Ryan Jones

Unfortunately I have issues with interrupted sleep also. Mine are probably caused by a different thing than you. I have to get up every 2 to 3 hours to urinate. It's an old man type of thing I suppose. I've never been much of a sleeper so I'm not sure how much it bothers me. 4-5 hours is all I need. If I do get tired at all it's in the afternoon around 1pm but that happens seldom. I suppose you've tried the natural sleep aids like melatonin?

I read all the Dune books, even the ones written after Frank died. I enjoyed them all. It is so large though in scope that I can't see how a movie can do it justice, not even one in a couple of parts. I think you'd need something more along the lines of Star Wars with at least one movie for each book in the series. Foundation was one of my favorite series also, I'm curious to see how that comes out. I've even read the Wheel of Time books. I'm sure I'll subscribe to the streaming service when it does come out, then probably unsub once I've finished watching it as much as I want. Might be once, might be more than that. Guess if it's good enough I could record it so when movie 2 appears I can rewatch 1.

It was down in Georgetown. Our standard Friday/Saturday night was head down early and, depending on the ages of the guys involved, either head to a bar or see an early movie after the makeup/hair color. Then it was off to the midnight showing of Rocky Horror at the Key in Georgetown. I've probably seen Rocky Horror 200+ times counting there and the Halloween shows at the University of Maryland. I live within walking distance of the campus. As for movies, the last movie I saw in the theater was ET when it was new. I've never seen a Marvel movie, guess they are good? I don't have the attention span to watch movies, I always feel like there's something better I could be doing after like 20 minutes. Got to tell you about the parking in Georgetown. People would park and leave like maybe 2/3 of a parking place but have a lot of space behind them. So I'd pull in and just gently push them backward until my car fit in the slot. Usually by 2am when we were heading out the others had gone, if not you just pushed cars front and back until you could escape.

My hair mostly ran away. So talking about hair is an alien subject for me! Justin's hair is auburn and even at his advanced age of 26 is very thick and lush. I was going to have him grow it out and cut it to make me a matching toupee but we both decided it wasn't feasible. I used to love to temp color my hair. There was a shop in DC called Commander Salamanders that had weird clothes, makeup, etc. If you let them do your hair how THEY wanted, it was free and usually that's what I did. Glad you like the way it turned out. I can remember my first ever perm, when they were done and I looked at myself I looked like Art Garfunkel. So I shaved it all off!

Hi all. An interesting weekend. Justin and I were married on Sunday. I didn't realize I was going to be so emotional about it. We have been together over 10 years so it's not like the first blush of a new love but seeing him come down the aisle towards me brought a tear to my eye. He and his grandmother were responsible for everything in the wedding with a few exceptions. Mostly things I overruled because it was too over the top even for a gay couple like the 100,000 rose petals. The grandmother (and Justin's mother) both went all out and I understand the reasoning. Justin's older sister eloped so they were cheated out of their big wedding and since Justin was the only remaining grandchild it was all on him to make their dreams come true too. Something about hearing Ode to Joy play right as the officiant finished up the vows, then taking him in my arms as the music built. I'm not sure how the two of us didn't explode with emotion. First dance at the reception was Anne Murray "Could I Have This Dance". It was funny dancing with Justin's dad, I've known him since he was a baby and I gave him a little kiss on the forehead like I always did when he was a baby and younger kid as we slow danced. To be fair I gave Justin's mom a kiss on the cheek. Oh and with Justin's dad? I led! We had all these great plans for a 3 week honeymoon but decided to put it off since I'd rather not be out of the country with all the covid stuff going on. We spent one night at the hotel since the reception didn't end until 3am. Unfortunately my son, his wife and my grandkids couldn't make the wedding since they live in Amsterdam and the travel rules didn't allow them entry. They were able to watch the live stream of it though and my son managed to make a toast at the reception. The technology worked perfectly this time. 142 out of 160 guests that said they were coming were there and 5 of the missing were my family. To be honest I'm a bit emotional about it still. I always wake up first and this morning watching Justin sleep just filled me up inside. Hope everyone is doing great!

