Things Rattling Around

Every once in a great while I need a post where I just do a brain dump of everything I'm thinking about or have thought about in the last while. This is one of those random thought posts. Bear with me.


  • Is there possibly any better smell in the Fall season than burning leaves? I think not. The smell instantly takes me places. Today, for some reason, the smell took me back to a fall day when me and three high school friends took a couple of canoes and paddled down a portion of the St. Croix river. On that day, I smelled burning leaves, much like today and perhaps because it was us "kids" doing an adult thing, it stuck in my memory. Pair it with a familiar smell and, well, there I was doing my best time jump back 35 years or so.

  • I got a new phone today. The whole experience is certainly a peephole into Hell, if not a full-fledged trip there. The process, terms and paperwork are nothing short of exhausting. Because everything's on a "payment plan" it's not too unlike buying a car. (Of course they didn't want my working trade-in.) After all was said and done, I told my wife that while I know there are people out there who "love their phones," I am not one of those people. I like my phone, but it's a phone. It's a tool, and unfortunately a tool we can barely do without anymore. Has my phone saved me a few times? Yes. Is it convenient? Yes. Is it ungodly expensive to have one? Also yes. Do I love what it brings me? No. I have it, because I need it. Like my friend John says about his boat, "It's a boat, not a baby." Well put. Don't love it. Love my wife. Love my kids. Like my phone.
  • I recently had another nonfiction story accepted by Sundown Press. It's for their Christmas
    anthology titled, Memories from Maple Street, USA: The Best Christmas Ever. I am very excited about this book because I love the idea of a collection of peoples' stories about Christmas. The one I wrote outlines a Christmas in 1983 and it is one of my favorite stories of late. Very happy with the way it came out. 

  • I saw where Flip Saunders, ex coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves, died today at 60 years of age. I was floored as I usually am when a celebrity dies. Sixty isn't what it used to be and it just seems way too young to die. It was cancer (of course) so there's another reason to hate cancer. 

  • I bought a MyCloud backup drive on Woot the other day. It allows the whole family to share pictures, folders and documents. It also allows us to backup our computers easily. It's one of those geeky things that means something to me, but probably nothing to anyone else. Sorry for bringing it up. (And, for the record I like it, but I don't love it.)
  • I have really come to enjoy the families that make up our Collective MKE church. It is a small group of families, but we come together weekly, and sometimes twice weekly, to share in each others' lives, pray for one another and laugh together. As I once said, church used to be about a building to me - a building with a weekly obligation - now it's different, and I feel like part of something bigger.

  • The Packers are 6-0 and with a bye week, not much going on. I haven't watched as much of them as I would like, mostly because of other things going on, or just really nice weather. I'm one of those guys who has a hard time sitting inside when it's really nice out. Especially knowing that in a month or two, the bottom's going to fall out on the weather. 

  • This has been such a spectacular fall weather wise, that I hate to see it end. I have come to dread winter and wish we could have a couple more months of temps in the 50's and 60's. Next weekend when they change the clocks the darkness will hit me squarely in the face. Bring on the vitamin D.
That's it. That is the noise in my head lately. Sorry, now you can hear it too.

Blogging off...

Comments

The Queen Bee said…
I too was really taken aback when I heard about Flip Saunders. I knew him as Phil Saunders way back when my boyfriend Patrick played football for the Gophers and Phil played basketball for them. He and Patrick and Kevin McHale, Phil's roommate and also a basketball player, became good friends when their dorm rooms in Territorial Hall were across the hall from each other and we all used to hang out together. I remember one night when the 4 of us went to a Sean Phillips concert somewhere on campus
I always felt dwarfed by Patrick, me standing all of 5-4 and him at around 6-3, but when we went out with Phil and Kevin, both Patrick and I looked pint-sized next to them, as they both were somewhere near 7 feet!! Everywhere we went, heads turned, as I'm sure we were an unusual, to say the least, quartet! I remember Phillip as being just a nice, quiet, humble guy, even though he apparently was a star player for the Gophers (I really didn't pay much attention to sports at that time, obviously!). Anyway, was shocked to see that he passed so young, another one taken by the devil disease.
Jim Landwehr said…
Pat, I never knew you knew Flip via Patrick. I never followed them much, but he seemed like a good coach and a great guy. Too young!
Carrie A Ryman said…
Just found your blog via Facebook. Very nice read, thank you! Ahh, the smell of fall. I was thinking the same thing while on my daily walk through our neighborhood yesterday. Wonderful!!

I will visit again and am now a "follower."

And... Congratulations on your nonfiction story being published in Sundown Press.
Jim Landwehr said…
Thanks for the nice words and for following, Carrie. Good to have you along!
Jim Landwehr said…
Thanks for the nice words and for following, Carrie. Good to have you along!

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