I had a thought, can you smell the smoke...
Current mood: froggy
Category: Blogging
You know me, I could care less about politics and what passes for news coming from the usual talking heads, but I couldn't leave this alone. The pounding that the Governor of Alaska has taken in the media is atrocious.
Her husband got a DUI, so what? It is night for six months in Alaska which would make Happy Hour about two weeks long, what do you expect?
Her daughter is expecting, so that was no accident. I asked my friend Rick, who is very up on politics if he had seen her during the Convention coverage and he said no, he didn't know what she looked like. I said that the only thing that I had heard was that she was built like a 7-11, open all night.*rimshot* I suggested that he scan the crowd near the podium for a girl wearing a t-shirt that said, "Instant Eskimo, Just Add Semen."
As much as he was tiring of my wit he did allow that the eskimo crack was not politically incorrect as her father was part Inuit. I maintained that he must have been all the way Inuit at least once or that joke would have been moot. Hmm, moot semen? I can do this all night.
I think that McCain has made a good choice, I am satisfied. At least she hasn't posed nude for Playboy, yet, because I wouldn't want to miss that!!!
Great fun, great friends and just some all around greatness...
Current mood: rejuvenated
Category: Friends
Each morning at exactly 5:30am my little buddy Sylvester wakes me with his signature move, the four paw drop from above, directly onto my stomach. Then he says, "Meow" which is kitty for 'I love you' but when he says it it means 'Get your dead ass up and let me outside!!!' He is happy outside and he needs little attention from me for the next hour or so. If I happen to get another nap in before my Sweetie goes to work she will let him in before she leaves with instructions to wake me again. He loves his job. After I make sure he is happily outside again I can go about getting ready for work. That's when Tweety, the morning ninja, gets into the act. The FBI couldn't find this cat in our house until...
I try to put my socks on. Go figure. As soon as I get my shoes on, she is gone again, ninja-like.
Movie Night.
A great friend of mine suggested a movie the other day and I finally found the trailer on the net and checked it out. I laughed my ass off and I don't usually do that with trailer's so I scoured the city until I found a copy for sale. The name of the movie is "The Grand" starring Woody Harrelson and some really funny people.
Here is Rick and I, moments before the kick-off of Movie Night, with Sierra Nevada Pale Ales to commemorate my friend who suggested the nights title. You should see this movie, I give it four Big Blinds, a must rent for all fans of ensemble movies. We will be reviewing it on the next BlogTalkRadio show, hopefully this Saturday night.
Wish me luck, I will be playing the $50K no limit hold'em tournament on Fleet Street Games this Sunday. So will Rick. We are going to leave the field with some fond memories and hopefully, little else. Last week I played the Sunday 200K on Pokerstars and finished 3113 out of 22,566. In the money at one of the biggest online tourneys of the week.
I have experienced an upturn at work, in fact I am getting a lot of work, which means more money, which means extra money to tackle stuff around the house, which means more check marks on the old to-do list, which means less free time on the weekends and less time for inventing cool new ways to enrage the associates at my local Wal-Mart. They have the bridge and the roads torn up so there customer count is way down and they need me to entertain them, so I do.
It was three o'clock in the morning and I was wide awake and I thought to myself, "Self, this would be a great time to mess with some associates!!!" So I did. The name of this game was, "Three things you buy at Wal-Mart that will get you 'The Look' from the person that checks you out. I thought and thought and then I had 'that thought.' The perfect three items were retrieved from the shelves and then I went to find the right sort of person to check me out. She was about 40, looked bored but not too bored, she was perfect!!!! So I place my three items on the the check out line and wait. She rings them up one at a time and places them in the plastic bag on the carousel, condoms, duct-tape and gummi-bears. But no look. Crap. This is turning into a wasted trip and then it comes to me as she is handing me my change.
"Excuse me, do you live around here?" I ask and then continue, not waiting for a response, "My car is about to die and I need to replace it, do you know of anyone selling a white panel van cheap??"
She looked at me, glanced at the plastic bag she had just filled and said, "No!" I got the look. I would bet money she was on the phone before I got to my car. Next trip I am going to Customer Service and return everything, one item at a time. Hey, everyone needs a hobby.
