Royce's Random Thoughts

Finally got the scans from my sister from "Front Page Detective" the magazine that featured my Dad in a story about finding illegal radio transmitters at Belmont Racetrack.



Sultry Cover is Sultry



That's my Dad, Raymond Leroy Day, in the upper right corner, demonstrating the gear the FCC confiscated.

( More pulpy text behind the cut )

Fred Rogers, if he were alive, would be 87 today.

For the record: Mister Rogers didn't wear those sweaters to hide Marine tattoos, he was never a sniper with the Navy SEALS, he wasn't doing the show as a penance for a child molestation charge, and his car was (probably) never stolen and then sheepishly returned by the thieves when they realized whose it was.

He was exactly the same person he was on TV. A gentle, soft-spoken man showing simple projects kids could make themselves, taking them on tours of interesting places, or meeting people like firemen or scientists to show what kind of jobs they do, and talking to young children about things that could sometimes worry them, so he could reassure them that they were special "just the way you are."

He did it for about forty years, on a simple set at a local PBS station, with music provided by a piano player behind the camera, and with no choppy hyperactive editing. And for that he was somehow remarkable.

Fred Rogers: We'd call you "Badass" sir, but we know you wouldn't appreciate that sort of language.

IN which I babble for anew minutes about various stuff.

I'm the guy who writes all the furry stories, but it's my wife who wears the fursuit...


Lemee 'splain: My wife works for a county library system, and the particular branch she works at always has an annual Teddy Bear Picnic around May or so for the library's children patrons and their parents. So the head librarian for the children's section bought a teddy bear costume out of her own pocket for the annual picnic. Now that the old branch is currently being demolished and since they're stuck in a temporary location until the new library is completed late next year, there isn't room to store the suit, so now there's the beheaded body of the suit stored in the trunk of my wife's car for the next few months.

If I ever want to get a fursuit of my wazagan persona or one of my Red Vixen characters, I don't want hear any complaints from her. :)

Monday-Tuesday: Average. Hate work.

Wednesday: Ice storm drops a pine tree across the yards of my neighbor and I (we live in a row of townhouses). Fortunately it misses our roof, but it takes out my neighbor's gutters and poke several holes in her roof. On the plus side her son is contractor, so tree removal starts that afternoon.

Oh, and I miss another day's pay because I have to stay home with the kids.

Thursday: Come into work late because I had to put the kids on the bus. Find an email from my boss with a list of idiot mistakes I'd made last month that I had to correct. Miss listening to a conference call because I can't figure out how to log in until it's too late.

Friday: Rush to work after dropping off Tracy's car at the ship because it's making knocking noises. Find out we need to get her a new car. (9K engine repairs on a twelve year old car). Make more mistakes at work.

I wanna Do Over...

Tuesday I woke up with a sore throat and put it down to sinuses draining. Got through the day at work then took a sudafed before going to sleep at 9:30pm. Woke up at 1:15am and just couldn't go back to sleep, esp. since I started dry coughing every time I laid down. Called out of work and tried to get back to bed about 8:30am, and just couldn't get comfortable. Worse I wasn't hungry, and only ate a couple of slices of plain bread for breakfast, plus a cup of rice pudding that tasted horribly rich. Finally I took a dose of NyQuil and 10am and slept until almost 2pm, waking up feeling shivery and achey.

Picked up the kids from school and when Tracy got back from work I laid back in bed at 6:30pm, after eating a little bowl of soup. Woke up at 10:30pm, dry heaved briefly, then took more NyQuil and slept until almost 3:30am. Nose is now running like a sewer and I'm still exhausted, but I dragged myself to work anyway after taking another Sudafed.

So, my son Thomas, who is autistic, is entering adolescence. In a normal child's life this is a difficult time. In Tom's, its been pretty upsetting. Especially at daycare this year, since he's been increasingly disinclined to listen to the teachers there and they have been increasingly unable to handle him (the personnel consists of three women, one who's pregnant, one who's 70+ years old, and have about twenty kids between them besides Thomas to look after.) Things came to a head Tuesday, when he started screaming and crying and banging doors open and shut, ending with him getting in a tug of war with the head of the center and then breaking a toilet seat.

