Ever since he was on The Grammy’s last week, Glen Campbell‘s Gentle On My Mindhas been on mine.

Cover of Gentle on My Mind

Who would have thought the irony would come to play when he found this song so many years ago and made it his forever?  He has Alzheimer’s and is on a farewell tour.

I can’t tell you how sad that makes me feel on the inside to know that he’s going through that.  There’s so many people who have this disease and I think it’s got to be one of the worst ways we’ve found yet to go–slowly and with anything but gentle on our minds.

This song’s melancholy easiness and gentle rift like water flowing down a mountain stream has always captured me.

And now I forever have the images of him on that stage with Sir Paul McCartney standing out in the crowd singing along.  What a great honor, Glenn!

In life Mr. Campbell has fought his series of show biz demons.  Who can forget the stories just a few years ago of him being arrested for DUI or public intoxication one?

Like him, I’m going to let those memories disappear into the night and the rhythm of the wonder of the joy of something so pleasant that indeed, it’s gentle on my mind.

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I just got to watch  last night’s Grammy’s, and did it largely on fast forward.  But here are my thoughts:

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

1) Katie Perry now is a Smurf. That also, at long last, explains her voice.

2) My eldest says no one likes Adele. Not sure that’s accurate, but I think I get where she’s coming from. She does, however, remind me of Moma Cass.

3) Lady Gaga is just weird. The novelty has worn off, honey.

4) The two girls texting during the standing O for Glenn Campbell, one said she was tweeting about how great he did. Glenn Campbell on a farewell tour just makes me sad.  He’s had his demons to deal with but Alzheimer’s we need to find a cure for.

5) Tony Bennett and that girl from OK, Underwood, great song.

6) There’s a lot more to Lady Antebellum than there was last year.

7) I missed seeing Justin Beiber sitting on the edge of his seat actually thinking he might win an award and then the surprise look on his face when Gaga did.   She replaced him this year in that category.

Sir Paul singing with Glenn Campbell from the audience was cool. How great an honor would that be to have Paul McCartney in the stands singing with you as you sing from the stage?

9) Disney thinks lawsuit over the Foo Fighter lighted Mickey Mouse-head thing. What the hell was that?

10) The End by Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, et al was the coolest ending of any show that ever will be televised ever.  And it’s cool Paul has a wife this time around who knows lyrics.  Who knows anything, actually.  Well done, sir.

–I was waiting for Paul to sing Her Majesty as the Grammy credits rolled… Oh well.

Until the last 10 minutes, this show was not near what it was last year.  But that last bit with Paul, well, was there a show last year?

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Tomorrow is Single’s Awareness Day! 

At the end of my days of late, as I’m closing up the house and preparing to return to the apartment, it gets hard to walk out and not be sad and angry all at the same time.

I’ve come to realize I had no idea who I was married to the past six years.  In the past two months I’ve come to find out so much that was hidden from me.  So many lies.  So many other people were around who I had no idea about.  So many deceptions.  So many family secrets.

Last night in the master bedroom I stood at the edge of what would have been her side of the bed and stared at the ghost of who in the past slept there so many days and nights before with her head completely covered in blankets and pillows, no doubt in partial asphyxiation.  It’s sad to think about at times, but it really has caused me to get my life back together and realize there is a joy in being single and not attached.

I’m celebrating Single Awareness Day tomorrow, not as a sad thing, but as a point of clarity in my life.

It’s great to no longer be living with someone who is living multiple lives and trying to keep track of God knows how many lies. Maybe the doctors in the 90s weren’t so wrong after all….

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(Editor’s Note: The original for this post is on the Genghis Grill site.  Please jump over there and give me a positive vote for it.  We’re in a tough race.)

I have to say the icing on the cake about this challenge with Genghis Grill so far has been the people who I have enjoyed getting to know.

