New Meds You Haven't Heard Of

 In watching my favorite TV shows these days I have grown exceedingly tired of some of the commercials. I now know more about E.D. than any man should. It might not be so bad if the same commercials didn't play over and over every ten minutes! 

Did you know that you can take something called Skyrizi (sky rizzi) if you have Chrone's Disease or ulcerative colitis? It works up to 24 hours! Unfortunately it may have several different side effects that may be worse than the original problem. Side effects like stomach disorders, blindness, vomiting,,,you get the picture. If Skyrizi isn't your thing you can also check out Renvoq (rin voke) also for Chrone's and UC, 

Perhaps you suffer from migraines? Then you are in luck! You can take Vyepti (Vie eptee). One IV enfusion every three months and you have maybe 25% fewer headaches! Side effects vary, but you pretty much get the same laundry list plus a few.

I have run across a couple more new meds that are not as well known. For instance Utypsi (You tipsy) for hangovers. Taken by 9 a.m. Utypsi can control the noise sensitivity and nausia all the way up to happy hour! Side effects include brain fog, explosive diarrhea, and hammer toe.

Then there is the new Mybudertz (my butt hurts) for those suffering from hemorrhoids! 

Currently in the works is a new drug to use as prep for a colonoscopy. It's called Wazzupmi (What's up me)! The side effects are no different from the regular ones... you know the ones...sitting on the toilet for an hour at a time until the wee hours of the morning, that fear of caughing or sneezing? Same as the normal prep but you get to brag to your friends that you are on a new experimental drug!

Remember, some of these are experimental, so they may not be available everywhere! Don't take if you are pregnant or going to be. Get yours today!

School Tragedy

 

Earlier this week at a district track meet, a young man lost his life. Well, that isn't entirely accurate. His life was taken from him. Stolen from his family and friends. Over what? His murderer was somewhere he was not supposed to be. The guy that murdered him brought an illegal weapon to a place that prohibited such weapons. He intentionally sat where he was not only not supposed to be, but where he knew this young man would be. Reportedly the two had a prior run in. That makes this suspiciously like a premeditated murder. He knew the young man would be in that location and he went there, He was armed with a deadly weapon. An altercation took place and the guy with the weapon, a knife, stabbed the young man in the heart. As the young man lay dying, his twin brother held him and tried to stop the bleeding. He couldn't. A short time later the murdering  thug responsible for this death was arrested and confessed to the murder. Now he awaits his fate after due process. 

I am surprised we have not seen them yet. You know...Those pictures of a happy 12 year old at church they always show. They show those rather than his mug shot or the photos of him holding an AK or a pile of drug money. I actually do not see a way out of this mess for the little thug, and that is fine with me. I say they go for the death penalty. They won't. He is 17. Probably get a 30 year sentence and come out in 20 to walk free in the society that he could not act right in before. 

If you can't tell, I have no pity for this murderer. They need to bring back "old sparky" and make examples of a few of the "death row citizens!" But that's just my opinion. Hope you were not offended by it...but it will not change.

When All Else Fails...

 

So I'm sitting at home watching murder shows on Hulu, when my phone rings. It is my youngest son asking me if I can try to find his work keys. Folks I turned the house upside down and no luck. I started to drive to where my oldest son works to see if they had been left in his car but my wife called and stopped me. She was on her way home to look for the keys. OK...Good luck. I turned around and headed home. When my wife arrived she walked into my youngest boy's room (where I had looked in earnest TWICE.) She walked out with the keys in hand within 30 seconds! 

What's wrong with that picture? I guess I am just getting older and can't see for squat!

The moral of the story is: When all else fails, call in the expert!

Take The Deal Dude

 

So Zelensky doesn't want the deal as offered? Then change it and give him less! Let's dispense with the formalities right off the jump, shall we. Russia was the aggressor. OK fine. Zelensky had the support of most of the world and with good reason. Putin was invading Ukraine and that was an act of war. I get it. But make no mistake about it, as time passed Mr. Z was getting exactly what he wanted, too. MONEY! If someone gave you 360 BILLION dollars and tons of top flight weaponry you should be able to hold off a nutjob who was using weapons from 60 years ago!Unless... unless that money (or a huge chunk of it) was going somewhere besides the war effort! That is exactly what I am convinced has happened in Ukraine! Zelensky is up to his hip pockets in graft and corruption! He and a few others in the Ukrainian government are siphoning off the top, bottom, and middle of the stack. Change my mind if you can. 

