time traveller

Ok, I know I've been slacking lately. I have some reasons for it that I won't divulge here. Outside of that it's been work and playing catchup the past week.
Whats new?
First, I've been returning back to the gym lately. The past two-three weeks I've been stepping up my fitness, or at least trying to. Working a lot on cardio and easing back into lifting. I really, really want to get back into swimming again, but to do so, I either have to join a gym with a pool-the closest one is 24 hr fitness about 6 miles away; or use the Scottsdale lap pool, which costs $3 a day and is 12 miles away. That's the only thing that my town of Gilbert lacks is a public use pool. They open up a few Jr. High School pools during the summer for use, but they aren't lap pools, just pools for families to play in the water.
Either way, the fitness is coming along well. I'm being better with food. No fried stuff, no soda, and a lot more veggies-with the broccoli farts to prove it.
The garden is going crazy. I'm harvesting lettuce and herbs now, and in about 3 weeks the peppers,tomatoes, possibly potatoes and squash. There are limes busting out on my new lime tree and all the new growths on the other trees, cacti and shrubs are progressing wonderfully with the onset of really warmer weather and the constant source of water from the drip system (which, let me tell you, is a time and life saver!)
I've taken on a few projects upon myself. First is to overhaul and clean the house, which I will be doing the next 2 weeks. I'm thinking of moving the office into the master bedroom and converting the current office into a home gym room. I need to thoroughly vacuum and shampoo the carpets, get down and scrub the tile grout, clean baseboards and other anally-reserved cleaning chores.
Starting and adding to a huge ass family tree project...man, my familia has a ton of peeps..
I also need to contact a licenced electrician to see about wiring a 240 outlet on the patio so I can start jacuzzi shopping.
I've been bill free this month (outside of standard ones, utilities,groceries, etc...), so I am trying to save as much as I can for a possible return to Hermosa Beach in June. Nothing is reserved or set as of now, nor are any travellers confirmed. I get the feeling that this trip will come down to the absolute last minute as everyone I know is trying to scratch money together. Latest research is of an estimated $500-$600 for just the hotel room, 2 queen beds for 2 people for 4 nights.. Airfare is $135 to LAX. The way gas prices are soaring, this may be a better option as for me to fill up my truck 3-4 times to drive there and back would be $125, and 7 hours each way.
I've been trying to move some money around and beef up my investments and securities. I moved about 3k out of a mutual fund and placed it into a moderately conservative IRA portfolio, which I hope to constantly add to over the years. I also tinkered around with my money market fund thru ING. and used their new offer for an online money market checking account that pays 3.8-4.2%. It is a paperless checking account. If I decide to pay bills through it, it will be electronic, and the account comes with a mastercard debit card. Considerably better than my current old school checking account where I am still writing checks to pay my stuff out of an account that pays absolutely no interest. I get the feeling that account will be used from now on as a transfer account to access my new ING as well as all my other accounts.
I've been a ice cream making whore this week. 2 new batches. One was vanilla peppermint chocolate chip and last nite I made peanut butter chocolate chip. So good...yet so bad for me...
I've been in contact with about 3-4 different investment companies that are all currently providing me with property listings to look into buying with my father. Some look good, some are astronomically out of our price range, some are crappy and some would be awesome if the seller's terms weren't ludicrously stupid.
That's about it hommies...I'll try to keep up.
Peace out.

Unmotivators

I recently remembered about this cool site where you can make your own demotivators. diy.despare.com
use pics of your own, add your own text and backgrounds and there ya go...have fun. These are using some old pics on my computer.

