I found this Meme out in the Blogosphere and I felt like it was a good time to do it.
Accent - None, I saw a map of accents for the U.S. one time and it showed that I live in a small area of the country where supposedly the people have no accent.
Booze - Not in about a year and a half.
Chore I hate - Running the Vaccuum.
Dogs/Cats - Dogs, though I don't have any right now, I've been thinking a lot lately about getting one.
Essential Electronics - Maybe my PC but I really don't consider it essential.
Favorite Cologne - Adidas Moves.
Gold/Silver - It has always been Silver.
Hometown - HarborCreek, Pennsylvania.
Insomnia - Only when I take too long of a nap in the afternoon.
Job Title - Mechanical Engineering Designer.
Kids - One wonderful sixteen year old son.
Living Arrangements - Single Homeowner (sounds like I'm filling out a credit application).
Most admired trait - Calm demeanor.
Number of sexual partners - One....at a time.
Overnight hospital stays - Once when I was about eight my mom had to call an ambulance when I went into convulsions. The doctors never found out why.
Phobia - Nothing clinical but I don't respond well to heights.
Quote - "I believe everybody in the world should have guns. Citizens should have bazookas and rocket launchers too. I believe that all citizens should have their weapons of choice. However, I also believe that only I should have the ammunition. Because frankly, I wouldn't trust the rest of the goobers with anything more dangerous than string." - Scott Adams
Religion - Buddhist.
Siblings - Four really fugly brothers and one sister (I got all the good looks:)
Time I usually awake - 4 am.
Unusual Talent - I can breath through my ears.
Vegetable I refuse to eat - None, I love vegetables.
Worst habit - Smoking.
X-rays - For my lower back where I have inherited deformed vertabrae (I'm not like a hunchback or anything.)
Yummy foods I make - I make a kick ass lasagna.
Zodiac sign - Aquarius.
Now I tag every single person on the planet and I'm going to hold my breath until everyone does this...whooooshh.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Of Bugs And Babies
"Mothra has attacked my bathroom!" This 
giant brown moth has decided to attach himself to the outside of the screen in the window of my upstairs bathroom. He has been there for about three days now, and seems to be very content with the location he has chosen. Bugs for the most part don't bother me, though I could do without centipedes. I don't know why this big guy has decided to start peeping into my bathroom. I do close the blind when I use the bathroom, not so much out of modesty or a need for privacy, but 
mostly because I don't want to have to look at his fugly ass and I'm sure he doesn't want to look at mine. He is directly underneath the halogen light that illuminates my back yard, which must be the reason he chose this spot. I measured him and he is about 4 inches (10 cm) from wingtip to wingtip. I guess I'll let him stay as long as he doesn't try to chew through the screen and take over my bathroom, maybe he just really needs to go. I may need him in the future because you never know when Godzilla will attack again.
I mowed the lawn yesterday for the first time in two weeks because it hasn't rained much and fou
nd these little trees sprouting up all over the place in the back. They appear to be baby Black Walnut trees. Mama is a soaring 50 foot high Black Walnut that I have growing out in my back yard. Most of the shade in my yard is provided by two trees, a 70 foot high Oak tree in the front that keeps my house in the shade most of the day, and this one large Black Walnut in the back that shades the back yard, but isn't close enough to the house to provide any shade on it. There are a few other trees in the yard but "not near
enough for my liking", that is why one of my goals this year is to get many more trees started in the yard. I planted two maples a couple of weeks ago but anyone who has ever gone to a nursery knows that they do charge a pretty penny for trees these days. So I was delighted to find about a dozen of these little guys sprouting up in my back yard and I was very careful, when mowing, not to run them over. I thought I was going to have to spend a lot of money to fill my yard with trees, but it appears the female
trees of the neighborhood are pitching in and helping out. I have many baby Silver and Crimson Maples growing in the flowerbed that surrounds half my house. I am waiting for them to get large enough for transplanting before moving them out into the yard. These baby Black Walnut trees are growing right where I want them and won't require any transplanting, since it is my back yard that mostly needs more shade. I am happy to say that mama and babies are doing just fine.
