My friends at RedEnvelope.com have made it easy for you to pick out a quality gift for your Dad and look like a hero while doing it.  Just visit their Father’s Day Gift Page and choose from a wide variety of gifts.  You can get everything from a Home brewery set to cuff links, valets, MLB coasters to every BBQ accessory you can think of.  Full disclosure requires me to inform you that I was compensated for this endorsement, so I’ll go you one better and show you my compensation.  I chose one of Red Envelopes valets.  I had a good reason for doing so.  Here is a picture of how I used to store all of the things that go in my pockets and then come out of my pockets on a daily basis.

THE BLACK HOLE

Pretty sad, huh?  Everything just tossed in the front of the catch-all drawer in the kitchen.  It took me almost 5 minutes to find my car keys one day because one of the NukeKids had been in the drawer looking for AA batteries.  They didn’t find any batteries, but they managed to “lose” my keys.  I found them in the back in an envelope for a time share offer that should have been tossed out years ago.  Everyone has a drawer like this in their home; the “Black Hole” or “Bermuda Triangle” drawer where things disappear for years on end whenever you need them, only to re-appear when you’re looking for something else.  Then you go back later for it and it’s disappeared once again.  Well, no more for the NukeDad-I’m organized now.  Check this out.

ORDER IS RESTORED

Same items neatly placed in my new personalized valet that will sit above the old catch-all drawer and allow me the piece of mind that my car keys will never be lost again.  Pop on over to RedEnvelope.com and pick out something for your Dad for Father’s Day; there’s still plenty of time to get your order in and bring a smile to Dad’s face on Father’s Day.  Let’s face it, there is such a thing as too many neckties.  Enter the code 10offred  (Ten off Red) at checkout and receive 10% off of your order.  Tell them NukeDad sent you.

JP HAYES

I had quite the full weekend.  I threw my back out on Thursday while I was in my crawl space installing electric and broadband lines for a computer relocation.  It was sort of like if John Wayne Gacy worked for AT&T or Comcast.  I didn’t wear my clown suit, though.  Then on Friday I drove to Charlotte to watch my brother in law; J.P. Hayes play in the PGA tournament.  It was a smart move; walk around a hilly golf course for 4 hours immediately after a back injury.  No amount of Motrin in the world could make me feel better on Saturday, and believe me, I tried.  I twisted my back pretty good getting in and out from under the house, but it didn’t feel too bad.  I had injured my lower back once before when I was younger and remember it being a painful injury with a slow heal time.  Can’t wait to see how the sequel turns out.  Walking around the golf course on Friday actually helped stretch my back out and made it feel better, or so I thought.  I’m fine while I’m mobile, but once I sit down to rest, or worse; lay down in bed to sleep for the night, my back seizes up tighter than a T-shirt vendor at a Taylor Swift concert.  The bad part is that I still have some crawling and bending left to do to finish the computer move.  Better go to Sam’s and buy the tub of Doan’s Pills.

I almost didn’t make it out of the house on Friday morning.  NukeMom was home because she had fallen on Thursday and fractured her hand and NukeGirl woke up sick to her stomach.  NukeMom forced me out of the house and said that they would be fine.  I’d tell you more about NukeMom’s fractured hand, but I don’t want my back injury to get any worse.  That splint could cause some damage.  I got to the course just in time to catch J.P. as he started his second nine holes.  His group played the back nine first, so I got to the 1st hole just in time.  He was already 3 under par for the day (1 under for the tournament).  “Whoa! He’s already 3 under?” I asked the sign bearer.  “Yep, but he had 4 birdies.  He bogeyed 18″ the sign bearer told me.  Great.  Right when I get off the bus he gets a bogey.  I haven’t always been good luck for J.P. when going to watch him play.  I thought that maybe I should just go get back on the bus right then.  Of course, I’m a lot more superstitious than he is.  He played lights-out the rest of the way and got 5 more birdies coming in.  He tied the course record with an 8 under 64, just barely missing a birdie putt on his final hole to score 63 and take the record outright.  Any of you who watched on Sunday know that it would have been a moot point anyway as a 20 year old Irish kid named Rory McIlroy broke the course record by 2 shots and shot a 10 under 62 to win the tournament by 4 shots.  It was amazing to watch.  He’s already ranked in the top 10 in the world and he’ll only turn 21 on Tuesday.  An Irish Tiger Woods?  Maybe.  Let’s just hope there aren’t a lot of Waffle House waitresses and porn stars in Ireland.  J.P. had a tougher weekend and ended up tying for 38th place.  I know he would have liked to finish higher, but he’s having one of the best years of his career and even got into The Players Championship next week; a tournament he’s performed well at and one that I know he’s happy to be in.  Over lunch he told me that he was happy that the early success this year will allow him to play less and be home with the family more.  Maybe Tiger could take some lessons from a PGA Tour pro who has his priorities right.