Currently
watching
:
The Grand Release date: 2008-06-10
What a week I’m having...
Current mood: froggy
Category: Life
Well, after a terrible heat wave we got some decent weather this week. This was great as it coincided with Mom and Dad's world tour. After a whirlwind 3 city itinerary that included Kansas City, St. Louis and Abilene, the parentals blew into town on Tuesday night, a day early. We wined and dined them, my sweetie took my Mom and my inheritance to the casino and I showed Dad the best Mexican buffet this side of San Antonio. Here is photographic evidence of their stay...
... I'm the tall guy in the middle, I know, I'm usually sleeping in these but I figured just this once.
Having just returned from St. Louis my Mom had to lord it over me that they had gotten a Gooey Butter Cake while they were there. I love the Gooey Butter Cake, especially if it's from Schnucks in St. Louis, they are the best. Sure, you are sitting there wondering to yourself, "Meh, how good could it be???" Take a look and you tell me...
Yes, I got on the internet and found a recipe, well 5 recipes for Gooey Butter Cake and yes, I had to make all of them because, well because. Here is the best one of the recipes I found, edited to be closer to the original.
Use a metal spoon, you will probably break a wooden one, and mix the first three ingredients to an even play-doh like consistency. Press this into a 9 x 13 ungreased baking pan. Congratulations, you are halfway done.
Now fire up the mixer, you know that you want to, and combine
1 tsp. Almond extract(use the good stuff, you'll thank me) 2 eggs 1 thingy of Philly Cream cheese, the softer the better, I leave it out over night. 1 POUND, that's right 1 POUND of powdered sugar
Once this gets all smooth and decadent looking pour it over your first layer and make sure you it's even and all the way to the edges. There is a lot of kinky stuff you can do with any of the leftover stuff, I will leave that to your imagination.
Now comes the important part. You can seriously ruin one of these if you let the bottom get too done. Preheat to exactly 350 degrees and bake for no more than 35 minutes. Just to err on the safe side, I turn my oven off when there is five minutes to go.
I cut you mang...
Current mood: cantankerous
Category: Web, HTML, Tech
Like millions of web-heads, each day I trip on over to my free e-mail client who shall remain nameless because EXCITE knows who they are, and marvel at the lovely new e-mail hootis that used to be user friendly and is now not friendly and I don't understand it. First of all, you go to the e-mail client and it pops up this deal with your "to-do list" or whatever, I don't need a to-do list, I'm married and my wife makes it very clear when I am supposed to do something. So I click past that and get to the part that I wanted to be at in the first place and lo and behold they have stripped out all of the vacuum cleaner buttons that I used to use to keep my inbox all spic and span.(I'm using the word spic in the vernacular reference to an old-timey cleaning product, not that other one.)
I am just scraping away with the virtual putty knife at all of the crap that built up in my inbox when I find a little jewel of an incrustation entitled, "Lasik surgery for $495!!!" Bargain basement EYE SURGERY, sign me up! And you just know that it has to be good, they used three exclamation points in the title. 'The wheels are turning and I am imagining driving to the address and knocking on the door and being told that the office is around back, in the garage. So I take a seat in the surplus barber chair and this chick with about a hundred piercings and at least as many square inches of tribal rings and tramp stamps comes out with a converted grocery store scanner ala Tim Taylor and one of those big plastic magnifiers like the one my great aunt used to use to do crosswords with and tries to put some stuff in my eyes with a red plastic squeeze bottles that not so long ago held ketchup, before it was stolen from some Mom and Pop burger joint.' I have to shake that mental image and get used to the fuzzy world that I call home.
After that I need some news. There is a deal on Rueters about these three guys in Bali that were sentenced to death by firing squad for blowing up 200 people. It seems that their lawyers think that the bullets might hurt them if they are not killed outright. You know what I think?
BIGGER GUN!!!
On a lighter note, BlogTalkRadio has a comedy hit on Monday night at 8pm central time. Come listen to Buffman and Wrench, they are a hoot. Who knows, you might even here me on the show.
Worse things could happen...
