Happy Halloween!

I really don't like Halloween.

This was not always the case growing up (what kid doesn't like free candy?), but this changed in 1998 when I moved to Salem, MA. Most folks know Salem as the "Witch City" due to the history surrounding the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Just for the record, all that stuff actually happened in Salem Village which is now in the town of Danvers, MA. The current City of Salem, MA was originally Salem Town, which is a completely different place. But we got the name and the reputation that goes along with it.

The history surrounding the witch trials is pervasive throughout the city. There are all these cheesy witch trial museums and tourist traps. The police cars even have a silhouette of a witch on their sides. To their credit, the city has tried to maintain a balance with this and promotes the historic waterfront as well. There is actually a national park in the city at the waterfront, as Salem, in its heyday, was the largest commercial shipping port in the country. The first American missionaries to travel abroad left from that same shore. There is also the Peabody-Essex museum which is rated among the top 10 historical museums in America. Finally, among a heap of other historical places, is the famous House of Seven Gables that Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about, which was right down the street from my apartment. So there is a lot of stuff besides the witch thing, but that is the one part most folks get hung up on.

It is unfortunate that Salem, because of its history, is also a major center for cult activity on the east coast. To say there are quite a few freaky folks running around there is an understatement. Now, all the ones I ever met seemed to be nice people, and they would simply say they had alternative religious beliefs. However, when talking to some folks who somehow managed to get out of these cults after being in them for some time, you realize there are some serious real-life horror stories going on there.

I really enjoyed living in Salem though.... most of the time. I lived right in downtown and I only needed my car to drive to work. Everything else I walked to. There was a commuter rail station nearby for when I wanted to go into Boston and I could simply ride my bike to the beach. There were plenty of awesome restaurants in town and I really did have some great neighbors. They were a little crazy but great nonetheless.

Eleven months out of the year, Salem is just wonderful..... until October arrives. With all the witchcraft identity the city has, it's no surprise that it's also the Halloween capitol of America. For the entire month of October, the streets become mobbed with people and it culminates in a big Halloween night bash where they close off all the streets to traffic and people pretty much just get drunk and over-the-top crazy. I think that's pretty much what I remember most about Halloween..... drunk people beating each other up, getting sick, and throwing bottles and trash everywhere. If you live there, it's not a fun place to be during that time of year.

The first Halloween I lived there, we had a party. I was excited. However, when I asked my neighbors what they were doing for Halloween, I was surprised they all had plans to be somewhere else. Some were going to Cape Cod and others were going up to New Hampshire or Maine. They all told me that I would have my one Halloween and the next year I'd be leading the charge out of town. They were correct. For the last Halloween that Daleen and I spent in Salem, I picked up a pizza on the way home early from work and we just put out all the lights and laid low in front of the TV, hoping some drunken idiot wouldn't throw an empty bottle at our car.

In fact, the whole month of October there was bad. Just throngs of people everywhere, walking around in the middle of the road with total disregard to the people who live there. My friend Judy lived right across the street from the House of Seven Gables and came home one time to find a group of older middle-aged people sitting in her yard on her patio furniture. She politely asked them to leave and was appalled to find the incident turning into a serious argument.

This year Colin has already been to a couple of Halloween things. He has a zebra costume and he looks so funny in it with the ears and tail. He definitely likes the candy. Halloween where we live now is so much more muted than where I used to live that I hardly recognize it is going on. Maybe I'm still a little shell-shocked when it comes to Halloween and someday I may warm back up to it. Only time will tell.

But Happy Halloween to you all. This year I have decided once again to go as myself.... which is scary enough....

Under Pressure

I got a sort of disturbing letter yesterday. We had to do a health screen for this new program where I work and the letter contained the results. Apparently I have high blood pressure. Hypertension as them medical type folks would call it. It feels strange because I have always regarded myself as being fairly active and healthy.

But the letter has the results there in black and white. It's the upper number of my pressure reading that is the big problem. It's 140 and that is exactly where the High Risk category begins. Everything else on the screen looked pretty much ok. The report said I could stand to lose some weight, my blood sugar was on the upper side of normal, but my cholesterol count is unbelievably low. I have always had super low cholesterol counts. It's in my genes, as is the high blood pressure I am finding out about. My mom has been on high blood pressure medication for a long time now. She was diagnosed at an early age and manages it fine with her meds.

Naturally after receiving my report, I went to WebM.D. which is where I love to go to scare myself with all the possible things that could be going wrong with me. On WebM.D. they have this thing where you can give your symptom (a paper cut for example) and they return with the list of possible maladies (usually something severe like brain cancer). So I looked anyway and found out that I am at the lowest end of Stage 1 Hypertension. (There is a Stage 2 by the way that I hope I never need to look up.)

So just before dinner, I read all about Stage 1 Hypertension which made it seem like I am going to die tomorrow from it. Needless to say, Daleen said I seemed a little depressed over dinner. She asked if I wanted to talk about it and I just sulked and murmured, "no" while I sat and wondered if I was going to get a casket or be cremated. I have said in the past I wanted to be cremated and had even told Daleen the list of places to scatter me: Powhatan, South Africa, White Mountains of New Hampshire, Blue Ridge Mountains in VA, and at the beach at First Landing State Park (also in VA.)

Later I did some more research and found that I really am not going to die anytime soon from this, but if I let it go, it can cause me some serious problems. Luckily, the most common treatments are.... ta-da! losing weight, exercise and eating healthy! And it just so happens that those are three things I have really been wanting to do but just haven't gotten around to it yet. Well, now I suppose I have a good reason not to procrastinate any further.

So here is my plan. I'm making an appointment to go see my doctor and get her opinion on this. Since I am not completely rotund and I am fairly active, she may decide that losing weight and exercising more may not be enough to overcome my family history and go ahead and put me on meds. I hope to not have to do this and really want to give this healthy eating, losing weight, exercise thing a whirl. For some strange reason I am now feeling particularly motivated to the point that killing myself on a treadmill, tofu, and soy milk are starting to look really good.

I'm not as bummed out now as I was earlier. I think I can beat this and get my numbers down to normal. Luckily, the side effects of this will be: I'll need thinner clothes, I'll probably feel better, I'll improve on my time in the next Ukrop's 10K race, and I'll save money by not buying those ultra-tasty honey buns from the vending machine at my office (I will miss those a lot). As for those of you who belong to the same gym as me, I reckon we'll be seeing a lot more of each other. When you see me, don't forget to cheer me on; and when I ask if you've had your blood pressure checked recently, the correct answer should be "yes".

