MERRY THANKSGIVING

I'd like to wish all of you my best for your holiday season, hoping that you will get to spend quality time full of love and filled with blessings with your families, or for others of you that you will at least get along with your family for ONE day, that you would not get on each others nerves coming away with a feeling of resentment and anger, that your thanksgiving dinner will not end up eaten by a wild pack of dogs, or be pulled to the ground by a toddler pulling on the table cloth. That your Uncle bob would not get crazy drunk this year, and decide to do a little Thanksgiving day streak. That little Billy would not break his arm playing thanksgiving day football, or smash his face against the bed post and have to go to the emergency room for a cast or stitches. That the turkey (or turducken) is thouroughtly cooked and that your family doesn't contract Salmonilla, or if they do, that you have four bathrooms to take the added load. But mostly just that you have a good time and that you make sure to count your many blessings

gobble gobble

ENGAGED

So, I got engaged a couple of weeks ago sorry that I have not posted about it here, but you know, I am kind of busy with other things, student teaching, work, planning a wedding and stuff like that.

From what I ahve heard it sounds like most guys just say, "honey, I don't care what the details are, just plan it and let's be done with it." but that's just not me, well sort of, but I at least want a hand in some things...mainly in saving money and getting good deals on the reception. It turns out that the only thing we are going to have to pay for is the food, we are getting the facility fee waived, and any other little fees waived too, which is nice, the only bump we ran into was the fact that they aren't allowed to have kegs on the premise which means that we are going to have to bottle the beer, oh well, oh, and the wedding is on April fools day too, but oh well.

So what is with this weather, it is mid november and it is still hot enough to wear shorts outside during the daytime...what gives?

SEPTEMBER

Greetings everyone, my apologies for not blogging for quite some time, but I have been pretty busy, and have had little time to do such things as keep up on my posting.

I recently started student teaching at one of the local high schools in the area, and it is a blast. Though I am still a little nervous in front of the classes, I am getting more used to being in charge and teaching.

I also have been working part time, as well as enduring two other classes that I have to take to obtain my credential, But school has always been fun, and even classes that don't seem relevant, or pertinent can still be valuable later on.

I have been having pretty bad indigestion as of late...it started when I ate an entire large pepperoni pizza, and from there out, whever I eat anything fried, spicy, or acidic, it just makes my esophagus and stomach not feel very good. Luckily I keep the Pepcid AC Chewables on hand to correct this.

Well, yes, that was all very lovely for you I guess, reading about my stomach problems and such...

Oh, I bought a car...It is a Dark blue Saturn s-1, and it gets really good gas milage, and it lowers my insurance $50 which is Absolutely Fabulous.

Ok, aure vois, thank you for stopping by

*bing* You are now free to move about the Internet

My truck in our shop on one of those rainy days.

MOM'S NEW CAR

I know you are probably expecting me to write about my mom's new car, but I'm not. You can go see what she wrote about her new car on her blog. I am writing about my truck, however I am writing about my truck because my mom is writing about her SUV, and I realized I never made any mention of my truck, probably because I owned it before I started blogging. Anyhow, I bought my truck last August for $14999.00 which was $500 under blue book, and just a little over factory invoice. It was a good deal so I got funded through my bank and bought it. A few months later I refinanced my house and used some of the equity to flat out but the truck. So it is completely mine, and only a year old...who would have thunk it?

From left to righ (also birth order)t: Logic (Tail being the object furthest left in the picture), Junior, August, and Friday

KITTENS

The kittens have opened their eyes
and begun exploring the living room
Miako (the eldest cat of the house)
hates them and hisses at them, but
the kittens don't flinch about it
and waddle straight for her anyways
which makes her scatter off in the
other direction. It is pretty funny.

GALACTIC BATTLEGROUNDS

So I have been playing Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds as of late. It is based on the Age of Empires II game engine, and for most of the people who actually read this, that won't mean much to you. Anyhow, I have been playing way too much, but its my prerogotive, so thats that.

I am headed to Livermore to go to N's family reunion this weekend. There should be lots of food, it should be fun.

Just about ready to start school, having registration/admission problems as is the norm, but hopefully it will all be squared away by the first day of school (Monday)

thats all for now, enjoy your day.

Black Monarchs Castle, one of the best presents I ever recieved as a kid, Thanks mom :)

LEGO MANIAC

The other day N came to me to ask me to help her buy four lego sets for her boss' son A from ebay. A had given her $280 to fund this buying. This combined a couple of my favorite things, EBAYING and LEGOS, so I took no time in siezing the opportunity and in no time was bidding on one of each of the sets. Then I saw it, the motherlode, 29 Lego sets, all castle and pirate, in one huge lot. Initially the lot was at $120, but after some calculations, I decided that this lot was worth $340 on the conservative low end. This lot included 3 out of the four sets that A wanted and a whole lot more, I figured I could buy it, give him the ones he wanted, then sell the rest and buy the final set and then keep whatever profit was made. I was willing to put $50 on top of A's money so that we would have a grand total of $330 to work with. Then I waited. With a minute and thirty seconds I put in my bid of $333.33 hit the verify button and immediately was out bid...I reacted quickly and put in a desperation bid of $350.00, but to no avail. I was out bid again and the auction was over, sold for $355 and no cents. But i was glad that I had not won, my desperation bidding could have gotten me in over my head. I emailed the winning bidder, who used the same last minute tactics that I had but bid higher, and asked him what his highest bid was. He emailed me back, suprisingly, and told me that he didn't really want to pay more than $350, but that he had bid $375 just to make sure. I don't feel so bad about losing it :)

Anyhow, I did find and win one of the large castles on German Ebay, and am currently trying to land the other three.

All this Legoing got me to unpack my own collection. I found a site that has a list of all the lego sets there are and also inventories each brick from each set. Counting only my complete sets, the site tells me, my collection is worth $180, but I have not entered all of my complete sets yet. The site also provides instructions for sets. I cycled through several of them finding various sets that I know that I have or finding sets that I didn't know I had. One of the spaceships I have is near complete, but is missing a wing and sveral 1x1x3 blue pieces. I built it excluding the missing parts...it is near complete, but looks like it flew through a meteor shower, or was in a severe firefight.

I also bought a couple lots of various bricks on ebay...AND I am going yardsailing this weekend to go see what I can find :) I want to start selling stuff on Ebay too. N laughs at me but understands, thanks honey, I love you.

BUT NOW I'M BACK

And I can really shake em down. Anyways, so I have been unable to access the internet for a week or so because my office changed from AOL DSL to SBC since AOL dropped their DSL service. It was inconvenient, but what can you do?

I am glad that I don't watch TV, I am hearing there are all kinds of new and crappy reality shows that I am glad I won't be subjected to. I have been watching a steady stream of Movies though, and some of them, namely THE LIFE AQUATIC & DOLEMITE, which both made me wish for the 2 hours of my life back.

