two things - Updated!!

Charity Day
Flirt's comments are burgeoning with 171 comments! weeee, thanks to everyone that went over and said hello to Flirt!!

Flirt at Flirt in a Skirt is doing her monthly charity day today. For every comment she gets today she will donate a dollar to a suggested charity all the way up to 500 bucks!! This is also a great way to get to know Flirt as well, she is truly a very, very sweet person that is doing a great job of building a cool blogging community with her kind and gracious support of many people like Cav and Sandee and now also Veronica. Go over there and leave a comment, it won't take but a couple minutes and the money will go to a good cause!

Blog o'the Week

I am going to take a break from Blog o'the Week for now because frankly I have my hands full reading all the great blogs you guys write already! I may do it monthly instead, but it will have to be exceptionally good. Thank you guys for checking out my previous choices and I am glad to see that Veronica has become quite a hit! She is pretty cool, eh? If you guys find anyone you want to suggest, well i'm sure you know by now how to hit me!

Did I say Two Things?
Trashman has succesfully guessed my dogs name! thanks to you guys that played! and I am sure I will do this again in the future!

Lets make that three things. I am itching to do another cool blogdo' for someone in the gang and I will give away an extreme blogger makeover to the first person that correctly guesses my dogs name. No fair guessing if you wouldn't like a makeover, but don't let that stop ya from leaving a cool or otherwise comment! The name is fairly common, it's one word and no I haven't mentioned this dogs name in my blog before so no need to dig thru my archives. Yes I know I have mentioned several dog names on here but not this one. The dogs name is also female to help narrow it down some! One guess per comment please to keep it fair, if you don't get it right, come back and guess again till someone wins! So jump in here and name that POOCH !!

who knew?

One night I came in from an evening at the bar feeling pretty good, and I could hear some raucous noise downstairs in the basement. I had 3 room mates at the time, the house was 3 bedrooms upstairs and a large bedroom in the basement. There sounded like a full blown party was going on downstairs with lots of laughing and loud talking and I could hear at least one womans voice. Eddie was the guy that lived in the basement room, we had worked together for a while, that's how we had met each other. I decided to see what was up so I head down the stairs and turn the corner into Eddies room and the sight before me was pretty wild. Eddie and another room mate, Steve had picked up a local girl at a bar and had brought her home for some play. I knew her as well, her name was Debbie and I had seen her around and we had talked and flirted several times before.

What I saw was all three of them on the floor on a big comforter, stripped naked and having sex with wild abandon. Debbie was on her hands and knees, ass in the air, taking Eddie in her mouth as Eddie was kneeling before her with his eyes rolled back in his head. Steve was kneeling behind her giving her all he had like a dog and slapping her ass at the same time. I was momentarily stunned and I muttered uh-oh and then Eddie looked over and saw me and he went uh-oh, this got Steve's attention of course and he looked around and yep he said uh-oh too! Debbie let Eddie slip from her mouth however, and looked around and saw me and said "Hey! I didn't know you lived here too, come join us!" This apparently wasn't all that cool with Steve and Eddie, I could tell by the looks on their faces that they weren't up to sharing more than they already were, but Debbie insisted and I figured why not. I stripped and grabbed a condom and jumped into the fray.

Debbie turned out to be pretty amazing and took all 3 of us on in every way you might imagine including all 3 of us at once. I had been in threesomes before but it was me and 2 women each time before, this was the first with another man in the group much less 2 other men. This was one epic session and I will never forget it as long as I live. Now it was getting into the wee hours of the morning and we were all getting pretty drunk and tired from all the activity and I distinctly remembered Eddie saying he had lost track of his condom. I remember him and Debbie searching for it briefly, turning the comforter over and searching the floor, but they coudn't find it and quickly gave up. The lost condom was quickly forgotten and I went upstairs to sleep, totally exhausted.

About a week later me and Eddie were at the bar and Debbie walks in with a big smile on her face. She comes over to the table and sits down and Eddie asks why she is smiling so hard. I think we both assumed she might be smiling because she wanted to play again that night and was just plain ecstatic to see us. She, however, looks at each of us in turn and says "Remember that condom you lost last week Eddie?" Eddie slowly nods and looks at me with a sideways glance and I could tell we both knew exactly what she would say next. "I found it last night!!" she giggled.