Hi there. Sorry to hear the travails you're enduring due to the pandemic. Not sure what part of the world you're from, I'm in the US, near Washington, DC. I'm retired so the pandemic hasn't really affected me financially. Actually they've given out $2600 to everyone so I've gotten more money than I would have. I've about become convinced that all the extra money given out to the unemployed in the US is contributing to the lack of job applicants. Even the fast food places locally are paying $15+/hour and can't find the necessary help. A lot of restaurants haven't reopened because they can't get staffed. In the US people are getting their unemployment but also an extra $300/week. In a lot of cases that's probably more than they were making at their prepandemic jobs. Hope things do ease for you soon!

My sister has some nerve issues in her foot and the doctor told her to use Voltaren. She says that it works. At least there's a generic version at Walgreens that costs about 30% less.

Had an account with BB&T bank with 6 figures in it and closed it back maybe 10 years ago, moved it to SunTrust. Now it turns out BB&T and SunTrust are merged. So I guess I'll leave it there for now since I've had no issues with the account at SunTrust. The problems I had with BB&T were all wire transfers that weren't done in a timely manner, to or from the account.

My father had an accelerated version of this. Vascular dementia. It was caused my small strokes, it started just after the first of the year and he died in 6 months. The symptoms were so close to Alzheimers that they gave him the drugs to see if it would help but it didn't. He went through most of the stages you hear about the Alzheimers patients having, just quickly. Finally he stopped eating and drinking so that was it. What I held on to was that in his mind there really wasn't a yesterday. That today, this moment, that's all he had. In a way it's a blessing compared to other incurable diseases. At least you're not suffering a painful, dragged out existence until the end. I think it's worse on the immediate family. I had my dad move in to my house and hospice was there to provide the support. After he stopped talking I would sit with him and talk but the lack of response was too much to handle so I just did what he liked when his mind was good. Watching television was his thing so I left it to keep him company. I've had relatives on both sides who had/have Alzheimers. Sorry you're having to go through all this, it's incredibly hard. If you need others to talk to that have the same experiences there are usually Alzheimers support groups around. People who are caregivers or family members get together to discuss the current states of their loved ones and sometimes you can get a suggestion or comment that makes things inside you feel slightly better.

It is great when things seem to just flow. Back when the lockdown started and I had no casino (or anything else) to go to I sat at my computer one morning and decided to write. Something. Anything. My fingers started to move, on their own it seemed. I really had no idea what was coming, when I sat down I had no plan and as I typed I was reading it for the first time. I kept on going, it was like I couldn't stop. During the March/April time frame I did 3 stories, over 100k words. It took me longer to go through and do the spell check than it did to write it. Editing isn't really my thing so I didn't. I had Justin read them to see if it made any sense because the only time I read what I wrote was as it was typed out, I didn't read it once I finished it. Haven't written anything since the Ski Trip story that I posted here. My fingers haven't prompted me to open up the word processor.

Thanks for the message Rick. My original thoughts on this have changed. Right now I told my friend that I didn't want to know anything other than if the child lived, still lives and where they live. Those questions have been answered already. It would be nice if he is looking for blood relations, it would make things clearer and certainly require no secrecy. I'll know that before the end of the month, if he's done any DNA test kit like Ancestry or the like. I hadn't really considered my 1976 Charlotte stay until this morning, if he has done this he's likely to have found an unanticipated brother(s) or sister(s). I realize as @MichaelS36 so eloquently put it that I'm basically ignoring this person's right to privacy but I have no idea how to find out what I need to know without disrupting his life. I'd really like to have it out with Patty's parents. Or Patty for that matter but they're all dead and I have yet to find a true medium to do the contact for me. I'll have to wait until I'm back in the universal mind to do that.

