Jazz Fest!

Went to the fest last Sunday and had a great time! The weather was beautiful and the food was insane! I had planned on going again today but unfortunately it's raining and ugly out so I stayed home. But you guys get to see a few pics from last week!

Rosie Ledet at the Fais Do Do stage above

A close up!

The Wild Magnolias!!

Dr. John of Night Trippers fame! he was awesome!

"I was in the right place but it must have been the wrong time"

On the big screen!

Have a good weekend!!!!

deep sea dumbasses

One of the funniest things I ever saw was a diver that wasn't working. He was supposed to be guiding an undersea pipeline about 12" in diameter into a set of saddles going up one leg of an offshore platform. There were cables attached to it from winches and a crane through sets of pulleys rigged up to handle the task. The diver in this situation was supposed to be just guiding the operation from below, giving instructions to the dive controller on how tight each line had to be to get the pipeline into position and then he would bolt the pipe into the clamp in place underwater.

But, once he had the pipe guided in to the clamp he decided he had done enough and took a little nap of sorts underwater. He was working at about 30 feet below the surface and the water was incredibly clear that day and you could see him from the deck. He apparently didn't realize this because he just sat there on a horizontal brace of the rig giving out imaginary instructions to the dive controller. I was standing on the edge of the vessel tending his hose and had been watching his progress as he did his job, but, once I realized he wasn't doing anything I motioned the dive controller over to the edge of the deck and pointed to him. After about a minute of watching him do nothing but pretend to work he ended the dive and fired the dude, told him to catch the next boat hitting shoreside. The look of shock on his face was priceless when the controller told him he was being watched from the surface!

Another funny one was a newbie diver that nearly bit his own tongue half off because he didn't think. One of the diver tenders jobs was to make sure the divers breathing hose was clear and snag free at all times, you actually stood on the edge of the deck holding the hose and tried to gently feel the amount of slack in the hose at all times while the diver was in the water. It needed to be lightly taut at all times to ensure there was no slack or droop in the line that could cause his lifeline to get tangled or damaged in any way. Sounds easy but it's not, the hose asembly is fairly heavy and it takes quite a bit of experience to tell the difference between the divers pull and the pull of sea currents.

When you help dress your diver out with his diving hat and tools you have to feed enough slack over the edge to make sure he can make a clear jump into the water from the deck from as high as 20 ft sometimes in full gear. Once you ensured everything was clear you tapped the diver on the shoulder to give him the sign to jump. This one guy didn't wait for the high sign from his tender, there was no slack in the hose and he jumped overboard. The hose caught an obstruction on deck and he didn't hit the water, the hose jerked him up like a hangmans noose to his harness and the sudden stop made him slam into the hull of the vessel and nearly sever his tongue with his own teeth! They took him away in an emergency chopper, not a good way to make one of your first dives!

I recall one of my first jobs as a newbie tender, me and one diver were on a small barge working in very shallow water. Just me and him were the entire diving crew, that meant I had to care for his gear, the radio equipment, the air compressor (an old hand cranked diesel that was a bitch to start up) plus whatever tools he needed. I was barely seventeen I think and I was stuck with a lot of responsibility. I had to tend his hose and talk to him on the radio to relay instructions to the rigging crew to assist his job in the water, meanwhile making sure everything on deck keeping him alive was working properly and just generally johnny on the spot if shit went wrong. He had been going in and out the water all day, very shallow work and we fell into a routine getting a lot of work done. Since the diesel air compressor was so noisy we shut it off between every short dive when he came up for a break.

He took this one break and I forgot the compressor was off and I got him back into the water and after a few minutes he says on the radio, "hey my air is gettin' kinda short down here, don't you think you should start that compressor?" HOLY SHIT! I looked over and sure enough the compressor was off and the gauge on the air tank on deck showed nearly empty! I grabbed that crank handle for the diesel and cranked that damn thing for all I was worth, nearly having a stroke at 17 years old! The bastard thought it was funny, he knew the thing was off before he went in the water and just wanted to hear me panicking on the radio thinking I was killing him! The water was shallow enough there was really no danger of injury and he had a bottle of air on his backpack for emergencies. In the end it was funny but that little incident kept me on my toes for later years, what an experience!