giant brown moth has decided to attach himself to the outside of the screen in the window of my upstairs bathroom. He has been there for about three days now, and seems to be very content with the location he has chosen. Bugs for the most part don't bother me, though I could do without centipedes. I don't know why this big guy has decided to start peeping into my bathroom. I do close the blind when I use the bathroom, not so much out of modesty or a need for privacy, but mostly because I don't want to have to look at his fugly ass and I'm sure he doesn't want to look at mine. He is directly underneath the halogen light that illuminates my back yard, which must be the reason he chose this spot. I measured him and he is about 4 inches (10 cm) from wingtip to wingtip. I guess I'll let him stay as long as he doesn't try to chew through the screen and take over my bathroom, maybe he just really needs to go. I may need him in the future because you never know when Godzilla will attack again.I mowed the lawn yesterday for the first time in two weeks because it hasn't rained much and fou
nd these little trees sprouting up all over the place in the back. They appear to be baby Black Walnut trees. Mama is a soaring 50 foot high Black Walnut that I have growing out in my back yard. Most of the shade in my yard is provided by two trees, a 70 foot high Oak tree in the front that keeps my house in the shade most of the day, and this one large Black Walnut in the back that shades the back yard, but isn't close enough to the house to provide any shade on it. There are a few other trees in the yard but "not near enough for my liking", that is why one of my goals this year is to get many more trees started in the yard. I planted two maples a couple of weeks ago but anyone who has ever gone to a nursery knows that they do charge a pretty penny for trees these days. So I was delighted to find about a dozen of these little guys sprouting up in my back yard and I was very careful, when mowing, not to run them over. I thought I was going to have to spend a lot of money to fill my yard with trees, but it appears the female trees of the neighborhood are pitching in and helping out. I have many baby Silver and Crimson Maples growing in the flowerbed that surrounds half my house. I am waiting for them to get large enough for transplanting before moving them out into the yard. These baby Black Walnut trees are growing right where I want them and won't require any transplanting, since it is my back yard that mostly needs more shade. I am happy to say that mama and babies are doing just fine.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Back at the Bar
I don't want people to think, from my last blog, that owning a bar is all work, but when people go to a bar they generally want a party, and throwing a party in your bar is a lot of work. So even when you are partying, you're still working. These things take a lot of planning, and I can't remember a single one that just happened, even when they looked like they just did.
Whether it's a simple every Friday night Karaoke Show, a Band, or having a special event, there is always a lot of planning involved. We had Karaoke every Friday night, and though it was one of the best shows around, we still didn't want it to get stale, so we were constantly looking for new twists that we could throw in to make it that much more special. If it falls on a holiday, that's easy, but on your average Friday night you might have to work a little harder to come up with something new. Sometimes we would have our chef create a special meal; sometimes we would have giveaways, whatever it took. Our show was always about having fun, and never about people being great singers. I think part of our success was getting people to let their hair down and relax and have a good time. Always get the people involved, and yes we could throw a hell of a good party.
One of our best nights was traditionally Halloween, right from the beginning people seemed to flock to our place on Halloween. Part of the reason was that during our Karaoke shows, while people were singing, we would dress them up in feather boas and silly hats, we had almost as many props as we had cd's. The people that came to our place were already used to getting dressed up, which made Halloween a perfect match for us. When you came to our place you would be hard pressed to find anyone that wasn't dressed up. For a very long time it was our record highest sales night. When I finally left the bar we were having two full-blown Halloween parties, one on Friday night and one on Saturday night.
Another good part we threw was when we got involved in a thing called "Erie Idol". It was a take off of the popular TV show American Idol, except our contestants would sing Karaoke so they didn't have to have the songs memorized, and there was no "Simon Cowell" harassing you if you didn't sing well. This show was put on by a local television channel and was sponsored by area businesses and a major light beer producer. They went to 10 local bars and three contestants out of 50 allowed to enter at each bar would win prizes and move on to the finals. We were the only bar that had all 50 of it's slots filled, and the sponsors told us we had had the best show and crowd of any of the locations. People who had been going to our bar all their lives said they had never seen so many people packed into that building, whatever the fire code said we were allowed to have in there, we were breaking it. To get to the bar from the kitchen we would run around the outside of the building because it would take twenty minutes to fight your way through the crowd in the main room. I had been stalking up on beer for a month before hand and when our Tuesday beer order came, we were out of a lot of things. Our tally for the night ended up being a normal weeks worth of business. We really took over that town for one night.
All of these events that we put on were a lot of work, and if you must know bars don't really make a lot of money, people just think that they do (even the week of "Erie Idol" we barely broke even). Your biggest reward in this business is the appreciation people give you for showing them a really good time.
Whether it's a simple every Friday night Karaoke Show, a Band, or having a special event, there is always a lot of planning involved. We had Karaoke every Friday night, and though it was one of the best shows around, we still didn't want it to get stale, so we were constantly looking for new twists that we could throw in to make it that much more special. If it falls on a holiday, that's easy, but on your average Friday night you might have to work a little harder to come up with something new. Sometimes we would have our chef create a special meal; sometimes we would have giveaways, whatever it took. Our show was always about having fun, and never about people being great singers. I think part of our success was getting people to let their hair down and relax and have a good time. Always get the people involved, and yes we could throw a hell of a good party.
