Kelly Smith Weblog Aficionado: Just a guy vs. Life

Five days until the election.... It is hard to believe, but five days from now we will be crowding the voting booths to decide who is going to lead this great country of ours for the next four years. You can either go with the incumbent.... Or you can go with the challenger.... Who are you going to vote for?

Daydreaming about money.... I want to be rich. I don't mean rich so that I could be on MTV cribs giving a tour of some gaudy South Beach dwelling. I want to be wealthy. Wealth that makes your name famous in the old money circles. I want to be romantically wealthy, you know, the cocky, arrogant, Thomas Crown sort of wealth. The kind of wealth that makes the irritating things I do seem like romantic eccentricities. I want to be wealthy so that the only thing that keeps me from indulging my children's every whim is the desire that they not be COMPLETE spoiled brats. The kind of wealthy that would let me take my wife to the Carribean for two weeks on a day's notice. I want to be the kind of wealthy that affords me anonymity. The kind of wealthy that lets everyone know your name, but not know what you look like. I want to have inexplicable tastes that most people cannot pronounce. I want the sort of wealth that educates me and makes me understand what the other ...

Atmore, Alabama... My parents were born and raised in Atmore, Alabama as obsure as that locality may be to most people who read this weblog, it is as equally difficult to convey to you what the name means to me. Atmore. As a child I would visit this place once, twice, perhaps three times a year to visit my Grandmother, (Mommie Essie), my Grandfather, and my other family. Being a military brat afforded me the opportunity to travel across the country and throughout Europe as a child. But, it kept me from having constant contact with any relatives outside of my immediate family. For me, visiting Atmore was the bridge that connected me to a sense of self. I had access to cousins, Aunts, Uncles, and Grandparents. But, as I grew older Atmore came to have a new meaning for me. Atmore was no longer the place where I went to visit those special people who knew everything about me. Atmore was the place where I came to attend their funerals. Last Thanksgiving I went to Atmore to...

A glimpse of beauty.... I just took an impromptu picture of Renee, and I thought it was beautiful even though you cannot see her entire face. This is the way she looks after a long day on the road traveling with the family, cleaning house, cooking dinner, and settling down on the couch to watch television. Though it may not seem like a glamour shot to some, this is the beauty that I appreciate the most. I'll appreciate it for many years to come.

June 24th, 1907 - October 15th, 2004... My Grandmother died....I don't have words today. The span of four generations is in this picture, that is about all I can do. (I love you Mommie Essie) UPDATED: October 23rd, 2004 I am working from my laptop in a hotel room in Indianapolis. Renee and I are up here for her cousin's wedding. It was really nice, the whole time I thought that it was so much nicer to get together with family for a wedding or child birth, than what it is to get together for a funeral. Mommie Essie's funeral wasn't the gut-wrenching experience that I thought it was going to be. I was sad, but I was happy in the fact that she lived 97 years of relative health and happiness. It was not surprising that there were so many people at the funeral. I have to admit that I was a little jealous to hear that so many people called her, "Mama Essie", of course that is a cheap takeoff of the real thing, "Mommie Essie"...

War of Words..... (from CNN.com) In the magazine article, a largely analytical cover story by Matt Bai, Kerry is asked "what it would take for Americans to feel safe again." (Special Report: America Votes 2004) ''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' the article states as the Massachusetts senator's reply. ''As a former law enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.'' Though this was not a completely innocuous statement or a lightweight subject, I am not sure that his statement is tantamount to not knowing the...

Well damn..... I wouldn't want anyone to think that I had become motivated and changed my blog layout. A bug wrecked my other scheme, and blogger support said that this is all that they can do for me. Oh well, maybe I will work some images and a better layout up this weekend. Take care.