Santa Matt's ramblings

  On August 19, 2023, God called one of his saints home. She was born September 30 1939 and given the name of Mary Bobak. She would be the first of six children born to John and Pauline Bobak. She grew up in a devout Catholic household and at the age of 16 entered the convent to begin her journey to become Sister Mary John Paul SND. During her 60 plus years as a Sister of Notre Dame, she had many jobs, teacher, principle, health coordinator, whatever the sisters needed Mary John Paul would do. But all of these facts only tell us what she was not who she was. And that is what I want to talk about. I met Mary John Paul in the spring of 1972. I had taken Monica Bobak home to Cleveland at the end of her freshman year of college and to meet Monica's family. I was going to ask John's permission to marry his daughter. After I had permission to marry Monica, we began the pleasant task of meeting her family. Among those I met was Sister Mary John Paul SND. Not being Catholic and hav...

I love Chinese food, especially Cantonese. So, one year, many years ago, my mother bought me Chinese cooking classes. I loved it, making my own dishes. My sister was getting married shortly after I completed my cooking class. The reception would have dishes prepared by the members of her gourmet cooking club. I asked her if there   was a Chinese dish that she wanted and she asked for Crab Rangoon also known as fried crab cheese. I made four dozen and they were all gone after the reception. So I pursued my cooking hobby more. My children bought me cooking equipment for Christmas and birthday and I learned even more. So after my daughter-in-law and son-in-law both published books on Amazon, I decided to make and publish a cook book.  Many people have had problems locating my cookbook on Amazon. I mean how many cookbooks are there by Santa? Oh, that many. Maybe I should help with a link? I am shortly going to publish volume 2 so I guess a little self advertising might be useful. ...

Back in 2009 I posted an early form of "My Rules" along with some background on how they came to be. At a breakfast prayer meeting I said something and Mike mentioned Rule #1. I nodded and agreed. The Deacon immediately wanted to know about "My Rules". I explained to him the background and how my life is simpler and happier when I follow the rules and I showed him a copy. He asked me to write up some of my rules and how I apply them to everyday life to make my life less stressful. He says he wants to make a tri-fold that he can hand out to people. So as I wrote up rules I thought I should share them with you too (in case you don't meet the Deacon). So here is what I handed to him. Rules for a happy life. Here are the main rules of how I live my life. I won't tell you that they will solve all of your problems. But following them in your everyday life will reduce your stress and allow you to be happier. Ultimately, you control your happiness. think of the rich...

 Today I'm going to do something here in my blog I've never done before. I'm going to rant! First some background. I spent the last thirty years of my career writing software. The first 10 of those years I still worked for Midnight Burglar Alarm. When the upper management found out I could write software the stopped using their expensive consultant and I took over hardware maintenance and software development. We had 3 mini mainframe computers based on the Data General Nova series. No graphics just accessed via ASCII dumb terminals. I wrote accounting AR and AP systems, Inventory and CSM systems. Eventually we transitions to a PC network (which I engineered) and purchased software from a development company. In my personal life I worked with Timex Sinclairs, Atari personal computers and eventually PC's, Building, modifying and programing them. When ADT bought Midnight Burglar Alarm I was let go. I immediately got a job with the development company that had provided MBA...

Due to changes in my Christmas schedule I was finally available to appear as Santa at the "YMCA Santa Run". So on the appointed day and time I found myself with Mrs. Claus posing for pictures and talking with the runners as I moved to the area the Y had setup for me. Families would come and get pictures with Santa and Mrs. Claus. One of the people that came for pictures was a grandma and three grand children, a brother and sister around 5 years old and their cousin a girls about 7 or 8. It was immediately apparent that the brother and sister were her favorites. She seemed to only want pictures of them with Santa. At one point when the older child tried to be in a picture grandma told her "Get out of the picture. You're ruining the picture." After several minutes of this the little girl was in the corner crying and I was seething but I held my temper in check. When grandma finished getting her pictures she took the two younger children aside to look at the pictur...