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Cake day: March 4th, 2024

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  • Through the ages, humanity evolved to recognize that cooperation generally leads to success. If others like us, we have more of a chance to survive and procreate. So our brains release chemicals that make us feel good when we do things that lead us to success. It used to be that sugar was pretty tough to get, so our brains evolved to release those nice chemicals when we eat it. So too is it that when we receive validation, the brain releases those chemicals then as well.

    Not everyone is consciously aware of this happening. They just know that when they do some things, act a certain way with a certain group of people, eat certain foods, etc. they feel good. They don’t know that they may be painting themselves into a corner, so to speak, where the only way they can feel good is by doing the things that give them the most of those chemicals. That’s why drugs can be so incredibly dangerous, but it’s also why you see people doing things that don’t make a lot of sense outside of their particular clique. We bounce back and forth between the things we enjoy and needing that enjoyment of those things to be validated.




  • I don’t think he realized the mark he left on so many lives. The world is a darker place without him in it, and his business was a big part of who he was. His business was a clinic for folks that’d lost limbs. He manufactured prosthetics and orthotics. Many times the folks coming in the door were poor farmers. They didn’t have insurance or money. Didn’t matter to dad, he always found a way to get his customers what they needed.

    Hell, I remember being a kid. One of my childhood friends was moving, and another friends family was being evicted. My father bought the house of the family moving away and GAVE it to the family that was being evicted.

    I heard a story from mom about after they had moved in together. He used to fill a shoebox with coins over the course of a year, then let kids grab a handful as they’d come by the house for Halloween.

    He was a Christian man. I’m not a believer anymore, but he’s the sole reason I ever was. He’s the only person I ever knew to be a Christian that actually, and forgive the phrase, put his money where his mouth was.

    He wasn’t a proud man. He hated when he had to do anything that drew attention to himself, and despised when anyone would bring attention to him. He was a humble, kind, loving man. He’s dearly missed.


  • My father was a good man, through and through, but he didn’t always think about the consequences of his actions. He ran his own business quite well for many years, and my mother and I were well taken care of right up to when he died and beyond.

    However, for a few years before he retired, the business wasn’t doing well. He kept it afloat with his retirement fund, and drained it pretty quickly. He never touched mom’s half nor what he’d set aside for me. Mom found out and forced him to shut the place down and retire early.

    However, because he spent all that money keeping the business afloat, he had to keep working to make any kind of income. He went and got his CDL and drove busses for the city and the school in the small town he and my mom lived in for a bit before taking a job as an instructor at the small local college.

    It was during one of these days out teaching his students that he got bit by a mosquito and contracted West Nile Virus. It affected his health like less than 1% of people that contract it. It attacked his nervous system, and he was unable to breathe unassisted. Mom, having medical power of attorney, told the doctors to pull the plug after a month with no improvement.

    Because he elected to keep all his employees employed, he had no retirement fund, forcing him to continue working and thus putting himself into a position to be bit by that mosquito. His kindness killed him, if indirectly, and about a decade late.