The highlight has been the GUNDAM WING series that I have been watching, 5 episodes at a time. Last night I got to the point that I had seen on cartoon network when it was aired there, so from here out I haven't seen anything. I was glad to see that Quatre(who is my favorite character)was able to beat Hiro (who was supposed to be the best gundam pilot) in a 1 on 1 fight, but luckily Quatre came to his senses before he killed Hiro, thinks he killed Troa though (but troa is still alive floating about in space) anyhow thats all for now

The five Gundams

ZUMA

So I just spent the last couple hours playing Zuma, from Popcap Games and now it is 2:00 a.m. in the morning (as opposed to 2:00 a.m. in the afternoon). Apparently my mom has become somewhat of a Zuma Master, and I have become like a padawan. The object of zuma is to spit colored balls out of the mouth of a small stone frog idol as other balls are rolling in in order to blow up the rolling balls. Extra points can be earned by making combos or by shooting through a gap made by already exploded balls.

But now I am practicing my HTML, which I just learned today, and I am getting HUNGRY and tired. So I will leave you with that.

I think I will edit this post at another time, i dont know why that one link changed color?
ciao

LLAMA SONG LLYRICS

Here are the llyrics to the llama song, thanks mom.

I STOLE THIS FROM KRISTIN

CLICK BELOW

The Llama Song

EBAY SNIPER

I am an Ebay sniper. Like an invisble eagle, circling around a fisherman only to steal away the fish at the last moment. Like a ninja in a darkroom on the night of a new moon, who swipes the negatives before they can be developed. Or, like two white rabbits in a snow storm driving a white truck full of white butcher paper listening to The Great White on the radio, is my Ebay auction skill!

My technique is thus:
1. THE SEARCH - I peruse the listings, searching for items i may be interested in. Once I find something, I determine the going price for the item, and decide how much I will pay for it.

2. THE WAIT - Once I set my heart on a particular item I take a look at when the auction ends and make a note of it. Then I calculate what time I need to come back to steal the item away from the unlucky bidder (aka the adversary)

3. THE SNIPE - Generally I start paying close attention at about 10 minutes til the end of the auction. I refresh my screen once a minute until about the three minute mark. I then begin to listen for the ticks of the clock behind me and synchronize it with the seconds left on the auctiontimer. At the two minute mark I place my bid and go to the bid confirmation screen...the key to the bid is that it must be the absolute highest that I am willing to pay, that way, if I lose, I don't feel as bad about it. I count in my head w/ the help of the clock, until about 25 seconds left and confirm the bid. Then I go back to the Item description page and refresh the screen, and either see a few seconds remaining, or that I have won the auction.

Sniping actually has good aspects for the buyer. It prevents impulsive price wars. On one occasion I got into a bidding war with an adversary and ended up paying more than I would have just because I wanted to win...I guess I'm too competitive. The other thing sniping does is prevents a devious seller from running the proxy bid up to your max bid. It also gives other bidders a very little window to bid against you, which is why they should have bid their max to begin with. Sniping also provides a little bit of a rush and feeling of accomplishment when you manage to steal something away at the last minute. So I hope you have all learned a valuable lesson, and will use these methods as your own. Happy Sniping!!

Like a kitten with an XM-25, is my ebay auction skill!!

"THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET CARELESS"

I thought that i was going to be able to come up with something interesting to post about, but I am at a loss. Soo...Here is what I ahve been doing. On friday I watched..oh, thats right, On friday I was going to watch Silent Running, but it didnt come in time, so the viewing was postponed until saturday night. My mom came up, and brought N some shoes, some shoes from some lady my Grandma knew...My grandma is good about getting shoes. She landed me three decent pair that used to belong to this photographer guy, but he passed on, so I got his shoes...I am not sure if N got dead lady shoes or not, but I think the original owner is still alive. Anyhow, mum, also brought up some licorice, I ordered a pizza and we watched the film, it was good, except for the music by Joan Biaz, or whatever. The little drone things were cute, we thought it was funny how the main character treated them,

"That's what happens when you get careless" (Thanks hun)

is what he says when 01 and 02 find and are pining over the remnant of 03 leg trapped in the catwalk...however, his eugoogally (ZOOLANDER) for his crewmate was very good (acting), Definately worth watching, but I would recommend playing "Wonderful world" over the Biaz music, or something not so eco-hippy-folkish.
I mowed on saturday too...hosed down a wasp nest, and created two new sim familes for my neighbor hood. Sunday I played three services for PC and then went swimming and then went to N's friends E&R's church function for free hotdogs and fireworks show.
Monday was the fourth, I bought a tri-tip from the meat market and took it to V-town for a parbecue at T's house, with all the neices and nephews, We had a good time, saw fireworks, got home late.

Bruce Dern is Lowell Mason in SILENT RUNNING

KITTY ACUPUNCTURE

So last night I fell asleep on my couch and was awakened by my girlfriend who had begged me to help her with somem trash that had piled up on her back patio. I had declined and she had left to take care of it by herself, however was soo grossed out by some unexpected larvae, that she couldn't handle it, and since my phone was set on silent in the other room, I had not heard her call me ten times. So she decided to come by and see why I wasn't answering. So she walkED in to find me asleep, woke me up and started telling me her dilemma. About 30 seconds into her plea for help, my cat Miako decided she needed N's attention, ran up her leg and attatched herself to N's chest via claws (normally I catch her and she doesn't need her claws)

*Now, the trick was cute when she was a kitten. She would spring up my pants and shirt and I would grab her , hold her, and pet her. These days the trick still works, only her vertical leap is high enough for me to catch her on her initial jump. The problem is that she tries the trick when I am not paying attention, the other problem is that she tries the trick with my guests and friends who don't see it coming.

The day before she got N, she got me while I was ..err...taking care of business. She jumped up and latched onto me back. It hurt. I tried to shake her off, which made her dig in even further. It hurt worse. I managed to grab the scruff of her neck and chuck her into the hallway, a little too hard. Anyhow, i had all of her claws equally dispersed in my back, which hurts, dont get me wrong...but it looked like she was hanging onto the center of N's chest by a single claw. Imagine the weight of a small adult cat suspended from one place... that place being a hook driven through the first 4 layers of your epidermis.
...Yeah, I bet it still hurts. Sorry hun!

The stealthy culprit

IIT'S FRIDAY

I find cellular phones to be quite extrodinary. I remember a time when we were tied to a wall with a curly cord that looked like a pigs tail. Our only phone was tied to the kitchen wall, and you could take it into the garage, because we had a long cord, but you couldn't go much further than right outside the door. Now I have a phone on me that I can take anywhere in the country and still get the calls. It makes me wonder how it all works. How do the calls know to come to my phone...id there a paging system that all other phones are constantly listening into for their number to be called...does a signal get sent to everyphone in my area that falls on deaf recievers except for my phone? Really, if you think about it, and if you don't know how it works, it seems quite perplexing...someone should look that up sometime, but not me, I'm going home. Have a nice weekend.

Rotary phone

CHEEZ BALLS

I don't think that it is wrong to eat ice cream as a meal. For roughly two weeks during my junior year of high school, I bought a double scoop from thrifty's as lunch, and never had any problems. It was also alot cheaper than buying the the bean burritos and small Mt. Dew that served as my lunch for the majority of my high school career. On campus burritos were pretty good too, deep fried, crunchy and slightly spicy, they also went well with a can of Mt. Dew. They also sold chocolate chip cookie dough, which was a splurge, but which I bought fairly often. One of my favorite things to eat was Planters cheez balls with a bottle of ginger ale. I referred to this as my "nectar and ambrosia" I could polish off a whole tin in one sitting. I liked the way the puffs dissolved in my mouth, and the flavor was excellent. They have since discontinued the cheez balls...last time I bought them they had added more zing to the cheez flavor...it was bad. I missed the buttery light cheesy flavor that they used to have.

