Second Wind

I have been away for a long time. I think I have lost most of my friends here. I will miss them but I don’t blame them for moving on. When a blog goes dead you don’t stick around. I understand that.

I’ve been having a hard time with my job lately. I don’t even have the energy right now to tell you exactly why that is except to say that I am never home anymore. I’m either driving across Texas or flying to some other state to meet with people I don’t like. I pretty much live in hotels, motels and airports these days. I always get home on the weekends but I’m too wiped-out to do anything.

I found something tonight that made me very happy. Believe it or not, this made me feel better. I don’t care what anyone thinks. I miss the music of the 70s.

One more time but with stop/start animation like the Gumby and Pokey show.

The countdown has begun

My oldest daughter is getting married this Friday.

My youngest girl is skipping two days of school beginning tomorrow so that she, her sister and their mom can begin getting nails did, hair did, do dress stuff and who knows whatever else women do two or three days before a wedding.

I tried on my tux this evening at the overpriced men’s store with it’s swishy, snooty male employees. It fits.

Tomorrow night is rehearsal at the church and then dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

Howl

Last night I needed to go to a little store around the corner. It was 9:00. In the short distance from my place to the store, I saw two separate cars pulled over. When I got to the store I saw an argument at the gas pumps. When I walked inside I saw a very long line and the cashier (on the other side of the counter) arguing with some guy who spoke almost no English. This guy was claiming he got into a fight with someone or some people and was demanding to see the surveillance videos and the cameras that recorded it. The cashier kept asking if he should call the cops and this illegal alien kept saying he didn’t want to get the Policia involved. Round and round it went until the cashier finally ran him off. This cashier told me later that the guy was probably sent there to case the place.

I felt uncomfortable the moment got there. I could feel the tension. Everyone was agitated and not just because of what was going on there at the time. As I was making my stupid little purchase I mentioned to the cashier what a crazy night this was. He lowered his head and shook it saying “I was about to keeek heees ass.” Even he was out of character. I told him I wanted to get home as fast as I could. And I did just that.

As I drove home I saw the moon. It was full. It wasn’t a completely full moon, it had started to wane. No matter. A full moon phase makes people crazy.

I first noticed this as a deckhand on the night trips on a boat I worked on. Then I noticed it as a bartender. Full moons bring out the worst in people. Ask any bar or club owner, any bartender or any waitress about full moon nights and they will tell you this: There will be trouble. When I was a kid my Dad owned a bar. During every full moon phase he had to be there to “put out the fires” as he described it. Ask any cop about a full moon. They will tell you the same thing.

Earth is about 70% water and affected by the Moon’s orbit which creates our tides. The human body is also about 70% water. Maybe the human body is affected in a similar way.

Nothing but trouble

I hope at least one person sees this. It took me about 20 bleary-eyed hours to create the 43 seconds of goofy crap shown in the link below.

Trouble Deluxe

I am the master of procrastination

I got home Friday afternoon after my usual monthly work related road trip. After I unloaded my bag and changed clothes, I shuffled out toward the kitchen to start dinner. Out of habit, I began the search for the remote control to the TV. Due to experience, I analyzed the drop pattern of the batteries and found it in the nearest couch cushion. After finding it and putting it all back together I pushed the power button. It was then that I remembered that this was the day that TV went digital.

All the channels were nothing but white noise and snow flurries. A swarm of flies. Fly races as we called it as kids. I knew this day was coming and I did absolutely nothing about it despite the one year warning. Why? Because a one year window to me means I don’t have to exactly get on it right away. I’ve got plenty of time, right?

Well, my time ran out and now we have no TV. Personally, I don’t really give a shit but the daughter is going to be a little pissed off. Where did the time go? I’m not a TV guy. I only look at it when I’m cooking and eating dinner. I could live without it.

I’m told to go buy a converter box. I hear that the instructions for hooking it up are vague at best. I also hear that these boxes rarely work right.

It is my understanding that a “rabbit ear” antenna is supposed to be plugged in to the device. My TV has never had any type of antenna at all. It always had a perfectly clear signal with the use of a pair of scissors and a butter knife.

We’re probably just totally screwed until I can come up with the money for a digital TV.

