I hope that days come easy and moments pass slow,
and each road leads you where you want to go,
and if you’re faced with a choice, and you have to choose,
I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.
and if one door opens to another door closed,
I hope you keep on walkin’ till you find the window,
if it’s cold outside,
show the world the warmth of your smile,
more then anything, more then anything,

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it,
to your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more then you can hold,
and while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.

I hope you never look back, but ya never forget,
all the ones who love you, in the place you left,
I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,
and you help somebody every chance you get,
Oh, you find God’s grace, in every mistake,
and you always give more then you take.
Oh More than anything, Yeah, and more than anything,

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it,
to your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more then you can hold,
and while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.

I have spent the majority of my life ambivalent about cellular phones. Do I own one? Yes, yes I do. Thanks for asking. Did I ever really worry about usage? Why no, no I didn’t. You see, I never really had anyone to talk to on my cellular phone. I had a seemingly great plan that was a whopping 75 minutes a month. My coverage wasn’t great, I get “Up North” and away from 131 or 31 and my coverage drops. I was really okay with that though.

Then, in the last three months my bill has gone consecutively up. I was surprised last month when it spiked from $25 to $29. I began to think “perhaps it is time to look around”. I have an old phone, it does not have pretty pictures or color or the ability to be an MP3 player or camera or useful text messenger. So today, when I opened the bill for May, and I tally up $67.75 in charges, I begin to think that it is time to look elsewhere.

So, I open the floor to you…my friends…what do you suggest? I must confess I am somewhat curious about Alltel’s “My Circle” thing. If there aren’t any hidden fees, this could work GREAT for me as I call at most about 10 phone numbers. Unfortunately, this only works on plans that are $59.99 a month or more. Now, if I could drop my actual phone service but keep DSL…maybe I’d do that. Heck…maybe I *will* do that…but I’m sort of interested in combining cellular, DSL and regular phone via Verizon. I wonder if they’d give me a deal?

I’m throwing this back out to y’all…what do you think? I’m taking a poll…Sprint? Cingular? Alltel? T-Mobile (my current provider)? Verizon? Someone I’m missing?

BTW - If you are aware of any good comparison articles or websites, please pass them along.

I am rebuilding my contacts. If you can read this message, and you would like to correspond, please send me your email address. If you reply to this post, I will get your email address (if you enter a good one in the comments).

If you do not yet have an account or can’t leave a comment, email me at NoSpamboatdrinks74@msn.com. Just remove the “NoSpam”.

A new motherboard, new case, new (well swapped) power supply and a new hard drive. I’m back in business. I hesitate to make too much noise just yet. I haven’t even put the case back on it yet. However, for the time being everything seems to be running smoothly. The new 250 GB SATA hard drive gives me a ton of room, and I even left off 50 gig for a new install of Vista.

I truly hope my last issue was the hard drive, because that would mean I have a good motherboard downstairs. If that is the case, I may assemble another PC and try to sell it to recoup some of the cost. We shall see…

Friday Night, June 2, 2006 - The night I first saw Kenny Chesney in concert. I have to tell you this was an awesome, awesome night. Quite frankly it was generally a pretty awesome day. I left Initech at noon, went to 2 Paws to change and grab the tickets, and then headed over to Lori’s house.

We left for Grand Rapids after doing some quick shopping at Sam’s for the cats. The weather was beautiful as we left, but we encountered a monsoon on the way to GR. Still and all, we made it to the Beltline Bar (Famous Mexican Cafe) and the rain had cleared. The food, drinks and conversation were excellent as always. I truly recommend them if you like Mexican. Tons of food, very fair prices. But I digress (distracted by food)…

Lori and I arrived at the arena around 6:15, and we found a spot in one pay lot just off of the arena parking lot. The beauty here was parking was reasonable, and the exit after the show was faster and easier than any exit I’ve ever had after a show at Miller.

