Tracy @ MindSay

Got an email from an Alex Hodge yesterday morning. He said he knew I was Ken's daughter and Tracy's sister and that he'd been looking for me and Tracy for 7 years. Said his mom was Ann Hodge and she and my dad dated before my mom and my dad did. And he's Ken's son. My first instinct--like yours--might be to scream "STALKER!" and block him from every method of contact. However, my dad was well-known for his womanizing ways. So I called my mom and asked if it were possible, and as soon as I said, "Could Alex be my--" she stopped me and said "I ALWAYS SUSPECTED!" I went online, looked at his pictures. He's a fucking spitting image of my dad at 19. Like, if I didn't know better, I would have thought I was looking at a picture of my dad.

Talked to him on my lunch yesterday. He's very smart. Super excited to meet me and Tracy. Tracy's all over an LA trip soon. As much as I don't want to give up any hours or leave Grass Valley (ok, mostly I don't want to leave Jake), I really think Tracy and I should meet Alex together. He didn't know that my dad had died until he talked to Tracy. I just...cannot fathom. He's known about me and Tracy since he was 5. He's been looking for us for the past 7 years. I assumed that the 7 years correlated to when my dad died (he died in December of 2001, and I figured maybe Alex didn't know until a few months later), but no. he just got old enough to wonder who his family was. I guess that makes me pretty lucky. The only reason I found out about my dad dying--and thus meeting Tracy--was because my mom filed for child support. CPS contacted us to let us know we qualified for Social Security payout for survivors. But because Alex's mom never filed for child support, Alex wasn't in the system as Ken's son, and nobody knew to contact him or his mother. Tracy only found out about me when CPS contacted her for a copy of the death certificate. And she jumped on contacting me.

You know, I've always joked that I'm probably related to half the blonde-haired, blue-eyed kids in my county. Totally different when you find out you actually are related to one of them. I'm a little mind-blown.

Now I'm going to get all acoustic. This is the last in the selection of my dad's favourite songs. There are so many he loved, but I decided to do only three together. There's a possibility that I'll run out some more in time. This one is called "Baby can I hold you tonight". There was a very well known cover version by Boyzone, but my favourite is stil the original by "Tracy Chapman". It comes from a fantastic album.

There was a comment recently on one of my vids, saying that I should stop relying on backing tracks. So for this one, I sat with my guitar. I'll give you my view on using backing tracks. In my opinion, there is noting wrong at all in using them. Not everybody can play a musical instrument, and backing tracks can come in very handy. How many lead singers of bands just sing? Quite a few to my knowledge. One of the most versatile instruments any person can play is the voice. So this is what I say to those that use backing tracks. Keep on using them. If you get criticised for it, then the best thing to do is ignore those comments. The most important element of all this, is that you enjoy doing what you do.. Not all people will like it. Could you think of any singer that is adored by 100% of the earth's population? Some people love what you do, and some people hate it. I saw a statement recently that said if you can get just 1% of the worlds population to like what you are doing, then you can consider yourself a success, because 1% is over 60 million :)

Anyway. On to the song. I hope you enjoy my tender rendition of this beautiful song.

My Dad. Part 2

My father was a bit of a ladies man, and had many, many associations in his lifetime. Sometimes having just one was not enough. I was once told a tale of two girlfriends of his. When I raised it with him, all I got was a cheeky smile. They were bi-sexual and having a relationship with each other. The sleeping arrangements for the three of them were one bed, three people. This went on for a time. I wish I was a fly on the wall in the houses of the neighbours. I'd have liked to have known what they thought.

It's baffling how he became to be my father. Even more so when you know my mother's background. If fate turned a different corner, then I would have been the son of a certain "Mungo Jerry". Does the name ring a bell? How about the number one hit "In the summertime"? Mungo spent some time pursuing my mother. It all came to a head when he asked her why she wouldn't go out with him. I think the answer put him off for good. Perhaps it hurt his pride. When asked, my mother replied "It's because you are too ugly". Now I know where I got that compulsion to be honest. Looking at old pictures of him, I have to say I'm inclined to agree. Good call mum :) Though I'm sure there are many women out there that found his very rugged appearance attractive. Just not my mother.