Camp Lestiki

Camp Lestiki. What? Yes, all our various campsites have appropriate names. Camp Surge (under nearby powerlines), Camp Crazy Gringo (only a crazy white boy would camp under those conditions), Camp Jethroe (home to Jethroe's white trash annual squirrel call championships), Camp Danger (area was roped off with red "danger" police tape and then ignored upon arrival) and now Camp Lestiki. Lestiki-the combination of Lesbians and tiki dolls. Huh? It'll make sense in a little bit here...
So I got three days off last weekend to celebrate Chris' birthday on the 16th. We had tried to get something going, but just decided on making a quick camp trip up north before the fire season kicks off. He had to work on Sunday during the day, so I headed up solo that morning after getting off work Saturday night.
Unannounced to me, I started my journey up the highway smack in the middle of the Arizona Ironman race. Miles and miles of bikers racing up the road gave me fond memories of high school days and taking daylong mountain bike treks with Ryan into the hills and beaches far from our homes. After two hours, I arrive at our destination to find, surprisingly, that ALL of the campsites are taken. They looked as if they were packing up after a long weekend. One site had a family, one site had a pair of day bikers, and the other had 2 lesbians and their dog. Trust me, they weren't lipstick lesbians either.
I decide to wait them all out for a little and parked down the road to wait. The weather was forecast to be bad, so the later it got, the more worried I got. After a while, nobody left yet. It was after noon now. Yikes!
Enter ranger Bob. Actually he was a forestry fireman who rolled up and chatted with me briefly about campfires and local wind warnings. Moral of his stories...make sure you put our your campfires when you leave. He left me and went up the road to relay the message to the other campers.
Finally after a few hours, the two ladies left. I gunned up the truck and commandeered the site. It's people like them that make campers look bad. Trash all over the site, waste not buried...and the key item-their fire-ring hastily built in the middle of a bunch of dry, dead grass...WITH THEIR FUCKING FIRE STILL GOING!!! Dumb ass lesbos!! How did they try to put their fire out? By dumping their dog's leftover dry dogfood and kicking in a pair of rocks. Let me be the first to say that you guys are fucking idiots.
Well, after putting out their fire with buckets hauled from the creek, I set up a new, propper ring in the middle of a flat dirt area, erected (I said erected) 3 tents, one lean-to shelter, sawed through 3 fallen trees for firewood and secured the area solo by 6pm. I was spent, and definitely looking forward to my first of many brews.

























(camp Lestiki day 1)

After starting to relax, getting bundled up for the night and waiting for Chris to arrive, I noticed a weird knot on a tree. I got up and checked it out. The lesbos left me a wood carving. They took a piece of firewood, skinned the bark off it and dug two eyes and a mouth into it, and nailed it into a nearby tree. Interesting. At least they were productive enough to carve a tiki. Hence- Camp Lestiki.
Chris arrived to a tired and very drunk camp-mate around 1130pm and we partied until 3am.
Process was repeated for the next few days while mixing in daytrips to town for fuel and supplies, listening to talk radio and comedy, but most of all, just forgetting the civilized world 100 miles away from us. The good news on the trip-Chris had a relaxed 44th bday and the forecasted weather never came, so there was nothing more that a small breeze and partly clouded skies.
The bad news-we had to find out Tuesday morning on the radio that some piece of crap whack job killed 33 people in Virgina because he couldn't deal with the small, easy to deal with daily issues that we are all cool with. Thanks dick, I hope you roast slowly in hell.
All the more reason to not want to come back to the real world and crap like that. The trip went too fast and soon enough it was Wednesday. We had to get back, I had to get to work at six.

Horticulture,video games, ice cream and other excuses to party

Okay, it's been a while...too long, but judging from how many multitudes of friends that have been hounding me about not updating the website, I guess I'm not really that missed. Been busy working and playing. When I'm not doing either, I'm passed out or nursing a bit of a hangover from the former reasons...pardon me for living my own life. Well, on that note, here's an attempt at a compacted version of what the hell has been going on in the past week.
Had a bang-up productive day a week ago Thursday. Got up and motivated, ran errands, visited the Desert Botanical Gardens for no reason but because I could. Turns out I got a lot of really cool photos. It is spring out here in AZ (the three weeks in the beginning of the year when it's a lovely 80 degrees...right before the inferno of 120 kicks in) and all the plants and cacti were in bloom.
















































































I spent a good 2 hours there in the afternoon hiking around by myself looking at some cool stuff. Bought some new cacti at their garden to plant in mine and then I split, ran some more errands and ended up buying an ice cream maker. A $50 Cuisinart from Sam's club. Let me tell you, this fucker makes some deadly ice cream. First batch I tried was a vanilla with berries. It was good, but needed improvement. After that attempt, Doug, Crystal and Chris came over for the second meeting of the Amature Beer tasters of the East Valley. Um, yeah, got a little wasted doing two 40 oz'ers of Mickey's and Jim Beam shots in boilermaker form and including a 22 oz tall boy can of Mickey's which I shotgunned in the parking lot of the Circle K I bought it from while on a beer and Rockstar run.
The video speaks for itself...somehow the Wicked Pissers and Bloody Wankers/ Dirty Knickers make a band appearance on Thursday nights.



