"May no fears affect you.
May no illnesses afflict you.
May no dangers come your way.
May you enjoy good health and long life."
The original impetus for this site was the ever-changing environment offered by ISPs... most recently MSN, and AOL before that. I don't mind paying an ISP so much as I object to having no say in what I'm paying for.
As for me, I'm just a guy.
I'm a grandfather now from my daughter. She and her brother live in Texas with their mother, bless her heart.
My grandson just celebrated his fifth birthday (his sixth, counting his birth), and I'm here to tell you that being a grandfather is absolutely and totally cool.
I spent 20 years and a month or two in the Navy, retiring as a Chief Hospital Corpsman. In one way that was just one period of my life, but it was easily the most rewarding work I had done until recently and it does seem to define me. I worked as an OR Tech in Yokosuka, Japan, during the late 60's, was with the Air Wing in USS Ranger at the end of the war, spent three years on independent duty in USS Roark, and retired off USS Cleveland. There were a couple of other deployments and some shore duty in there, too.
By the spring of 2004 I had started thinking about why I was working in a cubicle in California, and it occurred to me that it was primarily so I could afford to live in California... and I'm not from California. At that point I began simplifying my life and looking for a place to call home.
In the autumn of 2007 I began working as a volunteer with the American Red Cross. I went out to Indiana on my first Red Cross Disaster Relief Operation in June, 2008, doing client casework, and did my second in Southern California in November, 2008, as an Emergency Response Vehicle driver. I'm a Disaster Action Team leader, and trained to do Disaster Assessment and as a Government Liaison. They're even letting me train other volunteers in Disaster Services. I had been hoping to do some more good (meaningful) work during this fourth quarter of my life, and this is working for me.
I left the paid workforce at the end of November, 2009, and relocated to Western North Carolina in January.
Among my heroes I include Admiral James B. Stockdale whom I had the privilege of meeting, Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Dag Hammarskjold, and my foster parents: Jack and Mary Lee (Douglas) Gresham.
I'd like to meet President Jimmy Carter, Rev. Billy Graham, and His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama.
Your e-mail comments to Harold at hmbabb.net are invited and encouraged.