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If I thought for a minute that they played this music shipboard all day and nite I would join the Navy in a minute... see if you recognize this song from the recruiting commercials...

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I was flying below the clouds, gliding effortlessly over the landscape, the wind screaming in my ears. The buildings below looked like toys in a childs playpen and the people looked inanimate as I blew by so quickly everything was almost a blur. My cape was making loud popping noises as it cracked like a whip trailing behind me in the winds of my passage. Suddenly I felt heat, strong and intense, a deep burning, burning, burning. I quickly realized it was a very strong sensation in my loins and the heat became so intense I could barely stand the pain...was I being assaulted by some insidious heat ray from the ground below? I turned and doubled back using my enhanced vision to search the ground swooping in for a closer look. I saw nothing out of the ordinary but then... the light changed and the car behind me blew its horn.

I had spilled my boiling hot coffee in my lap, damn I gotta stop day dreaming at red lights.

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Beat the Blogger Bastard

Create Post just like you normally would and when you're ready to Publish hit the tab marked Edit HTML, then, right click in the window, Select All then right click again and hit Copy. Now you have your entire post on your PC's clipboard memory and with that you can paste it back into the Edit window over and over again if needed if/when Blogger eats your post!

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My latest blogger template goodness over at Just Jade, she's really cool too! Go over and say Hi! And tell her you love jade... hehe, hell yeah!

I'm still installing customized Haloscan goodness at anyones blog that can support it for free!! Gimme a shout!! You can scream at me here!

Have a good weekend!!!

eye ball sucking machine part deux

This is a continuation of sorts to seeing the eye doc at Walmart that prescribed my one contact lens. You can read part 1 here.

My right eye that I wear the contact in has been bothering me the past several days and I'm not sure why. I replaced the contact with a new one (disposables, 1 month continuous day & nite wear) because of the irritation and it continues to bother me. I tried rewetting and cleaning and nothing seems to make a difference. So, I decided to go see the guy at Walmart (yeah, I know, major mistake right off...) that did the original script and have him look at it for any problems. I made an appointment for 1:00 this afternoon. I showed up almost 10 minutes early and he was nearly 1/2 hour late.

I get annoyed very quickly because #1 I'm just plain impatient when I'm kept waiting for no apparent reason and #2 I expect someone that is supposed to be professional as in a "doctor" especially will be on time or at least give a call to notify his office he will be late. This is COMMON COURTESY. I was starting to worry he may not show at all but the receptionist said he "should" be here any time. She apparently noticed my disgust and tried to call to see where he was, no response. I also noticed that the display sign out front said his hours today were shown as 1:00pm to 7:00pm. Not only was he late for the appointment but the sucker was late for work!

Finally after she makes the second call to locate him I get really ticked off and tell her I have shopping to do in the pharmacy area and that I would be back in 5 minutes. She says no problem, I'll page you as soon as he arrives. Sure enough no more than 5 minutes later I hear my name over the Walmart sound system so I head over to the eye center and guess what? There was a guy that had showed up for a full on eye exam about 15 minutes after I got there and this asshole eye doctor takes him right in before I could make it back over there! I was definitely not happy at this point! I would now have to wait 45 minutes to an hour more for him to finish with this other guy on top of the 45 minutes that had already passed!