Edit to post 6-15-09: To give due credit, I received this from Laurie Kendrick. I’m not sure if she sent to me because of this post or if it was just a fortunate coincidence but I thought it should be added here. I’m not one to tell others how to raise their kids but I think it would be best if the kids were asked to leave the room for a few minutes if the link below is opened.

Sony releases new piece of shit.

Good boy!

Die!

I think I hate a biting mosquito more than I do an ugly three inch cockroach. You can trap and catch a filthy cockroach. You can even keep it prisoner and torture it. But mosquitos are stealthy and they are swarmers. They don’t run from you. They seek you.

My seasonal clock is ticking and it’s telling me to get back out to the beach. I spend many nights out on the beach this time of year and mosquitos are the only thing that will actually make me throw all my shit back in the bed of my truck and leave. Not even the lack of food, water or beer is as serious as a swarm of half-starved mosquitos. Usually, if you get into some wind they don’t bother you. That’s why I’ve slept many nights at the edge of the water and awakened with my fold-out chair half sunken in the sand with the surf moving in and out of my shorts.

The only thing more miserable than being eaten alive by a massive swarm of mosquitos is to be covered head and hair to toe in that nasty, toxic smelling repellant. I usually face the wind, shut my eyes as tight as I can, aim the can at my face and push the button. I cover my entire body until I’m either soaked or the can peters out. Being covered in poison is uncomfortable and not at all conducive to enjoying a night half naked on the beach.

My Dad sent me an interesting email today. It was, of course, an email that had been forwarded probably 500,000 times among he and his generation who love posting in size 36 font and changing colors every sentence. But it wasn’t another list of grievances about how this generation are all a bunch of marshmallows nor was it another fake numerical list supposedly written by Bill Cosby or George Carlin (in super-large font and in several colors).

No, this might just be helpful. It said that plain old Lysterine repels mosquitos. The mouthwash. The woman who initially sent the email cited several instances that proved it. She said that they put it in a bottle and sprayed it over lawn furniture, picnic tables, door jambs and each other. She swears by it. I’ll try it. Anything is better than Deet.

Ubiquitous new year blog post

Here’s mine:

It’s the first day of a new year. How do I feel? The same. What’s going to change? Nothing other than that all the damned firework activity in my neighborhood will cease until June.

Sorry, but I just don’t ever feel nostalgic about any previous year or hopeful about any new year. To me, January 1 is nothing but a date. Life can change for better or worse at any time. All it means to me is that I need to go to Office Depot to get a new desk calendar. That and the fact that I can stay up as late as I want on the 31st and sleep in the next day.

My life in four paragraphs

This is a re-run of a June 2007 post. According to my stats this is the second most viewed post on this blog. I’m surprised by the number of views and how much they increase. When I first posted this I was most likely in “one of those” moods. I just started typing and then hit the publish button. After seeing it after all this time I decided to clean it up a bit and add a glossary at the end. Other than that, nothing has been changed.

I was born and raised in Suntan, Texas. My first two years of school were at a private school with a name so silly you might think I was making it up. I attended Pachuco Elementary in the second grade. That summer we moved to Frostbite, Wyoming. There, I attended third grade at Space Alien Elementary for the Foul-Mouthed. We managed to leave that state before we wrinkled up and aged beyond our years like the natives. We could have kissed the ground when we returned to Suntan, Texas. Instead, we peeled our clothes off and ran straight into the surf.

I then attended Karl Marx Elementary for half a year. Mid school year, we moved across the bay to the insignificant town of Paranoia, Texas. I finished the last half of that year as the new kid and continued through to the sixth grade at Nosebleed Elementary. I then went to Unmercifully Cruel Junior High and then graduated from Clique High.

After high school I half-assed attended classes at Equally Unmercifully Cruel Community College (EUCCC) while still living in Paranoia. After that, I managed to escape and return to Suntan to shack up with my girlfriend. After that didn’t work out I moved to Anarchy, Texas; The fourth largest city in America. Here, I worked as a bartender and musician at places called Human Trash Zoo, Tab Walkers, Inevitable 1:00 AM Brawl, etc.

