Tone Parsons

Twenty years ago, I had finally convinced this cute young girl I was working with to go on a date with me.

Of course the first 3 times I had asked her out, she had shot me down. But I kept at it, hoping that she’d eventually say yes. She finally did!

We met up around 6:30 and went out for a bite to eat (I learned that night that she hates green peppers) and then went to C. J. Timothy’s Comedy Underground. The comic was so funny that I nearly spit beer on her at one point.

Thank you, love, for sticking with me for the past two decades! I love you more than you could know!

Normally, I hate joke mail (with a passion) and tend to filter out those who insist on sending it (read: block all their email), but this was all kinds of funny.

Subject: JC Penney 1977
From:xxx@cs.com
Date:Sat, 3 Nov 2007 15:03:44 EDT
To: xxxx@toneparsons.com

Last weekend I put an exhaust fan in the ceiling for my wife’s grandfather. While my wife’s brother and I were fitting the fan in between the joists, we found something under the insulation.

What we found was this:

A JC Penney catalog from 1977 Read more

Sometimes life gets in the way of your plans.  No matter how well you have it all planned out, things can change, and suddenly, you’re launched into the ether.  This is what happened to me.

After working at my company for 6 years, I finally got my dream job as the Senior Web Developer.  They paid me to do what I loved the most… playing with photoshop and illustrator and creating web based applications.  They treated me like a king, paid me very well,  and let me run down whatever path I chose.  Life was unbelievably good!

Then, the floor fell out.

Friday was my last day at the office.  I packed up my things and went home at the end of the day.  I’ve been placed on disability because of my back.  While I’ll live the rock-n-roll lifestyle from now on (wake up, take a large amount of drugs, play with my guitar), I’m not very happy about it.  I’m only 41… far too early to retire!

*sigh*

Luckily, I have insurance for just such an occurrence.   It covers me until age 65, and I’ll still be getting most of a paycheck during that time (most being 70%).  While that’s a pretty big cut in pay, it beats nothing… and I was paid well, so I’ll be ok financially.

Now I have to figure out how to fill my days.

I haven’t posted for a while, so I decided today’s the day.

My wife and I made a purchase the weekend before last, but I’m not allowed to talk about it (suffice it to say… it’s pretty!). More to come later on that.

I’ve got an appointment with my doctor tomorrow to discuss my friggin’ back. There isn’t such a thing as pain free any more, and the commute to work is killing me (getting bounced around on the bus doesn’t do me any favors).  Fortunately, my boss is very damn cool, and is allowing me to work from home a couple of days per week.

I’ve been good about taking my meds, but they no longer kill the feeling like I have knives stuck into me in several places. If they dump any more narcotics into me, I’ll be a complete zombie.

The joys of being me!

Other stuff: um… there really isn’t any other stuff to write about. I’m just filling space here.