My Inner Cowboy

I grew up in the suburbs of Richmond, VA. I live in a more rural area of VA now, but it is really just a distant suburb of Richmond. Where I live used to be considered "the country", but that has been quickly dissappearing for some time. I have never actually lived in the country, nor did I ever really have any sort of exposure to farm life growing up. Even now, I have just a regular old house and a regular old job at a factory. I am thankful for both, but I am somewhat envious of people who own and run farming operations. I know it's a lot of hard work, but some days I long to be able to work outside and wonder if it's not something I was made to do.

A few years ago, a good friend of mine bought an old cattle farm a couple of counties away from where I live. He didn't know a lot about cows at the time, but he always wanted to have some land and get some cows. He just had a dream and one day decided to follow it. Even before he moved out to his new property, we sort of made a deal. He would give me exclusive permission to hunt his land and I would help him work around his farm. Now, we are really great friends. He would let me come and hunt even if I didn't help him out and I would come and help him even if he didn't allow me to hunt there.

I really like going out there, getting lots of fresh air and just working with my hands. I tell people I love going there because it allows me to get in touch with my "inner cowboy". Since going up there, I have learned about all kinds of livestock, chickens, fencing, hay, and the network of farming families and associated businesses which keep Virginia farms going.

Today was a work day on the farm. My friend and I were directed by his wife to construct a chicken house. We sat down over a cup of coffee this morning after I arrived and drew up our plan. We then headed out and got to work. It was cold out today and very windy. However, we managed to finish up our project in the late afternoon. I have to say, it really looked great and we had a lot of time today to talk while we were working. We hadn't spent a day like that in a while and we never ran out of things to talk about. That was one of the best parts of the day, besides admiring our work at the end.

Today it was building a chicken house. Next time it will be something different like building a pig pen or herding cattle. Whatever it is, I know already how much I will enjoy doing the work and the great company. Do you have an "inner cowboy"? Do you have some sort of thing that you are really into which is totally different from your normal life? Is there something you like doing which is a total escape from everyday life? For me it's heading out to the farm, where my cell phone doesn't work and there is plenty of chores to be done. See you out on the range Pilgrim!

Fortune Cookies

I found the fortunes I kept from the cookies we got at Allen's chinese restaurant the other night. It was the first fortune cookie Colin opened on his own.

For those of you who don't know, Allen's makes the BEST chinese food in the greater Richmond area. Believe me, we have tried many other places. I agree Allen's is a wierd name for a Chinese restaurant but I can assure you they are staffed by all Chinese people. I love Chinese food. I have Chinese friends who frown when I tell them this and they say, "That is not real Chinese food." But I watch them eat "real" Chinese food that consists of seaweed, raw eggs, and parts of fish that were not meant to be eaten. I'll stick with my version.

Anyhow, here were our fortunes:

Daleen - "You display the wonderful traits of charm and courtesy." (How true!)

Me - "You are going to take a vacation." (I Am?? Hopefully not a permanent one from my current job.)

Colin - "You love sports, horses, and gambling but not to excess." (I have tried talking with my 2-year old about this but he just looks at me strange when I bring it up. I think he's hiding something.....)

The Leaf Peepers

Took the family leaf peeping yesterday.

Last year Daleen sort of inherited a SUV from her sister. It had been sitting in our driveway for quite a long time and she was finally able to get the paperwork straightened out so we could re-title it and get it registered. After we got it all registered and it passed inspection, I decided what the car needed was a nice, long road trip to give it a good shakedown. With the leaves changing, we figured a trip up to the mountains would be a great way to break the car in and check out the fall foliage.

We used to go leaf peeping when we lived in New England. Every fall, we would head north from Boston on Interstate 93 to Franconia Notch State Park in New Hampshire. From there, we would turn east onto the Kancamagus Highway which runs across the White Mountains to the town of North Conway, which is a big ski and vacation resort town. The foliage up there has always just been completely unbelievable. From North Conway, we would then take Rt 16 south to Portsmouth, NH where we would catch interstate 95 south back to Mass. It's a good trip. If you're ever up that way, you should check it out.

Yesterday, we didn't really have a pre-planned route figured out, but we ended up taking Rt 250 (Broad Street) from Richmond all the way out to Charlottesville, VA. It was a nice ride, very scenic, but sort of slow at times due to all the other cars out on the road filled with folks doing the same thing we were.

Once in Charlottesville, we picked up Interstate 64 west and headed up to Afton Mountain where we got onto the Blue Ridge Parkway going south. There was some good leaf coloring on the ride up. However, there was still a lot of green on the trees until we got up onto the mountain. If you have never been on the Blue Ridge Parkway, it is a FUN road to drive on. The speed limit is 45 MPH, but in a lot of places, it would be suicide to try and even drive that fast. It's a very windy road and there are several places where the road pretty much just drops off on one side and you can see right down into the Shenandoah Valley. The fact there really aren't many guardrails makes the drive even more exciting. The leaves up on the parkway were excellent. Loads of color there, although I think in another week or two, it will be even more spectacular.

I wished we had taken a faster and more agile car than the SUV we were in. A convertible would have been even better as it was still nice and fairly warm out. Daleen was a great sport on the trip. She gets horrible car sickness, but she seemed ok until we were coming down the mountain. We decided to take Rt 60 all the way home. It intersects with the Parkway so that ended up being an easy choice. However, the trip back down was like driving on a downhill slalom course. I could tell Daleen was turning a little green on us, but the survived and recovered quickly once the road straightened back out.

Our plan was to stop for dinner on the way back home. However, I can tell you that Rt 60 between the parkway and Powhatan is pretty bleak and we ended up coming all the way back to have dinner at Allen's chinese restaurant..... Colin loves the lo-mein noodles and this chinese donut thingy they give you at the end. It was a great way to end the trip.

If you have some time in the next week or so, I would recommend taking a ride up to the mountains and see this display of color. (Gas is certainly cheap enough right now.) It's a good activity for the family and there are plenty of places to stop and view the scenery or just walk around. Packing a picnic lunch would also really be a great idea.

We really had a great time together. I think we're going to try and make this an annual event. When Colin gets a little older, I even see us turning this into a fall foliage hiking/camping trip. Breaking up the trip would definitely make it easier on Daleen's car sickness, so I think it will be an easy sell..... and besides, who doesn't like camping?

Where Does Your Food Come From?

Like a lot of folks who live around me, I hunt.

