Jasper Jones

Well, our softball game has been called off due to rain. I don’t mind getting wet, but the idea of standing out in the middle of a field while there’s lightning is just not a good idea.

There are people killed by lightning all the time. It’s a real threat that people must take seriously. Even if a storm has passed, there is a chance of lightning strikes for up to 20 minutes after it stopped raining.

My Auntie Ann lost her husband to a lighting strike about 5 years ago. He was just standing outside on the deck to have a smoke during halftime of a football game. It wasn’t even raining but a bolt came out of nowhere and struck him dead instantly and caught the deck on fire. It was a terrible thing to happen and my aunt has never totally gotten over it - she never goes out on her deck anymore, not even for a minute.

So if we have to postpone our ballgame it is OK with me. I can catch up on some homework and do a little surfing on the internet before I have to go into work.

You might have noticed that I don’t post my political views on this blog. I do have views on politics and the Presidential race and the candidates. But I’m not going to post about them or enter into a discussion with anyone unless it is face to face, one on one, mano a mano.

Thee are other sensitive subjects, too. I won’t go into too many details about my dating life. Just be assured that I do have an active and satisfying social life. I don’t name anyone from my personal life without their advance knowledge and permission.

I won’t discuss abortion or other very personal subjects on the blog. Again, I have my views and if you want to meet me face to face for a discussion or even debate, that’s totally cool with me.

I just felt the need to get that off my chest. I know some kids at school read my blog, and I have family and friends back in Nashville that read it. And since this is the internet, I might even have readers from overseas, the Government, my employer and who knows who else all reading this blog.

So, welcome dear readers, I hope you find my posts about the daily life of a college senior in Southeastern Tenneessee to be totally engrossing and entertaining!

Is it just me? Or are there a lot more motorcycles on the road now? It seems like the parking lot at school has a big chunk of parking for motorcycles and scooters, as well as the old fashioned two wheeled bicycles, too.

My dad even has a motorcycle now. He bought a Harley Davidson from a guy that works for him who couldn’t keep up the payments. So my dad took over the payments and gave the guy an extra $500.

That opens up a whole wide range of Christmas gift ideas for what I can get for my dad this year. I’ve been looking at the web site called Biker Hiway and found some gift ideas, like motorcycle helmets.

Even if he already has a helmet, in Tennessee if you have a rider on the bike, both people must be wearing helmets. So I can buy him a scorpion exo 1000 and he can either use it for his own or use it when he takes someone for a ride. I just have to make up my mind if I want to get him the scorpion or the shoei rf 1000. They are both rad helmets and the cost is about the same. So I have to see which style my dad might like and just go with it.

The temperature dropped about 20 degrees overnight and today it feels like a typical fall day. There is no humidity and the air feels really fresh after the past couple days of wind and rain.

I really enjoyed the walk to class this morning. It was invigorating.

Now that the weather is turning a little cooler it makes me think of my mom’s pot roast, her mac and cheese, and my favorite thing, her chili. I wish I could have a big bowl of her chili tonight. I don’t even know anywhere around here that makes a decent pot of chili. Guess I’ll have to ask around and see if anyone has any ideas about where to get some chili tonight.

Gave my dad a call last night just to check in and see what he and mom are doing. They are good and they want to come down here for a visit if I can work out my work schedule to have time with them and maybe go to dinner together for a few hours.

Dad has decided to add on a sun porch to the back of the house and make it into a “man room” so that he has someplace to put his stuff and maybe a game table. Maybe its his mid life crisis to want his own pool table and a poker table, but I guess that’s better than a Corvette like so many old guys buy in their last desperate attempt to feel young and sexy again. Besides, I’d like to shoot some pool with the old man anyway.

He’s going to buy this cool round table that has a top that flips over from a regular table to a poker table. I’ve seen those around and never thought my dad would be getting one. But he’s already found the one he wants on the internet and told me to go look at the web site called DiscountQualityFurniture.com and click on the brand name Powell to see what he’s going to get.

I had never heard of Powell Furniture but what do I know about nice furniture? That’s something my mom has always taken care of at our house and I will admit that she has great taste. She always likes the best quality of everything, even if it means waiting a little longer to afford getting the better brands. I’m surprised my dad is even getting involved in this, but it’s for his man room, so I guess that’s why he picked it out.

So I checked out the web site and I can see the cool table that my dad is talking about. I see this place has a lot of other brands, too, and I was surprised that even I recognize some of the brands, like American Drew and Coaster furniture. I must have picked that up from being around my mom.

Alex’s dad is an engineer and when the bridge collapsed up in Minneapolis several months ago, he was called in by the Feds to do some consulting work on the bridge repair. He’s an environmental engineer, and to be honest I don’t really know what he does or what it has to do with the environment. Neither does Alex. LOL!

Anyway, his Dad really like Minnesota and has been calling here encouraging Alex to come up to Minneapolis on our next break and spend some time with him up north. He’s even told us about the local newspaper, the Star Tribune, and how it has lots of listings for Minneapolis jobs.