mechaniacal rants

• Oil changes do NOT include complete overhaul of the entire vehicle or even just the engine or transmission. If your car/truck/suv breaks down a week later, don't call asking if it was something we may have done wrong. That's not rocket science, usually an apprentice does oil changes and is normally well trained and supervised. However, nosepicking skills are no longer required.
• Repairing modern cars/trucks/suvs IS rocket science, computer and mathematical skills are required as well as powers of deduction, a background in electrical and electronics, some knowledge in physics and hydraulics, mechanical stress evaluation, a psychiatrist and the giddyness of an 8 yr old with his first model car kit.
• If your vehicles brakes have completely failed and you drive it in for repair, please warn the tech that there are NO brakes before he moves the vehicle. Driving the car into the shop before the garage door is actually open is not part of the normal repair process.
• Installing a new engine is just that, a new ENGINE, notice the difference between that and the words alternator, waterpump, transmission and so on and so forth. Only the ENGINE is warranteed not the entire vehicle. Do not expect us to replace failed wiper blades 6 months later because we installed an ENGINE.
• Engine warranties are normally 36,000 miles, don't come to us after 60,000 miles, never having changed the oil even one single time after we installed it and expect a new one. We mark that first oil filter and know if it has been changed at all, 60,000 miles on the break-in oil is a SIN. May you burn in hell for your indiscretions upon your poor defenseless vehicle.
• Driving that ultra swanky, over priced, over rated, over engineered piece of crap may look purty but that don't make it the best vehicle on the road, and don't expect preferential treatment just because you think it is. We do however make exceptions for secksy women driving secksy cars.....
• A fancy box of high dollar tools does not a mechanic make, but I always spent a couple hundred dollars a month or more on new tools just to keep up with emerging automotive technologies. Besides, the new stuff is the most fun to play with. weeeee
• A joke for the ones that read this far, What's the difference between a Porsche and a Porcupine? The Porsche has the pricks on the inside.

Damn, my cigarette lighter socket stopped working, I bet those guys that fixed my brakes last month did something wrong...grrrrr

Music Tag

Veronica over at HissyFit tagged me to do this quiz on music, sooooo here we goooooo!

Random 10 :

1. Led Zeppelin - Kashmir
2. Rolling Stones - Paint it Black
3. AC/DC - Hells Bells
4. ZZ Top - Sharp Dressed Man
5. Prong - Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck
6. Pantera - Five Minutes Alone
7. Nirvana - Heart Shaped Box
8. Godsmack - I Stand Alone
9. Disturbed - Sickness
10. Ministry - Filth Pig

1. What is the total number of music files on your computer? about 100, I guess

2. What is the last CD you bought? Lacuna Coil

3. What is the last song you listened to before this post? Skinlab - Bullet With Butterfly Wings

4. Name 5 songs you often listen to or mean a lot to you :

• Sound Garden - Black Hole Sun
• Tool - Prison Sex
• Type O Negative - October Rust
• Lacuna Coil - Heavens a Lie
• Godsmack - Awake

Who are you going to stick this to and why :

Restless Angel = just because I want to..

Inanna= she loves music, why not?

Lauren= would be interesting to see her choices...

So there ya have it! Weeee that was fun.....

Mardi Gras Mambo

The Quarter

I have been a bit preoccupied of late with a special someone coming into my life so it isn't a surprise that I completely forgot about the parade I was going to attend Saturday night. A phone call out of the blue with an unfamiliar voice on the other end woke me up with the realization that I was expecting a call from a fellow blogger who intended to meet me in the French Quarter! She told me to meet her and her friends at the Cat's Meow at the corner of Bourbon and St. Peters. I had never been to that bar before but I am very familiar with the corner. I decided to walk across the ferry at Algiers point which takes you to the foot of Canal St. and that's within walking distance of the Quarter. It started to rain while I was on the ferry and was crushed that the parade that night might be postponed but it was just a scattered shower and it stopped 15 minutes later, so I continued on to the quarter. I turned up Bourbon St and as I went the crowd got thicker and thicker the furthr up I went. There were a lot of people in the street and it was slow going at times but interesting to people watch.

The Cat's Meow

I arrived at the bar and made my way in and there was a crush of people inside and loud music and everyone having a great time singing aloud. It's a karaoke bar and it was really crankin' with a fun crowd. I walked around and I knew my blogging friend was going to be wearing a red shirt and after just a few minutes I found her! Her name is Laurie of the blog called "Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans" and she had several friends with her that had all come in from Beaumont, Tx for the weekend. They were all nicely dressed in matching hats and shirts, each wearing matching beads as well,what a great idea! We had a great time chatting and meeting each other and we took a few pics you can see here. There were a number of good singers that got up plus there were a few notable locals that obviously came often and sort of ran the show. The best part was when 4 people got up and did the "YMCA" song complete with partial costume, they did a great job and everyone cheered them on. It was getting close to parade time now so I wished Laurie and her nice friends g'bye and headed over to Royal St. one block over from Bourbon and the site of the parade.