I pretty much enjoy every aspect of hunting. As you know, I am a very outdoorsy guy. So any excuse to get outside is good for me. I like the time alone with my thoughts, the camaraderie I share with other hunters, being a part of solid game management and conservation, trips to Bass Pro Shops and spending all that money on hunting gear, you name it. One of my favorite parts is even to just sit outside, under a tree in the early fall, and take a nice nap in the afternoon. When is the last time you did that?

I mean, don't get me wrong, there is nothing like the thrill of the hunt and the adrenalin rush that occurs when everything comes together to make a hunt successful. I get the dreaded "buck fever" worse than most people. There have been times when I have not been able to consider taking a shot because I was shaking so bad and my blood ran cold like it is icewater due to my adrenal glands dumping the truck into my system.

However, sometimes I get lucky and everything comes together and I harvest an animal. After the shot is taken and I collect my deer, there is usually a time where I like to just admire the creature. The whitetail deer in Virginia are really some magnificent animals. It never ceases to amaze me how so many animals of such size can simply live among us. Unfortunately, after this short pause, reality sets in and I realize it's time to get to work.

I have butchered and processed every animal I have ever harvested. My feeling is that if I am willing to end the life of this animal, I had better be willing to clean it, process it, and eat it. There have been times where I have let deer walk by, just because I simply didn't feel like I wanted to do all the work that begins the moment that trigger is pulled. Now, there are some places that will process your animal for you. These folks do great work and it is done at a reasonable price. You get professional results and I don't fault anyone for going that route. But for me, I decided to learn to do the work myself, to become proficient at producing good cuts of meat, and learn to enjoy and appreciate ALL the aspects of hunting.

Since the current hunting season has started, I have brought two deer home. Daleen and I just finished processing the first one today and we'll start on the second one tomorrow. By the end of the season, we hope to have a freezer full and will have given a substantial part of the meat away to others.

I heard a message today by my friends Brian and Beth on being conscious of the things you buy and the effect your purchases have on those who produce those goods. Basically, it was a very good, and very convincing appeal to try to shop for items that are classified as "Fair-Trade". This means the people who produce these items are receiving a fair, living-wage, for the products they make, and that your money is not going to support some third-world sweat-shop. I think we can all get behind that idea and perhaps make a more concerted effort to think about what we are spending money on. Places such as Trader Joe's (food) and Ten Thousand Villages (not food) are a couple of local places in the Richmond area that carry such items. Ten Thousand Villages only carries Fair-Trade items and I think with Trader Joe's, you have to look at the label. My friend Beth found in her research that the products these places carry are really not much more expensive that what you would find at a regular grocery or department store.

Anyhow, this concept of being conscious of what we are buying has made me think about all the groceries and food in my house. Beth mentioned today that the most common Fair-Trade items are coffee, sugar, tea, and chocolate. But what about the rest of the food in your pantry? Where does your food come from?

I know the venison Daleen and I just finishing processing is good ole' Virginia whitetail that has been reared on only grass and acorns. We have also bought a cow from a friend from our church to supply our beef. In the end, it came out substantially cheaper than buying it from a supermarket, it was cut the exact way we wanted (someone else processed it), and we know it was only fed grass..... not steroids..... not antibiotics..... not hormones..... not the leftover parts of other animals..... just regular green grass. We later bought a lamb from his neighbor that was equally as good. Then, we have our vegetable garden from the spring through early fall which usually produces more than we can eat and we usually give a lot of that away. We know where those veggies come from because we grow them ourselves. Another thing we like is to visit farmer's markets to buy produce. Usually you can get a better deal, know what you're getting, and often meet the people who grew the stuff!

Now don't get me wrong. I love mass produced hot dogs, Pringles, Ramen Noodles, and a vast array of extruded food products. I think Chef Boyardee should have his own show on the Food Network. And I am not saying people shouldn't shop at Wal-Mart. Quite frankly, I love Wal-Mart. They sell things people can afford, employ hordes of people, and right or wrong, they know how capitalism and the free-market system works.

(Now climbing onto my soap-box with my pointy-finger...) The point I'm trying to make is, we should all make a little effort to try and understand where the stuff we buy or consume comes from. The answer should be easy, most of it comes from China! But if something costs so little that you can't figure out how it could be made so cheaply, ask yourself if you are supporting something with your money that you shouldn't. When it comes to your food, why not try to buy something that was grown or made where you live? For myself, I know that buying Virginia meat and produce means I am supporting local farmers and their families. I know I'm getting it fresh and can find out how it was produced. But when it comes down to really the best food in my house, I have found the most satisfying way to go is to either grow it or hunt it myself...... or just to run over to Allen's and get chinese take-out.

My Big Break

I'm a thespian! Time to break a leg! Where is my SAG application?!

Well, not yet, but I'm getting my "big break" in our church's upcoming Christmas play. Did you know the term Thespian is not actually derived from the Greek city-state of Thespiae but rather is comes from Thespis of Icaria who, Greek legend has it, was the first actor? The production we are doing is called "Imagine Christmas" and I have been asked to play one of the main characters who is an angel (ok, you can stop laughing now....).

My friend Beth asked me to do it and handed me a script and a DVD to check out. Of course, as I mentioned in a previous post, I have this very agreeable component to my personality which had me screaming "YES!, I'LL DO IT!" before I even read the part. I have no idea why she and my friend Chad think I might be the right person for this part. Although the part is supposed to be funny and I can do funny. However, the only acting I have ever done was in a short drama also done in church where I only had five or six short (but funny) lines.

The DVD I was given was pretty much like what I had been told by some others in the production. It is completely over the top, but really, really good. It was over the top as in let Cirque' Du Soleil do your church's Christmas play. I am not making this up. There were people sliding down and climbing up ropes, swinging from the ceiling, people flying around on wires, lots of dancing, and crazy lighting. There is lots of video parts and even narration. They even have tons of snow flying across the stage! However, I watched it, and what struck me was how amazing the basic story was and that you don't even need any of the special effects to really pull this off successfully. I mean, I'll bet anything that our folks will put everything they have into this and we are going to pull off a little magic of our own, but whatever we do will be icing on the cake as long as we can pull off our lines and get our parts right. Although I can't stop thinking about that episode on the Brady Bunch when they were making their own movie about the history of Thanksgiving and they used Alice's laundry soap flakes as snow. They had all these boxes of soap and when the time came, they screwed it up and it came out more looking like a blizzard. I think we'll at least be able to do better than that.

