Family Update...Feb. 1, 2009

We all lose family members in life. Damn it, they just get old sometimes.

Or, in some cases, they marry in (to someone older) and then when that person passes away - move on to their next family.

It is being reported that Shirley Lamp, wife of the late Jack Lamp, has now moved forward with her life - marrying somebody of similar distinction to Kenny Rogers. In the interest of full disclosure, the only thing I think he shares with Mr. Rogers is a love of fried chicken and doing live country music performances.

That is fast moving - just five months since Jack passed away. That is not a new record though. Once Grandma Helen passed away, it was just three months later that Shirley had become the new Mrs. Lamp. Once again, in full disclosure mode, Grandma Helen had been out of it for quite awhile.

So, we in Jacksonville send a hearty congrats out to Shirley for her new love and I wish her all the best in the future.

That narrows down the Lamp family again...which will be dropping another half-branch later this year when Angela gets married.

Moving on (both literally and figuratively), in other news...
- I'm pleased to report that we can finally use the @#%#@$^@$%&#@! internet at our house again. Since the purchase of this new laptop, I've been on the phone with Comcast for at least five hours and spent a hour on the phone with Satish from India discussing why the Dell Inspiron 1525 was not playing friendly with the Comcast modem.

Needless to say, we found out that we could it working via a wireless router, allowing for this current update.

- One of the new features of the laptop is a built in camera...so look for more and more video here shortly. Especially once I figure out how to work our video camera and memory card.

- An update on the baby Jack front...is it just me, or does he look very similar to what Dad looked like when he was a baby? If so, I can't wait until he pulls a Steve and Stuey has to deal with that. I hope Stuey has the straap ready to go!

- As for our child, Bonnie is growing quite nicely and I knock on her belly to wake lil Stevie up every now and then - mainly just to tick Bonnie off as she hates anyone touching her belly.

- Also, if you are looking for auto repairs and wanted to get raped, try the Pep Boys at the corner of Atlantic Blvd. and state road 9A in Jacksonville. They wanted me to plop down $1,500 to fix a few things on the Blazer. Needless to say, I told them that we wouldn't be doing any of those repairs now or anytime soon.

- Let me also state that I'm still pretty peeved about the no Godfather thing. I don't care what religion lil Stevie is dropped into - Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Greek Orthodox or Baptist - he will have Godfather...it maybe Vito Corleone or Jimmy Conway, but he will have a Godfather as I will make my son an offer he can't refuse.

- I've got some other random thoughts that I want to throw out at you. Take these in, let them simmer, swish them around and then get back to us:
-I live in Florida, yet I've used the heat more this year than in any year previously. If we're supposedly suffering from global warming, I want to know where it is.
-This bailout deal is bothering me. So the government is just going to businesses that have been run into the ground money to recover from mistakes, while not giving us tax breaks to help us spend money - which is what greases the skid of the economy in the first place. Who the hell came up with that idea? I'm no economist, but to give more money to people who screwed up with the first time doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me.