Royal St.

Royal St. was even more crowded than Bourbon and I staked myself out at the corner of St. Peters and waited for the parade to pass. I got restless and wandered around a bit after a while and browsed thru a couple tourist gift-T-shirt shops and found a shirt I wanted but they didn't have my size so I moved on. I went back to my spot as soon as I heard the sirens up the street signaling the front of the parade. All the street pictures I took were right near the corner of Royal and St Peters if you're curious, it turned out to be a pretty decent spot, not too jammed with people.

Krewe de Vieux

This Mardi Gras Krewe is totally irreverent and always puts on a great show, it's an all walking parade and the floats are all homemade and horsedrawn. Behind each float were groups of people marching in costumes that followed the theme of each respective float and they always lampoon some ideological subject. This year however they decided to lampoon many subjects and here is an excerpt from their news letter "Le Monde de Merde" translated "The World of Shit":

The Krewe du Vieux’s seventeen subkrewes will present their own biblical, babbling, bawdy,
bodacious, bi-lingual, cunilingual, cuneiform, reform, unrepentant, petulant, penile, papal and highly interrogatory interpretations of the theme. Sub-krewes include the Krewe of C.R.U.D.E., Krewe of Space Age Love, Krewe of Underwear, Seeds of Decline, Krewe of Mama Roux, Krewe of L.E.W.D., Krewe of Drips and Discharges, Krewe of K.A.O.S., Knights of Mondu, T.O.K.I.N., Krewe Rue Bourbon, Krewe de C.R.A.P.S., Krewe of Pan, Krewe du Jieux, Mystic Krewe of Spermes, Krewe of Comatose, and Mystic Krewe of Inane.

As you can see there were a wide variety of subjects and sub Krewes involved.

The Parade

The sirens got closer and then the sound from the marching bands took over the street as there were also small groups of just various musicians loosely organized behind each float, some in costumes and some not. Each float was lit with battery power and were somewhat crudely made but they were still able to portray their lampoon intentions quite well. Here is my favorite float called "Praise the Load" featuring a giant penis spurting into a wine goblet!

"Praise the Load"


Here is another float with a hilarious theme titled "Cock Fighting vs Cock Biting, notice the teeth on the penis!

"Cock Fighting vs Cock Biting"

The parade was disapointingly short but lots of fun to watch and the crowd was very well behaved. I have a few more pictures of the parade and the evening at my photoblog . I had a great time and can't wait till Mardi Gras day. Wish you guys could all be here!!

metallica blows

my proverbial skirt up. And it's a good thing that I wasn't wearing a skirt that night because the people in the front row would have gotten a bonus sideshow, and especially cuz I like going commando! One night me and my friend Damon were just hanging out at the swamp and the phone rings with a call from a friend of his. The guy worked a security firm in the Atlanta area and called to see if he wanted to work security at a Metallica concert coming up and did he have any friends that could help. I, being the quick witted swamp rat that I am raised my hand quickly and that was the beginning of an awesome adventure. Ya never know when good things will just fall right into your lap!

We show up the night of the concert and are handed bright colored T-shirts to put on, an ID on a rope to wear around our necks and, get this, earplugs! This gig didn't pay any money, you just got to seee the show for free in exchange for looking like a mean mofo for the crowds displeasure. So earplugs? Hellooooo, why the HELL would I go to a concert and wear earplugs. If I am going to see one of my favorite metal bands of all time dammit, I WANT my eardrums ravaged, I want to be going huh? for the next 3 days, I mean thats what its all about right? And I want my moneys worth. I mean seriously, if I am going to eat Ice Cream I don't want none of that fat free, low sugar crap. If I am going to eat Ice Cream I WANT the bad stuff too. Sheesh.

Anyways, we get handed our assignments and omg the lucky stars was shinin' bright that night as we both got assigned to DIRECTLY IN FRONT of the stage, and right next to each other. haha Now this meant of course if the crowd should stampede the stage me and Damon were first to die! Another mad bonus was I was positioned near stage right, right next to the guitar wrangler. He is the guy that has this big black walk-in closet on wheels and he takes care of all the instruments used during the concert. That means if they break a string they hand it down to him and he changes that and then tunes it with a meter device so he don't have to hear it. Then he cleans it up and slaps it in the closet for when they want it back on stage. Pretty cool to watch him in action.

