C'mon, buy a book!

I spent most of today gathering all of my notes and articles together for the first edition of Historic Texas Breweries. It only costs $19.99, and would be a great gift for anyone interested in Texas history!

My name was on TV!

Whoo Hoo! Just finished watching Iron Chef America, and placed 6th in the interactive game. I got 7532 points! My best finish ever!

New scanner, new skills

Yesterday, I was going to continue scanning our family photos into the computer, but the darn scanner wouldn't work. Windows™ could see it. The scanning software, though, couldn't.

So I drove to Office Max in Kerrville and bought a new scanner. It's a HP Scanjet 4070 that can also scan slides and negatives. So I've been playing with it. I dug out the negatives from my stay in Japan (yes, I'm beating that dead horse again) and scanned in a bunch of pictures. I wanted to share this picture:

I used the retouching techniques I learned in the workshop to make the image pop a bit more. What do you think?

I spent most of the day watching an Advanced Photoshop workshop. I only got 4 chapters in, but I did create something I want to share.

When I was in Japan, I fell in love. Her name was Chiharu. I took several pictures. Here's one of my favorites that I worked on. We went to the nearby city of Omura and walked through the park during Cherry Blossom season.

Boycott the RIAA!

The RIAA has struck again!

According to an AP story, they have sued an 87 year-old dead woman for file sharing. Moreover, the woman never owned a computer, and was comupter illiterate.

The RIAA said, basically, "Sorry. Only meant to blow up that one thing! Sorry, Everyone!" quoting Crow T. Robot in an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. They added that obviously had the wrong woman, and were dropping charges. Ain't that sweet of them?

Remember! Boycott the RIAA!! Don't buy an album
produced by any company that is a member of the RIAA!

The Year from Hell keeps on a'rollin'

(4) The Year From Hell continues to roll right along, with no end in sight.

Even though the doctors have decided Sean has ulcers and acid reflux has torn up his esophagus, he's still coughing up blood. Sean reports that since he's quit drinking, it has slowed down a little.

Now things look bleak for my cousing Doni. Doni is the daughter of Bill and Nelda Gilbert. Nelda is Mom's older sister. Doni has been ill for several years now. She was taken to the hospital earlier in the week. She's been taken off the respirator, and she managing to hang on, but the prognosis is not good. For her sake, and her husband Ricahrd's sake, I hope she doesn't suffer too long. My Uncle William, who lost his wife back in June, has been visiting Richard and Doni every day. He says he understands what Richard's going through. (Have I mentioned lately that he's my hero?)

Finally, just to give life a little spice, Mom has finally decided that it's time for Grandmother to go into the nursing home. So she'll be in Brownwood and Abilene next week going through all of that.

Did a black cat cross our path? All the mirrors in the house are okay, so I know it's not that. Have we not been diligent enough about avoiding cracks in the sidewalk?

My Governor is a Jewish Cowboy

It's official!

Today, Kinky Friedman announced he was running for Governor of Texas in 2006. "Don't worry about my lack of experience," Friedman said. "Trust me. I'm a Jew. I'll hire good people."

Friedman has to collect signatures of 40,500 registered voters next spring to get on the November 2006 ballot, and only those who did not participate in the major-party primaries are eligible to sign. So save your vote in the primary next year, and let's all get behind Kinky!

I'm gonna enjoy the next 15 months!

The banner at the top of this page goes to Kinky's website. I made the banner but stole the slogan from it. I apologize, but they didn't have any banners for me to use.

Health Woes, or, The Year From Hell rolls on and on

The Holt Family Health Crisis begun in July of last year continues. Dad's doing great! Now it's Sean!

Sean got back from Japan last week. While in Japan, he got a liver infection and spent several weeks in his room, off work and visited by the doctors. They finally let him go back to work, and he starts coughing up blood! Since
he's due to be shipped
home in a couple of weeks, he decides not to tell anyone, because he doesn't want to be stuck in Japan.

Back in Beaufort, he goes to the doctor, who strongly suggests that he call his family. Immediately. Because he might not get another chance to talk to us.

The next day, the doctor tells him that it may not be as serious as they thought, but it may be bad enough for him to be discharged from the Corps. So, his October deployment to Iraq, which he has kind have been looking forward to, is now out the window. He has some tests done, and he calls us to tell us he will let us know the results.

I should also mention that in the six months he was in Japan, he emailed us three times. In the week after he got back, he emailed me five times.

Now it's a week later, and the emails have stopped. We know he was supposed to have gotten the test results back. So we called Rodney. Rodney said that the latest diagnosis is an ulcer. He said that all the blood thinners (read: beer) that Sean was taking had aggravated it, hence the blood! And now he's not being discharged, but being deployed to an aircraft carrier.

You now have the setup for the rest of this entry, except that when Dad was sick, he was diagnosed with alcoholic pancreatitis, despite the fact that he drinks maybe two alcoholic drinks a month. Maybe.

I tell Gary this and he says, "Hell, if he got that from what little he drank, imagine what we’ll have!!!" So I email Gary the latest news about Sean. I suggest that we are screwed, and add, " I guess we'll be outside the detox center waiting on Dad and Sean. 'Course, we'll have a keg." Gary writes back, "Man, we are screwed. I think I may give up the sauce.............someday."

I responded, "Yeah. Me too. Someday. After an Oktoberfest."