The Curious Story of Professor Donald Morton

This is a strange story, not because of the actions of Professor Donald R. Morton, because he acted like most of us would in his situation. The story is strange because Professor Donald Morton is the Director of the Graduate Program in Crime and Justice Studies at Suffolk University and you would think that he would be smart enough to figure out a simple crime.

To start the story off, I had an old laptop that I received several months ago. It came with tons of other stuff and I only bought the lot for one of the items. I, being the super smart guy that I am, decided to liquidate the other things by selling them on craigslist. The old laptop did not come with a power supply so I was selling it for cheap money.

I received a call from Don and he said he was interested in buying the computer. He said he lives in Boston and I live a good 20 miles away. He kept pushing me to drive to Boston and telling me that he would probably buy it. Now, I am a greedy kind of guy but there is no way that I am going to make a 40 mile round trip for pretty close to no money. Our talking went back and forth for several days and we could never find a place that was closer to me to do the deal so I just pretty much wrote off selling him the machine.

This morning I received one of the strangest emails from Professor Donald Morton, he claimed I went to his place, told his partner that I was thirsty and then dashed out with his computer while his partner went for the water. I felt sorry for the guy because that would really stink, being robbed like that. I explained that I was not the guy but I would be happy to help him if there was anything I could do.

He sent me a few more emails accusing me of being the guy so I sent him information from Craigslist that showed I listed the laptop 7 days BEFORE the day he claimed that his was stolen. This is where it becomes curious to me, Professor Donald Morton still did not believe what even Craigslist had to say so he said that he would meet me, he claimed that I am a black, male in my 30's and his partner would easily ID me. I chose the Marblehead police station and thought that would prove that I was not the guy..... mysteriously it was at the time I offered to meet him at the police station that he decided to stop talking with me.

I did take quite abit of offense over his description of me. I mean come on, I am in my 40s and would hate to think that I was still an immature 30ish year old. The "accusation" of being black was not that big of a deal because Michael Jackson later in life was about my skin color but even he did not have blue eyes. I do have to concede though that he is right about me being a male and I am proud to have picked being a male when I was born.

I honestly would assume that Director of the Graduate Program in Crime and Justice Studies at Suffolk University would have figured out that a white, guy who had the computer for sell a week before his was stolen by a black guy was probably not the man he was looking for.

After all of his threats, accusations, phone calls and emails I thought I would lay out the case and let the reader figure out if he is just off in this one situation or am I a time traveler that turns into a younger black guy when I go to the future to steal inexpensive items.


Ohhhhh, one more question. What could possibly be on a persons hard drive if their computer was stolen, they have a perfect description of the person who took it and the person was at their place while their partner was there....... yet they did not call the police to file a report? Mmmmmm, it does make a person wonder what they are trying to hide. It is also interesting that after offering to meet at the local police station Professor Donald R. Morton stopped talking with me.

Is Tim Allen an Antichrist?

Lets be frank here, I live in a household of women. I have the most wonderful of all wives, I have three of the most spectacular daughters ever created by God, our best friend is a woman that also has 4 daughters and they all live next door, and even our two female cats are great pets. I have to say though that I am the lone person around that is a true guy and that is sometimes an odd thing.

Tim Allen.... the question to me becomes is he going to be the voice of guys like me. Are we going to finally have a show were a guy actually has testosterone but does not hate the women in his life. Are guys like me finally going to be able to have a show about the oddities that happen to a real guy living with with wonderful and strong women or are we once again going to be shown a "savior" that is false, an antichrist so to speak.

I love Tim's earlier work and have great hope for his new show..... I guess I will have to wait till it is shown but since I am a guy I have no problem saying that it is the best show on TV, I am sure all real men will love it and any woman that loves a guy will at the very least like it.... Guys are like that, we have no problem telling you about things that we have no idea if it is true..... but I am sure that I am right.

Marriage Will Change a Guy

It is quite well known that women from the first moment of history will find a guy and then work for the rest of their life to try and change him into something other then what he actually is. I have found myself changed in several ways, by Judy, that actually surprised me. I figure these changes just crept up because I am not sure when the actual moment of change happened.

This is a short list out of many things that I now do different then when Judy first started her project.

1) I go barefoot outside all the time.... Judy never does but I do.

2) I actually like seafood now. This probably has to do with eating seafood the same day it was caught. Eat at Red Lobster? Never again.

3) I have learned to not eat stuff that you found on the ground.

4) I now take the trash out before things start growing in it.

5) Watching sports is fun and can even be a hobby but it is not a way of life.

6) A good movie does not have to have explosions in it. I still do think that it can even help a chick flick if there are enough car chases, explosions or cool things in the movie though.

7) Muscles (the food) should not need to be stomped on, hammered or thrown against a wall to get them open after they have been steamed.... I ate one and was pleasantly surprised (sarcasm) that a few hours later I could see again everything I had eaten the previous week.

8) Being a Yankee is not a disease but actually there are many benefits to it.

9) Duct tape does NOT fix everything.

10) Having your best friend be your mate for life is the most wondrous thing.... Ok, some of these are not actual changes but they are things I have learned.

Birthday Gift fom an Irish Girl, Potatos?

This last week was my birthday and I have to say I received a very strange gift.

I have no problems naming names on this one so the young lady is Ari. On my birthday she gave me two packages, one was actually a very normal but nice gift and I thanked her because I was appreciative. The second one was a bag of two potatoes that were wrapped in paper as well.