One of our best nights was traditionally Halloween, right from the beginning people seemed to flock to our place on Halloween. Part of the reason was that during our Karaoke shows, while people were singing, we would dress them up in feather boas and silly hats, we had almost as many props as we had cd's. The people that came to our place were already used to getting dressed up, which made Halloween a perfect match for us. When you came to our place you would be hard pressed to find anyone that wasn't dressed up. For a very long time it was our record highest sales night. When I finally left the bar we were having two full-blown Halloween parties, one on Friday night and one on Saturday night.
Another good part we threw was when we got involved in a thing called "Erie Idol". It was a take off of the popular TV show American Idol, except our contestants would sing Karaoke so they didn't have to have the songs memorized, and there was no "Simon Cowell" harassing you if you didn't sing well. This show was put on by a local television channel and was sponsored by area businesses and a major light beer producer. They went to 10 local bars and three contestants out of 50 allowed to enter at each bar would win prizes and move on to the finals. We were the only bar that had all 50 of it's slots filled, and the sponsors told us we had had the best show and crowd of any of the locations. People who had been going to our bar all their lives said they had never seen so many people packed into that building, whatever the fire code said we were allowed to have in there, we were breaking it. To get to the bar from the kitchen we would run around the outside of the building because it would take twenty minutes to fight your way through the crowd in the main room. I had been stalking up on beer for a month before hand and when our Tuesday beer order came, we were out of a lot of things. Our tally for the night ended up being a normal weeks worth of business. We really took over that town for one night.
All of these events that we put on were a lot of work, and if you must know bars don't really make a lot of money, people just think that they do (even the week of "Erie Idol" we barely broke even). Your biggest reward in this business is the appreciation people give you for showing them a really good time.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
The Saturday Evening Post
My last post got me thinking about my bar. I wonder how all the folks are doing down there. A while back I had to call my ex (who now owns the bar) and since I don't have her home phone number I tried at the bar... "Hello, is T2 there?"... "Hold, on I'll check, who may I ask is calling?" the bartender says. "This is her ex", (a minute passes by) "No she isn't here, but I will tell her you called when she comes in." So then I remembered I had her cell phone number. I dial that... "Hello" one of my chefs answers her cell (obviously half in the bag as usual when he wasn't cooking, and half the time when he was) "Hey Dagoth, whats up, we're havin' a happy hump day party here, why don't you come on down and have a beer", "Well it's a little far for me to drive (about forty minutes) to go have a beer, besides you know I gave that up a long time ago. Hey is T2 there?" "Yeah sure...wait there's someone else that wants to talk to you" hmmm she must have left her cell on the bar...busted. They proceed to pass the phone around the bar giving everyone their chance to talk to me since I hadn't, at the time, seen any of them in about a year.
I do miss the old place sometimes; if I don't think about all the hours I put in there. Running a bar can be a whole lot of work; it wasn't unusual for me to put in twenty-hour days. I remember being the first one in, in the morning, and being the last one to leave at night. I remember Saturn-day nights working in the kitchen making an 18 gallon batch of our specialty soup, that we would package and freeze, while everyone else was out in the bar raising-the-roof to a local band. When I was done putting the soup away, I would help the bartender chase out the last of the, drunken, "hangers on" who were still begging to buy a six-pack after closing time. I would then help her clean up. After a band it was always a disaster. I would then lock up the place and begin my 40-minute drive home at 4 in the morning. Waving to the cops as I headed out of town, not worrying that they would pull me over, since they knew my vehicle and why I was out and about that late at night. I did once get pulled over by a state cop when I was most the way home, but only because he passed me going the other way, and came back after me because I hadn't put my low beams on when I passed him (I was half asleep by then).
Don't get me wrong it wasn't all work. We sure had some blowout parties in that place. We were the most happening place around on a Frigs-day night. That's when we would have Karaoke, which we provided for free, my wife was the KJ and we had our own equipment. All the other bars had bands, so they would raise their drink prices or charge a cover, which made the people flock to our place. I could tell when the band at the bar across the street would take a break because our bar would swell to bursting at the seams. In a small town with high unemployment, free entertainment and cheap beer goes over very well. My second-most senior bartender and I would be "running our asses off", playing "Twister" behind the bar to serve up the drinks to a crowd that would often grow to reach around 300 people. After about a year of that, we started scheduling a second bartender, which meant I didn't have to bartend as often, and could join in the revelry.
Sometimes I would walk up the street to another bar in town to see how they were doing (a common practice among bar owners). Quite often I would find 4 people in the bar (8 if you included the band members), my bar would have 200 people there, and we weren't paying anything for our entertainment, they were shelling out at least 250$ for the band, which I know had to hurt. After we were in there about six months, the bar across the street closed. They had opened their place up just about the same time we had opened ours. Everyone in town was saying that we put them out of business, but the truth is they didn't have a very good plan for opening a bar. The husband was a truck driver and he bought the bar so that his wife would have something to do while he was out on the road. These days if you're going to make it as a small business you better have a pretty good plan...
