Category: Animals

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Saturday Night Retro

Exactly 17 years ago yesterday morning on the 21ST of May of 1993 in the heart of Melbourne Florida ‘Captain Airwaves’ was officially born. He was my original pseudonym in cyberspace. Of course back in 1993 nobody knew what the World Wide Web was all about. After all Al Gore had just invented it, and he hadn’t yet explained it. Back then the most popular form of modern communications between personal computers across the free nation was via the telephone dial-up bulletin board system (BBS). Mine debuted real early on that morning 17 years ago, and it was named after my lovable childhood cat (still alive at the time) – Fluffy. She was a Manx, and the name of my first creation in cyberspace – ‘MANx CAT BBS’. That first bulletin board system lasted a little over four years, and it eventually spawned a spinoff site on the emerging web at the time – ‘MANx On The Net’. That web site eventually morphed into the ‘MASSIVESMASH.COM‘ hit music web site that survived and thrived for the better part of a decade during the late-1990s into the new millenium. It faded several years ago, but it inspired this personal blog that continues today.

‘Captain Airwaves’ was actually the pseudonym of the late great John Carmody – the famed daily television columnist of “The Washington Post” newspaper from 1977 to 1998. During my high school years in the early-1980s he inspired me to get in to the entertainment business somehow someway. The bulletin board, the web site, and the blog was as close as I got to that dream. I adopted the ‘Captain Airwaves’ pseudonym for the BBS, and then after a couple of years my followers at the time (known affectionately as ‘MANxsters’) promoted me to ‘Major’, so I became ‘Major Airwaves’. When the web site hit it big I took on the ‘Major Hitwaves’ name and persona to more accurately reflect my role at the time as a deejay on the web. Nowadays I’m still ‘Major Hitwaves’, but I’m more commonly known as simply ‘The Major’.

17 years ago this past week I was unemployed, living off of my savings, and having way too good of a time with all of my friends and neighbours in the Melbourne area. The 1400 block of South Oak Street rocked back then, and ‘Captain Airwaves’ was crankin’ out the hits from his second floor studio efficiency – and all up and down the U.S. 1 and the A1A.

Here’s one of those hits of the time – an obscure track that was a local smash on the radio and in the nightclubs of Melbourne. It’s His Boy Elroy – and a track about them “Chains”. As are most of the songs that I feature here on the ‘Saturday Night Retro’ it’s one of the greatest songs ever made according to me.

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Animals God Life Music

My Fantastic Journey: It’s In The Lyrics

This morning I took a nice hour-long walk around the peaceful and quiet suburban Allen Texas neighbourhood of my brother and sister-in-law. The first 20 minutes of the walk was stop and go – and stop and go – and stop and go. I was actually walking their dog Buddy with me, so whenever he stopped to smell the landscape I had to stop too. And once he was done smelling and ready to walk again I was able to do so as well. But then Buddy reached a certain point in the neighbourhood where he refused to go forth any further. I tried to pull him – even drag him – but he wouldn’t budge. So we turned around and went right back to where we came from, and Buddy enthusiastically led the way. In fact he led us straight back to his own familiar turf again. I relinguished control of him, and he went back inside. I stayed outside, and continued my walk for another 40 minutes – as free as can be – no longer being held back by the canine.

It’s sort of like ‘My Fantastic Journey’. For over 30 years I was held back by an uncaring world that tried to tell me what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. It was a runaway world that was running away with my so-called life, and I was merely a sad and miserable existence on her out-of-control ride with no real say-so in the matter. But then a miracle truly occurred some 45 months ago when I least expected it. I was rescued and saved by my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He’s the Christ that knew me all along, and although I always believed in Him – I never really knew Him. I let go of the leash that the world was pulling and dragging me with. She nearly pulled me to the edge, but then Christ stepped in to stop the madness. I went the other direction as He guided me and led me towards the light. I was free at last – free at last – free at last. I have never enjoyed as much freedom with my new Life of the past 45 months as I did with my previous life before that. Thank You Jesus for keeping this journey alive and kicking !

Some people tell me to step out and do my own thing.
And others say I got to blend in just to be the same.
And stop being me.

But this shallow world is no longer what I’m made of.
I’ve been changed by Grace.
I’ve been saved by Love.
What more do I need ?

