My last project

So being inspired by the yule tide and the Datamancer website. I decided to do my first keyboard modification. If you can even call it that. It is more of an arts and crafts project. I mean what else would you call spray paint and superglue? My wife is a scrabble addict and a laptop user who is constantly bumping the mouse pad. SO what would be better than this? It isn't perfect but the old keyboard was a Goodwill find for 5 bucks and the mini scrabble tiles were found on ebay, so if you are going to take the chance of screwing up royally you may as well screw up cheaply! It turns out she likes it and it still works after a minor dis-assembly scare. So the beta test was a success! Next step is a real mod. Ohh what a catastrophe I foresee that being! 

Yaaay booze!

Last spring we (ok my wife) cut our blackberry brambles back...way back. Firstly because they are a nuisance and secondly because they are wild blackberries and are a little on the bitter side with lots of dead growth. She had read how sometimes a good cutting can add to the flavor even if they are wild. So she cut them back and watched them grow, and grow, and grow. So she next started threading them through the fence that keeps the great outdoors out of our lawn. Thank goodness she did too because they really filled out over the summer! So a few months ago the blackberry's along our woods were ripe and ready to pick. Sure we could have said forget it let the critters have them but where is the fun in that? Not to mention we are both frugal, to the point of being miserly sometimes, so why lose the blackberries to a bunch of birds who never ran a lawn mower in their lives?! So after clearing off a goodly section  we had a good haul of berries. Now wild blackberries have lots of seeds and these were no exception, but they were nice and sweet (yaayy baby!). So contemplating a bit I decided I would try something different with them.

Way back in 2009 we took a trip through bourbon country. Bardstown, Kentucky by name and found a little delight called white dog that we both loved. Growing up it was called moonshine but this is the good stuff! It is white whiskey before it is aged in new oak barrels (Google bourbon whiskey and you can see why bourbon is so lovely and why the only TRUE bourbon comes out of Kentucky!). So since white dog was not for sale at the time we figured we were out of luck in having any more the foreseeable future. You could only sample it in the factory tasting areas at that time. However a earlier this year I came across an article that said white dog was being sold! Hooray! So I went to the Washington State package store and went looking and finally found a bottle labelled white dog but bottle here in Washington State. HUH?! Well I am adventurous even if I am a purist and figured it would not be good. Turns out I was right. It wasn't good. It was as the French say, merde, so it sat untouched along a bottle of psuedo-grappa (from the same company). Until....

I took the blackberries and mashed them up and added sugar and let them  infuse in the white dog. Over two weeks it infused and was strained and sampled and re-sugar then left to age/infuse/simmer/percolate in the cool garage until tonight! We sampled it and it is yummy! So here it is! All we are waiting for is our guests to arrive in the summer so we can share it with them. Although a bottle is being reserved for my father-in-law who looks to be stranded in the far flung reaches of Switzerland this upcoming year. I think it will need posting to him by Saint Bernard...just to keep his spirits up!

Photos courtesy of my beautiful Bride!

Looks like Tamarind infused tequila is next! 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

So Santa came down the chimney last night and filled the stockings. Everyone went to bed at a semi-reasonable time and woke up ready for Christmas! So we opened up most of the gifts and everyone seemed very happy with their haul. I know I was very happy with mine! The kids biological father came over and we opened the last of the gifts. Then everyone Skyped and called over favorite people all over the world and I made a very late lunch that consisted of breakfast. The kids retired to the X-box and engaged in a little modern warfare while the Mrs. and I sampled one of my gifts. A bottle of absinthe! Now I don't like anise but I found out I like absinthe. It is a very nice tipsy feeling without the drunky, muddle headedness of other boozes. I have a crush on a green fairy! LOL!!


So nicely tipsy we started working on pupu's and supper. It was a major undertaking that my wife pulled off with aplomb and fantastic results. Pupu's were spinach dip a sour dough bowl and french onion dip and chips. Dinner was roast duck, smoked turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, broccoli and brussel sprouts with a sparkling cider to wash it down. Desert was an egg pudding delight that was cooked by the #2 boy that was taught to him by a nice German grandpa! Thank you!! Now for a long nights sleep....after a longer night of cleaning up. Thank you Santa!!


