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| Personal background |
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My life has always revolved around music in one form or another. I began playing the violin at age 5 and, by age 13, made the switch from Classical to Country music. (When a boy is that age, Classical just isn't "cool" any longer!!) I was AZ state champion fiddle player in 1990 & 1991 and, shortly after, began to perform music for a living. I continued on for 10 years, traveling through out the U.S., making a very good living, performing in venues from large Country dance halls ( Like Billy Bob's in TX ) to stadiums, and many others in between. The final year that I was on the road, I held the position as fiddle player for one of the top five Country music artists in the nation ( Anyone who knows me personally knows who he is but I'm not going to mention his name here. Sorry! ). (UPDATE-4Feb.2013; Since some folks have asked me, and I guess it's not that important that I keep it private, the Country Music artist's band that I used to be in is Kenny Chesney's) I had to make the difficult choice 10 years ago to give up the music biz ( the traveling part, anyway. I still do studio work and play for my own enjoyment), as I decided that it was more important to be home for my two children ( they're 12 & 15 now ). As a result of the life style that I led, the girl that I began dating and fell in love with while we were still both 18, who became my wife and the mother of my children, left me after we had been together for 16 years, 10 of them as husband and wife. She is a great mother and a wonderful human being. It was the fact that she has the personality type that says every thing is either black or white, that made it hard on her. Very intelligent, yet simplistic in her view of the world, and I think that all of those years of me living the life style that I did was just more than she could deal with or understand. I have no regrets, though, as I was able to live my dream and experience something and see things that only a select few ever get to. I believe that being a musician is the reason that I have always loved math and science. After all, music is math. It's all about rhythm and octaves, 6ths and 7ths and 9ths and so on. It's been proven that school kids who play a musical instrument do better academically, as a whole, than those who do not. Anyway, I especially love anything to do with radio, too, such as Amateur(Ham) radio, DX'ing (listening to scanners, shortwave ), propagation and radio theory, etc. I also enjoy reading up on quantum physics / mechanics, string theory, and so on. It just fascinates the heck out of me. After all of that being said, the most important thing in my life now and will be until I draw my last breath, is my children. It's funny. When I was around 16 years old, I remember saying to a friend at the time that I would never want to be a dad. I think that I even made a bet with him that by the time I reached 30, I would not have any kids. Boy, was I ever wrong!! When my son was born (the 15 year old) and I held him for the first time, he looked at me (he was 2 weeks late, hence he could see somewhat) and I saw pure, honest to goodness love there like I had never seen or known before. It seemed that at that very moment, every thing in the universe made perfect sense. It felt like I had seen God himself. A miracle. And I felt the exact same way when I first looked into my daughter's eyes 2 1/2 years later. Nothing diminished. The feeling was just as incredible! I adore my children to this day. We always hear about teenagers and how bad they are and all of the trouble that they get into, but I think that it's just hype perpetrated by media who focus on the negative minority because it makes for a "good" story. But I believe that the majority of teens are like mine, and their parents, more like me. Sure, kids stumble from time to time, but that's how one learns about life. And it's our job to be there to help them along the way, at least until they can take care of themselves. I must have done something pretty good in another life as I am truly blessed to have been granted the privilege of guiding through to adulthood these two wonderful human beings. And that is the point that my life is at now and I guess I'll leave it at that. (Wow! I didn't think that I was going to rattle on so when I began writing this! )
I haven't been into my profile in quite some time so I figured I should add a little bit here to let anyone who reads this know what's been going on in my life. Unfortunately, the last 3 years have been extremely difficult for me. Not only did I have to quit my job at Southwest Airlines that I had for 9 years, because of my bad back. But, in Nov. 2009, I was diagnosed with a very rare form of Leukemia. I initially spent 2 months in the hospital taking hard core chemotherapy, the kind that makes all of your hair fall out & sick as a dog with nausea. Then I had to endure another 6 months of out-patient chemo 5 days a week. When that was finally over and I was home trying to recover, I found out that I had a kidney stone. So, on the day that I was to go in to have it laser blasted, my mother came by to take me to the hospital. She tried to wake me but I wouldn't wake up. She, being a Registered Nurse, noticed that my breathing did not seem right so she called 911 right away. When I got to the hospital, they told her that I was in a coma!! All of my organs, liver, kidneys, pancreas, & worst of all my lungs had all shut down. Apparently, my body was in such a weakened state from the Leukemia & all of the chemo that the kidney stone had caused my body to turn septic! And, as if that wasn't bad enough, after doing a brain scan, they also found out that I had had 5 strokes during this ordeal! Well, to try to make this short, I awoke 11 days later to find all these tubes down my throat & up my nose, hooked to breathing & feeding machines among other things. And, it was strange. As all of these specialist doctors would come into my room to see if I had made any progress, they would look at me in astonishment because I was finally awake and say things like "Man, to put it bluntly, we were expecting to come in here and hear that you had passed away in the night!!!" So, it's been a rough couple of years, but, I have faced death knocking at my door not once, but twice now, and, by the grace of God, I am still here for my children! (Who, by the way, are 19 (my son) and 17 (my daughter) now). I think that they are what kept me going and having the will to fight. I just knew somehow that my time on Earth was not done yet. I still have things to experience. Like someday having grandkids, for instance! And I know that they still need there dad, even though they are reaching adulthood now.
