8-21-05

That little critter on the right is called a robber fly or bee killer.

There's no real reason why I posted it, I just wanted to share a picture with you.

The picture was taken on the fence out by our dog's pen. They are scary little creatures. I've seen these guys carrying around other little creatures they are in the process of killing.

Anyway, when I was but a young lad, I always felt like when a person got to be my age (42), they practically had one foot in the casket.

But something strange happened on the way to middle agedom, I realized you don't change all that much.

Now I'm not as brave as I was ten years ago. I think there is some kind of inner thought process that tells a person not to do things they would have done a few years before without even thinking about it.

Such as climbing trees, jumping over fences, etc. Now, there's something inside me that tells me that yeah, I could probably do that, but I'll regret it the next day or two.

I can still do most of the things that I was able to accomplish when I was thirty. It just takes a little longer.

I am also able to think just as well, it just takes a little longer to figure it out. Although I do not have the same memory, or it might just be selective memory. I firmly believe that I am still able to remembere the important stuff, like when a football game will be played.

I do drop the ball when it comes to stuff that I don't think is all that important, such as wife sayings. But that is probably true with all guys. The old "don't you remember me telling you that we were going to spend all day at my mother's house visiting with my kinfolk instead of allowing you to enjoy your day off" kind of thing.

Actually, that doesn't happen all that often. I have nothing against my mother-in-law. She's a really good lady. I'm just using that as an example.

My wife says she worries about me not remembering stuff. Again, if it is important, I remember it. There's like a built-in deleting mechanism in my head. I allow what I believe to be important to enter the brain. If it isn't something I am interested in, the stuff goes into the trash can.

I have not entered my middle-age crisis yet. I don't want to trade my wife in for a new model, fully realizing that isn't the thing to do, or get a sport's car. I have thought about getting a motorcycle, but have this fear of getting hit by semis without the protection an automobile offers.

The only thing that really bothers me about getting older is the worry that in ten years, I'll look back and say "If only...." Much like I do about when I was twenty or thirty.

But I guess that's life.

Speaking of life, yesterday we mowed and weedeated the old homestead. Thanks to our rain, our grass is growing like it is spring again. That pretty much killed all morning. The wife, daughter and I decided to take a quick visit to Fort Smith and see a flick.

I wanted to see The 40-Year Old Virgin, because it sounded funny and even the critics didn't trash it. But something about the topic of the movie and the "R" rating had the wife convinced that was not something a 12-year old girl should watch.

Heck, they watch crap worse than this on the Lifetime Channel all the time. Notice, I didn't link to that. Once, I blocked it so when they were skimming through the channels, they couldn't find it. That was cool.

Anyway, we talked it over and decided to go see Red Eye instead. No, this isn't something Visine can take out. Overall, it was a good movie. The only things that bothered me was in the preview, the bad guy's eyes turn red and you think he's the devil or something. That has nothing to do with the movie.

Plus, the director, Wes Craven, usually puts out those kinds of movies.

But this is a cool movie, anyway. The basic gist is the heroine is the manager of a plush ocean-side resort in Miami. She had to go to Dallas for her grandmother's funeral. Some gonad starts treating her nice and they get to talking.

Surprisingly, they wind up sitting next to each other on the flight, which is good since there would not be a movie otherwise. I won't give away any of the good stuff, other than tell you they share a bathroom on the plane, but don't enter the Mile-High Club.

By the way, we had a serious breach of Hall Family traditions Friday evening. The wife and daughter watched Beaches in our house. I was off playing on the computer and discovered they had started the movie before I could tell them that movie was not allowed in this house.

I can't watch "R" rated movies, then she shouldn't watch crap like that.