I don't know why companies insist on taking a perfectly good product and changing the flavor just so they can add a "new" sticker on it. They did the same thing to "Chicken in a biscuit." They made them taste more ranchy, (raunchy). It must have failed because the new flavor was very not good, and the boxes are now marked original flavor...only I have had them and they are not the original flavor. Something has been changed, they are not the same buttery chickeny flavored crackers that I remember from my childhood, and that is just a shame.

I was going to end there but in doing a GIS for "planters cheese balls" I see images of "Planters Cheez Mania." These are the little monstrosities that they replaced the cheez balls with. (and I will end my sentences with prepositions if I care to.) I guess they are targeting dumb little kids now, because kids love stupid cartoon cheese wedges on skateboards, and don't have very discerning pallates. What happened to the sophisticated Mr. Peanut peddling his buttery flavored cheez balls? I hope people realize how nasty the replacements are and that they sit on the shelves and rot (only there are so many preservatives in cheez balls that they along with roaches and twinkies will survive nuclear holocaust), why not let the consumers choose? why not offer both original and extra nasty cheezy? KFC does it, and look at their success!

END

the nasty new turbo flavored cheez wedge surfing ona a wave fo cheez flavoring cheez balls (blech!)

the original classy packaging and tasty cheez balls

IT'S NOT THE BLACK HOLE

I posted this on a friend's blog, but then I did some research and figured it out...

So my mom was trying to tell me about this movie that she remembered was really good, the conversation went more or less like this, "There was this guy...And he lived alone on this space station and grew plants, and he had a robot, and I remember it was kind of sad"
"What did the robot look like"
"Umm..I don't know"
"And he grew plants?...Was he evil? was the robot evil? Was it the black hole?"
"No, it wasn't the 'black hole.' He had to grow plants for the Earth because they couldn't grow them anymore"
"There were plants in the 'BLACK HOLE'"
"It wasn't the black hole!"
"What did the robots look like?"
"umm...*laugh*...I don't know, all I can think of is like R2-D2. Like a mix between R2-D2 and the Black Hole robots"
"So what happens?"
"I don't want to tell you, I only remember the end and I don't want to give it away"
"You said it was sad...does the guy die?"
"I'm not telling you"
"Well you said it was sort of sad...you wouldn't be sad if the plants died"
"You don't know that"
"Mom, come one, the guy dies, what else do you remember"
"Well, you don't see him die, I just remember you see him laying on the ground and the camera pans back away from him and out of like this greenhouse thing and into space..."

"...That's all you remember?"
"Uh-huh"

"...So this movie is really good, but all you can remember is the last camera pan? And that there were plants and a robot."
"Yeah, it's good"
"Nice"

So anyhow, I did some research, using the keywords 'plants earth' on the IMDB, which, for those of you who don't know(mom), is the Internet Movie Data Base. The movie she was talking about is called Silent Running, and she has the general idea right, but is missing some of the more inportant events. Oh, and the robots look nothing like R-2 or vincent and bob from Black Hole. Anyhow, i put it in my netflix queue, Ill tell you how it is after I watch it, ciao

I don't see the resemblance. And actually, Duey would have come before both of the other two.

BICYCLE DIARIES

This one time, John and Brandon and myself were going to school, Jr. High, actually we returning to school from the doughnut shop, or maybe even going to school from the doughnut shop, I was riding Brandon's bicycle, it was low, like a BMX, he was riding my 18 speed, and John was riding his own bike. We were sort of racing, weaving in and out of each other's paths and cutting each other off as the norm was, I weaved to pass between a telephone pole and a fence and the next thing I knew my butt was on the ground, the bike was in the air in front of me. I sat for a second or two quite confused as the bike came down to earth in front of me, both Brandon and John saw that I was no longer on the bike and stopped to turn around, I looked up at them and noticed what had knocked me off the bike. Someone had nailed a piece of wood between the telephone pole and the fence where I had attmpted to pass. The handlebars on the bike were low enough to allow my hands to pass under, and the bar had caught me right across the shoulders and had done so with so little force that I did not feel it. The bike simly lept on going while the bar gently knocked me onto my @$$. If I had been riding my bike, my finger would have been crushed between the piece of wood and the handlebars, I felt very lucky.

Another time, we made John crash, he had borrowed someone'd Univega, and when he bit it, we saw the little Emblem pop up in the air, spinning, and then fly off into the grass somewhere. John was livid, he called us, Damien and I, all sorts of names, I felt bad, but I thought it was still pretty funny how he crashed.

The worst was when Brandon and I forced Damien to crash into a car or gutter, I dont know which he hit, but he had a pretty good cut on the side of his hand. I felt bad about that one too, and I didn't think there was anything particularly funny about it...I think that is when we stopped forcing each other off of the road.

My sister bought a new bike this one time...It was a decent bike, a 21 speed mountain bike, but it was heavier than my green and white Huffy, which was the second best bike I have ever owned...lasted me ten years, and I even sold it for 20 dollars at the end, anyhow K and I decided to go for a ride, to test out her new bike. We set out towards the country side, the farms that slowly becoming extinct around the neighborhood, riding at a leisurely pace. We had been riding for a good 15 minutes or so and I was looking out across the fields of grass or dirt, following behind my sister. Suddenlt some dust caught my eye...it was a trail of dust, and I was seeing the dissapating end. I casually followed the trail towards us to see what was making it, and then I saw it... a large, mean, farm dog barreling down on us at top speed. Without saying a word (aghyaaa, does not count as a word) I stood up and started pedaling for my life...in a second I was past my sister, in another i was two bike lengths ahead, and speeding up. She heard my grunt and saw me speed off, but didn't know why, she turned, and by this time the dog had covered some serious ground, and It was MUCH MUCH closer than when I had spotted it, she gasped in suprise, and then started pedaling like mad herself... I am fairly sure that she shouted my name, half pleading for me to wait, half mad at me for taking off without warning, at me as she came...we rode as fast as we could for half a mile...to the boundary of the farm I guess, until the dog peeled off and turned back home. We stopped and rested, and had a good laugh about it, though K was still upset that I had ditched her. I guess I think of self preservation first.

Early on in my life I had given up on riding a bike. I couldn't use the training wheels because K already knew how to ride a bike, and didn't want them on...I think it may have been her bike I was learning on, anyhow, most of my bike riding at that age consisted of my dad pushing me with enough force for me to cruise for several meters and then crash into the street. As I got better at the balance thing, they told me to look ahead in the street to where I was going...He pushed and I went, and I was doing really good, I had a spot where I was going picked out, and I was looking at it, it was about ten housed down the street. Unfortunately my steering wasn't that great and, though I managed to keep myself on the bike for the longest period on my prersonal record, I piloted the bicycle right into the mailbox. My parents said to me, as I lay in a twisted heap of little kid, bicycle, and mailbox, "We told you to look where you were going!"
I said,"*sob* I did!! *sob* I was looking there! *sob*" as I pointed to the house that I had picked out, away down the street. They thought that was pretty funny.

