There are no more edens,
to be found in the mind.
No more perfect places,
to run and hide.
The truth catches up
and then you die
as you search for edens
no more to find.
Archive for the 'personal' Category
As many of you know the rumor around my family is that before my Great great great grandparent came to America they had the name Von Baldowski. Well this postingI made to ancestry.com 10 years ago was finally answered last month. I totally forgot I had posted anything. A distant cousin did the research and found out my family was a Von before arriving. Christian Von Baldowski was the father of the seven brothers that came over.
As the following points out, I am of noble birth.
In Germany, ‘von’ means noble, and all persons belonging to the nobility have ‘von’ before their family names, without any exception. Persons who do not belong to the nobility cannot put ‘von’ before their names, as they have no right to do so, and would be found out directly if they assumed it, and make themselves ridiculous. But in case of a man being knighted for some reason or other, he has the right to put ‘von’ before his family name.
This quote comes from Last Names website. Unfortunately this is as far as I have gotten in research. I don’t have the time or money to go places so the best I can do is Internet searches. These usually take me to websites in German or Polish which I can’t read.
So I guess I am a nobleman.
Also the story about Baldowski Bottling was written about in the paper in Augusta Ga. It is an article about a bottling exhibit at the Augusta Museum. It is the second article on the page.
One bottle in the exhibit was produced by Baldowski Bottling Works, whose owner turned down an offer for Augusta’s Coca-Cola franchise in the early 1900s because he believed his drink was better.
Ah the twists of fate.
I have been on vacation for the past week. It has been fun. I went with my family to Key West and Nassau, a Carnival Cruise. My wife was in eastern Europe though. I wish she had been with me. There was so much I would have enjoyed more if she had been beside me.
I did learn a lot. My Uncle Jerry taught me the strategies to playing Blackjack. I haven’t put them to use yet but I hope to soon. I probably would have tried if I had more than ten dollars the last day of the trip. My Uncles Donald and Billy and Aunts Becky, Terri, and Tricia were along too, as well as my cousin Anna and one of her friends. It was a great trip. I enjoyed catching up with my uncles and aunts. It is a little different now. I was only 15 when we moved to NC and had not seen many of them for a while. It was fun having an adult conversation with them.
As I type I still feel like I am on the ship swaying to the rhythm of the waves. It was not the smoothest of voyages and I was told we were not on the largest of ships.
I have no clue what has been happening the past week. The world could be in World War III and I wouldn’t know it. I will probably post more about my trip soon. Right now I may lay down and stop the swaying.
Okay, I will admit I am a fan of American Idol. I personally think Michael Johns should win but the more I hear form David Cook the more I like him. We shall see. If you like rock music you will like this season. About half the field fits some type of rock category. I think the producers and judges worked it this way. There has never been a rocker win the show. I think they stacked the deck. I don;t think it is wrong, these may very well have been the best singers left, but I have a feeling these were the best rock singers they have had since Chris Daughtry.
This is one of my favorite moments from one of my favorite shows.
I have to admit I am an American Idol fan. When given the chance I will watch the show, but only after the finally 24 have been named. I don’t like the audition part of the show or Hollywood week. Some of the singers in the top 24 are usually pretty good. This year it sounds like they have a strong group of guys. The girls don’t seem to be as strong. It is the opposite of last year. I hope a rocker wins this year.
By the way, one of the guys sang Jailhouse Rock. Does anyone else detect a note of homosexual innuendo in the song. Check out this lyric:
“Number forty-seven said to number threeYou’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see I sure would be delighted with your company Come on and do the jailhouse rock with me”. I just point this out because it is unusual for a song written in the 50’s.Again it has been awhile. Life has been busy. We shall see if it slows down any soon.
Sorry, it has been a while since I posted. My wife has been sick, I have been sick, I lost my part-time job, etc… So far 08 has been a bummer. Things are looking up though. We seem to be coming out of the worst of it and hopefully things will start looking up soon.