The concert starts and at the first blast of music the entire crowd surges forward against the portable guard rails that line the front, me and Damon and several others are in between that and the stage in a sort of no-mans-land. Ok, this just scares the hell outta me but the fence holds and we settle back for some killer music and jeez was it good and unholy hell it was hot! It was inside an arena with the audience surrounding the stage on 3 sides and they had lots of a/c blowing but it wasn't enough because the place was sold out, 2 nights in a row! Now one cool thing going on was they were throwing handfulls of guitar picks into the audience, each one having the Metallica logo printed into each one. And of course the crowd was frantic over catching these things and dammit I wanted one but they were all going out into the crowd! After a while the bassist comes down off the stage while they are in mid song and is walking up and down in no-mans-land playing like a madman, sweat just pouring off him like it was raining and omg right out of the blue he stops playing for a split second and puts THE pick he was using right in to my hand! Not one of the hundred brand new ones they tossed out but an actual honest to god used pick. I remember there was a girl that kept flashing me and begging for that pick, and I almost gave it away but I got flashed anyway so I kept it! I have a picture of it here in my photo blog and looking closely you can tell it has been used! Metallica has faded into the background a bit since then but I will always remember that concert as one of the best ones I have ever been to, and I will likely see them again in the future. If you get a chance to see them and you like rock, go for it because they do put on a great show!

Tell me about your fave concert! rock and roll or otherwise!

shut up!

No! I won't!
You don't mean it!
Yes I do! damn you!
Haha you suck!
Now you shut up!
Whatever!
You know I will!
No, you won't!
Watch me!
You will wuss out like always!
I said, watch me!
Hahaha!
That's it, get out!
Hahaha!
I will tell her, just watch me!
I don't believe you!

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I told her!
No you didn't!
SHUT UP! YOU KNOW I DID!
I know, I was there, remember?
Asshole!
So what did she say?
You know what she said, why are you still bothering me??
I just want to hear you say it out loud, dumbass!
She liked it, really liked it, I think, now get the hell out!
Alright, alright, I'm going, don't blow a gasket!
And STAY OUT asshole....

slathery goodness

I must say I am sitting pretty high in my pirogue (p. peerow) today. Sometimes just being yourself can be very rewarding in most unusual and unexpected ways. What am I talking about? Take a look at what Veronica at Hissy Fit had to say about me and you guys that were kind enough to go say hi to her. That lady has a lot of c l a s s and she ain't afraid to use it! And a huge bonus, take a look at that absolutely gorgeous oil painting she did called "Mardi Gras Grrl". She is going to send me a print of it in the mail! I already know where I want to display it and I will cherish it forever I am sure. In fact I just thought of another very cool place to display it! See it here! So if you haven't checked her out yet you better rush over and say hi and she will luv ya dearly and there ain't nothin' wrong with that!

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Ritchie Goes Diving

In my previous post I talked about Ritchie and Tommy and I want to expand on Ritchies story a bit. Inspired by Catt. It seems that the neighborhood I grew up in as a teenager had several commercial deep sea divers, so it was natural to be inspired by these men and want to go on the very same semi-romantic type of adventureism for yourself. Ritchie and me were two of those kids and he became a really great diver in his own right.

One of the things that make diving so dangerous is the possiblity of the bends in a way that cannot be repaired. What happens is a tiny bubble of oxygen or nitrogen that is normally in your bloodstream is allowed to expand so quickly that it lodges itself in a way that blocks bloodflow or puts pressure on a nerve in your central nervous system called a cns hit. To give you a simple idea of how this works imagine an ordinary balloon filled with air, then take that ballon underwater and the deeper you go the smaller it will get because of the water pressure increase surrounding the balloon. Return the balloon back to the surface and it will expand back to it's original size! Well the exact same thing happens to the microscopic bubbles in your bloodstream, as you return to the surface they are aspirated out thru the lungs as you breathe. However if they expand too quickly meaning you are rising too quickly to allow them to aspirate out, then they may become lodged someplace and that is very, very bad.

Now Ritchie as it turned out happened to be one of those men that was most unfortunate in that he got a bubble in his central nervous system and it caused some damage in the nerves in his spinal cord. They were able to remove the bubble by recompressing him and then slowly decompressing to allow the bubble to pass normally out. However the nerve damage had been done and he was not able to walk any longer without the use of a cane. He had a very severe limp and a lot of numbness in one leg. He also could not be useful as a diver anymore and that was very sad, but he did go on to sue the company and was able to prove negligence in which he was awarded a huge sum of money and as far as I know is still wealthy today. His outlook on life after the accident was very good that I can recall and I still wish the man all the luck in the world.