And yes Mom I went to church last night.

Ahhh the holidays

So my Bride has been a trooper lately. Work has been more stressful than necessary for her and it is time for her to chill out a bit. Unfortunately it is the holiday season and 2 weeks of having the all kids around will probably be a mixture of joy and frustration. Teenagers are horrible creatures as a wise woman said! But you know what? We are going to look on the bright side of things and enjoy the holidays! As part of the whole holiday experience I had my first roasted chestnut last night. How many times in your life have you sung the song? I know that I have sung the first line from the song countless times…mostly because I don’t know the rest of the song. However I never ate a chestnut until last night. You know what? They are awful things. OK not awful but they are not to my taste. A little too…chest nutty I guess. Mushy too, but mostly chest nutty. Well at least I tried it and that is what counts! Never get so old that you won’t try new things, no matter how chest nutty they are!

So I must confess this is the first Christmas in a long time where I am looking forward to opening my gifts. Sure there is always that nice feeling of getting something, but the real excitement has been gone for a while and I just took that as part of getting older. I mean adults don’t get nice toys and shiny bobbins attached to gimcracks and geegaws! Adults get socks, and clothes, and stuff that is needed. Gift cards and the like so that they can go out and buy practical things! Being an adult at Christmas is a pain! Now don’t get me wrong my Mrs. has done an excellent job of teaching me to open up to the Christmas spirit! I am eternally grateful for that too! Now I get joy from watching others get their stuff and I can go “Ooooo look! I did that, I made that smile!”

OK, sure that is nice but don’t you really want to look forward to getting you own something nice too? Luckily I have a wonderful wife who has been working hard to get that excitement back for me. It has only taken her 5 years, which is pretty much record time too as I am a notorious Scrooge!! The best part is that she has put that holiday spirit in me just in time for me to get excited about something the kids got me. You see I have a big thingy under the tree with my name on it! By thingy I mean it is big and round and wrapped up and I have no idea what the h3ll it is!! I know it isn’t socks, or clothes, or stuff like that, it is a big ole something and who wouldn’t get excited about THAT?! Also I have a bunch of stuff’s under the tree for me! Smaller thingies that are just begging to be opened! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! Also my Bride has a big ole stack of lil’ thingies for her to open! So do the kids! My baby boy has his thingy in the mail and should be getting it soon! I am so stoked for Christmas I could pee my pants!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well it’s not ticking…….

So I found a round tin of what appears to be cookies on my desk today. Everybody got them but I don’t know who they’re from. Rumor has it the boss got them for everybody but I don’t know that for sure. I mean it could be an assassination attempt. Poot has tried to kill me twice this month by grabbing my foot while I am heading toward the stairs and once while walking toward the glass coffee table. If not for my ninja like reflexes my wife’s dog would have ended my life, in a manner that would have looked like a complete accident, which we all know is the perfect assassination! I don’t know why Poot wants me dead but I suspect it has something to do with a ball, or food, or a ball made of food. But that is just a guess. It could also have something to do with the fact that the dogs stocking is empty. Last year their stocking was filled with goodies well before everyone else’s. It seems to me the ole girl may be feeling a little left out and is trying to grab my attention about it. I should probably find a way to tell her that killing me is a bad way to fill a stocking and it would actually put her on Santa’s naughty list! Ok it was just cookies! Turns out the boss here bought a big tin of cookies for everyone and they are this really nice ginger cookie that are thin and crisp and very nice to eat! Hooray for the holidays!

Happy Anniversary

So we pulled off our anniversary. A little late but well done if I do say so myself. It was a beautiful room in Seattle at the Pan Pacific Hotel (sorry no pictures). The staff was very accommodating and very professional (example of that in just bit). So just to review things a bit... it has been a chaotic time over the last two weeks and we had decided to forego our anniversary until  a couple of nights ago things get settled down and my Bride says she could use a big tub and some time away from all of the mess. So we sat down filled out some Christmas cards and looked on the internet for some deal on rooms with big tubs. Things were not looking good and we were starting to get frustrated and grumpy when we called an end to the search and went to sleep with me telling her to forget everything and I would handle it tomorrow when she was at her swim meet. So after a few hours of sleep my Mrs. goes to work and I get up a little later to do some last second mail, gift buys, kid planning, kid sleep over at her dad's, and web searches for a room with a tub. At about 2 o'clock things are wrapped up on my end. My wife gets home earlier than planned (YAAAYY!!) and we work on getting the kid/teens handled. We get on the road at 845-ish when the idea of obtaining a bottle of wine becomes a good idea for later in the evening. So we do what comes naturally....for us any way. We stop at the Circle K and grab 2 bottles of Boones Farm and hit the road! 

