John Robert Powers - journal john r powers sean powers johnpowers slampo8 grumpy guy in the black coat it's all me)
I loathe the expression "What makes him tick." It is the American mind, looking for simple and singular solution, that uses the foolish expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an electric clock in a thunderstorm.
7:54pm: Mexico
"They never hear it, they feel it."
The way they found him was by tracing his fees. Yes they were in cash but that doesn't matter anymore. People the cartels want to disappear get paid cash by people he pays. Eventually he deposited enough pieces of his assassinations to convenience stores and groceries and bars and take out pad thai restuarants that used their ACH cloud services subsidiary to web him in.
"They never hear it, they feel it and don't remember."
"Julia to foxtrot" "Foxtrot over" "Proceed "
"They never hear it, they feel it and don't remember much from there..."
4:29pm: Julia is two
Today is my Daughter's 2nd birthday. Squee, YaYa (what she calls herself), Julia Rose. Named after my beloved grandmother and the middle name of my wife Anne's Grandmother, she is equally and more beloved.
We had two parties for her this weekend. One on Saturday for the family and one on Sunday for her and TJ's (her brother) friends, but today is her birth day.
On my desk at work I have a picture of myself and my wife, one of TJ and Julia and another of just Julia herself. Her hair is slowly coming in all over. At first when she was so small, she had no hair at all. Then her hair grew in from the back and she was mostly bald up top, the ultimate baby mullet, "short up top for the Daddies, long in back for the Momma's"... now it is more grown in, but her hair still resembles the Nick Nolte mug shot in the most adorable way that Nick Nolte's mug shot is not.
TJ, her brother loves her too and she adores him. They are brother and sister though so they have their moments. Lots of people say Julia can hold her own with the bigger kids. The daycare people at the gym say that, some of the parents of TJ's friends say that, so perhaps having an older brother gives her an advantage.
She talks. She talks and says so many things that it surprises you. Some times you think she is a mimic savant with how she can repeat almost anything you tell her to say, to the point when she doesn't repeat what you ask her to, you almost think she is refusing on principle. Animals, sounds, names, phrases, three words at a time. She says "No more eat" when we leave a restaurant, she says "TJ, Mommy, bye bye" if they leave together. Please, thank you, her vocabulary is immense. "Yesh" for yes. "No, uh uh, nope..." all for no. She talks so well I sometimes forget that a lot of two year olds can't speak this way.
At night we read to her as we read to her brother. Sometimes together, sometimes separate from her brother, but the special thing that she and I do is to sit in her rocking chair and sing lullabies’ before I put her down for the night. The same four or five songs. Little Boy Blue, Rock-a-bye Baby, Silent Night, and a sweet song I think I learned from Anne that she made up: "Lullaby and good night, soon you will be sleeping, lay your head down to rest, and soon sleep will appear. Lullaby and good night..."
Our friend Sou knitted her a rainbow blanket that she sleeps with every nap and night. She loves that thing. She also sleeps in a big giant pink fuzzy blanket. I put her down on one half of it and cover her with the other half. Her crib looks like the coziest place to sleep I'd have ever slept, were I able to fit into a 4 foot by 3 foot crib.
She loves dolls and trucks and her play kitchen set that I put together for Santa until 2:30 AM on Christmas Eve. When music comes on the stereo that she likes she leans her head back and yells "Ahhhhhhhh" and spins around, sometimes until she falls down. She loves to watch backward too. One day Anne and I were at the kitchen table and she said to us "Mommy. Daddy. Watch this." and she proceeded to walk backwards from near the able across the next room. We were quite impressed and she knew it.
We love her, our YaYa, our Julia. Happy birthday sweetheart.
It states everywhere to not contact me for site issues. Use the help desk. Please, you pin head.
Yeah, I know customer service is supposed to be the be all and end all, but honestly, when you are paying 6 cents a day and you want me to code something special for you so a staff member can't contact you any more because that staff member had the audacity to rate your crappy poem a 5 instead of the usual kiss ass 10 everyone else rated it in the hopes you'd reciprocate, well, buddy, it is going to take a lot more than that before I jump at your generosity.
Oh, and your poetry is pretty uninspiring, so the comment left was actually kind of justified."
12:46pm: Happy New Year
If you try, you can find so much joy, fun and happiness in the past year and decade. You can live your life focusing on the bad. You can let the negative blind you. That is how some roll. I refuse to do that.
I'm not perfect. I do get down. Some days it all gets to me too, but each new year for as long as I can remember, I've chosen to reminisce about all the joys, big and small that came my way. These past 10 years are no exception. No grudges here.
Yin or Yang. Dark or Light. Happy or Sad. Calm or Anxious.
5:39pm: Father vs Son
As a child I would say "Na na na, na na." As in "Na na na, na na. You can't catch me." Today I was playing tag with my four year old and he was saying "Na na na, BOO BOO. You can't get me." Yesterday at the beach I heard some other kids yelling "Na na na, BOO BOO." too. Have times changed? It is a MA vs RI thing?
I went to the Optometrist today. Both of my eyes improved by two clicks! I am two years older since my last checkup and my eyes are getting better.
