Retirement was good, I managed to get my eyesight restored thanks to superb work of an eye surgeon and then spent the next two years relaxing in a sustained state of bliss before my father let me know he could use a little help around the house after my mother took a tumble and broke a hip. Glad he was accpeting my heartfelt offer to help when the time came, I arived at their home the day before my mother was discharged from the rehab center. Fortunately, modern surgery had r

I like to think of the Ninths of my life as the time of spores for a couple of reasons. The first reason is in regards to how ideas and thoughts sprang up unexpectedly and delightfully as soon as my mind was unleashed to roam free of the numbing details of the daily grind. The second reason is in regard to the state of physical distress in which I woke on the the first day of self-employment. I had expected to experience some mild angst, but nothing so severe. This phase of l

Some say the Dot Com bubble burst because funding dried up, but I think the root cause was technology immaturity. Web applications technology was still cumbersome to develop and network speed just wasn't up to par for holding web app users' interest long enough to make a difference business wise. There were a lot of good web app ideas with attractive, splashy presentation pages and intuitive user interfaces popping up at breakneck pace but the technology wasn't good enough ye

Finally living and working on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, life couldn't have been better. The house was the first split-level home I had ever lived in, with the den and fireplace on the lower level and everything else on the ground or second-story levels. The view from the back deck was east out over the plains. To the west were the mountains, and a block and a half up the street I lived on was a trailhead to a large regional park with biking and hiking trails th

By the time I started the sixth job of my professional career the Dot Com boom was well underway and I had already been studying independently to become part of it. But it was a rapidly evolving thing with lots of emerging technology incubation and cultivation as speed and efficiency of computing hardware improvements continued at breakneck pace and web-related software standards advanced, were refined and released for use. It was as intimidating as it was exciting and I need

So my fifth job after college introduced me to the world of private banking, something I never imagined I would ever get involved in. My apartment turned out to be on the eighteenth floor of the high-rise and wasn't extraordinary in any other way. The balcony allowed a view up and down one street and of the telephone company building directly across that street. Sort of boring but occasionally something would happen in the streets below to produce sights and sounds of interes

Following a year working and enjoying spending free time along the gulf coast I landed a new job with a giant in the retail industry about 250 miles north again. After the interview and acing a jinky test about stack management disguised as a filing cabinet problem I was hired, trained, assigned tasks and handed a beeper. I'd never had a beeper before, work-related or otherwise, and I had misgivings about it. The on-call duty was rotational but it had some crappy rules associ

The third job of my professional career provided more than enough mental stimulus and access to cool, new equipment and software. The only downside was that my workspace was in the basement. No windows. But getting to use non-PC hardware and software for a change made it worth the lack of sunshine during working hours. And a lot of time my working hours stretched far into the night, sometimes even on into the next day. I had rented a mobile home in a rural location a few mile

Within seconds after informing my first boss out of college that I was moving on he called me a thief. What we were supposed to talk about at that time was my raise in pay. He wanted me to tell him what I thought he should give me for a raise after getting a software application released for a prominent metroplex museum of science and history. He was pleased with my work and wanted to reward me for the dedication and quality of it all and for my professionalism working with

This was the first apartment complex I lived in after graduating from college. It was as close as I could get to the office building where I was hired to work in my first job as a professional. The apartment was just okay, but it was close to the University of Dallas campus where I could safely ride my bicycle while it was still cool on early summer mornings before going to work. It was also within walking distance of Texas Stadium where I finally got to see Pink Floyd in con

While turning into a teenager a lot of time was spent roaming along the banks of rivers and bayous in a state recently hammered by hurricane. Dense forests too thick in places to walk through without applying the edge of a machete to its thorny underbrush, the banks of the waterways were favorite paths. An old woman living alone in the middle of the thicket would curse and chase us away if we got too close to her shack. Water moccasins and timber rattlers dwelt there too. Thi

Over the decades I've viewed the full moon framed by branches of American Elm trees lining neighborhood streets of early childhood, stout Live Oak of Gulf Coast plains, moss-draped Cyprus along banks of bayous in Louisiana, native Pecans of West Texas, tall Chenar lining Pahlavi Boulevard in Tehran, Eucalyptus of Australia, Mesquite of North Texas and forests of conifers in the Rocky Mountains from north to south along that majestic range. Tonight's Buck moon is a delight to

(A Speculative Short Story) "It's recurrent enough. It's just not strong enough." "It's my favorite one." "No matter. It must be recurrent–and desirability is a factor–but poignancy matters most." "What if I don't have any regrets? Does that disqualify?" "No regrets would disqualify, but that never happens. Everyone has regrets. Your deepest regret will provide strength enough to achieve phase transition." "How do I find my deepest regret?" "You don't. It has to find you." "A

A few days after the stinking public school system set its wards loose for the summer of 1969, my parents returned from New Orleans with this 12-string Gibson as a birthday gift for me. I was flabbergasted and delighted, and I kept that guitar within easy reach almost every day. A few weeks later people were walking on the moon and a few weeks after that a hurricane was barreling our way. As bloody evening news casts from Vietnam steadily contributed to a mounting dread of wh

While doing well drilling blow out control work in the Permian Basin, my father purchased a used Shasta camper trailer and modded it into a gooseneck-hitch trailer with a large bed located over the hitch. For the first long-distance test of this cleverly modded camper trailer we took a trip from Midland, Texas to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Dad used his road-crew yellow IH pickup truck to tow the trailer and haul us all westward. As we rolled up to the visitor center at t

A silver ribbon winding down canyon ahead, the road beckons. Rarely inclined to venture far from home these days, many hours of previous decades were spent on long road trips and peaceful rural commutes all thoroughly enjoyed, and I used to think I would always love to drive long distances—as long as it wasn’t within any city’s toxic limits. But having already traveled to so many different far-flung places, none elsewhere hold much charm of attraction now. It’s fulfilling bey

Sometime during the early 1980s a new business called House of Blades opened in Fort Worth and I decided to check it out to see about purchasing a nice set of knives for a mother's day gift. My parents had recently moved into their newly purchased and remodeled farmhouse and I thought she might like a new set of knives for her new kitchen. Stepping into the store I was greeted by Rosebud the mountain lion. She was sitting to the right of the door on a pet bed serenely watchin

The summer of my final year attending college, I went canoeing one weekend, staying out overnight that Saturday. The fishing was fantastic and I returned to the tiny little house I was renting then to find it had been burglarized. The thieves took everything of value, even some frozen foods in the freezer. I was pissed but happy I had such a nice stringer of bluecat (the only type of fish biting that entire weekend) which had to be cleaned and put into the now empty freezer b

During my senior year in college I did a lot of canoeing and fishing to unwind and satisfy cravings for bass, crappie and catfish dishes. Sometimes frog legs were included in fare harvested from the canoe and once a soft shell turtle became a savory wine-enhanced soup. I liked to canoe at night a lot on weekends after getting all of my class assignments completed for the following week and frequently spotted wildlife out and about doing their nocturnal hunting thing. One of m

The last business trip I took requiring flight on a commercial airline was to Atlanta for a week of training learning all about the Weblogic application server. My room was at the Hyatt Regency which surprised me a bit because it was a state agency paying expenses and it was a really fine place to stay. I expected something a lot less expensive and a lot more gritty, but it was a short walk over to the MARTA train stop and I had no rental car so that's probably why a room was