At Genghis Grill (Photo credit: toastforbrekkie)

Here at the Mesquite, Texas store is a variety of coolness, from the manager, Jessica, who will meet you with a beaming smile every time you see her, to the assistant manager, John, who seems to be one of the hardest working people I know, you can tell why the atmosphere of this store is open and fun.

One of my more frequent servers has been Jasmine.  Talk about a bowl of fun and energy!  She got me on Friday.  I for the life couldn’t recall her name from last Wednesday, but after two days of people coming and going in here, she could remember mine.  She also saved me a ton of headaches as I left in a hurry Friday and left my secret Genghis Grill Health Kwest card and my debit card.  It wasn’t till this morning I realized my debit card was missing.  John had given me back my GG card yesterday.  My point is, Jasmine should get an honesty bonus.

My server today is Katya.  She’s Russian by birth and has been in America for the past 11 years.  She is so friendly and smart.  I know from having friends who were born in other countries some times when you talk to them the conversation runs with a little lag because as you talk in English, they mentally are translating it to their native language, deciding on an ansswer in their home tongue, and then translating it back to you in English.  Katya says she’s been stateside long enough, and she doesn’t get to speak Russian often, that she pretty much does it all in English now,  Not that that matters; her smile is exciting in any language.

Teriaki Chicken

I followed the GG recipe for teriyaki chicken today and added a couple extra ladles of sauce.  I have been mixing the sauces and not going with 100 percent of the same.  To me, it’s a little too strong.  I’m going to have a clean bowl when I leave, but just a reference note.

So who will I meet here next?  Yesterday I made reference to the lady who was going through the line just ahead of me.  She and her friends were having a great time a few tables down when we left. It was clearly girls night out.  Any bets they went to the movies after leaving here?

Next to me now is a family with mom and dad sitting there with their tablets.  This must be the tablet section today.  Did you know they have free WiFi here?

So what do you do when you come to Genghis Grill?   Anyone going  to come in for the Super Bowl?

Who is your favorite GG server?

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Tomorrow I begin another adventure in the world of weight loss.

I went and weighed a little while ago and I’ve gained back about 17 lbs since coming back home from Alabama in September.  That’s not good.

In late August, I had that heart attack.  I was supposed to lose weight, not add it back.

So, tomorrow, I start up with Genghis Grill, a local Mongolian BBQ chain.  Over the next 62 days I’m going to eat their for either lunch or dinner for free.  I’m supposed to blog and do video about this latest journey.  The prize for losing the most weight among 80 others?  $10,000.

That sure would be great to win.  I need a boost like that.

There are so many other avenues of change taking place in my world right now.

Hopefully this is going to be another positive.

I want to thank the fokes at Genghis Grill for giving me the chance to take part in their 2012 Genghis Grill Health Kwest.  And I can’t wait to dig into a bowl of delicious, healthy choices tomorrow night.  This is going to be fun!

It’s amazing how much anxiety people feel over change.  They fight it.  Fret about it.  Talk about it.  Blog about it.  Resist it.  Hate it.  Complain about it. And so many of us each and every day seek to keep it from happening.

Friday I received Chip Conley‘s new book, Emotional Equations.  WOW.

A few weeks ago, I did some filming for my client, Dr. Harold Duncan of Preston Place Counseling in Dallas as he delivered a speech about Emotional Intelligence.  Mom is here visiting and went with me to the speech.  In the past few weeks, I can’t tell you how many times she has said how eye-opening that speech was.  (We’re in the process of getting some bumpers shot and the speech will be available shortly on the PPC Website.)

Despair = Suffering – Meaning

One principle I’ve already captured and analyzed is Conley’s equation on Despair.  We all can suffer in one way or another from life’s changes and events.  What leads to disparity and the impact it has on us is how much meaning we allow something to have.

Are you as the 1970s cliche went: “Sweating the small stuff?”  My dad loves the corollary to that: “It’s all small stuff.”

