*AV*--Those memories are starting to blur<GGG>. However, it did have its moments. From walking into 5 computers in various stages of destruction and being asked to resurrect them to working or state of the art status to searching for my wife's dead relative's headstones where they didn't know which cemetary or married name they went by, it was the strangest set of circumstances.
1. Sister/Brother in-law recently landed a major contract worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits that has to be treated with "kid gloves". Major requirement is access to the computerized tracking systems on both parties part. System with her info on it has a flaky hard disk drive. Instead of replacing the 2 Gig drive with a $200 new 8 Gig drive, she wants to know if I could find and certify a "used" @ gig drive for her. Pennywise and pound foolish.
2. Another sister in law dropped her 3 sones off while she went back into the office to do some work. the father was still at work. The place we were staying had limited accommodations for my family as it were. Well matters got worse when neither parent came to pick up the kids that night and did not realize neither had made any arrangement to pick them up. So at about 10pm they call and said "Whoops".
3. The whole family showed up for a gathering to celebrate my birthday. However, since eveyone was together in one place, it turned into a celebration of family birthdays for April, May, and June. Once that was decided, the party broke up for a few hours so presents could be bought for 7 kids that wound up having birthdays in this timeframe. A group birthday celebration on my birthday. I could have handled it okay if those kids didn't get better presents than me<GGG>.
4. I found a great place where I would like to be buried when my time comes. My wife said she wants to be cremated. I told her that if this isher wish, I want a granite bench placed at the foot of my grave instead of a headstone with a place cut into it for her urn. That way, when the kids come to visit me they can sit on the bench, look around at the beautiful mountain panorama, talk to Mom, and then take a teaspoon of Mom from the urn and fling it into the air, satisfying her desire to be scattered across the mountains. It didn't go over too well with my wife (The flinging part). My older daughter, however, took the opportunity to put her two cents worth in. She said that she would put a little bit of Mom in a vial everytime she went on vacation so that Mom could be a world wide travellers and be scattered across the earth. Another daughter suggested that each year at Christmas, the grandchildren or great-granchildren should add a "dash of grandma" to those bakeable ornament crafting kits so that grandma can be part of the annual Christmas tradition. Thank goodness she didn't hear my son who suggested he could launch some of her remains above and across the mountains via successive Estes Rocket launches. I think my wife is about to see a lawyer to give explicit and specific instructions on how she wants her remains disposed of. As for me, I want my grave dug 8' deep at my feet and 6' at the head of the coffin so that I am angled towards the mountain vista and have a magnificient view. Considering my brother-in-law wants to be cremated also and it was his family plot we visited, I told him we would do the same for him and have a 2 urn bench. I also agreed to have the bench inscribed, "I switched with Larry so he could cavort with my wife across the winds". No sense of humor.
5. Father-in-law still watching sports 24hr a day and think all the coaches on all the teams he follows are idiots. Of course, the Jazz have reached supreme being status in his eyes.
6. My nephew wants me to help him patent a "paint-ball" hand grenade he invented. you heard it right. The next evolution in Paintball, the paintball weapons of mass destuction.
7. 3 years ago, my son bought me a Marvin the Martian t-shirt in a size that was slightly on the small side for XMAS. Not to worry, he voluntarily accepted the burden of wearing it for me. I do not have a strong like or dislike for that character one way or another. However, this year the entire family decided I just love that character so they all went out and purchased one of every Marvin the Martian wearable fashion from the WB store as my gift. They were all totally convinced that I idolized that character. I wonder where they got that idea from and I wonder how many of the shirts are just slightly on the small side<GGG>.
Hey, I stopped at 7 because either you are now asleep, changing your shorts, or feeling really sorry for me. Well, scratch the last item<GGG>.
Andrew |