You see Boones Farm is an inside joke we had a very nice dinner in Crete and I brought a bottle of wine and a bottle of Boones Farm (Strawberry Hill) and pulled out the Boones like that was a good bottle of wine! I shortly brought out the "good" wine but all the Americans had a nice chuckle. Turns out the Greek, Swedish and French were confused and wanted to try the Boones Farm, which we did. After multiple objections by myself it was tasted after dinner with such unforgettable comments such as "I don't think this is good but I like it" etc, etc. I wish I could have taken a picture of our Blonde friend as she sat on a low step, wine glass in one hand, bottle of pink "wine" in the other puring and drinking, pouring and drinking until the bottle was empty. So there is the joke!

Anyway we grabbed the Strawberry Hill and the bottle of Drano colored Blue Hawaiian and headed to a nice room in Seattle. We checked in and the staff was pleasant and well mannered however when we got to the room and settled in we realized we forgot the "wine". So we called to arrange to pick it up from our valet parked car and the front desk said it was no problem and would have it delivered, Now that is service! Now this is a nice hotel. A hotel fitting of an nice anniversary and designed to cure my wife of her ills after 2 rough weeks it is also much nicer than I would ever prefer to stay in. Unless someone else was picking up the tab. So here we are, slightly frazzled and a touch sleep deprived, when the young man from the desk knocks to deliver 2 bottles of Boones Farm and some tic tacs in a plastic bag bag labeled Circle K. He smile politely wishes us a good evening and a happy anniversary and hands over the bag. I had to tip the guy! The Mrs. and I both had a good a good laugh because....well of everything! Well the evening was fantastic and far too short but well worth it! I applaud the Pan Pacific Hotel and their staff for making a rotten stretch into a very happy memory!  

My Cinderella

Well earlier this month was our anniversary. The plan was to go out to Whiskey Creek steak house, still the home of the best steak I have ever eaten in my life. Seriously! Unfortunately there was a minor snag in the process that stopped the whole thing in its tracks. In fact between the comedy of errors  and obligations that was the weekend and a slew of messes that involve certain immature people in the general area of Silverdale our Anniversary was postponed! There was also the expression that an event such as that, so close to Christmas, makes gift giving a bigger pain in the toosh. Which I agree with but there was no way in the world I was going to say it before my wife did! HA HA HA!!! So my fairy tale princess and I will be celebrating it all at Christmas. However I still have her anniversary gift wrapped and ready to go in her stocking!

The tree!!

It is that time again! The lights are up outside and the tree has been assembled! And a very pretty tree I think! The best part of it is….everyone helped with it this year! No whinging, or whining, or broodiness….other than some bulls!t Emo music in the background. I can’t say that I am a Bing Crosby fan but would a little Elvis kill ya?!!! HA HA HA HA!!

A very nice surprise (2 days of bacon!)

So yesterday I was running late…as usual since I retired from active military service. My wife has been a very bad influence on me with her Mediterranean interpretation of time and schedules.  But one thing my brain did perceive was the smell of bacon. Now bacon has become this fashionable fetish of sorts. There are more websites and Youtube videos canonizing bacon than I can fathom. However I have to say I like bacon. I also confess that I did not always like bacon as much as I do now. So does that make me some bacon poser that jumped on the bacon band wagon? Maybe. It also may have something to do with the cut of bacon.

Personal history lesson here…because I love talking about me!

I grew up with thin cuts of bacon. That is just how it was. My parents were born in the depression and raised in WWII. Things were rationed and stretched as far as humanly possible to help the war effort. Americans knew how to say, “no” then and (insert patriotic rant here it should be easy). So I grew up thinking that bacon was always thin and cooked to be mostly crunchy. It took my wife coming into my life to learn that I like, I mean really like, thick cut bacon cooked to the point of being meaty and just under crisped.

