Coop’s Journal & Photography

Something new for me and for you, generally, I tell you all about my life and what I have been up to but, I’m becoming more and more frustrated with the world’s condition. Because of that I’m going to stop censoring myself and speak out on a few issues that are important to me. Since this is the beginning of “Sign Language Week” in New Zealand, “Sign Language Week” is from May 5th-11th.One of the issues I’m speaking out for is a better world, a fuller life for the Deaf. Not that the Deaf need my help in this matter, they have been speaking out on their own for years. Unfortunately, most of their pleas fall on deaf ears, no pun intended. To emphasize that point I’m going to steal and modify a quote of Jesse Jackson’s, ‘The problem isn’t that the Deaf do not hear. The problem is that the world does not listen.’  We don’t listen, hell, the majority of the hearing world doesn’t even speak the same language as the Deaf do. Sign language is a language unto itself and since the majority of the hearing world doesn’t understand it the Deaf people are unable to effectively communicate their thoughts, feelings, ideas or desires. I work in a retail establishment and we have Deaf customers, so I am able to give you an example of how the Deaf communicate their desires to the clerk. They point at what they want, why do they point? Because they know the hearing clerk won’t be able to understand them if they sign to them. What’s makes this scenario even more frustrating for me and possibly a few of the Deaf customers we have is that none of the clerks take the time to learn or develop even the most basic sign language skills. Yes, I know basic sign language. Yes, my sign language skills need improving upon and yes, I am trying to do so. Because I am trying to do that the Deaf customers will sign to me, correct my signing and teach me new words or phrases.  So, I’m not a person living in a glass house and throwing stones. I consider the Deaf customers friends, I also have two Deaf friends that inspire me. Julie and Marlee Matlin; Julie is a model/actress/clothing designer/stage manager/photographer/videographer/artist attending the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Marlee Matlin is of course the Academy Award winning actress who most recently amazed the world with her dancing skills on ‘Dancing With the Stars’. Unfortunately, I don’t know Marlee personally, but I did meet her once, sort of, she was the guest speaker at the Auditorium Theatre in Rochester, NY. I went to listen to her speak because at the time I was working for another company that had several Deaf customers. After her speech, she had a question and answer period, when I asked her what was the best way to learn sign language. She told me, “Just do it, just become involved in the Deaf community and practice. The Deaf people will appreciate you for taking an interest in their language, their culture and will help you to improve on your signing skills. By the way, there is a very good chance Marlee will see this too. How? I added her as a friend on ‘Myspace‘ and will be sending her a copy.  By this point you may be asking yourself, “What’s the point of this email?” “Why is he making an issue out of deafness?” “What can I do to help the Deaf?” Answers; because I see or hear about how the world discriminates against the Deaf. One such example is regarding a group of travelers in Tasmania. Adrian Doyle, his wife and two of their friends were flying to Melbourne, when they attempted to board the ‘Tiger Airways’ plane they were stopped, told they would need to find an interpreter to fly with them. The airway said this was for their protection in the event of an emergency. Deaf people fly everywhere, everyday. As to what you can do to help the Deaf, that’s all relative; if you’re a business owner or in the position to hire people and a Deaf person applies for the job. If they’re qualified, hire them. To borrow another quote from a blog regarding a political figure. David Patterson, the new Governor of New York made this remark a few days before he took office, ‘..that 71 percent of blind people and 90 percent of deaf people are unemployed, even though they have a higher level of education than the average American. He noted that this is a waste of potential, and the world may never know if one of these people might have discovered a cure for cancer.’ By the way for those who don’t know, David Patterson is considered legally blind.  If you see or know of a situation that can be improved upon for the Deaf; do it, speak out until it gets done, volunteer. I will..actually, I already have, one of Julie’s ambitions is to start a Deaf TV station and I told her I would be a camera operator, video editor, whatever needs doing. When or if the TV station becomes a reality is another matter, stay tuned though. I will most definitely let you know. Other situations that can be improved upon is the implementation of ticker screens in airports, train stations, bus terminals, ect. When Deaf or hard of hearing people are traveling they are not able to hear audible announcements regarding gate changes, delays or cancellations. By installing ticker screens in transportation terminals, Deaf people are notified of such changes visually and make their travels easier. Captioning, captioning is a major issue for the Deaf and hearing impaired. The lack of captioning for TV shows or movies; both in theaters and on DVD make it almost impossible for them to enjoy things that we, the hearing community take for granted. It’s very hard for Deaf or hearing impaired people to read lips on a screen.  By supplying the ticker screens and calling out for captioning on TV and in movies you can help the Deaf acquire ‘Equal Communication Access’. These are things you can help with it doesn’t cost you much; a phone call to the local newspaper/tv station asking them to cover a story which will bring awareness to your community, a call to your mayor/congress person or senator, a stamp or your donating your time to a cause that will make the world a better place for the Deaf.  It’s the hearing world that needs to change. There is nothing wrong with the Deaf, nothing has to be fixed, Deafness is natural to them. Cochlear implants aren’t the answer, hell, Cochlear implants aren’t even hearing. Here is a sample of what it is to experience sound through a Cochlear implant. It starts at 2 channels and increases to 32 and then it gives the actual sound. 

