Poetry on Tuesday 3-31-09

Here we are. It's Tuesday and I've written no prose for a LONG time.
Take a half hour today and write yourself something. Anything.
My poetry style is my own. I've tried to make it that way.
I hope you enjoy it. I know I enjoy writing. Have a GREAT day!



RIDE THE WINGS

When you've reached the place you thought you'd never be,
When someone's frost,
Holds your mind it's prisoner,
When time grinds to a halt,
Because you have too,
When substance grips you,
Like the jaws of life,
You think it won't ever let go.
When you can't go any lower,
When you think you just can't take any more,
Remember a few things.
It took you a while to get there,
It will take a while to climb back out.
It won't be easy returning to yourself.
Who said life was easy?
He gave you the tools you need.
They're all there within you.
Take small steps,
Begin with the leap into yourself,
Ask yourself who you want to be,
Strive to find your answers,
Kick and scratch if you have to,
Fight for the life you deserve.
As you Ride the wings of his design,

Into the stars that are your future,

All of a sudden,
You'll be suprised with what you've done.


*****

Quote for the day:

"A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down." -- Robert Benchley

A walk about

I went for a long walk today so I wouldn't get stiff from workin so hard this week!

Whoopdeedoo I'm sure you're saying to yourself.

Well, my buns of steel are formin cause of climbing up and down ladders all day long. I'll be able to crush a walnut with my butt cheeks soon enough...

So anyways, I got dressed for walking (see pic below)

Yea, I know! SEXY!
Erin wanted me to send her a pic, so I took one outside the video store on my way home...



Sexuberating, I know. It was a fun lil walk!
Such is the life of a FN HandyMan.

I'm off again tomorrow so maybe I'll have an itch to write something.
C'mon back. I dare ya!


*****

Quote for the day:

"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three." -- Alice Kahn

Ahhh...Silence.

Cell phone Video,

It's so inconspicuous,

It's my new feature

Gotta love a haiku introducing a cell phone video. I was impressed by the quality for such a small device. So simple yet so ummm....weird. Yea, there wasn't much to hear on that video, but so what. Silence is golden. (I bet if you turned your speakers up WAY loud you could hear the rain that I heard...)

Pause the music so you can hear better, then listen!

*****

Quote for the day:

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." -- Edgar Allan Poe, "Eleonora"

"Last night somebody broke into my apartment and replaced everything with exact duplicates... When I pointed it out to my roommate, he said, 'Do I know you?' " -- Steven Wright

A 90% TAX????

I can't believe what congress is about to do and I'm extremely pissed.
AIG employees received a bonus from bailout money that CONGRESS approved and had a chance to deny the use of and now wants to tax them 90% of the bonus because they eff'ed up in the first place.
Where is our new president and our Congress taking us?
Taxing a specific group of people seems pretty unconstitutional to me.
One representative even called for the people receiving the bonuses to commit hari kari (suicide).
MY GOD!
That man should be removed from office immediately!
I don't know about you, but I'm voting to remove EVERY single incumbent in office the next several rounds of elections. I want my country back, and that's the only way I can show them that they work for me.
In Merced, they're using tax payer dollars to build a effin DOG PARK. In these times, why don't they spend that money on ANYthing else that will help the morale of the residents here instead of trying to please the dog population of our fine county capital. What the HELL are they thinking?

What happened to our principles?
What happened to our morals?
What happened to our common sense? (Which apparently isn't so common anymore.)
I didn't vote for our new president and vice president. (DUH! As if you couldn't tell that)
I find it hilarious that liberals are lining up to purchase fire arms in this country!
This is what happens when you get your cake and it eats you too.
We're gonna get exactly what 52% of the country voted for.
It's really very scary.
Well, I want my country back, and I'm going to do everything I can to get it back.
VOTE.
Remove Nancy Pelosi.
Remove Dianne Feinstein.
REMOVE ANYONE from OFFICE that has voted repeatedly to eff up this country and its founding principles. Remind them that THEY WORK FOR US!
You want to see what our country can end up like?
Just look at the liberal "values" that have shaped California's economic, political, and social landscape.
We're in the shitter here! California is a great model for where liberalism is taking us.
Keep it up politicians.
A revolution is coming....
And I want to be part of it.

CLICK HERE FOR THE 912 PROJECT!

Let there be D-Frost!