I held my rage and politely told the lady at the counter that I would go elsewhere and find a doctor that was more professional and I stomped out. I may be a patient but that doesn't mean that I have to be patient in my opinion. I'm the one paying for services and I expect to be "waited" on, NOT the other way around! I mean wtf is it with people that feel that they can use your time at their leisure without even a howdy or some ass lube. The fact that he is supposed to be a member of a profession makes it even worse, not an excuse to treat everyone else like they are beneath his contempt. I do understand the difference from say an MD or a medical doc on call to an emergency room or a similar situation, but at least they are normally forthright in telling you that he will be late. A phone call could have made all the difference. This guy was not on some emergency call, he was probably having one last margarita at his favorite restaurant.

The bastard.

What would you guys have done? Waited for him? Or show your disgust for his unprofessional behavior by taking your hard-earned money elsewhere?

mymy meme

a few things about me!

1. I grew up within one block of the Mississippi River and swam in it as a child with my younger brother even though we were forbidden to go near it.
2. We would throw rocks at the nutrias (rats as big as dogs) under the wharf at the Naval Base on the river.
3. I have a crack in my skull above my right eye where I ran into a parked car with my bicycle when I was about 5. It knocked me out and took 8 stitches to close, the scar and the crack are still there.
4. I fell off a horse and was dragged by my foot caught in a rope for a couple hundred feet on my stomach. I was probably 6 yrs old. ouch!
5. I used to seriously race motocross. I once ran in a state championship, I placed 3rd in the first heat, had a fall and finished 10th in the second heat and my bike brokedown in the last heat. I finished 17th overall in the state championships in spite of not even finishing the last heat!
6. The very next race I attended I broke my Suzuki's frame in 2 pieces on a very long highspeed jump. I never had it fixed.
7. I first worked offshore at 17 yrs old and had to lie about my age to go.
8. I delivered newspapers for 4 years in my early teens, I had one of those huge old fashioned paper boy bikes that weighed like 60 lbs. I was very well developed and could pedal a load of papers in it's huge basket for all I was worth for the entire route.
9. I bought my first motorcycle, a Yamaha motocrosser with money from that route.
10. I also bought a Kingston sunburst bass guitar and cool Ampeg tube amplifier with money from that paper route. I could never play worth a shit in spite of taking lessons.
11. I played in a neighborhood garage band called the Open Path and we did covers of old rock stuff from the Beatles, Cream, Led Zep and many others.
12. I was the bad assed loner in high school, nobody but nobody messed with me. Not even the football team members.
13. I once pressed 300 lbs 10 times quickly with my legs in the football workout room and the coach nearly had a heart attack and wanted to give me a BJ and then begged me to play on the team. He timed me in the 100 yard dash a couple of times and I was faster and stronger than anyone on the team.
14. This was witnessed by many football team members, that's why nobody messed with me.
15. The coach annoyed the hell out of me to play for a long time but I was too busy making money after school to play football.
16. My favorite uncle helped me build a soap box derby racer, I won my first heat, was knocked out of the competition in my second but it was a lot of fun.
17. I hated my high school years with a passion. It was too easy and I never had to apply myself. I would finish all my new text books within a week of each new semester and was bored to tears the rest of the time.
18. I have not attended one single high school reunion for many reasons, number one being that I could not care less.
19. I once hitchhiked to Little Rock, Arkansas from New Orleans to hang out with a school friend that moved there. I hitchhiked all over the southeast but that trip was my longest at one shot. Hitchhiking was a lot of fun back then, I've no idea what it's like now.
20. I stayed with that buddy at his grandparents farm in Arkansas for an entire summer. We worked in the fields for $1 an hour + room & board. It was a lot fun and we did a lot of partying on the weekends. The farm food was amazingly good.

That's it for today! This was my first meme list and it was fun and I'll add to it laters. Have a good weekend my friends!

manic monday...on tuesday...

I started my evaluations yesterday for my disability job placement. I've been waiting anxiously for this since this past November. I was originally scheduled for May but someone dropped out and they moved me up, yay!! Things went fairly well, I wasn't frazzling', thank you Nanner, *wink* and I think my scores were decent since I found that the tests were not very difficult. It remains to be seen, though. Everything was going great until this morning...