PS: As far as the name of this post goes, sorry I just couldn't resist...
I do miss the old place sometimes; if I don't think about all the hours I put in there. Running a bar can be a whole lot of work; it wasn't unusual for me to put in twenty-hour days. I remember being the first one in, in the morning, and being the last one to leave at night. I remember Saturn-day nights working in the kitchen making an 18 gallon batch of our specialty soup, that we would package and freeze, while everyone else was out in the bar raising-the-roof to a local band. When I was done putting the soup away, I would help the bartender chase out the last of the, drunken, "hangers on" who were still begging to buy a six-pack after closing time. I would then help her clean up. After a band it was always a disaster. I would then lock up the place and begin my 40-minute drive home at 4 in the morning. Waving to the cops as I headed out of town, not worrying that they would pull me over, since they knew my vehicle and why I was out and about that late at night. I did once get pulled over by a state cop when I was most the way home, but only because he passed me going the other way, and came back after me because I hadn't put my low beams on when I passed him (I was half asleep by then).
Don't get me wrong it wasn't all work. We sure had some blowout parties in that place. We were the most happening place around on a Frigs-day night. That's when we would have Karaoke, which we provided for free, my wife was the KJ and we had our own equipment. All the other bars had bands, so they would raise their drink prices or charge a cover, which made the people flock to our place. I could tell when the band at the bar across the street would take a break because our bar would swell to bursting at the seams. In a small town with high unemployment, free entertainment and cheap beer goes over very well. My second-most senior bartender and I would be "running our asses off", playing "Twister" behind the bar to serve up the drinks to a crowd that would often grow to reach around 300 people. After about a year of that, we started scheduling a second bartender, which meant I didn't have to bartend as often, and could join in the revelry.
Sometimes I would walk up the street to another bar in town to see how they were doing (a common practice among bar owners). Quite often I would find 4 people in the bar (8 if you included the band members), my bar would have 200 people there, and we weren't paying anything for our entertainment, they were shelling out at least 250$ for the band, which I know had to hurt. After we were in there about six months, the bar across the street closed. They had opened their place up just about the same time we had opened ours. Everyone in town was saying that we put them out of business, but the truth is they didn't have a very good plan for opening a bar. The husband was a truck driver and he bought the bar so that his wife would have something to do while he was out on the road. These days if you're going to make it as a small business you better have a pretty good plan...
PS: As far as the name of this post goes, sorry I just couldn't resist...
Thursday, June 15, 2006
A Few More Links
For those of us who know what we're thinking of but can't always pull it out of our poor, feeble, killed-oh-so-many-brain-cells-when-we-were-young, degenerated minds (wait, that's just me!) This site has a new kind of search engine that just might help on those late night, alcohol-enhanced blogger posts.
One Look Reverse Dictionary
Also speaking of alcohol...Having owned a bar before I found this site particularly funny, hauntingly familiar, if not "wrong on so many levels."
You Drunk as Hell
And last and probably least if the Daily News has gotten you down, and you have enough problems of your own without hearing about all the bad things going on in the world, this is definitely news of a different color...well, maybe not really news at all, but if they didn't mind posting it, you shouldn't mind reading it. If you do, complain to the editor (hey! I didn't write this stuff!)
The Daily Nooz
That's all for now...Peace...
One Look Reverse Dictionary
Also speaking of alcohol...Having owned a bar before I found this site particularly funny, hauntingly familiar, if not "wrong on so many levels."
You Drunk as Hell
And last and probably least if the Daily News has gotten you down, and you have enough problems of your own without hearing about all the bad things going on in the world, this is definitely news of a different color...well, maybe not really news at all, but if they didn't mind posting it, you shouldn't mind reading it. If you do, complain to the editor (hey! I didn't write this stuff!)
The Daily Nooz
That's all for now...Peace...
Monday, June 12, 2006
New Additions
I went around to some of the local greenhouses, looking for some houseplants Sunday, but I didn't really find what I was looking for. I have an old 55-gallon aquarium that I want to turn into a terrarium, so I was really looking for small plants.
I went to one greenhouse, but a lot of their pla
nts were outside and looked like they had been frosted, so I didn't buy anything there. They did have some nice hanging baskets inside their greenhouses, which I may go back for next weekend, to hang off my back porch.
So I left there and went to another local nursery, but they seemed to have more trees than houseplants. After walking around among all the beautiful, tall trees they had there, I kind of forgot about the terrarium, which was my real reason for going plant hunting. I came across some very nice Silver Variegated Maples that they had near the back, and there were these two t
hat really seemed to want to come home with me. It's like going to the humane society; there are always those puppies that just seem to want to come home with you. These two trees were definitely up front and vying for attention.