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Mardi Gras is getting closer kids and I am getting stoked up to bring ya guys lotsa slathery goodness about all the cool events coming up! Stay tuned!

blog o'the week

I have a special blog o' the week this time boys and girls, a very sweet lady named Veronica who is suffering from breast cancer and is very new to the blogging scene. She has one really cool blog at Hissy Fit, very pretty the way it is set up and I would very much appreciate you all going over and giving her a hearty hello. She doesn't have many posts up yet so it's not a lot to read but still quite good. Also find her at the link in my sidebar.

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the chocolate bar

One of my best friends, a guy we called Tommy was famous for picking on his younger brother Ritchie. No matter what Ritchie did or had, Tommy would either take it away from him or tease him in some way. One day Ritchie came out the house into the garage where we hanging out and he was about to eat a candy bar. Of course Tommy jumped him and took the candy bar away and ate it quickly to keep Ritchie from having it. After Tommy was finished swallowing the entire bar Ritchie announced that it was in fact not chocolate but Ex-Lax in the old candy bar form. Tommy missed school for 2 days and Ritchie got beat up.

too close for comfort

One of the many jobs I did for a living was to fit pipe and tubing together and weld them with a torch or welding machine. This required doing a lot of measuring at all types of lengths, curves and angles, and you could easily wear out even a high quality retractable tape measure in just a couple months, cheapass chinese knock-offs just didn't cut the mustard. Being the fidgety type person that I am and having the tape measure hanging on my belt made it a fun toy even when I wasn't "working". One day I happened to have the tape extended while the tape measure was still hooked on my belt as I was playing with it when someone came up beside me. I swung around and nearly hit him in the mouth with the end of the tape and exclaimed "Damn dude, you're only 36 inches away from giving me a blow-job! back off sukka!" Now of course the guy got all hacked off at me while several people laughed out loud and it was quite funny or so I thought anyway, but, I don't think the guy ever forgave me, was I so wrong??

Mardi Gras King Cakes

The King Cake is believed to have originated in France around the 12th Century. In European countries, the coming of the three wise men bringing gifts to the child Jesus is celebrated twelve days after Christmas, called the Feast of the Epiphany, or Little Christmas on the Twelfth Night, or King's Day.

The most popular custom is the baking of a special cake in honor of the three kings... a "Kings Cake." These cakes were made in a circle shape to portray the circular route used by the wise men. This route was taken in order to confuse King Herod who was trying to kill the Christ child.

In early European king cakes, a bean, a pea, or a coin was hidden inside the dough and the person who got the piece was declared king for a day, or was said to have good luck in the coming year. The Latin Americans; however, put a small figure inside the cakes representing the Christ child. The tradition has now evolved that the person who gets the baby is expected to carry on the carnival festivities by hosting the next king cake party. Starting the twelfth day after Christmas, king cake parties continue until the first day of Lent, ending on Fat Tuesday, also known as Mardi Gras day!

Notice the text in the small purple box says:

"Caution non-edible plastic baby inside" haha

King cakes were first introduced with little decorations on a simple ring of dough. The New Orleans style king cake is brightly decorated with the traditional Mardi Gras colors: purple, representing justice; green, representing faith; and gold, representing power. A fresh baked king cake is fine Louisiana tradition. I can't describe just how good these cakes really are and they come stuffed with different fruit or cinnamon flavors.

Here is another with a better look at the baby,

these days you have to stuff it inside in case

you are concerned someone will choke on it!

These cakes are carried by many stores such as bakeries and groceries and are eaten at this house just for the hell of it, no "party" needed as they are that good!

america cares ---Updated!

Many of you have signed up for different clubs and lists to help generate traffic to your blog, and some do help quite a bit, like Blog Explosion, but you have to sign up and then surf to earn display hits or purchase hits to get your blog in the rotation. Blah, blah, blah. How about something that you do not need to sign up for and no surfin' or any real effort on your part? Why not display this flag on your blog to show your patriotism and that you are either an american yourself or are pro american and believe in the power of our great country. Or just to show your support for unity, or our amazing troops or whatever your favorite american cause may be! I certainly will not fault you if you choose not to display it, because that is up to you (terrorist bastards) It's a free country! Simply right click the flag and save to your HD and then upload to your favorite server. Or copy and paste this into your sidebar and add the left and right pointer html tag on each end and it should load directly from the Google server i put it on:

from here--> img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/

img/243/2467/640/flag2.jpg" <--to there

and don't forget the pointer tag on each end

United Bloggers of America

I created a whole new blog dedicated to the purpose

of spreading this flag to anyone who wishes to use it here.