I don't think there's really any issue about whether it's invalid or not. I'm not looking to do anything judicial with the information. It's for my own personal curiosity. Besides, I'm not an idiot, I doubt I'd be showing up at his door waving the test results and saying "Hi son, I'm your dad!" Laws. In my line of work things became very blurry, to say the least. I was breaking the law for the government at age 16 when I was being paid to join antiwar movements and report back. I'm not sure that I was ever taught that there were procedures to follow and lines not to cross. Anyway, I think I'll just not post any further results from this. Whatever happens. Sorry to have bothered you all with this and thanks for any comments. On to other news, hey, it's less than 2 months until preseason hockey!

For all I know everything done so far to find out that he was Patty's son was possibly illegal. Who knows what they did to gather that information? That gets me to thinking though. Maybe it's not even necessary. I'll call them tomorrow to suggest that they first look at all those DNA test sites. It's entirely possible the DNA might be available already. I'm agreeing with this statement. However it's a bit too late to worry about it. I do know a couple of adopted kids. I actually talked to one of them about it and asked his opinion. Just about the searching to find the records of the kid and he raised no objections to that. I even asked him (he's 36 now, never knew who his father was) what he would do if his biological father contacted him with the same type of situation that I'm in. He told me that he's like to meet his bio dad someday, especially now that his adoptive parents are both deceased. There are times I wished I hadn't overheard that conversation at the high school reunion.

Well, I think it's better to take the "cloak and dagger" approach until I'm sure that he's actually my child. Why would I want to disrupt his life until I knew for sure? I'm still not sure I'm going to contact him even if it turns out he is my son. Thanks for both your comments. His DNA will not be on file anywhere. This will be a private situation and even though I'm using contacts within the government to do all of it they understand the need and use of secrecy. If I didn't trust them I wouldn't have asked them to do it. I'm pretty certain that the lab doing the comparison won't know the names of either one of us.

Update on the child I never knew about. I was informed this morning that said child had been located. I say child but he will be 57 years old later this year. My friend who relayed the news to me asked me if I wanted to make sure and when I responded in the affirmative he told me that today a two person team will be heading up to the suburbs of Philadelphia to surreptitiously acquire a DNA sample. Once I'm sure of his parentage then the real decision will have to be made. A nice early wedding present. On the wedding front it appears as if none of my currently known family will be there in person. The US still hasn't opened travel from the Netherlands to the US. Unless it happens by next weekend it'll be too late since the date of the nuptials is fast approaching.

I was never a people person. New people coming in to my section were all told to never say "good morning" or "how are you?" or any other platitude to me. Never understood it personally even though I suppose it could "grease the wheels" in some fashion. Seems a total waste of time to me. PS - I would tolerate a small head nod!

Haven't been to CC circle in ages, not generally ever in that part of DC. I do see the Dupont Circle one fairly regularly. I guess maybe, to clarify a bit, my favorite circles are those that don't have any traffic signals. Just yield signs. Not that I have any issues with Dupont, if you know where you're going it's easy enough. It's all those people that have no idea where they are going that are the issue.

Tried Flomax. It made me have to get up more during the night. Also had sexual side effects. Also tried another pill called Toviaz and it didn't help. As I said I'm not interested in anything that requires surgery but in the research I've done on the Urolift procedure I haven't seen hardly any bad reviews. Nothing like the possible aftereffects of surgery. I love traffic circles. There are only a few around the area now and all are on the more side streets but they do save a lot of time. Especially when you have 3 streets coming together a circle is always better than stop signs.