After loading them onto a wagon, I started the battle of getting them out. On top of the wagon they were taller than the structure they were housed under. I finally got them out and loaded into my van, they took up the entire length of the inside. They say if you hug a tree it will bring you good health, but what does it mean when a tree hugs you? The smaller of the two hugged me all the way home, making it somewhat difficult to drive. I thought "just like
an excited puppy, happy to go home."
I planted them side by side just behind my house where they will eventually help shade the walkway and the back porch. They have an unusual two-tone leaf and I believe they are a hybrid, because the instructions (do trees really need instructions?) say if you get any solid colored leaves you have to trim them out. I don't know how they expect me to trim them out when they get 35 feet tall.
I went to one greenhouse, but a lot of their pla
nts were outside and looked like they had been frosted, so I didn't buy anything there. They did have some nice hanging baskets inside their greenhouses, which I may go back for next weekend, to hang off my back porch.So I left there and went to another local nursery, but they seemed to have more trees than houseplants. After walking around among all the beautiful, tall trees they had there, I kind of forgot about the terrarium, which was my real reason for going plant hunting. I came across some very nice Silver Variegated Maples that they had near the back, and there were these two t
hat really seemed to want to come home with me. It's like going to the humane society; there are always those puppies that just seem to want to come home with you. These two trees were definitely up front and vying for attention.After loading them onto a wagon, I started the battle of getting them out. On top of the wagon they were taller than the structure they were housed under. I finally got them out and loaded into my van, they took up the entire length of the inside. They say if you hug a tree it will bring you good health, but what does it mean when a tree hugs you? The smaller of the two hugged me all the way home, making it somewhat difficult to drive. I thought "just like
an excited puppy, happy to go home."I planted them side by side just behind my house where they will eventually help shade the walkway and the back porch. They have an unusual two-tone leaf and I believe they are a hybrid, because the instructions (do trees really need instructions?) say if you get any solid colored leaves you have to trim them out. I don't know how they expect me to trim them out when they get 35 feet tall.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
The Last Survivor
Last fall I moved back to the house I had lived in when I was married. I had been living in an apartment in town for about a year, which was something I wasn't used to. Apartment living, in the city, is a lot noisier than having a house in the "burbs." My profile states that I live in Erie, Pennsylvania, but I actually live in a small town outside of Erie. Saying that I live in Erie gives people that aren't familiar with this part of the country a better idea of where I live, without confusing them by saying I live in " such-n-such", small town, usa, that they never heard of before.
When I moved back in the fall I knew it would be a lot quieter here, which was one of my main reasons for accepting the house back when my ex offered it to me. I'm not the kind of person who likes living in apartments in the city. Though my apartment was a very nice one, and my landlord was an old school friend, which made it even better. I can't say as I miss the neighbor couple fighting all the time, my other neighbor taking showers at midnight (their bathroom was up against my bedroom wall), and I especially don't miss being surrounded by concrete.
I like having grass, and trees around me. I like having my back porch to sit on in the morning and watching the wildlife, but something has changed around here, from the last time I lived here, about two years ago.
If it's possible, this quiet little town I live in has even become quieter, to the point where I sometimes think I'm the only one living here. It is something I didn't really notice last fall. In this part of America it was growing cold when I moved back, and most people, at that point, were living inside their homes, and getting them "buttoned up" for winter. I probably should have noticed that there seemed to be a lot fewer people around, when at Halloween I only had 23 children show up at my door, many less than I remember from years past.
It didn't really "dawn on me" how quiet my little village had become until this spring.
It appears that many of the teenage kids that lived in my neighborhood have grown up and moved on, leaving a very noticeable silence.
There doesn't seem to be near as many cars going up and down my road as I remember. Sometimes a half-hour or more can go by without a single car passing my house.
The shop that is behind my house closed up its doors this spring, moving all their equipment out, and leaving behind an empty parking lot that used to be so full, with workers coming and going on a couple of different shifts. Though I don't miss the alarm that used to go off on the weekends when nobody was there, and would sound for hours until someone would come in to shut it off.
There is a large field next to the shop that contains five soccer fields, though the goal posts are still there, the children are gone. They used to have games there every night, and on the weekends from sunrise to sunset, now the field is empty and grown over.
My neighbors that used to be "out and about" all the time, now seem to either be living inside their homes or not home at all. I used to chat with them all the time, now I hardly ever see them. A neighbor on one side of me, that I used to see out all the time, I now only see him come out when he weed-whacks his yard, and I haven't even had the opportunity to talk to him in the eight months since I moved back. A neighbor on the other side of me has apparently been very ill, and I don't get to talk to him near as often as I used to. He says "They are going to start wintering in Florida from now on since he took ill and can't take the cold anymore."
I was looking forward to more quiet, but this noticeable silence is something I wasn't ready for. Has my little village becoming a ghost town? Sometimes it stays so quiet here, for such long periods of time that I could almost imagine that I live in a post-holocaust period when some plague has killed everyone off, and I'm the last survivor.