THE SIMS

It is Wednesday and I have been playing the sims way too much. The sims is a delightful little game where you can create simulated people and then build them a house, furnish it, and then get your sims jobs to make money to buy better stuff, or buy things that they can use to get better skills to get job promotions to make more money. It is a pretty big waste of time actually, but still fun none the less.
I started out with just the prefab sims, that is, (Michael Bachelor)(Mortimer, Bela, and Cassandra Goth) and(Betty and Bob Newbie). I ran through the tutorial, which involves moving Bob and Betty about, and soon moved on to Running Michael Bachelors life. I got him a job on the music track, and had him wine and dine Bela until she was in the mood to leave the Goth household and become a Bachelor herself (bachelor is thier last name, or rather, their house name. Michael soon was promoted into better jobs, but hit a ceiling when he needed more than 5 family friends for a new job. This led me to the creation of my first all new Sims, The Singles. Three ladies were dropped into the Singles house, Cokie, Mio, and Roxanne. Cokie was the classy one, she got a job with the psychic friends network and was on her way to tarot card reader in no time. Roxanne, the vamp of the neighborhood, began to work nights as a security guard, and Mio, the immigrant, started out in the mailroom on a business track. The singles house was a close cousin to a house I designed that was supposed to be incorporated into affordable track housing in farmersville, anyhow, the Singles advanced for some time until the next house was created. This was the Youngs-Vanrees household, and it housed three guys, Lucas, Ben, and Nick. They were loosely based on myself, my roommate, and my friend who set up a bed in my dining room for about a month. Jobs were selected based on our current jobs/fields. Lucas started out as a subway musician, Ben, a waiter, and Nick, a tour guide or something, (it was the extremem job field). The three of us, real life us, would gather around the computer and laugh about the similarities and differences our computer counterparts had with one another...also we designed their house to be a close replica of the one that we live in, so it was pretty funny. My roommate was addicted for a good week, he would stay up well into the night, trying to buy things that were more similar to what we had in the house.
For some reason or another, because I was bored with the Singles, and didn't want to screw up my roommates game with the YVR's, I invented the Van Jorgenson family. Sven and Denise were the parents, Ollie, Danielle and Daniel were the children, and uncle Bob was included just for some extra income. Now unfortunately, sims have no skills when they start out, this means that they constantly break stuff, but even worse, they start fires when they use the range. This happened to Sven when he was trying to cook dinner, luckily Denise was a quick thinker and hurried in with an extinguisher to put out the flame, unfortunately she was also a complete Tard and somehow lit herself on fire in the process. At this point I had not yet learned about fire alarms and burgalar alarms, so unfortunately, poor Denise burned to death. Her ashes were in the living room for some time, the family mourned for a few days, this got tiring so I moved her ashes into the yard, where they automatically turned into a gravestone, so that the family wouldn't constantly be reminded of her untimely agonizing death, well, they still wandered out back for a while to mourn, but I think I must have stapped them from mourning too early becasue Denise started haunting her family. She would literally scare the pee out of them, and that was a pain to clean up. I got tired of her haunting the place so I sold her Urn for ten bucks and she stopped coming around.
Sim children are mostly useless, just like real children. They watch TV, they can't cook for themselves, they leave messes all over the house, they can't take a shower without flooding the whole freakin bathroom, they don't bring in any income whatsoever, unless you count the 100 dollars their grandparents send them every once in a while for good grades, and they just get in the way generally. I was tempted to corral them in a fenced in area, or take off the door to their rooms while they were sleeping and let them starve to death. But then I relaized that the children are excellent to use for making friends. I can keep them up well into the night, since they don't have jobs that they have to be in a good mood for, I can send them off to school hungry and miserable, and it really won't affect the rest of the family. I mostly used the Jorgenson children for slave labor, that is, I make them clean up everything to save money on the maid, and for making frinds.
After I had moved the YVR family to better digs, and had both Betty and Bob movie in with the singles, I knocked over the Newbie house and built the Hawk House. Brian and elanor moved in with thier 20 something twin daughters Hallie and Holly along with Brians parents, Brians brother Hobart and his wife Gertha. Note the lack of children. This house was made to bring in the money, everyone, except for gandma and grandpa went to work, Grandma stayed home and did all the cooking, while grandpa stayed home to fix anything that got broke, and to make out with grandma, as well as to make friends with the neighbors. The thing about Grandpa is that he is kind of grumpy. Pretty much anytime grandma, or anyone else for that matter, initates converstaion with him, his reaction is negative, and he prefers to do stuff by himself...but he is quick about fixing stuff. The Hawk's brought in a lot of money quickly and were able to buy nicer things and soon amassed enough wealth to move into the big house on the hill. The jorgensons decided to move out of their house...since a glitch in the game was making the neighbors gather at the corner and pee themselves until they passed on..and moved into the old Hawk house. The roomies (another prefab family) moved into a rectangular shaped house and didn't progress much. and the singles continues to amass their wealth. Somehow Michael Bachelor got Hallie to move in with him and his wife, while the Goth family pretty made pretty much very little progress.

The Goth house.

Here is my post for Thursday June 9th 2005

WALNUT AVE

For a short period of time, my dad had ana apartment on Walunut ave. It was in a small two story complex where all of the units faced inwards towards a small grass courtyard. The complex was painted bright yellow. I remember there were other kids in the complex, but I don't remember their names. I had fun playing with them though. One day on of the kids put on a magic show for his/her family. I hid under the coffee table and no one knew I was underneath it. At the end of the "show" he/she commanded the table to levetate, and it did. I think the spectators were pretty shocked at first, but then after enough levetating I came out from underneath and everyone had a good laugh. I remember them being impressed at how long I was able to stay quiet under the coffee table.

I also remember that the place smelled sugary, and that my dad had kept sugar cones in one of the cupboards, and I was still small enough to have to climb up on top of the counter to get to them. No ice cream, just the cones, or maybe there was ice cream, but i couldnt get into the freezer for some reason, and it was most likely French Vanilla, which I did not care for. I must have over done it one time and it ruined it for many years after.

Is it a Wall or is it a NUT? No, it's a Wal-nut (copyright 1995 Wal-Mart Corporation of America)

EVANS

I lived at 936 W. Evans...sort of. The house, which has since been sold, belonged to my step-mother and so I lived there less than half the time. The house had a pool, which my friends and I used to enjoy all summer. My step-sister and her friends would often lay out, undoing their bikini straps while they subathed, while I and my friends played shark and minnow or marco polo, always watching them out of the corners of our eyes, always hoping to catch a glimpse of something, but which to my boyish dissapointment never quite materialized.

One or two times I arrived unnanouced at the place, during the summer, come to play computer games or wait for my friends to come over to swim, to find my step-mother (Sm) out back, topless, doing chores with her headset on, totally oblivious to me, well, the first time it happened we suprised each other, I don't know who was more embarrassed. The second time I managed to see her without her seeing me, so I just ducked back into the house and went to play games on my dad's computer with the music up pretty loud.

I remember when I was younger maybe 7 or eight, maybe ten, there was an incicent where somehow I got hold of my Sm's breast. After this event I was told that if I wanted to touch Sm's breast that I needed to ask first. Which I thought was strange, like I was going to go up to her and say " (L) can I fondle your breasts please?" It seems as ridiculous to me now as it did back then. What has always bothered me is that I know that I did not grope, grapple, or fondle her on purpose, I didn't even know that I had, if I did, which I must have, but even so, If I had, I think I would remember. Like the time T wouldn't let me go so as a last resort I reached out and gave her a good squeeze, which worked marvelously. Anyhow just for the record I never purposely touched Sm's breast, and I do not even remember accidentally doing so.