So at some point in the past, my father came across my mother. Looking at the pedigree of both of them, you would struggle to find a logical reason why they got together. My father's family history was fairly unspectacular, whilst the bloodline of my mother's family can be traced to the aristocracy of the 19th century. That's as far as I've looked back so far. I'll be doing the family tree bit at some point in the future to see how far I can take it back. My mothers family will be quite easy, but I'm not sure it will be as easy to trace my father's roots.

To be continued...

Now for the nitty gritty stuff. The Youtube figures. There's been a bit of a yo-yo effect with my subscribers over the last 5 days, but they have still climbed. Another 3 hve been added overall and the figure is now 893. Channel views are up to 20,958 and the total viewing figures for all my videos is now at 349,427.

So what's coming next?

I've prepared some covers to upload whilst I've been working on my album. I'll give a track listing in the next post. My next few vids are a crash test dummies request, and a rather special Youtube duet with a lady who has a wonderful voice.

This weeks episode titled "I Am Become Death" is set 4 years into the future. First, Matt Parkman is induced by a substance to see the future, so we end up in the future via Matt Parkman. Then, picking up from last weeks ending, future Peter Petrelli arrives in the future with Peter Petrelli from the present. We end up in the future through multiple angles and I'll definitely have to watch this again to get a better grasp on this.

Upon arriving in the future Peter Petrelli from this future is shot down and killed by Claire Bennet leaving Peter Petrelli from our time to fend for himself. He escapes Claires wrath and then seeks out our mysterious genetics professor Mohinder Suresh, where he promptly pulls information out of Mohinders mind leading him next to Sylar. Sylar, a once ordinary timepiece restorer dreaming of a chance to become special, explains to Peter that he's his brother. Peter doesn't seem very shocked by this. Sylar now has a young child he's raising named Noah of all names. Peter tells Sylar he's here to take Sylars powers upon himself in order to save the world. Sylar winds up teaching Peter how to use his power. Claire and her band of evil cohorts show up to kill Peter and instead only succeed in killing Sylars son. I mean Gabriels son, as he is no longer Sylar. In an eerily similar manner to the first season finale Sylar then loses control of his nuclear power and blows up the entire city of Costa Verde.

Our Peter escapes this destruction and can be found in the morgue staring at his future dead self. Claire begins to torture him when Nathan arrives and takes things into his hands. Nathan decides to let Peter go, but this isn't enough for Peter. He now has Sylars insatiable hunger for more powers and to understand how everything works. Peter proceeds to cut off his brother Nathans head and take his power. He then teleports himself back to our present, confronting the present version of Sylar with the fact that future Sylar gave him his powers, and then we're left hanging until next weeks episode.

Hiro and Ando are being held by the Company the entire episode. All we hear is the same back and forth bickering between them in regards to Hiro no longer trusting Ando because Ando kills him in the future. Angela Petrelli takes them from their cell and has a talk with them. She tells Hiro he's the only with enough information to do anything about our impending calamitous future. We then find Hiro and Ando digging up Adam Monroe from the grave Hiro put him in at the end of last season.

Matts future includes his new wife Daphne Millbrook, our lady of the blessed acceleration, and their adopted daughter Molly Walker. Daphne shows up at the front door after escaping Sylars nuclear explosion, then drops dead in front of Parkmans eyes. Parkman then comes to and he's still in Africa. It was all just a vision of the future and now they must change it. We then see Matt following a turtle around the African desert in search of his animal totem.

Tracy Strauss tries to kill herself by jumping off a bridge. Nathan flies in and makes a quick rescue and flies her back to his room where they begin to share intimacies. We expected this because in the future Nathan is once again the President and Tracy is his First Lady.

Rest easy until next week when I'll see you all back here for the next weekly recap installment. Have a great week and don't forget to check out FanPop.com where you can find Heroes videos, images, links, articles, news, forums, and quizes. This is an amazing fansite to visit.