I made some D-Frost for Miss Liz the other day for her birthday bash.
Wondering what D-Frost is aren't you?
Well, we all used to drink Yukon Jack Permafrost Schnapps (100 proof peppermint schnapps with a hint of cinnamon) when we were partying, and we can't purchase it anymore around here. It was the BEST schnapps in the world in my opinion.
We were joking about it a while back and I spewed forth the idea to make some at home just to sexperiment with it.
D-Frost is the result.
After researching on the internet and couple of trials (drat, I had to drink all of the failed results!), I came up with a recipe. Apparently I did an ok job, as everyone that's tried it has liked it. First off, if you make this stuff, leave it in the freezer overnight before you have any, and keep it there. It would go great over ice cream by the way....
So, here's how you make some D-Frost:

1) Get yourself a 1.75 liter bottle of ANY type of vodka you wish. Cheap is ok, you're gonna add flavor.
2) Get yourself whatever flavor of Extract (a 1 oz bottle) you wish to add to your schnapps. I use peppermint extract, you could use vanilla, lemon, etc...use your imagination, the sky's the limit!
3) You'll need one cup of sugar. Don't skimp and try to use some other low cal sweetener. It won't turn out and you'd be doing your D-Frost a disservice.
4) Pour off about one cup of the vodka out of the 1.75 liter bottle. Drink it if you wanna, but in my opinion, drinking straight vodka is for alcoholics only.
5) Take off the air diffuser from the top of the bottle if there is one, and using a funnel, pour the sugar into the bottle.
6) Leaving the funnel in the bottle, pour 1/2 of the bottle of your extract into said bottle.
7) Take the funnel out, replace the cap of the bottle, and shake like there's no tomorrow. If you get tired, rest. Duh. Continue shaking and resting, until all of the sugar is dissolved.
8) Let it rest in a dark cupboard for 24 hours and shake it when you think about it.
9) Do the right thing, and place your new bottle of Schnapps into the freezer for later imbibation. (I think I just made up a new word). Leave it in there for at least an overnight stay before you taste it.
10) Feel free to vary this recipe! Use more or less extract depending upon your taste, and more or less sugar depending upon your taste. If you wish to use some type of fresh herb or citrus, you can do that, but the infusion process takes about 6 weeks or more, then you have to strain it and strain it again. In my opinion, this could be a major waste of your time, but, I like results fast. So, do what you want. I don't care.
11) By the way, you can color your schnapps with any color of food coloring you want (I made purple schnapps for Miss Liz because it was her favorite color by adding 4 drops of red food coloring and 2 drops of blue food coloring). Just drip the lil drops into the bottle and shake it until it's perty.


There you have it. Now you can make your own D-Frost! I hope you try it and let me know your results. I was thinking that a Lime Schnapps would be pretty excellent, maybe using some frozen concentrated lime-ade stuff. Just something to think about....

Have a wonderful Hump Day Ya'll!


*****

Quote for the day:

"There are always good things coming to you. All you need do is be patient." -- 1 FN HandyMan

"The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing. " -- Henry S. Haskins

Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow

I've been having an interesting few days since last Thursday.
I went to the underground shooting range here in town with a couple of my good friends. We had a blast (pun intended)!
Well, while I was reloading and walking back to where I was blasting away, my ear plug popped out of my ear and I didn't notice it, and a gun went off very near to me. Scared the livin be-jesus outta me! My right ear hasn't been working very well since.
Now, I'm not blaming anyone except myself, so don't get that idea. It was no ones fault.
So anyhoot, I've been having a difficult time with the last 5 days because my hearing in that ear has been VERY distracting. Cause it's not working very well. It's getting better every day, but for a while there it concerned me. I think God wanted me to appreciate what I had and was trying to teach me a lesson about empathizing with folks.
Every noise has been amplified in that ear, but it sounds like a cracking speaker inside a tin can.
It's taken 90% of my concentration just to hear things right and by the end of the day, I'm just so mentally exhausted I just haven't been up to snuff. Even when there was silence, my ear was still making me hear static. It definitely has affected my studying. I enjoy silence when I'm trying to read and concentrate, and with my ear sounding like an AM radio that's going in and out of tune, it's been difficult for me to adjust. The thing is, I haven't been able to adjust. I think it would've been easier if my ear had stopped working all together rather than this FN static and whine crap. The most interesting was trying to hear in a class full of talking people in my conflict management course on Saturday morning. I had to cover my ear and everyone thought I was autistic or something cause I had my finger in my ear most of the class. Did you get a mental picture of that? Cause I just did and laughed at myself. HA!
So, it's been an interesting week and if you're wondering why I haven't posted much, that's why. It's been tough to concentrate. (Hilarious to me because of my mental acuity post the day before...LOL)
MENTAL yes. Acute, not since Thursday.
I LOVE it when life throws me a curveball!
OH NO! I just thought, "How's it going to sound when I go to see the ocean?"
I'll just have to put a big shell up to my ear and pretend I guess.

