Category: Uncategorized

Jeremiah Hall Palmer

This writing was originally submitted as an assignment in one of my classes.

Good [INSERT APPROPRIATE TIME OF DAY] everyone.

As you can see by the message details above (and subject line), my name is Jeremiah. I hail from a small town named Cynthiana in central Kentucky. I’m currently unemployed (and have been for some time–for the most-part I am a homemaker). I volunteer a great deal of my spare time to the local emergency management agency, performing random tasks as needed; primarily, I maintain the agency’s site and social networking profiles.

I’m a husband to one–I don’t think I could handle more even if it were legal ;)–and father of three.

I can’t really think of much more to say about myself, so feel free to google me:

Mirrored from Being Jeremiah Palmer.

Linda Marie Riley: July 2, 1957 – October 22, 2010

Earlier today, I helped in the burial and memorial of my mother-in-law.

The following is the eulogy that Diana delivered, which her and I wrote:

Linda lived a life that was filled with many points of struggle and hardship; however at the end she had received so much in reward for the obstacles she had faced.

Linda Sue McKinney was born into this world in 1957. Her birth parents being unable to care for her, she was eventually placed into an orphanage. There, approximately a year later, she was given a new life with a family looking to adopt and give a beautiful baby girl the chance for a better life. Lin Marie Buege became her name, and she found a happier and healthier home in Lombard, Illinois.

Even though Lin loved her family so much, she believed that she should make a journey and seek out her biological parents. At age 16, Lin left her schooling, picked up a few jobs, and trekked to New York then Florida to find her birth father and mother.

While in Florida, Lin married and had her first daughter, Celena Easters. Tragically, six months after having given birth, Lin was faced with one of the hardest things a person can do—something we are now facing—losing a loved one. Celena was buried in Florida, and sometime later Lin and her husband separated. This tragedy, however, did help lead the way to some better days. Linda eventually met Mark Richardson, and the two moved to Kentucky, where they eventually had three children—Diana Dawn Richardson, Mark Douglas Richardson, and Angelica Michelle Richardson.

Though she had finally found herself with the ability to settle and have a family of her own, times were still very difficult. Eventually the stresses of hardship became too much for the relationship that Linda and Mark had, and they separated but kept a close friendship. Over time, after having believed that her heart would never feel for anyone that close again, she found that God had sent her an angel to save her.

Around the year 1997, Linda met Wm. Fred Riley. Fred, being a man of great heart, shared as much as he could with Linda and her children. Over the next few years, their friendship and love for another grew, and they were eventually wed in October of 2001. Together, Linda and Fred became Nana and Papaw to ten wonderful grandchildren. Together, they even helped to raise one granddaughter, Mariah, in their home, fulltime.

In these later years, Linda had found so much love and happiness—she had finally been given her reward for having a hard life. She had found so much love and joy; and shared as much of it that she could with all of us.

Family gatherings on holidays or just for fun; grandchildren’s parties at home, in the park, or across the county; barbecues and cook-outs; phone calls talking us through our own hard-times; even a simple morning cup of coffee and sharing a little bit of gossip—Linda shared her love and time with us; tried to stand by all of us; always tried to give us all that she could. Linda was there for us, and is still here with us, in our hearts and our thoughts.

Someone once said “grieve not, nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk of me as if I were beside you there.”

That is how Linda—that is how Nana—that is how Mom would want us to remember her. She would want us to laugh, to joke and to speak like she was with us.

Mom, I feel you beside me, and even though I will miss you every day, I will try to speak of you with a smile on my face and not a tear in my eye.

An online obituary is available for viewing at:
http://www.woodheadfuneralhome.com

I hate what I’ve become. I think. Maybe it’s that I hate what I am becoming. Or maybe it’s… I really don’t know what it is, actually. There’s just something about me that I don’t really care for, and I really can’t tell if it is me or is what I am turning out to be, or…

I’m finding it harder and harder to keep my mouth shut and keep my thoughts to myself, and I’m starting to question whether that is a good thing or not. There was a time where I was very withdrawn. I still am, but…

For quite some time now I’ve blogged (more in the fashion of microblogging since I discovered twitter) all the thoughts that I’ve wanted to share with anyone who’d listen. Doing so has been very empowering. I’ve felt a little more comfortable in my skin since I started publishing everything from how many cups of coffee I drank in a day, to what made me curl up into a ball and cry. I’ve felt more human. Until recently.

I am becoming a monster.

I’m finding more things that irritate me these days, and I am finding it more difficult to filter my thoughts–to know when to keep that certain feeling to myself or hidden away from others. This bothers me.

Earlier today I saw a quick blurb an acquaintance I have (be)friended on facebook, and it just rubbed me the wrong way. I really don’t know why it bothered me so much either. And, I guess that it wasn’t limited to the one blurb, but the comments that started to surround it as well. It was all innocent, wasn’t it? Just someone expressing their feelings on a matter, something that I do fairly frequently–something I’m doing at this moment. So, where’s the harm? Why did my feathers get ruffled?

