Category: Paul J. Sumberg, Sr.

I did make another quick trip south to buy a motorhome. After spending a day and a half poking around the motorhome the seller decided he wanted to keep it. He bought it at an estate auction and I don’t think he knew how to operate it. Apparently I educated him. Oh well.
I guess that unnatural winter is finally over. Although my heater came on several times over the past week. Since I used up nearly all my firewood in just this one long, cold winter, I’ve been busy replenishing my supply. Whew! I have nearly 7 cords split and stacked.
That’s is from Outpost Zulu Zebra for now. Peace out Y’all.

Dog and I just returned home from a month long road tour. Ahhhh there’s no place like home.
We traveled back roads through Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. We spent time in Lawrenceville, Fort White (Ichetucknee Springs), Ocala, several places in the Tampa Bay area, Jacksonville and Savannah.
I think we’ll buy a R.V. and plan a longer trip through the heartland.
All is well here in the mountains.

This winter has been much longer and much colder than I expected! I should have closed up the house and done the snowbird thing and visited friends in Florida. Maybe next year.
Instead I burned through my supply of firewood which I had anticipated would last me several winters.
You can guess how I’ll be occupying some of my time this spring and summer. . . . cutting and splitting firewood.
A day late and dollar short, I’m planning a road tour through Georgia and Florida. Stops along the way will include Lawrenceville GA, Ichetuknee Springs, Ocala, Brandon Valrico, Tampa, Pinecrest, Jacksonville and Savannah. I should have done it at the height of winter.
I’ll spend a week in Savannah and hope to capture some nice photographs. I’ll also try to shoot some sailboat races at Davis Islands.

I recall one particular New Year’s Eve, back in the late 70s I think. I worked in the automotive field for a good friend at that time. My wife went to work for half a day that day so she took the car and dropped me off. My friend Jackie Minton was to give me a ride home that afternoon.
Well, things were slow so Jack and I decided to close shop early and hit a watering hole on the way home for a celebratory drink or two. A few hours later, Jack dropped me off at home. Let’s just say I was feeling no pain by that time. I think that was the only I ever came home in that condition.
Remember, I worked in the automotive field. The greasy, grimy automotive field. I was apparently in no condition to be standing up in the shower so my wife Debra, filled the bathtub and told me to get in. Actually, that is pretty much the last thing I recall that New Year’s Eve.
When I awoke the next morning I felt fine, no hangover what so ever so I guess I wasn’t that far gone. Nature was calling so I headed into the bathroom where I passed a mirror along the way. HOLY CRAP! I think that was what I blurted out. I could hear my wife giggling in the bedroom.
My entire body (those parts normally hidden by clothing) was covered in bright orange circles and polka dots. HOLY CRAP!
It seems that my wife thought it would be funny (and it was) to paint me with Mercurochrome before she put me to bed.

Be safe this New Year’s Eve. Have fun and if you think of it, hide the Mercurochrome.
Cheers and Happy New Year.

The first half of the week was pretty rough. I’m not sure if it started with a hangover (great evening with friends) or not. At first I thought it was but when by the end of the day on Monday I still couldn’t keep a glass of water down I began to wonder. Aches, pains, upset stomach. Maybe it was the flu. It wouldn’t be the first time I had the flu for Christmas. Funny though, I was weak and tired. By Tuesday night I was able to eat a little bit. I took it easy and went to bed early. Heck I probably didn’t need the sleep. I’d slept quite a bit over the previous 2 days. But then….
I awoke around midnight which isn’t uncommon. This time of the year I get up at least once in the middle of the night and toss a log in the furnace. I couldn’t get back to sleep. I also couldn’t catch my breath. Mind you, I experienced absolutely no chest congestion during this ailment. Each time I tried to go to sleep and my breathing became shallow, I felt as if I was suffocating. I was very weak and shaky too. I went from the bedroom to the deck outside (20 degree weather) to the living room and back to bed again. Over and over I did this. Outside in the cold air, I felt some relief. Probably because the oxygen was more dense out there. If I yawned deeply, I also felt relief. However the relief did not last but a minute or two. Finally I sat in the living room and checked my blood pressure. Wow. It was very high (for me). 179/79. Just the week before it was 123/60. My pulse wasn’t to high given the circumstance. I had also become anxious which probably aggravated things. I took a baby aspirin and finally dozed off while sitting up in the living room. The next morning I was very weak and shaky. This lasted until late Christmas afternoon.
I was a little nervous about doing it all over again Christmas night. So, before bedtime I took a baby aspirin and a Benadryl. The Benadryl pretty much knocked me out. I awoke around midnight and checked the furnace as usual. Again, trying to get back to sleep was difficult. I had pretty much the same symptoms as the previous night only not as severe. I immediately took a baby aspirin and another Benadryl. Before long I went back to sleep and slept through the rest do the night.
Today (December 26th) I went out to split some logs. Man, I am weary. I’ve no energy. Hmmmm. I had a serious bout with mono 10 years ago or so. I wonder if part of this is a reoccurrence of that?
I also wonder if I may have experienced a heart attack of sorts?
Oh well. I thought I’d write this down just in case I have the big one!
Here’s to 2014.
Cheers.

Update:
I’ve done better the last couple days. I think part of my problem was that I had mucus draining in the back of my throat which made it difficult to breath. I know, ewwwww! This is a chronic thing with me due to allergies I suppose. Doctors have never come up with relief. Last night I took an over the counter mucus medicine before bed and I slept much better.
This morning the dog and I took a 2 mile stroll in the mountains and all was good. Who knows?

