna Georgia as of yet - more than 80 hours after the fact. Apparently they have no Assimilation / Follow-Up Director.

6.  I was extremely shy as a kid. I didn’t talk a lot. The reason why is because when I did talk nobody was listening and nobody cared to listen. I pretty much lived through a sad and miserable childhood. My little brother was one of the first persons in my entire life that actually listened to what I had to say and was genuinely interested. If it weren’t for my little brother then I may not be here today.

7.  One of the highlights of my day is looking out my personal hurricane-proof window at work that faces due east and watching the sun rise above the horizon. I adore the daylight. I adore chasing it. It’s morning again !

8.  I spent close to 45 minutes at Office Max yesterday and I only spent $8.75 (including tax). The fact of the matter is that I could have spent 3 hours browsing around in that store and $500 or more on quality office merchandise. But I showed real restraint in there. I’m a member of the Christian Conservative Coalition. Yeah - I’m one of those wackos - and PROUD of it !

9.  When Staples opens its doors for business later this year over at the MASSIVE new Homestead Pavilion shopping, dining, and entertainment complex I may hang out there like I own the place !  I’m crazy about office supplies like that.

10.  Exactly 5 months ago this morning - on January 03RD 2008 - Homestead was shivering just a few degrees above the freezing mark. It was in the 30s outside for 8 hours, and in the 40s for an additional 8 hours. It was our coldest morning in nearly 12 years !  I just wanted to remind you of that now that we’re clearly in the bug-infested hot and humid summertime rainy season.

B U G S - The bugs are back in town here in Homestead due to all of the recent heavy rains. You may be thinking to yourself, ‘Hey - Wait a minute. I live in Homestead. It hasn’t rained since March !’  You may also be thinking to yourself, ‘No doubt. I thought the sky was caving in on us yesterday afternoon. My yard turned into a giant lake !  My new patio furniture was thrown by the funnel cloud into the canal !’ There is rain all around us. Some of us have received a lot of it this past week, and some of us are still living in a dust bowl. Pretty soon all of us will get a lot of rain, and the bugs will flock to Homestead on their Summer break. Get ready to be eaten alive by little itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny mouths with glow-in-the-dark green eyes.

G A S - I filled-up my car this morning with not quite 11 gallons of gas at Chevron on Useless-One at Campbell Drive at the remarkable price of $4.059 per gallon. That’s about 15 to 20 cents per gallon higher than every other gas station in the general vicinity of that Chevron, but I am kinda sorta semi-loyal to Chevron, and I really wanted to use my fresh new Chevron-Texaco credit card this morning for the first time. $4.059 may seem outrageous to a majority of whining and complaining Americans, but $4.059 for the equivalent of a gallon of gas anywhere in Europe is known as ‘the good old days of the 1990s’.

J A V A - Speaking of items that we Americans love to spend a lot of money on - Starbucks in Homestead - not to be confused with Starbucks in Florida City - is OPEN for BUSINESS !  OK calm down Travis. The drive-thru is open for business. The inside of the joint is apparently not quite ready for customer utilization, so you’ll just have to wait a little while longer to sit inside for hours on your wireless Apple Mac.

One final item of interest - Many of the mega-stores and restaurants at the first phase of the Homestead Pavilion shopping, dining, and entertainment complex at Campbell Drive and the Turnpike are expected to make their grand openings between the middle of October and the middle of November - just in time for the NASCAR Championship Series at the Homestead-Miami Speedway and of course the Christmas 2008 shopping season.

There was no walk around my neighbourhood on this Saturday morning. It was about 73°F and the relative humidity was very near 100% with lower visibility due to light fog. The South Florida summertime weather pattern has taken hold, and it will have a firm grip on us for the next 5+ months.

Last Saturday morning was the season finale of ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’, and so I present to you a recap of the season that started on Christmas Eve with my TOP 10 thoughts (in chronological order):

1.  Monday December 24TH 2007 - If this were May, June, July, August, September, or October then I would have probably been eaten alive by every bug known to mankind, but this is December and it is just so refreshingly delightful outside !

2.  Tuesday January 01ST 2008 - You can tell where the party-animals live here in my neighbourhood. Their dumpsters are overflowing with leftover holiday week garbage. The dumpsters that were still able to be closed from the top are where the retired folks live … Dogs can be party-animals as well. I came within inches of stepping in some of their ‘holiday leftovers’ during my walk this morning. It was a close call !

3.  Saturday January 05TH 2008 - Walking is a great time for praying. I prayed for the residents of Homestead, Florida City, Redland, Leisure City, Naranja Lakes, and Princeton to be blessed by the Glory of God. I prayed that the believers stay strong and unwavering with their personal relationship with Jesus. I prayed that the non-believers be guided onto the on-ramp of the fantastic journey by the believers. There’s plenty of room for everyone who truly believes in Him !