I could go on and on down a list of things I could choose to be upset about:

• Recent divorce from Kari; her habitual use of marijuana, heroin and meth in our house; the impact her drug problem is having on her children; her lack of upkeep of our house; her relationship with a former lover; the whole nuttiness of what being in that Houston hospital in the 1990s has had on her entire family, and now into second generations, and a string of failed relationships, the list goes on an on….
• Work
• Finances
• Health
• The lack of a winter here in Dallas and this week last year we were covered in ice for five days…..

But I’m trying to make a turn for the better and just let some of the “big” little things go.  In Conley’s terms, I’m trying to NOT let them have as much meaning.

What are some things in your world you should stop letting have so much meaning?  We all have bad stuff happening to us each and every day.  How much power are you going to let it have in your day?  How much power are you going to surrender to say a meth addict?  How long are you going to be frustrated with an ex-spouse’s parents because they refuse to do anything to help by hiding their heads in the sand?  I’m choosing more and more each day to say, “less and less.”

I know so many people who are suffering today.  In Harold’s speech, he quoted Mark Twain of all people, who said about anxiety: “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”  But for the ones that do, what are you going to do about them?  Give them meaning or tell them to get in line to take a long walk off a short pier?

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It’s day 2 of 2012 and I’m drained at the stressors around me.

Work is ever-present and I’m doing my level best to perform. I have three major projects underway and I’m doing everything I can to make them all come to fruition on time and within budget.

The house, oMg, the house that has been left vacant for me through the divorce has been nothing short of a disaster.  It’s become more and more clear by the moment that I never knew who I thought I was married to–that or I certainly have no idea of who that person has become.  That feeling alone has been battering up against me like an ever-increasing wave of emotions creeping higher and higher.

And then there is the new project I need to be working on. So much to do.  So little time.  So little of me left to go around.

Prayer

I prayed hard in the house this morning.  I asked God for forgiveness from a lot of things I’ve done.  I also expressed my forgiveness of those who have wrought so much ill will upon me.  I asked God to help restore the house to that of a Christian home.  To rid it of the pain and evil that’s taken place there and to hopefully bring us to better days.

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Goodbye 2011.  I don’t mind seeing you slip into the mystery of the past.  The year was certainly better than 2010, but it still wasn’t where I want to be on my life journey.

There are some cool projects under way and I will be sharing more about them soon.

In the meantime, I ask that you follow The Wonders Expedition™ on Facebook, and @Archeoastronomy on Twitter.  And of course, you’re invited to take a look at TheWondersExpedition.com.

Happy New Year. Would write more but there’s so much else I need to be doing at the moment.

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I just wasted another four hours on a Sunday to watch the Dallas Cowboys lose.  Again.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

For a long time, I’ve been writing here on this site that Tony Romo is NOT the quarterback who is going to take the Dallas Cowboys to anything but a losing season.  Time and again he has shown he doesn’t have what it takes to win clutch ball games.

TJ Yates, who started his second game in Houston today plays better in two games than Romo has in nine years as a Cowboy.  Yates WINS ball games.   And he’s what, the third quarterback the Texans have had this year.

I’m speechless about tonight’s loss.  Though I rhetorically asked my daughter Chandler earlier today, “Do you really think that Eli Manning is going to go on and lose five games in a row?”  He didn’t.

I’m so tired of watching Tony Romo mope around on the field like he did after his safety tonight.  You gotta get rid of the ball.  Falling down with it in the end zone is bad.   That’s just basic A+B=C football.  Or Foop-ball, as Romo calls it.

Let’s face it.  He’s a nice enough guy, but he’s not going to get the Cowboys to the Super Bowl.  He just doesn’t have what it takes.

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I was saddened to hear the news today of the death of area Balch Springs Police Officer Matthew Garcia who died in a motorcycle accident off duty this morning.

Image via Wikipedia

To make things worse, Officer Garcia’s wife was following behind and has to endure life with the memory of having actually seen what happened to her husband.

Please remember the Garcia family in your thoughts and prayers.

Here’s a link to The Dallas Morning News‘ accounting of the story.

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