The Neil Blog: Her

For the first time in many, many years:  I didn’t fill out the NCAA bracket.    I haven’t been watching the games either.    I soured on college basketball thanks to one thing.   Sean Miller.    The University of Arizona basketball program hasn’t been this bad in 36 years.    They should have fired him last year.    It’s like they’re afraid of hurting his feelings or something.   I never cared for him.    Now that he has the program in the toiled, I’m not quiet about it anymore.    The other Arizona boosters have finally joined me.     No one can believe you can have recruits like he gets and put out a losing team.   It’s depressing.    That program was a top ten program for 25 years.    They were a standard.   Now, they’re nothing.    They didn’t even get asked to the NIT.    How bad is that??

Worse yet, the couple of games I watched before I gave up.   Bill Walton.    Bill Walton might have been a good TV guy ten years ago.   He isn’t anymore.  First time in years, I watched games with the mute button pushed.    Couldn’t stand him.    Miller and Bill Walton just ruined the sport for me.    No interest.   

Perhaps next year will be different.    I was always competitive with my tournament picks.    Every year.    This year, I just didn’t watch.    I’d have been guessing.   

The fishing:   Not as good as it should be for this time of year.     It will come around.    Just generally, things have gotten tougher.   The update:  I finally heard from the new governor.   And not just a form letter in return.   It acknowledged that they read what I wrote and took it seriously.   My reply will be long.    My request will be for action.    If they are serious, wholesale changes should be coming.    It’s a bad system.    I’d anticipate, I will make things work better.   I think back:  The promises.   I would be on the inside moving forward.   FWC employees were going to consult me regularly?    Then, I hear from them zero times in the last seven years.   None.    What good was that promise?   I just shake my head at all the time that has one by where there has been no progress, while the whole time I have been open to the idea of “help.”   The cream always rises to the top.  

 The house:   More progress.     Big paydays, big trips to the stores.    The bar is complete.    Built for umpires:  None of them showed up.    They were doing their own thing.   I understand.   I just think they don’t realize what I created here for them.     Whatever.     The next addition:   A big beer fridge.     The ice machine I got, not what I wanted so it is going back.    I’ll get the one I want in here.     With these off days:   Bushes for the front yard.    The other planters are getting additions.    Bobbie got ten packages of seeds.    She brought over like ten other seedlings.     Things are filling in.     Plans are to keep expanding that.     The rainy season is just a couple of months away.   I want to get everything in and ready for the growing season.  

Days off:   The van got a major washdown to get the salt off it.    The bushes all over the house got a drink.   No rain in the forecast I decided it was up to me to give them a drink of water.   They’re all happy.  

I call it like it is.    The governors office finally replied.   Their reply:  They are throwing it to the FWC.   My response:   The FWC doesn’t cut it.     It is time to step it up another level.    The inadequecies, it isn’t a bad thing to push for change.    They didn’t follow through on their end.     They failed.    These people shouldn’t be in these jobs anymore.    That is my shift.   For change.   Positive change.   More as that transpires.

The bar grew by leaps and bounds.    There are now 17 bottles of vodka.    Everything else I could think of.   It will continue to grow slightly but it is pretty much fully stocked.    Now, for someone to start drinking it.    Bobbie hung new curtains in the window next to the bar.   The utility room will have the floor painted the same color as those curtains (ask Bobbie, I don’t know anything about decorating.)   The front porch is the seminar location.    There are 20 photos I had made that are out there.    Fishing photos.    

Hockey:  If you ask me.  Crunch time.   Boston.    Boston just whipped them a week ago.    The Lightning beat them the next time.   They meet again to close out the season.    Tampa Bay just showed they can play with them.   If Boston handed it to them again, it was trouble.   Now things look good going into the playoffs.   Two down against Boston:  They win.   Kucherov, Stamkos.  Cirelli.    Getting it done.   The real key:  Hedman.   A defenseman who comes through on offense EVERY single night.   Two late goals, they practically stole one.     Update:  Hedman is out.   Probably for the rest of the season.   They are loaded enough, someone will step in.   Update:  They beat Boston.     I saw Boston losing again to another team yesterday.    The Lightning have a real chance to win the whole thing this year.    Their third meeting with Washington:  They finally lost one.    Ovechkin scored well which was bound to happen.    In a series:  The Lightning look good against anyone.  