If you decide to make the flag itself into a link have it point to

ourflag.blogspot.com

NEW!!! Go the flag blog and leave a comment that you "stole"

the flag to use on your blog and get a link to YOUR blog from there!!

this means war!

It has come to my recent attention that other people are also writing blogs. Yes you, you people, the people reading this blog. This is not a good thing people, this is an act of blogging attrition, a strategic blogs race, an escalation of nuclear blogging power to the nth degree. If you do not cease and desist I will be forced to spend even MORE of my time defending the ground that my forebloggers sought to keep as their sacred and holy cyber space. I vow to put forth whatever I deem necessary and with out regard to spending limits from my national blogging treasury. You must realize that in time of need that I have the will and shall without worry or doubt send the dogs of war upon you, with complete disregard for the evil beings you truly are! No one shall be innocent of these crimes against this cyber space, not even myself, and we shall all go to hell together if need be. It is not too late for reconciliation, so think and come to the right decision, our blogging lives just may depend on it.

So what are you guys up to this weekend? hehe

3 things

I have been tagged by Celti, a sweet, blue eyed beauty with a killer tattoo gallery, to do a little quiz of sorts that consists of 3 random questions. hmmm, here we go :

3 names you go by:
1. big dog
2. BFD
3. asshole

3 screen names you have:
1. alpha
2. seven
3. biteseven

3 things you like about yourself:
1. my new haircut, short and spiky.
2. i lived
3. i quit smoking

3 things I hate/dislike about myself:
1. my skin gets too dry
2. i blog read too much
3. i curse too much

3 parts of your heritage:
1. French
2. Irish
3. Italian

3 things that scare you
1. horses
2. falling to my death
3. nothing else

3 of your everyday essentials:
1. bloggin
2. brushing my last tooth, lol
3. messing up my pc's

3 things your wearing right now:
1. grey T-shirt
2. levi's
3. nothing else

3 of your favorite bands/artists:
1. Godsmack
2. ZZ Top
3. Lacuna Coil

3 of your favorite songs at the present:
1. "I Stand Alone" by Godsmack
2. "Heaven's a Lie" by Lacuna Coil
3. "Sickness" by Disturbed

3 things you want in a relationship
(love is a given, and i will add in great sex and honesty):
1. Intelligence
2. Respect
3. Humor

2 truths and a lie (no particular order to keep you guessing):
1. I was a junky
2. I have never been arrested
3. I have been married twice

3 physical things about a love interest that appeal:
1. dark or black hair
2. great smile
3. kind eyes

3 things you just can't do:
1. whistle thru my fingers
2. bite my nails
3. turn my music down

3 of your favorite hobbies: (blogging isn't a hobby, it's an addiction):
1. hot rodding my pc's (i have 4 running at this very moment, lol)
2. recording music to cd's
3. living

3 things you want to do badly right now
1. eat breakfast
2. eat lunch
3. read more blogs

3 careers you are considering:
1. build choppers
2. computer technician
3. author

3 kids names (either boy or girl)
1. Jason
2. Lee Ann
3. Kid

3 things you want to do before you die:
1. have great sex with Sandra Bullock
2. have great sex with Kate Beckinsale
3. have great sex with Morgan Webb (of G4 TV/ Xplay fame)

3 people who have to take this quiz now:
1. Trashman (very trashy)
2. Lauren (very blunt)
3. Reama (turns tricks)

so there ya have it folks, the lowdown on the dog!

the crash

One of the jobs we had to do in the diving business was regrettably not a very easy task, we were often called upon to look for bodies in plane and helicopter crashes at sea. I remember one such job I was assigned to when I was 18 yrs old was to help a crew search for a downed helicopter. It had clipped it's tail rotor on the edge of the landing pad where it was taking off from an offshore platform and crashed into the sea. It was in an area just south of the Mississippi river where the underwater current moved swiftly and the water was very muddy making it very difficult for the divers to do their job. Here is a picture of a platform, notice the helicopter deck at the very top edge.