It’s in the lyrics:

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Animals Blogging Life Money Travel

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow – It’s been a rough couple of weeks with the stock market experiencing a near meltdown due to European economic crises and apparent human error on Wall Street. It’s negatively affected my retirement savings plan in a big way. After reaching a new record high on Friday April 23RD my savings had dwindled in value by a MASSIVE 6.5% as of this past Friday May 07TH. It’s the biggest one-week and two-week drops percentage-wise for me in nearly 18 months – since the two weeks immediately following the 2008 Presidential election. The good news is that even with the recent short-term drop my retirement savings plan is up by nearly 65% over the past 18 months. It’s all temporary. What goes down – must come back up again. It’s reverse gravity. The immediate goal is to not panic during these occasional financial meltdowns. The ultimate goal is to have enough money in the plan to live on when it comes time to retire – whenever that may be.

Boots: 1993-2007 – My little buddy Boots died 3 years ago next week on May 17TH 2007. Boots carried my unique personality in a little 10-pound feline body. Anybody who thinks that a cat can’t be trained to do what you want them to do obviously didn’t know my cat. I was fortunate to live with Boots for nearly 12½ years until his premature death. He died way too young, but he was actually dying a slow and increasingly painful death during his final few years. His longtime doctor finally convinced me that putting him out of his misery would be the last great deed that I could possibly do for him, and so on that very sad morning I watched him go to sleep for the final time. A memorial still exists today at the far end of one of my living room couches where he often relaxed.

Happy 21ST Birthday To Taylor Lesley Day ! – That’s 21 days young. Two days from now on Thursday afternoon I’ll be meeting the newest member of the Day family for the very first time. She’s Taylor Lesley Day, and she’s my niece born on April 20TH 2010. She was born to my lovely sister-in-law Christina and my little brother Danny. She weighed in at 7 pounds 12 ounces at birth and her height was 20 inches. I’m sure that she’s above 8 pounds now and perhaps an inch taller. I can’t wait to meet her in person. In fact I can’t wait to buy her very first teddy bear. I’ll have my brother use my phone to take a picture of  Taylor and I and then I’ll tweet it to my followers.

Blatant Promotion – The regular blogging continues on-location from the northeastern suburban corridor of Dallas Texas. After flying from MIA to DFW and then meeting my niece I’m sure that I’ll have about 50 or so ‘Mini Thoughts’ to share this Thursday night. On ‘Saturday Night Retro’ I’m hosting a HI-NRG dance party straight from the heart and soul of 1987. On Sunday The Truth that is ‘My Fantastic Journey: It’s In The Lyrics’ continues. It’s all right here on my blog – my Life. Thank You for being a friend and living Life with me !

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Animals History Home Life Music People Radio Travel

Saturday Night Retro

This week on the ‘Retro’ I’m taking us back 38 years ago to 1972. Many of you reading this weren’t even alive back then, but I was an active 5-year-old kid roaming around my new Bowie Maryland house and yard off Peach Walker Drive. I can actually see our old family house and neighbourhood today on Google Street View. It looks like a 40-year-old neighbourhood. I could fly to Washington D.C., drive to my old ‘hood in Bowie, walk up to my old house, knock on my old front door, and introduce myself as the guy that lived in that house as a little boy 35 to 38 years ago – and it would be the eeriest thing that I’ve ever done. You always hear of older people doing that – returning back to a home that they grew up in some 40 or 50 or 60 years ago – but a 43-year-old ?  38 years ago seems like such an eternity for me. I can’t believe that I’m now two generations old. I don’t feel old, but numbers don’t lie.

All we’ve got is the uncertainties of the future and the memories of the past. No matter how far we’ve come. No matter how much time has passed. We should never forget where we came from. We should never forget what we once were.

In 1972 I liked to play with my German Shepherd ‘Brandy’ out in the backyard. He loved to run. I loved to chase him. I just wished that he would stop digging holes underneath the fence and escaping into the outside world around him !

On WWDC AM-1260 (before FM radio hit it big) Raspberries were near the top of the pop charts with back-to-back hits. You may not remember the name of the band, but how about its lead singer – the legendary Eric Carmen – who enjoyed a late-1980s comeback courtesy of the “Dirty Dancing Soundtrack”. Here he is leading his band back then with two rockin’ hits – “Go All The Way” and “I Wanna Be With You”. Let’s Rock the ‘Retro’ !