Second that Gregg, we sometimes agree and sometimes disagree, but you certainly do you part to make things interesting around here! Happy (belated now?) birthday. -=Steve=-
Happy Birthday, Gregg, and remember it's much better to opine than bloviate, ha! ha! ha! ha! Hi, Bill!
Happy B'day Gregg We've not spoken even in posts before, but I'm an avid reader of this forum, and your posts are among the many that keep this forum a lively place. I don't know how your birthday is going (has gone), but I hope it was enjoyable and memorable. Hopefully nobody has told you that you look your age (whatever age you may be). I always swore to myself that when people stop being surprised at my age and start guessing accurately, that I'll do what my mother did and start counting backwards in years with each passing birthday. Yet, I'm sure it won’t be received by most quite as good naturedly as it was with my mother; vanity in a man is severely frowned upon, while it is more societally tolerated in a woman. When my mother was 36, we celebrated her 36th birthday. At 39 we celebrated her 39th. At 44 we celebrated her 43rd birthday, and at 45, we celebrated her 42nd. If she had still be with us, I'd imagine that eventually we'd be celebrating in negative numbers. LOL Happy Birthday Gregg!
Thanks, aarbrooks, for your good wishes and for starting this thread; and to one and all, for your good wishes (or fun-making, whichever applies in your case), as well. How unexpected! I realize it's now five days later that I'm finally acknowledging (and I apologize for the delay), but it's heartwarming, nevertheless! I've been busy as a one-armed paperhanger on an unexpected emergency project that has consumed all spare moments of my life pretty much since Labor Day weekend -- so much so that I haven't had time to even read these forums, much less make any postings. Had Mary-Anne not visited on a lark this afternoon and spotted this thread, I'd not have even been aware of it 'til whenever I finally got a chance to circle back... which still looks like it's not really gonna' be for a while, yet. I'm so busy that I even started this reply hours ago this afternoon but got torn away again... 'til now. Not fun, let me tell you. But don't worry... when I do return I'll do a search on my username and figure out what threads I've left unresponded to... especially the tantalizing posts by Bill Grover in the biblical languages thread for which he has soundly chided me herein. I vividly remember reading your posts, Bill, as I was changing clothes on Saturday afternoon so that Mary-Anne and I could go out the door and over to her family's house for a cook-out... and thinking to myself, "Man, I can't wait to get back home to respond to that!" And that's pretty much the last thing I remember. Next thing I knew it was so late Saturday night that all I wanted to do was go to bed; and then Sunday morning the phone rang and someone had a huge problem that he knew I could fix and that's been pretty much the only other thing besides regularly-scheduled projects and work that I've thought about since. So don't be so smug, Bill. As our illustrious governator has said in at least one film... and, weirdly, in several press conferences: I'll be back! Still stingin' over that Bush Today Show interview thing, eh, Jimmy? But seriously... I tend to like to opine and bloviate at the same time whenever possible... er... you know... as long as it doesn't make a mess on the rug or anything. Thanks, and, actually, it was you whom I was worried about having hard feelings. I've been meaning to circle back and not leave your last posts in our little bible thumper session unanswered; which answer was going to (and still will) include something of an explanation about why my reaction was so intense. There's more there than meets the eye, and my read of your posts in other threads since then tells me, first, that my reaction was probably an over-reaction and, second, that you're quite likely to completely understand and maybe even empathize with the explanation, once heard... er... well... in this case "read," I guess. We'll still disagree on a bunch of it, of course, but at least there will be more understanding on your part... and maybe mine, too. Don't think for a minute that I wasn't going to circle back. Watch for it! Glad I could be of service... but if you look at the usernames of those who have posted in this very thread you'll see the others who are far more interesting than I, believe it! Whatever you do, don't miss their stuff, too. Before I got busy, I tried never to miss a word of what they had to say... and I've rarely been disappointed! The ripe old age of 48, thankyouverymuch. As for looking my age, here's the first thought that flitted into my head when I read your words, intro2life, and which I'll share here purely for entertainment purposes: First, I should point out that I've always looked older than I actually am (was able to get into bars at 14 and stuff like that), and still do. In fact, to make things easier and to enhance the reader's theater-of-the-mind experience somewhat, I look alot (startlingly so, actually... and perhaps to my chagrin) like Rob Reiner... you know... the actor who played Michael "Meathead" Stivic in the old CBS sitcom "All in the Family," and who is a successful actor, director, producer, writer, composer, activist and philanthropist today (were that I had his money in addition to the essence of his looks!). When he looked young, I looked young. As he's aged, I've aged in nearly exactly the same way and roughly at the same time. It's uncanny, actually... and sort of pisses me off, to be candid... but I digress. So, anyway... it's August 1996. I'm 39-gonna-be-40-in-a-month or so. I'm in a motel in a South-Chicago suburb finishing-up a 320-page consulting report to a school district that's due -- printed and bound -- at the regularly-scheduled school board meeting in two days... yet I've got three days worth of work yet to do on it. If I don't deliver the report at this board meeting, I have to wait 'til the next one; and they won't pay me my last $7,000 check until the Board accepts the report in open session. So, needless to say, it's crunch time; the inkjet printer in my room has had smoke rising off of it for several days now... and I'm itchin' to check-out of that hell-hole and either ride my motorcycle home or go to visit some friends or something! At around 2:30 in the morning I sit back in my chair, rub my eyes, stretch and, coming out of a yawn, say to myself aloud, "Man, would some slyders taste good right about now!" So, pants go on, I grab my helmet, and out the door I go, hopping on motorcycle and riding North on Cicero Avenue a mile or so to White Castle. I order three double-cheeseburgers (remember, folks, slyders is small), o-rings and a Coke and just as a smile begins to visit my face to evidence how happy I am that I'll be eating slyders in just moments (and downing Tums about a half hour thereafter), says the pimply-faced kid behind the counter, "So, that's with the senior discount, right?" Sensing, somehow, that it would be better to just walk away than to follow the impulse I was fighting to reach across the counter and separate the kid from his larynx, I left... without my food, I might add. In retrospect, I realize I probably should have just sucked it up and capitalized on his stupidity by taking the discount and laughing all the way to the bank. But, alas, as Rich Douglas has said in various different ways herein elsewhere, that's just not me. But, bygod, I made my deadline (in case you're wondering), literally picking-up the copies of the report from the local print shop only five minutes after they finished binding the last of them; and only an hour and a half before the school board meeting where I was slated to present it. Two days later, my motorcycle and I were in Wilmington, Delaware, visiting friends... slyders; senior discounts; and my brief and misguided flirtation with the notion of performing a bare-knuckled, middle-of-the-night larynxectomy on a witless quick service restaurant employee, but a distant memory. Okay... well, enough of this. Gotta' get back to work. Hope to be back soon and we can all disagree and raise one anothers' blood pressures again. I'll leave everyone with this question to ponder: Whose today's poll should we believe... Pew or Gallup? And why? (There, that ought to keep everyone busy for a little while.) Thanks, everyone! I'm moved... ...to leave, for now. Bye.
Check out his profile: he's the consummate Baby Boomer, born in a time of great American optimism--1956.
