I have changed my mind...

I decided that this idea of putting this blog on hold until sometime after the New Year is nonsense. I am going to keep it going, but will attempt to discipline myself to spend a minimum amount of time on it through that time period, 15 to 30 minutes a day max. Of course, here I have reached the point where I am just starting my third sentence and I have already put more than 20 minutes into it.

Hmmm... part of this is the fault of my bloghost, Squarespace. As I have stated before, it is a buggy program, prone to misfire, and so far tonight I have had to bounce around between three windows in two separate browsers, just to get the photos placed. Some nights it works perfect, some nights it is a nightmare and cannot be brought under control no matter what I do. Tonight it seems to have fallen somewhere in between.

Okay... 25 minutes now...

I awoke very late this morning, I think because of what I went through yesterday and the night before, when I got almost no sleep, as I had to "prep" for the medical procedure referenced yesterday.

Now, I am supposed to eat a great deal of "real oats" until I clear up the damage that all these decades of an abusive diet has done to my digestive system, but after yesterday, I just had to go out for breakfast and get myself some ham and eggs.

I will eat oatmeal tomorrow.

When I walked into Family Restaurant, I saw that this man, Van Buskirk, had just sat down at a table. Sometimes, when I am out walking, he will come driving by and wave, and sometimes he stops alongside me, rolls down his window and we chat for awhile.

I was alone, so I sat down with him.

It has now been 30 minutes. I am behind schedule.

There was much from our conversation that I was going to write, but, as you can see, I am out of time.

I will note this: he served in the Pacific in World War II as part of the Army Air Corp occupation forces and then stayed in the military to make a career of it, but his heart went bad and he got drummed out. He suffered a massive heart attack and later had a few more, plus some strokes.

No one figured that he would last very long, but here he is, Van Buskirk, deep into old age, having breakfast with me at Family Restaurant. The lady showing him the love seems to be in charge of all the waitresses.

Van Buskirk picked up my ticket. I got out my wallet to at least leave the tip, but he insisted that I put it back into my pocket.

Thank you, Van Buskirk!

I should add that, after the waitress brought our food, he bowed his head and said a blessing.

It has now been 38 minutes.

After I got home, I went walking. Not far from where Van Biskirk told me he lives, I saw this secular Christmas display.

The afternoon and evening proved to be snowy and the already icy roads became dangerously slick. In Anchorage, a woman slid over the center line, smacked T-bone into my son Jacob's Tahoe and knocked him into the ditch. He did not seem to be hurt, although now he is quite stiff. Margie was at work and so, instead of working myself, I spent four hours alone with Kalib, until Jacob and Lavina finally got home.

Kalib had a great time, being alone with his youthful gramp. I enjoyed him, too, but I was left to wonder how my wife keeps up with him all day long.

During his waking hours, Kalib does not stop. I was going to describe some of his antics, but I have already exceeded my time limit by over 10 minutes.

I still must go back and put in the code that turns the opening words to every section red. If Squarespace would simply put a color button into their editor, this would be a simple task that would take seconds. I have suggested this to them a number of times, but they have some high falutin idea that they are going to force their customers to use headers correctly and they think their customers will just be lazy and ignore headers altogether if they have an option to colorize sentences, words, and letters at will.

Of course, highlighting text in the body of the blog has nothing to do with headers.

So far, they continue to refuse to add this simple feature - as well as to do many other things that would make life easier for a Squarespace blogger.

I shouldn't vent like this, but, damnit, sometimes, when you blog, and write what just comes off your fingertips as they move, you vent.

When I started this blog, I should not have leaped so fast. Now I am stuck with Squarespace - for awhile, at least. Maybe they will solve these problems and I can just stay with them.

Comments

[Howard Morse]

Bill,
It would be a real treat to hear about Mr. Van Buskirk's adventures that he shared with you over your "bad" breakfast. Hope you have time as well as do your many other projects. Thanks for sharing.
Quyanaqpak,
Howie