HAPPY Saint Patrick's Day Ya'll!! I'm not wearing green today just to see how many times I can get pinched. Then, when I tell them that my eyes are green, I can pinch them back and say, I'm ALWAYS wearing green! ;)


The music isn't really music today, but it cracked me up so much I had to use it!

*****

Quotes for the day:

"How hard it is, sometimes, to trust the evidence of one's senses! How reluctantly the mind consents to reality. " -- Norman Douglas


"You can either hold yourself up to the unrealistic standards of others, or ignore them and concentrate on being happy with yourself as you are. " -- Jeph Jacques, Questionable Content webcomic, #352, 05-04-05

A Wednesday Mornin Ramble

YAY! It's Wednesday!

What?
You're not yaying?
Well, YAY Dammit!

It's the FN middle of the week!

We allll know what that means!

Ok. Maybe not.

Hump Day.
Middle of the week.
The Zenith.
It's all down hill from here.
It's ALMOST FRIDAY!

Not that Fridays mean much to someone not working, but hey, Fridays can be fun too, even if it's just another day to me.

How about a Wednesday Haiku?? (the 5,7,5 syllable poem)


Walking all alone,
I spied a hot chick! oh yea,
It had been fried up.


Yea, Yea. My haiku writing skills aren't what they used to be. Blah! (as my friend Emily says)
It's almost time for a beach trip. I need some serenity. I need some salt air. I need some sun!
I know someone that will go on a spur of the moment too! WOOP WOOP!

I use the phrase "It's not the destination, it's the way you get there that's the adventure."

That SO rings true most of the time. I enjoy the adventure you can have just by driving somewhere like the coast. Have you ever seen Pea Soup Anderson's in Santa Nella?
You can't miss it if you drive through Santa Nella. There's only one effin road!
Here. Check this pic out.

THAT my friends is the best place to get a bowl of split pea soup EVER.If you don't believe me, adventure yourself right on over there and try it out. If you like pea soup, you won't be disappointed.

Let's see....where else can you stop off on the way to the coast?

There's Dinosaur point!!

Yes, I've been there. No, I didn't see one FN dinosaur. False advertising methinks.

Everyone's heard of Casa De Fruta right? If you have and never stopped there for wine tasting, shopped the fresh fruit stand, rode the casa de train, or seen the Casa De Duck, you really have NOT LIVED. They just started having the NOR CAL Ren Fair there a few years back. It's in Sept and Oct I think. Really cool stuff. Take a lot of $5 bills for that cause everything costs $5. No sales tax. They didn't have any back then. (better take sales tax money just in case though). Nothing like a weekend of cleavage and prose! Thou shouldst "WOOP WOOP!" right about now...

You KNOW you wanna click on those links and check out those sites. Go ahead. Click. I DARE ya.

Adventure!

I'll just post a Quote or four for the day (with cliff notes by me) whilst you're busy clicking.

I'm thinking Broccoli Beef stir fry for lunch...now THAT's adventure! MMM MMM MMM

Oh, one more thing. If you have something to say, use the COMMENT clicky thingy under the quotes!

Oh wait...one more thing. If you've never seen my 30 days of Bed Head project, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the blog and check'er out! :)

*****

Quote for the day:

"No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately. " -- Michel de Montaigne (This is SO me. I say stupid stuff just to make people laugh!)

"Use your imagination not to scare yourself to death but to inspire yourself to life. " -- Adele Brookman (Can we use it to scare other people to death?)

"If you don't run your own life, somebody else will. " -- John Atkinson

(Anyone else fallen into that particular trap?)

"The best mirror is an old friend." -- George Herbert, 1651

(BFF's...ya gotta love em!)