NOT EVERYONE WAS HAPPY TO SEE TIGER

Speaking of Tiger, I got to see him in the flesh.  It’s not like I sought him out, he just happened to be coming out to practice before his round shortly after J.P. had finished.  I was waiting near the clubhouse which was also near the practice green.  It was a real bottle neck and the growing crowd didn’t help matters.  The tournament volunteer trying to keep the area clear was losing his religion trying to keep people out of the way.  To make matters worse, Phil Mickelson was 2 groups behind J.P.’s group and would be coming in soon also, so you had Tiger fans and Phil fans all gathering in the same place at the same time.  It was kind of like West Side Story without the music.  Or The Crips and The Bloods if gangsters played golf.  Everything was fine, of course, as we all know that golf fans are much more civilized than, say; English soccer fans or Justin Beiber concert go-ers.  When Tiger finally appeared there was an army of police officers around him and Lord knows how many private plain-clothes private security in the crowd.  I’m pretty sure the guy who elbowed me in my injured back as he quickly brushed past me was private security.  I was fully expecting someone to yell out; “Text me, Big Boy!” or, “Let’s go get some waffles!” because I didn’t want to be the one to have to do it, but alas, no one did.  He actually got a very cordial reception; probably more than he deserved, and more than he was expecting, judging from the look on his face.  He looked apprehensive, almost terrified.  He was staring at the ground trying to be inconspicuous, but once the cheers started and he realized ti was all positive, he looked up and acknowledged the crowd.  Right before I lost sight of him, I saw him actually crack a smile.  He looked completely out of sorts on Friday, though, as he played terrible and missed the cut for only the 6th time in his career.  Ouch.  I did see one picture of a woman who was none too happy with him giving him a thumbs down sign and I heard that one fan was ejected for a lewd comment.  So it goes.  A few minutes after Tiger walked by, Phil Mickelsons group came in and the crowd went crazy.  Stewart Cink came by, Jim Furyk, Zack Johnson, Kenny Perry, Padraig Harrington and a host of other Tour pros walked by while I was there.  When J.P. finished up in the press tent we went to get his car to go eat lunch.  Fred Couples walked by and gave J.P. a hello nod and me a “Who the hell are you?” look.

Before I left town I was able to go and see my old friend Paul from El Paso.  He’s not the same Paul I wrote about here, he’s another Paul.  Let’s call him Ranger Paul since he was one of the first Army Rangers to hit the ground after parachuting into Panama during the invasion in 1989.  He’s cleaned up real nice for a kid who used to always smell like BBQ.  Well, I guess we all smelled like BBQ back then, you could just drive by The State Line (where we worked) and end up smelling like a brisket.  I remember the day he told me he was going to enlist thinking; “What is he thinking?”  But he had his plan all worked out, and he executed it flawlessly.  He served 4 years as a Ranger in the Army, used his GI bill to get an accounting degree from UTEP, got his law degree from SMU and retired as CEO and President from his company the very day I showed up at his doorstep.  At the age of 43.  Bastard.  Just kidding, Ranger Paul was always the one with the plan.  He’s going to take the summer off and then explore his options.  Sounds just like me, but with more options.  He told me about the 20th reunion he had attended to commemorate the Panama invasion and how one of his former squad mates was in Iraq with our friend Andy when he was killed in action.  Andy worked at the State Line with us as well.  I wrote about him here.  Ranger Paul says according to his squad mate  it was a 12 hour fire fight and that Andy was hit about 2 hours into it.  It was a one in a million shot that caught him on his side in the one spot where there was no armour.  He said that even if they could have gotten a helicopter in there immediately that Andy most likely would have died on the way.  Ranger Paul’s wife Stacy and I worked together at the Miller Beer distributorship in El Paso, but she was out of town for the weekend so I didn’t get to see her.

All in all it was a great weekend, if you take out the sprains and fractures.  I got to see family and friends and relive a few memories from my ever fading youth.  It’s good to get out like this every once in a while.  I’ll be doing it again soon.

