Been busy

 With Mom in the rest home I've had a lot to do.  My two brothers share power-of-attorney but both live out of state.  One is busy building a house and the other just had surgery so it's hard for them to find the time to get the information I need to get Medicaid for Mom.  Finally got all the stuff together today. 
Had her new alarm system installed.  It is a wireless system.
  I could tell someone has been in the house.  I don't know if its someone with a key or someone who uses the lock box to get the emergency key but they will have a big surprise  next time they try to get in.  The combo to the lock box has been changed so they can't get the emergency key.  If they have a regular key they will be surprised when they try to key in the alarm code and discover it has been changed.  No one has any need to enter Mom's home since she isn't there now.  She may return one day but not for awhile. 

CPI Security: a rant

A few months ago my Mom, 90 years old and blind and deaf had her home broken into so it is important that she have the protection of a working security system.  In October Mom got sick and had to be hospitalized so the person that was paying for her cable and phone discontinued the services.  I cannot blame them .  The solution should have been simple enough: just have her system converted over to a wireless system so it would need neither cable nor a phone.  After a month of effort nothing has been accomplished except overpaying CPI.
   The semi-annual payment was due which my older brother had sent in the payment for but only my younger brother can authorized the new installation so he also sent in a payment along with the authorization to change the system.  Funny but they received the money but not the authorization.  He resent the authorization again but they can't find that either.  They didn't return his phone calls and only one of mine.  Things shouldn't be this complicated so I wrote to the President of CPI about the problem.  I have no qualms about cancelling CPI and having a different system installed but I shouldn't have to pay extra to do so and neither should Mom.   

Battle of the ex's

No, not that kind of battle.  While a sophomore in college my brother married a high school girl and she was just about the prettiest girl in town.  The only turn-off was she had a deep voice but she was pretty, slim, and had a very nice figure.  I haven't seen her in 40 years but I figured she must be a little heavier than she was then (aren't we all) and a little grayer but I wasn't prepared for what I saw. 
  She is probably in her  mid sixties but honestly she looks older than my ninety-year-old mother.  What a shocker.
   Seeing her gave me an idea so I checked a face book of one of my ex's children and going back 5 years I finally found a picture or two of my ex.  She was never a beauty queen by she wasn't unpleasant to look out.  She was tall and slim (weighed only 120 pounds) with long sexy legs.  She looked really good in those tight fitting jeans.  She and my brother's first wife are the same age, a few years younger than me and I do admit she looks about right for her age.  She still had flaming red hair without a hint of gray (but this is a five year old picture) but she had arms as big as my thighs and was so fat she would make a pig jealous. 
   I don't know which would be more embarrassing: to be seen dating ones mother or Petula Pig. 

tatoos

What is with the recent fad of writing all over ones body is permanent ink?  Some of it pretty and some of it is actually sexy but most of it is just juvenile and tacky. 

Muslims buy motel

There is a motel in Asheboro, NC that is no longer in business.  It was probably a nice place to stay at one time but one doesn't know it's there is on US 64 and there just doesn't seem to be a way to get to it off the old new 220 by-pass or what is now know as I 73-74.  The final selling price is far below what the appraised value of the property but people opposed to the sell were unable or unwilling to come up with a counter-offer.   People's objections to the sale based on emotional or religious reasons just can't prevail in today's money and political climate.
   Even though the Islamist in Asheboro purchased the property with the intention of making it into a Mosque and considering 9-11 and what is going on in the middle East and the potential threat to the local community by having a potentially hostile group in the mist of the city of Asheboro, denying the Muslims the right to purchase the property because of who they are is a bigger threat to our freedoms than the group would be even if they were known to have strong Anti-American feelings.  After all wasn't the 'New World" occupied and established because of persecution based on religious beliefs? 
   I know it's not quite that simple.  I think monetary reasons far outweighed religious freedom in motivating people to settle in this part of the world but religious freedom played a great part in the forming of this nation and the framing of our governing documents.  Many people claim to oppose Islam based on a religious belief that they do not themselves practice.  They have turned into people with the same mindset as the people whom the settlers of this country opposed and cited as a reason to rebel. 
  Kind of sad, really.

Example of Bad News stories

Man severely beaten by deputies in jail cleared of wrongful arrest

by WABC – NY 2:14 mins

The man who was handcuffed and beaten while visiting his brother at the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail has won a major legal victory.

Buttered toast. Really?

