Yesterday I was in a bit of a bind. I knew that Kathy and I were going to be out on a weekend together (starting tonight) and that we planned to go cross country skiing. The problem was that my ski boots had come apart from their soles. Kathy had been gently reminding me that they needed fixed for the last two weeks and of course I planned to get it done. I had just never actually done it. I called the shoe repair place that I had found on the web and asked if they could get them fixed in a day and they nearly laughed at me. I made some more inquiries and a few phone calls later I found Tony’s Quality Shoe Repair down in South Bend. Tony is a little Italian guy from the old country whom you can tell by looking at his knotted muscles that make up his hands, he knows what he is doing. Tony took a look at my boots and told me that he could not reattach them the way they had been made (with a rivet through the toe) but that he could do it in a better way. When I got them back less than a day later they were wonderful. Done fast and good for a mere $20. I then noticed some really nice dress shoes in his shop and he gave me a catalog for some REALLY nice custom made shoes. I drooled all the way home. I really like everything on page 11 and the classico loafer on page 13. Now, keep in mind that these shoes start at about $250 and go up to about $350, but oh boy if I had the money, I would have some of those. The white saddle shoes on 18 would definately catch Ash’s eye. If I were a rich man…..

Today I set up a couple of google alerts to see if there is anyone talking about me or my blog (and to see what they are saying) and I inadvertently found myself. I am of course Kevin Greenlee, but so am I. It would appear that Kevin is a Christian planning to become a minister and/or professor. He likes Christian contemporary music. He is a Star Trek fan and reads a lot (including some sci/fi) OK This is officially spooky. His interests are politics, religion, reading and writing. He is even the same zodiacal sign as I (for whatever that matters). The major differences are, he is 22 and I have more hair. Well, that and He was born in Kenya and is a resident of California going to Berkley. THAT is nothing like the mid-west me.

at 41 facial hair has become more than a reality. It is a daily battle. at 6 every morning I am taking the new razor my wife bought for me (five blades on this bad boy) and removing the growth from the past 24 hours, which these days is substantial. But that is not it. About once a week I have to do what I thought unthinkable a mere decade or so ago. I take my index finger of my left hand, place it on the tip of my nose, and push upward. Thus exposing the increasingly thick undergrowth so that it can be dealt with. I sometimes use tweezers (which brings tears to the eyes) or a specially designed head for my electric razor which does a good job of… roto-rooting. That doesn’t complete things though. The ears are about once a month (very similar treatment as the nose) and the eyebrows are about twice a week (they need trimmed in length and thinned out with tweezers- also painful). Why am I telling you all of this? Because, friends and neighbors, I got nuttin on the people I have seen this past week, and two out of three of them were female! A woman came to the office the other day and I kid you not, she had a beard. She didn’t have a few unsightly facial hairs, this chick had a BEARD! we are talking hair over an inch long and thick enough that any high school or college freshman boy would be totally geeked to sport it. It was very strange. Next I went to the bank and the teller, a woman in her late 40’s I presume, had nose hairs cropping out that seemed like a horse brush in each nostril (geesh lady, use your husbands trimmer already). But the cake was officially taken by a retired guy who works part time at our office. He came to me with a suggestion and, I am not making this up, he had eyebrow hairs growing out of his lower eyelids. Not the cheek beneith the eyelid, they eyelids themselves. Apparently his barber trims them because they were clearly cut at a uniform length but perhaps his eyes are not good enough to see them and get on the attack with a pair of tweezers. Or perhaps when you reach that age you just go “eh, who cares, let’s gross out the younger people.”

I have to admit it, I really needed this extra day off from work. I am feeling just worn out. I hope to get the brakes done on my truck today and I slept in until 8:45. Sorry it took you dedicating your life to a cause and getting shot for me to have the day off.

Yesterday the family and I watched a documentary on the Apollo moon trips and the significance of having human beings stand on another heavenly body. The one person they could not get to be interviewed was Neil Armstrong. He is perhaps one of the top 10 most famous people of all time and he does not like publicity. He lives quietly and does not want the status of Hero, or Legend or anything. Amazing.
When Apollo 11 came back they had a parade with 2 million people there to cheer on those brave, crazy men who went a quarter million miles away for the first time and actually stood on what is for most of us, a disc in the sky.
He seems pretty humble for a person who had mankind united for a time saying “We did it!” I just don’t think we have heroes like this any more. There don’t seem to be any 2 million people ticker tape parades anymore.
There was one thing about the film which struck me. One of the people who went to the moon, Charlie Duke, became a Christian after he returned and in the documentary he said: “My walk on the Moon lasted three days and it was a great adventure, but my walk with God lasts forever.”

Today I took the family Ice skating at a rink in South Bend. I had not been on the ice in about 10 years and for Kathy and the girls it was only their third time ever (the second time for the girls was yesterday). All in all everyone did amazingly well. The only time that Kathy fell was when we made a train with me as the locomotive and as we rounded the corner I kind of catapulted everyone. I was happy to see that all those skating skills I picked up in Pee Wee hockey whilst living in the U.P. all of my youth had not completely left me. The one thing I noticed right off the bat was that rental skates hurt! my feet are still real sore. Everyone else noticed this as well, but part of it is just that our feet are not used to being in skates. Kathy said she felt like a geisha because of how they bind up their feet. The girls had one major drawback- roller skating had them knowing the basics of how to stay up on skates so they quickly learned how to get going fairly well. The problem was that they had not learned how to STOP!