Juniors Fan Club

First of all, we want to thank you all for your warm, heartfelt wishes and kind words of encouragement about the loss of our dearest member of the family, Junior.

I realize with all that’s happening in the world, the war in Israel, and Ukraine, the ridiculous amount of school shootings and gun violence, and in general, the Bad News you hear about every night on the television, the passing of a cat may seem quiet trivial in perspective. However, I’m afraid our TV generation of violence and killings has calloused our emotional system, and somehow, we’ve become the automatons we fear in the AI sector of our world. Allow me to remind you of something: when you lose a family member, that shield disappears completely, and if you are human at all, you can’t help but break down suddenly at any given moment into a blubbering mass with tears and uncontrolled sobbing. Thank God for our pets, family, and friends and for building into the human spirit that emotional thermostat.

In a recent discussion with my good friend Dr. Hanley, he reminded me that you can only experience the true joy of life by riding that emotional rollercoaster. Pain, sorrow, loss, and anger are natural emotions. Remember to always look for the Life-Giving reminders that bring, love, happiness, and joy.

We also want to publicly thank our neighbors, for the thoughtful gift (see the Cat Chimes in the photo) and kind words of love and support during this time of emotional healing. For Jr., there were many locations in our home where he curiously viewed the world. He would follow the warmth of the sun's rays from room to room during the day - but his favorite, as mentioned, was our front window perched on his soft, red, fuzzy blanket. Friends of the neighborhood Juniors' spirit is still there with the comforting sounds of tinkling chimes as a soft breeze caresses him.

Again, thank you from the bottom of our broken hearts - All our love.

I’m Patrick Ball, big hugs. Thanks for your prayers and well wishes. I’ll see you in the next episode.

Comments

The Language of Home: Building a Sanctuary

This episode is for anyone trying to find their footing in a new place—whether it’s a new city, a new job, or a new country. The light in Florence, Italy, has a way of making everything feel like a Renaissance painting—the golden hue on the stone, the steady rhythm of the Arno River, and the feeling that you are walking through a history much larger than yourself. I was there to give a presentation to a class of Gemology students. I was prepared to discuss color grading and refractive indices, but not to be outed as a language tutor . Feeling very much like a guest in a storied land, a hand shot up enthusiastically. "You’re the guy on the podcasts," the young woman said, her eyes bright with recognition. "You’re the one teaching us English." I laughed nervously. If you know my flat Midwestern accent, you know the irony here. I am hardly an Oxford professor. But later, as I wandered the cobblestone streets beneath the shadow of the Duomo, the humor faded into a powe...

Practiced Hands: The 50-Year Warranty

What Doc Burch Taught Me About Staying Active. We talk a lot about "life hacks" these days, but most of them don’t have a very long shelf life. Usually, they’re forgotten by the next app update. But back in 1972, I received a piece of advice that came with a 50-year warranty. It’s the reason I’m still on my bike today, still chasing a golf ball around Carlsbad, and still—mostly—in one piece. The Kick That Changed Everything It started with a literal kick in the pants. A kid at school in Cuba, Illinois, was joking around and caught me just right. By the next morning, my lower back was screaming. My mom didn’t reach for the Tylenol; she reached for her car keys. "Let’s go see Doc Burch," she said. "He’ll fix you right up." Harry E. Burch, D.C., was a fixture in Lewistown. He’d graduated from Palmer College in ’59 and had been our family’s go-to for years. He was a man of practiced hands and steady eyes. After a quick exam and an X-ray, the mood in the room s...

On the Fly–Taking Flight

In this special 500th episode, On the Fly is moving to a new home. Here’s why—and what’s staying the same. For a very long time (since April 2012), On the Fly has lived on Blogger . Blogger has been a reliable host—dependable, quiet, and never complaining when I arrived late with another half-baked idea, a guitar riff, or a story that needed a little air. It faithfully archived my thoughts, my music, and more than a decade of curiosity. But the internet has changed. It’s louder now. Flashier. More insistent. Every thought is nudged to perform. Every sentence wants to be optimized, monetized, or interrupted by something that really wants your attention right this second. I’ve been craving the opposite. So today, On the Fly is moving to Substack . If you’ve been with me for a while, you know my quiet obsession: the A rt of Seeing . I’m interested in the moments we rush past—the Aversion Trap, the discipline hidden inside a guitarist’s daily practice, t...

Life OS: Version 2026

In this episode: Why Your Mind Feels Like It Has 47 Tabs Open. Back in 2017, I wrote about how your mind was a blank slate at birth. A Tabula Rasa . Clean. Empty. Ready for some elegant code. Bless my 2017 heart. But in 2026, that “blank slate” looks more like a cluttered desktop. Forty-seven open tabs. A “Storage Full” warning. A cooling fan that’s screaming for mercy. If our minds are computers—and I’m convinced they are—most of us are running cutting-edge, high-demand software on hardware that’s still trying to process a resentment from 2004. So . . . let’s update the experiment. This isn’t about reinventing your life. It’s about fine-tuning your firmware—without crashing the system. The Legacy Code (Or: Why You’re Still Like This) We all run on firmware: low-level code installed early and rarely questioned. The Good Stuff: Breathing? Big fan. The Buggy Stuff: Ancient survival logic from ancestors who assumed every unfamiliar sound meant “ Run or Die. ” That same code now trea...

On The Fly

Search This Blog