An article on Yahoo proclaims to teach us how to butter toast as if that was a skill that will be life changing.  Really.  Do some of us need help buttering our toast.  Yea, I know there are those with learning disabilities, and some have aged out of being able to help themselves and then there are  those that are to young to make toast and I am sure that there are many who have physical disabilities but honestly those aren't the people the article is written for.  After all if one can't butter toast then I doubt if they can operate a computer, click on and understand the article. 
  Maybe if one wants to get technical I suppose there are people who can do that but still can't butter toast but if we are honest, we will have to admit the article was written for normal (relatively speaking) everyday people like you and I who fixes ourselves and maybe others toast with butter now and then.  I didn't actually read the article so I don't know if it was recommended that one use margarine instead of real butter and whether the toast was light, medium, or dark, but to tell the truth it really doesn't matter because putting butter on toast isn't like rocket science and doesn't require a technical article to accomplish. 
   I would rank the usefulness of this article right there with "the best way to tie one's shoes". 

Bad News Stories

It's not BAD news but bad stories about the news.  Sometimes in writing it is impossible to place the emphasis where it should be so that is why I want to make it clear that I'm writing about bad stories  as in poorly written or presented rather than stories that are about news that is bad. 

Exactly what I'm talking about is stories that are headlined like this " Twin sisters are found at the bottom of a well".  Your curiosity is peaked and you wonder how they got in the well, how old they were, and most of all, you wonder if they are okay, injured or deceased.    You click on the headline to read the story and there, in all it's glory is the entire story:  Twin sister are found at the bottom of a well. 
  Right above this story is a video and if you click to play this video you have to sit through a commercial and then some news reporter's talking head appears and in the background you see an out of focus video (ain't it fun watching a video of a video?) of an ambulance crew and police standing around and a woman crying on the shoulders of another woman and then the talking head says "Rescue workers at the scene where twin girls have fallen into a well.  There are no details about the welfare of the girls."
  Wow. 
  

I Voted

Yea, I voted in the Randleman election today.  Turnout was light and only three races were on the ballot.  One of the candidates is a fiery red head and has a temper to match and her agenda seems rather personal rather than for the good of the city.  A few years ago a tree from her yard fell into the church yard so I got there early and began trimming the tree.  Some other men showed up along with the pastor.  This lady showed up in her housecoat and started yelling at us for cutting her tree and then accused us of lying to her about cutting down some other trees on our property. 
   She said a non-existent person had told her we wouldn't cut the trees down.  She said we were destroying life.  But she never apologized for her actions until she saw me at NASCAR days and then only because she was running for alderwoman.  (The title is actually alderman so draw your own conclusions).    
  If she was truly repentant she could have walked from her yard into ours and apologized anytime in the past two years but then she wasn't running for office.  She claims our beliefs are so different she could never attend our church but I just wonder how she knows. 
   Anyway unless people know her I'm afraid they will vote for her as it seems she has gone all out to win this election.  I do have to give her an "A" for effort.  Maybe her opponent is over confident, broke, or not so smart but he didn't put half

Family Crisis

A few weeks back I took a call informing me Mom was sick and needed someone to stay with her so I packed an overnight bag and headed to Hickory.  I spent that night but couldn't spend the weekend so I arranged for friends to stop by and check on her.  I drove to Hickory on Monday but she had not shown any improvement.  I went again on Tuesday but I left a couple of hours sooner than I normally would which turned out to be a good thing as I found Mom in the floor. 

I called 9-1-1 and she was admitted into the hospital in critical condition.  After spending a week and 2 days there she was sent to a convalescent home.  Chances are high she will never go back home. 

Yahoo does it again

It's my fault that I still use Yahoo as my homepage but that may change soon.  It was bad enough that every other story was actually a video.  Now, every other story is a one liner and then there is a video one has to watch to get the real story.  I can usually get the story from the comments without watching the video but now Yahoo will completely change the story after about 5 seconds and one can't back arrow to it.  I am not being forced to watch a commercial in order to watch a video to inform me of what I am interested in.  I can always buy a newspaper and read an article as many times as I want and never have to read an ad. 

Mom doing better

My mom is being moved into a regular room from ICU because there is no treatment done in ICU that can't be done from a regular bed.  I'm glad she is improved enough to be moved although I know she is still in danger,  After all 90 year old people with pneumonia are in a precarious position. 

Serious delimna

Mom is 90 and recently got bronchitis and the doctor said she wasn't to be alone.  I spent Thursday and Friday with her and stopped in to see her Saturday after the balloon fest.  Tammy was supposed to be with her Saturday.  Regina was with Mom Sunday am and Christie was supposed to be with her Sunday pm. 
  I don't have anyway to take care of Mom, one brother tried and it was a disaster, and my other brother isn't able or willing.  I can't keep driving from Randleman to Hickory.  Neither my health or bank account will allow for that.   She refuses to leave her house and as long as she is of sound mind
she can't be made to leave.  So what am I supposed to do?  