Okay. Not the most pleasant of mornings. I'm pretty healthy for age 70. All the conditions I have are completely controlled by a pill each. Like a lot of older men though I have to get up during the night to urinate and since I only am in bed 4-5 hours, it seems to split the time. So I decided to get checked out and see if there's anything that can be done to fix this issue. Went to the urologists office for a cystoscopy this morning. That's where they stick a camera down your urethra and look all around and into your bladder. I hadn't really considered the entire "camera down the urethra" thing until it all started. I think I even thought about those fetishists who stick glass rods down there, supposedly for some type of pleasurable sensation. I can assure you this was NOT one of those pleasurable sensations! lol Then had to go get prostate ultrasound, that involved a probe in the ass. Now, had they done that one first I might have kind of enjoyed it, the probe wasn't exactly dick sized and the guy doing the exam kept moving it around and pressing on the prostate. Anyway, at least that part is out of the way. Now in a couple of weeks I'll go back for a consultation about what they can potentially do for me. I'm not having any type of surgical procedure that could lead to sexual issues or possible incontinence. I'll just keep on getting up at night. They do have some other procedure called Urolift that I'd be willing to try if I was a candidate. Hope everyone's morning is good! Now I'm just watching out for the remnants of Fred which are heading up the Appalachian mountains. In the DC area we could get the occasional heavy rain, possible small tornado. Most of the rain however will be north and west of DC.

Most of you are, I suspect, younger than me. Whenever I see people talk about drills I can't help but think back to elementary school. We had weekly atomic bomb drills, if the warnings came we were supposed to get under our desks and put our heads down. Now, the desks were those individual desks with the 4 legs and no sides, all our classrooms had a wall of windows and we were less than 4 miles direct line from the White House. How much good do you suppose it would have done if there had been a war? The only thing it did was confuse those of us far enough ahead that we knew what the outcome would be. I don't think the "regular" kids had any idea what would happen, to them it was a game. We had built a fallout shelter in our basement, it was all paid for by my mother's petty cash fund at work. It remained up to date and fully stocked until the mid 1960s. I wore glasses and after watching the Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough At Last" I made sure I had 4 spare pairs stored inside the fallout shelter. You can tell my priorities, even then, were reading! Now, the drills of today might have more usefulness than those but still, my mind always goes back to those times.

I saw this somewhere also. Made me think about some type of horse liniment that go go dancers used on their dicks to keep them from chafing because they kept having to get erections. I can't remember what it's called, wish I could so I could tell people it would help since they're nothing but dicks!

It's been more fun than I expected when I find those people who were still claiming that it's all a hoax, that the vaccine changes your DNA, then you see they died of Covid a week later. My general first post on their notice is a nice simple one: "Hopefully this idiot died before he bred and taught more idiots. Good riddance!" That usually leads to people going completely nuts and the two or three of my accounts are all arguing and it's almost orgasmic by the time it's reached it's culmination!

Hope people are having good days. Or at least better than the last days! I find myself drifting into intolerance of the anti vax people. Well, I was intolerant before, now I'm rabidly going after them on FB, IG, T, and any other online spaces I might find one. I really don't care at all if they wish to expose themselves to possible death. I do have a real problem with them exposing children who can't yet get vaccinated. They put mask mandates back on here in the DC area in most counties, you have to wear one indoors except when eating or drinking. I never stopped wearing my mask, not for me but for anyone who could expose a kid to the virus. I find it vaguely amusing that the vast majority of deaths now are, according to stats I've seen, Repubes. So perhaps if this goes on another year or two then by 2024 the Dems will have a majority everywhere!

Why are boyfriends all crazy? I think the wedding planning is getting to poor Justin. I went to the grocery store this morning and evidently he was watching for me to come home. As I started towards the house I could hear the first notes of this song, by the time I entered he was lip synching along in the living room. Completely naked. The volume on the stereo was loud enough that it probably could have been clearly heard throughout the entire block, had anyone been outdoors. NSFW https://youtu.be/G4fUTuiURag

Hope things go well for you @rickproehl! Saw people talking about coloring and "mindless" things. My secret (until now) deal is I play a game online called Bingo Blitz when I want to zone out and relax. It's just relaxing to me for some reason.