The world as I see it.

Sunday the day of rest. Right. Sunday night is my time to get some serious work done. This Sunday has been no exception. After an excellent dinner at my parent’s house, we headed home and everybody just kind of vegged out on the couch and I hit the recliner with my laptop. Chas and Luc are watching $1 vintage cartoons that we snagged out of the bargain bin this afternoon. So everything is pretty quiet around the hill. But, instead of my working I have been surfing around catching up on my reading of other people’s blogs.

My first stop was to one of my favorite blogs, The Pioneer Woman. She introduced a set of Photoshop Actions she had been working on and offered them for anyone to download. Click here to go to the post and download the actions. The above photos of Brandon have been doctored with some of the actions.

Then I pointed my browser over to Girl With A One Track Mind. She wrote about a conversation she and her mother had recently about spam e-mail and her mother’s ability to enhance the size of her penis. I realized that I have been bombarded with spam lately. Last week it was cash advances, this week it’s male enhancement. I have searched the far corners of my mind trying to think of the last time I registered my e-mail with any new sites. So far I can think of nothing. I’ll just delete the 287 junk e-mails I have received this week and go on.

Next was Greek Tragedy, Oh My Stinkin Heck, and Waiter Rant. Of course I surfed over to i can has cheezburger to see what my furry friends have been up to over the weekend. I did the usual scan of CNN, The Daily Register and The Carmi Times to make sure I hadn’t missed any important news.

So basically this Sunday night I didn’t do any work, I just did what I like to do. Read other people’s blogs and catch up on the news. I hope your Sunday was as relaxing as mine.

It wasn’t until I was in my late 20’s that I realized what a great early childhood I had. I have absolutely no bad childhood memories. One of the things I remember most vividly was waiting for my dad to get home from work. I would be peeking over the back of the couch out the window waiting to see his truck round the corner about 200 yards from our driveway. When I would catch a glimpse of his truck I would run as fast as I could to the backdoor. Along the way my mom would always snag me and make me promise to take a bath and wash my hair when I came in from helping dad. Let me explain about my mom a little bit. When I was born mom thought she was getting a girl. You know, frilly dresses, long beautiful hair and girly stuff. Well, I wasn’t about all that when I was a kid. It’s not that I disliked taking a bath and washing my hair—it was the drying of my hair that was horrible. I had naturally wavy hair and when mom made me promise to wash my hair, she also made me promise to let her dry it. That meant the blow dryer and a brush to straighten it. I can remember mom drying my hair in the living room so I could watch TV during the process. She wanted a girl and she got me instead. I also hated dresses and anything with itchy material. But I loved shoes. Maybe that was my only girl trait as a child. I also was more comfortable out in the barn or in the woods with dad than I was in the kitchen with mom. I loved everything about the barn. I loved looking for eggs, playing with baby pigs and just climbing up in the hayloft and then climbing back down. I’m sure I was no help to dad at that age but he patiently let me feed when I wanted to and he would always catch a baby pig for me. Those baby pigs never quit squealing when I held them, but I still wanted dad to catch one for me every time. When I was 9 we added sheep to the barn, but that’s a story for another time. Anyway, lately I have been wondering if my own kids will have such good memories of childhood. Their time as little kids was so different than mine. I used to ask them every day when they got home from school what the best part of their day was and what the worst part was. I wonder why I quit asking that? Now I ask them if anything happened at school I need to know about. I guess now everything is on a need-to-know basis.

My dad retired March 21. The old barn was replaced long ago with a new pole barn. The pigs, chickens and sheep are long gone. Dad still spends a lot of time in his barn, he’s splitting firewood with his log splitter. Have I mentioned that my dad is the hardest working man I know. He has worked a forty hour a week job since he was old enough to drive a tractor, plus he mowed yards and sold firewood for extra money. He has always provided for us. Of course I have taken him for granted in the past, but I don’t now. On top of everything else that makes him one of the greatest people I now, he has an unwavering faith in God. I know that him and mom have not always approved of the things I have said or done, but I have always known that they love me no matter what. Of course my mom shares many of the same qualities that make dad so awesome. They are the perfect team. While dad was working to provide for us, mom was keeping us all fed, clothed, and entertained. I can remember when mom went back to work. It was not until me and my brother were old enough to stay by ourselves for the hour and a half between the time we got off the bus and five o’clock when mom and dad got home. But even then she still cooked awesome meals for us and did our laundry and made us behave. I hope my kids can say that I was half as good as my parents.

