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ME !

"Home" again in mid-Michigan after 30 years away, and happy to once again be nearby to friends and family.

Now I am ready to meet some new friends to help me refamiliarize myself to my "old" surroundings :)

Among other things you can also find some pretty neat recipes that I have posted on my website here.

      Now that I am back in the Lansing area fulltime after so long, and relearning the area where I spent my high school years, I am hoping to find some new friends to play "Welcome Wagon" and show me what I have been missing.  Maybe someone reading this page might be an attractive "girl-next-door" a little younger than me somewhere near Lansing who might be interested in meeting a relatively "normal" man with minimal baggage (no, I DON'T need a SkyCap, thanks).  I'm not sure what I think about the idea of romance at the moment, but I do know that I'd like to meet some new friends and see what happens next.  What better way to introduce myself than to have some fun sharing here ?

      I like to think that I have a great sense of humor, and would like to find more chances to exercise it.   I don't think that I smile as much as I should, but I do love to laugh out loud.   During my last few years working in TV news, a few of us in the studio would regularly share funny lines from old movies and TV, and I LOVE those classic quotes. "As God is my witness, I swear I thought that turkeys could fly." (from "WKRP In Cincinatti") or "Badgers ?!? We don't need no steenking badgers!" (from "UHF" with Wierd Al Yankovitch) or "Yoiks, and AWAY" (from "RobinHood Daffy").   A lot of obscure trivia questions fly around, and I am truly amazed at what I know that I didn't know that I know (get all of that ?).  I love "observing" people and the world around me, and I'm ALWAYS looking for what is "wrong" in the world to make fun of -- sorry, but there is SO much fodder out there for us to laugh at.

      Not at all unhappy at 55, I have been a widower for 5 years now.  I lost my almost 37 year old wife suddenly to a pulmonary embolisim in August 2006, and having spent about 20 years playing on ambulances the events of that day quickly made sense to me.   Kathy had many emotional and other problems, so after she suddenly died unexpectedly my biggest emotion surprisingly was relief.   I knew that she was finally at peace, with her hero Dale Earnhardt and her grandmother and her dad in Heaven, and I no longer had all of the constant stresses of taking care of Kathy -- always watching out for her well-being, and catching her whenever she would "fall".  I still miss her at times, but I think that things happen for a reason.   It has been a little frustrating that I have only had a few friends to do things with, so now that I am moving "home" to Michigan it would be nice to make some new friends and get out more.

        

      I spend a fair amount of my time at home watching TV, although I am also an avid (and fast) reader.   Favorite shows include "Big Bang Theory" and "Two and A Half Men" on CBS, "The Middle" and "CougarTown" on ABC, "Breaking In" and "Kitchen Nightmares" on FOX, "Iron Chef America" on FOOD, and "Criminal Minds" and "NCIS", too.   I got rid of cable a while back to save money, but I have been finding lots of great TV and movies online on NetFlix and HULU, and on the network websites.   Favorite author has to be Clive Cussler -- I like adventure, mystery, murder, military, funny, sci fi, and well, almost anything.   I really DO enjoy reading, and love how reading a book really fast can feel like almost actually living it in real time, so you can't keep me away from my reading.   I continue to try to find books that really draw me into them and that somehow increase my knowledge base, as well.  I love movies, too -- especially comedy, silly, action and adventure.

                  

