Today was my big neighborhood event, a cleanup of the streets around Cherrywood Park. It has been bugging me for years that leaves and dirt and everything else just piles up on the street, decomposes, congeals, and grows. I was originally going to go out with a bucket and a spade and spend 30 minutes every Saturday for the next 2 years until it was done, but then I went to a neighborhood Garden Club meeting.

I mentioned to the association leader that I had this idea for a project and he was like, great, can you organize it all? Yeah … I can. So I set out figuring out what to do. First I contacted the city, and that turned into a ton of conference calls. Just to pick up dirt. But I got our congressperson involved with his office, Code Compliance, and Parks and Rec. They have a tool borrowing program, so I got 5 shovels, 5 rakes, 5 brooms, 5 trash pickers, 100 bags, 15 gloves, and a leaf blower delivered to my house on Friday.

We advertised it through the neighborhood association and garden club and about 30 people showed up this morning from 9-11. I thought it would take us much longer, but people really worked hard and scraped up every bit of dirt on the street. They even met with the homeowner whose house we were essentially cleaning and got permissions to trim her shrubs back so you could actually walk on the sidewalk. Am I really the head of the Dallas Walkability Council now?!

It was a lot to put together, but honestly, it wasn’t that bad. Daniel asked me last night as we were going to bed if I was nervous, and I laughed and said YES. Why do I keep doing these kinds of things? Why do I put myself in these situations? And he said, “Because you couldn’t keep your fucking mouth shut at your fucking garden club meeting.” And you just have to admit, he’s totally right. So we’ll see what I end up planning next! Stay tuned!

On Wednesday, September 23, 2026, Daniel’s father, Paul passed away. He had been sick and was in hospice care, but all the same it was unexpected. Paul had moved up to Bellingham to live with his wife, both for better climate and for a little assistance.

Daniel planned a trip to go see him and spend some quality time. They had made reservations at different fancy restaurants for every night of the week. But when he got there, he quickly realized that probably wasn’t happening. The situation was rapidly declining, so he extended his trip and I bought a plane ticket to join him Friday after work so I could help out. Unfortunately, he succumbed to his illness sooner than expected. I changed my ticket to the earliest flight the next day and headed up.

Any way you slice it, it’s about a full day to get up to Seattle and then up to Bellingham. When I landed, I checked the big board for my gate information for my connecting flight only to see the word, “CANCELED.” Not delayed. Just canceled. I was really trying not to be a burden but I was like wtf do I do. His mom will typically not fly between cities, but take a bus charter instead. I got the details for the bus, bought a ticket immediately even if it wasn’t going to work, and then set out trying to figure out where to go. You would think the website would have some instructions, but no. I called the number and this nice man stayed on the line as he walked me through where to go. The bus was waiting and I got on board and not 15 minutes later, we were set out for our 2 hour drive up to Bellingham.

I got there by like 8pm. Daniel met me at the Sheraton 4-Points hotel. We said hi to his mom standing in the rain and then went to our fancy hotel. Everything in Bellingham pretty much shuts down at 9pm, so we had to rush to the restaurant next door, and apologize to the wait staff because we were the last ones there past closing, but they were very nice about it. My goal was to just be a fly on the wall, provide emotional support, and help out in any way I could while the family sorted out the most immediate concerns.

Really, I thought we could have short stints of a nice little weekend, and we did. Bellingham is a cute town, although way far left of my comfort zone – and that’s saying a lot! Our hotel was really nice, overlooking the water, far from the train tracks, and quiet. One morning, we ran into Lucien Laviscount, who played Alfie in Emily in Paris, that godawful TV show. I didn’t recognize him immediately, just said good morning as we passed on the elevator, but then I paused thinking, do I know him? I turned to Daniel and his jaw was on the ground. Rumor is that Tyler Perry was in town filming a movie with John Cena and Michael Buble. We even saw a helicopter over the water performing what looked to be repeated fake rescue operations surrounded by boats potentially housing cameras? When the next Tyler Perry movie comes out we’re going to go see it and if it doesn’t have Lucien in a water rescue scene we’re gonna feel like idiots.

We had some good meals, a few cries, and provided some useful help to his mother. Daniel is the first from our generation to lose a parent, and it was a reminder that we are entering that chapter of our lives. Paul will be deeply missed but always remembered.

Last night we attended a charity gala. I wouldn’t say we’re exactly gallerinas, but this one was pretty fun. We got some “free” tickets because my dad had made a donation in honor of his late brother, so there was some obligation to go. Plus this is one of the charities I’ve worked with in my side gig and I know the founder well, so … we put on suit jackets despite the 100+ temperatures and set out for a warehouse venue near the Galleria.