Now, if they don’t win another game this year:  I don’t really care.   Baseball cured me of sports.   I simply don’t really care.    

Book number three:  The humor book.   This will go to final edits in a couple of months.   I have yet to show it to anyone.    I came up with a few really good additions this week.   Kind of why I was waiting:  It’s not all in there yet.   

Let’s hear it for melted butter!    No reason.   I just thought I would mention it.  

Five days on the water.      Not bad action.     The fish were bigger a week ago but the action was pretty good the past few days.     The end of the bad tides it wasn’t great.   That was the beginning of John’s visit.   He caught a few fish that first day but he caught a lot of fish his last three days.   His pal Mike came in for the last two days.      They stayed at my house so we had a lot of time together.   Bobbie cooked.   Steaks two nights.     Mike is from Oklahoma.     Generally he is pretty good at the fishing thing.     Still working, he went down to Sarasota for a convention.   So did John.   Mike is the director of the organization.   John is a paid guest speaker.     Anyway, they got in their fishing first.    And they got in fun times around my neighborhood.     Mike broke in the new bed.     Having them stay here, I needed another bed so I went out and got one:  A bed that will moving forward be my bed.    

I am in love.    For 45 years.   There’s this, that.   And the other thing.    Honest to God:  I never wanted anything else.   So now:   I am talking to her again?    Really??    Never had anything happen back then.   Nothing has happened now but we are talking.     She is as good looking now as she was when we were 14 years old.    I’m not as good.     But I’m rich, so that helps.   We are only 1000 miles apart.   Amazingly:  She wants to come see me.    Maybe she just wants to be in Florida instead of Pennsylvania?     There is nothing that can go wrong.    She thinks I’m amusing, going on 40 years now.   So, we will do just fine.

 I’ll let her put her hands up my shirt.     My Mom won’t like reading that.

My father would have liked it.   I was nothing.   She was everything.   She wants to talk to me now??    Not even a joke.   She actually wants to talk to me now….  The only loss:   What I haven’t told her yet.   But I’m close.   I told her enough.    The rest is near.    If she can feel 80% of what I feel:   My life will have changed.    Fact.

 I got old.     I’d just like to see her.   Nothing more.   Nothing less.     The amazing thing about that:  The list of people I don’t want to see anymore.    Sorry:  It’s a fact.    The people in the category are probably what makes it most interesting.   The things in life going on right now feature my failures rather than my success.   There are possibilities that I might reverse some failures.     There is the possibility that nothing will change in my life.   Whatever.    I guess we will see how many people still read my stuff.    I have just written about the most important thing in my life.    The rest of my life is great and all:   She is the best thing in my life.   Damned if the world isn’t cruel:  I’m not good looking anymore….  That part withstanding will never change what I think about her.    If I can get her to feel the same way about me:   There is new news to tell.  There is greatness in the world.   I hadn’t seen it in about twelve years.     This girl is it.    Cut it however you want:   I will never love anyone more than I love her.    I’ll bet you would never see that.   The end.    There is greatness in life:  I’m am finally achieving it.

Book sales, not bad.     Finishing the charters, the mail that came in:   Five people sent check to get the book, two of them, both books.    That was seven books sold today.   I already got to “breakeven” so now book sales are really nice.      So many people out there that should want the books.    If this stays steady:   Great.     I think the third book is the big seller.   The fourth book is years away and that one might be getting national attention.     Book 3 is humor.   Book 4 is my life.   That one is the longest.    It is five years away from publication but it is easily the longest.      I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think people would want to read it.    I was supposed to be a writer.   I’m trying to make that happen.    Anyone can publish a book.    Is the book any good??   I can tell you.    My two books already published.   They are both good.  

Quitting Facebook, a good financial decision.   I don’t have to donate to all these causes my friends have.    That’s the only way they promote it.   I never see it.     Their fault for not utilizing email the way I do.    More of my friends have quit.   More of them have the same complaint.    Facebook gave away peoples’ personal data.    I’m surprised everyone didn’t quit.   You look at it and it wouldn’t have mattered if I signed up with a fake email.    But how was I to know they would do what they did?