Current mood: hungover
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
Sometimes, no matter how simple, a plan simply will not come together. Take yesterday for example: It was blazingly hot and not so much as a breeze to take the edge off so I was completely whipped when I got home from work. All I wanted was a cold beer, a seat under the fan and some online poker action. So of course my friend Danny calls and wants to go bike riding.
That was not the worst idea, it had started to cool off some so I said OK. Danny would be over and we would put some miles on our bikes. That was the plan. Danny, who lives about a mile from my house, took 2 and a half hours to get here, well almost here. My next door neighbor Steve and his friend Richard were putting the finishing touches on some garage improvement project and that was as far as Danny got, but he did yell at me to come over, so I did.
Richard had a new motorcycle that we gave the once over and then he left, then Steve's girlfriend came by with the baby and we hung out until she left and then it was time for a beer run. Once resupplied with frosty beverages we came to the conclusion that pizza would be good. The party in Steve's driveway was going just fine until we started smelling smoke near where they had installed the new boards in the garage.
Three dudes with a good beer buzz and the idea that something might be on fire can mean only one thing, let's all go up in the attic and check it out. I would have went myself, really, but I was too busy laughing at Danny. He was the first one up in the attic and also the first one out of the attic, butt first. He sat there in the floor, half tangled in the ladder for a minute or two until I could compose myself enough to ask if he was OK and give him a hand up.
In spite of the obvious danger, two more trips to the attic by Steve revealed no source for the burning smell so we called the professionals. In my opinion, no matter how things turn out, you can never be sure you are having a good time until the Fire Department shows up.
Solving the new and improved gas crisis...
Current mood: intense
Category: Life
My friend Rick put it to me the other day to solve the gas crisis. OK, I like a challenge. The way that I see it gas prices will never come down. Why? Because of electronic trading of oil futures by computer programs the price of oil will eventually reach $500 a barrel and there is nothing we can do about it. The price of a gallon of gas will ratchet up every time the price of oil changes, whether up or down, and there is nothing we can do about that either. Sounds tragic, and it is. I have taken it upon myself to tackle this problem now instead of finishing my patent application for a 'Horizontal drilling apparatus to access grease traps of local restaurants from adjacent properties.'
Off of the top of my head I had to nix the idea of the 55mph speed limit, it might save gas but since they changed it to 70 there are still morons who won't drive over 55 anyway, so that is out. Next is CAFE standards, if you don't know what they are leave and come back when you do I don't have the time or inclination to explain it to you. Make all new cars sold in this country get 30 miles to the gallon by 2010 and ratchet that up by 3 miles a gallon every year after that. This is not practical either, some whiner will bitch and moan until they give in, like always.
An idea I really like is the 3 strikes law, you get three tickets and you lose your license, forever. My personal favorite but in order to enforce it you would have to make driving without a license a capital offense, so that's out. Biodiesel cars would be a nifty idea but now that it caught on, Biodiesel costs about a dollar a gallon more than regular diesel and so that idea is dead as well. Next up was the Darwin car, a sporty, egg-shaped three-seater that would go anywhere at about 55mph/g. The beauty of the Darwin was that it was the ultimate traffic cop, the slightest rolling faux pas would doom all of the occupants. Unable to withstand more than a 5 mph collision the whole car would biodegrade before the ambulance arrived.
You are thinking that I have completely shot my wad, no? NO!!!! I give you the 2009 Chevrolet Sleeparado, 6 liter V8, 4 wheel drive, AM/FM/XM/CD/DVD/HDTV, Onstar, GPS, automatic dual zone HVAC, electric everything, including high-value camper appendage with deluxe appointments. Still getting 12 miles to the gallon, the savings comes from the simplification of your life. If you have a car you can get by without a house, if you have a house, you still can't get by without a car. The Sleeparado is the answer!!! You don't have to worry about how far the commute to work is, unless you park on the far end of the parking lot, when you get to your new Sleeparado after a hard day's work there is no additional commute, you are home!!!!!
Think of the money you will save on:
Mortgage/rent payments: never again.
Commuting to work: you live there, baby!!
The high cost of hotels during vacation: not with the Sleeparado.
Hitler had a sense of humor...
