Icewind's Ramblings

It has been snowing all day today. It started during the night and slowly built into some significant snowfall. Saturday mornings I usually meet business associates and friends for breakfast and spend about an hour and a half talking and relaxing with those there. It was the usual time this morning as I arrived. I left the house a little earlier than usual because of the overnight snowfall and several vehicles were off to the side of the road from skidding off into a snow bank. Usually this happens because people drive too fast for the conditions or try using their cruise control on icy roads causing the vehicle to spin out. My golden retriever, Levi usually goes with me on my Saturday morning outings. We head to breakfast and then finish any errands before returning home. He enjoys this time and loves the snow. Levi heads out and usually will roll around making snow angels or burying his head in the large piles of snow around the house where we snowplow th...

As the New Year approaches we are reminded, Every calendar's days are numbered. If this was a bad year for you, it’s almost over. Readjust your attitude and next year will be a great one. Ice

Today, I could not find my pizza cutter. This greatly limits my functionality in the kitchen. The frustrating part is that there aren’t that many logical places for it to be: the kitchen or in my hand. It could not be found in either. So where in the world could it be? I can recall once trying to open an unwrapped CD with it. And one time I used the handle end of it to hammer in a nail. But now I found my hammer so I wouldn't need it for that. This is driving me crazy! It could be anywhere, but it shouldn't be. Either in the kitchen or in my hand, that's how it's always been. Now I'm reluctant to walk around in the dark, as my feet might get pizza-sliced! Of course I made this discovery AFTER cooking the pizza. Now I know what life was like before pizza cutters, and it was not good. Ice

During the Christmas holidays there were several trips to Costco or the mall. We've all seen them. It was easy to not notice them at first since they have been among us for a time now. Lately it seems they are everywhere you go. I see them in restaurants, movie theaters, and almost anywhere people gather. They walk the streets around the world with a Borg -like contraption glued to one ear, unaware of red lights, cars, or people. They're on autopilot. They're the new zombies of mobile technology. I am not quite sure if I am witnessing a Star Trek episode or living in the world described in the nine short stories by Isaac Asimov in “I, Robot” . Mobile technology is changing human behavior quickly. Once, people talked face-to-face with occasional telephone calls. Now, it's email, cell phones, webinars and voice mail. What happened to us? When did it become acceptable in our society for people to become so wrapped up in their techno-...

Merry Christmas everyone. From my wife's friend Amy, Enjoy! http://www.thecompassgroup.biz/merryxmas.swf Ice

Tonight on the eve of Christmas 2006 I would like to share with you a prayer - a prayer that I discovered through a good friend of mine many years ago who gave it to me. The prayer is not a particularly old one in that it was written sometime in the mid-1800's and what oddly attracted me to it was not - the wisdom, upon reflection that its author was trying to praise God for . . . but rather the fact that the author was an unknown Confederate soldier. I have read quite a lot about the civil war as I grew up in Atlanta and was surrounded by the many battlefields. I was fascinated with stories from that time period and spent time searching for artifacts left from the many battles in and around Atlanta . I thought . . . I might be able to get a historical perspective on the civil war while visiting the many sites around the city. Little did I know that over the next 20 years or so I would read that prayer and it would continue to change me. The fact that the prayer was aut...