I’ve reached that place in life where I spend my time doing as I wish. In my case, it is a fairly solitary life. I often head into the forest with camera in hand and dog at my side to commune with nature and perhaps find an interesting subject or scene to photograph. On days where inclement weather dictates I stay indoors and I read or work in my studio.
Life is good.
Of course with so much leisure time on my hands my mind is free to travel, to wander the hallways of my memory or to explore new ideas, however abstract they may be. I find myself reflecting upon people I know or have known. And I worry about those who are friends that have challenges in their lives. I suppose that in my relatively stress free life, this is a large source of stress for me. You see, I value friendships very highly. I’ve been in those places where the support and actions of friends made all the difference.
Now, I understand that circumstances and sometimes life in general puts the regular interaction of friends on hiatus. Believe me, I do understand. Sometimes it’s being involved to capacity with things going on in life. Sometimes it is embarrassment that curtails communication among friends. Again, I understand this. I’ve been there and done that. It’s entirely too easy. I know, I know.
Perhaps I’m a bit too “high-maintenance”. I find that when so-called friends cease to communicate, my initial reaction is concern. Concern for them or concern for what I may have done to offend them. Usually this apparent break-down in communication is solidified after I’ve tried to call or otherwise contact them with no response. Like I said, maybe I’m high-maintenance.
My rationale is this: in this day and age it is simple to communicate in a detached, if not entirely one way fashion. While a phone call is nice, a quick and simple text message will certainly confirm existence. For more complex situations, and email is adequate.
So here is my point. If you are a friend and you go for an extended period of time without any communication, especially if the last couple communications were from me without response, I remove you from my friend list. This relieves me from worrying about you. This puts our relationship into perspective. I no longer wonder what went wrong and I don’t waste any emotion on you.
I prefer to focus on friends. So if you are one of these “used to be” friends and you decide to contact me some day and I don’t reply, I’ve simply closed the book on our friendship. No big deal!

I’ve said many times that “The older you get, the more dead people you know.”.
I learned yesterday that Gerald Davis died nearly 2 years ago. He was 46.
I always liked Gerald though he was a bit peculiar at times. Ha, look who’s talking!
I remember when he divorced, he ended up living in a tiny place just trying to scrape by. He lived on little so he would have the where-with-all to do things with his kids. When he lived in that tiny place I gave him a small microwave from my boat that I wasn’t using. It seemed to make a difference.
I always liked Gerald.

Here is my observation.
In too many cases it easier for “friends” to observe your life from afar via social networks than take the time to call or even email you. This is especially true if you actively talk about what’s going on in your life on these social networks. Of course, the reciprocal is true if these friends also post about current events in their lives.
However, if one party isn’t actively updating their social networks it becomes a one way street and while they know the status of you, their “friend”, unfortunately you may be left in the dark.
Text messaging and to an extent email has replaced phone calls and visits between friends. Now social networking is adding isolation to the mix. It’s just too easy to look on Facebook or Twitter to see what your friends have been up to. Why bother to call or stop by for a visit? Accomplishments, births, deaths, happiness, sadness, it’s all there, just a click away. Why waste time on a phone call?
I have one long time childhood friend with whom I have fairly regular phone conversations. If we are ever in the same area of the country a visit always takes place. These long conversations serve to refresh memories about things otherwise buried under the layers of here and now. It refreshes, reinforces and simply makes one feel good to talk to friends.
Oops, I think I’ve overrun my digital social quota for the morning. Catch me on Facebook, Twitter or some other seedy dark corner of the internet
Ciao.

Yesterday morning the dog and I went to the Woody Gap trail head and headed north along the AT.  At about a mile and a half, we took a side trail to a beautiful vista and popular camping area.  You can stand on a rock outcropping and see forever to the south.  The elevation was around 3700 feet.  Being in the middle of the week, we only encountered one other hiker.  The dog and I had the camping area to ourselves.  It was quiet and peaceful.  I shed my gear, sat in the sunshine upon the great rock and enjoyed an Ybor City cigar.  At that moment, we were the only creatures in the world and life was good.

 

I was sitting out on the deck enjoying coffee and the moonlit sky a little while ago. My thoughts drifted to when I was a youngster sailing before the mast in the merchant fleet.
A sea watch is 4 hours on and 8 hours off. At night, split among 3 men, you spend one hour twenty minutes on the wheel, one hour 20 minutes on standby and one hour twenty minutes forward on lookout.
Lookout was the best. That is if the weather was good. For an hour and twenty minutes you stood on the bow of the ship looking for lights on the horizon, listening to the low roar of tons of seawater being pushed aside by the ship’s prow and enjoying the night sky. Being in the middle of the ocean and forward of all lights, the night sky was beautiful. An added treat on a moonlit night, you could see the porpoise playing in the bow wave. Oh, once in a while you’d see a ship off in the distance and have to return to the here and now and report it. On most ships when you saw a light you rang a bell to report it. One bell for anything more than 12 points off the port bow, 2 bells for anything more than 12 points off the starboard bow and 3 for dead ahead.
It was a most enjoyable way to earn a living.
Short of the porpoise and surge of the sea, I enjoy the same peaceful starlit sky nearly every morning before sunrise. Life here in the mountains is marvelous.