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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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Thursday Night Mini Thoughts

– This is the one blog per week that’s never scripted and never planned.
– It just happens – right here – right now.
– I have no earthly idea what I will type out next.
– I’m thinking much faster than I can type.
– I hope that I don’t offend anyone this week.
– If you ask me what religion I am then I will tell you that I’m not religious.
– That’s because religion hates, destroys, and kills humans.
– Jesus Christ loves, rescues and saves humans.
– I follow Christ – that’s my passion – it’s not my religion.
– Today was one of the craziest and most unpredictable days at the workplace.
– A work day like today only happens about once every several years.
– The enemy was everywhere today, so I’m glad that I had my armour on.
– Mixed in with some of the lowlights were a whole bunch of highlights.
– One such highlight was the always dependable Lunchtime hour.
– Lunch was served at the Longhorn – where nearly everybody knows my name.
– The Longhorn is one of my favourite weekly traditions.
– The ‘Cowboy Pork Chop’ – I dig.
– I’d dig it even more if it were twice as big.
– I’ve now been on Twitter for 9 months (and 3 days).
– During those 9 months I’ve sent over 1,380 tweets.
– That’s roughly 150 tweets per month – or 5 per day.
– I really enjoy tweeting, and I can’t imagine Life without it.
– It’s a form of accountability (as is this blog).
– I want my closest friends on this journey to always know what I’m up to.
– The rainy season has officially begun all across America’s Riviera.
– It’ll be a rare day or night when there is no organized rain somewhere nearby.
– This is what we’ve got to look forward to for about 5 to 6 months.
– We’ve also got to deal with an active hurricane season.
– This may be our busiest season since the record-shattering season of 2005.
– I’ll be your personal storm forecaster – not your fearcaster.
– Look to my tweets for common sense storm forecasting all summer long.
– The stock market collapsed again today.
– Money evaporated into thin air just like that.
– I’m in it to win it for the long-term.
– That’s what I said when I first went public as ‘Captain Airwaves’.
– 17 years ago tonight I entered cyberspace for the very first time.
– It only took a couple of years to go from ‘Captain’ to ‘Major’.
– I eventually took my ‘Airwaves’ and converted it into a ‘Hitwaves’.
– This weekend on ‘Saturday Night Retro’ I’ll look back on 17 years of fun.
– On Sunday I’ll mark exactly 45 months on ‘My Fantastic Journey’.
– Stick around for fresh new blog posts during this upcoming weekend.
– Follow me on Twitter in the meantime.
– Thank You for living Life with me.
– Now go out and have some fun !

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Annoyances Food Home Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Weather Delay – My return trip back home from North Texas to South Florida via American Airlines was just about as crazy and unpredictable as it was going there. My round trip flights last Thursday night and this past Monday night can be summed up in three words – ‘two-hour-delay’. My 4:20 PM CDT flight back home to the land of the ‘305’ was already delayed by 45 minutes several hours before the actual departure time. Then it was delayed by another 25 minutes. It ended up taking off into the wild blue yonder 2 hours and 15 minutes late due to thunderstorm activity all around DFW. MIA also had its fair share of thunderstorms, so while we touched down 1 hour and 40 minutes late it took another 30 minutes just to get to our assigned gate. Long story short I walked in to my front door just a few minutes before Midnight. It was another long day (and night) of travel. I was happy to be home sweet home.

Collared Way – This past Sunday night at Dinner me and my brother were required to put on (what resembled) generic bowling shirts that were provided by the wait staff of the neighbourhood clubhouse restaurant because we came in wearing non-collared tee-shirts. It became a running gag throughout the entire dinner. We pledged to ‘accidentally’ drop as much food as we possibly could on our collared shirts, and then play a round of bowling a la Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. Here’s what I think about the collared policy. A restaurant should be more concerned about upgrading their food, service, cleanliness, decor, and atmosphere before they worry so much about what someone is wearing to the table. I had issues with all five of those aspects. Here’s what else I think. If you’ve got such a policy then clearly and visibly state so at the front entrance of your joint. And this is the most important thing of them all. Don’t discriminate. Enforce your policy to all of your customers – not just the ones that look young. If you’re old(er) and you’re wearing a tee-shirt then you too should have to put on a bowling shirt in order to eat dinner. You should also have to put on long pants and socks. It makes no sense to me to wear a collared shirt with short pants and no socks to the dinner table. I’m just sayin’.

Taylor Lesley Day – My lovable little niece turned 4-weeks-old today. I met her for the very first time last week when I arrived at DFW. This much is certain. She’s even more adorable LIVE and in person than she is in pictures. She doesn’t eat any food yet, but she drinks a lot of warm milk. She totally digs her Binky. She can’t go very long without it.  Her favourite pastime is clearly sleeping. She gets about 22 hours of it per day. I’ve been told that she won’t get nearly that much when I get to visit her again in about six weeks. Quite a few pictures were taken of the two of us. I’ve got a few on my phone. My sister-in-law specializes in scrapbooking. She’s very good at it. I actually think that she could even do it professionally. I can’t wait to see that first photo album of Taylor chock-full of all of her latest snapshots. Knowing my sister-in-law that first photo album should be filled and completed by the time that I return. I’m counting on it !

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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: