Waiting for Pizza

Waiting for my pizza at Lilies...best pizza in Chattanooga!  Catching up on my Time magazine reading while I wait, been studying  SSRS reporting...hungry now.

Waiting for our team huddle....new TVA concept.  Then I am going to go code in a coffee shop, be nice and quite and want to get a lot done.

We are heading to Atlant at 1:30-2 to take Brandons car up so he can sell it to a guy he knows. Then dinner in Atlanta

Great Weekend, Time to Catchup on Blogging

Had a great weekend, Mothers Day. We have changed churches and now have joined Abba's House on Hixson Pike in Hixson,TN. We love it and are starting to get involved, Pam in the choir and me serving at Wednesday Dinners before services. We have joined a Life Group(Sunday School) and it is a great mix of people and diversity along with some great ministry work to get involved in as we progress.
We went on our first trip with the Choir and a Riverboat dinner cruise on the Southern Bell, had a great time and met a lot of people along with the great food and music. We are looking forward to more fun in the future.
On the alimony front I only have 1 year and 11 months to pay the parasite, I see the light at the end of the tunnel!!!

Working out is going great, and I have lost weight and increased muscle, I am deadlifting about 175lb to 200lb and benching 250-275lb. I hope to start sprinting again soon, building that core.

We survived the storm and have been blessed in so many ways, all those that were hit so hard by the storms our hearts and prayers are with them. Thanks to my Life Group teacher who was looking around the internet and found this blog to remind me to get to blogging.

Praise God

Rocky Raccoon Rescued and other news in my life

I saw a great thing today coming into work about 8, two of our Chattanooga police and a Hamilton County Sheriff had blocked parts of the corner of MLK and Riverside drive and were protecting an injured raccoon, I assume until animal control could arrive and assist it........or they were waiting for permission to cap it?
Trying to blog regularly now at least every other day, I want to add and begin to research and add more of my opinion of divorce and alimony in Tennessee and the high cost and big business of the alimony and divorce racket that helps to clog our courts and make lawyers and judges money.

The state tries to use alimony to avoid mostly divorced women from being on the welfare rolls of the state but in truth most of the woman who have the money to pay lawyers to get them alimony would not have ended up on the states dole. The women who need help just to get justified child support cannot get help.

But I am researching these questions and many more for future blogs. I want to intensify my postings in this area as the next few years’ progress and include Judge Marie Williams who handled my divorce case and the methods she used to impress upon me her beliefs and mores and how her sexist attitudes and lack of objectivity affected my case and the monetary punishment she enacted upon me.

Well my workout schedule is going great, started my new heavy weight schedule for the next few weeks. I want to master the deadlift and the squat, also been doing a lot of box jumping and trying to improve my upward jump power. I hope all of the above will improve my core.

Still doing shows at the Vaudville Cafe in Chattanooga so come see a show. Have a great day!!!

It is 2011 and I am working on a Six Pack

That is my resolution for the new year.....a six -pack. My wife thinks it is pretentious but I am taking it anyway but that, I really am not sure I can do it at my age, almost 55, but it is the goal to keep me on workout.
I have been working out for about 6 months and am seeing results, weight loss, more muscle definition and bigger muscle as I do a lot of weightlifting. I read a number of articles that say that at my age I need more recovery meaning sleep and the right food and time between workouts so it is a learning experience. I have been reading about so called "Warrior workouts" like used for the movie "The 300" and am leaning that way for a leaner result rather then the "Body builder".
Now not to be out done by "The Situation"....for those not watching reality shows, "Jersey Shore", that is Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, I am calling my present stomach "The Cause". If I achieve the six-pack it will be renamed "The Solution" or "The Amazement".

I have to clarify here, my wife is upset that I may be sending the message that I watch "Jersey Shore" on a regular basis. I do not, I watch it for material to use in my shows at the Vaudeville Cafe in Chattanooga, it is like a car wreck, you have to look sometimes.....Snookie is a wealth of good jokes and you see many young ladies dressing and looking like her be it on purpose or not!

So I just hope to stay in shape to outlast paying the "The Private Welfare Parasite" in Tiftonia when I am done paying that $1000 dollar a month state, Tennessee, ordered extortion, alimony, and only have to pay child support after that is finished.
But I do have a great life now, I have a bunch of Grand kids and great sons and lots of family so hey...Life is Good! Happy New Year!!! from me and "The Cause"

It has been awhile....its almost 2011

I have not posted on this blog all year....pitiful! So much has happened this year. A new grandson...Eli....Gene is back from Afganistan safely. I have begun getting in shape and made it thru the holidays still working out and making gains. I just have to lose about another 20-30 lbs, yeah!

But still am paying that lazy woman in Tiftoina, ex-wife drawing alimony....not the child support mind you that is my job to support my son but to support a lazy, under acheiving woman with a bigger check then I pay for the child support is outragous, and for the last 6 years with two years to go still. It is an outrage this happens in the USA.

But it will be over soon and thats one of the many reasons I workout and stay fit because I want to be here to reap my reward when I get back the fruits of my.....MY...labor! Ok, got that off my chest so whats up for 2010.

Well Pam and I are going to be working on working out of course and I want to get more work done on my web sites. I want to look at new things to do and new ways to enjoy life and my spending time with my beautiful wife Pam and all our kids, family and grandkids we are very blessed no matter what has happened in the past so we have great things to look forward to in 2011.....Stay Tuned for more....

I did it, started getting my exercise

again. At Green way(Spangler Farms) at the end of the trail loop been walking for an hour almost. It is chilly but the sun is nice an invigorated! Forgot how nice this is picture I up loaded is top of the quarry

Merry Christmas

It is Christmas Eve and almost time to go to my wife's parents with the rest of the family. Up to now every thing has been leading up this point.

It is my third wonderful Wedding Anniversary, wed to the beautiful Pamela!!!!!!!

Today's post is to my wonderful wife of three years Pamela Longobardi. We have been married for three and all have been great. My life would not be the same without her and not worth being in this world.

She have taken me on adventures to Iowa, Panama City, Miami Beach and Cancun and I expect many more it the future.


This is not easy because I am an apprehensive traveler and can be a nervous wreck and a real butt leading up to a trip. In fact I have so many idiosyncrasies it is a wonder she did marry me, guess I hid them well.

I am so lucky to have her and want my life with her to go on forever. Because of the relationship with God that she has helped me develop that I hope will be possible. It is what gives our marriage the extra zing. She is an amazing Wife, Mother and Grandmother and is so beautiful it is hard to imagine she is a grandmother.

The following poem sums up how luck I am and I have found my self looking at her on a weekend morning and thinking just this:

Reflections of a Beautiful Morning The sun rises above the hillcrest, As does the joy of my heart; Rays of warmth and love,From her I will never depart.Fresh dew upon the grass,Young birds chirp in their nests;I watch her gently sleep,My love to her I silently profess.I enjoy the stillness and calm,Watching as she smiles and dreams;She brings me to stillness and peace,Like that of a slow flowing stream.My heart and soul flow with love,And I smile as I quietly reflect;I’ve been handed a sweet princess,A sweet princess to love and to protect.A vow to myself I make,As she quietly sleeps away;To love and always cherish her, Until my last breath... until my last day.- Michael Brieck -

I love you Pamela and I am looking forward to a new year with you and all the great things it will bring and the challenges we will get through together. You are a great compass in my life and give me direction when I lose my way because you have helped me to find that the Lord is who we ask when we are lost.

We are on our way to greater things everyday and it just keeps getting better baby

Your Grateful Husband, I love you

Well Another Busy Day

Well Pam and I have a busy day after work. Going to see my youngest son Nick's school Christmas production. We saw Isabella, Pam's granddaughter do her part in our children's church play on Sunday night at the Ministry Center, and our niece Sydney also, she had a lead part. It was great and the kid's did a great job as did the parents who helped put it together of which one was Pam's daughter Katrina.

This Friday night we are taking Nick to Rock City to see there Christmas display, so all week is Christmas

We have our wedding anniversary on Wednesday and we are celebrating this weekend and going to Nashville to see The Rockettes and to stay at the Opryland Hotel. We are looking forward to that and I love to go to Nashville during Christmas.

We will make a trip to the Opryland Mall and buy our last Christmas presents and I am sure eat! Like I need to but ya got to do what you got to do.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

It Snowed on the Creek

Just a quick post to show the snow. It looks great, will not last long.

Afghanistan, will it be another Vietnam

I worry it will be another Vietnam. It has been a quagmire going back to Alexander the Great. I hear many say it is not but many of them have only read about and studied Vietnam in school. I watched it every night on the news, studied it first hand in school and then joined the Army in the waining days of the war and was trained by it's veterans and heard their war stories and saw their scars. I heard first hand about how they felt they were unsupported by the command structures above them and had their hands tied by the government back home. They did not enjoy the support our troops have had up to now, I think that will begin to wain as the American people get tired of the war, again as it happened in Vietnam.

I have a son in Afghanistan so I was glad to finally hear President Obama present his plan. It is a lot of troops and worries me, being such an escalation of our involvement. How long will we be in this country propping up a central government that seems to have little control over the most of the country and can't run a fair election. I think and from what my son has told me the Afghan people seem to be a tough and admirable bunch of folks but do they even want or need our style of government. We cannot shove it down their throats, that has been tried many times before so we just need to train them and then turn over their destiny to the Afghan people.

Speed Traps Still Exist Virginia, help support Ellsinore, Misery.....I mean Missouri

Well in keeping with my new promise to myself I am going to get a post out this morning.

I have a show tonight at the Vaudeville Cafe, Talk Show, I am Walter the Stage Manager of a fictitious talk show, The Dorthy Cannon Show. I love this show because it has a lot of audience participation and changes every time based on the audience.

I did not mention it in yesterdays post but on the way back I got a ticket in a speed trap in
Ellsinore which is a city in Carter County, Missouri, United States. It has a population of 363 at the 2000 census.

I was traveling down highway 60 a very well built highway that is 65mph most all the way except in some built up areas that were well marked and had warnings to slow down. I was going about 70-75, I do admit but that put me 5-10 over the limit but I found my self getting pulled over by "I would assume Ellsinore's only finest" police officer in a white SUV that came out of nowhere! He informed me I was going 75 in a 55 and was 20mph over the speed limit. When did it become 55 I wondered....the highway had not changed a bit, few roads entering and no housing or buildings anyplace in sight? It was amazing, no reason that the speed should have changed. So I might have been only 5-10 mph over instead of 15-20, now it is a class B offense and up goes the revenue for Ellsinore! Can you say SPEED TRAP!!!!!
The speed limit did not change for any safety reason on this boring, well-built piece of highway but to support the tiny town of 363. Made me ashamed to have been a past Missouri resident! Notice in the map below how far the town is from the highway. Happy Holidays Ellsinore, MO.....your check will be in the mail soon buy Kojack a new radar gun


View Larger Map

Great Thanksgiving, Time to Start Blogging Again, so much to be thankful for

No one may ever read this but I need to start Blogging again every morning. Even if it is just a short one.

We have had so much to be thankful for this year. My wife's daughter Katrina had her daughters, the twins and they are healthy, growing and beautiful as is their four year old sister, Isabella.

Pam's other daughter Aimee is doing well in Nashville and has a new boyfriend and we had diner with and met his parents a few days ago and that was nice.

Then to top is off Pam's son Brandon got a great new job working for Lee University in Cleveland,TN. He will be developing relationships with church pastors and promoting Lee as a place for young people to go to college.

My son Gene is in Afghanistan finishing his tour but we had a great 15 day leave with him and his wife staying at our house with my grandson Carter. So far Gene is doing good and staying safe. Keep praying for him. I am looking forward to seeing what President Obama has to say regarding our countries future in that country.

So Thanksgiving is over....went to my Mom's in Pittsburgh, KS and my sister and brother and their significant others were there to have thanksgiving. I had not seen my sister in about 25 years.

Mom lives in a senior apartment complex so her place is small but we used the clubhouse for our dinner. Had some great food and a great time together. It was amazing that after all that time not seeing my sister and my brother only once in that time we just got going like we had not been apart.....just a lot to catch up on.

Went out and did the Black Friday thing at 4 the next morning. Got my mom a 32" flat screen TV that she loved and I loved giving her. My sister had got her a new laptop because the old one I gave her had died so she is all set now. She loves her computer...likes the slot machine games. Hope she will answer and email sometime?

So I had a great Thanksgiving. Reconnected with my family, got to know my brother-in-law Steve who is funny and had us in stitches. My Sister and my wife got along great and we have plans of going to the beach together in the summer. What a blessed life I have!

We are in Iowa

Well Pam and I arrived in Iowa yesterday, Friday, late afternoon. We are staying at her cousin Tona's house which we love being at because it is like a Victorian bed and breakfast. She has finished most of the upstairs now and it looks great.

Larry,Tona's husband and I went out to eat while the women went to a party of sorts at Tona's daughters house. We went to the Machine Shed, a restaurant in Davenport Iowa that serves food created from Iowa grown ingredients and boy do they accomplish it. I love Iowa pork chops and I am never disappointed in the chop I get at the Machine Shed, great veggies and coleslaw. I wanted to get Pam's granddaughter a pink stuffed pig, they had one but it was expensive.
This morning we are going over to her sister Patti's house and let her know we are here and surprise her, tonight we are going to see her play, Cowbirds. We also are meeting other family for dinner.
I am listening to Pam and Tona discuss the use of the word cairn as used by a relative, who know's why. Then in the morning,Sunday, the long drive back to Chattanooga..............................be home soon

To Iowa

Pam and I are on our way to Davenport,Iowa for a quick trip. Its a ten hour drive up and a ten hour drive back on Sunday. But we get to see folks and as aways Pam is excited. We are going to see Patti in the last night of her successful play, the Cowbirds. I will post links later, she is great

I love doing Coach

I have to do a show tonight at the Vaudeville Theatre for about 100 Lee University students. Its the Reunion Show and I play the coach, Coach Conroy, that everyone loves to hate at a fictitious high school reunion.
I am looking for humor to use as Lee is a Christen school and a Pentecostal one at that having affiliations with the Church of God of which I am proud to call myself a member. Since I have been part of a Pentecostal denomination I have noticed some of the best Pentecostal jokes come after a service and from members. Just spend some time around my wife's son Brandon who is a very funny guy. We joke about snakes, we don't use them but people think we do, speaking in tongues etc.

