An Erratic Few Days

Wow. It seems like whatever could go wrong has gone wrong over the last few days. Sunday morning I was to go up to Birmingham to welcome my cousin into the Catholic church. I had some nausea and was unable to go. She ended up bringing all of my stuff from Birmingham yesterday, spending the night, and heading back up today. Very sweet!

:THEN after my Dad, the steadiest fellow in the world, made arrangements to buy some property, he decided it wasn't a good idea after all. See earlier post about said, GIDDY property. The property will not be purchased. Oh well, I'm disappointed, but easy come easy go. My dad is getting older and can't quite manage business transactions the way he used to.

My plan to change a lot of my ads over to fair trade and "green" ads has not panned out. I've been turned down by quite a few. Mostly because my traffic is too slow - I guess.

The last straw was during my first night of training tonight with Cloud10. I'm going along great for the first 3 hours. Everything was working great. Computer and headset were giving me no troubles whatsoever. After the break, my computer starts running slowly, and I can hear not one thing. Thankfully one of the other students transcribed everything that was going on through the chat feature. The first few days are for getting kinks worked out, so I didn't miss any content. But, dang, it's been an up and down few days.

Oh well. Life spins this way sometimes. An old, old country gospel song comes to mind: "Praaaayyeeeeze Gaaawwwdd Ennyhowwwwww"! I am an annoying Pollyanna. My sister Cheryl would probably not agree. Just call me Crankella Deville. GRRRRRR!

Pic is of sis Cheryl's dog Gracie. My sentiments exactly...

Smokey Robinson Rocks

This is part of an article I wrote on ehow.com. You can find me there as "raefl":

Smokey Robinson was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1940. His father, "Five", was a pin setter at a local bowling alley and divorced his mother when Smokey was age 3. His mother died when he was 10. He was then raised by his sister along with her 10 children. He grew up in the same neighborhood as many of the amazing artists that Motown would soon make famous: The Temptations, Diana Ross, and Aretha Franklin, among others. He would have a long and illustrious relationship with Motown from its conception until present. Along with Berry Gordy, he is credited with Motown's success, writing for many of the Motown stars. He also served as vice president for years.

A common question around the internet is if Smokey's mother or father was white. After many searches a People article finally revealed that Smokey's maternal great grandmother was white. (http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20119938,00.html). His unique green eyes spark the questions. Both of his parents were African American.

A biography was published in 1989 where Smokey revealed the difficulties of his life. He mentioned his father's death when Smokey was 40, his crack cocaine addiction, the breakup of his 25 year marriage, his long-time affair, and the birth of his son by his mistress. He has two other children with his former wife Claudette. He credits God with turning his life around and ending his addiction.

Smokey is on the cutting edge. He has a myspace page, a Twitter account (you can see a behind the scenes play by play of American Idol), and the aforementioned American Idol appearance. He is still producing fantastic music and his voice is still as strong as it ever was. His new song with Joss Stone, "You're the One for Me", debuted on American Idol on 3/26/2009.