It's funny, when we lived in Salem, Mass., several of my friends were real actors. My friend Michael even showed me his SAG card once. He had to join the union so he could be in a TV documentary on the the history of Massachusetts. He played a priest, which if you know Michael, is more funny than the thought of me playing an angel. When I first met Michael, he was a bartender. His signature drink was the "Masochist", which he lovingly called "a fruity rum drink", but from what I could tell from others drinking it, it was more like, as Douglas Adams would put it "the alcoholic equivalent to a mugging: expensive and bad for the head." While living there, I had another friend who ran a theater production company, and yet another who worked for a company that makes movie sets. So, I am no stranger to actors or theater, but I am a total stranger to actually "acting" itself.

I really don't have a problem getting up in front of lots of people and talking. The way they do the lights, I actually have a hard time seeing a lot of the people in the audience. It's remembering all my lines that I have a problem with. Luckily, I have plenty of time to learn my lines, but there are a lot of them. I have some pretty bad memory, so this will be stretching the limit for me, and I think I am really going to have work hard at it. Besides having a memory problem, I have this teeny-tiny little bad habit which I am seriously trying to break, which is when I am really under a lot of stress..... I kind-of-sort-of curse..... but just a little. Hey, I was in the Navy for six years and some old habits die hard. I finally decided to tell my friend Chad about this little issue just moments before we went on for the last drama we did. His eyes got wide after I told him, as we were going out in front of the whole church. But I reassured him and there wasn't a problem. I had my lines completely memorized and we were great.

So I am pretty excited about doing this. It is still a long time between now and Christmas so there are going to be plenty of opportunities for some laughs and to make some new friendships. I am also looking forward to learning more about acting. I like getting involved in new stuff that I know almost nothing about. I just hope nobody takes this play so seriously that the fun is taken out of it. I know we will all want to do our best to make this show the best it can be, but I also want to enjoy the whole process.

Besides the Brady Bunch episode I mentioned, I also can't stop thinking about the movie "Waiting for Guffman". If you've never seen it, Wikipedia gives the following plot overview: "The movie is a loving parody of community theater set in the small town of Blaine, Missouri. It chronicles the trials and tribulations of a handful of utterly delusional residents as they prepare to put on a community theater production. The show, a musical chronicling the town's history, titled Red, White and Blaine, is to be performed as part of the town's 150th anniversary celebration. Corky, the director, has presumably used connections gained from his "off-off-off-off" Broadway past to invite Mort Guffman, a Broadway producer, to critique "Red, White and Blaine". Corky leads the cast to believe that a positive review from Guffman could mean that the group can take their show all the way to Broadway." As you can imagine, when the characters begin to believe their show could possibly to to Broadway, the production becomes unbelievably funny.

I doubt anybody in our production thinks we're going to Broadway with this, but we're going to give it our best. And I know it's going to be awesome. The show is going to be at Powhatan Community Church on Christmas Eve and there's going to be two shows. Don't worry, I'll keep you up to date on our progress as Christmas approaches and invite you again before the time comes. You won't be able to miss me, I'll be one of the two angels. Just be sure to tell me to "Break A Leg." I want to make sure I get the whole experience.

The A-Team

In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men and women promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Powhatan underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Team.


Do you belong to a successful team? I do.


I belong to a group called the Small Group Leadership Team, which works to assist my friend Sammy with the Small Groups program at Powhatan Community Church where Daleen and I attend. As a rule, I am a sucker for a good cause and unless I stop myself, I will pretty much always say yes when asked to volunteer for something. So, when Sammy asked me to help him, I don't think I even paused for a second before saying, "Well of course, I'd love to be on your team!"


For those of you who don't know, Small Groups is, in my opinion, where our church resides during the week in-between Sundays. Ours is such a large church, there is no way the church staff can work with everyone on an individual basis, and there is no way people can really form meaningful relationships on just Sunday mornings. Also, in my opinion, there is just not enough time for an in-depth discussion on some pretty deep topics in a one hour service, one morning a week. So, Small Groups were formed to bridge that gap. They are small groups of folks who usually get together during the week to just talk, eat, keep tabs on one another, and help each other out when needed. Of course, these small communities also do studies on the bible as well as other topics such as financial management, relationships, etc. Basically they do what I believe can't be done in an hour on Sunday mornings... build relationships/community, and have more in-depth discussions in a safe, comfortable environment.

So, the Small Groups Leadership Team is responsible for helping my friend Sammy with planning activities for the small groups community, providing training for small group leaders, finding new people to lead and host new groups, and get people who are interested plugged into a group that will suit them.

As a team, I would say like all teams, we have had our high points and low points. There have been times where I think we have been on our game, and times where I've felt like we're spinning our wheels and not going anywhere. We are friends, but there have been times of conflict. But the whole time, I have felt good about the people on the team. Everyone is committed to moving this thing forward and making it grow. I have no doubt about that.

Last Monday evening, Sammy and I met up and talked for a couple of hours. We're both some pretty busy guys and it had been a while since we just sat down and talked. We were both very honest in our discussions about our team and and we talked about what we had done well and what could be done to strengthen our team. And then, like many discussions we had before, our talk shifted into a more upbeat tone as we began to talk about what we could do to make the Small Groups program at our church grow and improve. This is the part when I think our team is at its best, when we start brainstorming ideas about possibilities. Everyone on our team is kind of a dreamer and I think everyone begins to smile a little more when the ideas begin to flow (I know I do). The best part is, nobody on out team is all that negative when it comes to the pouring out of ideas. We are a bunch that instead of asking "Why?" always asks "Why not?".

On Monday night, we exchanged several ideas which I think were great. I know others on the team have also met with Sammy and I'll bet they have also contributed some good stuff. The bottom line is that after thinking for a couple of days since our meeting, I am now a lot more energized and positive about our team and what we are doing than I think I have ever been, and it feels great. In fact, now I feel like I'm the one not doing enough and I need to catch up. It really feels awesome.

I am excited about this team I am on and I think we are going to make some pretty amazing things happen in the next year. In fact I know we will and I'll definitely be telling you about it here. I'm just thankful to be on a team with people who are willing to work together as a small community, a small group if you will, to build up something that involves people and relationships in such a positive way. I think when it comes to what we do, we are definitely the A-Team. However, I am still working up the courage to get a mohawk, a bunch of gold chains, and start saying "I pity the fool...."

Home Improvement

Sorry I haven't written in a while. I've been busy.....cutting holes in my house.

Daleen and I bought a home that was what we would call a fixer-upper. But one that we could live in while we did it. What we didn't realize at the time was that our ideas of what we wanted our home to be like would require a substantial amount of work, and money. Take our kitchen for example. I live with a woman who can cook. Yet we have a kitchen from the early 80's that has original appliances (except for the refrigerator which we had to buy). It pains me to see her trying to work her magic in this space with these tools.

