Crazy Thinking?

I'm sitting in the local restaurant where all the staff know me. According to the Kid, the whole town seems to know me and it drives her nuts.

The owner sees me staring off in to the distance and asks if I need anything. I tend to stare into the distance a lot. Not necessarily staring into the void, because, you know, it stares back, but just listening to the traffic outside, the music in the background, and snippets of conversation around me.

Today though I was running through tasks that needed to be accomplished and other things that I found traipsing around the wasteland of my mind. To answer her, I just waved a pointed finger in a circle beside my head in the universal signal of "crazy."

I really meant it as "I'm thinking," but when I thought about it, I was circular thinking. My original thoughts lead me in a myriad of tangents, kind of like the Marvel Universes Multiverse, which eventually leads right back to my original thought.

In a way, that does sound a little . . . crazy? Not even mind-mapping would help me out of that one.

Observations from an Ice Storm

As I sat in my darkened living room thanks to a power outage brought on by the two days of ice, I had time to think about stuff. All kinds of stuff. And sleep, which really threw my time table out of whack.

It started Monday night with a short outage that lasted about four hours. Then it blinked at 5am, just enough to shut off my C-PAP and glue my mask to my face like an Alien facehugger. That'll get you coming up straight out of bed like nothing else!

Then it blinked again at 11am and finally gave up the ghost at 2pm and that lasted until just before midnight. We hunkered down in the living room with the thermostat dipping to only 67 degrees, but it was enough for us to curl up on the couch under several blankets and wait.

When it did come back on, we cooked a quick hot meal, in case it went out again, which it didn't do. Until . . . 

The next day at around 11am when I felt it was safe to get back on the computer. I hadn't been on the computer 10 minutes and power flickered four times before I could get it unplugged. What really freaked me out was that I laid down a large sum of money for this new computer just days ago and had planned on getting a UPS for it. I just didn't think that I would need it so quickly!

Today, as the temperatures rise (slightly), and the ice leaves the area, I feel better at powering it up and getting back to my projects. I'm still getting that UPS because winter isn't over and even spring brings torrential rains.

As for my observations, I thought about how during any typical ice storm sans power outages you can just kick back with hot cocoa and a book, but lack of electricity makes that impossible. No light to see by, no cooking unless you have gas.

This got me to thinking about the folks back in the before times and how they coped. Back then, there was no sitting around waiting for someone to fix your electricity. Life went on. You got as much done as you could during daylight hours. Most, if not all, had fireplaces which required wood. Hopefully, you chopped enough wood when the weather was good, but you probably still had to chop some now. Hopefully, your larder was stocked so that you had food. You probably had farm animals that needed tending, so you had to brave the outdoors for that. 

Basically, back in the day, you were busting your behind for survival. Nowadays, we sit around waiting for the linemen to fix the line. If we have electricity, we sit around and binge-watch Netflix. In my case, with the power out, I sat in my recliner, which wouldn't recline because it was electric, and napped. This in turn threw off my sleeping pattern and I was up until 5am one night after power came back on catching up on projects. And that led me to sleeping until late this afternoon, which isn't so bad since a lot of my work is online. Does not help when you could be up taking care of other things that you can only take care of during real world business hours.

I guess my observation is that those that came before us had to be so much more self-reliant and solve their own problems. Nowadays, we have to rely on the electric company and the linemen to fix our electricity when it's out. If the power is on, but the roads are too icy, we can still sit in comfort and watch our shows, read our books, and, if they are crazy enough, we can order a pizza and have it delivered.

Now, where is that delivery guy?

DJing as a Career - How I Made a Living and Had Fun Doing It!

Some of my friends and readers of this blog (hello to that one person) may not know that I was a DJ for a little over a decade. Everyone always asks if I was on the radio, which I was for about three months, but for the majority of my twelve years, I was in a booth at a bar, club, or restaurant.