I honestly could not figure it out. I know that she teases me for being Scandinavian and I tease her about being Irish so I assumed it had to do with some funky Irish custom that I had never heard of before. Maybe it had to do with the great potato famine but I was pretty sure that millions of starving people would not be something she would make a joke about.

I stood there after opening the gift trying to look more grateful then puzzled. I looked at Judy and then Ari's sister, Heather, hoping to find a bit of support but they both just looked at me with pleased smiles. I held the small bag of potatoes nervously trying to figure out what to do with them till I decided that a small bag of potatoes must be a weapon. You know, kind of like how the mob uses a bag of oranges to beat people and not leave a mark, I decided that a bag of potatoes must be what the Irish mob would use so I started swinging it around hoping that I got the whole idea right.

I swung the sack of potatoes around for what seemed like an eternity while all 3 young ladies just smiled pleasantly making me feel more unsure about my stupid action more and more as each second passed. Finally Heather stopped me and asked me to open here gift. I put down the sack with a sense of relief and took her gift.

I opened the wrapper slowly hoping above all hope that it was not going to be some kind of bizarre Irish gift that I would not understand. The gift slowly emerged and what I saw finally made sense .... I was given a fantastic potato gun and now I even had ammo for it.

This blog is honestly a warning to my neighbors, if I knock on your door and have a sneaky smile on my face and a hand behind my back you might want to act like you are not home ..... of course I could go coon hunting and shoo the critters away from our trash cans with my new weapon but the stubbornness of those beasts they would probably just think that I was shooting food at them and they would set up house in my backyard.

I am the Pied Piper of Children and Crabs

I love Marblehead, the people, the town, the history, well just everything. The simple truth is that while I may be an Okie, born and bred, I still fit in with at least a few of the people here.

A simple story to show what I mean

Judy and I both of a deep love for the ocean and we go to the beach every time that we have an opportunity. She always looks her glamorous self when we head off to the beach while I look like every kid with a plastic pail and shovel. Now I want to make it clear that I am a grown up so I leave the cheap Dollar Tree pail at home and bring my fancy stuff with me.

We both comb the beach and water for interesting rocks and shells but while she has every guy from the age of 13 to 93 watching her I end up with this rag tag group of kids following me. I never really thought much about it until Judy pointed it out to me today.

There is actually a simple reason for this entourage of kids and it comes down to the fact that when I am at the beach I turn into a big 10 year old boy. While Judy is looking for the delicate shells and slivers of sea glass I tend to become more interested in flipping over big rocks to see what I can find underneath. Many times there are 10-20 small crabs under the rocks and they all go scurrying off to find new shelter.

Having the inquisitive mind of a 10 year old but being able to flip large rocks means that I am a real popular guy for other small urchin that love the idea of getting a bit dirty catching critters that make you scream "ouch" when they pinch you.

I do love my life here and could never imagine living anywhere else.

Internet Friends, Real Friendships or Not?

We all have talked to people on the internet and made what we consider real friends but the question has to be.... can people become real friends if all they have are notes, chats and comments over the internet.

I have found a couple of things to be true, at least for myself. The first thing is that I have found my greatest enemies over the internet, people who would never have come after me if we had no other connection except the internet. Since I can safely say that I have people who hate me because of the internet I should also be able to say that I have found true friends.

I have met people who I truly care about, ones that I am concerned when they have something bad in their life and able to rejoice when something good happens. These are the exact same feelings that I have for real life friends.

I moved to Marblehead because of a person I originally met on Facebook, we became friends, then best friends and now husband and wife. Now that I am in a different state and many of my Internet friends that lived here are real life friends my old friends of become my internet friends.

I will give an example, Thomas is a real life friends who I have known since my school days. He is an important part of my psyche and considering I have not seen the guy for almost two years we have stayed in contact via the internet...... but he is still as real to me via the internet as he was when we would go to lunch together.

The simple answer to the question..... Yes, real friends can be "just" internet friends.

Old Love

I am sure we all have looked back to our earlier selves and wondered what if? What if I had done something different, what if I had not said those words, what if those clams I had last night where caught off the coast of Japan, these are the kind of questions that has haunted humanity from the beginning of time.

Judy and I were at Castle Rock near our home and we ran into a strange little couple. They were strange not because he was a dentist with really bad teeth but because the two of them had done something that few people ever will.

The two ancient people (he was 96 and she was much younger at 94) came up to us and started talking. I am one to always show respect to my elders but this seemed odd to me. How could they know Judy and I were not some evil couple that had decided to take over the work of Dr. Kevorkian? They seemed geniuanly interested in talking to us.

I started to wonder if they were into some kind of cult and they wanted to save our souls or the souls of our cats but they never mentioned anything of the sort. Instead they went on about how lovely of a couple we were and how we looked like we truly were in love. They went on and on about how they travel the world and meet thousands of people but that there are only a few that they have met in their life time that looked like they actually loved each other by the way they moved, spoke and acted.

This couple held hands, and spoke to each other with wonder in their eyes as they looked at each other. The seemed quite wealthy and spoke of their grand kids who were getting ready to retire but said something I shall remember for the rest of my life..... "We have lots of money and our kids are all successful in business and long marriages but our children see our success in how much we have and we see our success with who we have (each other)."

He said that he was glad to see that there where young people (hey, the dude is 96 so I am young) that understood that no matter what happens in the world to be successful at 96 you have to have that woman who you have loved for years loving you back stronger then ever before.

Sappy enough blog for you? If you know my goal in life then you will understand why I found this couple so endearing.......