In addition to the kitchen, there are the floors. You can't sneak up on anybody in this house. Our sneaky 5 pound cat can't even walk around without making a racket. I went under the house and checked out the subfloor and it is thinner than the floor in my toolshed. So now someday I have to fix the flooring. And then there is the siding that has vinyl replacement written all over it... again, someday.

We have done a lot so far though to our home. In the past four years we have:
- Rewired the upstairs and installed ceiling fans in all the bedrooms
- Installed gutters
- Ran electricity to the shed
- Completely renovated two bathrooms
- Renovated two bedrooms and the dining room (except for the floors)
- Painted the living room
- Painted all the windows (those are also slated for vinyl replacement)
- Installed a dry well and drainage system for our lawn and downspouts
- Installed a french drain in the backyard
- Added two dump truck loads of dirt and regraded the yard
- Installed a lawn sprinkler system
- Installed several brick-enclosed flower beds and tree rings
- Renovated our front and side porches (new railings, paint, lighting, etc)

So we've been busy. Now we have started with our new fall project, the mud room.

I started in earnest last Wednesday with the first part of the project, which is the wiring upgrade. I am one of those people who, when doing a project, will go into total overkill mode. We are installing new cabinets and a deep sink on one side of the room and I noticed that one of the outlets was going to be covered up. I was concerned about losing the outlet, so I decided to put a new outlet in over where the new countertop would be. Simple, right? Well, then I remembered that I was thinking about how nice it would look to have some small recessed lights over the deep sink, with a dimmer. You know, mood lighting.... So after cutting several holes in my drywall and doing some work with my drill, the new outlet is in and man, do those new lights look great!

Then I turned my attention to the other side of the room. Daleen's pantry had a cheesy, cheap light fixture which is really just a lightbulb with a pull string. I have always hated this and decided she deserved a proper light fixture with a switch to operate it. Then of course I expanded on this and realized that the new cabinets that are going over the washer and dryer needed one of those cool xenon light fixtures under it. Those fixtures run off a plug which means I needed another outlet with a switch to operate that. All this work involved cutting even more holes in the drywall and doing some more drilling.

Daleen was out of town Friday night and Saturday at a women's retreat for our church. So I was at home alone with Colin during a lot of this work. I will say that he is quite the helper (for a 2 1/2 year-old). After he got over being scared of the drill noise, he was more than happy to fetch me some screws, throw away small bits of drywall, and he even helped pull some wire I was trying to fish through the wall. He really likes to help with projects and I know it will not always be this way. Someday it won't be cool anymore for him to hang out with his daddy and help, so I'm taking advantage if this while I can.

Needless to say, I think Daleen was a bit surprised by all the holes in the mudroom walls when she got home. I don't think she was as impressed as me with the new mood lighting. She is not always riding the same wave as me when it comes to projects and usually there are a few details of the project that don't come out as she had "envisioned". This often leads to some arguing and hurt feelings (usually mine). However, this time she said it looked nice and wasn't going to say anything else. I found out one of the focus points of the retreat she went on was to cut back on being negative and I'm pretty sure this worked in my favor!

The next phase is going to be fixing the drywall to prepare to paint. My little helper buddy has already shown an interest in the mesh drywall tape, although I'm going to have to schedule a day where he will be gone to do the sanding so he won't be around all that dust. Daleen has a job too. She has to pick out the paint colors and verify the cabinets, countertop, and deep sink are what she wants. Daleen and Colin are going to visit her parents soon, so I am hoping we can get to painting before they leave. Daleen is great with doing the room painting.

I'll keep you posted on our progress with the mudroom. I have to say that I really like turning off my phone, putting on the radio, and just working on my house. It's very therapeutic. This time I am going to get my family more involved as well. It's another thing we can do together, have some fun with, and get one step closer to the house we want. Plus we can enjoy the new mood lighting as we work.......

Good Times and Fast Cars

Is there something you like to do with your dad? Something that is just for the two of you?

As I have mentioned in previous postings, for some reason my birthday usually ends up being a string of various events that runs over the better part of a week. However, for the past couple of years, the week has been finished off with a father/son trip to the NHRA Nationals Drag Race at Virginia Motorsports Park. We made our annual trip yesterday and it was a great time.

My father and I are pretty different. He is really into Civil War history and I am not. I am really into doing outdoorsy stuff and he is not. Like most dads and their sons, we're different. But going to this race is something we both look forward to going to. Now, my dad loves drag racing a lot more than I do. He follows it all year and knows all the drivers and where they stand in the points bracket and who has the most to win or lose at any given race. He even likes going to races at other tracks.

I guess he has always loved cars. When I was young, my dad was the original backyard mechanic. He was always working on our cars. Unfortunately, he is also a total night-owl and would want to start working on the car after dinner and would go well into the night with it. So I would have to stay up late on school nights, holding the flashlight or fetching tools. Unfortunately, I would always be in trouble for not holding the light so my dad could see what he was doing (although I could always see just fine) and when he sent me to get a particular tool, I couldn't ever seem to find it in the four toolboxes and several buckets that he stored his tools in. Because of this, I think my dad's favorite phrase was that I, "couldn't find my ass with both hands." It was this experience that makes me cringe at the very thought of having to work on a car myself. I can do it, but I'd really rather just pay someone else to take care of whatever needs to be done.

We used to go to Richmond Dragway when I was young though, and I have always loved drag racing. I guess I like that the cars are really fast and loud and you don't have to watch the cars go round and round for hours before there is a winner. Its simple. Two cars, and whoever gets to the end first, wins. Instant closure. I like that.

The race at Virginia Motorsports Park is a major stop on the annual NHRA drag racing national tour. This race is where you can go to see the major teams in the sport and some legendary drivers. The one thing I really do like about the NHRA event, and drag racing in general, is that it is very fan-friendly. When you go to the race, everyone has the opportunity to walk around the pit area and see the cars up close. The racing teams work right there in the open and they are always happy to talk to the fans and explain what they are doing. Often the drivers are there as well to talk to the race fans, sign autographs, and get their pictures taken. You instantly realize these guys truly value the people who come to see them and they do their best not to dissappoint.