When I moved back in the fall I knew it would be a lot quieter here, which was one of my main reasons for accepting the house back when my ex offered it to me. I'm not the kind of person who likes living in apartments in the city. Though my apartment was a very nice one, and my landlord was an old school friend, which made it even better. I can't say as I miss the neighbor couple fighting all the time, my other neighbor taking showers at midnight (their bathroom was up against my bedroom wall), and I especially don't miss being surrounded by concrete.
I like having grass, and trees around me. I like having my back porch to sit on in the morning and watching the wildlife, but something has changed around here, from the last time I lived here, about two years ago.
If it's possible, this quiet little town I live in has even become quieter, to the point where I sometimes think I'm the only one living here. It is something I didn't really notice last fall. In this part of America it was growing cold when I moved back, and most people, at that point, were living inside their homes, and getting them "buttoned up" for winter. I probably should have noticed that there seemed to be a lot fewer people around, when at Halloween I only had 23 children show up at my door, many less than I remember from years past.
It didn't really "dawn on me" how quiet my little village had become until this spring.
It appears that many of the teenage kids that lived in my neighborhood have grown up and moved on, leaving a very noticeable silence.
There doesn't seem to be near as many cars going up and down my road as I remember. Sometimes a half-hour or more can go by without a single car passing my house.
The shop that is behind my house closed up its doors this spring, moving all their equipment out, and leaving behind an empty parking lot that used to be so full, with workers coming and going on a couple of different shifts. Though I don't miss the alarm that used to go off on the weekends when nobody was there, and would sound for hours until someone would come in to shut it off.
There is a large field next to the shop that contains five soccer fields, though the goal posts are still there, the children are gone. They used to have games there every night, and on the weekends from sunrise to sunset, now the field is empty and grown over.
My neighbors that used to be "out and about" all the time, now seem to either be living inside their homes or not home at all. I used to chat with them all the time, now I hardly ever see them. A neighbor on one side of me, that I used to see out all the time, I now only see him come out when he weed-whacks his yard, and I haven't even had the opportunity to talk to him in the eight months since I moved back. A neighbor on the other side of me has apparently been very ill, and I don't get to talk to him near as often as I used to. He says "They are going to start wintering in Florida from now on since he took ill and can't take the cold anymore."
I was looking forward to more quiet, but this noticeable silence is something I wasn't ready for. Has my little village becoming a ghost town? Sometimes it stays so quiet here, for such long periods of time that I could almost imagine that I live in a post-holocaust period when some plague has killed everyone off, and I'm the last survivor.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Fractalized
Hope found a nice little Free Fractal Image generator that we have been playing with, so I decided to post a few of the ones I created as well.
She created a separate blog called Fractal Fever for hers, but I decided just to dump mine on my main page, and let them download as they will...
They are a lot of fun to play with, but it's also pretty easy to loose some of them if you're not careful... I "Hope" you enjoy them.
She created a separate blog called Fractal Fever for hers, but I decided just to dump mine on my main page, and let them download as they will...
They are a lot of fun to play with, but it's also pretty easy to loose some of them if you're not careful... I "Hope" you enjoy them.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Terminator 2
This is a continuation from a previous post. This post is about my second ex-wife whom I will affectionately call T2 (Terminator 2). This one is a little harder to talk about since we have only been "broken up" for about two years now. My first marriage to T1 ended 14 years ago, and everything about that one seems to be in 'black and white", so many years later. The marriage to T2 is still in "shades of gray." Some people may be offended by some of the things I say in this post, if you are one of them, "Sorry, but I won't apologize for being me." This is my life, you can take it or leave it as you see fit. You have been warned.
This marriage ended amicable as well, though maybe not quite as nice as the first one did, but in some ways better. We used our business lawyer to handle the divorce, and the separation of belongings just seemed to work itself out. I still consider her my friend, though I haven't seen her in about a year. We were married for about 6 years, the first 5 of which I consider to be some of the best times of my life. T2 knows "if she ever has need of my sword" it will come to her defense, "no questions asked", and "woe be" to any that would stand against her, for they will stand against me as well!
I met her on a Friday night, at a club that all my friends and I used to hang out at. My friend "P" had met her the Wednesday before at a karaoke show they had just started at the club. The night I met T2 she came in with her girlfriend "M", who was "quite butch", and we all just assumed that they were lesbians, not that anyone really cared. T2 and I immediately hit it off, starting up a conversation about Karaoke (that at the time I had never done.) We got a 'running joke' going, about how we were going to start "the karaoke church" and that we were going to have "monitors" instead of hymnals. She would take her drink (her first one) and go around to all the tables in the place, introducing herself and "cheering" with the people that she didn't know. She had a personality that couldn't be held back with a bulldozer, though she claimed to be "quite shy." Yeah, about as shy as a Brahma Bull, I was attracted to her right from the start, no matter what "her persuasion" seemed to be at the time.
