Mark Carleton’s Blog

As I get settled in and ready for bed on a Sunday night, I have to say this has been a good weekend. Lots of fun things to do: Friday night seeing my friends Robert and Jim’s band lay down some great live music, helping my daughter move into her new home with lots of strapping young lads to do the heavy lifting, lunching with Michelle’s brother and his fiance’, and today seeing the moon landing IMAX movie. The best event of all was that I got to speak to my son, Paul twice this weekend and it sounds like he is doing great. And I got to spend part of my Sunday with my daughter Rachel. Thank goodness, the rain that has plagued us all weekend is giving way to sunshine again. I am looking forward to a good week at work with lots of interesting projects and good things to accomplish. To top it off, we are off Friday for a 4 day weekend at Lake Tahoe for Ken and Nichole’s wedding.

Hope you have a wonderful week, too.

Well after a couple weeks of not hearing from my son, Paul, he called tonight. Sounded good. Is doing very well in his tank mechanic classes. Sounds like PT continues to be a challenge. Things are tougher at Ft. Knox than they were at Ft. Benning. They are stricter about the correct form for push-ups and the course for running is uphill.

But as expected he is excelling in his mechanical classes. He says he’s already qualified for the Expert Mechanic badge as soon as he gets his PT test squared away. Way to go, Bud!

Today I think that Paris Hilton needs to be taken out of the gene pool. The whole “too wigged out” to defend herself on a civil court case is crazy. It bugs me that money and celebrity can bring some people an immunity in taking responsiblity for their actions. Okay, she is cute, but everything I know about her, makes her one of the ugliest people on the planet.

On other news, I was able to score some of those “forever” stamps yesterday. You know at first I thought that it was stupid to have the Liberty Bell on the default stamp, but now that I have seen them in person, I think they are very attractive. It did hurt that two books ate most of a $20 bill but hey, I guess small price to pay. Its been fun writing my son, Paul in the Army. The art of letter writing is something that has been fun re-discovering. In this age of instant messaging, cell phones, and email, its something very different to write someone and know that they won’t get the message for almost a week and you won’t get a reply for almost two. Anyway, all for today.

Okay, I’m not a mother. I have one. My children have one. My wife has one. So I guess I still have lots of Happy Mother’s day to give.

I’m a little bummed as it has been over a week since I spoke with my son Paul. He used to call on Sunday but either he’s busy, not getting phone priveledges for some sort of disipline problem, but the more rational explaination is that he is getting more comfortable with his Army life and doesn’t need to call Dad as often. Another sign that he is growing up. Sigh.

I’m pretty frustrated with the postal service these days. They are raising the rates tomorrow but my local Albertson’s didn’t have the new stamps today. Hello. If you’re going to raise the rates, then supply the pipeline with the proper materials to keep things moving. I guess I should be more mad at Albertson’s but it frustrates me that such a basic service is screwed around with.

That’s all for today.

Well, here goes my entry into the world of blogging. All the cool kids are doing it so I am too. After all, even in middle age, I feel the compulsion to sucumb to peer pressure. Feel free to add comments. No fair correcting spelling as I don’t see a spell checker on here.

Dunno how often I will be on here but, I’ll try to be interesting.

Mark