Went to Buffalo today to see their Veterans court. I'm so excited! It's wonderful how they do it and with all those vets involved (the courtroom was just filled with the "program" vets and volunteer mentors, VA staff, etc) their whole operation goes off with military precision. Right in the courtroom is everything the veteran needs to get services. There's a person from the med ctr with the classified computer looking up dd-214 info and making the applications for services right on the spot, they can start the process to upgrade discharges and/or correct dd-214 errors, there's somebody from VBA (benefits) getting the process started if there's possibly disability involved, there's the VAMC making appointments and registering the vet for sessions, finding a bed if they need inpatient treatment, there's a service officer there to advocate for the vet (they use the VFW, same as we plan to), there's the Vet Ctr homeless coordinator there to handle the extraordinary circumstances that the homeless vets have like shelter and bus passes. (One guy today had been picked up for vagrancy and by the time he left court, instead of going back to jail or being dumped back on the sidewalk, he left with a place to actually live - a group apartment - a monthly bus pass, an appointment for evaluation at VAMC and all kinds more dignity than he came in with. You could see him standing up straighter and straighter. It was wonderful) Every week there's follow ups with vets already in the program and they come back and check in. They don't leave without a chat with one of the volunteer mentors who are all veterans themselves(matched to them by war, sex, age, branch of service). Today in Buffalo there was a vet that was "graduating" from the program. She got a standing ovation. The whole thing made me teary. The most encouraging part is that here in KC we have all the same veterans groups on board for our program so there is no reason ours can't be just as successful as buffalo. We do need to hire a project manager - sort of a liason between the court and the VA (the impartiality of the courts prevents us from advocating for the "defendant" so there has to be a go-between. Judges also are precluded from fundraising, but the liason would not be). The city really doesn't have the money for the position, but we were told that Senator Kerry's bill passed and there is grant money available to any court in the country that is setting up one of these veteran diversionary courts. I'll look into it this week and hopefully we can get some of that to hire a PM. It's such an exciting project, I can't wait for it to get going in KC.

Tracey at the Astrology temple thingy, acting out her sun sign.

We got a full blown blizzard going on outside. Boss cut us loose at 11 this morning. It took me 4 1/2 hours to drive home (17 miles). I'm betting that I won't be going anywhere tomorrow.

Snow is in our forecast.

Bleh.

Hey guys!

I added a new tag to my blog. I am starting on another year and a day training. I explain what this is in my blog and will be updating on my progress every day. I would totally dig familial feedback!

(my birthday was a fun success. Mom is getting me a sewing machine, Jan (Dalin's mom) made me a yummy cake, my grandma miller knitted me some socks, and I dont feel any different now that I am 19.)

I stopped at Homo Depot to look at paint chips on the way home from orchestra rehearsal (big concert tomorrow night). Our home depot is open 24/7, isn't that nuts? Great for bi-polars on a manic binge I guess who just HAVE to paint the house TONIGHT. Anyway, I can't decide between blue or green, muted but not pastel. I have a forest green glider rocker for my office and I'm re-covering the fabric on my cubicle-ish desk thingy with a similar fabric as what's on the rocker. I'm thinking green walls would just be too much, so maybe blue? For artwork I've got a cool reproduction of Van Gogh's crows over a wheatfield, which has some rich golds and blues in it - and Tracey's word collage masterpiece that doesn't really "go", but I love love love looking at it. To be fair, MY office walls are not actually beige currently. They're a sort of golden baby shit color. What color do you guys think for the walls. Can't go crazy with glazing or dark colors. It's a guvment building and all.

yes, it's true. Alek is 19 friggin years old today. Holy Moleys. Happy Birthday girlie cue!

Flickr won't let Tracey upload anymore pictures, so she's switching to photobucket. She's got a few on there now, and is going to upload more tomorrow from her and David's foray out without their sponsor. Bad girl, but she says they're great pictures. Here If for some reason that doesn't work, search for Tracer508

Look what I made! All by myself! (It's a bracelet. My first.)

Well, Tracey is on her way to India. She'll be gone for 3 weeks and I'm so jealous that I couldn't go with her. I think India would be very cool to visit. Sure is a long flight, though.