So, by now I should have you wondering when the heck I’m going to talk about the show. What show? Oh yeah…THAT show…

I was stupid, but it was worth it. I ebayed tickets to this show. It sold out (well, technically TWO shows sold out) in about 15 minutes. Van Andel is not a small arena either. SO I resorted to eBay and since I was spending more than ticket price I decided to go for good seats. Needless to say Lori and I were probably within 25 feet (5th row of folding chairs with very little space between rows) of all the stars. We saw Carrie Underwood (she’s very good and will continue to grow in her stage presence), Dierks Bentley (the young ladies really enjoyed his performance) and then we had a short intermission (there was a shorter one between Carrie and Dierks) where they dropped curtains all around the stage. Lots of excitement later, a cold beer and a bathroom break, and it was ON!

He opened the show with Summertime (which is fitting and the current single from The Road and the Radio album)…and as the curtain dropped you could hear Kenny, but you couldn’t see him. He popped up at the top of a “stage” at the far end of the arena. I thought this was a very nice touch for those at the extreme back who would spend most of the show having to watch the large screens.

I don’t know how to accurately describe this show except to say that it was a night long party! It really did have the Jimmy Buffet party atmosphere. The audience was into every song, and I have to say my voice is still recovering. It was *awesome* to see his face during this show. He LOVED the Grand Rapids crowd. We were INTO IT and this just energized the whole band and Kenny. Seeing the man, this famous guy, actually emotionally moved by our participation was very cool. I have new respect for him.

Toward the end of the show the “surprise guest” came out just in time for “When the Sun goes down”. Of course it was Michigan’s own Uncle Kracker. I really got the sense that Kenny and Uncle Kracker are true friends. They just partied together and sang some Kid Rock and some Uncle Kracker stuff.

Then we got some good medleys of older stuff, followed by “Who you’d be today” which is just a moving song. After all of this, and singing along to every song, and everybody sweating and the temp getting almost unbearable, we got the encore “She thinks my tractors sexy” and it was over!

I can honestly say, I’ve seen Garth Brooks twice. I’ve seen Kenny Chesney once. Kenny is almost as good as Garth in the “crazy man on stage” area and *better* than Garth in the general Jimmy Buffet like Party atmosphere. I can’t wait to see him again, and I hope next time I get good tickets without having to auction off a kidney

The Old Man is “48″ today (as he says). I know you won’t ever read this Grandpa, but Happy 84th Birthday! If you were any closer, I’d take you out for dinner. I promise I’ll buy you a birthday meal the next time I see you.

Love ya a bunch! Enjoy your new watch!

I figure this was inevitable, given the state of the interstates, state highways, county roads and country lanes…today I encountered “drive-thru” rage. The rage you get due to impatience at the drive-thru of a so-called fast food restaurant. Do you want to know the sad thing? The seriously mental issue? I was the one with the rage…

Let me paint you a picture…I drive to McDonald’s for dinner ’cause I really want some *good* fries. Before I get too far I have to explain the odd drive thru in 2 Paws. We have TWO drive up order screen things, and then they merge into one pay/pickup lane. It is really about the strangest damn thing I’ve seen in my life, but there you have it. I suppose the theory is that you can get more cars through without backing up out onto M-40. In theory, this is a good plan.

The whole situation breaks down when you are the second car there. I was, and I never know what to do. Do I go to the open lane or do I fall in behind the other car? Logically, I fall in behind the other car. They should have ordered by now and then I’ll be next, right? WRONG!

I get behind them, and a few minutes go by before they order. While they are ordering, another truck pulls up and goes into the empty lane (which I confess I would have done were I the third car). The other truck then gets waited on NEXT. And for whatever reason this completely pissed me off. In fact, I’m still irked by it even though I logically understand it and just typed that I would do the same thing!

So I’m writing this to tell you I’ve got Drive-Thru rage, and I know how incredibly stupid and crazy that sounds. Still, there it is and I’m hoping by typing this I will forget the whole thing. It was incredibly stupid and unimportant. As we’ve been talking about rankings in life boats, I’d throw THAT guy out because he took MY spot! He made me wait an extra 30-45 seconds! How DARE he!!!!

Man, I think I need a Ritalin or something. I definitely need a chill pill…what a maroon I am!

I’m sure I probably posted this one before, but I still like it…

Dentyne-ism #28
Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?

And just because it sort of relates, a shout out to Bob Golisek with the following:

Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?