Anyways, back to Ice cream.
The second batch a few days ago was the bomb. Ghiradelli chocolate with Starbucks ground espresso, heavy cream, eggs, whole milk, powdered sugar and real vanilla extract. Fucking orgasmic and 100 times better than store bought. Also 100 times worse for you. 340 calories per HALF cup. No wonder it tastes so good- because it slowly kills you.



















It was some strange segway that got me thinking of working in my family's ice cream store when I was a kid that somehow led to what else I used to do or have that were strictly followed vices of mine as a kid. Video games were another one. Dirty Ryan and I would spend countless hours playing games. Whether it be at his house or at my house playing our Atari or Sega master systems or making our near daily pilgrimages to the Malibu Arcade or Emerald City Liquors (which was far closer, 3 blocks to be exact). We pretty much could have bought the games at Emerald City through a lend-lease act if we wanted to because we were there so much. It didn't help that we both had paper routes or somehow easy access to quarters (my dad's apartment laundry machine money or sneaking in Mom's purse.) I can remember the joy of the end of each month on my paper route because it was bill collection week. I'd get my cash and tips and no sooner than the cash was in my hand that I was riding out of their driveway and into the liquor store parking lot for ice cream and video games. There was one game in particular though over the course of a summer that ruled them all.
I'm only talking about Double Dragon.























I...Want...this..game... It was so cheesy, but man, to us...it was heaven. Not to mention that I nearly pissed my pants every time I played with Ryan. There were times in the game when your character was lower that your opponent, but you could still punch at them...right in the balls. Ryan would add commentary at the point of impact that I would start laughing convulsively, turn red faced, even to the point of tearing, drooling, or a few times pissing...too classic. This game was the source of our bliss, and a little bit of pain too, as on occasion Dad had to come searching for me and dragged me out of the place to whoop my ass. Anyways, if I see this game or anyone else does in it's full standup console glory, let me know as I will buy it.

Continuing with nostalgia, Monday my cousin Jen came into town with her company, Kaboom!, to build yet another playgorund here in the valley. She was in town for 5 days and we were able to get a lot of good quality time in. We hooked up Tuesday night at Iguana Mack's in Chandler to find out that it was reverse happy hour from 10pm-1am. Yeah, we got a bit drunk, but had an awesome time.
Wednesday I had to work, but Thursday I was off and had planned a good meal for Jen and her buddy Dusty's last night in Phoenix. We had a LOT of grub. Mussels, steak, turkey, chicken, appetizers, munchies and of course a lot of cocktails.



















Oh, I did get a new Crock pot at Walmart today too. Quick story-I borrowed/inherited my Mom's old one a few years ago and have really enjoyed it. Whether it be making soup or beans in it, or my personal favorite-cocktail weenies and meatballs in BBQ sauce. I decided to make it for Jen and Dusty, so I prepped shit, dumped it in and turned it on. It worked for about 20 minutes before I heard a click and it stopped heating. Confused, I went up to the 24 year old relic, which has a aluminum canister exterior and grabbed it to see what was up. Um, frayed cord and metal base= electrified cocktail weenies. I had planned to let it cook while running errands, so while at Walmart I picked up a new one for $24 and cooked the heck out of meatballs and weenies.
We had to have easily partied from 4pm to 3 am. Several of us passed out, but Jen and I stayed up and shot the shit til the early morning hours. It's been a while since I've had a good family talk. We touched on a lot of family topics. What's been new, going on, bad things, good things, rant and raves, but mostly what it came down to is that family is nearly unbreakable. Something drastic and heinous has to occur before we turn our backs on another. We may not like some of the choices that are made, but regardless, you back your family up 120%. You can get new friends, but it's impossible to get a new family.
On that note, I'm off to work and then you suckers won't see me for 4 days as I'll be out in the middle of nowhere with a rifle, my dog and a bottle of booze camping. I'm headed up north with Chris for his birthday on Monday for a few days before the fire season and hot weather kicks in and we're unable to go until October. My cell should still work in spurts, so if you need to get a hold of me, leave me a text and I can try to reach you.