Saturdays are for Shakespeare!

I had a GREAT day today!
I woke up way too early for my own good, but that's ok.
Other folks were up too, so I had virtual company.
I really was dreading my class today.
It was on Conflict Management. I've been to at least three of those things and they ALWAYS have role playing during them. I was totally not in the mood to role play this morning.
To my delight, the instructor was so animated, HE did all the role playing.
SEXCELLENT I SAY! I'm even looking forward to next weekends class. (go figure)
He let us know that he is an actor and will soon be a character in Merced's Shakespeare Fest coming up in August. I will SO be there!
They're going to be performing "Love's Labour's Lost", a play by Shakespeare that's actually not too mainstream.
It will be August 8th, 9th, 15th, and 16th, 2009 at Applegate Park in Merced. It's totally FREE and you all should go watch it if you're here and are interested in that kind of thing.
I'll be there with bells on.
None of my corn has come up yet. I think it was too cold when I planted it. Good thing I have another half of a packet left to play with. HA!
I added some green onions to the garden, so now I have those, oregano, sweet basil, cherry tomatoes, chives, strawberries, corn, ginger, and some kinda flowers that I found in the office when I was cleaning it up. Cant wait to just walk outside and pick a basil leaf and a cherry tomato and just pop it into my mouth and enjoy it. With a strawberry for dessert!

My quote for the day today is one of shakespears insults. I hope you use it and confound your friends when they get on your nerves! (don't worry, it's not too mean, lol )

*****

Quote for the day:

"Hath thou a word, or wit, or impudence, that yet can do thee office?" -- Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure" 5.1.362-63

Dreams, Acuity, and Focus

I had a dream.
No, I'm not Martin Luther King resurrected.
I had a dream last night. A good dream!
No need to bore you with the details.
What I did realize from it though, was that my mental acuity has returned. My focus is sharpening. My wit is still as dull as a butter knife going through frozen margarine! Hey, no one's perfect.
Really though, for a long time now, it's been fuzzy goings. Since I quit the theater business in 2003, my focus just really hasn't been there. I had no idea what I wanted to do, who I wanted to do it with, or when I was going to do anything. I think I was going through a kind of puberty again. (No my voice didn't change, although I can still sing like Marilyn Monroe.)
God wanted me to experience things from a different perspective I think, and I sure have. Either he wanted me to realize my potential or wanted me to realize how I was wasting my potential. My self confidence and esteem seem to have started growing in me again.
It's...
about...
effin...
TIME!
I'm alive again. Let's keep it that way. (talking to my other personalities and those living inside me through my experiences) Alive and Kickin, indeed! (scroll down the music list)
The next time I see you, make sure I share some energy with you. Do the double hand-hand shake, send it across the room, or make sure eye contact happens. Energy is here, and it shall be shared!

OK.
I officially have 3 books in my head at the moment. I need to get them out as it's getting cluttered in there. All three are from very vivid dreams I had and remember most of. Interesting process there. I lllllllike it!
Now, I just need to find the time and the mood to rewrite and edit my existing novel, "Death by Mistress". It's just such a difficult thing for me to get in the mood to write as it's such a dark genre and I'm 1 FN happy Handy Man. Perhaps, I'll just let it go for a while and continue with my positivity, and start putting into writing those words that are so eagerly awaiting their exit from my ever so be-cluttered imaginary system. There's one that I'm really excited to start writing on, one that HAS to come out that has been stuck in my head for about 8 years now, and another that is still being written. The exciting one is going to be first, and the first chapter is forming in my head as I type. It's not that I can multi-task mind you. I'm a man after all. But, I CAN think of things one at a time, and my mind continually comes back to it when it's not thinking of or focused on something else. I WILL be a published author. Nothing will stop that.
If I seem to be day dreaming at times, now you know why. Just let it pass, and know that something wonderful is going to come from it.

*****

Quotes for the day:

"Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul." -- Rebecca West

"Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on; hold fast; hold out. Patience is genius. " -- Comte de Buffon

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do." -- Eleanor Roosevelt

"With a stop light, green means 'go' and yellow means 'slow down'. With a banana, however, it is quite the opposite. Yellow means 'go', green means 'whoa, slow down', and red means 'where the heck did you get that banana?' " -- Mitch Hedberg