The Good,The Bad,and the Ugly

Yeah, that would be the adjectives that would best describe this past week. Since Monday (June30) I must have put over 600 miles on my little red Suzuki car. The week before I got with blogger Robert over at the "Middle Ages" in Iowa. And that Monday we had a little bloggerfest in his hometown if Ames, IA. Which for me is a 220 mile trip one way. I arrived about 12 noon, and we met for lunch at BBQ place called Hickory Park. They have very yummy food, and even at noon on a Monday the place was packed. Robert informed me the crowds are even worse during school on the weekends! After lunch he insisted he pay for our meal even though he didn't have to, again Thank You Robert! Afterwards we hopped in his car and went on a tour of the college town of Ames. There wasn't much we could do outside because that part of Iowa was in two thunderstorm warnings maybe later on a flash flood warning. Because of the weather we just did a lot of drivebys of the ISU campus, city parks or two and were my new friend Robert works you know all the cool sites. :-) Unfortunately Robert's partner Matt wasn't able to join us because of work, I keep forgetting that it was a weekday and some people have to work. Well our time ended all too soon, my friend told me he had to be some where at 5:00 so we wrapped it up. He took me back to my car that we left at the BBQ place. I did bring my camera, but with all the running around town I didn't think to take any photos. And I should have got one of us before we headed our separate ways. Oh well, maybe next time. I told Robert if he's ever in Omaha be sure to give me a shout and we can do a meet up again. I hope he can bring his other half along. The way Robert talk about him, Matt seems like a really nice guy! Well that was the GOOD part of my past week.                                                                 Now for the BAD. A co-worker had asked me a while back if I could drive him to his doctor's appointment Wed.(July2)in Omaha. His brother would do it but couldn't because he was out of town. So I told my friend Dave I would be more than happy to do a buddy a favor. The only problem is Omaha is 85 miles away, and we had to leave at 4:00am. I got up at 3:30am or in military terms 0'dark 30 to get ready and over to Dave's house by 4:00. I just had one small problem, my normal wake-up time wasn't until 5 more hours. I think I did get about 4 hours sleep. Now before I go any further, I've had about a 20 year history with Dave, mostly at work. I've slowly tried to be his friend, but he's very hard person to get to know. He's a very private guy, and doesn't want anybody knowing any of his business, what he does, were he goes. It's only in the past couple of years he's opened more up to me. So I wanted to help him out to prove I could be his friend and trust me. Although if he knew I was blogging about him he'd be p!$$ed. The reason for the trip to the doctor's trip to Omaha, was to repair some problems in his foot. The past 20 years of hiking and biking wore his feet out. This guy would put more miles on his bicycle in a week than I would on my car in a month. I always heard that one should not be friends with an adrenaline junky, which I think my friend is. Any way his operation was for 7:00 and with post-op and recovery be sprung by 11:00. Just one more problem, on the way out the doors of the medical facility one of his incisions started to bleed out. Back to recovery for him, where the PA and nurse re-dress his foot, I'm no expert but it looked like he only bleed out 30-50cc of blood. But better there than in the back of car. By the time we did get out of the hospital it was lunch time. Dave wanted to stop at a Greek place in Omaha called King Kong gyros and burgers. We just had sandwiches both of them were about the size of a 45 RPM record! Not the place to eat unless your very hungry. With all the running around we did, turning his pain med prescriptions in, filling my car with gas (6.5 gal x $3.50), picking up meds. I got him home around 4:30pm, by then the nerve block was starting to wear off. Since then my poor friend has been laid up on the floor with his foot up in pain. :-(  That was the bad part.                     Now for the UGLY; While my friend and co-worker was getting his foot worked on, on, I did  some looking online the week prior and found the address of a guy I met online about 5 years ago. Mike and I  chatted for a little, talked on the phone.  Finally had a chance to meet for lunch one Saturday a few days before Thanksgiving. I thought we hit it off good. That was in the winter of 2009/10, very cold and 8-12 inches of snow about every 2 weeks. Well in Aug.-Sept. 2011 things started to get a little weird. I would call no answer, email, nothing. One time I went to were he worked, he acted strange and had a strange look in his eyes. I've seen that look before, like he was saying " your a good guy....but" A week later I sent him an email his reply was I don't want see or talk to you any more good-bye.  I went to Mike's house Wednesday morning (July2) about 8:00am. When he first saw me I think his reaction was one of shock, I don't think he wasn't happy to see me. He asked how did you find were he lived? I asked if I could come in? Of course he said NO! I have to get ready for work. I told him sorry to bother him, have a nice day. All in all the conversation lasted about 30 seconds. I at least hoped we could talk for 5 mins or so. His birthday was this past weekend so I wanted to wish him Happy birthday. I knocked on his door 3 more times after he shut it in my face. So I left him a note on the windshield of his car. "Sorry to bother you. Don't worry I won't come around again. Have a nice life. RAH" It went down about like I thought. Here is a pic my friend Mike. One of the last times we went out to eat.
                   

My Good Friend Mike ,but I'm Not His