KA-CHING!

NukeGirl lost her first tooth the other day.  It was a long road to extraction, but when I noticed that it was laying back at a 45 degree angle in relation to the rest of her teeth, and that it was black, I told her maybe it was time to try another tug.  She had been toying with it for days.  At the dinner table: “Daddy!  Look!”  I’d glance up from my plate to see her tongue rotating the tooth back and forth, manipulating it like a NASCAR driver downshifting going into turn 3.  “That’s nice, honey, but I’m trying to enjoy my dinner and that isn’t making it any easier.”  Being that it was her first loose tooth, she was a little unclear on the concept.  We went to dinner one night, and after a four and a half year precedent of ordering fries with her meal, she decides she wants corn on the cob.  The next day she asked for an apple in her lunch.  She hates apples.  Maybe nature gives us that extra nudge to request things to eat that it knows will get that sucker out of there and take away the pain.  I remember as a kid, I once lost a molar to an over exuberant Sugar Daddy.  It got stuck back there and I pulled and I pulled and I pulled, and it wouldn’t come out.  I twisted, I yanked, I twisted and yanked.  It was…well, it was like pulling teeth, I guess.  After about 5 minutes I finally got it out and immediately noticed that this particular Sugar Daddy tasted like crap.  The taste, of course, was the 1/2 liter of blood that was now mixing with the chocolate and caramel of my candy.  I looked at the Sugar Daddy and saw my molar sticking out of it.  Cool, I thought; a dollar!  I don’t think I’ve had a Sugar Daddy since.

The experience did teach me that caramel is good for getting out stubborn teeth.  Later I used a box of Milk Duds to extract another molar, and a Brach’s caramel chew to eradicate an incisor.  My dentist lost money on me that year.  I also remember the weirdness of running your tongue in the gap where your tooth used to be.  NukeGirl has discovered that as well.  “Daddy! Look!”  I look up to see a tiny piece of her tiny little tongue peeking through where her tooth used to be.  Then she went and got a Capri Sun and realized that she could lock her jaw and still drink it; she just slides the straw in the hole where her tooth was.  She thinks this is the coolest thing in the world.  “DADDY! LOOK!”  I look up to see her, jaw clenched tighter than a Rottweiler, with a straw stuck through the gap and can’t help but join her in uproarious laughter.  She tried her pinkie finger, and while it can be wedged in there, she learned the painful lesson that she can’t clench her teeth.  She also tried a pencil and almost lost the 2 neighbors.  “Daddy! Ow!”  Since then I’ve caught her with her toothbrush, a hair barrette, a bigger straw and a paper towel folded to various thicknesses.  She just keeps folding until either she can’t fold anymore, or it won’t fit anymore.  She’s doing all she can to find out exactly what will and will not fit where her tooth used to be.  It made me think of an old skit from SCTV; the great Canadian show that gave us John Candy, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Catherine O’Hara and many others, called; “What Fits In Mother Russia.”  It was a recurring skit that featured Dave Thomas as a Russian who got great delight figuring out what countries could fit inside the footprint of the Soviet Union.  The video is below.  One of my first posts ever was a tooth post-you can click here if you want to read it. Enjoy.

PICK YOUR DIAPER!

I’ve noticed a trend recently in web ads.  The days of the dancing cowboys are over.  So are the days of the dancing alien.  Actually, they’ve been over for a while, but the good folks at Lower My Bills dot com have changed tactics once again to continue to bring you ads that have absolutely nothing to do with the product they are selling.  Oh, sure, we’ll always have the 50 states abbreviated in everything from snails, emoticons and baby diapers to keep us company, but the flash ads of dancing silhouettes on rooftops and gyrating robots may be gone for good.  See, when they had those ads running back in 2007, they had reason to dance: they were making a killing getting people to refinance mortgages, consolidate debt, etc.; now, not so much.  Now that the bubble they helped create has exploded, they are going a different route; the route of down-on-your-luckism.

CLEAN YOUR WINDOW FOR YOU?

