I have not written on my blog for a while. I think just once since St. Croix. The reason being that work keeps me exhausted. I don't like to whine about working, and I am grateful to have a job in these messed up times , when so many people do not have a job or can not get a job. Still with that said, where I work sucks. It is obvious that HD want to make it as hard as possible, so people like me will take a voluntary layoff or quit. Why we are working 10 hour days five days a week, makes no sense unless you believe that we are selling every motorcycle we make. The thing with HD is that as soon as a bike is made, it counts as a sale. What that means is that all you have to do to make your company look successful is make product. Every part of my body hurts somewhere. I am not the only one that feels that way. Human body's are not made to do something very physical every two minutes. We are not made to hang a 23 pound clutch on a motorcycle every two minutes 10 hours a day. We also have that great point system, that when you get four points you are almost on your way out. Fired. I had a tooth ache and had to take some hours off to get it fixed. For that they counted 2 points against me. I now have another tooth ache. In theory they can fire me for getting it fixed. It has hurt for 2 weeks now. My dentist does not keep HD hours. It seems that no one at work is happy. I am going to have to go to my shrink before I have a nervous breakdown. The only good thing about work is that it helps keep me from getting so depressed about Jed not being here. I think about him everyday and I cry everyday and get up at 4:30 everyday and go and get abused everyday( except Sat. and Sun.) and arrive home about 6:00 pm. Life is a very strange thing. I wish I knew why it is so off. I understand that love is life, but it is so fleeting at times. Oh well, enough of whatever. I do not want to seem ungrateful. I know in all of my misery I have much Love. Still here. Goodnight. Jeddie I miss you dearly, but you already know that.

Jazmine Cope

I just want to say that my heart goes out to the family of Jazmine Cope. I did not get to meet Jazmine but I did get to hear her name , spoken everyday, from Savannahs and Kristins mouths. I would hear stories about her and think of Jed. They are similar in many ways. They are both courageous beautiful wise souls. Hopefully someday, we will not have to write blogs about children that have passed from such a hideous disease. I wish that I had some words of wisdom and comfort for Jazmin's father and step-mother, but I don't. All I know is how much I miss Jed and the pain that I feel everyday. It is a feeling that I would not wish on anyone. The only good thing about any of this is that I know that Jed and Jaz are not in any pain anymore and that they are in a place that we will all be in someday. Again my heart goes out to Jay and Tammy and all of Jazmines family.

From heaven to .......

The trip to see Russ and Kate and Azure and Elan and Nila and Lidia was awesome. It was great seeing my family in such a beautiful setting. St. Croix is such an wonderful place to visit, and I imagine to live. Right now that is all I can do, imagine. The beaches are just what the doctor ordered. White soft sand, warm water and soothing waves. It does not get much better. I loved walking with Azure every morning. It was like walking with a living recorder. He would repeat whatever I said and talk with his arms and hands just like I would. He is so smart and fun. I know that Jed would have loved him, like I do. Elan is just so mellow and beautiful. Every morning he would look at me and smile. He would do the funniest poses. I loved feeding him and carrying him around. Both the children are the best. Elan was born on my birthday. He is like a present. My granddaughter,Bianca, is also born on my birthday. Yey me. I am so proud of Russel and Kate. I love you both very much. Kates laugh is contagious. We already miss you guys. Thank you so much for such a wonderful , loving time, and your generous hospitality. I loved meeting your friends. Everyone was so nice. I can't wait to see everyone again. Having Nila there was the icing on the cake for me. This kind of visit just does not happen in my family. I am so happy that it did get to happen. Unfortunately it had to come to an end and reality hit. After lying in bed for two hours after arriving home I had to get up and go to work. Everything was new to me at work because my old job has been outsourced to another company. So instead of making wheels all day I had to hang clutches on about 270 motorcycles. The job sucks to say the least. I get up at 4:30 am and get off work at 5:00 pm. I do not see any daylight. From fun in the sun, to cold, dark, days. What a difference. One other thing about the trip. I lost my phone while there so I lost a lot of phone numbers. I still have my same number though. So if you read this David, give me a call. That is all for now. Goodnight.

Seven West

A place where love knows no bounds. A place where courage comes in all different sizes. A place where new friends become family. A place where a small child feels another child s pain. A place where doctors become great friends. A place where the food is tasteless, except for the pizza. A place where the social workers, the doctors and nurses, the workers who clean the rooms, are all so very important, giving love and support. It is a place where you can meet at three in the morning and have coffee with another loving being. It is a place where the most devastating decisions are made, all in the name of love. It is a place where grown adults learn the greatest lessons of love from the bravest children in the world. It is also a place where children choose to go and be with their family ,as time as they know it, passes. It is a place where students of Penn State go to spread love, because WE ARE PENN STATE. It is a great place to laugh and smile, at what you see and hear, from wise old souls in young bodies. It is so strong, this love. Seven west is such a place.

What is there to say. I pray for Jazmine and her family. I pray over and over and over... I pray for Savannah. It seems all you can do is pray.