The pilot and front seat passenger were able to get out and swim to safety when it hit the water but the two men in back went to the bottom apparently unable to get free of their seatbelts as we were soon to find out. We spent almost a week on the site sending divers down around the clock doing search patterns in a circle surrounding the platform in fairly deep water until we located the wreckage. It had been rolled along the sea floor by the strong underwater currents and was almost 400 ft away from where it had crashed. When you can't see your hand in front of your face because the water is so muddy that is a long ways off. We were on board a 200 ft long ocean-going work boat tied along side the platform where we had all of our diving equipment on board, here is a picture showing just the front half of a similar vessel.

Thankfully the weather was decent at the time and it was nice to be on deck with the sun shining and the seas calm, perfect for shorts and sneakers. One very odd thing was the sighting of a waterspout, a tornado at sea not more than a mile away from us. Really strange and I understand fairly rare occurence. It was quite beautiful actually with the sky so clear and only a dark patch of clouds over the spout itself. We watched it churning up the sea throwing huge quantities of water into the air as it moved off away from us. Simply amazing. A remarkable thing about offshore is if there is a strong breeze blowing it will blow very steady and not gusty at all. You can actually lean your weight into a strong breeze and depend on it to hold you up.

After nearly a week of around the clock diving, we finally located the chopper upside down on the bottom. We were sent to recover both the the chopper and the bodies, but they decided to bring only the bodies on board and set a buoy on a cable to the chopper for later pickup with another vessel. I was unfortunate enough to be on duty when the first body was hauled in and I had to help pull him over the rail and get him on deck. I really don't want to describe how the man looked after small fish had been eating on him for the past 4 or 5 days, lets just say it was quite horrible. We then tried to put him in a body bag but that was not easy as rigormortis had set in and the man was in a seated position with his knees up, like he was still strapped in to the chopper seat. That was one of the most life changing experiences I have ever had, and I would learn that working offshore could be quite deadly in the years ahead of me. Including several close friends being killed on the job, but, I will tell you about those later.

So for now, keep tha faith people and tell me how lousy you guys are doing on your New Year resolutions!

blog o' the week

I have a new "Blog o'the Week" up! It's from a young lady in southern Louisiana, yep, another crazee cajun! Give it a try, il est très drôle! It's called The Blunt Harpoon. Also a link in my sidebar. Requirements for "Blog o'the Week" are here.

shorty long

There was a supervisor at the offshore construction company that I used to work for who's last name was Long. I can't recall his real first name but he picked up the nickname "Shorty" when he was in the Navy. Why? Because he was quite short, maybe 5' 3" or so. It was one of those nicknames where people didn't have to ask him why he was called that. He was likable enough but really quirky and had some odd ideas on how, and why certain things needed to be done. If you worked beneath him you automatically hated his guts even though he was very friendly to everyone. I didn't have to worry about that because I was also a supervisor.

Once when I had been offshore for nearly 3 months I got a weekend break and got to go home for 2 days. That meant I would spend almost as much time travelling to home and back as I would get to spend at home, but after that long you will endure most anything to get some good luvin'. Even an 18 hour long boatride in rough seas where everyone is pukin there guts up from seasickness. Upon my return, Shorty, in his dumbass way, actually asked me if I had done any hunting. Now almost anyone would know that 3 months at sea would make you one very horny boy and huntin' would be the LAST thing I would do, and besides I wasn't a hunter anyway. I replied yeah, Shorty, I had done some great huntin! I was looking for some double breasted, split-tailed mattress thumpers while I was in and I had a great time. The man actually looked at me shocked like he could not believe that I wouldn't have gone huntin'. What a dope.
Everyone in the area laughed at him and he got pretty embarrased.

The man also had the worst luck of anyone I had ever seen. One day me and a diver friend named Mike were on our bikes and we stopped in at the diving yards to pick up some parts for his diving helmet. Shorty was there and he was admiring Mikes brand new Harley, and wound up asking if he could test ride it. Now I can tell you right off there would be no way in hell I would let that dumbass ride mine, but Mike felt like he couldn't refuse, because Shorty was his boss on the job, and not mine. Anyway the area of the dive yards is heavily populated with some super heavy duty equipment like diesel generators and hydraulic power units that weigh tons. Well Shorty got on Mikes bike and revved it up and took off hard and didn't go 30 ft and he slammed head on into a generator, and actually made the generator move! Needless to say he did lots of damage to the bike that he had to pay. He was lucky he didn't kill himself to say the least.