Anyhow, Evans always made me think of that guy on knight rider...No, not David Hasslehoff, the other guy.

Ok, so his name was Devon, but I remembered it being Evan, and so I associated it with Evans. and its my blog so nyeah! :)

WELDON

My current abode is on Weldon Ave. And I must say, I like it quite a bit. The house is mostly small, but the rooms that need to be bigger are. The bathrooms are miniscule, the kitchen requires strategic movements if more than one person is in it at once, but the bedrooms are both well sized, and the living room is livable. My favorite part of the propery is the rear yard. The yard is rather large for Fresno. There is a gnarly looking plum tree in the center separated from the rest of the yard with circular strip of concrete. It blooms in early spring and drops a thin carpet of white blossoms to the ground. To the left of the tree there is another area sectioned off by a concrete ribbon, which houses a small fountain. There is a plethera of vegetation along the fence of the property, and it seems that the plantstake turns blooming, allowing each other a time stand out, within the yard. Underneath the patio there is a small pond where I have deposited several goldfish. Above and around the pond ivy flourishes and creates a safe environment for hummingbirds to live and nest. Strings of "fairy" lights are strung across the patio rafters and there is an old picnic table where sometimes we sit and dine or drink. The patio is the perfect spot to relax or hang out and listen to the passing traffic, or more frequently, the Mariachi music that hops the fence to dance all over the yard.

Below is the GIS for weldon, The first result creeped me out so I perused the results and thought this one was fun. I hope you like it.

All Hail King and Queen Weldon!

BACKER

My stint as a resident of North Park apartments, on Backer (st. rd. ln. blvd.?) is the longest period of time I have lived anywhere on my own. I lived on the second floor of the complex, which has pretty much relieved me of the deisre to ever live in a two story house. When you move out of a 2nd story apartment into a second story apartment, you realize that carrying all of your belongings up and down a flight of stairs is very not fun.
The roommate my roommate R had before me was a student mechanic, and the walls in the room that I was moving into were a light shade of motor oil with a hint of axle grease...needless to say, i put my bed against a different wal...cleaning and scrubbing it made little difference and so I ended up covering it with a bookshelf.
The apartment was generally in poor shape. The shower had some serious water damage, it seemed like the tiles were about ready to fall off of the walls. The carpets were as old as the building, and the stove in the kitchen was avacado green. At least the linoleum was new...unfortunately there was a slight mishap involving a t-shirt and a hot sheet of cookes that caused damage to the linoleum. Other than that life was fairly tame on Backer.
I did a GIS for backer and the picture below was my favorite result of that search. I think I like the guys steamboat hat, it says to me "come ride the steamboat!" that is all.

State Representative Terry Backer, Assistant Majority Leader, Stratford CT

BULLDOG LANE

I have lived at two addresses on Bulldog lane. After I moved out of the dorms after my senior year, right before my super-senior year, I found a cheap, small studio at the east end of the street. Now, the east end of the street is the "Ghetto" side of the street, and apparently there was a lot of drug activity there, and I think there was at least one night with strange people screaming in the night. The funniest thing that I remember was that on my first night sleeping there, I woke up in the middle of the night, unsure of my surrounding, I turned slightly and saw something move out of the corner of my eye, it scared the kim-che out of me and I jerked up in bed and when I jerked up in bed the other thing moved sharply too, It was at that moment that I realized I was seeing my own reflection in the mirrored closets. I laughed nervously to myself and talked myself into going back to sleep. I was still a little creeped out.

After six months I moved down the street to another apartment complex, to a second floor apartment. One morning while I was cutting something in the kitchen I looked up to see someone jump up on the balcony, to steal my roommates bicycle...I walked up to the patio door and argued with the guy to go away, he wanted me to let him out my front door, I told him to get down the way he came up, I wasn't having any, he finally left. I wonder how daunting I looked holding that kitchen knife, wearing my boxers, yeah, real tough.

Bulldog pups aka Bullpups

BIRDLAND

If someone were emotionaly on a level between elated and ecstatic, are they elastic??

So, I grew up in a part of town the Nortenos (i don't know how to make an enye or umlao) liked to call "El Lando de Bird-o" which when translated into Enlgish means "The Place where those of avian ancestry reside" which has been shortened over the years to be known as "The land of birds" or as some say "Birdland" Growing up in birdland was kind of fun. Where else in town were the roads themes, I mean, there were some dumb parts of town where the names were just all jumbled together, like Cambridge, Princton, Vassar, Harvard, and several other meaningless made up names. In Birdland we had streets that were named after Birds, like Oriole, Wren, Robin, Giddings, Lark, Dove, Quail, and Divisadero. My favorite of all the streets in Birdland is and was my very own street, Canary. I liked the Canary because it was bright yellow, and people seem to like the song of a canary much better then those of the other birds, especially those warbling birds, like the Northern two fisted redbellied Warbler of San Antonio. The funny thing, or at least funny to me, is how many people spelled it or pronunciated it incorrectly. Several people, mainly the people who answer phones at the local pizza delivery place, said "Cannery"... Actually I guess it isn't really that funny after all... So anyway, I posted a picture of a Canary for you to look at.

The street I grew up on was associated with this bird...well not this bird in particular, but with its species, or order, or phylum or whatever!

IT'S RAINING IT'S POURING

Thats right kids, its raining like lions and pandas outside. I don't remember it raining so hard since I was in sixth grade and over at my friend J's house. His dog ran off in the middle of the rain and we had to go find her....ohhh its thundering outside...ok, anyhow i remember it came down incredibly hard, I stuck my head under the rain gutter spout, but it didn't matter because it was raining just as hard. I remember B's streed used to flood, one time I ran over a gutter grate that I didn't know was there and it knocked me over and I jumped off the bike into a good foot of water. Then there was the time I was riding my bike in "THE HOLE" which was one of those water runoff ponds, after a rain and didnt realize my brakes were completely engulfed in mud, which made them work not so well, which I discovered while zooming downhill towards the large pond area. I managed to stop before the pond, but fell over into some realy good mud. It felt absolutely disgusting. But I had a good laugh at myself and hosed off at home. Ah, the rain. The water is starting to come up the pathway now, I am sure we will be getting some calls about roof leaks in the next couple days. ok, take off aye. ya hosers.

Note the lack of the curb, the water is curb level all the way across the street.

A MAN, A PLAN, A CANAL. PANAMA!

Hello everybody. Sorry that I have not blogged much in the last couple weeks. Work has been keeping me busy, and not much has been going on. I finished up a book by Wendell Berry called The Memory of Old Jack, and started The Centaur...which I don't quite get yet, but I am only two chapters into it as of yet. So far it seems like all of the gods of Mt. Olympus have come down and entered the teaching profession. Zeus is the principal, Venus is the PE teacher...The centaur Chiron, teaches science.