So anywhooo I wake up to the smell of bacon with a slightly frantic need to egress the house. As I go into the kitchen I see my Brides oldest son cooking eggs. He wisely jumps out of the way, probably because his self preservation instinct perceives that my need of coffee could come into conflict with his health and physical integrity. My brain half interprets his mutterings and the words “a piece of bacon if you want” sink through the sleep muddied brain. Coffee in hand bacon in mouth I mumble “fank you” and head for the door. By time I am half a mile away I figure out that he got up early to make me breakfast! Now I have a dread of arriving to work late. It is trained into me. It just is and there is no changing it. But I was really touched by this, and while I won’t lie and say I went back to the house and ate breakfast, I did text him a thank you and told him how perfect the bacon was. It was too! Cooked just right and I appreciate that! Anyway I apologized that night for not being able to eat the breakfast he made and he apologized for not getting up earlier to have it ready for me!! WTF?! He said he just felt like making me breakfast. How nice was that?! So we finished up and did some decorating (more on that in a later post).

So today the first alarm goes off and what do I smell again? BACON! So I get off my butt and get ready and he has another breakfast ready for me! It was laid out on a plate with scrambled eggs and bacon broken up into it and a tortilla. I was stunned and touched….again! With coffee and a breakfast burrito in my belly this morning I was a very happy camper!! I even got a goodbye hug from the little one! Man you would think Christmas was right around the corner! Ohh wait……

Just kidding. Thanks Kid!!

Working for the weekend

Once upon a time I went to work after school, in a greenhouse then in a print shop. I graduated high school and continued in the print shop, at minimum wage or maybe a few coppers over minimum wage and then I joined the military. So after 20 years of military service I am back in the work force and working for the weekend as that 80’s band sings in their classic song “Working for the weekend”. Even when I was in the military there was a sense of working for the weekend, from time to time, however as duty days on the weekend became a fact of life that started to fade for me. Especially when I started to notice that I was having a better time at work than at play. I know that sounds bizarre but it is true because I got to play and be with friends while at work! It was great! Now that I’m out I have a job that I am enjoying. No it doesn’t have the sense of urgency that the military did but it is decent money and is pleasant surroundings, for an office. The thing is I have noticed that I am starting to work for the weekend again. The same thing happened with my Bride but slightly different. Same, same but different. Working for the weekend.

Now you may be saying “no ship Sherlock everyone does this”. To that I say, WHY? See once upon a time I found that I was looking forward to deploying and spending time with a great bunch of guys (yes, and gals too). My Mrs. also had a nice routine of work and friends that crossed over to a degree. In the movie the Shawshank Redemption there was a line about becoming institutionalized to a system and it was true was certainly true for me. When I went out it was with my military buddies, which is normal, but I found out that when I went on leave I missed the military surroundings and people. Don’t get me wrong I love my Son more than life itself and I love my parents and family too but I found I longed to be back in a military environment. When I went to Hawaii I found that if I wasn’t at work I was normally at my best friend’s house. My best friend was also at the same command and was my boss for a while. His wife was fantastic and put up with a boozed up buddy (moi) stumbling over with a rack of beer and eating dinner with them nearly every night. In fact I even recall getting calls from them asking me if I was coming over for dinner if I was running later than usual. It was a family outside my family. The best part was I could cuss, burp and fart with no fear of reprisal from my mom! My wife was able to socialize at work and her friends came in, then when she was off of work they were at each other’s houses and had a very family like situation there. It was a great thing for her too. So who the hell needed a proper weekend?

