Keep Yourselves Alive

This is acually more of a personal essay, but Conservative principles definitely are part of the solution. In 2022 three people who I’ve known over the years killed themselves. One did it in the literal sense of the phrase, while the other two made life choices that sent them down the road to their demise.

The first guy is someone who I’ve never actually met – he is a YouTube personality with whom I’ve only interacted with once or twice on Facebook. The YouTuber in question is EDP445, a handle whose initials I can’t sell out on a family friendly web site. He is a Philadelphia Eagles superfan who made his bones via profanity laden videos. Win or lose, they were entertaining, until his act started to get tired. I enjoyed his vids because for a few decades I was a big fan of the Eagles. Until I wasn’t. EDP has also had some personal problems, getting caught by a “catch a Predator” video posing online as a 13 year old girl. EDP denies the allegations, and to be honest I don’t know him well enough to care. But more significantly, he is dying. EDP is obese, and now finds himself looking down the barrel of kidney failure killing him in the next 5-10 years. If you see any pics of him, particularly when he’s shirtless (which I don’t recommend), you can see that he has not taken care of himself. And despite being a relatively young man, years of bad decisions on diet and exercise will do him in.

The second hit much closer to home, as I learned that around Thanksgiving an old friend died of a subdural hematoma (brain hemmorage). I lost someone close to me in exactly the same way years ago, and in both cases the violent end was actually a result of both being alcoholics. The news of my friend was no surprise, as I first got to know her around 20 years ago. She was cute, smart, a lot of fun, and could talk sports more intelligently than most guys. She was also a drinker, and when I first got to know her she wasn’t too bad. We’d get the occasional “Stage 3” nights where she’d be a total wreck, but my frriends and I all had our occasional bad night so we weren’t too judgemental.

But then the Stage 3 nights became more common, and you didn’t want to be the one having to deal with her at that point. I recall one night where a number of us had a beach house for a week, and she and another buddy of mine were in the first flight as our friends made our way to the local bar for the evening. We’d all had a few back at the house beforehand, and we had that nice early evening buzz going. Then all of a sudden, relatively early in the night, she suddenly hit Stage 3, and was practically falling over into strangers. We had to get her out, and I volunteered to escort her back to the house (this was in the days before Uber). I’ll never forget what turned into a death march, as she was a staggering, angry drunk. I particularly remember her falling down and the back of her head bouncing off of the sidewalk, which brought back some unpleasant memories I mentioned earlier and I was seriously weighing a solid punch in the nose and carrrying her back to the house. I decided against it, and eventually got her home. I talked to her about it the next day, but I have a feeling I’m one of many who had no success with it.

The last time I remember hanging out was at a bar for my 40th birthday, and while I had way too many, I was able to get home on my own power, unlike my friend who needed to be spatula’d off her seat and ladled into a cab. Shortly after that I would meet Sister Babe and the last time I saw this friend was at a mutual friend’s party and our friend was already semi-sloppy drunk. As much as I like my friend, I couldn’t invite her to my wedding, nor would I invite her to any gatherings we had at Chateau D’ Bob for obvious reasons. The last story I heard about her was a buddy heading to one of our favorite bars just after work, where our friend was and bragging that she had been there since 12:30. While that might have been cool in our 20s, at some point it’s not cool to be living a Soicial Distortion song. While the news was no surprise, it still hurt to hear about an old friend dying, especially how senseless her death was.