During my term in the Navy, I loved going out to clubs and dancing, and would befriend the DJs. At a club in the greater Norfolk area called the Double Deuce (not related to the one from Roadhouse) I got to be friends with the DJ and he offered tips. When I got out in 1992, my then girlfriend set me up with a surprise audition at a little bar which garnered me a spot, only I had to wait three months for it to open.

I turned it down, wanting to come home to Louisiana. Somewhere around Halloween of that year, the little bar in my hometown was looking for a waitress and they put my girlfriend to work. I asked the guy at the door if they were looking for DJs and he said "You know, now that you mention it . . . "
I didn't audition for the gig. I was supposed to meet the owner and another guy that was going to audition, but they were no shows. For almost a week, the owner kept missing our appointments and finally I found that he was building a house and had been working on that. I found out where and went there. Finally catching him, he told me that if I had went through all that trouble for the job, I could have it, no audition needed.

I worked there for a little over a year and eventually went to another club in Monroe which was the next biggest city about 20 miles away. In addition to DJing for a dancefloor, I ran a karaoke show. This show was part karaoke for customers and then part show for the customers to watch. The show involved runner-ups from a karaoke contest. They were paid to sing for two hours on a Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night and it was well-received.

After a year or so of that, I wanted to do more. I saw a commercial on late night TV about a Music/Video business course at the Art Institute of Dallas that piqued my interest. Calling my mom who lived in Dallas, we made arrangements for me to move in with her until I got on my feet.

I never finished the course, though it was a good one, but I was learning just as much in the gigs that I was getting. I probably should have finished it considering I was only six weeks away from finishing, but I was working clubs and private parties and they took up a lot of my time and paid pretty good.

I worked at the newly refurbished Bronco Bowl in Oak Cliff in 1996. It had been closed for a while and a new owner from Oklahoma came in and purchased it. I was DJing in a 10,000 square foot nightclub with state of the art equipment. We did a variety of music, plus live acts, and after parties for the concerts that were held in the Bronco Bowl arena. I did after parties for George Benson, Tesla, and the Fugees.

I moved on in '97 to DJing the busy hours at a chain of restaurants and recording canned music for play when I wasn't there. Not liking the corporate culture that I was in, I went back to DJing at little bars and restaurants in 2000.

I met my future wife at one of those clubs and after proposing to her in 2004, I decided it was time to hang up the headphones.

I've met all kinds of people, some of them kind of famous. I've met celebrity DJs, musicians, actors; I've had Matthew McConaughey on my dance floor. I don't ever remember having a bad meeting with any of them. Back in the days before he fronted Skid Row, I DJed and ran lights for a Tesla after party with Johnny Solinger. After his show, he came by the booth fueled up on the energy of the show, alcohol, and whatever else and gave me one of the sweatiest hugs I had ever received. But it was a fun night!

I don't miss certain aspects of DJing in the those venues, such as folks who don't know how to handle their liquor, bosses who think they know music better than you do, and the late hours. I do miss, however, the power of being able to make people dance, playing that one song that everyone has to move to, and making people feel good for a night. When I look back, that was the two things that I loved; the music and the people.

NORAD tracks Santa!

My daughter learned how to track Santa from an early age. It's kind of a cool tradition in this technological age. You can track him on the computer, an app, or even call a toll-free number. Even as we get older, we still get a kick out of knowing where the jolly old elf and his eight reindeer are at any given moment on Christmas Eve.

Tracking Santa all began with the Continental Air Command (CONAD) way back in 1955. NORAD, or North American Aerospace Defense Command, replaced CONAD in 1958 and have been tracking Santa since. You can go to the NORAD HQ for more info on the history, how's and why's and clicking the image below will take you directly to the tracker.

The Haunting of Oaklea Mansion in Winnsboro, Texas

It's funny how things come back around. I was working at Borders Books in Lewisville (northwest of downtown Dallas) in 2010 and was in charge of events.

