Random Thoughts and Interests

Another month gone by

2012-01-25T19:27:00.000-08:00

Another month has gone by… Since Christmas I have returned from my vacation in Florida, bought a new pickup truck (Ford Raptor), and my friend and neighbor Sal lost his Wife, Shelia, after a long and hard struggle. Going to the services for Shelia brought to the surface a lot of feelings. As you can probably imagine I have been thinking of Bette a lot. Between the way Bette loved the holidays and found joy in the smallest gift or jester and thoughts of her Service I have done a lot of soul searching. What have I done in the two plus years? I have genuinely wanted to visit with Bette’s family more than I have been able to. This year does not look any better because of having even less vacation time than in the past. I will muddle through doing the best I can. Except for house work. I hate house work. I feed myself and Tommy the dog alright but when it comes to putting things away I never have the time or can find the place where it belongs. OK – I know that is not entirely true – I know my sox go in the sox drawer, my underwear goes in the underwear drawer, and my shirts and pants go in the closet. And they should know this too but they do not put themselves there either… And don’t get me started with the vacuum. I have been threatening it by saying I will buy one of those little robot vacuums but it has not helped.

This weekend is the last weekend of January and Bette and I would probably be in Daytona watching the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona road race. We know several of the drivers. Some just a nodding acquaintance some well enough to talk to at length. This year I will be watching the 50^th Daytona 24 hour race at home on the Speed channel. I would say three of the drivers I know have a real good chance of winning in their class. Maybe next year I’ll make it.

I see Kit and Mike most Saturday mornings for breakfast (Sunday is Mike’s birthday I hear he is turning 147 this year) and I see Jimmy and Debbie on Sundays for breakfast. I’ll talk more about the new truck probably next month or maybe have a mid month posting about the truck.

So life is progressing. Different but moving forward. Until next month.

Happy Christmas and Merry New Year!

2011-12-25T14:31:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everybody. This is my third Christmas without Bette. It is still hard. I am having a good holiday at Bette’s little sister, Brenda’s and her Son Billy. Billy is not so little any more. I seem to be catching a cold. At least it waited until after Jenny left. We went to the Beach most every day, or we did the giant Flea Market thing and the Mall Xmas shopping routine.

Strange things have been going through my mind this past week. I was just thinking about the time Bette and I painted the ceiling of the kitchen of our first house. Bonnie was able to paint the whole rest of the inside in the time it took me to do that one room. Then there was the time we noticed the kitchen cabinet coming off the wall. It took us several tries with different size lag bolts to secure it back where it belonged. There was the time a leak over the dining room table developed. That took a long time to find and fix, including several holes in walls and the ceiling.

These have not been the fun part of our marriage; they are what I would call the character building times. As working through difficulties, small or large, can be. Bette and I were lucky in that was were able to work out any difficulties we may have had.

On my way down to my vacation I got a phone message waiting for me in Philly saying my new Pickup Truck has arrived. I am looking forward to picking it up when I get back from Vacation. By the way it is a Ford F150 Raptor. I talk about it more on a later posting.

Again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and the best to you and yours….

I Hate Amazon.com (not really)

2011-11-30T10:03:00.000-08:00

I Hate Amazon.com. They have made it too easy to buy stuff. First I got a Kindle and started buying books for it. Since I got it in late Spring I have bought a read 15 books. On the up side I have read 15 books and not watched 15 books worth of mindless TV. On the down side I have bought 15 books (but at a good discount over paper books. Two books I did not include in the 15 were free). Then I started looking for Fog lights for my soon to be new truck. They should start building the truck December 1, 2011. Well Amazon had the best price (by a long shot), so I ordered them. Then when I was checking on the order - on the screen was something that said something like "you may also be interested in these products". Well how do they know me so well? I had been thinking of buying the first item and I did not know they even made the second. But boy do I need it now that I know it exists. The first item was at a very good price and no shipping cost. The second, well the second item is a must have if you have the first item. Even though I did not know it existed before today. Before I go on (I don''t want to offend anyone here) - before I go on Holiday vacation everything should have been delivered. I will have my own little pre-Christmas Christmas! Oops! Sorry about that -I will have my own little pre-Holiday Holiday!