Bottom line is it’s time for the World to change.

Riding out the frump, it’s 12:05pm on Thursday and the train just left the station. It’s only an hour late leaving Rochester, but that’s ok. Why is it ok, you may ask, it’s ok because I planned poorly. After I left work this morning I stopped at my apartment, sat in front of the pc, surfed the net for 20 minutes as I warmed up, shaved, showered and packed my gear; laptop, 35 mm camera, film, digital audio recorder, digital camera and my novel. I left my apartment, walked to Rite-Aide, purchased ‘Scruffy’s’ medicine, dropped that off at work, treated myself to breakfast, I walked to the train station, bought my ticket and read while I waited for the train.

Nonetheless, it’s a nice sunny afternoon, the scenery is pleasant and the seat I’m in has an electrical outlet available for my laptop. Which means I am able to type as I travel, it does take some getting used to though. It’s almost like when I was in high school and would try to finish doing homework on bus to school. Unlike the ride on the school bus though, I can glance over to another passenger’s seat and catch glimpses of the movie “3:10 to Yuma”.

It’s 1:45 pm, my train just arrived at the Syracuse station, I just missed the Centro bus going downtown, and the next one is leaving at 2:11pm. I decided to kill a few minutes by playing video games in station. I walked outside and waited for the bus, 2:11 pm comes and I haven’t seen a bus that says ‘Carousel Center’ or ‘Downtown’ yet. I double-check the schedule I have. Apparently, there are different buses, each with a different destination that stop at the Carousel Center and then proceed to downtown Syracuse. It’s 2:20 pm now, I’m frustrated because I am on a timetable and times I slipping away. I start hiking towards Carousel Center, notice two church spires that look interesting, I am in Syracuse to explore after all and debate about trying to get downtown. I decide to continue on to the Carousel Center, I don’t know the area where the church spires are and could be walking into a bad neighborhood.

When I arrived at the Carousel Center I located one of the entrances where the Centro buses stop. I was looking at the mall directory while waiting for the 2:35 pm bus and noticed the mall’s ‘MB-18’ policy on the wall. The ‘MB-18’ policy states that between 4pm and mall closing on Friday and Saturday no one under the age of 18 may be in the mall unattended. They must be in the company of an adult 21 yrs of age or older.

A couple of buses pulled up to the entrance of Carousel Center, I walked out looked at the names of the routes, wasn’t sure which bus was going downtown. I asked the driver’s of the buses and boarded the one going downtown. I made mental notes of street names and landmarks during the bus ride. I arrived downtown around 2:40 pm, I began roaming the streets of downtown Syracuse, took pictures of older buildings, landmarks and interesting shops. I noticed a few “authentic” Irish pubs along my walk and decided I would have to go in to sample their wares the next time I was in Syracuse.  The other things I noticed as I strolled around were the number of businesses that were operating in downtown Syracuse and the lack of “street people”; panhandlers, drunks, ect. I’m not trying to imply that these people don’t exist in Syracuse’s environment, just that it was refreshing not to have someone ask me for change every couple of blocks.