What was funny is that it was on some random street we’ve never heard of or seen, and yet just the night before we were like 3 doors down. We went and saw a traveling exhibit of the Trump Epstein Files Reading Room. They printed out all 3 million pages of redacted released files, and put them into volumes on rows and rows of book cases. We promptly started pulling books out and leafing through them looking for a previously unnoticed gold nugget. Some dude came up and said, “I don’t think you’re actually supposed to touch the books.” Which then made us paranoid so we stopped. But it was called “reading room” so I don’t get what the hell else you were supposed to do there. It ended up taking like 10 minutes to get thru and then we went to dinner.

Anyway, the gala was fun. It was very inspiring to be in a room full of people who care about other people when that seems to be in low supply these days. Some of the residents of the homeless shelter program even took the mic and spoke about their experiences, which was moving. I got a little emotional when one by one they said how terrible things had gotten that they googled for help and found this organization #1 in the list, because I’m the one that got that all set up and working. So that was cool to remember that things you’ve done previously can continue to have a ripple effect.

Great meal, good conversations, made a little donation in excess of what we do monthly (and doubled it using my employer), so all in all I’d say it was a wonderful evening.

mar·riage [mrj] n.

• The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife.
• The state of being married; wedlock.
• A common-law marriage.
• A union between two persons having the customary but usually not the legal force of marriage: a same-sex marriage.
• A wedding.

Not sure what brought this particular entry to fruition, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately. If you want to define marriage, don’t go reading bibles, and certainly don’t go listening to Bushito as he scratches the back of the KKKnights of Columbus. No, my friends, you have to go no further than our own beloved dictionary.com.

Marriage is a long standing religious farce, but in modern times has taken on a legally binding aspect. This is what gay marriage is about. Nobody gives a fuck if g*d smiles upon them as the father of the groom walks her down the aisle. There are issues dealing with wills, custody, hospital visitation, healthcare benefits. To take a sweeping stance that one entire group of people should be denied an entire set of rights and privileges that you enjoy based on the way they were born … is bigotry.

We do not live in a theocracy, no matter what Jorge thinks. One of the founding principles of this country is the separation of church and state, and to insinuate that they should be melded is frankly un-American … and a detriment to our troops. But what if we did live in this X-tian Garden of Eden where the Satanic gays were not allowed to be citizens. Wouldn’t it be perfect?

So to this end, I say go ahead and ban gay marriage. Hurrah! But in all fairness, in our new X-tian Eden, divorce is also against the law. Sorry that you got knocked up at the age of 19 by your quarterback boyfriend who now does drywall for his old man’s construction company and hits you. Unfortunately, extra-marital sexual relations are illegal, so you had to get married before you started to show. Also, you can never, ever divorce him. Sure, you could have possibly aborted the baby in the first trimester, but that’s also illegal. Not that you would have had to deal with that had condoms not been outlawed. Conversely, since the real purpose of marriage is indeed procreation, any married couple who desires no children, or physically cannot bear child, will be annulled. All of this only pertains to X-tians anyway, people of other religions are not permitted to marry under their customs, since this country was founded with the purpose of forcing religion on people. And hell, while we’re at it, let’s just say that only whites can get married. I think we’ll all be more comfortable that way. After all, this country was founded originally by white people … and jesus was white.

There, I feel better now that we got that all ironed out, don’t you? Now let’s go drink some beer. And don’t forget to vote on November 2nd, or P. Diddy will be angry.

I have a new game that I am completely obsessed with. This is of Minesweeper, Spider Solitaire, and Text Twist proportions. This particular game is called Typer Shark. If you go to yahoo.com and click on GAMES and then over on the right under Arcade games is this thing called Typer Shark. You have all got to try it.

When I was in the sixth grade we had a game where this race car would race around the track and you had to type the words in front of him before he crashed into them. I have been looking for that game for a while now because I believe I could really kick the shit out of it these days. Well, I couldn’t find it, but Typer Shark is the same basic concept. You are a diver and you have to type the word on the sharks before they eat you. Only some of the sharks require two or three words before they die. Some of them have the letters backwards, and some of them mutate as you’re typing to random letters and numbers and symbols.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that I am a Sea Titan. That’s the highest rank I can achieve with 1.9 million points. My best round was 99% accurate at 119 wpm. Not too shabby if I do say so myself although I average around 95% accuracy at 90 wpm.

So I challenge all of you to go hone your touch typing skills with Typer Shark and report back here. If any of you can beat me, we may have to have a showdown of epic proportions. Until then, you have-nots. Laaaaaaaaaaaaaate.