April Slaughter had been a staff writer for TAPS magazine which was published by the team of Ghosthunters. My wife and I were big fans of Ghosthunters on TV and I saw that we had this book in the store and saw that the author lived in the area. One thing led to another and October 31, 2010, we had her come in for a signing.

It wasn't until last year while researching haunted Texas locations for a post, did I come across the chapter on the Oaklea Mansion Bed & Breakfast. I was working at the library and made sure to get a copy in for circulation. It's just strange that I would eventually move to this beautiful little town with a literary connection to my past.

If you have any local hauntings that you've witnessed or have heard from family members, please share!

America's Haunted Road Trip: Ghosthunting Texas - The Oaklea Mansion

Visiting The Edison Exchange inside of The Historic Oaklea Mansion

The Kid and I, while out hitting all of the Winnsboro Autumn Trails events on Saturday, dropped by The Historic Oaklea Mansion. While there we visited Dustin and Gabriel of The Edison Exchange.

The Edison Exchange deals in antique/estate jewelry, Art Deco, and Native American jewelry/art. Beautiful pieces can be found everywhere you turn. One of the more intriguing displays was this exhibit of mourning jewelry.

Per The Gemological Institute of American ~

  

The tradition of wearing mourning jewelry goes back to at least the Middle Ages, when motifs like skulls and crossbones served as a tangible reminder of death. The exhortation memento mori, which literally translates to remember death, urged the wearer to live a moral life.

The popularity of mourning jewelry reached its peak during the Victorian era (1837-1901). Queen Victoria was deeply in love with her husband, Prince Albert, and when he died in 1861, she fell into a long depression. Queen Victoria spent much of the next four decades wearing black crepe dresses and mourning jewelry. She commissioned portraits, memorials, and busts of Prince Albert and other mementos that were reminders of her deceased spouse.

Hair Jewelry – jewelry that contained locks of a loved one’s hair – was particularly popular during the Victorian era. The Victorians believed that hair had a sacred quality because it contained something of the essence of the person. And because it was somewhat imperishable, it also symbolized immortality.

Many of the items on the tray were made with strands of hair woven into them or the entire piece was composed of braided hair from the deceased.

The Edison Exchange is located inside The Historic Oaklea Mansion at 407 S. Main St. in Winnsboro and is open Wednesday through Friday 10am to 5pm and Saturday 11am to 4pm. You can visit their website here or look them up on Facebook.

Photos are of the mourning jewelry and other pieces on display and for sale.

Affordable Connectivity Program Helps Families with Internet Costs

I recently received an email from the Social Security Administration about how to get a discount on internet. It seems that the offer stems from the infrastructure bill that was passed earlier this year.

It's tough for families to make ends meet nowadays and sometimes cuts have to be made. It's really hard when internet has become a necessity in some households. I really saw the divide between folks who live in the city and rural folks when I worked at my local library last year. Locals would come in to use the libraries facilities because they couldn't afford a computer or internet and what internet was offered was spotty in quality and availability.

Hopefully the infrastructure bill will address the availability of internet to rural areas, but in the meantime it has done something to help with the affordability of it.

The program is called the Affordable Connectivity Program and it us run through the FCC. If you meet any of these checkpoints then you may be eligible for a discount or free internet:

• Households that have an income at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines.
• People who use certain federal assistance programs, including Federal Public Housing Assistance, Lifeline, Medicaid, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
• People who already use a discounted internet service from a high-speed internet provider that is aimed at low-income households.
• Households whose children get free or low-cost school meals.
• Households that participate in programs specifically for tribes, such as Bureau of Indian Affairs General Assistance, Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, or Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
• College students who receive student aid in the form of federal Pell grants.

Discounts range from $30 a month (which may mean free if you go through certain companies) to $75 for households on qualifying Tribal lands. Some households would even be able to receive a discount of up to $100 for purchasing a laptop, desktop computer, or tablet from participating providers.

Check out the article below for more info or apply directly to the FCC, contact your current internet provider, or by mail.

20 Providers Offering $30-a-Month High-Speed Internet Access - AARP