Greetings and welcome to another edition of Random Thoughts from yours
truly. Honestly, I've had a rough week, from a computer scare
(fortunately resolved) to a car scare (again, fortunately resolved) to
anxiety from other stuff. One of the blessings and one of the relieving
things I like to do is blog, so here I go with my relief. Oh
yeah...enjoy.
- On top of the aforementioned anxieties I've been
dealing with (which I believe are short term, thank the Lord), I've got
those two unresolved issues I'm still dealing with. I'm not gonna go
into them too much here, but I do want to reveal what initially led me
to start facing them. One major event specifically led me down this
path I've chosen to take, and certain people can probably already guess
what I'm talking about given the timing of when I started this. That
event was the death of my friend Roger. This shook me more than I let
on. A lot of thoughts and emotions came to the surface I never
conceived of before much less expected to face. I'm not gonna get into
all of that here but one particular thought that came was that the Lord
has blessed us with only a limited time on this mortal coil and that
there really wasn't too time we could waste. To me, that meant I had to
stop holding myself back when dealing with certain aspects of my past,
present, and future. There was a common thread in all the problematic
parts of my life and that was those two issues. Doing this has already
led me to do things and stop activities I didn't want to stop, and to
those people affected by that I humbly apologize. Ultimately I believe
this to be something the Lord wants me to face so that I can grow and
hopefully be a better person for doing so. I'll be honest, it may seem
like a selfish and possibly even fruitless pursuit to some, but if I
don't do anything then instead of me deciding on things regarding my
life then those things will be decided for me. Also, I don't know the
full impact that Roger's passing had on his other friends (some we
shared), but if any good came out of this, it was that Roger has
inspired me yet again to be a better person and I can only hope he did
the same for many of you who knew him. My prayers continue to go out to
his wife Heather and their children.
- On a related note, a
friend of mine a while back asked me to send her a copy of the remarks I
made at Roger's funeral. I've been lackadaisical in getting on that,
so I've decided to put them here, for various reasons...one, I can point
my friend here so she can read them herself....two, in case my computer
decides to go kaput for some reason, I'll have a copy online
somewhere....and three, I thought I could share with all of you what
Roger meant to me. I've put them in bold below:
Before
I begin, I'd like to pass along my condolences to Roger's wife Heather,
their three children, and the rest of his family for their loss. I'd
known Roger for about 17 years, and even we hadn't seen each other that
much in the past few years, I always considered him one of my best
friends. He was one of the most honest and considerate people I have
ever known and he was that way to everybody he cared about. We had a
lot of interesting times together. One of the most memorable to me was
soon after we first met. It was the first time we actually hung out
after dancing at Park Alley in the Ohio State South Campus bar area. It
was Roger, me, Mike Tutt, and Cory Pariseau. We all went to the
McDonald's across from the campus, which was open late at the time. It
was busy and it took a while to get our food but we all got to know each
other better. While we were there, there was this drunk guy walking in
and out of the restaurant with about five feet of toilet paper stuck to
the bottom of his shoe. Now here's this guy walking back and forth
with toilet paper stuck to his foot and we didn't really have the heart
to tell him because, quite frankly, we were just getting a kick out of
it. Apparently nobody else in the restaurant had the heart to tell him
either because this went on for about...oh...approximately four hours.
And as slap-happy as we were, we couldn't stop laughing and Roger
actually fell out of his chair at one point, landing in the aisle
EXTREMELY close to where someone had apparently thrown up earlier. He
didn't land in it, but that didn't matter because it was just as funny.
That night made it clear to me that this man, Roger Byrd, was somebody I
wanted as a part of my life.
Before I close out, I would like to
relate to you what he meant to me. One of my favorite stories in the
Bible, and one of the most important to me personally, is the Parable of
the Sower. In essence, it's about taking the seeds that you are
given...in this case I'm going to use acorns...whether they represent a
newly-found faith, a new home, or the start of a new friendship,
planting them in the right soil and watching them flourish and grow into
tall and mighty oaks which create the forests that represent who we are
as people. In the forest that I would call my life, Roger Byrd was,
is, and always will be one of the tallest and mightiest oaks in that
forest. And it's not just that way for me...it applies to most of us
who knew him as a friend and loved him like he was our brother. He
helped make us better as people and I'm really going to miss him. Rest
in peace, Rog.
- Speaking of the computer stuff, it looks like the first chance I get I'm
gonna have to get a new power supply and new AGP video card for mine.
My computer is okay for now but those particular components are aging
and need to be upgraded sometime in the near future...when I have the
cash to do so, that is.