Current mood: overstimulated
Writer's have the duty to put the reader into the story. I have two vices, beer and cigarettes, I don't move easily into the inspiration mode without a refreshing malt aperitif and I can't seem to stay long at the keyboard without taking time to enjoy a tasty smoke. When I get a great idea, it has to go through a long, convoluted process to make into a coherent form, these things take time.
Let's suppose you had a job that required you to be at a meeting with Hitler once a week, just suppose. So, you get dressed in the morning and you go to the meeting and there are all of the top Nazi's, one of which is you, in the meeting. Hitler is in charge of the meeting, because he is the manager and because he is Hitler. He makes some opening remarks and then, because he can, he tells a joke.
Not just any random joke, a joke that he wrote. About somebody he knows, someone in the meeting, to be more specific, Hermann Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe. Now, everyone in the meeting knows that Goering invents decorations for the Luftwaffe and tries them out by awarding them to himself, it is something that is never mentioned but everyone, including Hitler, knows about.
The joke:
Hitler speaks: "Hermann was lying in bed in his underpants, waving his riding crop over them when his wife walks in and asks, 'What the hell are you doing?' His reply was, 'I am promoting them to OVERPANTS!!!'
Be sure to go to "The Mad Goat's Blog" and give him some style points on his first VLOG!!!!!
Be sure you tune in to BUFFMAN AND WRENCH'S show on BTR this Monday, I will be participating and so should you...
Peace, out!!
Currently
watching
:
The Producers Release date: 2000-02-01
Two weekends in a row...
Current mood: overstimulated
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes
Summer is just one of the best times of the year. Wait five seconds and something will happen that makes the day better. Take yesterday for example. My pal Danny calls at 8 in the morning, he has a plumbing issue at his house and wants to borrow a pipe wrench. He knows I have one because he helped drink beer while I installed the new water heater the other day. Well, an hour or two go by and Danny doesn't show up, come to find out he got his project handled without needing the pipe wrench after all, added bonus, his twin brother Charlie is in town!!! When I say twin, I mean that I am the only person in Wichita Falls that can tell these two guys apart. So we all meet up at Danny's house to drink beer and play with the new Revo(God-awful expensive radio control car) and check out Danny's new dog named Zoe. Oddly enough, Danny has two other dogs and they are named Zoe as well.
Well after driving the muffler off of the Revo we notice that we are out of beer, I mean Danny has to get a prescription filled for his middle daughter (not named Zoe) so we all pile into Charlie's minivan and away we go. After the drive in pharmacy we stop downtown at P2, local watering hole famous for red-draws and cool parking lot parties. We party in the parking lot a little and then we go down the street to the Lazy Dog, another local favorite that sports cold A/C and colder beer. I know, this is starting to sound like a pub-crawl but we are talking a lot more than we a drinking, at least until Danny and Charlie decide to get their pictures taken with the staff at the Lazy Dog. The young ladies that work at this place are as nice as they can be and are drop-dead, model gorgeous, every single one of them. Danny and Charlie were both drooling out the same side of their mouths, you had to see it. We finished up and realizing that we had started a sort of pub crawl decided to make one last stop.
The Missile Club is a neighborhood bar, my neighborhood bar, and Saturday night is pool tournament night and we thought we would run into my shop foreman, Jim. He knew Danny but he didn't know Charlie so we thought we would screw with his head a little and have Danny come through the bar from one direction, wave and then have Charlie come through a bit later and check out the look on his face!!! Well that fell apart as soon as we got there because the pool tournament had been canceled in favor of a birthday party for some of the staff and a couple of the regulars. So, no tournament but live music and tons of free barbecue!!!! Tim Tice and Behind the Eight-ball were playing, they are a fabulous regional band that you usually have to pay a good price to see but not tonight!! Needless to say, the twins and I had a great time, got home safe and in bed at a reasonable hour. Well, except for me, I had one more adventure yet to come.