Another thing I like about the NHRA event is that the teams all seem to form a well-knit community. They are all competing, but you can tell the way they interract that there is a bond there as well. There is a type of sportsmanship that is often missing in other sports. You see the drivers and other teams cheering each other on, and when there is an accident, they are all affected. I suppose this is due to the fact that while they are competing against one another, there is a common enemy in the form of run time. All of the teams are working their hardest to make it down the track faster to get a lower time. When two cars are racing, even though one has to lose, everyone cheers for a new lowest time. I believe it is this common goal that prevents any sort of petty rivalry.

Besides the drivers, the fans are pretty amazing. I will say that a lot of folks you see at the race are some pretty hard looking people. I can tell you from our trip yesterday that certain hairstyles such as the rat-tail and the mullet are still quite alive. There are also lots of bikers and many-many tattoos. Hard looking people, but probably some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. I saw lots of people cheering on their favorite drivers and any car that would turn a good run time. I didn't see anyone get over the top drunk, out of control, or any fighting. I did see groups of people you would never expect to get along having a great time together.

My dad and I had great seats right over the starting line. When the nitrous-fueled drag cars would take off, our noses a and eyes would burn from the fumes. The racing was great, there were no accidents, and we spent the entire afternoon sitting out in the sun, cheering and trying to talk in between runs. I couldn't think of many better ways to spend a fall day.

I really love my dad and I feel lucky I have one that thinks enough of me to take me to this race every year. We had some time to just talk without all the other interferences that usually get in the way and re-cemented our relationship for another year. Sure, we'll see each other plenty in the next twelve months and we'll talk a lot and go do things together, but we'll both be ready to sneak off to the race again next year, just the two of us.

The NHRA Nationals race is held at Virginia Motorsports Park in Dinwiddie county every year, usually right around Columbus Day. As I mentioned, it is extremely fan friendly and they put on a show that pretty much anyone would like. (By the way, drag racing is REALLY good for ADD types....) I have never had a bad time and it is another one of those things that is a definite event on my calendar. I really would like to invite you to come with me next year, but unfortunately my group of two is full, and I'll just have to hope to run into you there. I'll be sitting next to my dad. We'll look like we're crying, but its just from the nitro fumes. You can tell from our smiles....

Hell On Earth... but not for me

Do you believe in hell on earth? My wife Daleen does. She believes it's called Bass Pro Shops.

My birthday was last week. For some reason, every year my birthday ends up being a week-long string of activities. One night it was a birthday dinner at our house. Then one night it was birthday cake with our small group from church. Tonight it was a dinner at my parents house and now I am at home with a leftover piece of my birthday cake (homemade carrot cake if you must know.) I know I'm getting fat from this, but hey, it's my birthday. Anyway, we usually also try and do a date night during the birthday week where I get to decide where I want to go. This year I chose Bass Pro Shops.

This fall Bass Pro Shops opened a gigantic store called "Outdoor World" just north of Richmond. It has everything for any kind of outdoor sporting activity: fishing, hunting, camping, boating, you name it. The also have some specialized parts such as a food store and NASCAR area with merchandising and auto racing video games. And this store is absolutely mind-boggling in its size. Inside they have huge fish-tanks with a waterfall, an archery range, and a boat dealership.

As many of you know, I am into just about everything having to do with the great outdoors. If it involves being in the woods or away from civilization, I am probably severely into it. Daleen did not really know this about me when we met, sort of started figuring it out when we lived in Boston, and then really found out when we moved back to VA and I reconnected with old friends. What I'm getting at here is, Bass Pro Shops is huge and it doesn't have anything I do not want.

But you are probably wondering how going to BPS can be like going on a "date". Ah-ha, because like IKEA, they have a restaurant at the store. They even have a restaurant Daleen likes going to. The Islamorada Fish Company. Daleen's sister used to live in Ft. Lauderdale and took us to the one at her BPS. We both liked the food, so going there was an easy sell for me.

On the drive over from our house, I said I figured we probably wouldn't have to wait very long at the restaurant. This was after Daleen tells me she is starving. My reasoning was that I was certain there wouldn't be hordes of people going to a restaurant at a sporting goods store for a Friday night date. I mean, who does that? Then after we were told there was an hour and forty-five minute wait, I then understood..... lots of people do that.

I will say that I am a good guy and gave her the option to go to dinner elsewhere. But I have to confess, I was extremely happy when in a quiet voice she said, "no we can just go look around first until our table is ready". What a woman!

We spent an hour walking around the store. BPS has racks of outdoorsy junk food such as trail mix, pork rinds, and beef jerky. Daleen was starting to look faint so I suggested several times that we just buy some to snack on. She repeatedly said no as she didn't want to ruin her appetite. Meanwhile, we looked at everything from boats to crossbows. From boots to binoculars. I mean everything.

The best part of the trip though was the people watching. There was the widest variety of people I have ever seen there. By the fishing rods, there were guys in very expensive suits standing next to guys who looked like hobos in bib overalls. Then, you know the kind of moms who go over the top and try and look more trendy than their high-school kids? There was one of those checking out a big bag of deer corn feed with her teenage daughter. Wierd... Then I was over in the gun section when I overheard this sort of older ex-hippie lady talking to the guy behind the counter about handguns. She had a ton of questions about which one would be best for her and she was very animated and overwhelmed by all of the choices and options. The best one of the night though was a man and his young son, dressed from head to toe in camoflauge (store tags still attached) just walking through the store like they were heading to the fishing section. I couldn't help but wonder where were they going, and where on earth were the clothes they came to the store in?

By the end of the hour, Daleen was sagging and dragging her feet and looked like I do when going clothing shopping with her. She had been through enough torture. Our table still wasn't ready (they really meant an hour and a half), so we were able to get a chair at the bar and after a cold drink and a plate of loaded potato chips (think a plate of loaded nachos but with chips), she quickly recovered.

In the end, dinner was good... not great. The clam chowder was dissappointing (it was a VERY thick grey-brown substance), the calamari was insanely spicy, and our server was continuously apologising for every little thing. We had to repeatedly tell her she was fine and she shouldn't worry. The tuna was excellent though and everything was reasonably priced.

Daleen survived the evening and has since fully recovered. She's not ready to go back anytime soon and I'm ok with that. I did eventually find out why the wait was so long that evening. The restaurant itself is very small. There just aren't a lot of tables. The reason? After the novelty wears off, who would go to a sporting goods store on a Friday night date?

Can I Get Some Fries With That?

My 401K account was battered again today, but at least now it is extra crispy. Hopefully, there will be a spicy aftertaste.