Captain Green Thumb

Who says that you cant grow anything out in the desert? Well, I'll tell you if that statement is true again come a month from now when its over a hundred outside and everything has shriveled up to nothing. I tried to have a garden back at my old house in Tempe, but it was extremely labor intensive. The soil there sucked as it was compacted river clay (as if the dirt here is any better), and there was no watering system, so I had to make sure to manually hose the plants off once or twice a night when it was cool enough outside to not fry them (imaging what happens when you throw water on a hot pan-same thing happens with plants...they burn from the shock)-and of course all it took was one or two days of forgetting to water them, or leaving on vacation to not be able to water them and they all turned to dust.
I hope that here at this house is different. I extended the drip system from the front yard 2 months ago and converted the existing dog run area on the side of the house into a small garden area.
My dad (you should see his garden in Cali) was right-working in the yard is the best form of exercise in the world. Digging, shoveling, moving rock, working the soil all works your ass with a vengeance. Who knew that by planing two new trees by digging two 3x3x2 ft holes in the ground would humble my ass. By the end of digging the second hole through the compacted clay-type dirt, my arms and back burned, I was out of breath and sweating my ass off. That was a month ago back when it was cool outside.

Anyways, yes, this is what the garden area looks like now. Sunflowers, corn, cabbage and a small tangerine tree in the back. Lots of lettuce, okra, corn, cucumbers, squash and zucchini in the middle. Melons, peppers, tomatoes, cactus, aloe vera, herbs and hibiscus in the front. Two lemon and lime trees are in the back against the house. The drip system is the savior of it all. I dig in, place the pipes and tubing, cover, set a timer and it keeps the ground moist all day long. I just hope that it gives everything a fighting chance come summer. Even when I was keeping up with watering daily in Tempe, everything eventually got cooked come August.

This guy never ceases to amaze me. I started this fucker as a two inch tall by two inch wide cactus in a little pot I got at Wal-Mart or K-Mart or

somewhere about 7 years ago. He's still in the same pot I put him in. He went from about 3 ounces to now close to 30 pounds since then. I need to put him in the ground, which will require cutting the pot from around him and grounding him. Considering the longest barb on him is two inches long and the shortest ones are half an inch while being as think as toothpicks in places, gloves don't do anything for you. Anyways, he in his 7 years, has never blossomed. As of last week, he was a plain ol' cactus. Four days ago he sprouted all these weird bumps, which grew since then and started blossoming into these gorgeous sunset orange flowers. These flowers are huge! About as big as a sunflower! Speaking of sunflowers, check these out.

Not bad. Maybe a little of my Dad's green gene passed onto me after all.

Coin radar with a side of 300

So Sunday was my day off doing nothing 'cept for the vast array of games and internet porn. I did venture out into the world however for an hour, only to go up to work and get my paycheck. Cruised up there in mid-afternoon, small talked with friends for a little and then headed home. Not before stopping by the main branch of my bank to deposit said check in the night drop.
Let me state for the record that usually (as said in a previous blog) I find some form of coinage in the street when I go out. A penny here, a dime there...etc. To this day, as for obvious reasons, I had yet to find any coinage in front of a bank. Duh, its a bank...the money is inside, and with people going in and out all day, no coin is safe in front.
Anyways, I pull up into the parking spot, make my deposit and then get back in to leave. Throw it in reverse and start backing up to leave. As i back up, I catch something in the rear view mirror. Once again...the REAR VIEW MIRROR, as I turn out. I stop the car, park it, look out the window, and just as I thought, 10 feet away...was a scratched up dime. Goddamn I'm good. I can't imagine what I'd find once I get my hands on a metal detector.
I love getting paid to go places...especially to get paid to go to the bank.
Anyways, that was Sunday in a nutshell.
Today is Tuesday though, and after work I felt like seeing a flick. I had a Harkins gift card to burn off from oh...a year and a half ago...(yes Dianna, thank you for it...I finally used it-and the free popcorn card too) I tell Crystal to giddy up over and we head off to Tempe to see 300.