      So what do I like to do when I'm not in front of the TV or buried in a good book ?   I love to cook, and don't do it enough lately, partially because of the Lilliputian size of my kitchen and lack of counter space.   I try to crockpot something every once in a while, and I love making "big pot" meals like Red Beans & Rice, chili, stews, and spaghetti sauce.   I'd like get back to cooking fancier and more exciting things more often, but I don't have anyone to cook something special for right now.   You can guess that I also like to eat -- I figured out a couple of years ago that I truly AM a Foodie (you can find my Foodie blog at "foodiewords.wordpress.com"), and I like a large variety of foods.  What are my favorites ?  Indian food (curries) -- my dad grew up in India as the son of Presbyterian missionaries, and somewhere growing up I became the first of the three kids to figure out how awesome curries are.  Lobster -- my parents hosted a "clam bake" lobster picnic every Memorial Day Saturday for about 25 years (it started through the University of Illinois "Gourmet Club" in the mid-60s), so I grew up eating lobster, although since I was always helping with "service" I learned how good not-so-hot lobster could be :)  Sushi -- my little brother worked for Kodak in Asia for a few years and got me into eating raw fish, although I'm not tremendously adventurous about it (I love salmon and tuna, but don't go anywhere near octopus or eel).  I swear I'd eat rocks with Bearnaise Sauce -- it is my all-time favorite food booster.  I also love an occasional Sunday late breakfast, and have become a huge fan of "Flour City Diner" in Brighton.   I tried James Brown's on Culver a few times a while back, and it was awesome, too.  At the moment my all-time favorite restaurant is "MELT Bar and Grilled" in Cleveland, home of a large array of absolutely incredible grilled cheese sandwiches !

      I weigh a bit more than I would like to right now at 283 lbs., but I'm working on it -- I swear :)   I recently read Dr. Oz's book "You, On A Diet", and I'm trying to figure out how to start eating a bit differently so I can accomplish some "waist management".   I decided a couple of months ago to forego drinking alcohol for a while, which will cut out a lot of useless calories AND generally make me feel better as an added benefit.  Now I just need to get myself walking, and the pounds will just disappear.

      Life is not all just TV and food.   I became a NASCAR fan in 1998 (thanks to Kathy's love of Dale Earnhardt and the sport of stock car racing).   I have been a little bit less active fan for the last couple of seasons, but I still pretty religiously watch the Sprint Cup series.   Every once in a while I watch an entire Nationwide Series race, and when I still had cable TV I was occasionally catching a Friday night truck series race, too.   My favorite driver is Johnny Benson (who was a Winston Cup "Rookie of the Year" and the 2008 Truck Series champion) -- he is from from Grand Rapids MI (I went to high school and college only 90 minutes or so away).   After "JohnnyB" left Sprint Cup, "my driver" for quite a while was #55 Michael Waltrip (who I believe is one of the few true "gentleman" drivers in Sprint Cup), then when his performance waned I moved on to Dale Earnhardt, Jr, and last year I decided to hang my hat on Denny Hamlin, who barely missed out on winning the 2010 Sprint Cup.  Not a stellar season so far this year, mostly due to engine issues, but he is a talented driver who I expect to be in The Chase for the Sprint Cup again this year.  I have been lucky enough to meet almost a dozen drivers since becoming a NASCAR fan, and I have been impressed that every one of them has put interacting with their fans up front.  The last race I went to about five years ago was the fall night race at Charlotte Motor Speedway with Kathy and her sister and brother-in-law (an awesome evening of entertainment, of course), and I miss all of those "at the track" experiences.   Lately I have thought that it just wouldn't be the same going by myself to a race, but I am hoping to take one of my best friends from Michigan to a race at Michigan International Speedway sometime.   It will probably cost about $250 for 2 tickets, but I know that it will be a life changing experience for Billy, who is one of my best friends in this world.

                  

      I also REALLY like to travel, especially on cruises, and don't get to do it half enough.   While I was in 4th grade my dad took a sabbatical from teaching at the University of Illinois to research a book on Landscape Architecture based on the classic European forms, so I got to tour Europe for 8 months.   The August 2008 cruise where my parents took our entire family (12 of us) on Carnival "Valor" was my 7th cruise (absolutely GREAT time for a week), and I am looking forward to more fun cruises in the future.   I'm starting to think that Alaska is in the cards for sometime soon, but I truly wish that I could find a cruise companion to share the experience with me.   I have been on Carnival five times and Royal Caribbean twice for five 7-night and two 4-night cruises and I took my first solo cruise in October 2007.   I also like to travel to other cities, and if you check me out on FaceBook you can see a map of all of the cities I have visited.  I have always loved camping (I was a Boy Scout), and got into a little bit of RV-ing during the last few years that Kathy was with us.   I would love to have a travel companion again sometime, because sharing the travel experience always makes it better.

You can learn EVEN more obscure things about me by looking at   "25 Random Things About Me".

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