Pappa Hardy's Musings on Life.

The computer revolution has brought about a lot of changes. The biggest one is that we can now do a lot of our shopping on line. Here is where the difference between men and women have come to the fore, again. Men tend to be hunters, wanting to shoot the game and take it home. Women have always been gatherers. They want to move about, touching and feeling each item before deciding which one is the best deal and then taking it home.

Men now can go and find the stuff real quick on the internet. Sometimes, we stop at just ordering on line and forgetting it. Sometimes, we comparison shop on line (the gathering part of the exercise) but then we can go into a store nearby our home and shoot the kill and haul it home even quicker than before. Women on the other hand have to comparison shop even more than before, and what could be a simple task for a man on line, taking all of 5 to 10 minutes turns into a 30 minute ordeal for a women, and she is taking up precious computer resources. Maybe we haven’t changed all that much. All I know is that I hate to shop, and that the computer has made it a little less painful.

We traveled recently for 12 hours, together in the car. One thing became clear and is a truism for the Mike Hardy Family. My wife is the family comedian. She had us rolling in the aisles. She is a very funny person, sometimes on purpose, but sometimes just because she has a great sense of humor and says funny things. I love and appreciate, most of the time, her sense of humor.

Why is it that babies almost universally say the word mama first? That word, as far as I know, appears in a lot of languages in that form. Possibly (I am really speaking out of school here) that is one of the easiest sounds to make for a newborn. As a male, I want to make sure that they say Daddy first. After all, fathers are the most important creatures on the planet. It is just that those sneaky women are with the babies for more of the day than us guys. That is the only real reason, right? Well, regardless, I recently was in a crowd of a lot of non-English foreign speakers and I heard a lot of “mamas” coming out of those child’s mouths, but not much else of their languages made sense to me.

We spent today in Las Vegas and it was Bonnie’s Birthday. This was definitely a different way to spend her birthday than normally is the case. Normally, family would be gathered all around and we would be celebrating the holiday together. When Mel was alive, we inevitably spent the 4th at Mom and Dad Cox’s house, and Mel cooked his famous barbecued Chicken. He lovingly cooked it for her for hour after hour after hour. It was absolutely delicious.

Later, we just made sure that the birthday was celebrated with family around. Today, just Bonnie and I. Originally it was going to be the family in Las Vegas for the American Idol concert and Bonnie’s Birthday, but instead Bonnie and I spent it shopping, eating, and walking around in the heat in Las Vegas. We had fun anyway.

The Hardy family had a traumatic experience today. Daughter Julie was in an automobile accident and the “old blue” Camry was totaled. Luckily, Julie was not totaled. Instead, she was shaken up and upset. I am glad she was OK. It was not a fun day for her, or for me. I praise God that she was only shaken up. She called on the cell phone and I, because I had a cell phone that allowed immediate communication, was able to make an emergency response and get to her quickly. It was a challenging day.

Here is a picture of the unfortunate car. At least the driver of the car is safe:

No, that isn’t how old I am. It is how long I have been married to the same, most wonderful woman in the world. Today was a little different from 33 years ago. On that day, it was almost warm enough not to wear a coat. It was sunny, much like today, but not so cold. The thing I remember the most was feeling, “well now I am married, but I sure don’t feel any different than I did before”. Maybe that is because I got married to my best friend and now it was all just formalized.

I love that women and she has made my life good. I thank the good Lord every day for her presence in my life. I hope for 34, and 35, and 36, and 37, and ………!!

One siren song that I kept hearing from the women on my recent trip to Taiwan (that is my wife Bonnie and my daughter Julie) was, the guys are so cute. I couldn’t believe my ears. They talked about how cute the guys were, and I guess us guys just don’t zero in on that. For me, it was how cute the women were. They were so cute, and the people were as lovable as always. One blessing of living in Taiwan as long as we were was that I have come to love the Chinese people, and that in particular that was everything about them. The adage, all Asians look alike is crazy. Having lived there as long as I have, I could accurately identify northern Chinese from Southern, the aborigines from the the Koreans, Japanese from Vietnamese. It was a wonderful place to live.

Well, we have been spending the last few days on a mini-vacation to Cheyenne.  We came here to have the family get together.   Part of the rationale was so that we could have everyone together for Bonnie’s birthday.  It is hard to forget my wife’s birthday, as it is on the same day as the nation’s birthday.  I always know that it is coming up.

This time around, she had been making the birthday last forever.  She has the family together for this event and that, and she isn’t happy unless she is getting them together for another event.  I have one child that makes his birthday last like that, and he is a specialist at this type of thing.  Gordon could make his birthday last a month with celebration, after celebration, after more celebration.  It somehow isn’t fair.  My birthday always comes, and is gone in an instant.  Hers and his seems to last forever.

Well, I live with a National Champion. Some of you may not believe it but it is true. This is a fact not only because she is a wonderful wife, mother, spouse, you name it, but because she is indeed a National Champion. How can that be.

Well, my wonderful wife went to compete in the Skills USA/VICA competition in Kansas City in 2003. She had been known as the Region 5 Advisor of the Year the year before, when she was teaching High School. In 2003, Bonnie was going to school to get her Bachelor’s degree and thus was a student. She was able to be first place in the National CPR competition. It was such an honor, and recognition of all the hard work she did as a teacher and as a student. I have a real first class wife. She is a National Champion.

This weekend we are going to Cheyenne to see the kids.  We haven’t been for a while and that should be fun.  However, the dreaded “p” word has been used.  Yes, we have to pack.  I told everyone yesterday they needed to get packed.  Well, Bonnie got it done in the time frame that she was supposed to have done it in.  I went up to here and half jokingly said, where is my stuff.  She didn’t find that funny.  I thought it was OK to ask if she had done my stuff, after all, isn’t that what your spouse is for, to take care of your half of the bargain why you set back and admire the scenery.  I just didn’t understand her response, which was to ask me why I hadn’t done it.  Women!