So 300 Spartans take on like...a gajillion Persians and kill off tens of thousands of em before they all get smoked. Um yeah...this movie kicked so much ass that my ass is sore. I will be putting this on the must buy list once it comes out in a few months. But by all means, please don't wait until the DVD..you need to see this in the theater...it's a necessity just like Gladiator and Star Wars.
Kick ass....
Peace out!

Traitor!

Some dude out there has defiled the manlaw and has exposed our secrets...funny ones that they be, they should never be shared!!!
http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=6020

Part 2...Princesses

As I was working last night, I saw a few "CP"'ers with their collars popped up and it reminded me that I still have the other side to bag on...the princesses.

Princesses, Scottsdale Princesses, Daddy's girls, or as people in my general stature call them (no joking here), Scottsdale Bitches.

Picture this...you are out on the town, just kickin it the cool, doing it your own way as you always do, enjoying a frosty adult beverage with some of your friends at a local bar or club in downtown. Across the way you see this fine ass girl. I mean fiiiinne...nice and slim, tig 'o bitties, pretty face and hair, a sense of style, cute friends she's with...i mean nice. So, you caballero, get your mojo on point and stroll on over there to make her acquaintance. You get there and simply say hello. She turns to look at you and gives you a look as if you have an assortment of visually disturbing skin disorders like rashes, boils, lesions...leprosy, etc...oh, and you are poorer than her and are definitely invading her bubble.

So you get your clothes at stores ranging from Wal-Mart to Macy's. It's frugal, but still trendy. Not trendy enough for her unfortunately as she ONLY shops at the borgatta and at the Biltmore, where it should cost a mere $100 to just enter through the front doors of the place.

You are scum, in fact, worse than scum because you are a "commoner".

Oh, where do I start...

First off Daddy's girl, you should be extremely thankful that you will never have to work a single day in your life. Poppa got you covered. Nice 6 bedroom house (at least), a few cars, all the clothes you want, maybe a boat, vacations all the time, and a $200,000 throw away college degree that you will never use (that college money was just for you to go party your ass off four 5 years and say you got a degree). Now all you have to worry about is finding a cute rich boy to hook up with, lay out and tan all day while your cabana boy brings you pina coladas and meet up your cosmetic surgeon to get your annual lipo to remove said pina colada fat buildup on your booty.

Granted, there are some "chosen" children in this world that are taken care of by their parents who understand and appreciate what they have gotten and actually adhere to a good work ethic, all the while not letting anyone know that they come from money. I'm one of them.

As an only child, yeah I got spoiled back in the day. In high school and early college though, I had an aversion to my folks, moved out of state and tried to get away and do my own thing. I still feel guilty about ostracising my parents like that. But now I work alongside my parents and still don't ask for handouts. I work a full time job, save my cash as best I can, pay my bills, and try to live a happy existence with what I have.

Do I have a trust fund? Yes. Have I touched it? No. Will I ever touch it? Yea, way down the road. That trust fund, while made for me, is going to go to my kid's(if I ever have one) schooling. If not, then it will be a down payment on my house, or for emergencies. Most of the time, I forget it's there until I get a statement in the mail.

I work relatively hard for my cash. I started working when I was 12 on a paper route. I worked at my family's ice cream shop at 15 til I was 19. I've worked in retail at a second job 18-20 at Macy's. I've worked at Pizza Hut, by far the greasiest and worst job ever when I first started college. Then I've been working in a bar for over 10 years. At all those jobs I worked my hardest I could.

Those are things you will never see. Your hands will never get dirty. You will never sweat in the summer heat, nor will you ever sweat it out when you have to float a check for bills all the while hoping that your paycheck clears first.

While I'm on the subject, this line has to go, as well as your butt..out the front door whenever you use it..."Do you KNOW who my (Mommy or Daddy) IS??"

First off..honestly no, I don't know who they are. Secondly, DO I FREGGIN CARE???? The shear fact that you are attempting to drop that line on someone just proves how much of a spoiled bitch you really are. Your parents may cater to your every need, but here's a rude awakening fun fact..the world doesn't my dear.