Putin is not my favorite dictator. Neither is Zelensky. But make no mistake, both ARE dictators. Dictators have one goal in mind no matter what country they are in charge of...putting money in their own pockets at any cost. These two are no different. 

The problem, as I see it, is that Putin has no intention of giving back the land he has taken so far in this war and Z has no chance whatsoever of forcing him to. There will be NO WINNER in this war. Millions of men, young and old alike, have died. For what? So Putin can look like the big shot leader to the people in what is left of Russia? So Z can look like a patriot to the people of Ukraine all the while lining his pockets with American taxpayer money as their sons and fathers die in vain? Spare me your sanctimonious, self-righteous posting of the yellow and blue flags on your FB pages. Keep your virtue signaling to yourselves. I do not stand with Ukraine or Russia. I stand with Trump and Vance as they keep that idiot dictator in check!

Zelensky better wake up and smell the bodies piling up across his country. He had the opportunity to make a great deal that would have kept Russia at bay for a long, long time but he got greedy. Now it is off the table. No more deal. UNLESS... unless he comes back to Trump, hat in hand and not his hand stuck out for more money, ready to apologize for being an idiot. Then MAYBE he has a chance to bring this senseless war to an end and stop the killing. Otherwise he cane take a hike and take his chances. By the way...Ukraine will never get into NATO. It has no business there. To allow them in would be to invite WWIII. 

I Love The Good Stuff

 

I love singing. I'm no longer able to carry a tune, (too much working around heavy machinery without ear protection), but I love listening. Especially to gosple or that type of song. I could sit and listen to the Gaithers and their Vocal Band for hours. Some of the best singing ever has been from gosple quartets. The Gaithers, The Blackwood Brothers, The Oak Ridge Boys (Yes, they started out as a gosple quartet and continued to incorperate it into their legacy throughout the years.). The list of great quartets is endless. 

I have decided that quartets are not the only ones who can craft a song or sound that holds my interest. Last night I stumbled across a few country songs and was captivated by the sound AND the words. Country singers have long gotten their start in gosple.One of the songs I listened to last night was one called "I Believe" by Brooks and Dunn with an assist from Jelly Roll. I listened to that song three times through. Wow. Just...wow. Alan Jackson is another of my favorites. He put out an album of just gosple songs for his mama. Incredible. On that album was an old favorite of mine. It was my mama's favorite hymn. I'll Fly Away. What a great song sung by such a great voice! You just can't beat a gosple song sung by a country artist. If you listen closely you will be effected by the words. I am. Take a minute or two and go on over to YouTube and search for gosple songs in the box. How I do love that old sound. The words just come alive! 

If you will excuse me, I need a "gosple fix"! Let's go to YouTube!

The Sound Of Music...

 

Man we had some good music back in our day!

I was born in 1960 and spent my formative years in some tumultuous times. Viet Nam raged in the jungles of South East Asia. Drugs and Hippies were everywhere. And Love was free. We had hot rods. We had the best looking girls. We had the world by the tail and didn't even know it. Yes sir...We had it all!

Most of all we had the music that defined a generation better than any before or since. Rock and Roll was everywhere and the bands of our day were undeniably the best to grace the stage in history! We sang a variety of songs that spanned the spectrum. Elvis made his comeback in '68 and Three Dog Night played on my record player at home. (Some of you may be scratching your head wondering what the heck a record player was. LOL) Wolfman Jack hosted a late evening program on TV that was just awesome! The Midnight Special shined it's light on all of us! The sound track to American Grafitti was a top seller. Zeplin was a household word and nothing to do with balloons. A Brittish fella named Elton John was taking the music world by storm like the Beatles had just a few years prior. He was Crocodile Rockin' and singing about Benny And The Jets and a Rocket Man somewhere in outter space. The Bee Gees were up and coming.

There were so many groups and songs that we would never be able to listen to them all...but we tried. Radio stations like the blow torch XERF AM just across the southern border from Del Rio, Texas, blasted the sweet sounds  and utilized the unmistakable raspy voice of the man we mentioned earlier, Robert Weston Smith, better known as The Wolfman. KSHE in St. Louis kept the party going.

I sometimes wish I could go back in time to my youth for many reasons, but the music of the era was no small factor!