When the Wall St. news folks say over and over again that "stocks have been battered in another day of trading", I can't help but picture a bunch of fat country guys sitting around a deep fryer, taking my savings, dipping them in egg and rolling them in some flour before chucking them in. But then, I go to my account online every day, as now I am almost obsessed with it, and notice more of it is just gone. "It was there just yesterday.", I think. Then, when I am not looking, an evil computer somewhere accesses my account and changes the balance number yet again, in the negative direction.


I was out the other night and a person I had met was telling me that her dad, who just recently retired, now has to un-retire and get a job. I have also heard of people who were ready to finally stop working after all their years of labor, and are unable to because of the economic times we are in. That to me is a tragedy.

But who are we to be angry with? The government? They waste untold millions of our money already, have been for decades, and then bail out businesses who made bad decisions and are continuing to make even more bad decisions. In the news this morning, I learned AIG, the insurance giant who the American taxpayers now own a huge chunk of, just sent all of their top folks on a half-million dollar business retreat. I would almost rather they let me keep all that money, cut my taxes substantially, and tell big business to get their own act together. But on the other hand, they are (with our tax money) trying to prop up the big business that helps provide the investment income my retirement is supposed to grow on.

Should we be angry with the corporations and banks? They run off greed and profit. Ahhh, good old capitalism. I do love it so. I fault these guys for running themselves out so thin and risking my investment money. However, by doing so they create higher dividends and returns for me and other stockholders which I do like. You really can't blame them. When in trouble, they ran to Uncle Sam with an open hand and he almost automatically pulled out the piggybank. It's so much easier to take big risks with a giant safety net under you.

In the end though, I blame myself. I live in a country where I am ultimately the decider of where I want to work, live, go to church, and where I keep my retirement money. I pay money to the businesses I choose to buy from. I decide on the causes I want to donate my money to. Also, I choose to bank with a big business and have another big business handle my insurance needs, and yet another to handle my mortgage. No one comes to me and tells me where to put my retirement money. On top of this, I decide who I get to vote on for the government. I just wish I could vote for someone who would let me keep a lot more of what I make and agree to cut government spending back to a reasonable level, but that probably isn't going to happen anytime soon. One of my friends did suggest a write-in campaign for the upcoming presidential election, which in light of the current campaign rhetoric, is starting to sound like a good idea.

Through all of this, I have decided to remain optimistic. I really don't think the sky is falling and hope I'm right. I have always put my retirement in fairly high risk vehicles because I am still fairly young (I think), and time is on my side. Later on, I will decide to begin decreasing my risk and move my money to safer and safer havens. I have a friend who moved all of his retirement out of the stock market and is not even in the negative right now. While a lot of people out there are depressed and feel they are getting clobbered, I feel like although my retirement balance is dropping, right now I am buying extra shares and building my retirement on the cheap. I just hope it works out. My only real fear is that those shares will continue getting battered and fried and there won't be any ketchup to go with it.

An Evening With David Sedaris

Was hanging out with David Sedaris last night in downtown Richmond.

Well, he was talking from the stage at the Landmark Theater in downtown Richmond, while I was about as far as you could be from the stage and still be in the building. But we were in the same room for an hour and a half....

For those of you who don't know, David Sedaris is a writer. In my opinion, a great writer who primarily writes some very humorous essays. Some are memoir, and many just capture the normally unnoticed details of ordinary people's personalities and lives. Often he and his characters are in normal situations where they react badly, or they are in impossible situations and do the best they can. Either way, its always a great read. In addition to his books, he is a frequent contributor to the radio show "This American Life" on NPR.

My sister Carla took me to the show last night for my birthday. I didn't even know he was going to be in town, but she has seen him a few times and wouldn't miss it. We ended up going with a few of Carla's friends and it was a fun group. The crowd at the show was really great and although we were really in the nosebleed section, there isn't a bad seat at the Landmark.

When David Sedaris walked out, the first thing I noticed was how short he is. Carla warned me ahead of time about this. But he carried a simple green folder out to a podium and pulled a pencil out of his shirt pocket. "What's the pencil for?", I wondered. Then he opened the show with a funny talk about what it is like to be out on a book tour, nearly going blind from having his picture taken all the time, and what it is like to sit at a book signing table at a Costco in Canada for two hours. He didn't sign or sell a single book, people just walked by looking at him funny, and he had a large sign off to the side of him which said, "Please Do Not Take Pictures".

The majority of his show was spent reading to us. He read some things he was working on and some things he had written but hadn't published or used on the NPR show. It was all funny. The pencil he carried, I found, was to write notes on his material after he read it. He explained later that he often tried out different things in his essays at different shows to try and settle on what would work best. I would guess that is a pretty good way to improve on your material.

He concluded his last reading by bringing the house lights up and fielding questions from the audience. There were some great questions. One of the best was the question, "What do you think of politically when you hear the word, Change?" He simply said the only real change that he paid attention to was the change he got when he paid for something, and that he would like to reverse his current trend of getting less back. He was recently in Europe and said many people there are of the opinion that Americans are not ready to elect a black man as president. He said he corrected them as saying that was true, but that apparently half of America is ready to elect a half-black man.

I bought his latest book, "When You Are Engulfed in Flames", after the show and am already a quarter of the way through. I was hoping to get it signed but the line was way too long. He said he often has a special category of people he lets cut to the front of the line. One time it was men under 5'6" and women with braces on their teeth. Last night it was people who are fluent in German which wasn't me. So we left and headed over to Mojo's for some drinks and late night snacks. It was funny to be around all these people who are avid NPR listeners. I mentioned that when he started reading his first essay, I closed my eyes as I am just used to hearing him on the radio, and everyone else in the group admitted they did the same.

In the end, there was only bad part of the entire evening and that occurred at Mojo's, where I actually met someone who loved NPR, but didn't like A Prairie Home Companion. How is that possible?.............

A trip to Maymont

My friend Rob is fairly new to the area and has two sons. One is Colin's age and one is younger, less than two. He was home today with the boys and Daleen needed a break from mommy duty, so Rob and I hatched a plan to take the boys over to Maymont Park. He had never been before and it's a great place for kids to run around like little crazy people.

Maymont Park is in the city of Richmond, right on the James River. It was originally the estate of James Dooley, who was highly influential in the reconstruction of the South, especially the railroads, after the Civil War. The Maymont estate was donated to the City of Richmond and the park is one of the city's true treasures.

The park consists of tree-covered rolling hills, elaborate gardens, a petting zoo, and animal exhibits ranging from white tailed deer to bears, buffalo, and now even bald eagles. The animals in the park have all been rescued and were unable to be returned to the wild. It was seeing these animals that was the primary focus of our journey today.