4.  Saturday February 16TH 2008 -  A friend from afar recently asked me why I started this weekly walk. Besides the obvious health and fitness reasons this walk - inspired and encouraged by this fellow WordPress blogger - is symbolic of my walk with Jesus Christ. I’ve been walking with Him on His fantastic journey for about 18 months now. I was once a mannequin - plastic and rotting. Now I am alive. Since I am alive I am living Life (always capitalized) the way that I should have lived it during my previous 39 years on His great Earth. That includes throwing everything up in the air like ‘Tossed Salad’ (catch the symbolism there) and only catching the good stuff - the right stuff. A physical walk is now on my agenda to complement my spiritual walk with my Creator. No longer am I sitting still in neutral. I am now moving forward and going places with my Life. The Lord Almighty is driving me. I am merely His passenger.

5.  Saturday February 23RD 2008 - I received some disappointing news at my Doctor’s office yesterday afternoon. After numerous analyses of my blood work over the past several years he has finally made the determination that diet and exercise alone is not bringing down my bad cholesterol (LDL). It’s still in the ‘elevated’ range, and it doesn’t appear to be coming down on its own. He has prescribed Lipitor for me - 10 milligrams per day to start off with. He gave me a free 14-day sample of it to ensure that it doesn’t cause any bad side effects with me. If I feel fine after the first 14 days then it’s on to Walgreens to get my prescription filled. I take my first dosage this afternoon. This will probably be the start of daily medication for the rest of my Life. I am no longer a young buck. Apparently I am now a middle-aged dude with high cholesterol. I am facing the music.

6.  Saturday March 08TH 2008 - My semi-basic 1.4-mile walk on a rare full stomach was done so during treacherous weather conditions - with thick dark clouds hanging low overhead, strong gusty northwesterly winds of up to 25 MPH, cold air pouring in, and even a little bit of leftover drizzle on this fresh side of the powerful cold front. I will dream of mornings like this from April through October when it’s hot and sticky outside with no wind … The ducks were out and about this morning, and they appeared to be lost, dazed, confused, and perhaps even drunk. They were stumbling about, wandering around with no sense of direction, and I saw one of them nearly tumble over in a state of mass chaos. They were wondering why the weather had suddenly changed on them. Some of them probably drank too much (rain).

7.  Saturday March 29TH 2008 - Whenever I walk the walk I feel like I’ve taken back my neighbourhood. I’ve lived here for nearly 13 years, but I’ve only really lived here for the past 3 months. Before Christmas Eve 2007 the only walking I did was to and from the mailboxes and the dumpsters. From 1995 to 2007 I merely existed in this neighbourhood. Now I am fully alive. Taking back my neighbourhood from obscurity has been just like taking back my Life from the darkness. I’ve wrapped my arms around my entire neighbourhood just like I’ve embraced this new Life that God has given me.

8.  Saturday April 19TH 2008 - I may not have big muscles to show for it, but I am the most physically fit today than I have ever been in my entire life and Life. I am in far better shape today than I was during my late-teens and early-to-middle-20s when I had to run a mile-and-a-half every year in the Air Force.

9.  Saturday April 26TH 2008 - ‘The cat by the dumpster’ was there again. He looked at me with his sad yellow eyes with no fear. I think if I dropped a few morsels of tasty food by his side then he would have gobbled it all up in a split second and then followed me for the remaining mile-plus of my walk. 10 years later … 

10.  Saturday May 03RD 2008 - 2 little dogs were out for some early-morning shenanigans without their owner. I think they escaped from their patio. They were having a good ole time running all around in the street and on the grass - until they saw me !  That’s when they ran behind me and straight outta sight - probably back to where they belong. I wonder which one of those little dogs was the trouble-maker ?  Which one said to the other one, ‘Hey, follow me. We’re gonna go out and paint this town. We’re gonna go and get us into some monkey business this morning. Let’s go dog !’

The following E-Mail was recently sent to me by a personal friend and a fan of this blog. It’s not necessarily an Internet Hoax that’s meant to intentionally deceive the general public at large, but it’s also not true. It’s an urban legend. Read on:

Subject:  Try This
 
I can’t wait to try this in the summer!

I was at a deck party awhile back, and the bugs were having a ball biting everyone. A man at the party sprayed the lawn and deck floor with Listerine, and the little demons disappeared. The next year I filled a 4-ounce spray bottle and used it around my seat whenever I saw mosquitoes. And voila! That worked as well. It worked at a picnic where we sprayed the area around the food table, the children’s swing area, and the standing water nearby. During the summer, I don’t leave home without it…..Pass it on.

I tried this on my deck and around all of my doors. It works - in fact, it killed them instantly. I bought my bottle from Target and it cost me $1.89. It really doesn’t take much, and it is a big bottle too; so it is not as expensive to use as the can of spray you buy that doesn’t last 30 minutes. So, try this, please. It will last a couple of days. Don’t spray directly on a wood door (like your front door), but spray around the frame. Spray around the window frames, and even inside the dog house.

Read more about it.

Mosquitoes adore water and blood. If you wish to remove mosquitoes from your general vicinity then remove the water and the blood. Standing water attracts the biting bugs. If you’ve got blood laying around all over your yard then perhaps mosquitoes may not be your biggest problem !