At 4pm, I decided it was a) cold and b) time to head back to the Carousel Center. I looked at the map printed on my bus schedule, checked for a couple of landmarks and started hiking back towards the Carousel Center. Along the way I stopped at Franklin Square, took a few photos and jotted down the quote on Benjamin Franklin’s statue that best suits my life. It says, “If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten. Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.  My writing still needs improvement and hopefully, by taking little excursions to other towns, cities and exciting places I will be able to say I have done both.

I arrived at Carousel Center around 4:30 pm, strolled through the mall and had dinner at ‘Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips’. I was surprised that Arthur Treacher’s was still in business. The Arthur Treacher’s that was in Canandaigua closed about 20 yrs ago and I haven’t seen any of their restaurants in Rochester. After dinner, I wandered around the mall for a half an hour and then went to the train station to wait for my train.

Those are the highlights of my trip to Syracuse, as I said my writing needs work. I haven’t done anything worth writing about for a while, so I haven’t written much. I’m hoping that will change in 2008.

Ok, I am way behind in doing this, I start, get sidetracked, promise myself I’ll go back and finish, get sidetracked and then everything I was going to say is a few weeks old. So, I’m trying again.

Let’s start with last Thursday, why last Thursday? Well, for one thing that was Mom’s B-day and another it’s one of the days I actually did something other than work. I left work at 6:30am last Thursday morning, stopped at my place to rest for a while and then headed for mom’s apartment. When I got there, there was a note; “To Whom it may concern, I have gone around the corner to Chase bank.” So, I went around the corner to Chase bank to meet her there. From there we walked to Gitsis’s restaurant, had coffee and talked. I was going to take mom out to Pittsford, buy her a new purse and a new coat, but mom decided she would rather go over to Park Ave and have lunch at Sinbad’s restaurant. After lunch at Sinbad’s, I walked mom home and then went to the pawn shop.

I had read an article about “Wardriving” in the magazine ‘2600′ and learned of the program ‘aircrack’. ’Aircrack’ is a WEP hacking program, which I thought I could use with a pda. Yep, I’m a geek..not a true geek, but a geek nonetheless. Anyway, since I go to a lot of cafes with wifi I thought using the pda may be helpful if I had trouble connecting to their signal and I was going to try a little hacking to improve upon my computer/internet skills. While I was in the pawn shop, I asked if they had any pdas that were capable of wireless. The man working there assumed I meant a cellular signal and I explained I meant ‘wifi’. He told me they had one, it was a hewlett packard ipaq h1945. The HP Ipaq is a nice slim pda with a sd card slot, he wanted $125 for it and I thought it was a good price for the pda, three 128 mb sd cards and a leather carrying case. I left the pawn shop and headed for a cafe with wifi to test it out. Unfortunately, the wireless wasn’t built into the pda but the pda was wifi capable, I needed to buy a wireless card for it. I did a google searcha a search on ebay and found an sd card sized wireless card, which I was amazed even existed. I didn’t realize they made them that small. After bidding on an sd wifi card on ebay and doing some research on the ‘Aircrack’ program I decided to return the pda.

Friday, after I returned the pda I went into a “Cricket” cell phone dealer and signed up for ‘Clearwire’. I took the ‘Clearwire’ modem back to my place, took it out of the box, plugged it into the electrical outlet and my desktop, no internet. I double checked that the modem was receiving a cellular signal, it was 5 bars, highest level, double checked the ethernet cable, no signal. I called clearwire’s technical support, explained the situation to them and proceeded to go through a series of dos commands with them. No internet, finally after an hour and several dos commands later, the tech support guy tells me to change the ethernet cable. I had a spare one, I unplugged the cable that came with the modem and plugged my cable in, success, high speed internet.

Jumping ahead to this week now, confusing, but these are just highlights of the past couple of weeks. Sorry.

Yesterday, the motorcross boots I won the auction for on ebay arrived. Why did I bid on motorcross boots? They’re part of my halloween costume. I’ll send pics of that next week when it’s all together.

Hopefully, you’re doing well and are enjoying yourself.