I found a top ten list I liked today

Top 10 signs that you are in the wrong church:
10. The church bus has gun racks.
9. The church staff consists of senior pastor, associate pastor and sociopastor.
8. The Bible they use is the Dr. Seuss version.
7. There is an ATM in the lobby.
6. The choir wears leather robes.
5. The worship services are B.Y.O.S. (bring your own snake).
4. There's no cover charge but communion is a two-drink minimum.
3. The pastor regularly attends meetings in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
2. The ushers ask, "Smoking or non-smoking?"
1. The Women's Quartet are all married to the pastor.

My wife's family has a lot of history with Lee as two of her children, Katrina and Brandon graduated from their and Katrina was a record setting volleyball player and has records that still stand. She was just inducted into the Lee Lettermen’s Club recently.


So I hope to have a great show tonight, I love this hobby and am glad my wife humors me and lets me be away to do these shows, this is an outlet for me


If you have not been to one you need to, Chris, the owner has a lot of specials and it is as affordable if not more so then eating out and going to the movies and you laugh a lot which is good for your health.
Pray a lot today, God loves to hear from you

My Grandson is here to visit, oh and his Dad also!

Carter Longobardi

Now that I am a grandpa, my son says I only want him to come to bring Carter my Grandson. Pam and I have got to be Grandparents all

weekend full time with both Isabella and Carter.
In my last post I mentioned the twins, Sophia and Amelia had to go back into the hospital due to some medications that had been prescribed and spent the weekend with their mother and father their being monitored. They are fine now but we had Isabella their older sister with us all weekend. She is a live wire and has more energy in her little finger then we do in our entire bodies. We had a great time and went shopping, watched TV, threw rocks in the creek and went to the parking lot carnival.

In the picture I uploaded you can see her coming in to strafe Pam below her plane.

We were also at the mall and she was demonstrating her balancing talents.

So we had a great weekend with a full house and lots of food and fun. So as how things start off bad in the beginning, in the end through faith in God and each other we turned it into a great weekend that ended with the twins and family coming home, a great church service and the other half of the family at our house for dinner. Praise God

Have I been doing it all wrong?

I saw something on the news this morning regarding blogging and use of twittering. It implied a blog might be more of an on-line journal. So I have been writing with readers in mind, which, I doubt I have. So now I just am going to write and post pictures and if anyone reads, so be it.

I have a great deal to journal, a divorce almost four years ago, being savaged by an biased and sexist judge, Marie L. Williams of the Third Circuit Court of Hamilton County in Chattanooga Tennessee. Trying to pay a high child support and wrong and outrageous alimony to an undeserving women, my home stolen from me along with many other possessions. All while trying to keep my income high enough to live myself and support my wife and myself.
I do have many more blessings then things to complain about, I have a great relationship with the Lord, a beautiful wife and lots of kids and grand kids both my own and through marriage to Pam. We have has some ups and downs, unemployment, lower paying jobs but in all I have been doing great and have much to be thankful for in the end. Every day my blessing outnumber any hardships. Those can be handled just by be living in God and having faith in his promises.

I can say that I don't think my ex-wife is as happy as I am! I have so much diversity in my life.
I have a part-time hobby job at the Vaudeville Cafe Murder Mystery Dinner shows in Chattanooga,TN. I play about four different roles in three plays and get to have a lot of improv comedy fun and meet a lot of people.
I have a great job as a programmer at TVA. I have a great church, The Ministry Center, in Hixson, TN. More friends and family than I think I have ever had, so I am very blessed.

So I have has the song says, taken back, with Gods help and blessing, what the devil stole from me, my devils are Marie Williams and my ex-wife but I still have to work hard to forgive them as I hope they can forgive me. I have a lot I can add on these subjects I want to journal in the future.

But I want to use this blog as first my own sounding board, what anyone else gains if anyone ever reads it, that will be great but it needs to be a daily thing to write and post here. I think it will do me the most good because I get it off my chest and then can let it go if it is a bad thing and remind myself of the good things.

So till tomorrow, God Bless You if you are reading this and God bless me and my enemies if I have any..................sure if?

The Twins are here

I have been way behind in my posting and need to catch up. Last Sunday the twins made their right on time and safe entry into the world. Both Mother and babies are in great shape. The girls are beautiful and healthy.

There was a complication with medication that caused the twins and their mom to go back in the hospital but all is fine now and they are back home.