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[livejournal.com profile] catttitude & [livejournal.com profile] galinda822




Captain Fairlad of the Pretty Penny, [livejournal.com profile] dawaioser & [livejournal.com profile] galinda822

Yar! Here there be pirates! )
Many thanks to [livejournal.com profile] glodowg & [livejournal.com profile] mr_dowg for hosting!
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My father begrudgingly disclosed to me that he was to have an angiograph in preparation for an angioplasty to be performed on an out-patient basis. He wanted to tell me after the fact, but Mother insisted I know before the procedure. He wasn't worried, so I wasn't worried.

Unfortunately, the outcome determined that an angioplasty would do no good, and that a full blown bypass needed to be performed. Open-heart surgery. On my father. The very next day.

There are sons who despise their fathers and sons who are ambivalent towards their fathers and sons who believe their fathers were born from the gods themselves and helped forge the very heaven and earth on which we walk. Just to clear up any misconceptions, I belong to that last camp. There is never any advice as good as my father's advice, for not only have I followed closely in his footsteps knowing that where I am about to leap he has leapt before. And unlike anyone else on this earth, his advice is in my best interest, for his goal is my success. And its more than that, too. He's not just my father now that I'm an adult, he's my friend. A long-suffering friend who never gets angry at me, never treats me with disrespect, and is never disappointed in me. We share similar interests in movies, music, and books and share with each other endlessly these endeavors. I am he, in almost every facet of my life.

When I called my mother and brother to get an update on what time the procedure would be scheduled, I discovered that two doctors had separately determined that his blockage was inoperable, and he was given 24-hours to live.





I was already at the hospital by the time the "Gregory House of Fort Worth" arrived. This man was considered the best heart surgeon in the city and was brought in to give final consultation on the other two doctors' decision. After reviewing the angiogram and then querying my father, he explained that he was going to die unless he had bypass surgery, but that he likely wouldn't survive the operation due his diabetes and weight causing him to be a very high-risk patient.

"But," he said, "I want to do the surgery. It is your only chance."

My father was prepared for any eventuality, and faced his fate more bravely than I was able to, and we said our goodbyes.

I drove to my folks house to deliver the news to my mother and brother, maintaining strict stoicism the entire evening...until my wife called - which caused her to rouse the children from their beds and drive to Wise County in the middle of the night. I took leave of my mother and got our usual suite in Decatur. If he was not going to survive the operating table, my wife wanted him to see the children one last time.

I dreamed Daisy had come back, and I was so excited to see her! I was petting her and playing with her, and we were so very much enjoying each other's company. Surprisingly, she continued to stay. Usually she just stays a short time. She led me to a corner where she laid down and batted my hands with her gigantic paws and offered me her beautiful head to stroke. I called [livejournal.com profile] celtmanx in my dream, "Guess who came to visit me in a dream?" I asked. "Daisy! But here's something puzzling, she hasn't left yet. Usually she comes in my subconscious to comfort me, but she's never stayed this long. Why is she still here? What is going on that I require so much comforting?" He didn't know, and neither did I, but I was enjoying her presence, which pushed my curiosity to the sidelines. I let her comfort me.

Then the phone rang, waking me. It was Mother. Father was going in at 0600. Too early for the children to see him if he didn't pull through. How was I going to explain this them? When I had children of my own, my father stepped out of that role and became PapaDaddy to my children. He was PapaDaddy to all of us now. No longer a father, but a grandfather. Its the role of a lifetime, and the culmination of his patriarchal career. And just like everything else he set his hand to, he was successful at it.

We met Mother at the hospital and waited.

Eventually, the doctor arrived. "There's not a thing wrong with his heart, its healthy and strong." Healthier than they expected. They performed a double-bypass and he's not only recovering, he's recovering faster than they could've possibly imagined.

Later, in ICU, the attending nurse told us that the doctor told them the reason he was doing so well was his attitude. Apparently the doctor had done more than asked questions about his routine that night in his hospital room, he was gauging the man himself, and unbeknownst to us, had determined that his positive attitude was going to be key to his success. I've said it before, I live by it, but I submit to you now, that attitude is everything!

In authoring this, I was finally able to let the tears flow, and I want to thank all those involved in supporting me during this time. The last three days have been one hell of an experience, and last night was my first full night of sleep in a week. Tonight, is [livejournal.com profile] mr_dowg's Pirate Party - and while we are all gathered here for different reasons, tonight, I celebrate my father's life.

I love you dad, and my world would be dull without you in it.
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Infringed from [livejournal.com profile] swashbuckler332 who 'yoinked' it from [livejournal.com profile] revolos55 who snatched it from...


  1. My username is _____ because ____.


  2. My username is [livejournal.com profile] ehowton because I'm not creative enough nor worried enough to craft a pseudonym in which to represent myself.