For anybody in Southern Illinois too much rain has become a way of life. Since the kids got home from school around 4:30 this afternoon it has rained almost two inches. The ground is already saturated with the 19 inches of rain we have gotten over the last month. Brookport is in a panic over it’s levee’s integrity and is spending $1,000 an hour to run it’s pumps. I haven’t heard how Old Shawneetown is doing, but it can’t be good. When are the farmer’s going to be able to plant? But I will sleep so good tonight listening to the rain hit the house. And if it’s still raining in the morning I will have to force myself to get up. As much as rain cleanses the earth and the soul, I think I am as clean as I am going to get.

On another note, Tim Monroe was arrested today. He is a teacher and the athletic director at Galatia. He was arrested at the school. Monroe’s arrest warrant says he’s charged with three counts of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a church. He lives close to the Dorrisville Baptist Church. Some may think this is just another drug case but Tim Monroe’s name is on the gym wall in Gallatin County. He is part of the 1,000 points club. My kids see his name everyday. How can a parent explain the events of today to their kids? I don’t know Mr. Monroe, I only know his name. I didn’t recognize him from his mugshot and I hope my kids didn’t recognize him either. It’s going to be very hard to explain this to my kids because basketball is such an important part of their lives. Brandon wants his name to be on the same board as Monroe. If Monroe is found guilty of the charges and goes to prison will Gallatin County take his name down? I wouldn’t want to be part of that decision.

And, Luc told me today that the flag over the capital in Springfield today is in honor of Dave Mills. “Deputy Dave” as he was known to all the kids at GC, died suddenly last month. He was the D.A.R.E. officer and was a daily presence at the school. He taught my kids not to be scared of law enforcement. He was the exception to the rule. He was a cop, but he genuinely loved and cared about all the kids he taught. We will all miss him. Rest in peace Dave.

I got a new phone today. After battling with Verizon for many months, we switched to Alltel. For the past four years I have had a Blackberry. I didn’t especially like a Blackberry, but it did fill my needs better than any other phone. Now I have a HTC Touch^TM. So far so good. I actually wrote this post on it.

Two things happened today. Three-year-old Kaleb Lay was buried. Arnold Fonseca was acquitted of murder. What do these two things have in common? They both prove how screwed up the courts are in Saline County.

Saline County Judge Todd Lambert returned little Kaleb Lay to his meth head parents and they in turn tortured him for ten days and killed him. Read the complete article in The Evansville Courier about how this innocent child was brutally murdered and how one judge can alter one child’s life and death.

And today a jury in Saline County acquitted Arnold Fonseca of murdering Ashleigh Miller. WTF? Everybody around here knew he was guilty, what didn’t the jury hear? Chas and I know one person who sat on the jury and I can’t wait to hear what they have to say. Read the article in the Daily Register and form your own opinion.

To say I feel let down by the judicial system is an understatement. I didn’t have a personal stake in either one of these incidents, but is it too much to ask for justice?

I love Sundays. Sundays are the days for big dinners, lazy afternoons and peaceful nights to get alot of stuff done. Today was a beautiful day. The kids worked in the yard picking up sticks from the past months of ice storms. Charlie napped. And I blogged. It’s not even dark and I feel the calm of a good Sunday night. Charlie always goes to bed early on Sundays, he gets up at 3 am to head to the mine. The kids will go into their room and text and game and whatever else teenage boys do. So the rest of the night is all mine. Tonight’s goal is to figure out OpenAds. I need to get some advertising in my world.

This is my oldest son Brandon pitching at Eldorado. After taking hundred of photos of my own kids, I now take pictures of everybody’s kids. Check out Gribco Photography to see some of my sports photos. If you would like me to take pictures of your kids in action e-mail me.

Well, here it is—my world. My world includes kids, Gallatin County baseball and basketball, Jeeps, Apple computers, cats and dogs, life in rural America, photography, a little web design and anything else I might find interesting at any given moment. Basically my world is like everyone else’s world, the only difference is that I will document mine here for all the world to see….

I hope my blog is an accurate representation of my world. I also hope my world is not boring to everyone but me. Because I am very opinionated, I will express them in my blog. I am sure some of you will agree with me just as I am sure that some of you will disagree with me. Please let me know either way. I always welcome your comments

If you need a laugh today go to one of my favorite blogs icanhascheezburger. I start every day with this blog. They never fail to put a smile on my face. They give me the strength to goto to cnn.com next.