So the other week I had a party and invited my entire class. When I got home from school that day I was a bit suprised to find a rooster (below) running around the backyard...I really didn't feel like having a rooster at my party so I went next door and asked if they had a rooster, they said "yes" and I told them it was in my backyard. So my neighbor A came and got it. We cornered it, in the corner, and it jumped up on the fence and was threatening to jump over, which would have been bad news as the people behind me have large rooster eating dogs, but I ran a distraction white A snuck up beneath out fine feathered friend and captured him without further incident. The party was a little bit of a dissapointment, as only one of my classmates and her husband, showed up but they were really quite fun, and my roommate invited a couple people over and we ended up having a decent time. Still trying to get rid of about 10 gallons of beer though. Drop by for a pint will ya?

Yeah, here comes the rooster, you know he aint gonna die

NOSREDNA SESSIM

Mrs Anderson may have been a better teacher than I thought she was...hmm, no,...Mrs Anderson was a pretty nice person, a so so teacher, but we probably could have given her more respect than we did. I think part of the problem was that the second year we had her, the class was at 7:20 AM, much too early to be conjugating verbs or memorizing declensions of nouns. Many of us slept. We all had our poses. Mine was book on desk, shoulders on desk, hands creating a blind around my face so she couldn't see my eyes. We stayed just concious enough to hear her call on us, we didn't know the answers anyway, well I didn't, and I presumed the only two who did were Mike and possibly Kevin. Gina, I remember was a lush, though I didn't know what that was at the time. And poor poor Keenan. Mrs. Anderson should have paid more attention. Cheating was rampant, not that it helped me much, The times I cheated I did poorly anyway. Mrs. Anderson spoke several languages, she just could not figure out how to motivate us, perhaps she should have immersed us, like on the first day when we learned that "Flavia cantat dum Cornelia dormiet", or was it "dormiebat", i mean that was interesting. "Ago bene, et tu?" how can you forget that? Mrs. Anderson was a pretty cool teacher though, she wasn't mean to us, she let us spend all of the Latin club money on a float, and on a trip to the Getty museum, maybe it was because Latin is a dead language that made the subject harder, or was it her accent, I don't know. I would say Mrs Anderson was not a bad teacher, but she wasn't a very good one either, at least in Latin.

SCREW-BALL

This is my afore-mentioned screw-ball. It was a Stocking-stuffer Christmas present from my grandparents several years ago, and it is one of the most useful little tools I have ever owned. It has two phillips, two flat, two hex, and two star ends which makes it very useful. I have used it to install a mirowave/range hood, an oven, a cooktop, and other appliances, (For a short time I was helping to install appliances for my company).

The screw-ball does not set off metal detecor at the county courthouse. I learned this becuase the first time I went into the courthouse I took my keys out and put them on a tray, and they said that I could not bring the SB in there, somthething about not allowing tools (moronic) so I hid it in some bushes and came back for it later, luckily it was still there. The next time I was on errand to the courthouse I decided to just leave it in my pocket and see what happened...and nothing did, no alarms went off, no pat down, etc., so didn't have to stash it in the bushes. Anyhow, it just leads me to believe that the people running things are none too bright.

I suppose if you had all of the tools sticking out of it, and threw it at someone, it might do some damage, but I dont think you could hijack a courthouse with it.

The Screw-ball in attack mode

THE KIDNAPPER VAN

This is the "kidmapper van." At least that is how "the guys" here at the shop refer to it. (note the fact that there are NO windows in the back, and it is unmarked) In reality it is not used to napp any kids, rather, it used to house a $20,000 carpet cleaning machine. One night some people hopped over into the yard and hot wired it, then they rammed the gate down with it and drove away(it is nigh invulnerable). Several days later the van was recovered, but without the cleaning machinery. For a while it served to haul a few things here and there, or if the Toyota was being used I would have to use it to go pull permits or what have you. One morning I used it to back into my boss' new Chevy truck, he was the quite the opposite of pleased, but as you can see, I am still alive.

I really am not the best back-er upp-er in the world. I hit and bent an aluminum fence postwith the Chevy 1-ton, and one time I backed into my dad's trailer in my old Ford Taurus, but I have gotten better at reversing. I was practicing for a while by backing into my driveway at home...which is a pretty tight fit, which is why I stopped doing it.

I think I must have gotten a bad gene. My sister has it too, she backed into my moms car one time, or rather, backed along...she left lines of white scratch marks down the length of my mother's red car. The kicker was when she told my mom, "Well, at least my car is alright!"

Anhow, I think they are asking $8,000 for the kidnapper van, let me know if you are interested.

Our beloved kidnapper van

The building block of modern society.

SR. ABY D. NAC

So here I am, just sitting, after spending a majority of the day working on plans for a new house that my company will be building, zoning, staring down the last mini Hershey's bar left after my spectaculous three day binge, though I still have the better part of half of a bag of rollo's, when i notice the number on the side for nutrition information. Come on now, I already know the stuff is bad for me, I don't need an eight hundred number to tell me that. I like the aesthetic though.

This leads me to a question, a survey if you will...what food product has the best packaging? and why?

also, how many carbs are there in the mini-sized Hershey bar? first one to get it right wins!!

ZEN

As I sit here comfortably full after eating my Sunrise Kitchen special plate with sweet and sour pork, I look around the office to find something interesting to show you. And am mystically, or magically drawn to the candle I bought from "A" at the Green Goddess and the small Zen Garden that someone gave to "I" who than gave it to me. On a side note, I learned a new Blogging skill from "D" which allows me to talk about people without giving their names, but yet, if they happen to visit my Blog, they will know who I am talking about....cool huh? thanks "R" :)

so anyway, the first time I Zenned, I took all the rocks out of it...mind you this was a much larger small version of an actual Zen garden than the one I have currently, like the Buddhist monks would use if they were smurfs. Suprisingly, I have met quite a few Buddhist Monks in my lifetime...they do this really cool thing with their voices where they can produce two tones at the same time...sometimes I experiment with it, I use the syllable Wah-naa--whooaaa, I think I might be close...maybe i should join up, anyhow I took all of the rocks out of it and then made a very elaborate pattern in the sand with the rake, then I put down the rocks, back into the sand. It was very aestheticall pleasing, in fact I really impressed my buddhist friend, that is until it was discovered that I took out the rocks. "You aren't supposed to take the rocks out...that's part of the whole point" Well whatever, I think you can do it however you want to do it...isn't that kind of what the whole Zen thing is about, finding your own way??

The candle is nice too, but I dont't have a nifty story to go along with it. I have been getting compliments on how nice It makes the office smell, but I also have been craving sweets alot more too. Albertson's had a two for five dollar special on bags of candy, and I bought a bag of Rollo's and a bag of Hershey's miniatures...they are mostly gone now.

My ZEN garden and butterscotch candle

WEDNESDAY'S EMERGENCY POST

This is Wednesday's emergency "I have not posted in several days and my readers need something to amuse themselves post" so with that in mind ...things smell like eggroll...and peanut butter. Many of you do not know why things smell like eggroll and peanutbutter. I will tell you. Wednesday is the long day, that is, i get up early...well, i get up late and go to work, work all day, then scramble to get to school in time which is even harder because somone stole my bicycle which was locked to my truck while I was at work one day, mind you I was out of town that day...anyhow, i have class on this day every week from 5:30 to 10:00 and it drags, well at least it drags in the first class, but not the second. Anyhow, The girl who sits next to me and I both bring snacks and today I brought peanut butter and she brought, well another girl in the clas bought her an eggroll, thusly the smell of the two mixed and that is why it smells like peanut butter and eggroll.

well, i know it is pathetic, but hopefully it will tie you masses of readers over until I can put up a better, more thoughtful and insightful post, like I normally would.