The one down side as a result of this is that the strokes have severely affected my speech & my short-term memory. And, my balance has been affected as well, causing me to fall down on occasion & to drop things, such as dishes or glasses. (We have had to buy a new set of drinking glasses because I have broken so many!!) As a result, I have been deemed permanently disabled and am not able to work anymore. But it does leave me much more time for my children and I have a lot of time to keep playing my violin & guitar now. And, I'll tell you, when one goes through all that I've been through, it sure makes you thankful for each & every day.
19Oct.2018
Well, I felt it was high time that I update my little bio here. First of all, I now have some grandchildren that I had mentioned as a hope/wish for the future! My daughter (who is 23 now) has my oldest grandson, Giovanni, who is 3 1/2 yrs old now. And my 2nd son (who is 25 now) has the youngest, Waylon LeDeux, who is 2 1/2 yrs old. When I stated previously that I must have done something really good in a past life to be blessed with such wonderful children, now I'm thinking WOW! , I had to have REALLY scored some points somewhere to be lucky enough to have these 2 little guys enter into my life! I just hope that I can be even just 1/100th of the man that my grandpa was, and be the best grandfather that I possibly can be to these boys. My grandpa (my mother's father) was born in 1904 and was absolutely a self made man. He witnessed the decline of the horse & buggy and the rise of the automobile, experienced much of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of technology & the computer age. Lived through the Great Depression, very comfortably, I might add, and emerged completely unscathed when it was through. He even manufactured whiskey, and then ran a moonshine operation, coordinating several "moon runners" or "bootleggers" !! He lost friends & family in 2 World Wars and, along the way, he married my grandma (in 1933). He started his own plumbing business (he was the only employee!) which he never had to advertise, and that served a multi-county, multiple township area for over 50 years, all by word of mouth! He and my grandma were able to retire when he was in his late 60's and had more than enough saved for them to live very comfortably for the remainder of their years. (Being retired didn't slow him, not in the least! He still got up at 0500 every morning and would be out on his tractor, plowing his 6-7 acres of crops, or under his car wrenching on this or that, and if not at home, they liked to travel alot!) He lived to be 91 years old, my grandma, who was 8 years younger, lived to 90, and to this day, when someone asks who my hero or role model is, I will always say "My Grandpa".
I sure am glad that I mentioned him in this bio. It's the least that I could do by far. Well, I mentioned that my kid's mother & I had divorced back in 2003 and, though I pretty much relegated myself to being alone for the rest of my life, especially after all of the health issues that I have had with my leukemia and everything, back in December of 2016, I met a beautiful, sweet girl whom I never even considered perusing a relationship with. I just didn't think that such a wonderful, gorgeous little (she's only 5' 1" and weighs 112lbs!) gal would have an interest in me, especially with our age difference (she being 39 to my 49!), though we did have so many connections and therefore became very close friends very quickly. Then on Valentine's Day (I'm not kidding!) something sparked between us and I knew right then & there that I had fallen in love with her! She, on the other hand, though she did actually find me attractive (it seems that I'm her "type", big/tall, dark hair, dark eyes), took quite a bit of prodding & persuading before she felt comfortable enough to let her guard down & allow our love to grow. I was the first guy that she had been serious with in over 8 years, the result of a very bad, abusive relationship. Oh, I forgot to mention, in March of this same year, 2017, on my way home around noon from her townhouse, as a matter of fact, I was on the freeway, my favorite, beautiful, custom black bobber motorcycle underneath me, & had just gotten onto the offramp for my exit when this *@#×*$# slammed on his brakes right in front of me! I was not at all expecting this as there WAS ABSOLUTELY NO ONE in front of him and no reason to brake so hard. So I grabbed both front & rear brakes (luckily I was still a ways back from Mr. Drivers Ed, but closing fast at 65mph plus!) and, for a second, all was fine. But then it happened...for some reason, my front locked up, slammed the handlebars to the left, then, like a Brahma Bull in a rodeo, threw my carcass hard to the pavement at around 50 mph! I ended up spending 5 days in ICU with multiple skull fractures (no helmet), a big gash in my forehead where I lost over a pint of blood and that required 28 staples, 5 broken ribs, all on my right side, broke my right wrist in 3 places, and had way too much road rash to quantify. I was very lucky, though, and i thank God above that no one ran me over once i went down, as that was much more than a possibility, especially on the freeway! My poor bike, however, didn't fare as well. It didn't hit any vehicles, thank God once again, but the flipping was so violent, for example, that it ripped my gas tank from its mount and, I'm not exaggerating, as I was sliding down the pavement on my belly, I could see forward and the last flip that my bike did, it shot my tank at least 100 feet into the air & around another 8-900 feet DOWN the freeway!! I swear I could hear the faintest of whistles as it came down, like artillery shells in WWII! Perhaps it was the blood loss or the concussion, but I could've swore I heard..... It goes without saying that they totaled my poor bike. I think that hurt more than anything. Okay, maybe not more than the 5 busted ribs. But, I must say that my recovery was made MUCH easier when, on my 3rd day in ICU, my new girlfriend came to the hospital with my daughter to see me! For a moment, the feel of her gentle embrace and her sweet, soft lips against mine took all of the pain away, no kidding!