I’ve become a news junkie of sorts in the past 6 months. I will check www.digg.com; Digg is a news related web site where the public can dig (link) news stories. One of the more interesting ones I have found recently is regarding the “Octosquid.” http://www.thehawaiichannel.com/news/13630402/detail.html

Check your cell phone provider..they could be cheating you. I have been using AT&T/Cingular for the past 2 or 3 years. I have a prepaid plan, which entitles me to 400 peak time minutes and 1,000 night and weekend minutes with a rollover of my remaining balance and I have ‘world connect’, which allows me to make international phone calls. All of this costs me $41.00 a month plus tax and surcharges for a grand total of $49.00. I never use all of my minutes; I may use 100 of the night and weekend minutes a month..they don’t rollover to the next month. Between phone calls, web access and text messages I use about 2/3 of the $41, leaving a rollover balance of $13 every month. Well, my bank/MasterCard expired on the 30^th of June this year and my bank failed to send me a replacement card before the expiration date. I had called them to request a new card and was expecting it to arrive on the 5^th or 6^th of July. Since I was unable to make any payments via credit card, I had planned on using my rollover minutes until the new card arrived. Well, you know what they say about “the best laid plans of mice and men..” Well, it’s true, on Friday morning AT&T decided, since I hadn’t purchased new airtime for the month of July they would discontinue my service and keep the $13.00 for themselves.

When I called AT&T/Cingular on Friday morning to ask why they discontinued my service and what had happened with $13.00 balance remaining from June I encountered hostility and rudeness. The first operator I talked to kept interrupting me and told me I “should have known that this was going to happen..” I was astonished and asked, “How I was supposed to know this if AT&T/Cingular had never informed me of this fact..” Their reply was “Sir, next time I suggest you request to speak with a ‘Customer Care’ representative.” I replied, “That’s exactly what I did do.”  I was told to “Hold please” and I was transferred to a ‘Customer Care’ representative. The second AT&T operator was just as rude as the first one and when I was inquiring about the rollover and “how I was supposed to know”, I was hung up on. I called a third time and this time I was amazed at the fact I heard a sane, pleasant voice on the other end of the line, I explained about my two previous phone calls and the operator apologized. The operator checked my account status and agreed there had been a $13.00 credit at the end of June and continued to tell me that “the conditions regarding rollover.” With AT&T/Cingular your rollover minutes are dependant upon purchasing new airtime for the following month, and it is stated in the package when you first purchase the phone. Since I had been a client in good standing with AT&T/Cingular the operator allowed me a “one time” reimbursement of $13.00 dependant upon my purchasing airtime for the month of July.

So, essentially, that AT&T/Cingular operator told me, “We’ll credit the $13.00 back to your account if you give us another $41.00.”  

Hopefully, you’re having better luck and service with your cellular provider.

I promised mom that I would go to the movies with her on Friday, she wanted us to see “License to Wed”. Unfortunately, that movie wasn’t playing at the Pittsford cinema. We checked to see which other movies were playing there and decided to see “Transformers”. 

Mom and I had a couple of hours before the movie started and decided to have lunch at “Camille’s”. After lunch we walked through the plaza and stopped in a couple of the shops and at 1pm we went to see the movie. Actually, the movie was a lot better than I was expecting it to be. There was an actual plot line; there was action, comedy, romance and the actors were all good.

After the movie was over, I took mom home, then I went to a café and surfed the web and chatted online. Around 6pm I went to my apartment to try and get some sleep, but I wasn’t able to sleep very well and I went for a walk around 9pm. At 10pm I was walking through the parking lot of the planetarium and decided to see if the observation deck was open.

The observation deck was open, I walked up the stairs to the roof and was surprised that there were so many people there; I think there were about 15 people on the observation deck. When I got up to the roof they were looking at a nebula, then we were given the opportunity to see a binary star system, a blue star orbiting a yellow star and finally another nebula. The second nebula was 25,000 light years away, yet the stars were quite bright and clear…it was exciting to see something so beautiful, yet so far away and so old.

Anyway, that’s the latest news from me. I’m sorry I haven’t written for a while, but between dealing with things, work and not being motivated to write because I was hoping for something more interesting to write about to come along.

(goofy title I know)

I have been meaning to write an entry here for a while. In fact I have started to write a few times before, I get side tracked, become busy and then the news I started to write about has become 2 or 3 weeks old.