Shorty was into fishing and hunting and had a nice bass boat and trailer. He got off one weekend and, yup you guessed it, he went fishing! That is sad all by itself, but he had some serious bad luck that weekend. He had a friend with him and they were cruising out in the boat when the steering cable broke and he wound up running the boat quite a ways up in to the swamps and got stuck. They wound up stranded there overnight waiting for someone to pass by that could pull them out and tow him in. When they got back to the boat launch he backed his car down the ramp and loaded the boat up and locked the keys in the car with the engine running right there on the ramp.

There were many people waiting to use the ramp and he ended up breaking a window out of the car to get in. Of course he broke the drivers window so he had to sit in broken glass on the way home. Now you would think that would be enough for most people but not for Shorty! Hell no, he backed the boat into his driveway and accidentally rammed the outboard motor clean thru his garage door! Many times when I feel like things aren't going my way, all I have to do is tell myself, at least I ain't Shorty!

new blog o'the week is up

This one is from a lady in Pennsylvania and has some interesting thoughts, give it a try.

Creatively Amusing also a link in my sidebar as well.
requirements for "Blog o'the Week" are here.

My Fav Dog

Back in the days when I used to work offshore in the diving business, I would be gone for long periods of time, up to 3 months. I was concerned about my wifes security while I was gone and so I thought a dog would be a great addition to the household. We agonized for a while over what type of dog we would get and settled on a Doberman Pinscher. Back then nothing said don't mess with me better than the appearance of a dobie next to you, never mind if the dog was actually mean, it just looked mean as hell. We bought one and decided to train it well, so we purchased several books on training that breed. This is highly recommended by the way, as most dogs have a great capacity for learning almost anything, provided you know how to teach it in a way that is creatively fun for the dog. And yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks, provided you do it correctly.

We quickly learned we had a dog with some exceptional talent for being trained and proved to be the most wonderful companion everywhere we went, even to Europe. We named her Dana, short and easy to say, making it easier for the dog to respond when called upon. Dana eventually learned about 40 different commands, including hand signals and learned a lot of them in french as well, yep my dog spoke french! She also amazingly was a lip reader, if you got her attention she would watch for you to mouth the words silently and actually do what you said for simple words like sit and stay and come. Here are some of the fun things she did:

• She hated hats, if you put a hat of any kind on your head she treated you like you just beamed in from the planet Zylon and would bark at you like a fool, scaring you silly.
• Roach murderer, she hated roaches with a passion and would go out of her way to destroy it. She would lie in wait for a roach out of reach on the wall and when it came close enough she would pounce on it and bite it then spit it back out. Lots of fun first thing in the morning to find half chewed roaches on the floor, eww. Very fun to watch though, and she always got her roach!
• Restaurants in Europe allow you to bring your dog inside, and she loved to lie under our table like she was a queen, with her front legs crossed and watch quietly at everything going on. Waiters would usually bring a small bone or a small bowl of complimentary soup for her and she never failed to draw lots of admiring attention from the other patrons of the eatery. She was very dainty and never made a mess.
• Very possessive, we walked her in the park a lot and would let her roam free but she would never get out of sight. We would "hide" behind a tree or other object when she wasn't looking and then when she looked and couldn't see us would frantically search for us. When she "found" us she would greet us like we had been gone a week, stubby tail waving and everything. She never failed to do that!
• Crotch sniffing, the one thing she did that I never could break her from doing. She would do it so very quickly and unobtrusively so that I wouldn't have a chance to rebuff her for it. She was good at it and did it to everyone she got close enough to.
• She scared the bejeesus out of a cop one day. He came to the front door to take a report on some items stolen from my garage and had a hat on when he knocked at the front screen door. She saw him and charged the door barking like a dog from hell with teeth snarling and he ran to safety outside the front gate, shutting it behind him. I asked him to remove the hat and suddenly he was her best friend and wouldn't stop bothering him for attention.
• Loved alcohol, never leave an alcohol drink unattended, she would sneak some and not leave any sign that she had lapped some from your glass, she got tipsy very easily, and was fun to watch.
• Loved to play on stairs, she would run up and down them like it was a roller coaster ride or something and was lots of fun to watch. The first time she encountered stairs though, I had to physically carry her up because she refused to try it. Never heard a dog scream in fear before, but she quickly got the hang of it and ran them so much she drove me nuts!
• If I left any clothing laying about she would pick it up and sneak it to her bed at night and sleep on it, even dirty socks and underwear and she would get huffy if you retrieved your dirty sock or whatever she had stolen.

So now you're saying finally a post about dogs on it's a dog's life! Needless to say I miss her very much and hope to have another like that someday.

Now, tell me about some of the cool stuff your favorite pet has done!