Geezer

There are 386 posts filed in Geezer (this is page 28 of 39).

Highlights of 2011: Family time

It was a big year for the family, full of growth for all of us.

This time last year, Travis was still in kindergarten. He had been put through a few aptitude tests at Kelly and my insistence, as we knew he wasn’t being challenged by the coursework. Then one afternoon last December, we got called in to meet with the school staff to review Travis’s results.

We’d been told again and again that grade promotion was extremely rare and not to get our hopes up, so Kelly and I weren’t fully expecting a change. Instead, we heard from wide-eyed teachers that Travis was not only performing above a first grade level, he was even above-average for second grade! I don’t know who was more astonished, them or us!

After much serious thought and discussion, Kelly and I decided it was best for Travis to advance a grade. Thus, Travis started kindergarten in the fall of 2010 and jumped into the second half of first grade in January 2011. He had a little adjusting to do but he caught on quickly and is now thriving in his new grade!
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Hello 2012

The Acorn drops in Raleigh on New Years Eve 2011 at 7 PM


Happy 2012, everyone! I expect it to be a great year.

I’ve heard some saying “good riddance” to 2011, calling it a “tough year,” but I don’t see it that way. The way I see it, any year in which you make it to the end is a good year.

I wish you peace, prosperity, and happiness in 2012!

Highlights of 2011: McNultys move

It hit me harder than I expected when our next-door neighbors the McNultys moved away earlier this month. They’d been here to welcome us when we moved in and now they’re in St. Louis.

Whenever their daughter Lily was out in their driveway my kids would almost always drop what they were doing to go play with her. It was really sweet to watch. When the grownups needed time away from the kids we would trade nights of kid-sitting. And we would gather around their chimnea to roast marshmallows on occasion.

Being the last house on a dead-end street definitely makes it tougher when your next-door neighbor moves away. I wish them well in their new city, though, and hope they visit here again soon.

Highlights of 2011: Earthquake

I would never thought an event lasting 15 seconds would become a highlight of the year, but this year’s earthquake made a big impression on me!

Sure, my West Coast friends doubled over with laughter at the panic the quake caused on the East Coast. The truth is, though, that we don’t get earthquakes as strong as this, and certainly we don’t build our buildings to withstand them. When the photos came back of the damage at Mineral, Virginia there were a number of buildings that became rubble.

As I write this, word comes that a minor earthquake measuring 4.0 rocked the state of Ohio. I wonder if we’ll be seeing more of these with all the fracking that’s now going on.

We could be in for a bumpy ride.

Highlights of 2011: Satellite dish

This was the year I finally indulged in a hobby I’ve long wanted to try: satellite reception! In January, as a birthday present, I answered a Craigslist ad for a few Free-To-Air (FTA) satellite receivers and dishes that were being sold. I got a few used receivers and dishes for a great price and went right to work figuring out how to get everything connected.

What resulted was an opening to a world I had only imagined before. So many TV and radio stations were available to me, many of them from distant lands. I became obsessed with finding new signals and perfecting my reception. I even planted two dishes instead of just one, working around the trees in my yard as best I could.
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Visit from a shipmate

Orlando with his ambitious daughter, Leah


Through the magic of Facebook, I connected recently with a shipmate who now lives in North Carolina. Orlando Brown and I served together in OZ Division on the USS Elliot (DD-967) from 1989 until 1992 (though he left a few months before I did). While I served only one enlistment, Orlando stayed in to retire as a Chief Petty Officer.

As division mates we went through a lot together, including a few questionable division officers and division chiefs. You get to know people really well when you’re around them almost constantly for three years. He and the other shipmates in our division are like brothers to me. Always will be.
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Domain anniversary

Ten years ago today I registered my domain, markturner.net. I got it with eye towards blogging, bill I didn’t start blogging until January of the next year.

Bloggng is more than just a hobby, it’s an obsession. I could never guess how much fun would be ten years later.

Building Raleigh’s startup scene from the ground up

Officials from Raleigh and N.C. State announced a partnership Monday to make Raleigh a “city of innovation.” A conference, known as the Raleigh Innovation Summit, will take place on January 18th, 2012 to discuss ways to give the city’s startup scene a boost. Being that I’m not yet working again and I have experience with startups, I grabbed my camera and headed to the press conference, eager to hear more details.

The press has already done a good job covering the details, it turns out. Thus there’s not much I can add to this except a few thoughts after the fact.
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University, Inc.

I’ve often considered going back to college. Then I read stuff like this from NCSU Chancellor Randy Woodson, citing the reasons for a massive 29% tuition hike:

With classes in some cases growing from 200 students to 300, faculty members struggle against a growing tide of test grading and other mundane chores, Chancellor Randy Woodson told the trustees committee.

“It takes them out of the business of being scholarly, of doing research and of moving the economic engine of this state forward,” Woodson said.

Let me translate this for you: “Those pesky students who are trying to learn are keeping us ivory-tower types from trying to pad our resumes and the university’s coffers. They should fork over their money and just shut up.”

Is it any wonder I’m disillusioned with higher education? Is it also any wonder that these schools’ big-time college sports programs get away with what they do?

Woman finishing up driving test crashes into Fayetteville DMV

This is a sad reminder that at a certain point some folks lose the ability to drive safely when they age.

Cars mean independence. If you take away someone’s driving ability, you take away their independence. We need to build our cities and communities so that one doesn’t need cars to retain one’s independence.

Three customers at a Fayetteville DMV office required medical attention Wednesday after a car came crashing through the building.

Gavin MacRoberts, spokesman for the Fayetteville Police, says a 2008 Acura crashed into the DMV office, located at 841 Elm Street, shortly after Noon.

It appears the driver, 77-year-old Annie Gore, was pulling into a parking space after completing a driving test when she accidentally stepped on the gas and crashed into the front of the building.

via Woman finishing up driving test crashes into Fayetteville DMV | NBC17.com.