My day started early, the alarm didn't piss me off too much and I checked the weather. Looking good! A bit cool but comfortable with some dampness in the air from the overnight weather change. Nice and sunny as well. I left early to be at the evaluation center so that I could stop for some quick breakfast and then hit the road across the Greater N.O. bridge to start my day. I was looking forward to the testing actually.

Then disaster strikes, I was cruising northbound on a 4 lane avenue with a dividing median in the right hand lane. The traffic was a bit heavy and it wast slowing some here and there but not too badly. As I was approaching a red light and starting to coast in to stop I noticed the humongous suv in the left hand lane had to slow down as his lane was getting jammed to the light. My lane however was clear all the way to the light about a block ahead. Suddenly the humongous suv stopped to let some dirtwad cut across from a U-turn lane that wanted to go all the way straight across both lanes into a driveway, I couldn't see him though, did I mention that there was a HUMONGOUS suv in the way? Well there was, seriously.

Mr. Dirtwad decided to GO for it without being able to see past the HUMONGOUS fukkin' suv and pulled across MY lane with no warning. The street was damp, I slammed the brakes, Mr Dirtwad finally saw me and hit his brakes, but it was too late!! I slid into and under the right front bumper of his F ound O n R oad D ead pickup truck and buckled his right front wheel underneath. My left front headlight and fender and hood crumpled with a sickening crunch and a boom that was startling. Amazingly, no one rearended me. I was very surprised my airbag didn't pop! I was shaken a bit and I could see the guy in the truck pull out his cell and dial 911 so I didn't bother. Here's a peek at the damage:

Notice the white scar on the hood in the picture

above, that's where his front bumper was sitting

on top of my poor car! Bastard!

Amazingly all the lights still work! Even

though they are badly smashed! hehe.

Now comes the part that seriously pissed me off. Mr. Dirtwad, and now I also noticed he had Mrs. Dirtwad with him in the truck, did not bother to get out and ASK me if I was ok. It was so obviously his fault and I couldn't believe that they were so callous. It took lots of restraint to keep from taking a tire iron to his closed window and beating him across the face with it, just for that. I was already pissed because he had STUPIDLY caused the accident and now the bastard was going to ignore me? But, I also knew there were police on the way and they don't take kindly to you beating people to a pulp with tire irons, even when it's well deserved.

Sooooo, I sat there, and I sat there and I sat there some more, waiting 35 minutes for the cops, all the while amusing myself with the KILLER traffic jam that was caused. It was backed up for a couple of miles at least and we had both lanes blocked. The drivers started going over the curb on each side of us to get around the scene and then rubbernecked as they passed. A couple of pricks got pissed and yelled shit that I think meant to move the vehicles out of the way but there was no way I was moving an INCH until the police showed up. I was going to make sure that Mr. Dirtwad got the blame he deserved with no way to wriggle out. Those asses were greeted with hearty middle fingers and a foul curse on their mothers graves for all eternity.

Finally the cop shows up, he asks a couple of questions, then had us move the vehicles. That's when I realized my hood was under his bumper. As I backed up, his truck dropped down, and then I noticed how badly his wheel was buckled under. I smiled, that truck was going nowhere on its own!! Hell yeah, my car kicked his trucks ass!! And my car seemed to drive just fine. Or so I thought, later on in the day I discovered that the impact had damaged my waterpump and it was now losing water as fast as you could pour it in. Wonderful! It cost me over $200 to get it repaired but I'm going to force his insurance to pay for it as well as all the other damage. I used to write repair estimates when I had my body shop, I know a few ways to get extra money that most people don't think about, they never offer it up, but it's there if you tell them you expect it.

And now, instead of being early to my evaluation I was over a half an hour late! Thankfully the nice people there were very understanding, possibly because I had called ahead and warned them that I would be late in arriving. My testing went very well and they allowed me to makeup the lost time today so I'm all caught up. Yay!