Set-up for the future.

In December 2014 my younger brother decided to take Mom back to Georgia with him without consulting any of her children.  Now if he has asked me I would have advised him to get a small apartment near where he lived for her so she could be by herself yet close enough to check in on once in a while.  But no he took her to his home and dumped her on his wife to take care of. 
   I know she is his mother but he has been removed from her for so long he has no idea what it would be like trying to care for her.  But he is the rich one so he thinks being able to make money makes him smarter than everyone else.  In less than a month he bundles her up drives her to Hickory without stopping and drops her off at her house.  She has no running water, no food, no telephone, and no one knows she's there except him and he no loner cares.  People only discovered her whereabouts when they called wanting to speak to her and he claimed "he took her home." 
   No, he took her to a cold empty house with no way to survive on her own without notifying anyone.  Now one would think this saga would have ended there no his wife began making demands for payment of a stair climbing machine that David had purchased.  Mom refused to pay saying she never asked for the machine and never used it but once.  When she saw how much effort was required to pull her up stairs she refused to use it again.  David's wife said that if Mom refused to pay while she was living she would pay when she died. 
   Saturday David drove to Hickory from Georgia dropped off the stair climbing machine and went back home.  Mom's relationship with David is like King David's relationship with Absalom.  Even though Absalom rebelled and tried to dethrone David and would have killed the King if an opportunity arose, King David forever mourned Absalom's death.   Mom has forgiven David for all his transgressions and doesn't believe David will allow his wife to bill her estate and collect for the stair climbing machine.  Even though David is the executor of the will Mom thinks he will do the right thing.  Well so far he has demonstrated his willingness to acquiesce to his wife's demands.  She is an intelligent lady and she is also a trained accountant and I have no doubt that she will be paid for this piece of equipment, especially now that Mom has procession of it. 
   I get so tired of people trying to take advantage of old people, especially one's parents.  They gave you life and care while you grew into adulthood.  Shouldn't we at least him them respect in their old age?  David could sell the machine and he is well off enough to absorb the loss.  But the plan, I'm sure, is to dumb the machine on her and at her death to present the bill to her estate and collect payment in full. 

      

Good Cop/Bad Cop

    I just saw an article on the meltdown of a little girl who blames her "Barbie" for her nail polish disaster and wonder how is it that's gets national exposure when some really heart warming stuff goes unnoticed.  I know we see stories abut bad cops all the time and occasionally one about a good cop: like one who purchased a pair of shoes for a homeless man without any or the two policemen who bought a buggy load of food for a family living in a car.  But what about the average person, the me and you people, who work hard, pay our taxes, and whose only contact with the police is when we get stopped for speeding?  Isn't there any angels of mercy out there that would just give us a little hope and faith in our fellow man, someone to give us a helping hand, a smile and a little encouragement?  
     Well, for one lady who had always been a hard worker, never even got that first speeding ticket, and now is entering the last days of her life, her turn has come.  She is ninety years old, almost deaf and blind but still managing to take care of herself.  It all started with a tragedy when someone burst out a window in her house to gain entry and steal.  Yes, they were eventually caught and normally that would have been the end of the story.  MPO Vang of the Hickory police department came over to the ladies house on his own time and at his own expense and repaired the damage to the window.  MPO Roberts also did her part by helping this lady get back and forth to the bank helping her recover the $900.00 that was stolen from her. 
   Those act alone are commendable and they were as the ladies son wrote letters to the city, the local paper and to the police department about the good deeds.  But even policemen with hearts of Gold have families and needs their downtime to pull themselves back together.  They have received their accommodations and one who think it's time to move on.   Yet, on Wednesday these two people came over to the ladies house and cleaned broken limbs and debris from off her roof and cleaned out her gutters and raked her yard. 
   You may feel like it seems the vocal majority of Americans do and cops.  But there are good ones out there and then there are some that are truly special.  Officer Vang and Officer Roberts are two angels in blue.