She started coming down to the club quite often with her friend "M", and we all became good friends. Then one day she came down with a boyfriend, and with "M" nowhere to be found, I guess we all decided that we had been wrong, and that "she wasn't." It didn't really matter, since she had grown to be a favorite of the group (and of mine). She broke up with him, after awhile, and I remember her saying she "needed to find a man." I was dating another girl at the time, but I remember thinking that I wouldn't have minded being "that man." Still later on, I ended up "braking up" with that girlfriend (or she broke up with me), and I remember thinking that I wouldn't mind being with T2, but she was nowhere to be found. Finally one day she came down by herself (apparantly her son had been ill) and I asked her for her phone number, she gave it to me, and the "wild ride" began.
We started dating, started "country couples dancing" together, started doing karaoke, it seemed we always had something "going on" to appease her "A type" personality, which nicely complimented my "laid back", "B type" personality. We eventually got married, which surprised no one, due to our tendency towards "PDA's". I learned about "a darker side" of her personality, that she told me about (it actually had "a name" that the people who worked under her, at her job, had given it) though I had never seen it, and always figured I could handle it anyways. We eventually started up our own Karaoke business, with her as the "KJ" and me as the roadie. She eventually expanded this business to include two more "KJ's/DJ's" both of which were lesbians (not together) and friends of ours. It seemed that most of her friends were "of that persuasion." We bought a bar, which we had decided to get so that we could provide our own entertainment, an idea that worked very well. I quit my day job to run the bar, and after two years she quit her day job and came to work at the bar as well. This is when things started to go bad.
We had talked about her friend "M" and I had been told that they had not been "together" and that their friendship had ended when "M" had professed her love for T2. One of our KJ's "A" and her girlfriend "C" had returned "their" equipment and had stopped working for us, I didn't really think much of it at the time, because T2 generally ran that part of our businesses, and I was busy managing the bar. During that last year I started to see the darker side of T2, in fact that started to be the only side of her that "I" was getting to see. You know when something is going very wrong in your marriage. I eventually started to question her about her relationship with her remaining KJ "J", who I was told, "wasn't after T2", but I had my suspicions. One day I had a long talk with "J", when my wife was out of town, and I decided that I was wrong about her. I learned to trust her, and I no longer believed that she was "after" my wife. I had come to believe that, the way I was being treated by my wife was a direct result of the pain she was in, as she was having some physical problems with her legs, due to standing all the time "DJing." Then one day T2 had decided to go back to her hometown, in another state, to do a karaoke show for her old friend who was having a party. T2 told me that she wanted her friend "J" to come with her, to help her with the show (she needed help setting up because of her physical problems). I conceded (though I wasn't real happy about it) because T2 convinced me that they wouldn't stay at a hotel (which they did) but would be staying at her friends' house. When they came back I no longer had a wife, she had left me for "J".
I went and talked to "A" and "C", figuring that since they were lesbians, and that "A" had been our other KJ, and they knew both T2 and "J" well, that maybe I could get some insight as to what had happened. I was surprised (maybe not a lot) when "A" told me that the reason they had stopped working for us was that she "saw how T2 and "J" were acting to each other when I wasn't around, and since they were friends of T2 and I for a long time, they didn't like it very much." They also had seen, first hand, how T2 had been treating me over the last year and they didn't like that much either. The biggest eye opener was when "C" said she "had been trying to think of the word for what T2 was, and she finally came up with it, that T2 was bi-polar." This was like a revelation; suddenly so much of our relationship became clear. This has never been confirmed by a doctor (that I know of), but I have no doubt that it is true.
For a while after the break up, T2, "J" and I had been friends, even going to some concerts together, but eventually "J" got worried that T2 might leave her and come back to me. Since then I have gone back to my old job, sold T2 my half of our businesses, and moved back to the house that her and I had owned. We have all heard the saying "If you love someone let them go, if they come back to you they are yours, if not they never were." I propose, "If you love someone you will let them go even if you know they will never come back to you." I want her to be happy, even if it's not with me. I think that the two of them make a lovely couple, and will be together for a very long time. Mostly I just wanted to see her smile again...
This marriage ended amicable as well, though maybe not quite as nice as the first one did, but in some ways better. We used our business lawyer to handle the divorce, and the separation of belongings just seemed to work itself out. I still consider her my friend, though I haven't seen her in about a year. We were married for about 6 years, the first 5 of which I consider to be some of the best times of my life. T2 knows "if she ever has need of my sword" it will come to her defense, "no questions asked", and "woe be" to any that would stand against her, for they will stand against me as well!