I would like to thank the beautiful and talented "S" for the use of her laptop for this post. Anyhow, i need to concentrate on the lecture now, see you later.

OPERATION LOUVER SEEKER: SUCCESS!

Operation louver seeker has been a complete success!! The component in question was discovered I.E.T. (in enemy territory [New Mexico]) and was captured and transported via convoy to H.Q. upon request of Commander Seargent 1st class Luke Youngs. Upon arrival to H.Q. louver alpha was secured inside bunker October-Gemini and guarded in preperation to the F.I.M. (final installation mission) It was In the C.M.A. (crisp morning air) of April 7th, 1st Leutenant Double Major General TJ Benjamin Rese completed mission: skyhawk, which was the key installation of defense louver alpha to Unit Epsilon Gamma. With the unit now fully operational H.Q. is now able to defend intself against probable U.V.L (ultra-violet light) attacks over the next several months. Dismissed.

A fully clotheed Aireze evaporative cooler

BIZARRE BURGER BIZZARE

Hello, and welcome to my Blog. Today's entry is a "Shakedown" of the major fast food burger places around. I initially tried to do a double-blind experiment, but was unable for two reasons:

1. Having all those blind people in one room is dangerous, they pretty much end up fencing with their canes, and knocking stuff over.
2. I don't know any blind people, well, I do know a couple blind people, but just as acquaintances, and I didn't have their phone numbers

So with that in mind let us continue...worst to best style:

The Enemy - Right before the summer of 2001 there was a special on McNuggets. McNuggets were the only thing that I would eat from The Enemy, as the times previous that I had eaten burgers had ended badly. However, this would be my last encounter with McNuggets, or anything else from The Enemy for several years. Basically, I ended up spending the next two days kneeling before the porcelain altar, offering up anything that I dared to try to eat or drink. Luckily I was feeling good enough to go to China, but not good enough to eat anything but Con-ji (rice porridge) and fried rice for the first several days. The thing I learned from this incident was that if you keep drinking water while throwing up, the bad taste eventually goes away, and regurgitating water is much more fulfilling than dry heaving. It would be three years before I ventured to eat any food from The Enemy, and when I did, it turned out badly again. The one thing that I will eat from there is the soft-serve cones, they are scrum-diddly-umptios, and if you go to Bakersfield, you can get them dipped!

Carl’s Jr. - Now I can stand Carl’s. Actually, I have even been craving it within the last several weeks. My favorite has always been the Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger, except for a short span between 1999-2003 when I did not eat there. When I was in High School, going out for the track team, I could eat one of these puppies and still be hungry, and not feel any ill effects. My last three have filled me up, unsettled my stomach, and made me have strange dreams (Don't eat right before you go to bed). But, these problems are more associated with my tendency to chew once and swallow, than with the quality of the food. The drawback to Carl’s is that their Sandwiches are much more expensive than the ones of their competitors.

Burger King – I don’t eat burgers very often these days, but when I do, I seldom choose Burger King. I think part of the reason is because their ads of late are kind of freaky, I mean, there is one where the guy wakes up next to the “King” and the “King” offers him breakfast...frankly if I woke up and there was a guy with a plastic face dressed like a king next to me, I would either run for my life or start kickin’ some *$$. In another one the guy is peering in through the windows early in the morning. Since when did voyeurism sell hamburgers? But the whopper is still a good burger for the money; at least it has lettuce, tomatoes and a pickle.

Well this is getting too long so I will add more, or part II at a later time.

2x Western Bacon Cheeseburger - aka Coronary in bun

NATALIE LYNN

me: "My eyes are cooler than your eyes"
her: "People tell me all the time that I have beautiful eyes"
me: "They tell me that all the time too"
her: "My eyes are much prettier than yours"
me: "no, mine are better"
her: "nuh-uh"
me: "What are you talking about? people say I have beautiful eyes"
her: "Well, MORE people tell me I have beautiful eyes, and so I say 'thank you'and flirt with them"
me: "whatever"
her: "fine"
me: "FINE"
her: "WHATEVER"
me: "can I have your guacomole?"

later...from her car, shouting across the parking lot (trying to embarass me)...

her: "I LOVE YOU LUKE YOUNGS! ...HONEY...I LOVE YOU.....I LOVE YOU LUKE!!!

She's a sweetie

"My eyes are prettier than yours"

YO TENGO UN TACO PoR FAVOR

Today I ate at the taco truck (like the one pictured below). Normally these trucks drive up and down the streets in the morning and serve breakfast burritos to the poor Joes and Joses that don't have a Jane or Maria at home to make them breakfast. They also visit construction sites in the afternoon. Usually they have a horn that plays a tune, like "The Mexican Hat Dance" or "La Cookaracha" or "Dixie" or "The overture from William Tell" or "Gustav Holst: The Planets." La Cookaracha is my favorite, becuase Cookaracha is the same as Cockaroach, and that is why we in the construction business call them "Roach Coaches". It is always a good idea to associate your resturant business with scavenging insects because it proves that all the food gets cleaned up one way or another. Anyhow, the one we ate at was immaculate, so I was in no fear for my stomach as I ate my "asada" "tacos." The owners of the taco trucks (one served seafood and the other served all the normal stuff) have bought a corner lot on a busy street and built a nice concrete parking lot with a covered patio to eat under, as well as restrooms, very clean, very nice. My co-workers ordered: "Se hable dos tacos sequentia poquito inglesia campesina yo soy mi vaca cabesa est in la banyo bonita." and of course the reply was "see, est muy grande por suerte est mi nombre" then she turns to me and says "Can I take your order?" So I ordered my tacos in English...but i was jealous of all the "spanish skills". Anyhow, i realize that this is probably not as amusing to you as it was to me, but seeing as these are my inanae ramblings... Anyhow, my stomach is now full of tacos. And I learned that you can put radished on tacos, something I have never done before. I am so daring.

La Cookaracha, La Cookaracha!!

PHONE DROPPINGS AND DRAFTING

Well, dropping phones in water is contageous these days. My co-worker went home at lunch and was playing with his dog and somehow managed to drop his cell phone in the dog's water bucket. Unfortunately his phone has those star shaped screw heads and will not come apart easily. I tried to lend him my screw-ball (one of the handiest little gadgets I have ever recieved, thanks Grandma) but the bit was slightly to large.

So I have been pretty busy doing the drafting thing. Below is a picture of the Rodriguez house, which will be built here in the central valley. I am not the original designer on the project, but I have made some significant changes, mainly to the interior.

Back to the screwball though, it has been a lifesaver. If ever I need to tighten a screw on a pair of glasses, put new wheels on a mini set of rollerblades, or need something small hard and spiky to throw at someone, I have my screw ball. Some might say that I am the screw ball, but if they did, they should beware because I would probably throw it at them.

Tomorrow is April fool's day...my least favorite day of the year. Oh well, I am sure the Hamster Haxxors will attack FARK again, everybody gets a good laugh, ha ha ha

-end transmission-

Casa de Rodriguez!