When this healthy lifestyle ended I went to stay with my parents in Misery, Louisiana, in Boredom Parish. I was penniless and instrumentless. After about three months when I got my head screwed all the way back in and nourished back to health I hitched a ride back to Anarchy and met up with my former boss who put me to work in his brand new club called Must Wear Tux Shirt Behind Bar. During that time I married The Shrew and delighted in the birth of our daughter Wednesday. I ditched the bar business, cut my hair off and got a good paying job with regular hours with Beat Our Service Tech To Death Co., Inc. I divorced the Shrew and moved out of my beautiful house and into Zero Privacy Apartment Homes where now I live with my daughter.

Glossary
Suntan, Texas: Corpus Christi, Texas
Pachuco Elementary: Kostoryz Elementary
Frostbite, Wyoming: Casper, Wyoming
Space Alien Elementary for the Foul-Mouthed: Fairdale Elementary
Karl Marx Elementary: Sanders Elementary
The bay: Corpus Christi Bay
Paranoia, Texas: Portland, Texas
Nosebleed Elementary: T.M. Clark Elementary
Unmercifully Cruel Junior High: Gregory-Portland Junior High
Clique High: Gregory-Portland High School
Equally Unmercifully Cruel Community College (EUCCC): Del Mar College
Anarchy, Texas: Houston, Texas
Misery, Louisiana: Lake Charles, Louisiana
Must wear tux shirt behind bar: Tic Toc
Shrew: Bernadette
Wednesday: Gabby

Jaz: June 1998 – October 2008

“There’s no problem so awful that you can’t add some guilt to it and make it worse” (Calvin in Bill Waterson’s Calvin and Hobbes).

I saw this in the last frame of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in the the mid-eighties and for some reason it stuck with me in the back of my mind all these years. I had no idea that I would understand this completely twenty something years later.

I found out exactly what it feels like Monday night. While I was steaming some green beans on the stove, my daughter and I both dozed off. I woke up about an hour later to find that the water had boiled off and the Teflon coating of the pot had hazed up the apartment. Smoke from Teflon is highly toxic to birds. Actually, deadly.

As soon as I saw what had happened I shut the kitchen down and opened the door and some bedroom windows. I took Gabby’s little Parakeet outside but she was dead by the time I got her there. While I was in the middle of this little drama, Gabby came and said that Jaz, my beloved Congo African Grey parrot was also in distress. I found her trying to climb back up to her favorite spot but she was just to weak to get back up there. I knew what was happening. I wrapped her in a towel, took her outside and petted her head and stroked her beak and then she died right in my hands. She had another 60 years ahead of her.

I really hate myself right now.

I swiped the laptop for a quick post

It’s not often that I am able to use this lappy (as Romi calls hers). It’s my daughter’s and the school she goes to work the students like pack animals. Whenever I find her crashed out in the middle of her books, notes, spiral notebooks and this computer, I take it and get a little internet time in before she wakes up and gets back to her never ending rock pile of homework.

Some good news for me: It looks like I may finally be able to get a new computer. Maybe. I won’t know until November. Maybe even later. It all depends on how soon big brother sends me my “stimulus” check. Again. For months I wondered why I was the only one who wasn’t getting one of these checks. I found out why when I finally called the IRS last week. They said it was returned as undeliverable. Just my luck. Everything has been straightened out though and the surprisingly polite and helpful representative told me it will be re-sent and I should see it sometime around November of 3000.

I saw the most incredible thing the other day. While I was eating lunch and reading the paper in my truck I looked up just in time to see the biggest damned hawk I’ve ever seen swoop down and snatch one of the trillion pigeons we have here. In one fluid motion that big bird snatched that poor dumb pigeon and glided to the ground with it. Once there, the hawk just stood on it until the poor bird died. After that the hawk started eating it. This was only about 25 feet away. I keep saying hawk because I’m not quite sure what the hell it was. Most of the Hawks I see around here are small. This bird was nearly two feet tall. Was this an eagle?

My daughter’s big, dumb, adorable, solid-white cat is crashed out on my desk. He seems to be dreaming. His mouth is twitching and so is one of his legs. Do animals dream? I have always believed that at least domesticated animals like dogs and cats do. Why else would they be thrashing about like that when they’re sound asleep? If this is true, what goes through their little pea-brains when they wake up? Do they think they actually had that experience or do they just forget about it when they wake up?