I stayed up a did some research on the computer for a while and as we do, went outside to smoke a cigarette about midnight. No sooner had I lit up than I heard my favorite sounds, the roar of an engine, the squeal of tires, more roar and then lots of brakes and, wait for it, kawhuuummp!! It was pretty close, in the neighborhood to be sure. Dammit, I thought, it's after midnight!!! If it had been earlier I would have loaded a cooler with beer and went to the scene and sold singles to the looky-loo's. Just when I was getting depressed at the loss of an opportunity I hear, thupita, thupita, screee, thupita, here comes the wrecked car, obviously fleeing the scene of the accident. It turns onto my street, continues up the block and stops 4 houses up, how cool is that? I immediately hop on my bike, conveniently stashed behind the hedge and follow the trail of gouged pavement and random fluids backward to the scene of the crime. No sooner had I turned the second corner I saw a man standing in his driveway in a bath robe, I stopped to talk to him. "Hey, that is a really attractive bath robe, can I ask where you got it? My wife keeps buying one's that are way to short, that one looks perfect." This guy is probably tired or he doesn't want to give up the name of the store and he just looks at me. I continue, "Did that guy hit anyone else?" "No," he said, "They hit the curb over there and tore the front of the car off." He was not kidding, the entire front clip of the car, from the right blinker to the left lay in his driveway. As a veteran car mechanic I know that taking this much body work off of a vehicle is very tedious and involved, this driver has beaten warrantee time by a good 4 hours. The police converge and we tell the officer's what's up. I tell them where they can find the perpetrator, not like it would be a stretch, what with the license plate still attached to the front clip and all. I ask if they want a statement and they say no but before I pedal off I call one of them over to me and ask him if he can find out were the guy got the bathrobe. What???
The weekend and then some...
Current mood: distressed
Category: Life
The last 4 or 5 days have been just a blur of activity. The canoe trip became a flurry of last minute replanning and reorganizing and sleep was the first and not last casualty. We got our fourth guy at the last minute and he was the saving grace for us all, he had the tent that we really needed and he fit into the group perfectly.
We got to Rochelle's at about 8:30AM, later than originally planned but not so much of a big deal. We had to sign in and register the car's plates with the office and drink a few beers and check out the blonde chick with the 'I heart vagina' hat on. Then we loaded up the truck that would take us to the drop-off point and hopped in with the driver, Tooma. That wasn't his real name but I called him that because he had what looked like a vienna sausage under the skin of one of his fingers.
As I had never done this particular adventure before I was unprepared for the drop-off, backing in to a one-lane, asphalt and cement lane that led at a 45 degree angle to the water below. Drunkass Eddie, not in our party(Thank you, Jesus) decided to help getting the canoes off of the trailer and sending them sliding down the ramp at terminal velocity into hapless soon-to-be-canoeists and there equipment at the bottom of the ramp. Thankfully he ran out of beer before he could help a whole lot.
Once on the water we adapted rather quickly, if you ever get a chance to get into an Old Town canoe, I highly recommend it, you will thank me later. They don't look like much but there is a couple hundred years of technology involved in one of those simple looking boats. One canoe will hold 800 lbs. of combined people and stuff(Doh, we could have brought more beer!!)
This is just a taste of what it looks like on the Brazos, you have to be there to take it all in...
When you look over the side of the canoe, the water is really clear, don't freak out if you see some monster cats and stripers swimming around underneath the boat. Here is the rest of our party, that's Rick in front and Bobbo steering.
The trip encompasses 22 miles of the Brazos river, from the spillway of the Possum Kingdom Lake Dam to the Highway 4 bridge downstream. You will see a total of about 5 houses in the entire trip. You eat when you get hungry, you stop when you are tired and you camp when you find a place that you like, it is all up to you. You may see herons and buzzards, wild hogs, deer and cattle on your way, if you get up really early in the morning you may see wild turkeys fly down from their roosts and listen to them go about their daily business. The river has it's own noises, depending on where you are on it, in the quiet channels big fish jump and make tremendous splashes as they feed on shad and minnows. One thing that I learned, the reason that the river turns one way and then the other is so that there is never any shade on the river, sunblock is an absolute necessity. I prefer the greaseless, SPF 10W40 version myself, put it on once and you are good all day, except for the 'Goldfinger effect' that shows up after your skin has been smothered in it for the entire day.
Danny wasn't too sure about this campsite, but it worked out well. We pushed pretty hard the first day and did probably 18 miles in 9 hours or so. The second day was much lighter and we had about 3 hours of paddling to get to the pickup point at our car. Best. Canoe. Trip. Ever.