Anyway, today, I left my part time job at 7:30am, walked to my bank’s atm, got $20 out and continued on to one of the coffee houses I spend time at. While I was at the coffee house visiting with the staff, my cell phone rang, it was one of my co-worker’s, Cecil. OUr conversation started out by Cecil saying, “Cooper, I have some semi-scary news for you.” My jaw dropped, I was expecting him to tell me I was fired or something along those lines and my mind raced for a reason why he would be calling to do this. When he continued on and asked me, “Do you remember Bob Johnson, from yesterday?” I replied, “Yeah, the guy who came in to collect the western union from Bruce Dowdall. He didn’t have any idea and I told him he needed to call Bruce and tell him he needed a test question since he lost his wallet.” Cecil said, “Yeah, that’s the guy..well, he’s actually from Canada…” I interrupted him, “yeah, I picked up on that…” Cecil continued, “He’s a murderer who escpaed from prison in Ontario. His real name is Brent Dowdall.” I paused and then said, “You’re kidding..” Cecil continued on, “when was the last time you saw him?” I thought for a minute and said “Around 6:30p, Dino helped him while I watched Warren’s register.” At this point the police took the phone from Cecil and took my name, address and birthdate.

I jokingly told Erin, the waitress in the coffee house I was moving to europe because I was face to face with an escaped murderer at work the day before. We talked about that for a few minutes and I googled ‘Brent Dowdall’ (http://www.police.sudbury.on.ca/index1.php?subaction=showfull&id=1177429475&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&). I surfed the net, signed up for a paypal account, deviantart will now allow me to sell some of my photos and I chatted online.

I left the coffee house around 11:45a and debated about what I would do for the afternoon. I thought about taking some more photos, then decided it would be more fun and exciting to search for the escaped murderer. Sounds crazy, I know But then again, my life has never been normal. I thought of places a wanted murderer would feel safe going to, soup kitchens were out, shelters were out. I assumed that the police would have already notified soup kitchens and shelters. So, I decided to check other places where an escapee may feel safe or try to collect his western union.

My first stop was “Sindibad’s Grocery” on Main St, they are no longer a western union agent. From there I walked to ‘Midtown Plaza’, there is the food court and a newsstand in ‘Midtown’ which serves as a western union agent, no luck. I went upstairs to check the area where tables are and people just sit at times, he wasn’t there either. My next stop was the bus terminal, ‘Brent’ wasn’t there either. While I was there I decided to see what times buses left for Detroit. I assumed Detroit would be the central hub destination for Michigan and any connections would be made from there. There was one bus that left at 8:15a, had a 3 hour layover in Cleveland and arrived in Detroit at 9:45p. The other bus left at 9:45p and arrived in Detroit the following morning at 7am. The man in the bus station told me the 9:45p bus was the better choice of the two. I went to the library next, think about it, the library is a nice, quiet, inconspicuos place for an individual to sit for hours unnoticed, undisturbed. “Brent” wasn’t there either, I decided I would walk along the river bank and see if he was sitting on a bench waiting to go into world wide news and check for his western union. He wasn’t by the river, which meant one more place to check before I called it a day. I went into world wide news, my workplace and asked if there was an update regarding ‘Brent’ and i was told he was apprehended by the state police in world wide news a half hour after Cecil called me.

Although my intentions were good, my efforts were wasted and in fact the last place I looked should have been the first place I looked. Hopefully, your day was more productive than mine.

It’s been a while since I wrote, sorry about taking so long, but I really haven’t had anything of substance to write about. This past week has been semi-interesting, of course most of my days are semi-interesting.

Yesterday, I picked up the one Christmas present I bought for myself. It’s a newer laptop, it’s not brand new, but I’m happy. It’s a Dell Latitude c600, it has a 20 GB hard drive, with Windows XP, Microsoft Office and AVG anti-virus. It has a 750 Mhz, Pentium III processor that makes it a lot faster and more powerful than my old laptop. It also has a cdrw/dvd combo drive, so I will be less reliant on my desktop pc for making copies of disks. Not a bad deal for $350, right?

