Category: Life

Categories
Blogging Career God History Life News People Philosophy Politics

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

June is here, and it’s the start of this blog’s 4TH year in cyberspace. Let’s roll:

My Fellow 43-Year-Olds – Celebrating their 43RD birthday this week (alongside myself) are Phil Keoghan (May 31ST), Roger Sanchez (June 01ST), Anderson Cooper (June 03RD), Ron Livingston (June 05TH), Paul Giamatti (June 06TH), and Max Casella (June 06TH). Phil Keoghan is of course the host of 17 seasons of “The Amazing Race“. Incidentally that 17TH season is currently filming somewhere in the world right now. You can check it out come September. Roger Sanchez is one of the most popular house music deejays in the world. He secured a worldwide pop and dance smash in 2001 with “Another Chance”. Anderson Cooper is one of the most recognizable faces of CNN. Remember when he hosted two seasons of “The Mole” back in 2001 and 2002 ?  Ron Livingston – born the same exact day as me – is a television and movie star. He was Peter Gibbons in the cult classic “Office Space”. Paul Giamatti is also a movie star. You may remember him from “Sideways”. Max Casella portrayed the unforgettable Vinnie Delpino – Dr. Doogie Howser’s troublemaking best friend on the classic TV show. He still acts on TV shows and movies today. Aging gracefully. That’s us. The 43-year-olds. Happy Birthday to us !

My Fortune Cookie Messages – Once upon a time there lived a popular blog series on here entitled ‘The Fortune Cookie Message Of The Week Club’. It was a smash hit during its time. Due to the last round of intense budget cuts here at the blog that longtime series was unfortunately one of the casualties. It could return at a later date. Probably not. In the meantime here’s a collection of 8 fortune cookie messages that I’ve been stockpiling since the series was cancelled. Enjoy:
1. Any idea seriously entertained tends to bring about the realization of itself.
2. Do what is right, not what you should.
3. Whatever you do, do with all your heart.
4. Great things are accomplished only by the perfection of minor details.
5. Stay close to your inner-self.
6. Two people shorten a road.
7. This is the month that ingenuity stands high on the list.
8. The cost of something is what you give up to get it.

My Quick Takes On Everything Else – Hurricane Katrina was to President Bush as the Gulf Oil Spill is to President Obama. If you blamed Bush for Katrina then it only makes sense to blame Obama for BP. I can only take about 20 minutes of news on TV at a time. It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world out there. The same bad news keeps occurring, and only the names and the faces change. The world is full of arrogance, ignorance, stupidity, and hatred. If you had asked me 30 years ago what I’d be doing as a 43-year-old then I would have probably exclaimed ‘TOP 40 radio deejay’. As a teenager I thought for sure that’s where I’d be headed a few years later into my adult life. That didn’t happen. The USAF had other exciting plans for me. If I had to do it all over again then I’d do it all over again. If I had to give up either blogging or tweeting then which would it be ?  It would be blogging. That may shock some of you. I don’t see myself giving up blogging anytime soon. That would be the easy way out. This blog is an integral part of my new Life. If I ever get to the point where I can only blog one post per week then that last remaining weekly blog series still standing would certainly be Sunday’s ‘My Fantastic Journey’. My attitude about Life and death has changed drastically over the past 45 months since I’ve been a follower of Christ. I believe that abortion is murder – no exceptions whatsoever. I believe that guns kill – and that people use guns to kill. I believe that it’s nobody’s right to end the life of a human being other than God. In my perfect world abortions, guns, and the death penalty would all be outlawed. We live far from that perfect world of mine. One more thing before I’m done here. Alcohol kills. Drinking serves no relevant purpose. It does no good to anyone or anything. It does plenty of bad. It’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of money. It would not exist in my perfect world. For about three years now it has not been part of my Life.

Categories
Blogging Career History Holidays Life Music Travel

Saturday Night Retro

The long Memorial Day holiday weekend is here all across our 50 states, and it’s the unofficial start of the 101 days of Summer from now through the Labor Day holiday weekend at the start of September. It’s when schools let out, vacations begin, and schedules change for Americans everywhere. It’s where we go out and enjoy the world around us while the weather is warm and the days are long visiting new and different places nearby and far away.