Bobbo has the best ideas sometimes.
Currently
listening
:
The Captain and Me
By
The Doobie Brothers
Release date: 1990-10-25
Well, here it is, the final day before the "Deliverance for Dummies" float trip down the Brazos river. I have unorganized all of the little doodads that I don't want to be caught without, buck knife, two Leatherman multi-tools, magnesium fire-starter, 4 butane lighters, Coleman stove and lantern, fishing hat and emergency strobe/alarm. I also took the liberty of downloading a helpful check list off of the internet.
I am low maintenance when it comes to camping, less is better. We are canoeing, so I will bring a foam pad and sleep in the canoe. I have the cooler all mapped out, frozen tea and gatorade will perform double duty. As far as clothes go, the usual fishing attire will work for the float trip, with a change of clothes for the concert Sunday night and a whores bath at a service station on the way to Big D. As far as serious essentials go, I have the gallon size ziploc bag with a full roll of Charmin's finest safe inside, the outside of the bag clearly marked, "Toilet paper, $10 per sheet." I cannot tolerate people who don't plan ahead.
Under cooking and dining, the list calls for such items as charcoal chimney, smoker, Dutch oven, pie irons, what the hell??? There is no 'dining' in the woods! Kill it, cook it, eat it. And the fool that made this list up apparently hadn't thought out how you are supposed to put a 200 lb. clay chiminea into a canoe. As far as the first aid part of the list, I figure what can't be cut off or cauterized will only make us stronger.
The list also includes: broom, dust pan, whisk broom, lawn rake, dish pan, detergent, dish rags and pot scrubber, but since the wife isn't going I can leave all of that shit here. In spite of the feeling of dread that comes over me just thinking about this trip, I will force myself to lighten up and have a good time. I have to go and make sure the cell phone is charged up and put fresh batteries in the digital camera, and practice grunting...
With any luck at all Sunday night at 8PM CST I will be broadcasting live from the Doobie Brothers/Chicago concert in Dallas on BlogTalkRadio, the lovely and talented Andrea will be handling the broadcast and I will call in, might be worth a listen!!!
BlogTalkRadio
Current mood: awake
Category: Podcast
I direct your attention to the blue doohickey at the top of the blog. I have been working with a few audio programs to produce some content for my BlogTalkRadio show. The audio levels are not perfect yet, but I am working on it.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am also looking at having a guest host on but I have no idea if anyone would be interested. If you are interested, don't just sit there, let someone know.
Just another day of the week...
Current mood: tired
Category: Life
I wonder how that I get into these things. My pal Rodney calls from the lake and asks me to look at his car tomorrow. OK, no big deal, I change the fuel filter on Sweetie's Blazer and by and by Rodney shows up. On foot. Seems that his Porsche had been having a mid-life crisis at the top of our street and he left it there.
I told him to let it coast down the hill and park it in front of the house and I would check it out. Fan belts, of all things. Wrapped around and around and around the pulley. It's a good thing that this car doesn't rely on them for anything really important, you have to love a gear driven water pump. Now that he has calmed down, I tell him to go get the car that he wanted me to look at and I will get something to eat in the meantime.
I love spaghetti, more than spaghetti I love the nap after spaghetti. No nap, test drive. We take a spin through the neighborhood without any major mishaps and then out to the prison and back, about 15 miles total and nothing. So he wants to go check out his rent house while it is still daylight, I still want to nap but I go anyway. We pull up outside and there is one of the vent turbines from his roof in the front yard. He asks if I will help him put it back up and I say OK.
Of course we go to put the ladder up on the side of the house and the ratchet deal is messed up. It takes a crowbar and hammer to get the thing loose. I ask how it got like that and he tells me he ran it over with his truck, would have been my guess. While I am fixing the ladder he is messing with the turbine and looking for something in the house. A storm is building and by this time I see the wall cloud about 5 miles off, the wind is up to a steady 40 miles an hour and I am wondering how I should stand with the ladder to get the best view when he comes rolling off of the roof into the yard.