Happy Holidays,

Jaime

Happy Birthday Bob

2011-11-27T15:33:00.000-08:00

¡ʎɐpɥʇɹıq ʎddɐɥ ˙sɹɐǝʎ ǝʌıɟ ʎq pǝssıɯ ǝɥ ˙09 oʇ ǝʌıן pןnoʍ ǝɥ ʇɥƃnoɥʇ sʎɐʍןɐ ǝɥ ˙ʎɐpɥʇɹıq 88 s,ɹǝɥʇɐɟ ʎɯ uǝǝq ǝʌɐɥ pןnoʍ 1102 ɥʇ82 ɹǝqɯǝʌou ʍoɹɹoɯoʇ

˙ʇxǝʇ down ǝpıs-dn uʍo ɹnoʎ ǝʇıɹʍ oʇ ǝʇıs qǝʍ sıɥʇ oʇ oƃ uɐɔ noʎ

ןɯʇɥ˙ʇxǝʇuʍopǝpısdn/ɯoɔ˙sɔɐıuɐɯɥɔɹɐǝsǝɹ//:dʇʇɥ

http://researchmaniacs.com/UpsideDownText.html

It does not appear to do capital letters. You can convert the text back to right side up at that web site too...

Tomorrow November 28th 2011 would have been my Father's 88 birthday. He always thought he would live to 90. He missed by five years. Happy Birthday!

uos ƃuıʌoן ɹnoʎ

It's the annual what am I thankful for blog.

2011-11-25T17:22:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving this year. And since I may not be writing again until Christmas I would like to wish you all good health, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and/or whatever joyous holidays you may celebrate.

I will start with the bad news. This past Monday I had to put Nia, my Rhodesian Ridgeback dog, to sleep. She had a good long life. She was 14 years old. On the good side of the dog world Tommy, my 18-year-old Chihuahua Mix is doing very good. Despite being mostly deaf and half blind, but his nose still works well.

It's the day after Thanksgiving and it is two years and one month since Bette died. So what am I thankful for?

What am I thankful for. . . ?
I’m thankful Nia had a long healthy life and did not suffer. I'm thankful Tommy is still doing good. I'm thankful for having Bette the love of my life for over 30 years. I'm thankful for Bette's family. I pray that all of their medical problems will be resolved (you know I love you and pray for you and for your health). I am thankful for all my friends new and old, close by and far away. And then on the more mundane things I'm thankful for my job, my house, and my car…

I would like to thank Kim and Ellen for including me in the Thanksgiving festivities. I had a very enjoyable and gastronomically tasty day. I've probably mentioned this before but I want thank Bonnie for our daily phone conversations. They really help. Like to thank Brenda for putting up with me for my Christmas/New Year's vacation. I like to thank Bob and Linda and Bill and Mary for their standing invitations to visit them anytime. I'm just sorry I haven't taken them up on it is much as I would like to. Somehow it's easier to fly down to Florida than North Carolina. Go figure. As I gained back vacation time I hope to visit you all more.

I know I've left out lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of things that I'm thankful for but will not mention so this doesn't become too boring. I would like to end this by asking everyone that reads this blog to write what they're thankful for.

Happy holidays

Jaime

Bette has been gone two years

2011-10-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

Here is a little video of Bette in still photos.

High Def

Low Def

We miss you so much....

Droid

2011-09-25T18:30:00.000-07:00

It is been a short 23 months, almost 2 years since I learned that Bette died. I replay different aspects of that day over and over. The two things that replayed through my brain the most are the realization she is gone forever and the second is the outpouring of concern and love from friends, neighbors, family, and coworkers. Even from people that didn't know her directly.

Trying to lighten up things I will briefly talk about my new phone. It doesn't really matter what carrier you using for your cell phone. I am not pushing one carrier over another. I chose my carrier because that's one of the few that worked at my house. Back to the phone. I consider myself fairly electronically literate. I got one of those Droid phones. So how hard could it be just to answer the phone? So the phone rang. If you don't know this phone it's a touchscreen, so there are almost no buttons. The four buttons I know of are the power button, volume up, volume down, and take a picture. The first time I answer the phone I shut it off instead. Then I managed to take a picture of my foot the next time it rang. Luckily those were the only two calls until after I got into work on Monday. The majority of the people in my office have Droids. So I was able to get lots of help. I learned how to make the phone into a flashlight, download games, download sounds from your favorite movie, how to look for applications, how to turn the phone into a metal detector, check my e-mail, use Facebook, surf the web, and one of the most useful turn the phone into a light saber. It makes sounds just like in Star Wars. Among learning all these things I also learned how to answer the phone and make phone calls. And today, seven whole days after I got the phone I have learned how to hang up without turning the phone completely off.

I was told about an App that turns voice mail messages into a text message. I thought that would be useful given the luck I was having answering it. This is a message I got today:

"Hey Jeremy is there this is Shawn give me a call bye." It was suppose to say:

"Hey Jaime this is Cheryl give me a call bye." I see this App will be a lot of fun...

Until next time...

And if you call and I don't answer or hang up on you, I apologize, but you now know why.