"I'm a Christian" death sentence

    It is rumored that the Oregon shooter asked people what their religion was and if they replied "Christian" he killed them.  If they answered differently he either wounded them or didn't shoot them at all. 
    Herein lies a dilemma.  If you consider yourself a Christian and someone points a gun at your head and asks what your religion is and you deny being a Christian in order to save your life, will Christ deny you?  But what if you answer you are a Christian and you really aren't, what then. 
   I know the likelihood of you, me, or any one else being in that situation is very remote but it did happen to those college students overseas about a year or so ago, it did happen in Colorado at that high school and it is believed to have happened in the recent shooting in Oregon.  Those people had no idea it would ever occur to them. 
    There are thousands of people murdered in the USA every year.  I have two friends that have had children murdered and back in 2000 when I was living in Greensboro, NC I was acquainted with  all the people murdered in that city that year but two.  How many people die in automobile accidents?  Add to those who die suddenly of heart attacks, industrial accidents, sports injuries, or some freakish method that one would never dream of, and you have a lot of people who die each year that had no idea when they got out of bed that day it would be their last on earth. 
    80% of Americans claim they are Christian, 50% of Americans belong to a church, and only about half of those attend church at all.  Many people think as long as their name is on a church roll somewhere, or they have been baptized, or they acknowledge that Jesus was a real person they are a Christian.    Are you sure you are One? 

Who is a terrorist?

Some people complain that whites who commit shooting at work, schools, and colleges are referred to as mentally while people of color are called terrorists.  Why? 
   I don't suppose it has anything to do with skin color or lack thereof but the motivation behind   the crime.  If a person commits a mass shooting or bombing like was just happened in Oregon or what happened in that movie theater or the college in Virginia and the reason for committing that crime is revenge or anger or just to see what it was like the shooter or perpetrator is classified as mentally ill.  But if the person who di such acts commits those acts  does so in support of a movement or greater ideology espoused by an organization or country  then that person who be a terrorists. 
  The two men who did the Boston Marathon bombing did so not because marathon runners bullied them but because they made easy targets and the act was in support of their Muslim beliefs.  They felt they were part of a greater cause.

Will gays go to hell?

    It seems many well meaning people who consider themselves Christian claim if one is gay they are condemned to hell.  It's a shame that so many people think being a Christian is abiding by a set of moral codes and being a good person and nothing could be further from the truth.    No one is condemned to hell  because of what they do or who they are.  Hell is not a place of punishment for doing bad things.  Hell is a place of torment created by God for Satan and his angels.  However, man is a sinful creature and God cannot condone sin.  He has declared that no sin shall enter into His presence.  Only sinners will go to hell.  The scriptures declare that None are righteous, no not one.  We all are sinners and if one claims he is not a sinner he is a liar.  So how does one escape hell?
    It certainly isn't by attending church or reading one's bible or by telling people their lifestyle will send them to hell.  None of us are good enough to make it on our own.  It has become popular today to make salvation too simple.  Many people today believe that because they accept that God is real that they are heaven bound.  Others think because they joined a church or was baptized they have made it into heaven.  Well, that isn't true either.   The scriptures tell us that there will be many who will claim that they did so and so in Jesus name and therefore are qualified to enter heaven and they will be told to depart because they are not known. 
  No one gets into heaven by being moral or good or by attending church or anything else one thinks that they need to do to feel righteous.  They can't get into heaven by following or preforming rituals. 
The only way to enter into heaven is by having a personal relationship with Christ. 
   It is true that the Bible looks upon homosexuality as a sin but it isn't grave or serious sins that condemn one of hell.  There is only one sin and that is the sin of unbelief.  It is equally true that if one accepts Christ as their Lord and Savior that they will no longer have a desire to sin but have a desire to live their lives as Christ would have them live it.  We will still make mistakes because we are still wrapped in this body of flesh.  If one continues to practice sin after claiming to have become a Christian then there is something wrong with their claim.  If they still sin but have a desire to follow Christ then that is evidence of salvation.  A sinner doesn't become a saint at conversion   any more than a fetus because an adult at birth.  It takes time to grow into maturity both as a human and a Christian. 
   One cannot interest another in Christ by condemning them but by showing them the love of Christ. 

High School reunions

    My classmates just celebrated our 50th reunion with 168 (out of 435) in attendance.  I declined to go.  High School wasn't the best of experiences for me and it seems the people I was close to either didn't graduate or haven't been heard from in years.  My very best friend disappeared in 1966 when he joined the Navy. Going to the reunion would be pointless to me.  I see no benefit to hanging around with a bunch of old people I don't know and will only see every five years for a few hours. 
   Honestly I would rather remember them as the young vibrant people we were back then rather than what we have become. 
  

Talking about funny signs

  Really, we weren't but our sign maker at the church has made another funny one.  Actually they are never intended to be funny but the man can't spell and is to lazy to find out how to spell a word correctly.  One Way Baptist is having a revival from Sept 14 through the 18th starting at 7 pm. 
Our signs now read "revival 14 thu 18".  That's all.  No time, no date and I have no idea what thu means.  It's funny but a pathetic funny.