Now you see here’s the rub. The thing that my Bride and I are missing is our friends & families. Mine are scattered far and wide and hers are even father and wider. The same for our families, mine are far (about 2,500 miles), hers are farther (about 5,000 miles). So how in the world does someone make a new best friend or even new friends when that social environment is gone? There has to be a commonality, a link, an alignment of the stars or sometimes a bitter stroke of fate. Yes I can honestly say my wife is my best friend and I know I am my wife’s best (guy) friend. There is no replacing the Blonde (the “E” is European) in that department, too many tears and laughs and coffees have been poured out to replace the Blonde. That sounds weird and no it isn’t kinky. In fact it would probably make a great made for TV movie or feel good hit of the summer! But how does someone find a simple friend when there is a lack of commonality? You just end up with acquaintances if there is no commonality. I think people use the word friend too much now-a-days. The youngest obtains new best friends and new “loves of my life” weekly, ok monthly…maybe quarterly. But adults aren’t like that, nor should they be honestly. I’m sure we all know “adults” who are like that but I think they fall into the acquaintance category for most of us. But without our friends and families we just end up working for the weekend. So to all of our friends and family out there I hope you know that you are in our hearts, minds, and prayers during this holiday season. We love you and miss you all no matter where you are on this big old world!

Opera Chaotique

Poem by Charles Bukowski and sung by Opera Chaotique. The Mrs. and I really like this song...it is hard to put my finger on the why though....OK no it isn't.

to the whore who took my poems
some say we should keep personal remorse from the 
poem, 
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this, 
but jezus; 
twelve poems gone and I don't keep carbons and you have 
my 
paintings too, my best ones; it's stifling: 
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them? 
why didn't you take my money? they usually do 
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner. 
next time take my left arm or a fifty 
but not my poems; 
I'm not Shakespeare 
but sometime simply 
there won't be any more, abstract or otherwise; 
there'll always be money and whores and drunkards 
down to the last bomb, 
but as God said, 
crossing his legs, 
I see where I have made plenty of poets 
but not so very much 
poetry.

Cogs and goggles required

So in case you never heard of Steampunk you should look it up. It has a nice aesthetic even if most of the adherents are a bit fanatic in their devotion. If you found the music fun I highly recommend hopping over the The Steampunk Workshop and to Datamancer for other fun things that go hiss, clank and whir!

More happy tunes!

Totally justified!!

Ferret legging

Yes this is real......

Redneck ferret legging?

OK sooooooooooo. Yeap. I think this speaks for itself. 

Home remodels

So things like this http://realestate.msn.com/fresh-new-looks-for-a-bathroom I find rather interesting now that I am a home owner. First because we are planning a costly set of renovations ourselves and second because I like the ideas and different styles of stuff. Not an uncommon thing really, I mean who doesn't look at other designs and go "ohh how nice!" or "what were those clowns thinking?".

Part of the fun is to play the, what if we won the lottery and could do anything we wanted game, and let the imagination just run wild. Now I have a lot of imagination and no limit of space in the world. This is a fact. My Bride has the Greek houses that still need work and maintenance, we have the house here that needs upgrades and maintenance. Something always needs worked on to some degree. It is part of life and home ownership. So when reality decides to cut us a break and let 10 minutes of free time become available one can't help but let the mind wander a bit to what can we do to a house somewhere around the world?

This is a fun, completely normal game that everyone plays at some point in their life!! The best and some times worst thing is when life imitates art. The best because you can make a dream come true and improve your surroundings and living arrangements, aka quality of life (as the corporate world likes to say now-a-days). The worst because that sh!t COSTS money!!! Yes in our dream world we would find old but strong timbers from a ruin somewhere and cut and smooth the timbers by hand. Oil the wood and protect them using non toxic liquids, that are environmentally friendly, and cost half the price (in imagination land you have loads of time & money with no distractions to to keep you from your noble task) . Then you design your own wrought iron, Venician style, handrails to replace the old prefabricated ones. The end product is a perfect balcony with added space that will last a life time as it overlooks the small alleyway with the Mediterranean view! That is a subtle but important thing, it has to last a lifetime because it is PERFECT NOW! Perfection requires no more work!! This is actually a side project by the way, how the reality will meet it in the middle we have no idea yet. You see I am not that handy (ask my Bride) and have not near enough the amount to patience required! In fact my patience level is somewhere between a dogs and a house fly's, (I am leaning more toward a persistent dog in my opinion). That makes tasks like this a shade more difficult! But in imagination land I am Heracles and no task is insurmountable!