A lot has happened since I last posted a topic. John McCain is now the Republican nominee for president. It looks like he may chose Mike Huckabee as running mate though names, such as Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have also been floated as possible VP candidates. I know McCain is not the staunch conservative many in the party want as their candidate but he strikes me as a practical man who looks at problems and tries to solve them based on reality not ideology. An example, the reality of illegal immigration is there is no good way to stop it short of militarizing the border. There are ways to staunch the flow. But there are by some estimates 20-30 million illegal immigrants in the country now. There is no viable way to remove them. There needs to be a way to absorb them into the populace. McCain realizes this. He is in favor of tightening the border but also wants to find a way to bring the rest into the fold, as it were. On other issues he seems to bring the same practicality to the table. I can support a man who is willing to look at the reality of the situation and move to fix it in practical ways instead of someone who has an ideological vision whose actions would end up harming the system more than helping it. The government needs healing and I don’t believe that will happen with any other candidate.
One set of books I have enjoyed over the years are the Drizzt novels by R.A. Salvatore. He is good at description of battles but he also brings into it a psychological aspect as he delves into the minds of his characters, particularly Drizzt. I highly recommend the read there are a lot of books though as he has been writing them for twenty years and has published one every year or so. here is a guide
The Dark Elf Trilogy Homeland, Exile and Sojourn are the story of Drizzt early life in his world of the dark elves. They are probably the best of all he has written, though they are the second trilogy he wrote. He wrote these partly to explain Drizzt’s heritage but also to introduce the dark elves that would cause so much trouble in later novels.
The first trilogy The Icewind Dale trilogy includes The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver and The Halfling’s Gem. This trilogy establishes Drizzt and his companions for many novels to come Bruenor Battlehammer, the king of the Icewind Dale dwarfs and later Mithril Hall, Cattie-Brie, Bruenor’s adopted human daughter, Wulfgar, the barbarian that becomes Bruenor’s adopted son, and Regis, the half-ling thief. These also introduce Drizzt’s nemesis Artemis Entereri and Jaraxle, two characters that later get their own trilogy (See currently reading Road of the Patriarch)
Next comes The Legacy of the Drow series The Legacy, Starless Night, Siege of Darkness, and Passage to Dawn. The Drow come to to the surface and Drizzt and company must stop them.
The fourth series The Paths of Darkness includes The Silent Blade, The Spine of the World, Servant of the Shard and Sea of Swords. The companions, for various reasons detailed in the previous books, make their way in the world alone and must find themselves to be able to come back together as a group. He spun off a series with Artemis and Jaraxle from Servant of the Shard, these don’t include Drizzt and his friends directly. Servant is considered the first in the Sellswords series. The next two are Promis of the Witch-King and Road of the Patriarch.
The last full trilogy was The Hunter’s Blade Trilogy of The Thousand Orcs, The Lone Drow and The Two Swords. A war has come between Mithril Hall and the orcs of the Spine of the World Mountains. It nearly destroys the dwarfs sending the region into darkness.
The next trilogy has begun in the new book The Orc King. This is a continuation of the fall-out from the war just ended.
Well, I had a good Christmas. I was able to see all my friends and family. It was a lot of fun. My wife and I were finally able to do something we have been looking forward to for sometime, buying a new mattress and box spring. We went to the Original Mattress Factory and so far we are happy about the purchase. It has been unusual having so much free time. I have been trying to blog but have been having trouble with my wireless Internet connection. Right now it is working. It may not work tomorrow. Needless to say I have been frustrated with it and feel like dynamiting it. This has made me want to get Time Warner Internet just for the stability. We may do that and bundle the package, but that may cost us about $40-$50 dollars more a month. As I told someone about our connection, when it works it works beautifully, when it doesn’t it fails spectacularly. We shall see.
ps. check this out. It is a group called Straight No Chaser doing the 12 days of Christmas in a very unique way.