I get to go to Buffalo on the 31st to see a Veterans Court in action. Not even staying the night there, though. Flying in the morning early and coming back that same day - kinda sucks. My Veterans Court project should be in operation by the end of April here. It's taken longer than we expected to get it up and running - so many agencies and services to tie together. There may be some grant money available for it soon, so we'll be looking into that if Sen. Kerry's bill passes. I don't think its gone to a vote yet. To start out the dockets will be kept on the small side so our volunteers don't get overwhelmed, but a grant would fund a fulltime courtroom liason staffer. I really anticipate this Veteran Court will want to grow pretty big - pretty fast. In June we have our annual "Stand Down" which is a Saturday that the judges and staff volunteer and the court stays open just for veterans/servicemembers to come in and get all their municipal court stuff done, we have volunteer attorneys and the VA etc available for them. Last year's event put through more than 1000 cases. They just opened registration for this year's event and the dockets are already filling up.

Have I mentioned lately that I love my job? Oh, and I'm painting my office either this weekend or next :-) No more municipal beige. I got permission so long as I don't do anything crazy.

First physical therapy session on my foot today. Not as bad as I'd feared (unlike yesterday's cortisone injections which were MUCH WORSE - next time, Valium first). I even managed to pick up some marbles with my toes and do a little happy dance while sitting on the table because of it. Yes, it's the little things. I did get some strange looks from the other patients there when I'd whoop out a victory "YES!" with each little victory, but that's O.K. They're going to be seeing me three times a week for the next little while so they'd better get used to it.

We all know that uncle Dick is an old retired Navy Chief. At one time he was very sick and had to be admitted into the hospital for a few days. Anyway, there was this one young nurse that just drove him crazy. Every time she came in, she would talk to him like he was a little child. She would say in a patronizing tone of voice, "And how are we doing this morning, or are we ready for our bath, or are we hungry?"

Uncle Dick had had enough of this particular nurse. One day when he had received breakfast, he pulled the juice off the tray, and put it on his bed side stand. He had just been given a Urine Bottle to fill for testing.

The juice was apple juice. So.....you know where the juice went. Well, the nurse came in a little later and picked up the urine bottle. She looks at it. "My, but it seems we are a little cloudy today."

At this, Old Dick snatched the urine bottle out of her hand, pops off the top, and drinks it down, saying, "Well, I'll run it through again, and maybe I can filter it better this time."

The nurse fainted...... Old Dick just smiled. Typical Navy Chief!!!

I'm flying off to Florida this afternoon for a few days. I just checked the weather forecast and they're expecting sun with temps in the mid to upper 80's. This does however present a problem.


Do I wear warm clothes and a jacket today so I'll be warm for the trip there and back ...or do I pretend there is no snow here and dress for Florida today?

I think I'll compromise and wear light clothes under my winter coat and leave the coat in my car at the airport. It might be a little frosty when I return but thats a burden I'm willing to bear.

side note: The price of sunscreen is horrendous these days.

A little peak inside my bag.

Spring Snow

Look what the wind blew in!

Not that it's really windy here today, but I think part of Nevada just hit the side of my house.

We need to send out prayers/positive thoughts/best wishes to aunt Sharon. Tomorrow, if all goes as scheduled, she will be "going under the knife" for some repair work. Not disease, or the likes but getting some "innards" realigned, tightened up, and squared away. She should be feeling a lot better when the surgery heals.

The back story on “Embers”

Tim and I are working on “9 Lives” and I asked for a little help with song ideas. One of the ideas was to write about my relationship with my wife. (Thanks Kath) which got me thinking about how I would categorize that. and the first word that came to mind was “Embers” so that word has been in the back of my mind.

Last week Tim turned me on to an alt tuning for guitar. He handed me his Gibson acoustic. set up in this tuning and the first thing that came out of it in my hands was the root of this song. I played with it for a while and sussed out some structure. Then yesterday, I put words to it and recorded the initial tracks.

The instrument you hear in the background that sounds like a banjo. is actually a stick Dulcimer that I built although I have built 5 of these, this is my first recording with this new instrument.

I have the Initial track uploaded to thesixtyone go have a listen

http://www.thesixtyone.com/#/Ronnie/song/Embers/43695/

Grandpa always had some enterprise to keep us boys busy. I remember collecting night crawlers after dark all week and selling them in sawed off milk cartons for .25 a dozen on chilly weekend mornings.

He was also a big fan of Paul Harvey. I remember sitting around listening to his broadcast with gramps. One Sunday grandpa had a stack of GRIT newspapers and explained his plan.

Paul Harvey always did his own commercials and GRIT was one he did every week. He had a way of doing the advertisement in such a way that you felt obligated to purchase the newspaper. We sat listening to his show that day and sure enough about halfway through he did the GRIT ad. Grandpa loaded me up with papers and hustled me out the door to canvass the neighborhood. I sold all but 1 paper that day thanks to grandpas ingenuity and Pauls smooth voice.