The final person in this story is one who actually physically commiteed suicide. A few months ago I received a text from an old coworker from @ 15 years ago. Unfortunately, it was not hapy news, as he informed me that our old colleague had killed himself. I hadn’t seen this guy in @ 10 years, but the two years we worked together were probably the coolest years of my career. One year into one gig some bizarre circumstances made me our site lead, even though our team had been reduced to just the database team I was managing. This guy was my lead Database Administrator (DBA). DBA and I had a great working relationship – he was Spock to my Kirk, although neither of us were nearly as cool as our counterparts. His programming knowledge was critical, and I knew full well that he made me look good. On the flip side, his personality was in no way suited to deal with the Nimrod customer whose mismanagement removed most of our coworkers. We had a few other team members, but he and I made things work. Circumstances also had us working many an evening and the occasional weekend together. I remember working on a Saturday and streaming the radio broadcast of the Capitols’ game, of whom he was a die hard fan. And I also paid back my team, having the company pick up the tab when I’d take them out to dinner and getting us into the company box for the occasional Caps game. In our finest moment, my boss from HQ visited the site to meet with our team, but the subcontractor we had working for us could not join us for a brief meeting where some company sensitive material was discussed. As the rest of us were walking out of our shared office she nervously asked, “What do I do if someone has a question?” Instinctively, I helpfully suggested that she “Lock the door”. Seamlessly, DBA punctuated my thought with “and hope that they don’t have blasters.” I do miss those days.

Even after we parted ways professionally, we still kept in touch for a while. He listed me as a job reference, and the call I took was probably the strangest recommendation I’d ever given. I remember having to tell the prospective employer about a few of DBA’s skills that he forgot to mention (like how he inexplicably failed to mention all of the Excel skills I taught him, a talent generally not shared by most of his peers), and also pointing out his flaws. I told her I wasn’t listing his downside to trash him, but rather that I hoped she would hire him and I was giving her advice as to how to get the most out of him as an employee. He got the job. We got together for beers once not too long after we had parted ways, and sadly that would be the last time I’d ever see him. We swapped the occasional email or text for a while, but at some point my emails and texts stopped getting responses. And then I heard the news about him. I can’t even begin to imagine what took him to such a dark place, but at this point I can only pray for his soul and for his loved ones.

And where does that leave the rest of us? For starters, we can take care of ourselves. Personally, since the Fauci Flu hit I’ve consumed way too much beer, pizza, and chips. Luckily I’d already had a regular exercise regime established prior that I never stopped following, and I also have a floor of a certain amount of healthy food I consume every day. These probably are the reason I haven’t developed some bad condition, my latest blood work tells me that how I’ve been living is not sustainable. A few months ago I already started dialing back the bad consumption in small steps, and now I’m finally in a place to take bigger steps. Luckily I have a solid family behind me, and my return to the church after a three decade absence hasn’t hurt, either.

I’ve also started making efforts to reconnect with old friends who are good folks where our lives have led to drift over the years. I’ve also made a point to move away from people in my life who let the last few years drive them insane. And no, that’s not a veiled way of saying I’ve cut off every Democrat in my life. That would be kind of awkward, since I married one. And oddly enough, of all of my friends / family who went fully insane Libtard, my husband and wife friends who are the most hard core Leftists I’ve ever known, they’re among the few Lefties still capable of civil conversation. Granted, we rarely see each other any more, but when we’re together we both get that screaming over politics wouldn’t be the best use of our limited time hanging out. On the flip side, I’ve made an effort to move on from the ones who I know are just itching for the opportunity to drop some Masingil-inspiured nasty comment. No, I don’t need to live an echo chamber; I’ve just grown bored of wasting my breath on people who think that they’re geniuses but take pride in how their thought process is impervious to facts and reality.

This is a good a point as any to end this post – thanks for bearing with me. I guess my point is that seeing a few people from my life end theirs way too soon really shined a light in my eyes. I owe it to Sister babe, Little Bob, as well as the Doggies Bob to be a part of their lives for as long as possible. And that means taking care opf myself, physically, mentally, and spiritually. A casual reading of my weekly Radical Leftism roundup can give you plenty of reason to feel depressed or give in to despair. Don’t. We all have at least some goodness in our lives, and we need to whatever we can to preserve it and pass it along to the next generation. Despite all of the horrible things being done to America, it remains the greatest country to ever exist. And it’s worth fighting for. So fight for this great country, and fight for the good in your life.

I have a greater appreciation for two things as I get older: eating and sleeping. I’m doing a lot more of one and not enough of the other.

— Larry Elder (@larryelder) January 17, 2023

Brother Bob is no longer on Facebook (although you can see his archives there), and is back on Twitter again, but is ramping up on Minds and Gab, as well as Parler and GETTR, and has his biggest presence on MeWe.

Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog

Brother Bob

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