I met her on a Friday night, at a club that all my friends and I used to hang out at. My friend "P" had met her the Wednesday before at a karaoke show they had just started at the club. The night I met T2 she came in with her girlfriend "M", who was "quite butch", and we all just assumed that they were lesbians, not that anyone really cared. T2 and I immediately hit it off, starting up a conversation about Karaoke (that at the time I had never done.) We got a 'running joke' going, about how we were going to start "the karaoke church" and that we were going to have "monitors" instead of hymnals. She would take her drink (her first one) and go around to all the tables in the place, introducing herself and "cheering" with the people that she didn't know. She had a personality that couldn't be held back with a bulldozer, though she claimed to be "quite shy." Yeah, about as shy as a Brahma Bull, I was attracted to her right from the start, no matter what "her persuasion" seemed to be at the time.
She started coming down to the club quite often with her friend "M", and we all became good friends. Then one day she came down with a boyfriend, and with "M" nowhere to be found, I guess we all decided that we had been wrong, and that "she wasn't." It didn't really matter, since she had grown to be a favorite of the group (and of mine). She broke up with him, after awhile, and I remember her saying she "needed to find a man." I was dating another girl at the time, but I remember thinking that I wouldn't have minded being "that man." Still later on, I ended up "braking up" with that girlfriend (or she broke up with me), and I remember thinking that I wouldn't mind being with T2, but she was nowhere to be found. Finally one day she came down by herself (apparantly her son had been ill) and I asked her for her phone number, she gave it to me, and the "wild ride" began.
We started dating, started "country couples dancing" together, started doing karaoke, it seemed we always had something "going on" to appease her "A type" personality, which nicely complimented my "laid back", "B type" personality. We eventually got married, which surprised no one, due to our tendency towards "PDA's". I learned about "a darker side" of her personality, that she told me about (it actually had "a name" that the people who worked under her, at her job, had given it) though I had never seen it, and always figured I could handle it anyways. We eventually started up our own Karaoke business, with her as the "KJ" and me as the roadie. She eventually expanded this business to include two more "KJ's/DJ's" both of which were lesbians (not together) and friends of ours. It seemed that most of her friends were "of that persuasion." We bought a bar, which we had decided to get so that we could provide our own entertainment, an idea that worked very well. I quit my day job to run the bar, and after two years she quit her day job and came to work at the bar as well. This is when things started to go bad.
We had talked about her friend "M" and I had been told that they had not been "together" and that their friendship had ended when "M" had professed her love for T2. One of our KJ's "A" and her girlfriend "C" had returned "their" equipment and had stopped working for us, I didn't really think much of it at the time, because T2 generally ran that part of our businesses, and I was busy managing the bar. During that last year I started to see the darker side of T2, in fact that started to be the only side of her that "I" was getting to see. You know when something is going very wrong in your marriage. I eventually started to question her about her relationship with her remaining KJ "J", who I was told, "wasn't after T2", but I had my suspicions. One day I had a long talk with "J", when my wife was out of town, and I decided that I was wrong about her. I learned to trust her, and I no longer believed that she was "after" my wife. I had come to believe that, the way I was being treated by my wife was a direct result of the pain she was in, as she was having some physical problems with her legs, due to standing all the time "DJing." Then one day T2 had decided to go back to her hometown, in another state, to do a karaoke show for her old friend who was having a party. T2 told me that she wanted her friend "J" to come with her, to help her with the show (she needed help setting up because of her physical problems). I conceded (though I wasn't real happy about it) because T2 convinced me that they wouldn't stay at a hotel (which they did) but would be staying at her friends' house. When they came back I no longer had a wife, she had left me for "J".
I went and talked to "A" and "C", figuring that since they were lesbians, and that "A" had been our other KJ, and they knew both T2 and "J" well, that maybe I could get some insight as to what had happened. I was surprised (maybe not a lot) when "A" told me that the reason they had stopped working for us was that she "saw how T2 and "J" were acting to each other when I wasn't around, and since they were friends of T2 and I for a long time, they didn't like it very much." They also had seen, first hand, how T2 had been treating me over the last year and they didn't like that much either. The biggest eye opener was when "C" said she "had been trying to think of the word for what T2 was, and she finally came up with it, that T2 was bi-polar." This was like a revelation; suddenly so much of our relationship became clear. This has never been confirmed by a doctor (that I know of), but I have no doubt that it is true.
For a while after the break up, T2, "J" and I had been friends, even going to some concerts together, but eventually "J" got worried that T2 might leave her and come back to me. Since then I have gone back to my old job, sold T2 my half of our businesses, and moved back to the house that her and I had owned. We have all heard the saying "If you love someone let them go, if they come back to you they are yours, if not they never were." I propose, "If you love someone you will let them go even if you know they will never come back to you." I want her to be happy, even if it's not with me. I think that the two of them make a lovely couple, and will be together for a very long time. Mostly I just wanted to see her smile again...
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