  3. My name is _____ because ______.


  4. My name is Eric because my father had just returned from his tour in Germany where he was obviously very influenced by a goodly amount of that great German beer. He occasionally reads this journal, so he can chime in if he wants to. I didn't know how lucky I was to have been named Eric until I followed in his footsteps and volunteered for a tour of duty in Germany. There I found a lot of men my age were named, Uwe.

  5. My journal is titled ____ because ____.


  6. My journal is entitled The Empirical Manifesto because I was being hounded for relying solely on my own experiences to make future decisions and felt that my old title, Why Me? didn't properly represent my goals here. Though the change was initially met with some mild resistance, I wanted readers to be forewarned where I was coming from, how I got here, and, as the title also implies...where I'm going.

  7. My friends page is called ____ because ____.


  8. "Friends Page" so it will be easy to find. Why mess with defaults? I go looking for people's friends pages sometimes and have to seek out things like, "MY PEEPS" and "THE GATHERING" or somesuch nonsense.

  9. My default userpic is ____ because ____.


  10. My default userpic is a [livejournal.com profile] photogoot original. I've only had three, and two of them have been from pictures he has taken. Again with the not hiding. I'm not an androgynous writer.



Turning in early, I was aroused only slightly at the storm's apex which caused me to fall into an even deeper slumber, knowing it was out there. The hail came with thunder and lighting then tapered to the pitter-patter of rain and I slept like Jayne during Firefly's last episode.

Speaking of, I've been reading [livejournal.com profile] quicksilvermad's Firefly fanfic. She reminds me of Christie Golden (ST:V author) in being able to maintain the tone and quirks of the portrayed characters. I'm reading it slowly (approximately one chapter each morning, before work) but the best part is how I found her: RANDOM USER. I shit you not. How cool is that?



This fence I straddle, unchanged, despite the direction I may face. ~Eric Howton



Other random randomness which failed to make it in yesterday's random post (once I get caught up, the randomosity will surely lessen):


  • My cell phone does not get a signal at my desk at work. However, if I lift it above my head, over my cubicle walls, and its a clear day, sometimes I can send a single text message. However, my wife eyes me with incredulity when I'm sitting at my home computer and suddenly lift my phone over my head to send a text message.

  • I finally fixed my jumpstart issue by adding the following line in the sysidcfg file: nfs4_domain=dynamic. This however, does not fix my current problem, and that is, jumpstarting a Fujitsu SPARC Enterprise M4000 across a crossover cable from a Sun X4200 x86 box.

  • We were given these 1GB thumb drives which mounted as "protected" filesystems but would allow you to write to them, and seemingly erase them, but the erased files were written to a (hidden database?) which 'restored' the files for you at each use. Oh, and you couldn't reformat the drive either. Being slightly more intelligent than the average bear, I stuck it in my linux box and attempted to fdisk it with the same problem - linux respected the 'protection.' Fine. unount, mount -o ro /dev/sdb, BAM! This caused the console to flood with errors. At a loss, I plugged it into my SPARC linux box, which auto-mounted it as write-protect off and a successful format. SPARC FTW!

  • I'm finding Elmer Bernstein's Heavy Metal: The Score to be increasingly awesome, enjoying more and more every time I hear it. It reminds me an awfully lot of Ghostbusters sometimes. A better Ghostbusters score, if that makes sense.

  • It was 50-degrees this morning; cool and overcast - a gorgeous morning after a night of storms. I put the heat on the floor, put the windows down, and hit the highway at 80. What a fantastic drive in this morning!



*This post is void of any images to make up for my overabundant use of them yesterday. For those of you still using dial-up, your patience is appreciated. I wouldn't wait for me. And yes, I did stick my tongue in the monster again this morning - how else could it be explained?
ehowton: (Default)
As each of us toils through our day, everyday, each individual thing we see or do is based upon assumptions.

Our own empirical dataset is inexorably flawed because we interpret our own experiences differently than others may have experienced them, falling again to assumption as we draw from ourselves in previous situations to react to new ones. We take things for granted every moment of our lives and live in a world of assuming the things we see and do will react as we expect them to. This is required to function. Our entire lives are made up of a series of natural deductions. Its how we've made it as far as we have.

Having assumptions is more about things you've experienced rather than new revelations unveiled, and its these situations where you're more likely to err. Those who refuse to 'make assumptions' have already failed insofar as they've just created a paradox by assuming they shouldn't. EVERYTHING is based upon what we, as individuals believe is true, and our reaction to them.

So please, refrain from telling me I'm "making an ass" of myself because I've "assumed" something.

You're just showing your weakness to assert your own dataset of rules, and you reek of ignorance.

Thank you.
ehowton: (Default)


No one asked; no one wants to know.







Later, we put him in the truck and told him not to leave the vehicle.







This is where he spent most of Saturday night. Including a trip down the highway.
At one point enroute, he did look up, and his expression seemed to ask, Who am I?







