Sad news

I've been trying to think of something significant and meaningful to say, but I'm really at a loss. As most of my long-time readers remember, I was a volunteer firefighter in Athens, West Virginia for a while. Through that experience, I made a lot of friends. One of them was a man named Chuck.

Chuck was only 23.

Chuck died over this past weekend after a long battle with brain cancer.

Chuck, you will be missed, not only by myself, but by all the men and women of the Athens Volunteer Fire Department.

Good bye, buddy.

Copyright 2008 Thomas J Wolfenden

End of crop tally

Hi all!

Well, it's time for the end of crop tally on the amount of sugar cane me & my engineer hauled. The harvesting season started on October 8th, 2007 and ended May 15th, 2008.

Empty rail cars taken to the loading elevators:

17,610

Loaded rail cars picked up at the elevators and taken to the mill:

15,716

On average, each 40 foot rail car holds 36 tons of raw sugar cane, so from the beginning to the end of the harvesting season, on my shift alone, my engineer and myself hauled approximately 565,776 tons of raw sugar cane.

Dollar for dollar, it's far cheaper to haul by rail than by semi-truck.

Besides, railroaders are far smarter than any dumbass, toothless truck driver.

Hope you all have a wonderful summer, I'm going to be spending mine in Key West!

Copyright 2008 Thomas J Wolfenden

Rage

I never dreamed that one person could feel this much rage inside.

Burning my insides out.

Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything stupid...

I'm not going to jeopardize what little I have left of my life. But I will tell you this, it's going to be a long, long time before I ever let anyone get close to me again.

The last few months have been difficult, but not as difficult as the last year, and it's survivable. I'm not going to let in drag me down. Down to the the culprit's level. I'll rise above it. I'm a far better person than you'll ever be.

You call yourself a Christian?

You're no Christian.

You're evil.

Evil... Right to the core.

In the end, you know where you're going.

And it's going to be very, very warm.

Copyright 2008 Thomas J Wolfenden

30 Shekels

Although I'll never describe myself Christ-Like, I have my own Judas.

Judas turned over Jesus to the Romans for 30 Shekels... I know how he must have felt. Jesus also taught that it's better to turn the other cheek.

But some things you just can't forgive.

I'm not going to get into it right now. All I'll say is it backfired...

I will never, ever trust another woman.

Ever again.

And, in the words of a famous Roman...

Ettu, Brute?

Copyright 2008 Thomas J Wolfenden