OOM-PAH, OOM-PAH

My axe, as they say in the "biz", a tuba. Some call it the bass, others call it a concert tuba, as opposed to those practice tubas, and driving tubas out there. I usually refer to it as my horn. Most people have a misconception about the tuba, mainly that it just goes oom-pah, over and over in marching bands and polka bands. What they fail to realize is that tuba players also have to sustain notes for thrity-two measures at a time. Also tuba players are excellent at sitting quietly and counting rests...for those of you who are not musical, rests are the time period in which a member of the orchestra or band does not play while the rest of the orchestra does. More often than not, a tuba player will have five hundred measures of rests and then have 200 measures of a sustained B-flat. Usually in rehearsals the conductor will play four hundred ninety nine measures of the song and then stop and go back to the beginning. This is why tuba players are such good counters...only surpassed by triangle players. One important thing that tuba players are taught to remember while they are counting rests is to avoiding picking their noses, as this could become distracting during a concert.
People refer to those who play the tuba as many things: Tubists, Tuba players, Tubadours, Tubamanders, Tubaians, Tubanese, Tuba toothpaste. I find that most of these people have no idea what they are talking about and should be avoided.

Meinl Weston, William Bell model

OPERATION: LOUVER SEEKER

This weekend, my housemate and I climbed upon the roof to give the evap. cooler a good refurbishing. We bought a new water pump, cooling pads, two packages of zip ties, a floater valve, twenty five feet of copper tubing, and a new belt. The previous owners had geri-rigged it with automotive belts from NAPA, which made it squealed like someone burning out on my roof. Aside from the water hose falling off the roof, and having to go down several extra times for another tool, completing the repairs was pretty easy. The downer is, what I have come to find out is called the louver (the cover that wraps around the unit), is not manufactured anymore. Apparently the cooler I have was manufactured shortly after Lincoln's assisination, and to get factory parts you have to rob a museum. I have been referred half a dozen times already, and the latest "only place that carries it" is sixty miles away, and closed on Mondays. The clerk that helped me initially told me "ah, you need a louver"
"a what?"
"a louver, you know the thing that turns into popcorn ever four years?"
"oh, ok....do you have one?"
"no, sorry"

after this the conversations have all gone like this:

10 "Hi, I need a louver for an Aireze evaporative cooler."
20 "Oh, we don't have any of those. We used to, but we don't have them anymore. The only place I know that carries them is" A$
30 Look up A$
40 Dial # for A$
50 goto 10

In the meantime I suppose I will just have to live with a naked cooler. How embarassing!

Cooler in the "buff"

CATS HATE MY PIGGY BANK

Thats right, for one reason or another, all small "domesticated" pets with four feet and whiskers have some kind of great contempt for my change repository. Note how his left ear is cracked throughout...that is the result of the most recent incident. I went to bed only to wake up to the sound of a large thud followed by the CACHUNK a bunch of quarters makes when it hits the floor. The cat must have been tired of the way the pig stared her down with those beady little eyes. She had to have done it on purr-puss (sorry)... how can a six pound cat push five pounds of quarters and piggy bank off a desk by accident? Luckily, because of all of the credit card stickers, most of the pieces were held loosely together. It took me a good hour to glue him back together using Mod podge. Some of the pieces were missing...vaporized when $75 worth of quarters ground them into dust particles. Interestingly enough this is not the first time this piggy bank (heretofor known as Chip) has been the target of ferral like violence. Shortly after I received him, he was knocked to the floor by a previous cat. Luckily he was empty at the time. Regardless, his entire posterior popped off, but the fractured porcelain was easily reattatched with ELMERS glue. I give you, Chip ...well, "give" as in "you can look at this picture of him", not as in "you can take him home."

The subject of feline abuse

AN EASTER MIRACLE?

-And on the second day the LORD did evaporate all the moisture from within the depths of the cell phone thusly proclaiming "I say unto thee, reassemble thy phone and see the work I have done for thee." and lo, the phone was reassembled and the source of its power was activated from without. Immediately the phone sprang back to life and said unto it's master "Insert SIM card." And lo' the SIM card was inserted and it began to do good work in the service of it's master. And there was much rejoicing.

Book of Electronics 14:9-11

alive and well

NAPOLEAN

Napolean, pictured below, thinks that he is quite the ladies-bear. It has something to do with the fact that he is "Franch" and that he speaks the language of "l' amor". Be that as it may, Napolean has actually won over many of the ladies with his expliots (or antics as some call them). He thinks they like him because he is "ze creme uf le crop" but I think it is because he is fat and cuddly and makes them laugh with his obviously fake accent. Perhaps if you meet him, you can judge for yourself, beware though, he can sometimes be quite...amorous.

"I am not fat, I am economically sized"

DISASTER

Last night around midnight weary while I conversed, tired and dreary,
Over many a quaint and curious subject of education lore --
While I spake, my phone on top, I slightly turned and then did drop,
My cell phone slipping, slipping sliding, dropping on my chamber floor.
"My cell phone dropped," I thinkered, "fallen to my chamber floor" --
Only this and nothing more."

Now as far as I remember, it was two months past December,
When a glass of water, I had left upon the floor.
Eagerly I looked not far-o; -- for my cell phone on the floor-o
and was filled with much sorrow – for what I saw upon the floor --
For the phone had fallen in the water, and to replace it I am too poor --

It will work Nevermore

The offending glass of water (refilled for dramatic context) with my autopsied phone.

My old reliable cell phone

ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOR

So, i think you will agree that this blogging thing can become terribly addicting. For instance, this is my fourth post in one or two hours...it took me a few minutes to figure out how to do the picture posting thing, but hey, i did it and now I am a pro. So I think I will probably be really into this at first, and then in a month or two or three or six, tire of it all and then only update once every four months, then a year, then four years...then I will die and four years later everyone will be like "I wonder why don't he write no mo'" but maybe i can give someone my password and they can post something like "regretfully Luke died four years ago in a freak accident involving a fourwheel drive, butter tarts, and a flamenco dancer, please send your condolences to: ____________" i think that would be a good idea, that way you all would know that i had passed on and could quit wasting your time visiting for updates, because the last thing I would want to do would be to waste anyone's time...except my own apparently.

God Bless,
-Luke

THis is me at Disneyland, i am mimic-ing the tiki. I am the one in front

WHAT I ATE TODAY

I ate crackers all morning, and some sour cream and onion potato chips. I had Wendy's for lunch, (a baked potato, fries, a salad, and a burger) apparently the dollar menu is now a dollar nineteen menu. how i long for the days of fifty-nine seventy-nin ninety-nine at Taco Bell. Two bean burritos and a mountaind dew was two dollars and eleven cents. Also today which was eaten by me was two handfulls of mixed nut trail mix.

-end

WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

Hello, and welcome to the first installment, and possibly the last installment, of the Weblog of Mstr. Luke Allen Youngs III esq. Please no smoking while you are visiting my webspace, also no eating. Small children and pets should be safetly secured under your seat in the provided storage area. Please leave your clothes on, and that does mean all of them. Furthermore, correct punctuation and capitalization are to be used on volunteer basis only. Do spell as correctly as you can, and try to avoid using the subjunctive. Exits can be found by using ctrl-alt-delete or by actuation of the back, forward, or close buttons at any time. Please keep all hands, feet, fingers, toes, tails, and antlers within the confined space at all times during your stay. Thank you, and please enjoy your time at this websitepage of the world wide internet.

-Luke