The next morning, I force a Bad Girl Power Drink down him.







By the time we get to the airport, he looks as if he were rode hard and put away wet.
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God Bless Texas!
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Tom is standing way too close to me.
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So long, and thanks for all the cigars...
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If you attended the Livejournal vs. Tribal Council Mash Up
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This Thanksgiving Weekend has given me plenty of time to get everything ready for the party despite the 70-degree evenings evaporating overnight late last week. Bummer. Now I'm hoping it will be dry. I've spent an inordinate amount of time tweaking my playlist. I want to set it and walk away. I don't want people fiddling with it. I've made additions and deletions, added more scores (only the short, immediately identifiable tracks, I promise) and dropped in a couple of handfuls of movie sound bytes dialog. I've tweaked the settings of iTunes (what there are), adjusted the EQ, and triple-checked the playlist for album art. I've decided on full-screen Cover Flow over insipid "visualization." Everything looks, and sounds awesome on this end. I'm pumped.




I anticipate most of the party taking place in the garage. We'll have one of the garage doors open allowing access to the front yard, allowing easy access to the keg (which I presume will be bone dry approximately 90-minutes after tapping it) to allow Mother Nature's assistance in keeping it iced. There will be a buffet table in the garage as well, with three crock-pots (one of them a veritable vat) of Texas chili and two of queso. Everyone's been so helpful in pitching in to ensure everything is covered. The number has swollen to nearly 50 confirmed, with the possibility of an additional twenty or thirty still unaccounted for. Yes, I could potentially have 80 folks at this party.

My wife decided the foyer would benefit from my rugs this time around. The largest middle rug was my first - I picked it up in Saudi; its my only machine-made rug. The rug to its right is a handmade rug with the weavers name (in arabic) sewn into as a signature centered near the bottom. The white highlights are silk. The one to the left of the big rug I picked up in Korea, its a handmade Pakistani rug. The other two are much smaller hand knotted rugs, both of them having been purchased in Virginia, one of them Indian made. They go somewhere different in each house I've had. I've never split them up before (I usually hang all five in a row) but I think they really invite you into the house here. The wrinkles are from being used as packing material for six months.




And while I anticipate the garage and front yard being filled with happy, drinking people - the interior of the house is not off-limits. I'm going to have several internet kiosks around the house so people can get online whenever they want to. I want them to be able to access the lj 'Guestbook' as well. Nonetheless, I took great care in getting all the unnecessary junk out of my office, vacuuming & cleaning it, and even hanging some things on the wall. I'll move in some more chairs the day of the party. We're down to the last five days, and I take my boy to Cub Scouts tonight. Time is fleeting.



ehowton: (Default)

In preparation for the party which is now less than a fortnight away, and running out of free weekends before the first, my wife and I redoubled our efforts and really packed a punch these past two days (including staining both sides of the fence today - I'm so thankful I only work three days this week, cause that was not easy). Saturday we completely emptied the garage and moved everything we could into two sections of the attic: Long term, and short term storage. This was an all-day event that started after our meeting up with the Tribal Council to paint a widows room that morning, and ending with [livejournal.com profile] drax0r and I celebrating the completion of the first phase of the "[livejournal.com profile] galinda822 in Texas" event, aka Party of the Decade with drinks in hand.

You see, as my wife and I were filling the attic, (and because she didn't want to maneuver my heavy trunk and footlocker up the steps as was later disclosed to me) she suggested I set up some music across from the buffet table in the garage. Plans started formulating right then and there. I set up my two Infinity RS625 speakers in each corner, but by the time [livejournal.com profile] drax0r brought over the amp he was going to loan me for the party, I'd already decided my 2000 CD's were going to be inadequate for the event.

So I attached my iTunes volume to that PowerMac G4, hooked up an old Sun monitor, dug out a yellowing two-button Microsoft scroll mouse, ran a 100-foot Cat-5 cable out to the garage, and hooked the computer up to the amp. The results are quite impressive I don't mind admitting. It sounds fantastic! I wish after the party I could set that amp and those speakers in my office! It took [livejournal.com profile] drax0r and I several hours to get everything perfect, but we were in no hurry, as there was bourbon to drink, and cigars to smoke. This is going to be one nice setup. And only in Texas can you have an outdoor garage party in December ;)

The keg of Shiner Bock did arrive, I was told by different people throughout the day who happened by Anna Fine Wines & Spirits this weekend - they're keeping it iced for me until just hours before the party begins. But not everyone wants to hear endless scores at a kegger. So I need your help.

What do you want to listen to?

I have a lot of CD's in a wide variety of genre's, and there will undoubtedly be a lot of impromptu song-changing, but I thought it would be nice to have a pre-defined playlist to encompass something for everyone during the time the console is unmanned. So if you're coming, what would you like to listen to? And please, be specific.


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