The person had written about how they had received an email message from another giving rumor to a major soft-drink manufacturer printing the Pledge of Allegiance on their soda cans with the “under God” portion removed (a rumor which is more than four years old, I believe). The person continued to say something to the affect that they were enraged that a major American company would withdraw those two words in order to “keep from offending,” as the rumor stated, persons holding other religious beliefs.

I’m still trying to figure out why I drew offense from hers. My feelings might come from a statement she made equating to the United States being a “Christian” nation and that those who do not like it could “get out”. Maybe I didn’t quite like her views because in my reading I felt that it was somewhat implied that anyone who did not fit her faith should leave the country. And, of course, there were a slew of comments attached from her following with their variants of praise.

All the while I couldn’t help but think of how I had been taught that our nation, while based on “Christian values”–loose morals that are pretty much accepted by most major religions–was settled by people fleeing from a land where they were told how to worship. Wouldn’t her statement be akin to her bellowing that we must all give praise to God? Isn’t that (loosely, granted) telling us how we should worship? Ordering me to pray to God and not letting me feel free to practice Pastafarianism?

And what about this nation’s original inhabitants, those who are natives to this land, what about their religious freedoms? If any group of people should have any right to cry for the removal of those not sharing their beliefs I would think the remaining Native American tribes should have that honor. Oh, wait… Christianity became a major Native American religion due to the various missionary efforts in our nations history.

I don’t know. The whole thing just bugged me… And I wanted to let it be known.

I came close to responding to that blurb and line of comments. Somehow, and thankfully so, I refrained. Then, I found another blurb generated by a status shuffler which begged me to make a snarky comment. Again, I managed to refrain.

It’s this sort of thing that has been bothering me. My desire to inject or attach my opinion to the conversation

I realized something the other day, and it troubles me. I really haven’t had much emotion for Diana in a while. And one thought I just had as the song played on the radio, is that I haven’t had feelings for her like in “I don’t want to miss a thing”

Garfield on the Town

Just about every morning when I wake up, I say to myself, “Good, morning, Morning.”

…this was one of those mornings. As I slowly turned out of bed and touched my toe to the floor, I thought “I hate cold floors.” Sure enough, the floor was freezing.

Now, for your viewing pleasure, and to let you see what influenced my odd morning thoughts so many years ago, I bring you the cat who hates mornings nearly as much as he hates Mondays. (Too bad today is Tuesday…):

Garfield
Continue reading “Garfield on the Town”

tradition, change, and whose is bigger

Have you heard the story on Cynthiana’s new city commission? Well, the long story is at The Cynthiana Democrat. The short story is as follows:
Mayor Jim Brown is temporarily out of commission (pun half-intended). Brown fell ill on Christmas Eve. The old commission selected Jack Keith as Mayor Pro-tem. In a special meeting of the new commission all hell broke loose. Commissioner Mark Mattmiller claimed he should now take the seat. Commissioner Amanda Moore agreed. Commisioner Keith says he should stay as mayor pro-tem. Commissioner Jimmy New agreed.  Cynthiana only has four commisioners, with the Mayor breaking split decisions.
Oh. Crap. Continue reading “tradition, change, and whose is bigger”

Cofflubreak & a Dead Commission

This morning, on WCYN’s Coffeebreak with Rick Chasteen…
Guests were Crystal Caudill & Spencer Cathey of WEDCO. Topics of discussion bounced from finances, civic activities, community health, and so on.
One point of discussion which I found entertaining revolved around influenza. Rick had noted that it had seemed that there hadn’t been much news on the flu this year, and that it seemed that within recent weeks word of flu related illness had increased. Crystal advised that the local Health Department still has enough vaccinations in their stockpile for anyone interested in receiving a flu shot.
Continue reading “Cofflubreak & a Dead Commission”

Digital TV changeover: The disaster everyone's ignoring?

Oooooh. Slick. I stole a headline from an article and made it my own by making it a question, rather than a statement. I so smart.
I’m sure that somewhere you have heard, read, or seen stories and rumors of the dreaded DTV transition. You’ve likely heard people panicked in some fashion over not being able to watch TV unless they do a ton of upgrades to their entertainment system. Heck, I nearly got into an argument at a Christmas dinner over someone’s misconceptions of the DTV transition. (see here: http://twitter.com/kg4vma/status/1078226274 and here: http://twitter.com/kg4vma/status/1078227108)
Honestly, I’ve been enjoying the confusion. Reading and listening to the mess has been very entertaining, and has even brought me several laughs. One of the latest articles I read is included amongst those gems. Continue reading “Digital TV changeover: The disaster everyone's ignoring?”

CyntheticMedia.com » Blog Archive » boredom

In reading back through my old posts, i found this entry:
CyntheticMedia.com » Blog Archive » boredom.
In that entry, I mention that my GDS index was reporting 83,053 searchable items. As of right now, my index is up to 788,501 items. The main reason for such a huge jump (other than it’s been a few months shy of two years) is that I had, at one time, mapped to Sullivan’s “public” folder and had GDS crawling it.