Igster's Inklings

Ive heard that saying fr most of my life. Honestly it  never mean anything to me. After all until I was 18 I lived, well, at home. So it didn’t apply. Over the years Ive moved to other states and always had a I don’t know a pang of regret for NJ. But, I’ve also moved back, if only briefly. The most recent time was this past Feb. We’ve been here since then.

The town is great, the people are nice and Im within minutes of some of my family. And while we like it here, we’re not as happy as I thought.

I was talking to Chelle today. I realized we should not have moved from Texas when we moved to PA. The kids had good friends in Grapevine, so did Chelle and I.  They were outside for like 10 mos out of the year and could swim from like apr through Oct. Sure it was far away from family. That only served to make the 4 of us closer as a family. Which is a great thing imho.

I never really realized, or may I did and was avoiding it, Ive come to hate despise, dislike it it here?

I swore that I would never say thins or even consider crossing the Red River going south again. I miss Texas. I think that’s the most logical place for us to go. We mostly know the area, we liked it, the people the food etc.

I’m even thinking about finally getting that college degree Ive wanted since I was 18. TCCD looks like a good school.  Maybe Chelle will get a real job and not that bullshit she’s dealing with now, we’ll get a great place to live and I’ll go to school.

I’m not sure now where I first came across this. But, I loved it almost from the start.  I wanted to share it, and now I can through this blog. I hope you all like it as well.This is found on poeticportal.com (thank you to them for hosting it)

I live for those who love me,
Whose hearts are kind and true;
For the Heaven that smiles above me,
And awaits my spirit too;
For all human ties that bind me,
For the task by God assigned me,
For the bright hopes yet to find me,
And the good that I can do.

I live to learn their story
Who suffered for my sake;
To emulate their glory,
And follow in their wake;
Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages,
The heroic of all ages,
Whose deeds crowd History’s pages,
And Time’s great volume make.

I live to hold communion
With all that is divine,
To feel there is a union
‘Twixt Nature’s heart and mine;
To profit by affliction,
Reap truth from fields of fiction,
Grow wiser from conviction,
And fulfil God’s grand design.

I live to hail that season
By gifted ones foretold,
When men shall live by reason,
And not alone by gold;
When man to man united,
And every wrong thing righted,
The whole world shall be lighted
As Eden was of old.

I live for those who love me,
For those who know me true,
For the Heaven that smiles above me,
And awaits my spirit too;
For the cause that lacks assistance,
For the wrong that needs resistance,
For the future in the distance,
And the good that I can do.

- George Linnaeus Banks

Sorry for the horrible footage. You’ve seen their moves on the poker table watch their skillful soccer skills in action.

Starring in no particular order @pokerplasm @street3 @igster101 @ibgpn @chrishiter.

Enjoy

Ive been going crazy with yard work and gardening since Spring sprung. Maybe yardening? Not sure. My dad and I removed some nasty hedge things out front. The previous tenants never did any pruning and left them to just grow. All the new growth was at the top of the 7 foot tall bushes. It was more like a tree when we pulled/cut it out.

I split and replanted Hostas along the back, next to the porch. Then planted Castor bean plants, Liatris and some sunflower seeds. I think it’s the Mammoth variety.

We also picked up some packs of annuals and perennials like coleus, impatiens etc. In the front, near the sidewalk, I dug out a patch of dirt.That lead to digging out the grass, which was like cutting through carpet, turning over, adding soil and outlining with found bricks from the backyard. I had started with two rows of bricks, then stupidly added the remaining two rows.

Next I added Melampodium aka Million GoldLastly we moved the Celosia from a pot to the flower bed to fill in more color. The Melampodium is supposed to spread out some, so we’ll see.I have some tomato plants, Italian basil and two varieties of bell pepper plants in the back garden. Two plants are green belle peppers and 1 is Chocolate beauty a variety of sweet bell pepper.

Never mind, don’t answer that. When we lived in Texas, we were 99.87654% happy there. The kids had friends, went to a great school and were outside all the time. We could swim from the end of March up through October.

I was part of the Dad’s Club for Timberline Elementary and loved it. We were better off financially(at least for a time anyway).

