Category: Animals

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Animals Blogging Driving Food Holidays Humor Travel Weather

The Major’s Weekend Blast-Off

WEEKEND GRAB BAG O’ THOUGHT:
It’s Friday July 02ND, and it’s the long extended 4TH Of July holiday weekend here in the U.S.A. Go out and make it an enjoyable one, but always play it safe in everything that you do. I’m 1,400+ miles away from home within the vast northeastern suburbia of Dallas Texas. I’m here visiting my little brother, his lovely wife, their adorable 10-week-old daughter (my niece), their old dog, our parents, and later on this weekend our favourite Aunt and Uncle who I haven’t seen in about 7 years. It’s my 2ND visit here in exactly 7 weeks. When I return back home again I’ll be less than 10 days away from my next big weekend vacation getaway. I’ll have more on that next weekend on the ‘Blast-Off”.

BEST LUNCH OF THE WEEK AWARD:
Longhorn Steakhouse – 12-ounce (NOT 12-inch) Renegade Top Sirloin, Loaded Baked Potato, Bread, Coke.

15 WEEKEND MINI THOUGHTS:
– My American Airlines flight from Miami to Dallas was rather uneventful.
– Due to severe weather in Central FL we took an unusual route out of Miami.
– We traced the entire Florida Keys from Key Biscayne to past Key West !
– We essentially flew directly over the Homestead area.
– I waved down at all of my friends back home and on Key Largo and Tavernier.
– I even saw Dry Tortugas National Park and Fort Jefferson from way up there.
– We crossed right over the middle of the Gulf Of Mexico into Louisiana.
– The entire trek from north of the Keys into Texas was above layers of clouds.
– It was the leftover counter-clockwise circulation of former Hurricane Alex.
– This afternoon the remnant moisture of Alex has turned Texas into the tropics.
– We’re getting occasional showers this afternoon here in Northeast Texas.
– Everything is lush and green here, as it’s been a rather wet month here.
– Meanwhile the grass is dying and becoming crunchy back home in Homestead.
– Today for Lunch we picked up fast food from Sonic.
– It was pretty good, and maybe by Christmas our Homestead Sonic will be open.

THOSE CRAZY CRAZY CATS:

BLATANT PROMOTION:
TOMORROW on the blog we’ll celebrate America’s Birthday with a classic jam that’s all about “America”. It’s from an American music legend who is still gettin’ it done today. Catch it right here on my ‘Saturday Night Retro’. Then on Sunday on an all-new ‘My Fantastic Journey’ I’ll tell you what freedom means to me on this 4TH Of July. It’s all right here this weekend. Go forth and enjoy your weekend, and check back here later on. You won’t regret it pal.

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Animals Blogging Computers History Internet Life Music News People Radio Television

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 !