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Fri.Feb.25.2005

7:26 pm EST        60°F (16°C) in Houston, TX

Calendar of Updates

I don't really have a ton of "new" news to report, but I suppose it wouldn't be a bad idea to follow up on some items I have mentioned here recently. About all I've done in the last four days is a ton of driving; as you can see, I've made it some 1,300 miles southwest of Michigan.

I reported on my friend Tim's medical condition in my February 15 update here. At that point, things were looking very dire; he was in a coma that had been brought on by the 106°F (41°C) fever he had suffered for about a week. Earlier this week, Tim finally started becoming semi-responsive; in fact, in a funny twist of fate, hearing his husband Rick and his sister talking about George W. Bush caused Tim to utter, "He is such a moron." While I'm sure his political sentiment won't sit well with everybody, I find it pretty funny (in an ironic way) that it was that topic that elicited a response from Tim.

In any case, Rick has been printing out literally hundreds — if not even thousands — of messages that people have sent to Tim via his LiveJournal and e-mail. It is quite heart-warming to see that Tim, a person who always gives 150% of himself to help others when he is healthy, is getting that support and love returned to him in his time of need. From what I've read of Rick's recent updates to Tim's LJ, Rick honestly believes that all of the love being sent Tim's way helped him to get through the worst of the ordeal. However, Tim still has a long way to go; he is not responsive 100% of the time, and he has almost no ability to move. His doctors are not permitting any visitors except for Rick and immediate family members (i.e., Tim's sister); he is basically still in isolation, and may have to be there for some time.

In my last update, I mentioned a former student at my old high school and his blog; I had sort of jumped to the unfair conclusion that he fell somewhere to the right side of even Jerry Falwell on the political spectrum. I still don't know how he found my site, especially within 24 hours of my update, but he made a response in his blog. That ended up leading to a short exchange of blog comments and e-mails; it turns out that (a) he's not as far to the right as I thought, and (b) he's actually a nice, decent guy, nothing at all like the Falwellian image of a self-righteous bigot full of hatred with which I had incorrectly associated him. Let's just say that the whole series of events has been a reminder to me of the old saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover."

The load I picked up Tuesday evening in Illinois, and delivered here this morning, turned out to contain too much product (i.e., items that were not actually ordered were shipped anyway); both receivers signed the bills indicating that they had received all the product they had actually ordered. I get to head to the next-largest city here in Texas (Dallas) to dispose of the extra product at a facility approved by the shipper for that purpose. After that, I have no idea where I'll be off to, but I certainly hope it won't be to the East Coast between now and about Monday. One hell of a storm is brewing over the southern Appalachian mountain range, and it's going to bring a ton of snow to much of the northeastern part of the country, especially on Sunday and Monday. Hopefully I'll stay down here in the South …