In our dream world the replacement windows we are getting would be 1/10th the price, and two to three times the energy savings! In imagination land the bathroom remodel would be 1/2 the price, and have all the bells and whistles we would LOVE in a modern European home and still match the decor and style of the house! Ahh imagination land...second star to the right and straight on until morning!

Unfortunately we are in the real world, even if it does feel like Bizarro World world sometimes (comic book reference there and extra credit if you get it!). So in the end we will pay more than we want to and get half of what we would like. However we are hitting some important wickets, to us anyway. The windows are made here in Washington State right across the Puget Sound. A little old fashioned of a concept? Buy local made products instead of something a Chinese factory could churn them out for a little cheaper ? Yeap that's us old fashioned! What we found out was the windows we are getting were the LEAST expensive of every other reputable option available and they have an comparable rating to higher priced windows. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope that  the end product meets our expectations, just like every other big buy in life I guess.

Meanwhile we discovered a little while back that the bathroom tub has had a leak for a while and that the bathroom need to be renovated, repaired and hopefully NOT gutted like a fish! So we have that to look forward to in the next month! Once again we are looking at local tradesmen for the job and the best bang for the buck we can get. Man I should have taken wood shop in High School!

Well no matter how rough it goes I do know one thing. When all this stuff gets "done" it will be worth it. Sure it will  be a royal pain in the a$$ at the time. Yeap there are going to be tense days but it is getting done, it is getting paid for, even if I have to go without eating a steak for a year or two! My Baby and the kids need to be warm and I need a roof that won't fall in if people come to visit from parts unknown.

From Russia with love

So, I like checking my stats. It has a little map that shows you where you get viewed from in the world. So my passing infatuation with India is gone and now. My new demographic it seems is Russia and Brazil, with Tanzania coming in somewhere in the middle there. The good old USA is still #1 in views, which I credit to Americans wanting to buy American! So in an effort to bond more with by new fans I provide the above  to show my cultural awareness and willingness to bow to the masses!! Tanzania...well, we'll get back to ya'.

Happy tunes 8)

The sombrero diaries-Final nights.

So as I recall we all just sorta did our own thing and napped and stuff the last night on ship. Blame the tamarind tequila or the need to censor a family blog. But I do remember our laundry coming back pinkish with a set of purple culottes that were once red. But other than that a very pleasant evening, if pleasant is a freak-out mad dash to pack clothes and minimize the carryon luggage and booze on your person. However it all went off with nary a hitch. Disembarked and packed trucks and headed back to San Antonio. We unpacked trucks again, settled down for a great dinner, conversation and a glass of bourbon. Then off to bed for a 4:00 AM wake up and dash to the airport. Goodbyes were said and thus ended a spectacular birthday party/vacation/adventure. The end.

What you want more? Ok so I got some goofy looks from people in the airport. I mean I am wearing a big green sombrero the whole time but hold down the hat envy. Freud could write a book on it I tell ya! Except he's dead. Anyhow sure it was a nuisance having people bump into my hat on the plane, I had an aisle seat, but I understand it. Who wouldn't want to touch it? It is green felt! That's like twice as nice as Corinthian leather! I am certain I read that somewhere! Sure the stewardess was miffed when she asked where we went (smug with her airline attendant training) and I responded France, but hey Poncho is new to the high speed life of America! I can't have him swayed from a righteous path by some floozy stewardess looking to touch my sombrero! So off she went and not a ginger ale was to be seen the entire flight!

The sombrero diaries-Cozumel

So many things are discussed about Mexico. Bad water, tequila, sun, beaches, poverty, crime, sombreros, etc., etc... My God-Daughter will tell you emphatically NOT to drink the water. This wasn't my first rodeo when it came to travelling abroad so that was not a problem. My mind run that course easily. No water, no ice, no frozen delights that could be made with tainted water, don't rinse your mouth with tap water, don't wash your hands and put them in your mouth until fully dry. Paranoid? Well guess who never had Montezuma's Revenge? This guy! Tequila? I don't really like the stuff. However there is always an exception to the rule and Cozumel I found it!