I Was A Young Man Once

 

Ecclesiastes 9:11 states that "time and chance happens to all men." So true.

In the early hours of this morning I was lying awake listening to the storm roll through. My mind drifted and I soon found myself thinking about my youth and what might have happened to it. 

I recalled playing in the back yard with my brother, way back in the 1960's, before America lost it's way. Back when a kid could still be a kid and parents didn't have to worry about the pedo living next door. We played army. We played mumbly peg with a pocket knife given to us by our grandfather. We simply "played" without concern. We rode bicycles through mud puddles and neighbor's yards. No one complained. They actually kept an eye on us for our parents. There were other kids living around us. We made our own "motorcycle gang" complete with loud cycles created by placing a playing card in the spokes of our bicycles. We terrorized...no one. Just had fun riding from daylight until dark when it was time to go home.

A few short years and we were into cars. Hotrods. Almost every car from back then is a "classic" today and what we wouldn't give to have them back! We had a 69 Chevelle and a 71 Camaro. My brother inherited a 66 El Camino when dad passed in our early teen years. What a glorious collection we had our hands on without knowing it! 

Later came college and work and the toys went the way of the world. I still drove the Camaro but I hustled pool instead of going to class to afford gas for it. I was pretty good, too, but that's a whole other Jerry Springer. Not going to class soon caught up with me and I dropped out of the Junior College I was attending and went to work in the oil field. Unfortunately that didn't work out well since the oil field in East Texas soon dried up and work was hard to come by. So back to college I went. This time in a foreign land called "Arkansas." Just over four years later I had my degree in hand and returned home triumphant! Well...Sort of. I now had to find a job that would support me, only now I had student loans to pay. It would take me 30 years to pay them off, but I did it myself. No government assistance program to step in and pay them.

Many jobs later, now married with children, I look back on my life and wonder where my youth disappeared to. Don't get me wrong. I have a great life and a great family. I'm just no longer the young man I used to be. My body has begun to betray me on so many levels. One bout with cancer. One heart attack. Arthritis in so many joints I can't count them all on both hands and one foot! Yet I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Got to keep moving or lay down and die I suppose. I do enjoy remeniscing about those younger days. Those days when I once was a young man. Time and chance folks. Time and chance happen to all of us.  

I hope for all who read this that you have opportunity to sit quietly and remember your youth fondly. If you are still young...don't waste the time and opportunity you have. Have fun. Live like you mean it! Time and chance will come along soon enough.

Take care. And as my old friend Robert always says...let freedom ring!

 

Not A Poltergeist

 

I think my bedroom is haunted. Something sinister lurks in the shadows of the room. In the dark of the night something happens from time to time...OK it happens most nights. It usually happens between 3 and seven and it happens more than one time a night most nights. I will be sleeping peacefully, floating along in my REM bliss and BAM!! It's as if something reaches up from inside me and yanks on my bladder for all it's worth! I believe it is a Pottygeist! A mythological creature who's sense of timing is incredibly annoying and definitely mischievous. 

The Pottygeist has no sense of fairness. It attacks the young and old alike. Usually with the same possibility. A few days ago I was slumbering nicely around 5 a.m. when the Pottygeist grabbed my bladder and squeezed mercilessly! "YIKES!" I exclaimed in my head. I quickly scurried out from beneath the covers and headed for the bathroom, making it by the skin of my teeth. After what seemed like an eternity I returned to the bed. Unfortunately I managed to somehow dislodge the TV remote from the nightstand sending it crashing into a plastic bowl which contained a plastic water bottle. Those two together make a lot of noise in the tranquility of the early morning! The noise woke my wife up. Uhoh... I just simply said, "Oops!" What else could I say? 

I went back to sleep. My wife was now awake and an hour early at that! It's OK...The doghouse is well lit and modestly comfortable.  

Darned Pottygeists!

It's Good To Be The Texan!

 

I am a proud Texan by birth and the grace of God! Being a Texan means something. It means you don't have to endure long extremely cold winters. Ours are usually a month, MAYBE two, long and it begins to warm up to the 50's and 60's and all is right in the world as we know it! I, being a hater of the cold, am particularly happy with this arrangment. Some will argue that the summers in Texas are offsetting to the short, mild winter. I say NAY! I'd much rather have a hundred degree day than a 10 degree day! That is why God created air conditioning! 

