mrrnice2

Quite a week castle! Congrats on 1500.

Congratulations Castle on your ascension. I have taken the liberty of creating a suitable place for you to entertain any of our amazing Maritime SP's for when you choose to visit the east coast.

Not for the faint of heart! Play the slideshow! http://www.shitmydadsends.com/4700-ft-high-glass-sky-walk-in-china-tianmen-mountain-in-zhangj-iajie/

Well following that train of thought, lets head south one more time to the great music city of New Orleans. And hey one more from Johnny Horton. The Battle of New Orleans.

I only get the easy ones that you leave me. Californication - Immediate thought process took me to California Dreaming, Mamas and the Papas Additional Comments: OOPS Overlapped with RG who also had California on My Mind...I mean his mind.

Warrior brought me to mind of Mel Gibson and Braveheart. In Braveheart the bagpipes are haunting in the theme song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYUD6e9W83o Bagpipes. You love em or hate em. I love them.

I was going to try to stay away from this thread but over the last 24 hours I seem to keep coming back to it, reading what others have said and empathizing with those who have shared their stories. What has ultimately brought me back here is the wisdom of Spud when he added his thought that writing and sharing is therapeutic, and truer words may never have been spoken. Since joining CERB I have made references to my personal story, but never did speak about the one thing that was perhaps the most difficult for me to 'do'. My wife, purely by chance discovered that she had a massive brain aneurysm. The doctors were amazed that it had not burst previously and she and I considered ourselves very lucky that it had been discovered, because there is in fact a 'fix' for it. The fix is a relatively new procedure, and we knowingly went into it being aware of the risks which were quite high with death and a debilitating stroke being the primary ones. It involved placing platinum wire coils the width of a human hair into the aneurysm in order to fill it and strengthen the walls of the blood vessel, and this is all done remotely without invasive surgery by feeding the wire through the blood vessels from the groin and all the way up into the brain. We even joked about the end result - that she and I would be the bionic superhero duo, her with her platinum brain and me with my extra little bit of titanium that lets me walk. The surgery did not go well. The three hour surgery stretched into seven hours before the surgeons came out to see me. I knew long before then that we were in trouble. The artery had ruptured above the aneurysm, in effect causing a massive stroke. By the end of an additional five hours in surgery three neurosurgeons were working on her. In that interim period occurred the first of several things that I had to do that were the most difficult things I have ever had to do. That was to call two of my daughters who were in Ontario and BC respectively, to explain what was happening, and saying yes, you better come home, now. Technically she survived the surgery and the surgeon tried to be positive with me that there was still a chance that with time and rehabilitation the woman that I knew might survive, but that she would be a very different woman from the one that went into surgery. This brought a situation whereby for the second time in hours I had to do what was one of the most difficult things that I ever had to do. That was to respect her wishes and tell the surgeons that her wish and mine would be to not prolong her life if it was being maintained solely by use of extreme measures. I still do not know if the staff protected my mental health by telling me that as the next hours progressed she deteriorated more to the point that they declared her brain dead or did they respect our wishes and allow it to happen? The saving grace to this story, which I have written about previously, is that five people received organ donations and we have been in contact with several of them and they are doing well. Two other people who had been blind can now see. Life can change in the blink of an eye and what may be my biggest and the hardest thing to ever do in my life is yet unaccomplished - to be able to accept, and live a useful life from here on out. That is a work in progress.

Feeling like I am coming to a conclusion or decision on something. It won't be a black and white decision but perhaps a happy medium. I kind of like where my mind is going with this. :)

Congratulations Dorinda on this accomplishment.:) Well done!

The other day I was speaking with a CERB friend and I said that at that moment I certainly did not feel like a mrrnice and that the name was not too accurate a representation of me sometimes. She suggested the following. mrridontgiveaf**kaboutnonsmokersandiamgoingtosmokeinmyownhouseanyway It made me laugh like I have not laughed in a while. The reason that she suggested that alternate name is probably self-explanatory! So - if you were going to change your name here for a day, what would it be and why?

Happy Birthday Penelope.

The do not call list has been great for me for years on my home landline which is registered. I used to get multiple calls and now they are few and far between. There are exemptions to the policy. For example I believe that charitable organizations can still call legally, and I know with certainty that companies that you presently do business with ARE allowed to call you for telemarketing purposes. eg Scotiabank, etc I continually got calls from Scotiabank for things such as buying insurance. Finally I lost my temper perhaps as much as I ever do and told the person that I have been a Scotiabank customer for 35+ years, that I have all of my money and investments in their care, and that if I ever get one more telemarketing call that I would take every cent to another bank. I never received another call from them.

Congratulations Penelope on 1000 posts! For this accomplishment by a very classy woman I give you a very classy cup for you to use to toast to your success. Thanks for your contributions. to

I like Genav88 because she is a new member, and new members are always nice:) Also, she loves crossword puzzles, as do I, so your challenge is the Saturday Globe and Mail puzzle my dear. She is a grad student and I adore intelligent people and oh yes, she has a great avatar. :) Welcome to CERB

Not for your ordinary cats with claws. A new iPod app. :)

Just call me Jailhouse Killer King.

For Penelope, a special person. One can never have too many hugs, right?

The whole question of unions, essential services, and the fact that the service is government subsidized presents a moral dilemma. As a strong union supporter, I tend always to lean towards that side of most discussions. In todays business climate it can be a difficult position to argue. I do believe that business and big business in general are manufacturing issues and putting away large and often obscene profits at the expense of the employee and the general public. Whether this applies in this specific situation I am unaware. In the Maritimes at the moment our one and only interprovincial ground service transportation service has been off for almost two months - Acadian Bus Lines. The effect of that is that there is no way to travel between communities in PEI or unless one chooses to fly, to travel out of province by public transit. Within New Brunswick there is no public transit between Moncton, Saint John or Fredericton other than by air. VIA Rail does not provide service at all between those cities or to PEI. In this circumstance, the employer locked out the employees after several years of operating without a contract. This has presented great difficulties to the travelling public here as would of course a transit strike in your area. I would love to see government intervene with conciliators and eventually arbitrators and not impose back to work legislation, but government is not acting at all in our situation. May reason prevail and both sides arrive at a mutually agreed and fair contract in both your situation and ours. A difficult question indeed.

No bullshit eh? If I could do it over....... I would have spent more time with my wife and kids rather than work all hours and weekends as I did. I learned that life can be shorter than one expects. I would have gone to the Montreal Alouette training camp that I was invited to. and at the moment, I am still trying to decide if joining CERB and this lifestyle will be something that eventually I will look back on and know that it helped me or will it be on my regret list. That being said, I have been one of the lucky ones, no question about it.

Hey Gabriella! Good luck coming your way with this hug. I can feel it. :)

Congratulations Penelope on achieving Goddess status. Your words and wisdom are enjoyed by many and your strength is an inspiration to all. Keep it up and know that you have many friends behind you.

Shymale is a new and really positive contributor to CERB. I enjoy his posts and the sincerity with which he writes. And hey, he and I have at least one amazing woman about whom we are both intrigued, so I know that he has great taste! :)