So we crossed the brow from the ship and we were in Mexico! After the obligatory pictures and shop browsing we ended at a cab stand where the haggling began again in earnest. After a span of roundy round with the drivers we hopped a van and headed to the beach.via a tequila distillery. Well sort of. It was a very nice Hacienda that was converted to show how tequila is made at the actual distillery a few hundred miles away. However, free samples of everything were provided so that makes it a non-issue!! So as I said tequila and me are not friends. No story there, I am just not a fan. That is until I tried a tamarind flavored tequila. This stuff was FUN. So we buy a bottle with the express idea that we are taking it to the beach and sharing it and having a good time. You know what? That is exactly what we did too. No drama. No punch line. After the Hacienda we all went to this beautiful beach and drank tequila and sunned and swam and had some food that my wife labeled "gorgeous". You know what? It was gorgeous too, from the octopus to the nachos it was just gorgeous. Like so many other nice things in life they all come to an end though. 

After far too few hours we headed back to town and did a little more window shopping, and that is when we saw him. My wife actually spied his younger brother and pointed him out to me, but. that was when I saw Poncho. How anyone could miss Poncho I don't know! He was covered in dark green felt and white sequins. He was majestic. He was all that was, and is, Mexico to me. The Cisco Kid and Zorro rolled all up into one.A BIG GREEN SHINY SOMBRERO!! So after some time alone talking to Poncho and weighing the options of getting him on the ship, off the ship, on the planes, off the planes I decided to do the smart thing and say sorry Poncho you have to stay. At which point my wife asks me why I don't have a sombrero on my head. I explain the logistical nightmare of a 2.5 foot sombrero and air travel. Which she promptly poo poo's and tells me to go buy a sombrero. So I go back and hem and haw..and buy myself the coolest sombrero ever! Sure I got strange looks but who cares? They're all just jealous. 
So shortly after that, on the ship we went and out to sea we go! Next stop Texas!

The sombrero diaries-Birthday!

So somewhere in the mix of things Ross's (name changed to protect the innocent) birthday came around! We were all dressed to the nines and the ladies were very lovely in their dresses and heels! We had a lovely dinner, as normal and the we noticed that some of the ladies had mysteriously disappeared. Now I knew a little bit of what was going but not Ross. Poor Ross had been celebrating his birthday with smuggled rum most of the day, as my fading memory recalls. Hence the slightly concerned look from time to time. Mind you if I was in his position I would probably be on Red Alert with a butter knife secreted up my sleeve awaiting ninja ambush and a sniper attack! Some people just think differently I guess. However after a while the restaurant is nearly empty and the ladies return, Ross's wife is dressed in a short white dress ala Marylyn Monroe and her blond hair fluffed to perfection! A beautiful cake is put before the guest of honor as his wife begins a whiskey voiced rendition of Happy Birthday that would knock your socks off! All in all a fantastic birthday! Happy Birthday and thank you for inviting us!

Very proud poppa!!

So I learned last night that my baby boy, and number one Son was selected for advancement to Petty Officer Third Class in the United States Navy! It was his first time taking the test and he still made it. It is a fairly arcane process, understanding Navy advancement so I won't bore you with the details, but he did a GREAT job making it his first time up!! Needless to say I am as proud as a father can be and I think he is a great addition to the ranks of Petty Officers in the worlds finest Navy!!

MA3 SERGE WE ARE VERY PROUD OF YOU!!

Westhavenbrook Productions

So it you have known me for about a day you probably know I like campy stuff. Comic books. Action movies. Testosterone fueled books with a historical bend....or bent historically! On that note support Westhavenbrook Productions! These guys are pretty tweaked and still doing what they love, and quite well despite ZERO budget.

Be sure to follow the exciting adventures of Battlejitni!!

The true meaning of Thanksgiving

I am glad someone else remembers.