My daughter Julia is going to be two this winter and she keeps getting better and better. She is 19 months old now and she has been walking for a month. She's really good at it and its as if she never started late.
What she is early on, however is talking. She says words like Dog, Cat, Milk, Momma, Daddy, TJ, Eye, Bye, Hi, MiMi (Grandma in our Kids language), Georgia (the dog), Dayus (the other dog), Up, No, Yesh, More, eat, and a whole lot more I can't think of.
We love her so. She doesn't like to go to bed and cries hard for a few minutes after we close her door. If she wakes up in the night you have to reset her by cuddling with her on the couch for a while.
Julia loves to do everything her brother does. If he is coloring, she wants to. If he is playing ball, she gets a ball. She loves his match box cars.
One of her favorite things lately is to pick out her own clothes to wear. Julia is great at saying "no". If we ask her a question such as do you want milk, or do you want to go to bed, or do you 'anything', she shakes her head NO pretty emphatically. Although once I asked her, after she said no to about 5 of my questions, if she wanted a pony, and she clapped her hands and said "Yesh!". HA. So she likes to pick out her clothes and I ask her sometimes if she wants to pick out her pajamas, and she slowly and very deliberately nods her head yes. It is so interesting to a parent the way their children's brains develop.
She is not without total naughtiness, she is one of the sweetest well mannered babies I have seen, but the other day, TJ, for the 100th time, stuck his face right up to hers. Really close. He gets in trouble for doing this, but as a 4 year old, he often forgets or ignores and gets the parental punishment. Well, he did it again, to her, when mad about something for the 102nd time and this time, Julia in all her innocence, decided enough was enough and bit him hard on the nose! He cried and cried. The indignity of his sister telling him enough was enough was just too shocking. They both went into time out. Julia for 1 minute, TJ for 4. *1 minute per year of age TJ has never stuck his face in hers like that again.
She is our joy. Both kids are, but she is my little girl. Equally loved, and appreciated in different ways.
9:10pm: Whats up?
I used to write diary slash blog slash posts every day. For years I did this. In 1998 I started. That makes me feel old. I'll get over it.
Work is going well. I've been pulling over 40 for a while now. I'm learning new things and keeping my eye on the ball.
Last week I was on vacation in the Dominican Republic with my fantastic wife Anne. We spent 5 days on the beach and in the pool. We were tan and we were relaxed. I still feel the rewards of that break.
Anne is a Major in the Air Force now. I am so proud of her. After major is goes Lt Colonel, Colenel and then General. She is two steps away from a General! I wish I were home more. I wish I were there more for her. She has a big birthday coming up. We're going to have a party!
TJ turned 4 in August as well. He is an intelligent man in a small body. We love him so. I can see how people have 13 kids. They're fantastically interesting and rewarding individuals. He still knows sign. He speak some Spanish. He starts full time Pre-K in Sept and will be learning Italian. He loves his 'ABC' blanket like Linus loves his blanket. He is my buddy. He is our son. He love his momma most of all. He and Julia and Anne are a dream fulfilled for me. All I want for him is for him to learn to fulfill his personal expectations, for him to be comfortable with his path, for him to truly live.
Julia is a year and a half now. She walks, she talks, she signs a lot! We know exactly what she is saying (pretty much) every day she learns more and more. Just like her brother, she loves books. I read to her whenever I can. It is tough though. Working in Boston I feel I spend far less time with her at this age then I did with TJ at the same age. Sometimes I come home and she is already asleep. That sucks. Things will change, but not not soon enough I am afraid. I want her to grow into a strong person who is super happy with who she is. I can't wait to teach her algebra.
We still have all of the animals (2 dog, 3 cats) and two new Goldfish that belong to TJ. Flip and Flop, he named them. The dogs need more walks. I even consider finding Georgia a new home, though it would pain me so.
GotPoetry had 22,210,331 page views so far this year compared to 26,695,304 last year. At about 3 million a month, we're bound to beat last year. At this moment our poetry collection contains 49,846 poems and we have many many more poems in the forums. We're up to almost 9,000 members.
Lately I work, spend time with this family, and the sleep. I do it over and over. I like it. I wish I had more hours in the day.
12:34pm: Julia at 16 Months
Julia will be a year and a half in August. She repeats about 15 signs now, she lets go of her mom in the pool and kicks, and she says about 10 words already.
We're so lucky.
Edit: 15 Words: Mama, Dada, TJ, Dog, Cat, More, Up, Milk, No, Ball, Book, Boom, Thank you, No More, All done
It will be at least 6 to 8 weeks before I stop reading and hearing about him.
Edit: To hell with Prince too... I used to really like his music until I learned what a tool he is. M... I never cared for anything by him except for one or two songs.
Name these vegetables!
I am embarrassed to say that I do not know what these two vegetables are.
They were party of our weekly share from the local organic co-op farm. I am sure when I cut into them I'll know what they are, but I don't want to waste them.
Did you know hundred of people a day wind up at GotPoetry looking for sports poems? Did you know the Sports Poems section of GP has the least poems of any category there?
This means you should post sports poems at GP any see how many hundreds of reads you will get in a short period of time!
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