Thankfully, when he reappears he grabs the turbine and climbs the ladder and away he goes. As soon as he gets on the roof the lightning starts, first to the north and west and gradually the south and then east. Yep, there I am, in the middle of a lightning storm holding an aluminum ladder. I start to feel like a golfer. I go over the various possible scenarios in my head, complete with catchy headline, "Man holds ladder in lightning storm, hilarity ensues." Despite my paranoia, the roof got fixed, nobody died and we watched a wicked thunderstorm from the porch still tempting fate, drinking beer out of aluminum cans.
Some of you may have seen this, but you have to see it again. This is four of a series of nine videos in the series so far and they ROCK...
Oh, and Josh is going to be in his first real movie soon!!!
I think that I have worked the kinks out of the BTR thing, I will try to get a show on the air this weekend.
Military Mike meets my big mouth...
Current mood: tired
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
My buddy Danny got me last night, he really did. He hit me below the belt, used my greatest weakness against me, but then that's what friends do when they need to get shit done and they need your help.
Danny's friend John was pouring a new driveway and Danny was helping him but Danny doesn't know shit about concrete. Well he knows one thing about concrete, he knows that I love to do concrete. Concrete is my crack. If I won the lottery I would go out and buy every single concrete tool I could find, so that I could do any kind of concrete work I wanted to, whenever I wanted. And then pay some bills, I'm not stupid!
So Danny says that the concrete truck will show up at John's house at 8AM, we need to be there to meet it. I say, sure, good plan, be at my place around 7:30. He goes, why? Duh, beer and donuts. Now we're on the same page.
We meet up at John's and there is John who is an old geezer, he won't be much help, and this guy, Military Mike. I call him this because he is obviously in the military, he has the haircut, he is no stranger to PT and his name is Mike. I wonder if this guy is any good with concrete, I hate to show up and be the only person that knows what the hell is going on. Luckily, Mike has his poop in a group, he has the appropriate tools and has done this before, that is a good thing.
Did I mention that this was not a little project? The driveway we are going to pour is about 12 feet wide by close to 50 feet long. These guys at least had the drive dug out and the rebar down and the forms set before we got there, even though I would have dug footers, but nobody asked me. The cement truck gets there right on time and away we go. Pour and rake, Military Mike gets into his, "Hey, get over here, do this," rhythm and I think that this may work out. Military Mike gets on one side of the 'two by' and I take the other and we pull down while John and Danny work the rakes. If you have ever done cement work before you know that pulling the board can either be the easiest or the hardest job there. Well I give it an 8 for hardness today, Danny didn't get my reminder to "Watch the board," and Military Mike was on him like a dirty shirt to pay attention.
Once we had all 10 yards poured and could take a break, I thought to myself, I should talk to Mike, find out some stuff about him. I want to make a good impression so I plan my opening remarks very carefully. I figure I will start out with, 'So, Mike, you like the Air Force? You been in long?' Sounded safe enough, right? Well, before we had time for small talk the concrete was drying a little faster than we expected so I grabbed an edger, Mike took the bull-float and Danny and John alternated between the hose and the false-break.
The job took us about 2 hours total and once done we were milling around admiring our work and I remembered what I wanted to say to Mike. I called to him and then I noticed that he was wearing a USMC t-shirt and I said it anyway.
"So Mike, how do you like the Air Force, you going to make a career of it?" The look on his face was absolutely priceless. I was going to start laughing but realized this was a fire that didn't need any gas thrown on it. "Easy Gunny," I managed before he could get really wound up, "just pulling your chain." Mike is a pretty cool guy, I figure if he ever wins the lottery he can retire from the Marines and buy a sense of humor. Semper Fi, Mike.
What would you do for a friend???(edited with original Holovak goodness...)
Current mood: scared
Category: Friends
I have been posting this in bulletins and individualized e-mails to several of my friends that have thousands more friends than i do, and now you get to see it as well...
Hi,
I need your help. A very nice MySpace friend of mine, Airika needs our help. She is a mom with a job that has legal problems that may cost her her job. As she spends her wages on her family she has nothing left for legal expenses. When I heard that she needed help I was skeptical but upon hearing of the details which she has forbidden me to repeat so I won't except that it doesn't involve drinking or drugs, I have decided to help her. To that end I am going to dedicate one episode of my BlogTalkRadio show on writing to helping her out. I only ask that if you post a blog tomorrow before 8PM CST, that you would help a guy get the word out by putting a word in on your blog.