To think of all the potential you wasted on the world because of the way you are, instead of the way you could be. You could be a mentor, a provider for others. You could infinitely help others not as fortunate as you. Hell, you could just try being nice, civil and generally pleasant to be around. Instead you chose that way of life, with a tainted, tilted tiara on your head, mocking the peons below you, resorting to only hanging with people of your kind.That is why people will hate you, and chances are, the people around you are somehow using you for your stature or money instead of liking you for you.

There is only one thing worse that people like you...people who act like you when they have no money at all or come from no money. I've seen it first hand, intimately as well as in public. True false princesses...princesses of what? Nothing, that's what. The ballad of the $30,000 shoebox millionaire. That sickens me the worst. Get a clue before someone kicks you off your milk carton thrown and you shatter your K-Mart cubic zirconium tiara.

How about this...do you know who MY daddy is?

He's the guy who immigrated to this country with only the clothes on his back and a few hundred bucks in his pocket after leaving an island with his parents and 12 brothers and sisters behind, get whatever cash he could make working odd jobs and in steel mills to one by one, help the rest of his family immigrate here after buying his parents a home while he still lived in a apartment with his wife and newborn son. He's the guy walking around in his Mervyn's sale clothing that he's had for a few years, but it makes him comfortable. He's the guy that came from nothing, started with nothing, made everything but still acts like he has nothing, and THAT'S why you will never...

ever...

be as rich as him, or as you ever want to be.

If that makes people like us better than you, so be it, hope you enjoyed my slap of working middle upper class reality across your botoxed face. Now if you would excuse me, I'm not going to waste any more of my day off on bitching about you...

Band recruitment at the 1st monthly amature beer tasters of the East Valley

I figured that I'd have some form of drunken debauchery on my last day off Thursday, and it turns out I did. I was slated to hang out with my bro Doug Thursday and do whatever the fates deemed fit on us. Turns out that there was absolutely nothing going on in town that day. I mean nothing, except for a hockey game, but I'm not about to drive 100 miles round trip after buying crappy last minute tickets for $60 and drive all the way across the valley to Glendale to see the Coyotes lose. So, I headed off to Sunflower market and got some sustainable food for human consumption, as well as like 8 different kinds of beers (they sell them in individual bottles, woo hoo!!) I came home, called Doug over and we started on the 1st meeting of our new clan, the Amature Beer Tasters of the East Valley.
A noble cause at best, but moreso just an excuse to have people over for good beers and munchies. No fees to pay to join, no discrimination, the only requirement is that you like a frosty brew. I love my ideas, they rule.
Anyways, we cracked into our first few new beers, and found a new quick favorite. Boulder Brewing company Cinder Cone Red Ale. Smooth as a virgins thighs, with a tiny hoppy bite floating in a amber red sea of tasty goodness. While we tasted and got wasted, I continued to test my newly found meat smoking prowess. A whole chicken (halved), turkey drumsticks and a breast, some burgers, and pork and red chile filled tamales. Tamales were simply to die for. They already tasted awesome, but you add some mesquite smoke to it...orgasmic. Hey, bonus!!! I didn't burn anything this time and it all came out pretty damn tasty! He can be taught!
Well, towards the end of our cooking session, and in the dead middle of our beer fest, we busted out my $12 Ukelele and tried to carry a tune.







































Opon realization that Dirty Ryan's (Mickey) bethroved ceremony was well...without strippers..we had this to say...





Upon the first course of smoked meats, Foster got primevil and went into a beer induced canibalistic rampage....





Calmed down, Foster then tries to play a tune, but is stuck with a $12 Ukelele after Mickey took all the instruments overseas with him...



We quickly found out that a $12 Ukelele is exactly what you pay for...The bloody strings won't stay tight! So, we pretty much are resorting to keeping it as a ornamental decoration, or as a stage prop when it comes to the point of the show when we smash our guitars.
Chris and Crystal popped over later and joined in on our festivites. Since our other Band member "Mickey" is stuck overseas on a Wicked Pissas hiatus, we concocted a surrogate UK band called the Dirty Knickers. Fosters on drums, Bass on bass, Harp on vocals (and occasional tambourine) and myself, Schnapps on vocals and off key guitar.
Its kinda like when Jefferson Airplane made jefferson Sharship, which later formed just Starship...
Finally, back to their natural intoxicated states, the last two videos speak for themselves in true Wicked Pissas style...