Captain Jed

Today the weather is beautiful. In one week we will be flying out of here. I'm getting pretty excited about seeing my nephew and his wife and their children. I know that we are going to have a good time. Kristin is a little frightened (not the right word) about the unknown, of traveling to the islands without Jed being with us... I do know that Jed would want us to go and have a fun, relaxing, laugh a lot, time. I know that he would be thrilled to see Kate and Russell, and their children. As usual the hard part will be getting there. I know that Jed loved the islands. Jed liked being on boats. Every year down at the river, Susquehanna yacht club, takes children from Hershey hospital, and takes them out on their boats. They fish and swim and cruise around in the boats. This really was started because of Jed. Dave Leiphart, who used to work with Kristin and I belongs to the yacht club. One day he said that the club would like to do something for the kids. He knew that Jed had been fighting Leukemia for some time. Kristin gave Dave the names of the people that he needed to talk to to get boating day started. It was and is a huge success. I think that it is going into its sixth year. The people from the yacht club are awesome. I think that Jed has been there three times. The first year we had a great guy take us around the lake. Unfortunately I don't remember his name. The next two times we went we rode in Daves boat. It is an awesome Bayliner boat. It is about 30 feet long with a cabin. New it would cost about $80,000. The first thing Dave did was ask Jed if he wanted to drive the boat. Jed, as always, had no fear what so ever. He got right behind the steering wheel and steered the boat. The funny part was Dave just left and went down in the cabin. Jed was all smiles. I was the one worried. I kept and eye out for anything we might hit. After about ten minutes I noticed that there was some logs floating in the lake right in front of us. They were about 200 yards ahead. I didn't tell Jed to turn the boat because I don't know the lake like Dave does. There is a lot of rocks in the lake. I finally told Dave that he should probably come up for a minute and take a look. He did and steered away from the logs. He said that we definitely did not want to run over stuff like that. After that he went back down. It was an awesome day. I know that Jed had a blast. Jed and Dave were the only ones who drove the boat that day. On the way back to land Jed wanted to run the boat faster. Dave had to tell him we couldn't, that it would not be that safe with all the other boats. Besides it cost a fortune to run any boat. A boat that size is crazy. The yacht club pays for everything. The last time Jed went was a couple of years ago. He could have gone every year but he said that sense there is only limited spots on the boat and he had already done it three times, that he wanted the other kids to do it and have fun. I know that he really enjoyed it. Thanks Dave and thanks to the all the people at the Susquehanna yacht club. You guys have made a lot of kids happy. Some of those children are not with us physically anymore. Anyway it won't be long until we will be boating again and Jed will be right there with us. Goodnight

I just want to frolic

So when I arrived at work today, my back was in overdrive as far as pain goes. I went to medical as soon as I got there. Of course the doctor I needed to see was at the other plant. I walked the quarter mile up to the soft-tail plant. When I arrived there the receptionist was pissed that the other receptionist did not call a ride for me. The doctor put me on restrictions and gave me a prescription for my back. As I was there as the receptionist call the drugstore (CVS), and workmans comp, and got everything squared away, so I could pick up my prescription after work. Of course when I got to the drugstore nothing was ready. This is 10 hours later, after the receptionist called. The pharmacist said that there was no record for me to pick up the prescription, but if I wanted to pay $100.00 dollars she would give me what I needed. I gave her the "how fricking incompetent she and workmans comp are and why should I have to pay for that". Of course she hears that speech about 20 times a day. It does not even faze her. I just want to be at the beach and frolic like Jed taught me. In the grand scheme of things it means nothing,( the prescription, the sore back). Goodnight. I did try to practice frolicking.

getting old

I will have to keep this short. Today is Monday, Nov.8,2010. Everything started out great. Rode my motorcycle at 5:30 a.m. It was about 30 degrees. Just the way I like it. My job today was to unload boxes of wheels and press bearings into them. When the boxes are empty, I put the rags that the wheels are wrapped in, back into the boxes that they came from. Them I stack the boxes three high. Each box is the size of a pallet and about two and a half feet tall. I had already stacked twenty boxes by 8:00. Anyway when I started to put the rags into box number 21 I got this intense pain in my lower back. My back has went out many times, over the years at work,. but this time was insane. I screamed "oh something real bad". This guy I work with, happen to be looking my way when it happened. He came running over and asked "if I was all right"? I could hardly speak. I could hardly breathe. I thought for sure that I was going to ride in the little ambulance that we have at work. My boss came over and asked what I wanted to do. I really could not do anything for about 5 minutes. Finally I was able to straighten up and after I started walking real slow, and little steps, my back started to get better. It still hurt but I was able to work most of the day before I went to medical. I have learned a long time ago that there is not a lot you can do for it. Moving seems to help the best. I am more worried about the morning. From past experience, I know that when I wake up I might not be able to move. We will see. Them on top of that my left hand and wrist has major pain. That started in Aug. So when I went to medical they made another report of that. This all just adds to the toothache I have. Growing old is awesome. I hate to complain but if anyone was to ask me how my day was, I would have to say it hurt. Anyway that is it. Goodnight and love to all my children (not soap opera ) and grandchildren.