That was my Monday, err Tuesday rather, how was yours?

in with pink pt. 2

To read the first part of this story go here.


"Get dressed, wear something nice, I have a surprise for you" she said.

Surprise? I thought, what the hell could she do to surprise me beyond what her and Margaux did with me the other night.

"Why, where we going? Is Margaux going to come too?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it, you'll love it, and Margaux will be there too, just get ready and we'll go in about an hour."

Amazing how your life can take weird and unexpected turns when you least expect it. Pink had already shown me so much fun and pleasure I had no idea what was in store for me from then on. I was eager to follow though, and I had a feeling nothing she could do would disappoint me.

Once ready, we stepped out, I was looking pretty cool for Europe back in those days, shoulder length hair and dressed like an American in Levi's, in Levi's you were very well dressed then as they we so freakin' expensive to buy there. Yeah, they went for ungodly prices. Oddly, I was often mistaken for a wealthy Scandinavian type and I didn't even have blonde hair, I never did figure that one out. I also felt like I was pale skinned then compared to how I normally looked when in the States, I was outdoors a lot and was always somewhat tanned, yet to the northern Europeans I was very darkskinned. I mean next to me they looked like ghosts.

Pink hailed a cab and offered up directions in dutch to the cabbie and off we went. We pulled up at a hotel, I forget the name of and we went inside. Elevatored up several floors and emerged into a rather plain looking hallway much like any hotel hall, and we approached a door that was totally non-descript with a man standing outside. Pink exchanged a couple words with him in french and he opened the door for us and we went inside.

The room was huge, very plush surroundings, paintings and elegant leather furnishings everywhere. And women, lots of women, beautiful women everywhere I could see, there were groups of people talking , drinking and apparently having some kind of party. There were also men, but I of course didn't pay them much attention because there was an amazing quantity of gorgeous women to look at. There were waiters and waitresses and tables with food and rather cool music playing, not to loud that you couldn't carry on a nice conversation. The atmosphere was relaxed and everyone seemed very friendly toward each other and just having a nice time.

Pink ordered us drinks and we walked over to a group and then I noticed Margaux. Damn, she was looking hot and she was nuzzling another woman in a group of people that were talking. They were obviously more than just friends and I looked at Pink for any signs of anger or jealousy and there was none. In fact Pink walked up to Margauxs friend and kissed her full on the mouth. I was starting to get the idea that this wasn't just a bar. It was in fact, it turned out a private club. Invitation only and there was not even a sign outside the door to clue you in on its presence. I realized now just how exclusive the place must be and it felt weird being there. I quickly realized that most of the people there were gay, including the men but there were also many bisexual people, and I already knew that about Margaux.

We mingled, we laughed, Pink introduced me to many people that night and we got semi-trashed. As the evening progressed i found myself lured into a dark corner of the main room with Margaux and her friend, and all three of us made out while they had their hands inside my pants, my hands in thier panties and just everyone doing lots ofvery nasty groping. Apparently the new girl was bisexual too and she was awesome, I wanted her and Margaux so badly I kept bugging them to go so we could hit the bed at Pinks apartment.

Margaux had other plans though and she left us alone to talk with a group of people. She had done that to make sure I was in with the new girl and damned if I can't remember her name so I'll call he Janey. Pink finally found us in the corner as we were getting hot and nasty and she joined in with me and was able to get Janey off with her fingers right there in the club! Janey was squealing and moaning very loudly and panting like crazy as Pink went crazy on her cooch while I helped as much as i could. I kept half expecting someone to notice us and or say something to us because we had Janey splayed out across the sofa with her panties off and legs spread, yet no one even paid any attention to all the noise she was making. This was mind-blowing to me, i had never done anything quite so public before, I had had public sex previously but not quite so obvious!