Another blessing of being a Texan is the wide open spaces and beautiful country side. I grew up in East Texas where God spends His vacations. The land and people are the best ever there! Pine trees populate the roadside everywhere you look. Awesome. Just awesome. The people are friendly and will help out wherever there is a need! 

No, we don't all have oil wells in our back yards or horses in our pastures. This is just a myth, a rumor started by the uneducated Yankees. You do, however, usually find a dog or two in our yards, maybe a cat for the mice and snakes. But what you WILL find, without doubt, is a sense of neighborliness. 

I love my Texas. I wouldn't live anywhere else. God bless Texas!!

Pepto...This Is How Ya Do It!

 

So...Remember how I told youguys in the last post that the guys and I were meeting for lunch today at the Mexican food restaurant? Well that happened, but this post is about the rest of the story (with apologies to Paul Harvey). I had the fajita beef and chicken nachos. Pop quiz...What always goes with nachos? Yep...jalopenos. I like jalopenos. Lots of them. 

Fast forward to this evening about 7:30. I was visited by the ghost of jalopenos past. Worst case of heartburn I have had in quite awhile! It's now 10 o'clock and it isn't going away. I made a quick trip to the local Dollar General for a bottle of soothing pink liquid fire quincher.  Before I even left the DG parking lot I downed a dose! (No sense waiting around!) It should be noted that I do not take my Pepto in the manner of the average person. I don't fool around with those little plastic cups like they bring you your meds in the hospital in. No sir. I turned that bottle up and swigged my dose that way! 

I first learned this method as a kid when I saw my dad do it like that. I figured that what was good for him would work for me! Unfortunately, here we are three hours later and the molten volcanic lava that is flowing from my throat to my gastric area has not subsided!

Any suggestions would be appreciated. By the way, I have already poured a 20 ounce Dr Pepper over the flames to no avail. To quote that raven in the old Edgar Allen Poe story, "Never more!" Never again will I eat that many peppers! I should have known better! At my age I should have known better! But I love my jalopenos! I guess I also love my pain free nights. Torn between two loves...  What's a man to do?

It's Tuesday!!

 

It's Tuesday! That means one thing...it's the day to meet the guys from church for lunch at 11 o'clock! It started as a simple "Hey lets meet for lunch one day." Now it has evolved into a ritual. Each Tuesday about 6 or 7 of us get together for a meal and some breeze shooting at a designated location.We decide on Sunday morning where the site will be and then spread the word. There is usually no need to worry if someone might not like the kind of food served at the site because we all like ANY kind of food!

Today will be Mexican food! Mariochi's in Greenville, TX. Most weeks we meet at The Rib Crib in Greenville but like to switch it up from time to time. We are on a first name basis with the servers at Rib Crib and they even know our orders when they see us come in the front door. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. Some days we meet at Chili's or a hole-in-the-wall called Glenda's. Glenda's has great home style food at a decent price!

If you are in Greenville sometime on a Tuesday at 11 o'clock, stop by and say howdy or maybe join us!

"Pardon Me Mr President"

In the last few weeks leading up to the final exit of Joe Biden we saw him handing out pardons like candy. It started with his criminal offspring Hunter Biden. After that it was a flurry of pardons and sentence commutations with a spattering of get out of jail free cards mixed in. Today, on the last half day of his Presidency, Joe preemptively pardoned a large group of his family members. Preemptively. That's a nice word for "before they could get arrested for being the crooks they are."

Now the question that looms large over their collective heads is this: If you are not guilty of anything, why do you need a pardon? Let's recall for a second the fact that Sleepy Joe had set up several business accounts in the names of family members. Remember that? Therefore it is no big jump to connect these family members with bribes from foreign countries and other entities made to "The Big Guy". Does the term "money laundering" ring a bell? 

What is Joe and crew afraid of? Why do they need pardons? Keep your eyes open and your ear to the ground folks. We have not heard the end of this stuff.

Good Clean Fun

 Great time tonight on my "date" with my wife! We went to see comedian Jeff Allen at the Greenville Municipal Auditorium. He was funny! Not just funny, but he was "clean"! No curse words needed to deliver a zinger of a punchline. He kept it lively and entertaining the whole hour and a half. I highly recommend seeing him if you get the chance!

Why do today's comedians think they have to curse and be crude in order to be funny? They don't, ya know. Jeff Allen has been doing his shows for years and does not feel the need for profanity or picking the "low hanging fruit" of vulgarity. It was refreshing to listen to a comedian who entertains without offensive language or referrences. Nice job Mr. Allen!