I started writing this a few days ago, sat back, paused  and thought about what I should write about. My life isn’t any better  or worse than anyone else’s, weirder maybe. Of course, my job requires I handle odd situations and individuals. The situations and people I dealt with most recently are what I decided to write about.

Hillside Children’s Center;

Last week I stopped into “The Old Toad” and was asked by Chloe, one of the workers, “Where do you work? Would you be able to donate something to or auction for Hillside Children’s Center?”  I told her that I work for World Wide News and that I would have to ask my boss if he would be willing to donate a gift certificate.  I called work and asked Dave, my boss, if  WWN would be willing to donate a gift certificate to the charity auction. Dave said he would have to ask the owner. Well, after a week of  going into work and asking Dave for the gift certificate and having Dave tell me hadn’t had a chance to talk to Paul, the owner of  World Wide, I was finally able to donate a $25 gift certificate to the Hillside Children’s Center auction.

I should add that during the week I was waiting for the gift certificate from World Wide News I was able to talk the owner of the Rochester Razor Sharks into donating four tickets for one of their basketball games.

Babe of the Day:

Most people who know me in person will tell you that I am very fond of the female form. What guy isn’t?

 Well, the girl who captured my heart last Friday was quite literally a “babe”.  I was at work when there was a loud crash from the street and Fred told me to call 911. I looked out the window and saw a very bad accident. I walked outside to get a better view and an idea as to what happened, if anyone was hurt, ect. When I noticed approximately five other people all calling 911 to report the accident at the same time, so I hung up. I got down to the street and was checking the wreckage and determining who the people in the car were and realized it was a single mother and her baby. The baby didn’t look to be much more than four months old. Apparently, the mother was driving in the center lane of a three-lane street, was preparing to merge into the left lane when a SUV rear-ended her, which caused her to lose control of her car and she rammed into the rear end of a parked car. The mother was very distraught, naturally, but both she and her baby appeared to be unharmed. While we were waiting for the police to show up a pick-up truck pulled into the parking lot and nearly ran over the baby’s car seat. I became alarmed for the baby’s safety and stood watch over her until the ambulance arrived.

I never learned the babe’s name but I did learn that she liked having her feet tickled. She would smile at me, squirm, kick her feet and tug on her blankie.

World Wide Conundrum;

The names of those involved in this section have been changed, for obvious reasons.

I deal with all sorts of people and circumstances at WWN; drunks, beggars, crack-heads,  thieves and drug dealers. Well, when one of the supposed dealer’s may be one of WWN’s own I have to step back and shake my head.

Last week, “Larry” started telling me that “Robert” was living out of a bag and he was spending a lot of time at a nearby apartment building. “Larry” has a tendency to run off at the mouth, so for the most part I ignored “Larry.”  When I noticed “Robert” spending a lot of time at work on his days off though I started to wonder if “Larry” wasn’t full of it this time.

So, being semi-gracious and diplomatic I took “Robert” aside and told him. “Listen, I have been hearing some things from other people lately and it’s not really any of my business. I’m not going to ask you any questions, I’m not going to tell you what I was told, nor will I tell you who told me. Just be aware that people are aware of your situation, watch your back.” A few moments after talking to him “Robert” disappeared.

The next day I went into work and noticed “Robert” was hanging around again. I decided I had better get more of the story without any of the drama by snooping, so I asked “Harry” what he knew. “Harry” and I are the “go to” guys, we are the ones everyone comes to when they want to vent, cry, complain, ect. “Harry” told me that “Robert” had been evicted from his apartment. Essentially, “Robert’s” landlord had locked him out and “Robert” basically had the clothes on his back. But, “Robert” had just moved approximately three months ago, so there was no apparent reason for “Robert’s” landlord to evict him. It generally takes three months of non-payment before eviction proceedings can be started. Also, “Robert’s” landlord was a true slum lord, “Harry” told me that “Roberts” apartment had holes in the walls and needed various other forms of repair as well. Knowing this made “Harry” question why “Robert” was evicted. On top of this “Harry” has a lawyer on retainer, who he was able to sweet talk into doing some pro bono work for “Robert” and help “Robert” get his possessions out of the apartment. “Robert” was hesitant to contact or speak to the lawyer about this situation. Which made “Harry” question how honest “Robert” was being with him.