- Until this weekend, I had a shot of
actually picking the Final Four and hopefully the eventual NCAA
champion. I was even going to call this particular blog entry the
"Elite 8" edition if it came close. Well, in a word, it didn't....my
brackets completely fell apart by late Thursday evening and Friday
didn't do much better. Maybe next year, I guess.
- On a more
positive note, there are some solidified plans in place for my and
Kevin's birthday celebration. We are having a cookout on Saturday the
11th, a little less than two weeks from now (hence the blog title). We
will be having it at the Alum Creek North Park in Westerville (not the
state park, but a different one). We haven't set a time for it yet but I
expect it to be mid-afternoon. You can bring your families with you if
you want...it'll be fun for the kids too so I don't want them to miss
out. Later that evening we adults will continue the celebration at the
Outside Corner in Gahanna. If there is rain or it's really cold out
that day, then the backup plan is a restaurant TBD that night then head
to the club. As soon as we get the exact details ironed out this week,
we'll "officially" announce it along with how to get there and what time
it will be specifically. Remember, it's Saturday the 11th, so clear
your calendars that day (the next day is Easter, so that may make it
easier to remember).
- I've tried to use Twitter now and then
and, quite frankly, find it to be pretty useless...a fad at best. It's
like crack for social networking. It's basically a public form of
instant messaging which serves no other purpose than to waste time on
the Internet. I can waste time on the internet with better things than
that.
- For you wrestling fans out there....get ready for GLOW,
Part Deux. Some kid in the South won the lottery and decided to start a
women's wrestling promotion called "Wrestlicious", reminicent of the
late 80's promotion "The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling." It's got "Mouth
of the South" Jimmy Hart attached to the project, but it's still gonna
have the same type of cheesiness that GLOW used to have. This should be
interesting, to say the least.
- Staying on the topic of
wrestling for a moment, the IWA, a local promotion out of Chilicothe,
has finally started airing "IWA Carnage" once again, this time on the
Internet. You can go to http://iwawrestling.com and watch the latest
show anytime from their website. They've been around for over 20 years
and I got to meet some of the guys from the promotion last year while
watching Wrestlemania at Hooters...really cool group of people, IMO.
- Speaking of Wrestlemania, I was going to try to watch it but I'm not
so sure now. WWE jumped the price so a lot of people who now cannot
afford it are also trying to find a place to watch it themselves. This
is the one PPV I usually watch every year and I don't want to miss it,
but if it's too much of a hassle I might not. If anybody knows where I
can watch it next Sunday with a minimum of hassles, let me know
beforehand.
- For those of you who send 'multimedia messages'
through texting my phone (the ones usually through AT&T via their
"viewmymessage.com" website: neither my phone nor my computer can
access nor read these messages. This is an issue I've had even when I
had Windows, so it's probably either my computer doesn't want to access
them or it's server-side. In any case, I suggest using an alternative
method of sending those types of messages. Here on Myspace is a good
place to start.
- Last night at the club was alright with a
couple of nice surprises. I was coming in there last night to relieve
some stress, but I got knocked out of my zone early on by some girl I
didn't know grabbing my towel out of my pocket (FYI, I dance a lot so I
sweat and thus need the towel....probably more information than you
wanted to know, but anyway...). From the look she shot me, it seemed
like she thought it was funny and harmless. I don't know about any of
you, but I'm just not into complete strangers grabbing stuff out of my
pockets for whatever reason...one of my little foibles, I guess. I hate
being knocked out of my zone, but the night was salvaged by some decent
music, people I haven't seen there in a long time, and a few other
things. Thank the Lord for little things.
- I think from now
on, I'm gonna start capitalizing the T in the word "thoughts" in the
titles of my random thoughts blogs. I do enough of these types of blogs
to justify doing so, so why the heck not?
- Song on repeat:
"Rock" by Lexicon. It's a song that's been out there for a while so it
may be mildly familiar to you...it was in the movie "Harold & Kumar
Go To White Castle" and is a non-typical rap song.
- SLP to the
following: April, Dani, and Pippen (happy birthday to you all); Stan,
Kristin, Holly, my ex-roomie Vanessa, Laura (wife of one of my best
friends Todd Clark), Griff, Jay, Marcus, Dark Joey, and Daryl.
That's
it for this week. Join me next week as I drop some of my personal
specialized wrestling finishing maneuvers on various haters out there
(screw the RKO and the Stunner...I got better ones). In all seriousness
though....I just hope this week is less harsh than this past one was on
me. Until next time....take care and God Bless.
DJ