Bette and I would have been Married for 32 years this weekend.

2011-09-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

Bette and I would have been Married for 32 years this weekend. . .

15,840 inches

2011-09-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

I would like to start out by saying this is been a pretty good week. The company I work for had decided to leave its current contract as of the end of next week. I had been waiting for a letter from the company that is taking over the contract to see if they would offer me a job. I was the last one in my group to receive that letter, so I was sweating it out for about a week longer than everybody else. I am happy to announce I will continue to be gainfully employed doing the same job I have been doing.

The day after I got the letter I did my normal New England dragway Street night runs. And for the first time in a long time there were several people from work there to watch me, which was kind of nice. So I have a bunch of photos from in car and out. So far the only one I've put together was the in-car of my first and best run. And I'm very happy to say it was the fastest run I've ever made (by time not by speed) I did a quarter-mile, 1320 feet, or 15,840 inches in a little over 11.8 seconds. The attached (I hope) video is the in car edited down to a little over a minute including the burnout, staging, and deceleration to about 40 miles an hour.

And today I had breakfast with some friends then went to a car show in Manchester New Hampshire. Did you know Manchester New Hampshire's Main Street, named Elm Street, is the only Main Street in the country that is a dead-end on both ends. Well, anyway, they closed down a big section of Elm Street and antique, classic, exotic, unusual, fancy, fast, slow, big, small, shiny, rusty, restored, and new cars and trucks and a few motorcycles are on display. I heard last year there were over 1000 cars I think they're even more this year. And this year my car was among them. I took a bunch of pictures that I'll probably include here at a later date.

So goodbye for now. More to come later. Thank you, Jaime

666

2011-08-25T20:19:00.000-07:00

It has been One year and ten months, 22 months, 666 days, or about 16,000 hours (please do not check my math, I was never very good at it) since Bette left this mortal world. A lot can happen in that time or less. I feel I am still in limbo. Jobs can be lost, careers can be made, fortunes won and lost, and one could hit it big in the lottery, or become bankrupt. A baby can be born and start making its first steps and words. Two people can fall in love and start a family. The highs and lows of life. Since Bette left I feel like I have been on an almost two year low. I have my friends and they help a lot but the oomph Bette added is not there. It is like my life has been put on hold. Waiting for… something. Something I do not know if I ever can or will find. The highs I have now revolve around being with or doing things with friends and Bette’s family (I am the last of my blood line). There are only two things I can think of I do for entertainment by myself, one is going to the Drag strip. I have met a few people but not developed any real friends there. And even going to the drag strip was something Bette and I would do together. The other is going to Cruise Nights (local car shows). I started going and meeting a co-worker there. Over the past Spring and Summer I have developed a hand full of car friends. We will walk around together looking at the cars or sit together swapping stories, what some people might call swapping lies. When the show is over we each go our own way. There are only two weeks left in the New England Cruise Night year. Then we will not see each other until well after the snow is gone. Who wants to chance getting their classic car wet let alone dirty from road salt. Sure there are a few special shows as late as October where we might run into each other but most likely not. We go into hibernation for the long cold winter.

So why do I stay up here in the bad weather? Heck if I know. My friends and coworkers are here and it is something I know and is in my comfort zone are the most likely reasons.

Boy has the way this blog turned from what I originally intended. My first thoughts were to try my hand at rhyming and have it be very upbeat. But then some things have been happening (at work) that have me kind of down tonight. When I find out more I will let you know a little of what is going on. I can say this though – I have changed what I do at work and have been much happier at what I am doing now. And I think I am doing a good job at it. This has gotten long and convoluted so before I turn yet another corner I will say good day. And may the hurricanes, tornados, and earthquakes spare you and your loved ones.

Good Day,

Jaime

2011-08-06T08:31:00.000-07:00

21 Month Update

2011-07-25T19:22:00.000-07:00

Last night I was thinking about Bette as I was trying to drift off to sleep as I normally do. I have probably mentioned this before so if you have read this before just skip ahead. Sundays it seems to be harder than any other night. I think that is probably because Bette died on a Sunday and Sunday night was my first night without her – some 21 months ago… It also gets worse the closer to the 25 of the month. Then again I may be over analyzing this and Sundays are tough because the next day is Monday and back to work… Let me think about that a while. . . . . . . . Nope. I would have had this problem for the past 30 some years and it is definitely been worse since we lost Bette.

If it is not raining or too hot I have been going to car shows. You can see some photos I have taken at these shows at:

Cruise night Moo’s, Rockingham Park, & Skips 2011

I brought the car to Tasca for some more work. I’ll pick it up in about two weeks. In the mean time I will be driving the pickup. I had to get it towed to the dealer last week because it would not start. Good thing I did. The warrantee expires today – so I got it fixed for free. I may even try the pickup out at New England Dragway this Wednesday evening.