My BlogTalkRadio shows are about writing, I'm not an expert, I just try to help other people, because I like reading. I can almost promise that no one has ever suffered any long term effects by listening to my show, all I ask is a little help in getting the word out.
The show can be found on BlogTalkRadio's website by using the search feature and typing in 204419. The show starts at 8PM CST and lasts 45 minutes. I promise it will be at least entertaining and hopefully helpful. The subject of the show is Comedy, something that I can appreciate and know a little about. There is a chat feature and you can even call in and join the fun.
I am doing this for my friend, otherwise I wouldn't bother you.
Thank you very much in advance, Bri
PS If you get into a jam and need some help, I would do it for you, too.
Airika needs our help. Not a whole lot, she just needs to get over one of life's bumps. Most of you are readers of her, you know that she is not a person that would take advantage. That said, what has been proposed by other friends of hers is that we solicit donations of stuff, you know, to auction off on eBay, and send her the proceeds.
My idea is this... There is something, somewhere in the house that you would like to get rid of for one reason or the other(no significant others, please) and just have not done it yet. Send me a picture and description of the item, and for fun, the reason you want to get rid of it, and we will take care of the auction, let you know who to send it to, send you the cash to send it, and like that. You get rid of shit that you didn't want, it didn't cost you anything, and you get the warm fuzzy feeling. And Airika will send you a thank you. Or I will.
Friday night, 8PM CST, that's CST, get there early, register, it's free and you can chat with me, search for program number 204419, my screen name is BigTexBri, and I will be looking for you. You can call in to the program and talk live if you want.
This is not for me, if you know me at all, I am scared shitless of performing in front of a live audience but I will do it for Airika, she is that cool. Go to her profile and search back through her blogs, you will like them.
As I am a man of my word and put my fiduciary wherewithal in proximity of my maxillary orifice I offer for auction this item,
This is a pastel in frame, an original Holovak, the work is pastels matted in frame, the work itself measures 1 hammer by a hammer and a half, the frame is 2 hammers by 3 hammers. There are 4 known original Holovak's extant, so for a collector, if you win this one you only have 3 to go!!
I lead by example, because it is cool. I am only giving this up because in the ten years that I have owned it, my sweetie would not let it in the house proper.
Homeland Security, "Dude, We’re Fucked!!!"...
Current mood: annoyed
Category: Life
To: Carter Smith Executive Director Texas Parks and Wildlife Department 4200 Smith School Rd. Austin, Tx. 78744
Dear Director Smith:
I am writing you today in a state of most urgent distress. One of your charges, C. C. Cristata by name, has become a less than positive addition to our suburban propinquity. He is not hard on the eyes, you and I both know that, but his manners and demeanor are atrocious. This is the crux of my complaint to you.
C.C. has taken up residence on our property and we welcome him. But our charity is rebuffed repeatedly in less than cordial fashion. We are at our wit's end. I ask for relief not for myself or my sweetie but for our little Sylvester. Try as he may to befriend or even ignore C.C., Sylvester has become the victim of senseless, random brutality and at this juncture I must demand redress.
Something has to be done, you have resources and I would direct your attention to the following video as proof that action must be taken...
As you can see, Sylvester has been violently thrust from his copacetic domestic arrangement into constant suburban strife by the actions of your charge.
Your swift action in this matter would be greatly appreciated, as you can see our dear Sylvester, once a happy-go-lucky, 'people cat' has been hounded and emotionally marginalized into a harried, nervous, schizoid personality, a fraction of his former self. Look beyond the free-fly attitudes of some lesser bureaucrats whose 'all about nature' attitudes and 'eyes-closed-while-green-thinking' mental processes exacerbate scenarios just like this and help us to clip the wings of those that would subjugate the freedoms of innocent residential help-mammals like Sylvester.
Your immediate attention is both appreciated and admired. My best to you and yours: Sweetie, Sylvester and I wish you only the best.
..
froggy
rejuvenated
cantankerous
hungover
intense
overstimulated
distressed
awake
tired
annoyed