Their ads now all feature pictures of men who look like homeless people.  The message says; Contact us now before you end up looking like this! They seem upset too, like they can’t believe that YOU haven’t refinanced yet.  They’re even starting to blame the government for forcing you to ignore the help that the government is offering you; or something like that.  “…homeowners fail to refinance….government urges Americans to pay down credit card debt….you may qualify for auto insurance discounts…” aren’t you people listening?  Did you know that only 85,000 of you have taken advantage of the governments housing relief program?  What’s wrong with you idiots?  Don’t you want to refinance the remaining 12 years of your mortgage into a more manageable 30 year adjustable rate mortgage that will lower your payment by $65 dollars a month?  Come on!  Get with the program!

MADAM TUSSAUDS ESCAPEE?

I’m having a hard time believing that one of these guys is even a real person at all.  See the guy in glasses?  He looks like one of those skulls that has had a facial reconstruction anthropologist go to town on it.  I think I saw him on an episode of Forensic Files once.  Either that, or he’s a dolled up version of Australopithecus with a forehead shave and Dame Edna glasses.  One guy looks like a lumberjack serial killer and another looks like the guy that tries to spit-shine your windshield at traffic lights.  Is the subliminal message supposed to be; “Look, we know that things are bad and you can barely pay your mortgage; hell, you can’t even afford a razor!”?  I guess a picture of a family in respectable clothing and a golden retriever laying in front of them doesn’t sell a lot of mortgage re-fi’s.  The key is to make people think; “I know I’ve got it bad, but look at that poor sap!”

HOBBIES? WELL, I DO LIKE TO RULE FRANCE, ON OCCASION

I thought I had seen it all until yesterday when a pop up ad shimmied it’s way underneath my Firefox firewall.  There is a VERY generous man out there who wants to make me a millionaire!  He is so worldly and has done so many good things in his life helping people that I just KNOW that I’m next!  His name is Simon Zuckenberg; don’t bother googling him, because you’ll come up empty!  Not only is he a totally selfless philanthropist, he also hates attention, so he makes sure that all of his good deeds go unnoticed.  He invented ebay and Adobe, even though other people claim to have.  The piece de resistance?  He is also the PRESIDENT OF FRANCE!  I KNOW!  CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?  Yeah, me neither.  Unreal.  Some joker puts out an ad with a picture of President Sarkozy, throws some ebay and Adobe logos on it and will probably make millions in the process.  While I enjoy the entertainment aspect of it, I can’t help but feel a little sleazy every time I see one of those ads.  At least I have the comfort of knowing that I’ve never been duped by one of them.  Ooh, look at the time!  Gotta go; I still have 8 more units to sell before my Acai Berry downline gets fully vested!

SERTS(2ND FROM RIGHT-TOP ROW) & STEVE THOMAS (KNEELING)

Andy Warhol famously once said; “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”  He should have doubled it for my friend Sergio Grado.  Sergio, or “Serts” as he was known when we were younger, will be featured for a 30 minute segment on tonight’s episode of Renovation Nation on the Discovery Channel’s “Planet Green” channel.  The show is hosted by Steve Thomas, who some of you may remember as being Bob Vila’s replacement on This Old House.  Steve and his crew document one of Serts’ building projects that centers around green building.  I know what you’re thinking right now; “But NukeDad, aren’t you totally against all of that environmental crap?” No, I’m not.  I’m against deceitful ex-politicians whose name starts with Al and ends with Gore living in an energy hog house while preaching to my kids that they’re killing the planet, all the while lining his pockets with millions and millions of dollars.  Meanwhile, George W. Bush lives in one of the most “green” houses on the planet, but you don’t hear about that, do you?  Maybe Al can head up a few field trips down to Crawford, Texas so he can see how it’s done.  But I digress.

SERGIO GRADO-NATIONAL GRADUATE MASTER BUILDER OF THE YEAR 2008

Serts’ family has been building homes in the Woodlands, outside of Houston, since the early 70′s.  He used to spend his summers down there working his butt off for the family business.  It paid off.  Now?  He IS the family business.  His father retired a few years ago, and I’m pretty sure that his brother Gilbert is still down there running the old family business, but Serts started his own company that builds custom homes, commercial buildings and remodeling projects.  He is the go to guy for “green” building in the Houston area.  He was named the Graduate Master Builder Of The Year for 2008.  That’s kind of like winning the Academy Award for your industry.  He also won the Emerging Business of the Year award from the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.  Things are good in SergioLand.  So if you get a chance and you have access to the Planet Green channel, tune in tonight at 6pm eastern to see one of my best friends from childhood enjoy his 30 minutes of fame.