Another sign of moving on:
I moved my office. I have been in the same room for about 20 years. Now I am in the big building with the rest of my group. I will miss the people I have been sitting with all these years, but then again they are only a quarter mile away. And we all know how fast I can cover 1320 feet!

I want to wish my Brother-in -laws the best. We are all pulling for you....

20 Months

2011-06-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

It has now been 20 months since Bette’s passing.

Bette’s brothers are fighting their own medical demons. My prayers are with them and my heart goes out to them…

I spent the past week with Bette’s sisters and nephew and their friends in the finger lakes region of New York. Oh and I can not leave out Bonnie's very special guests - who provided hours of companionship and entertainment - the fish.

I had a very nice low key week. Bette’s influence was ever present. It was like she was looking down at us and involved in our conversations and reminiscing about times we all spent together. Bette’s family is my only family now. They truly make me feel like a blood relative.

I spent about six hours driving home today. It gave me a lot of time alone to think about the past and future. The future remains unknown but part of being human to speculate about what is to come. So much of my last 30 years was surrounded by Bette and our plans for the future I still have a hard time seeing the future without her. People will ask me, trying to be helpful, what I want to do. I tell them something like work then eventually retire… But what I am feeling is impossible; I want to spend my retirement years with Bette. And in spirit I spend every day with her.

Please keep Bill and Bob (Bette’s Brothers) in your mind and prayers as they go through the challenging times ahead.

Love, Jaime

Sorry for your loss

2011-06-08T18:05:00.000-07:00

Cindy I am so sorry to hear about your loss. I want to let you know I - We are there for you and praying for you. I can not say I know how you are feeling, we all take the loss of a loved one differently.

Grief is a very personal thing, don't let anyone tell you how you should be feeling or how long it should take to get over it.

Bonnie said that you read this blog from time to time so I hope this reaches you.

In Memory of all of out family members....

2011-05-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

This is from an email (see below):

... "what a nice tribute you put on your blog for Memorial Day. And with alot of military connections with different family members too. Nana liked to tell stories about her and Ma working at the Motor Pool @ Devens during WW2, Dad always took us to see the tanks and exercises during field days there too. Bob in the Coast Guard, and I'm sure Stew and Marilyn too. Nice photos you posted too. You always find photos of Bette I have not seen. I tried to post this on the blog site but it kept kicking me out, so here I is. Thank you for continuing the blog, It's comforting to here you tell stories of Bette of things you did and plans you had made, Ain't no one here gonna forget her. 19 months feels like 19 figgen days. We love you, Bonnie"

A few random photos

2011-05-30T06:46:00.000-07:00

random photos

19 months...

2011-05-25T18:35:00.000-07:00

I wish I could announce that after a little over a year and a half I have stopped grieving and I am all better, but I can not. I do not think I will ever get over the loss of Bette. I don't think I even want to. We were such big part of each other's lives.

This would be our second favorite race weekend. The two Rolex 24 hours at Daytona we were at would be first and because of that we would plan to watch as much of it we could when we were not there.

This weekend is number two because of one race we attend, Grand Am race at Limerock Park, also this weekend is the Monaco F1 race, and the Indy 500.

I will not be attending the Grand Am race but I do plan on spending hours sitting in front of the TV watching races. Exciting life... But don't feel too bad for me, I am going to a friends house for a cookout Sunday.

A good weekend.(?)

2011-05-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

I did two things Bette would have really liked doing this weekend. One of which we have done together several times. The other we never did but had often talked about.

Bette and I have spent several days at vintage car races. Even taking the dogs for one weekend at Limerock race track for the vintage races. I remember after the first day of racing we took the dogs for a walk around the track. About a quarter of the way little Tommy dog got tired. Bette picked him up and he crawled up on her shoulder. He contently stayed there the whole time until we got back to the RV. This past Saturday I spent the day with friends at the Vintage car races in New Hampshire.

And today I went “The New Hampshire Renaissance Faire”. Bette would really have liked it. We had talked about going to different ones that are held throughout New England but had never gotten around to it. I get teary eyed thinking about all the fun Bette would have had. She always liked fairs, circuses, craft fairs and the like.

Bette was on my mind a lot this weekend. Now all I have of Bette are my memories, a few photos, and some of her belongings. At times it is still so hard. But somehow I soldier on… Bette would want me to.