Janey straightened up after that and Pink decided she was ready to play some more and we took a cab home. We hit her bed like there was no tomorrow and damn did we have fun, Pink was really good at being a sort of sex cruise director and me and Janey were happy to have sex together in every way possible following Pinks amazing lead. We were up all frikkin' night and slept all 3 in bed together most of the next day, having some very sweet sex off and on and taking showers together. We spent the entire day nude in bed and toyed with each other, ordering food delivered when we got hungry and I hoped the day would never end.

There is a pt. 3 to this story, I'll bring it in the near future!

a fun weekend!

I made a new friend over the weekend, she seems really nice. We haven't met face to face yet but we will. So far only pictures and chatted by phone and email. Very pretty and a great smile! She lives only a few miles away too! YAY! That's not bad at all. We met thru a local personals ad thingy, cool huh? Yeah, I'm not planning on gettin' tied down though, well, I'm gonna try not to.

I love so many women bloggers here in this most excellent blogging community, they just live too damn far away!! So, uhmm... when you guys gonna move to the Big Easy? hehe. I should be so lucky, no really! Remember the local motto: Pinch me, peel me, suck me! Noooo, not me! The crawfish silly! Ok, well me too then...if you insist.

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The Westbank Art Guild had an outdoor show Sunday afternoon, the weather was insanely gorgeous. They had set up on the grassy median of an old graceful boulevard near the river. The area was lined with huge oaks, a very nice setting for such a sweet day. There were many artists showing off their wares, some were quite good. I even snagged a couple of their business cards to check them out later after I move. I didn't buy anything though so no pics, sorry! Though I did get a couple cool pics of the river afterwards as i walked along the levee across from N.O. Notice the Superdome in the distance.

And then this one is the old Gretna City hall, recently restored to its former glory, very nice!

I got more pics of odd junk that I accidentally found, saved for later. I'll be pretty busy still, cool!

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I've been working feverishly for the past few days on www.blogsgonewild.net and it's looking good! 14 freakin' webpages so far! What do you think? Most of it is live, the only part that is still under construction is the Blog Tips and Hacks, although the one for the Create Post is up. It's not all done by any means, but I hope to have it all sorted out by this coming weekend. So check back! I hope you will find some info in there to be helpful, I will be adding more tutorials. Especially cool for any new bloggers that don't know how to work the fonts and colors and other settings. I'm wide open to suggestions, if there's some stuff you want to se over there tell me!

To help christen the new site I'll be installing Haloscan commenting into anyones blog that wants it, just ask! No fee! I'll even customize the look and colors to match your blog, activate the Beta options and set up the Gravatars for you! I want everyone to have control over their comments, like being able to track and ban IP's. Not to mention that it's just a shitload faster than blogger comments! Don't let this happen to you with no defense. Yeah baby, like that! hehe

mighty machines...

In complete contrast to my last post...One of the local car clubs was having a rod meet at a Wendys burger joint near the house last night and I just happened to be passing by with my camera in the car. I jumped out and milled around a bit and snapped a few pics! They had some oldie rock playing on some big outdoor speakers and it was a cool family type atmosphere. There were quite a few exceptional cars that I got shots of but here's the condensed version.

This first one was a 1940 Pontiac 4 door coupe all steel original body with a chopped top! Killer paint and gorgeous interior!

This one was a custom delivery truck with a small coffin in the rear that slid out and swung the lid up with the touch of a remote control button to reveal an ice chest inside stocked full of cold beer!

Next up is a an old Ford street bucket roadster, this is just the engine detail, it also featured a self dumping pickup bed in the rear!

And last up but not the least an all original 66' SS Impala with a 427ci. ground shaking big block. The inside and out of this car was just fantastic.

I got more pics but I'll have mercy on you guys LOL

I also stopped in at the local Harley shop today and spotted one that I really want! Still out of my price range for now but I'm working on it! It looked a bit similar to the one in my comments box but brand new! hell yeah!