Do The Cowboys Need Deion?

 

So the all powerful Jerry Jones has reached out to "Coach Prime" at Colorado, eh? 

Well as a Cowboys fan since I was 5 I DON'T LIKE THE IDEA! People say, "Look what he has done as a college coach!" OH? What exactly has he done? He never beat a team with a record above 500, He didn't win his bowl game. I mean, really? What has he done? One thing I can tell you he has done is show himself to be what he really is. Disloyal. He has been a coach four years and has been at two different colleges where he promised both teams he would be there for them. He left the first team after the first year when his sons decided to go elsewhere for the money. What about the kids who were there playing for the love of the game? He pretty much said  "you'll get over it" and left.

Then along came the job offer at Colordo. Deion and his sons were out of there like Jed Clampet and the gang! Now JJ has reached out to him about a possible position with my beloved Cowboys. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! He won't stay Jerry! He has ZERO loyalty to anyone but himself! It's all about Deion. Always has been.

I don't know about anyone reading this, but I am 100% against hiring him. I wouldn't put him at assistant coach if it were up to me! We as Cowboys fans have waited for nearly 30 years to get back to the top and we are not even close yet. After the horror film this year was, we know it will be at least one more year for rebuilding. Do not add a year of Deion to that! He will stay one year and then opt out of his contract and go where his son(s) end up. Is that what we want? Is that what we need? No. Hire a real coach Jerry. One that will be loyal.

It's Here!

 

It's here! The cold weather the talking heads promised is arriving tonight! We are supposed to get snow, which every Texan over the age of 13 knows means ICE! Schools have already begun to close due to the "chance" of bad stuff. How goofy is that!?!

I am a bit perplexed because I am looking out my window at sinshine and clear skies. It's currently 35 degrees outside and doesn't feel all that bad. Temps have fallen into the very low 20's the past couple of nights so I have had all the faucets dripping to avoid the fun and games that come with frozen pipes. I hate to see what my water bill will look like this month!

That's all for now. Stay warm and bring in your pets!

Brrrrrr!!!

 

Folks...It's COLD outside and getting colder by the minute! Temps dropped by probably 15-20 degrees from the time I walked out the door headed for church until two hours later when we let out. I will state for the record that I am no fan of winter and cold weather! I hate it! I hate it even more for those who have to get out in it and work. I really hate it for my wife who walks the dog every morning before work! (The dog too.) Tomorrow will be absolutely frigid in the low 20's. I may have mentioned that I hate winter and the cold before but I want it to stay with my readers so I will say that again!

Monday morning I have an appointment with my breathing doctor. It will be cold enough to mess with my lungs. I plan to get my money's worth from her! I just got over the mess that was going around with upper respiritory problems, so won't that be nice to reaggrivate?! 

I always heard that the cold in winter kills the bugs of spring and summer, so maybe that is the silver lining. 

At any rate...Stay warm folks. Wrap your outdoor pipes. Bring in those plants. Hit Wal Mart for some long johns! Grab a box of hot chocolate mix and some chili and Freto's! See you on the other side!

What is this that I feel tonight?

 I can't quite put my finger on it. It is unusual to say the least. Tonight my mind is drawn to the death of a childhood friend many years ago. What is this? Why am I having these thoughts? I feel stuck or even facinated by the subject of this person's death.

John was about 13 if I remember correctly. (It has been about 50 years, so do not hold me to exacts as far as age, dates, and other things.)  If any of John's family members are reading this I apologize if this brings up sadness. John was a kid in our youth group at church. His family all attended there. As I recall the story, John was on a small motorcycle, probably a dirt bike, when he lost control and hit a tree. He was killed instantly. I remember that Sunday morning when they told our class at church. It seemed surreal because at 13 years old I had not dealt with death on a personal level. I remember asking my mom questions, questions that escape me right now, but I was very curious. She took me down to the funeral home where my friend was laid out. He was in a blue blazer and a tie. He didn't look right. I remember that. It still had not registered with me that he was actually dead. Forever. 

I still wonder why things like this happen to kids. He was a good kid. 

Why this is on my mind is beyond me as I write this. I just can't shake it. I wonder if it is some sort of weird "survivor's guilt" or something. 

Who knows?

This is just strange and I hope I shake it pretty soon. 

Good night to you all.