I’ve enjoyed many memorable Summers over the past 43 years of my lifetime. Some were memorable for bad events (such as Hurricane Andrew in 1992), and some for good (such as Panama City Beach in 1990). Many I can’t remember at all, so they were clearly forgettable. Looking back I regret not making some type of a memorable impact during those past unremarkable Summers. Of course some of those Summers were forgettable because I’ve chosen to forget about them over time because they were too traumatic for me.

Two Summers in a row were quite memorable for me in a favourable way because I was living them in a foreign land. I was living on an American Air Force Base near Fairford Gloucestershire England in 1986 and 1987. It was an enjoyable, exciting, and ecstatic experience abroad with friends, co-workers, and natives of the land. I was very honoured to be able to live such a rewarding life back then as an 18, 19, and 20-year-old USAF Airman serving my country in another country. I was thankful to be able to return back home again with all of those awesome memories.

This Memorial Day Monday here on my blog I’ll be posting a very special entry to honour those who served before, alongside, and after me – but never made it back home again. They died fighting for freedom while serving their country. Just like this soldier that everyone knew as “Camoulflage”:

Categories
Blogging God History Life Television Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Looking Back At This Blog – ‘The Major’s Life Blog’ marks its 3RD anniversary in existence this week going back to the ancient history days of Myspace. (They seem so long ago.) The blog has developed and evolved greatly over the past 3 years, and although it’s not nearly as popular as it once was back in its hectic heyday (2008) it is still very relevant. It keeps me accountable to those of you within my church family that love and care for me on this fantastic journey. I’m celebrating my second chance at Life, so what better way to do so than to share it with those of you who are rooting for me to succeed. God is using me and this blog to minister to the world. Based on personal feedback over the past 3 years lives are being saved out there because of this blog’s existence. The Truth is I am not saving lives. This blog is not saving lives. God is saving lives. He is my Almighty Leader, and I am just one of His millions of Disciples here on His land – His creation. My words are really His words when I minister His Good News. I take no credit at all. It is all because of Jesus.

Looking Ahead At Summer Television – The 2009-2010 television season officially comes to a close tomorrow night (the 26TH of May), and then summer reruns and new and returning series take over from there. I always look forward to Summer television. Three of my favourite broadcast network prime time shows air solely in the summer – “America’s Got Talent” (returning June 01ST), “Hell’s Kitchen” (returning June 01ST), and “Big Brother” (returning July 08TH). Summertime is a fun time to watch my favourite shows as well as catch-up on those that I missed during the regular season but managed to preserve on DVR. I’ve got some CBS sitcom marathons to watch soon !

Looking Out At 40,000 Feet – On a recent flight aboard a Boeing 777 from Miami to Dallas cruising altitude was at 40,000 feet. That’s probably the highest above the Earth that I have ever been in my entire lifetime. Although it appears to be peaceful and quiet outside at 40,000 feet – 7½ miles above sea level – the weather is harsh, fierce, and unlike anything we’ve ever seen here on earth. Oh sure the sun is out and shining brightly against a crystal clear deep blue sky with all of the clouds way down below, but air temperatures are about -60°F to -80°F. That’s a full 130° to 150° colder outside than it is inside the cabin. Oh yeah let’s not forget about those ferocious winds that are blowing up to 250 MPH. That outrageously cold air from the outside is essentially cooked by the engines of the jet aircraft, and then it is cooled back down by the air conditioners so that it feels comfortable to our human skin. How dry is that cooked then cooled air that touches our skin ?  It’s as dry as it can possibly be – there’s only a trace amount of water in that air. It’s less than 2% water, so that explains why we’re always thirsty inflight and our skin seems to dry up. It doesn’t really explain though why some of us (me included) have to take Dramamine in order not to get sick inflight and embarrass ourselves. Well that’s because the barometric pressure inflight is much lower than we’re used to – unless of course you live on a mountaintop that’s at least 7,500 feet above sea level. You crave oxygen ?  Well there’s much less of it inflight. Happy Flying This Summer !

Categories
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.