The kids love a trip to the Dollar Store.  You know, those bastions of consumer nirvana that have you thanking your lucky stars that you popped in today.  Who knew that they would be featuring Phil Simms’ latest book?  For a dollar?!  Give me two and I’ll scratch a name off of my Christmas gift list. Surely one of my gift receivers would love to read about Jim Nantz’s hair plugs.

Our last trip to the Dollar Store was going to be a quick grab and dash.  We needed birthday cards and wrapping paper for two upcoming birthdays.  The Hallmark people are great, but I’m not paying $4.00 for a card that will be read once (maybe) and then thrown away. Call me cheap, but at least it’s not a torn out piece of spiral notebook paper with your name written in pencil.  It’s got an envelope and everything. Be thankful.

At the last second, NukeGirl reminded me that we were out of Dora the Explorer band-aids.  Since we were near the Health and Beauty supplies, I figured; why not? I opted for the 110 count box (10 bonus bandages-FREE!) that had four different sizes.  I figured that my yield from this box would be about 75%; or approximately 82 ½ band-aids.  Not bad for a buck.  After all; they were Dollar Store band-aids.

CRUSTACEANS, AISLE 9.

What I didn’t count on was the quality (or lack thereof) of the adhesive itself.  I believe I’ve learned my lesson.  Our yield from this box is presently at 14% and falling rapidly.  It took 6 separate applications of 3 band-aids at a time to cover a cut on NukeBoy2 that was so small you would need a micrometer to measure it.  It healed by itself in 18 minutes, but there was blood and tears, so band-aids for three days was mandatory. A post it note that has been rolled in a litter box has more staying power than these band-aids.  He sneezed while watching TV and lost batch number 4.  Never again. Ever.

This exercise led me to think about other items I need to avoid when visiting the Dollar Store. I don’t want to get caught up in another J Paul Getty moment and think that I’m being frugal.  Here’s what I came up with:

·    Picture Frames: The largest you can buy for a buck is 4 X 6, so why bother? The support on the back weakens by about 1 degree daily.  2 months down the road you’ll have a drink coaster.
·    Seafood:  Please don’t tell me you need an explanation. Seafood from Kansas isn’t good for you.
·    Jewelry:  Only for those who enjoy green ear lobes and open sores on your fingers.
·    Batteries:  They won’t even tickle your tongue in the store.
·    Snack Cakes:  Little Debbie’s a little stale.
·    Flashlights:  Each comes with a 2 week warranty.
·    Make-Up:  Comes in 3 shades: Haze, Soot and Dirt.
·    Chocolate Syrup:  Trust me on this one.
·    Watches:  Tells time in 3 time zones; none of them yours.
·    Sunscreen:  SPF 4.
·    Flesh-Eating Virus Ointment: Not FDA approved, and who picked it up before you? Itchy?

These free tips should help you out the next time you think (incorrectly); “Wow! Only a dollar? What a great deal!”  Shop wisely, my friends.

STACEY (L), MOM AND LAURA

It’s birthday time again.  I started this adventure last October when I forgot to call my sister, Leta, on her birthday.  To make up for my indiscretion I wrote her a happy birthday post.  I followed that with posts for my brother Steve and my sister Laura.  Now it’s my youngest sister Stacey’s turn.  I’m sure she’s thinking; “Once again, I have to go last-THIS IS SO NOT FAIR! WHY AM I ALWAYS THE LAST ONE! STOP THE PERSECUTION!”  Well, sorry, Stace, but that’s what you get for having a birthday in August when I decide to start an honorarium in October.  My siblings returned the favor by doing a guest post for me on my birthday.  So without further ado, here is Stacey’s birthday post.

The youngest in the family is usually the one with the least amount of face time in family videos and in pictures.  It’s never intentional, it’s just the way it is.  The first born child in most families is the one who is prominently displayed in the first dozen or so extended length video tapes, and has 2 or 3 photo albums filled with every exploit from first step to first peanut butter wall mural.  Each child thereafter has less and less time on videos and less pictures taken; the larger the family, the larger the discrepancy.  The youngest of 3 children may find a dozen or so pictures in the bottom of a forgotten shoe box in a hall closet.  Stacey, being the youngest of 5, likes to say that all of her childhood photos could be found in a Sucrets box in my Dad’s shop.  I’m guilty of the same.  My Mom laughed at me one day when I picked up NukeGirl’s binky, brushed it across my shirt a couple of times and put it back in her mouth.  “What’s so funny?” I asked.  “When NukeBoy1 used to lose his binky, you would practically put on latex gloves and boil a pot of water for sterilization!”  First child overkill, to be sure.  While the youngest feels like they are cheated out of what their older siblings got, the older siblings know that the baby of the family gets away with murder.  I never got to juggle knives when I was little, but Stacey did.  It’s one of the age old arguments that will never be resolved; who has it easier, the oldest or the youngest?  It’s like the chicken and the egg question, but with people.  I was the middle child, and everyone knows how badly we get screwed.