He says there are a lot of companies hiring in Minnesota and that Alex can write his own ticket after he graduates. Of course, Alex should go on up north and check out the area before he takes any career advice and moves up there. Plus, graduation is still eight months away. But we are getting a lot of mail from recruiters and it’s never too early to make your plans for after graduation. Hell, maybe I should check out the job listings and go up north for a visit with Alex - we might both find something.

I just realized that over the next 4 weeks we have 4 birthdays in my family and I need to get some birthday cards and birthdays presents in the mail. I think I’ll do most of the “shopping” on the internet if I can find enough of the right gifts. Besides the advantage of having the gifts shipped to the right address, another great advantage of shopping online is that I can use the discount coupons and promo codes from the www.1-coupons.com web site and save a little money, too.

For my sister I can find something nice at Barnes and Noble. She loves books, dvds, and all kinds of music, so it won’t be hard to find her something nice. I can just order it online and have it delivered to her house.

I like to send my mom flowers for her birthday, so I can use the ProFlowers promotional coupon code and save enough money to upgrade the arrangement and send a nice bouquet or dish garden.

My grandfather has a special birthday this year and I’m going to try to get a day off from work so I can drive up to Nashville and see him on his birthday. But to make sure he gets his birthday gift on time in case I can’t get there, I’ll order something nice from Bass Pro Shops - that’s one of his favorite stores.

I don’t know what to get for my dad for his birthday. He is so hard to buy a gift for - he has enough money that he goes out and buys whatever he wants, so how do you figure out what kind of gift to buy someone like that? Best thing I can come up with now is a couple of funny tee shirts from Big Dogs. He always wears Big Dog shirts around the house and on weekend errands, so if I can find something funny then I know he’ll like it, it will fit, and he will get some use of it.

My mom is a big fan of shopping on “Black Friday.” Although she kicks off her Christmas shopping as early as October, the big month for her to shop around and find the bargains is usually November, and the day after Thanksgiving is the mother of all shopping bargain days.

A lot of stores have special prices on high dollar items to get your Christmas shopping money as early in the day as possible on Black Friday. For example, my mom got word that Best Buy was opening their doors at 4:00 am on Black Friday last year, so she was up and out of the house by 3:15 am for a full day of bargain hunting. At Best Buy she scored big on a digital video camera under $100 and a portable DVD player for under $50. All the big stores will have special deals this year - and if you know about them ahead of time you can plan your whole day around which stores you want to get to early and which can wait until later in the day.

Some of the same stores are now bleeding over into the next week with special deals on “Cyber Monday.” These are deals you can only get online, and the best part of that is there’s no crowds, no parking issues, and they can ship everything to either your house for the gift giving in person or they can ship it to the person’s home or business address for the relatives and friends out of town or who won’t be able to be with you on Christmas for the gift exchange. I’m a big fan of cyber monday and will probably take advantage of the online deals this year and have everything shipped to my parents house so it will all be there when I get home on the Christmas break.

This probably sound silly but I have a little case of homesickness today. I’ve been back at school only 6 days and I’m thrilled to be rooming with my buddy Alex again. We have a dorm room filled with guy stuff and “boy toys” like my mom says. It’s got a comfortable bed, food, a wall of electronics and room to study. But you know, like they say in the Wizard of Oz movie, “There’s no place like home.”

One of the things I really miss is the quiet of my parents’ house. We live on a nice piece of property, back from the road, and at night all you hear is crickets, frogs, and this year, the desperate mating songs of the locusts. And every fifteen minutes, there is the reassuring chime of my mom’s grandfather clock. I never knew how much I would miss that chime until I got here at school and don’t hear it anymore.

I think everyone in my mom’s family owns grandfather clocks. It was a standard “must have” for each of her sisters back in the day when they first got married and bought their first homes. The tradition started when my mom’s grandmother came over from England and hand carried her own mantel clock. She still has it and it still chimes faithfully throughout the day.

My mom’s grandfather clock was made by one of the most famous clock makers in the world, Howard Miller. There are a couple of other famous clock makers, like Seth Thomas and Bulova, but my mom loves the Howard Miller clocks. She often tells me that my generation doesn’t appreciate the finer things in life and that when I get married that I need to have a grandfather clock in my home, too. she’s shown me the newer, contemporary styles that you can buy, and I think she’s right. That is one family tradition that I’d like to carry one, with my own sense of style, of course.

Looks like Wednesday will be movie night for us. I found a showing of Batman that starts at 8:10 and that gives us plenty of time to get home from work (me) and school (her) and change clothes, grab a quick bite to eat and get to the theatre in time for a long ticket line.

Really looking forward to this - I’ve heard so much from all the advance publicity and my friends that have already gone to see it. I was thinking about taking my 5 year nephew to the show but my friends all say that it is way to violent for him. I’m not sure about that - he’s pretty matter of fact about violence on the TV and movies - he scoffed at me once when I asked about a different movie that he’s seen and he said, “It’s JUST a movie! It’s NOT real!” I was pretty impressed that he said that, but I still have doubts about exposing a kid to really violent scenes. Even if it doesn’t scare him, I wonder what kind of impression it is making on him? It can’t be good on some level - will he grow up so de-sensitized to gory things and cruelty that he has no compassion for people? That is what makes serial killers for goodness sake.