Needless to say, the boys had a lot of fun. They ran around and we almost had a hard time keeping up. They started with feeding some goats and sheep at the petting area. Well, since they are still a bit young and were a little scared of being too close to the animals, feeding them initially meant sort of throwing handfuls of these seed grains at the animals. Eventually, after we showed them the goats wouldn't bite their fingers off, they relaxed a little and had their new furry friends eating right out of their hands. The only downside to this whole process is the animal food. Maymont prefers you feed the animals this special animal food that they have in vending machines, which are not unlike gumball machines. You pop in a quarter, turn the handle, and the machine dumps out a large handful. The only problem with this is, the vending machine is kind of away from the actual animals. So there I was, with my bag of quarters, dumping these fine grains of food into my hands, then quickly carrying them to the boys, spilling some along the way, spilling more during the transfer into their tiny hands, only to have them initially throwing the food at the ground in front of goat, but just out of it's reach. (Very frustrating to the goats...) The boys would feed their particular animal and then look to me to run for another load as they found another new sheep which looked hungry. Eventually, I'd had enough exercise so I dumped all the quarters into my pocket and used the bag I had them in to contain a large supply of food. However, when I returned with this bag of animal food, they had pretty much lost interest in feeding and were heading off to the next thing. So after telling Colin not to to throw the food to the animals, I ended up throwing the contents of the baggie over the fence.

The feeding frenzy was followed by checking out some elk. The new eagle and raptor exhibit was excellent and the boys were very impressed by these enormous birds which included several types of hawk and owl and a giant, live, bald eagle.

Following the raptors were the famous Maymont bears. There are two and they put on quite a show today. We watched them play and then go for a swim on their pond. After the bears, we strolled over to the Japanese Garden to feed the ton of enormous Koi that reside in another pond.

The fish feeding was the second main part of our visit. Maymont has an entire pond of these gigantic koi goldfish that will pretty much eat anything. There is a little gazebo-looking hut that sits out over the water and Colin loves to feed the fish from there. Rob was a bit surprised at my preparedness when I produced a bag of quarters at the petting zoo. He was even more surprised when I pulled out an entire bag of stale hamburger buns at the pond. Within fifteen minutes, Colin and his new buddy Luke had the water looking like it was boiling over with all the fish fighting over the scraps of bread.

Colin and Luke ran around some more after feeding the fish and then we headed back to the car. Rob and I both seemed pretty pleased when on the ride home, the children all looked like they had been drugged with Lunesta. "Yesssss", I thought. "They are going to sleep goooood tonight..." Daleen was happy to see us when we got home, and she said she really enjoyed her day off. She needed it and I needed a day to just pal around with Colin. Sometimes I think even Colin needs a little break from Mommy just to change up his routine.

If you live in the Richmond area and you have never been to Maymont, you should go. It really is one of the best things the city has in the way of parks and rec, and it's free, which is in everybody's price range. Besides the animals and large park areas, there is a great visitor center with all sorts of nature exhibits and giant fish tanks showing the various fish that live in different parts of the James River. If you have been to the park, but not recently, you should definitely go again just to see the new eagle/raptor exhibit. Seeing a real bald eagle is something else. Just be sure to bring your walking shoes and plenty of quarters.

The Road To Wellville

I am happy to report I have finally managed to survive my poison ivy and am almost completely mended.

I can tell you though that I haven't been that miserable in a very long time. I found myself not really wanting to do anything, even writing on this blog. I just wanted to scratch myself to death. I ended up having it everywhere. I suppose this was due to working outside, sweating, and it just got all over me and I am just that allergic to it. At the worst of it, I looked like a beaten up Rocky Balboa with leprosy. I honestly am starting to think when Job was struck down, he was afflicted with poison ivy from head to toe..... just to make him as miserable as possible. (The bible does say he scratched himself after being afflicted you know.....)

Anyhow, I initially started treating it with my usual weapon, an OTC remedy called Ivy Dry. This stuff is great and usually does the trick. It dries the rash out (so dry it turns almost white), and stops the itch. However, I still had a couple of spots that continued to itch, even after drowning them in Ivy Dry. So I took it up a notch and on the advice of my wife, reached for her can of Zambuk. Zambuk is a sort of herbal remedy (it's really just Camphor Oil and Eucalyptus Oil) that comes from South Africa, where Daleen is from. Did you ever see "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"? You know how the dad in the movie uses Windex as a cure-all for everything from cuts to boils, to joint pain? Well, Zambuk is pretty much South African Windex. I have had it put on scrapes, cuts, and even a nasty spider bite one time. It actually seemed to help with those cases, and the can does say it is also an itch remedy, so I tried it. I can tell you, that I now could be the poster child for Zambuk. That stuff worked even better than the Ivy Dry and would temporarily relieve the itching on all my worst spots. Zambuk... it looks like a can of snake-oil, but it works wonders, it smells particularly lovely, and ....it's expeditious!

So I had temporary relief fom the itching, so I wouldn't run around scratching myself silly in public and embarrassing myself, but I still needed something to speed up the removal of the rash. Now, as I stated in my last post, an ivy rash is actually an autoimmune condition. (Apparently, I have a very strong immune system that will basically try to cream anything my body thinks might be a potential invader.) Knowing this to be the case, that my problem was inside my body, I still went back to the drugstore and bought a tube of soapy stuff called Zanfel and a big old box of Benadryl tablets. The cheap box of Benadryl helped a lot with longer term itch relief. The expensive tube of Zanfel soap which advertises it will remove the rash right away didn't seem to do anything.

Finally, after reading the comment that Connie left on my last posting, I shuffled over to my doctor and was hooked up with what I really needed. I guess I never thought the doctor could do anything to help. The doctor seemed pretty amazed by my case, commented on how miserable I was probably feeling, and started my new treatment right away. The treatment consisted of two parts, a shot of some kind of steriod and a prescription for Prednisone. I normally hate needles. I mean I HATE them. But when the nurse came in to stick me this time, I told her that I wanted to hug her and that she could feel free to give me two shots if she wanted. From the look I got, I think she was beginning to believe that I really did need two. But I only got the one and it felt great! Since then, I have been on a steady diet of Prednisone and Benadryl, although I get to start cutting back on both today. A couple of the rashes are still there but they are much smaller and all on my swelling has gone back down. My eyes are also back to normal now.

Thanks for all your prayers and sympathy. And thanks for the tip Connie, I owe you one. I am definitely going to be a lot more careful in the future. Unfortunately though, when cutting my grass the other day, along the edge of our property, I found three new patches of poison ivy that I am going to have to deal with..... someday.