So, as if I haven't been through enough, 2 months after my girlfriend moved into my house with me, and one day before Halloween last year (2017), my 2700 square foot, 4 bedroom home was completely destroyed when the vent fan in the laundry room caught fire, subsequently igniting the whole house, due to, I found out later, faulty wiring/a manufacturing defect (which the fan manufacturer is fighting a class action suit over). It was 0100 in the morning, but thankfully I was just barely falling asleep, as everyone else, including my girlfriend, was passed out. I kept hearing what I thought was one of my cats scratching at my door to get in so, when I got up to go to the door, I noticed the billowing smoke at my ceiling. Then, just as I turned toward the door, this HUGE flame shot through my A/C vent high up on my wall, I would guess it was at least 8 feet long, almost as if the devil himself had reached out & grabbed at me through the vent! At that moment, all I could think to do was start hollering in an attempt to roust everyone from their slumber. Once again, Dear God Above was watching over me & those I love, as we all got out safely, including my girlfriend 's pug, my daughter's Australian Shepard and our 3 cats! It has been an ongoing thing now where I tease my girlfriend because earlier in the day that I wrecked my motorcycle, she had asked if I would give her a ride on it, just around the neighborhood. It was the first (and last) time that she ever got to. And then, not 2 months after she moves into my house with me, it's completely destroyed in a fire!! I keep telling her that I'm really going to need to do some thinking as to weather I want to have her around, or especially taking her here & there in my nice truck! "My poor truck, it's the next to go, you know. These things always happen in groups of three!" But, I guess if anything good can come from the loss of my house, we just got to move back in to it a few weeks ago, after 10 months in a house that my insurance company rented for us. They rebuilt it from the ground up and, well, it's a brand new house again! It was only 16 years old when the fire happened, but some of the fixtures were getting sort of dated . It looks absolutely wonderful now!
One more thing that I feel I need to mention. Before my ex-wife & I got married, we went through a 6 month period where we split up. During that time, I met a girl who I actually fell in love with and, subsequently, she became pregnant with my first son. My ex was not too happy with the whole situation, as can be expected, therefore I didn't have any contact with him as I allowed my ex to dictate wether or not I could. Believe me, if I could go back and fix that, I ABSOLUTELY would. Thankfully, I did keep in contact with his mother and she, very gracefully I must say, gave me the go ahead to contact him about 7 years ago. I am so very glad that I did. And I'm also so happy & thankful that he didn't push me away or possess a heart full of hate for me, which he very well could have. And, now that I've gotten to know him, I realize that he really couldn't have harboured any ill will towards me because he is just not that kind of a person. I just wish that I would've done so long ago, but am truly grateful for the chance to have him in my life now.
Wow! I hadn't planned on writing a novel when I started this bio........
Guess that's enough for now. God Bless..... |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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I first heard about SETI @ Home while listening to the Art Bell show one night back in the late 90s and thought it sounded like a cool idea. So I signed up in 1999 and have been running it ever since. As I stated in my profile, I've always been interested in space and science so it seemed like the natural thing to do.
Something that I find quite amusing is the fact that the SETI folks ( Seth Shoestack and others ) have a profound disbelief that our planet has ever been visited by ETs, while so many SETI supporters/enthusiasts have quite the opposite belief. Of course the SETI folks do believe that there more than likely are intelligent life forms out there somewhere, otherwise they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. As for myself, the more that I study the phenomenon, the more I'm inclined to believe that we just may have been visited both recently and in the ancient and modern past. |
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