2011-04-24T14:44:00.000-07:00

On Monday it will have been a year and a half since Bette died. Life is so different. All the plans of the last 30 years, all the hopes and dreams… When we were married one of the songs that played was “When I'm 64” by the Beatles. We would see older couples at the mall, walking on the street, at the beach walking hand-in-hand and wonder if that would be us. Everything is so different now.

On the bright side Tommy stopped attacking my feet. I don't have to wear shoes all the time anymore. But I trade that a million billion times over for just one brief embrace from Bette.

How is the rest of my life going? Well I'm moving along. Sometimes it feels like one step forward and two steps back, other times two steps forward and only one step back. Those are the good days. The cool rainy weather hasn't helped my disposition either. At least Easter it was sunny and semi warm. And as always with the spring comes the hope of rebirth and new life and a Renaissance of sorts. All of the snow is out of the yard finally. I did see some snow mixed in with the rain yesterday.

And I'll go out this time with an oldie but a goodie.

April showers

bring May flowers

what do May flowers bring?

Pilgrims

17 Months...

2011-03-25T17:33:00.000-07:00

I was not sure what I wanted to talk about this 17 month anniversary since Bette died. I want to be upbeat but everything was coming out on the sad side of things. So for now I will leave it that I am still thinking about Bette and missing her something terrible.

Changing the subject I just read a press release that my favorite NASCAR team TRG Motorsports is making a Switch to Ford in Sprint Cup Series. As people that know me well know I was a born Ford guy. My next two favorites are Ferrari and Fiat. Maybe I just like cars that start with the letter "F". Well in any case TRG is going Ford and Andy Lally is their driver. Nicer guy you couldn't meet. So if you are watching the NASCAR Sprint Cup races watch for Andy in number 71. You can also follow Andy and TRG on Facebook. http://site.trgmotorsports.com/open/ http://www.andylally.com/

Everyone, take care of your family and enjoy life.

The Great Flood of 1936 - Photos of Fitchburg MA.

2011-03-20T14:12:00.000-07:00

I found some photos of Fitchburg during the "Great Flood of 1936" Bette had in the basement. I can only assume they were taken by Bette's Grandparents. I also thought on this anniversary of the flood I could post them here. The captions on the side of each photo is what is written on the back of each. Also I apologize for the quality but they are 75 years old and kind of faded.

Do you know why people marry?

2011-03-08T18:10:00.000-08:00

“Do you know why people marry?”

...

“So that person can witness your journey”*

I would like to amend that to:

So that person can share your journey

and you theirs.

It is like they say.

“It is not the destination it is the journey”

that is important.

Bette and I had a GREAT JOURNEY,

that ended 20, 30, or more years early.

*From Inside Herman’s World

The Kenny Wallace Story

By Kenny Wallace and Joyce Standridge

Stranger than fiction

2011-03-06T09:04:00.001-08:00

I was out walking around the back of my pickup truck last week at work and noticed a horizontal icicle under the bumper. I took a couple pictures with my Blackberry (photo below and inset). I have seen icicles going at an angle from strong winds but not like this. I am surprised it had not broken off from the bumpy roads. Also, it appeared to be only one water drop in diameter.

Two weeks until the time change - Spring shortly after that....

Some more photos

2011-03-05T15:35:00.001-08:00

Bonita Bill's Fort Myers FLA.

Daytona Beach.

Fort Myers FLA.

VIR Grand AM race.

Cruising down the highway with the top down, Florida.

Daytona Speedway Rolex 24 hour race.

Boston Subway.

Bonita Bill's

Daytona Beach.

Skip's with Mike and Kit.

Note the Boots.

16 Months

2011-02-25T18:02:00.000-08:00

Still coping and not liking it. I still wake up about once a week expecting to find Bette beside me. Right now I'm probably missing most is having my soul-mate there to confide in and share thoughts, ideas, and feelings. It is mostly just the little shared comment when we see something while driving down the road, see something on TV or hear on the radio, talk about problems or events at work, and so on. You know the shared look, words, intimacy you only have after years and years of being together.

I would like to thank Bonnie for our near daily phone calls and keeping me sane and grounded. I think it means more to me than she knows. Winter with it's short days and cold dreary weather can be depressing in its self. Bonnie bolsters me, raising me up from the low lows and keeps my feet planted during the occasional highs. As they say in the nautical lexicon, Bonnie - thank you for keeping me on an even keel. I know my boat is not sinking but at times the current makes it seem like there is no headway, and you, Bonnie, are there

showing me how to fish in those stagnant times.

Enough with the allegory. And I would like to thank the rest of Bette's family, or should I say my family. I am an only child and I couldn't ask for a better family. I hope to be able see them all more this year... Here is to a better 2011.