Furthermore, “Robert” was being accused of selling crystal meth to an individual at the nearby apartment building. “Harry” has some side dealings, which are, “shady”, would be the best word to describe them. “Harry” told me that “Robert” knew of and had witnessed some of “Harry’s” deals. When “Robert” was present at a deal or knew what one of “Harry’s” deals entailed he would literally start sweating and become very nervous. Which made “Harry” doubt that “Robert” was dealing crystal meth, but he knew one of “Robert’s” closer associates was someone who would use “Robert” to deliver to individuals. Which raises other questions and concerns? If “Robert” was merely the middleman, doesn’t he realize the implications and consequences of his actions.

The really sad thing regarding this conundrum though is the fact that “Robert” was a US Marine and he’s almost fifty years old.

Those are the highlights from my life for the past week. There are only a few days left until Christmas and then there will be the New Year to deal with. Hopefully, you will have a lovely Christmas/Hanukah and a Happy New Year. I have become re-inspired to go back to school for journalism and will be renewing my weekly/semi-weekly emails in order to hone my writing skills.

Until next time,

 

 

It’s been a while, but I’m going to give you yet another ever so exciting glimpse in to my little ole life;

 
Last Wednesday, I went down to my foster parents for a visit. My foster mom picked me up in front of Hicks & McCarthy Restaurant in Pittsford. As we drove down to Canandaigua together she told me of how she had been in an antique shop the week before to purchase a gold, rabbit shaped brooch for her mother. While she was there another woman came in and barged in front of her to inquire about a set of dishes and then left without purchasing the dishes. Well, this irritated my foster mother to no end. So, she decided that she would purchase the dishes the rude woman wanted unseen. A few days later the woman called my foster parents house asking if my foster mother in fact had purchased the dishes and would she be willing to part with them. My foster mom told me she would have to think about it and she’d call her back in a few days. After telling me the story she said she had to stop into the antique store to pick up the dishes.

 
The antique shop was on route 332 in Farmington. When we went in my foster mom asked me if I wanted to snoop around a little and I said ok. A few moments after we had been there I started to get a headache, my “super hearing” picked up on a high-pitched noise, I looked at my foster mom and said, “Do you hear that?” She just looked at me funny and said, “Hear what?” I said, “Never mind.” Later on I figured out that the noise was associated with the shops furnace. I know it was the furnace because it quit after a while and then when I heard the furnace kick back on it started again. My foster mom paid for her dishes and we continued our way out to the house.

 
When we got there the dogs, Holly and Chloe, they immediately besieged me, they felt it necessary to lick me to death and fight over my attention. Holly would jump up into my lap and then Chloe would or vice versa. After I bonded with the dogs it was time to help bring the horses in.

 
My foster parents are trying a new training technique with the horses. It teaches the owner to respect the horse more and for the horse to respond to the owner better, it’s taught by Pat Parelli, www.parelli.com.

 
Other than my visit with my foster parents there has only been one exciting coincidence in my life for the past week or so. Tuesday I was out and about. I was walking to Boulder’s Coffee for a late lunch and when I got near the coffee house I saw several police cars, a few fire trucks and some local news crews. There was a bad accident, apparently someone had stolen a pickup truck and had run a red light at the intersection in front of the coffee house. The pickup truck that was going through the intersection at that time swerved to avoid hitting them or hit them, then lost control and continued on into the coffee house’s wall. While I was in the coffee shop I chatted with the photographer for the local newspaper and he gave me the name of the photo editor. I plan on emailing the photo editor and inquiring about freelance work for the paper.

 
Otherwise my life has been rather dull or normal. It all depends on how you look at it.  I’ve been working, having coffee with Billy and Cheryl, helping them with their computer issues, reading a new novel, “The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova, and stopping in to see mom.

 
 
 

I have posted more photos to the gallery and I’m starting to sort them into categories. Stay tuned!!!

I’m feeling a little blah right now, but I thought I should do something semi-productive. So, I have posted some images to the gallery. I have to name them and fill in the information for them, but they’re up for you to see.