Stacey had the unfortunate task of being the youngest of five children growing up in West Texas in the 1970′s; innocent enough back then, but these days, it could be the subject of a Lifetime Movie.  We didn’t have cable, or Nintendo DS, or cell phones; and thank God for that!  What we did have was the whole day to go out and play; use our imagination a little.  I’ll bet the Lifetime producers would shed a tear over our poor “existence”, but we loved it.  Stacey was the youngest, but she and Laura were only about 20 months apart.  The summers we spent in Santa Fe, New Mexico (is there another one?) were spent at the neighborhood park two houses down from the house we rented.  We spent most of our time there.  I remember Stacey and Laura used to beg me to spin them faster! faster! on the merry-go-round.  As Stacey got older, she got braver.  Some of the neighborhood kids would hang on the bars and let their feet fly out.  It was fun, but if you were the “pusher”, you had about 2 seconds to spin the merry-go-round and then get out of the way before you got clobbered by a tennis shoe.  Or, a tibia, if you were too slow.  Stacey sent me into the dirt on more than one occasion.  Her shin bone was deadly.  Some of my fondest memories revolve around our summers in Santa Fe; one of my worst does as well.

THE SLIPPERY SIDEWALK OF DOOM

As I told you, Stacey loved the feeling of hanging on the outside of the merry-go-round and having her feet fly out as it spun around.  The problem, though, is that the merry-go-round would stop fairly quickly, causing your feet to meet the ground and fill your shoes with about 8 pounds of sand and dirt.  I figured out a way to make the trip last longer; I’d just grab Stacey by the hands and swing her around myself! What could go wrong with an 11 year old swinging his 5 year old sister around?  Plenty, as I was about to find out.  The sidewalks in the neighborhood we lived in were terrible.  The surface would come off from constant freezing and thawing cycles in the winter time; they call it “scaling.”  Here’s a picture to give you an idea.  The top of the sidewalks would come off in sheets, and always when you least expected it.  I’m sure you know what is coming, but I’ll tell you anyway: I was swinging Stacey around and around when I stepped on a section of sidewalk that gave way when I stepped on it.  It came right out from under me.  The natural human reaction when you’re about to fall on your ass is to put your hands down to break your fall, which I did; the problem was, in order to do that I had to first let go of Stacey’s hands, which I did.  It wasn’t intentional, mind you, I just freaked out and did what my body told me to do.  The rest of it went in slow motion, like some Bruce Willis action movie.  I could see Stacey flying away from me, and saw her smile suddenly turn to fright.  There was nothing I could do to stop it.  I fell on my ass, Stacey landed on her face and forehead.  I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse in my life.  I ran to her, rolled her over, saw the blood and then ran in the house to get my Mom.  We spent the rest of the afternoon at the hospital.  Her injuries (thankfully) were mostly superficial.  She had a scrape under her nose, which caused the bleeding, and a HUGE bump on her forehead.  I mean, it was Antarctica big.  It covered her whole forehead.  They did all the tests and everything was fine, but it sure scared the crap out of me; and poor Stacey as well.  Needless to say, we didn’t play that game ever again.

NUKEDAD AND SISTER STACEY

Through the years I’ve seen Stacey learn how to fly without anymore assistance from me; she put herself through college to become a teacher and is now putting herself through graduate school to become an administrator.  She has shown more resilience and determination in her life than anyone I know.  I know that most siblings think that the “baby” of the family gets away with murder, but the truth is, they have to fight and claw harder just to get what they’re due.  She never once complained about it, she just put her head down and did the work.  I’ve always admired her for that; her ability to get the job done regardless of the obstacles.  And so, sister Stacey, with that I wish you a very belated Happy Birthday.  I know this should have been posted on August 28th, and I’m sorry that it wasn’t.  Know that I love you and will always be here for you.  Just don’t ask me to swing you again.