So we needed to get a new daycare for him. Now. And just trying finding one that can handle an autistic 12 year old on short notice. His middle school will have an after-care program to watch him at the start of the year, but that left us with August to get through.

Fortunately moonshadowed's mother is already watching my brother-in-law's kids (who are in their teens or jsut a bit younger) and agreed to watch Tom and Miss G for us. I just have to spend a month shuttling them up to Reading Hanover, PA, drive to my work in Baltimore, MD, then pick them up in the evening.

Sadly, all that gas will still be cheaper than what we'd be paying the daycare...

Hopped onto the elevator to head back to my office. On board already was a Hasidic Jew, with the braids, wide brimmed hat and what looked to me like a black silk quilted bathrobe.

First time for everything. Shrugs.

So Friday, myself, moonshadowed, Thomas and Georgia, plus Tracy's mom and Aunt Donna, all piled into my minivan for a trip to Cleveland so Tracy could meet with a couple of online friends and run in a local half-marathon.

Things happened thusly:

1. About halfway down the PA Turnpike [1] my minivan jerked to the right a couple of times. My best guess at the time was that since we were going through a relatively high and rocky section that it was wind. Turned out it was my left rear tire about to blow out.

At 75mph

On the fucking turnpike.

Fortunately after the initial THUMPthudthudthudthud I was able to pull off safely onto the shoulder and change the tire, which was completely shredded. Doubly luckily a cop came along less than five minutes later to keep traffic from smashing me while I changed the time (and for once the time shop hadn't tightened on the nuts so hard I couldn't undo them myself).

2. Finally got to the hotel around 4:30pm to find it being rapidly occupied by a fish fancier convention. I didn't even know you could have conventions about that. Though if you're going to have it anywhere I guess Cleveland is the place.

3. First night of sleep didn't actually happen due to a variety of circumstances. Fortunately I managed to nap in the morning while Tracy dragged the kids to the hotel's swimming pool.

4. Saturday (after my nap) we picked up Tracy's race packet and visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Only saw the first floor of exhibits, due to Tom going into sensory overload and Tracy's mom feeling ragged out and annoyed because they didn't have an items related to a really obscure rocker she wanted to see.

5. Sunday was Race Day. Most long races Tracy has done started at 7am or so, for some stupid reason this one began at 9am, which meant I had to drop her off and rush back to help her mom and Aunt pack up and check out before returning to the race course with them. I left them in the car with the kids while I met Tracy, since it was a half-mile walk from the parking lot to the race course.

6. Despite having the flu earlier in the week and still getting over a case of bronchitis, Tracy managed to finish with a time of 3:07 and ahead of at least nine people in a field of a thousand.

7. Then it was time to drive home. Didn't get back to our house until about 8:30pm after dropping off Grandmom and Aunt Donna. Thomas started losing his biscuit the last couple of hours, but given how much driving we'd done over the past three days I wasn't going to blame him.

8. Back to worrrrrrrk.


[1] And who's idea was it to make a state so damned large?

So my niece Tracy got married on Saturday. Georgia was in attendance as her flower girl, and did remarkably well given that she's only six and very bouncy. She went down the aisle with reasonable dignity, scattering petals and standing mostly still with the bridesmaids during the rest of the ceremony (it didn't hurt that they all were telling her how cute looking she was every five minutes prior to things starting.)

moonshadowed didn't get to see most of the proceedings, unfortunately. We had Thomas with us as well, and we'd had to leave at 1:30 to get to the church on time for Georgia to get changed into her dress before the ceremony (we live in Columbia, MD and the ceremony was at Fort Belvior, VA on the army base itself). Things didn't get going until 4:30, and by that point Thomas' ability to stay still and quiet was exhausted, so Tracy (my wife, not the bride) had to take him back out to the van to chill out and not interrupt things. After photos were done we headed over to the reception and partied until Thomas started melting down at about 8:30pm. After that we drove home and got in about 9:45 and sent both kids to bed.

It was an exhausting day, but fun.