Secret 'Stache

About six weeks ago I started an experiment.  I started growing facial hair.  Ever since I grew my first precious few whiskers, I've always shaved completely clean.  I never did this for a particular reason other than that I had a clean face before and no need to experiment with a mustache, beard, or other facial hair combinations.

The few times I thought about growing out some facial hair, I was reminded that no one in my family has ever successfully worn facial hair.  I recall my dad when he would go on a week or two vacation and not shave at all.  The results?  He had some sparse whiskers that looked more like a connect the dots drawing, rather than a true outline of facial hair.

Neither of my grandfathers wore facial hair, and I recall one grandfather saying that he didn't wear one because it didn't grow out fully.  Both of my brothers have facial hair... but it never looked right to me.  My younger brother wears a mustache.  He hasn't cut the hair above his upper lip since he was 18.  My older brother never fully shaves off his facial hair, instead he just trims it down every few weeks.  Even if he didn't trim it down, he has the same problem that my father had.... it doesn't all connect.   So with this genetic information running through me, why give this a try?

Mom's Heart and other notes

So I received quite the scare this past Friday night.  Coming out of work I went about my normal routine... get into the car, start her up, grab my phone out of the storage bin, turn it on, and start to drive out.

Now, when my phone turns on (techn...


Gotta run, she's going in for her Echo and Heart Cath now.

To Be Continued.

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Sorry about that.  Just as I was beginning to write up this post, I got a call from my Aunt saying that they were taking Mom in for her Echo.  I dropped everything and went in to be with her (as much as you can be with someone during that particular exam.  I am now writing this up on Tuesday the following day and she's had both the Echo and the Cath.  The good news is that they found no new physical defects.  Her cardiac arteries are fine (as fine as they can be on someone with a triple bypass and with three internal stents), and her ejection fraction is good.  The bad news... they have no idea what caused her defibrillator to go off.

City of Broad Shoulders

I talked recently about how a couple friends and I are planning on a trip together.  Those plans have been put on the back burner for awhile as one of those friends recently moved his entire family from the friendly confines of Michigan to the unknown and seemingly unfriendly Texas (just outside of Dallas).

We collectively figured that after going through the whole ordeal of packing up the family and transplanting them far away from any family, friends, or other support structures that he might need some time to get his new house to feel like 'home'.

The other point on our friend triangle was still, however, biting at the bit to travel and get together with friends.  I guess that's fair, as the recently moved friend and I have lived close enough to each other that we saw one another several times a year.  He, on the other hand has always been far away.  So a couple weekends ago, he invited me to Manhattan.  He was going to be there on business and figured we could have a good time around his scant few hours of required work.

At first blush, I thought this was a great idea.  I've been to New York city once, but that was as a child.  I've never experienced the Big Apple as an adult.  But he invited me with a single day of lead time.  This was after a bad week of work and frankly I would have been a horrible travel mate.  I ended up begging off and promised that the next weekend I had off, I'd come down and visit him (his current base of operations is in North Carolina).