Toy run

Today was the annual toy run for Hershey hospital. It is a motorcycle run from York, Pa to Hershey hospital. All the bikers pay $5.00 to register so they can ride to Hershey Hospital and give the kids toys and money. It really is an important ride because it lets the children at Hershey have a little bit of Christmas. The money also goes to the children. Jed liked the ride. He has rode in it with me before. The toys are usually pretty cool. Bikers are a generous bunch of people, especially when it comes to children. It is put on by the same group, that asked Jed to be the grand marshal, in the bike night parade, a couple of years ago . I could feel Jeds presence all day. I have taken this ride many times in the last eight years to see Jed at the hospital.There was 627 bikes in the ride today. As far as you could see there were bikes riding down the highway. It really is an impressive sight to see. When we got to Hershey I ran into Kristins cousin Keith. He was riding his motorcycle, so when I was about to leave I asked him if he wanted to ride back to Red Lion, the back way with me. So we rode along the river by three mile island. It was a great day to ride. It was about 48 degrees. Now it is time for bed. Jed I love you and miss you. Goodnight.

Time to vote

Today is the day ,that we as Americans, get to vote. You get to vote for whoever you think lied the best. Just kidding, kinda of maybe. I am always baffled why people, that have been in office for years, say that they are going to change this or that, if you will only vote them in for another term. I have to ask them " what the" f " have you been doing for that last years"? I am always confused why someone would pay 10s of millions of dollars for a job that pays very little, compared to what they spent. They will tell you so they can help the people. I would think that if they were to spend their 100s of millions of dollars on doing something good for the people that that would have a bigger impact. Of course I am not a politician nor wealthy, at least not in the sense of having a lot on money. I remember how excited Jed was when president Obama was elected. He didn't know exactly why. I think manly because our guy won. At the same time I don't think he liked to see anyone lose. I put my "I voted" sticker on Jeds bedroom door. Go vote for whoever. Goodnight. I love you Jed. I wish that.........

Happy Holloween for the most part

We made it through Halloween. Our first without Jed. It is very hard. Everyday is very hard without Jed physically being here. I wish I could say it gets better, but I don't see it. The worst part is not being able to do anything about it. We just keep waking up.... Now work is another matter. People that have been in my work area for the last 10 or so years ,have had to leave and go to the line. Today our supervisor tells us that we are going to start using causal workers in our area. Wait a minute, people are leaving our area because it is being disassembled, because we sold everything to another company. Talk about confusing. The quality of the product is at an all time low. The last time the quality was this bad was back in the 1960's. The company is hiring and outside source to find out why the product sucks. They will probably pay the firm $100,000 or more. Everyday just gets more amazing or confusing.. Whatever. Go giants! Goodnight.

Found a quarter

I made it through the work week. I am glad I had off all those days, but when we had our weekly meeting, the bosses said that we are 1,100 bike in the hole. Why would you close the plant for a week when you knew that you needed to make up over a thousand bikes. I know that the quarterly earnings came out when we got back to work, and you can save a lot of money by closing the plant for a week. All the plants for a week. It could make a fifty million dollar profit look like a ninety million dollar profit. Anyway, now we have to work on the weekends to make up the motorcycles.. Oh yea, sale are down about 10%. Not to worry, everything is great. Whatever. On one of the days I was off work I drove to the store and bought some scratch off lottery tickets. I had cleaned out the car before I drove to the store. After I bought the tickets I needed a coin to scratch off the numbers. I checked my pockets and could not find any coins. I checked in the coffee holders and found a penny that was coated with old coffee. There was nothing else in the holder. After I scratched the tickets, and didn't win anything worth mentioning , I drove to the cemetery and visited Jed headstone. When I got back in the car and looked down in the cup holder there was a shiny new quarter. Now I know that there was not a quarter there before, because I looked everywhere for a coin to scratch those tickets. If you have been following Kristins blog you know what that means. Thanks Jed. It always makes me feel better when I get a sign that you are everywhere and helping me. Talking about lottery tickets. When I drove to work on Friday, which is a overtime day, I bought two monopoly scratch of tickets and won ninety dollars. It made working overtime that much easier. Today (Sunday) the temperature was 80 degrees,but you know that the cold days are just around the corner. I am ready. I love riding my motorcycle at 5:30 in the morning when it is cold. Especially when the moon is out and the sky is crystal clear. Of course I wear my electric coat and gloves to stay warm. Basically it is like wearing an electric blanket. That is all for now. I have to go to bed so I can get up at 4:30 a.m. Congratulations to the Giants for going to the World Series. That is the good thing about being from the Bay area, It didn't matter what team won....goodnight. One other thing. Canning has started for THON. You can get all the information that you need by reading Kristins blog or Savannahs blog. Jed loved THON. I know that it is one of his most favorite things in this world. Please give $$$$$$$ Thank you