The biggest drawback? Seeing my mom once or maybe twice a year. Not seeing the rest of my family. Not seeing Michelle’s family in Ohio. So we moved to be closer to my family in NJ.

The crazy part comes into question when I find myself reminiscing over Grapevine. They had a lot of activities, Grapefest and Mainstreet Days(think small carnival/street fair type deal).

I’m a Jersey Boy through and through. Ive always carried that with me. I also realized that, much like the saying “you can’t go home again”, things aren’t always as great as you remember them to be.

I love being here, and being minutes away from family vs a plane ride or 26 million hours by car. (I may have exaggerated that number). I love being able to go see my dad (he works for a studio about 3 blocks away.) Or just spending time with my mom and dad.

Yet, there is a part of me that misses DFW. I don’t miss the heat, the crowded highways or Local” places which could be up to an hour away. Look up just how big the Metroplex is sometime. Hell, just look up how big DFW airport is.

I told my wife the other day, that if she was offered a position there paying a good enough amount, I’d have a hard time saying no to moving down there again.

My parents are not in great health, it would kill me if something happened to them and I was not a few miles away.

I honestly don’t know wtf to do. She can’t stay at her current job indefinitely. Some thing’s gotta give. I just don’t know what. Oh, she interviews for a job in VA soon as well. Not sure how I feel about that. I’ve lived in Norfolk before, but know nothing about Richmond. The only plus side is, it’s 6 hours away as opposed to 25.

The following is from my friend David Shorb.

But it’s not one I make any money from. # of my 125×125 ads are like this. They are just a way of helping friends out. One of them “Matrix Madness” is for me. Hopefully people will click on it, see how awesome the biz opp is and join up. Then maybe I can continue to afford hosting  . The newest ad is for the Sky Pilot Project. More about that here. You can read about them on that link and all the great work they do. I’m hoping to get the Creator David Shorb to do a blog post for me.

Jon Voight may be my new fav actor. He doesn’t seem to be the typical liberal Hollywood Weenie. I got this from http://www.thehopeforamerica.com/play.php?id=3622



I’m sure, on the surface less nukes in the world sounds like a good thing. But, at what cost? How safe will we be when we have no defenses. For years the Government has been shrinking our Military forces, closing bases, decommissioning surface and submarine assets, cutting Army, Marine and Air Force ranks. What are they thinking? In theory peace through non-aggression sounds wonderful like warm kittens. In the real world it doesn’t work. Can you show me any instance where, when a foe lays down in a submissive prostrate manner, the aggressor ever said, “Oh you gave up, you can live in peace now”? I don’t think so. Weakening Israel does nothing for them and everything for the people that would have it obliterated from the face of the Earth. Sorry, I went off on a tear there. It just really pisses me off to see President Obama lauded as this great bringer of hope and change, when he is doing it at the cost of our country.
Enough is enough. Maybe the Tea Party system is not the best solution, but it beats the hell out of whining and hand wringing with no action. We need to stand up to Washington and demand they do the job they were hired for, and also they carry out the will of the people.

Ive been playing with Layar It places a 3d over lay or layer on your smartphone using your camera. It’s a pretty cool toy,(once I figured out how to use it). You can find places, other people etc all by overlaying a filter on your screen.

One of the filters came from Hoppala. I used it to find some virtual easter eggs, while at the park with my kids. I also placed a couple of eggs as well. I can see this being used for some type of alternate reality type of game. Find stuff, get points etc.

We have a rather small flower bed in our front yard. 85% of it seems to be taken up by some kind of bushes. There are also daffodils and some flowers I can’t identify yet, as they haven’t sprouted or umm flowered yet.

So today was demo day. I combined 3 pics into a panorama of sorts using Cs4. Apparently the file is way too large. I’ll have to work on that.

In the mean time here are the three pics, plus 1 of all the crap I took out of it. Weeds, dead limbs,trash etc. I’ll add more pics as I get more done.

I started putting up a cedar border around it. Hopefully I have enough. May not be able to find more as we bought it over a year ago. Will have to finish tomorrow.