The sombrero diaries-Grand Cayman Island & Hell

The best thing about going to sea is getting to go back on land, as long as that land is somewhere else! Sure home is nice but somewhere else is an adventure! Not to mention there is something to be said for travelling over the horizon of blue water and seeing land again. It still gets me excited and that day was no different! So we gathered up and met our group (they were well prepared and in line to get in line while we were….not) and waited for our boat to go ashore. The process was smooth and a very pleasant little trip! Not to mention that it was warm/hot, sunny, and a new place with nice people. Hot and sunny is a nice change from our normal November weather and it was a JOY to see my bride drink in the sun! She was aglow and tanning shades by the second, and that is just walking down the pier! Her ability to tan is something that I am not capable of doing and I am constantly jealous of, just don’t tell her that! Anyway, so we do a little walking and find some bus tours. Our group is trying to decide the best value for our buck when Cash Money comes up. Cash Money is 6’ 3”, 220 lbs of Grand Cayman magic! He sells us the exact same deal that all the other drivers for his bus company have been trying to sell us for 10 minutes and we love it! We say yes we will take the deal and head to the bus. As we begin loading up he hands us over to another driver and the 14 people in our group go nuts! “Nooo! We want him to drive us!!” we moan! “That wasn’t the deal?!” we cry! So after a bus shuffle and my bride helping to wrangle more tourists for the 30 person bus we head out.

Now Grand Cayman is a new destination for me and most of the others. It is small, a few miles long and even thinner than that wide, however it is very pretty. We drive up the main road and learn a bit about the place, who owns what, what kind of damage was sustained during the big hurricane, the entire time we are the epitome of American tourists. Our heads swinging left to right with the occasional click of digital cameras on the cell phones. Bliss! It is so nice to be comfortable as a tourist without having someone hocking wares at you! So we travel up the island until we end up in Hell. Yes Hell. Hell is a limestone formation built up from sea critters that look remarkably like the flames of, you guessed it, Hell. Turns out way back when some English fella was shooting birds there and between misses and the hits (that fell into the jagged rock formation of course) the gentleman would exclaim “Bloody Hell!). The name stuck! Now there is a fence to protect the area and a small gift shop where we sent my Mom and Dad and the kids a post card. Then on the road again!

The next stop was a small tourist trap where we got loaded up on free rum samples and rum cake, best samples ever! Tortuga rum is great! Why? Because of something extra they do with it…they give it away as free samples at a gift shop! YAAY RUM!! The next stop we got to peek between the chain linked fence and look at a turtle farm. Which was great because I sure wouldn’t pay to look at large concrete tanks full of turtles? However right across the street is a place where you can swim with dolphins and have them give you kisses and stuff. Which was very nice because our group had a fantastic time making out with the dolphins and got some very nice photos too? At this point some of our group went to shop while a few of us stayed at the beach. The beach was beautiful! We ate conch fritters and marinated conch and got a good top off of sunshine. It was so nice to see Shona and the kids playing in the water, while my pale self slowly roasted on the sand!

So we wrapped up the day by taking a short walk downtown, which was less impressive as the beach and eating a little more food not from a buffet. It was average but filling! Returning to the ship we napped as the ship headed out on to the Riviera De Maya. A great time for all!

The sombrero diaries-Day FAT

So at some point  between cocktails and sleep I travelled from “down” in the ship to the Lido deck. Lido-The term lido is an Italian word for beach. Thank you Wikipedia. There really is a Lido deck, The Love Boat did not make that up. Captain Stubeing, Julie, and Isaac the bartender were fabrications of a demented mind but the Lido deck is real! It has sunning areas laid out in an amphitheater style, a stage, Jacuzzis, the buffets, and a bar. In fact the coliseum like layout was the perfect setting for my latest humiliation. It was like a gladiators death the way my self-image died! As I was saying I walked up to the Lido deck and as soon as I got through the sliding double glass doors I see our group and my lovely bride. They seemed happy and in high spirits, but I was soon to learn that their positioning was a tactical ambush. Like assassins laying a trap they were there….waiting. Patient as crocodiles. Cunning as lionesses. The silent panthers in the night awaiting the unsuspecting fawn. Yours truly was the fawn. You see my innocent Hoosier senses were stunned by the loud noise and blinding sunlight as my bride tells me I had just missed the hairy chest contest. Little did I know the rest of the pride was arranging my late entry in to the contest. So I let my guard down and enjoyed the spectacle! I laughed with the rest of the Romans filling the coliseum and then they struck! We got you in as a late entry “she” says. Who “she” was I don’t recall because my mind was numb with terror, my guts turned to water as self realization dawned…I was next to walk the bloody sands of the coliseum and die for the crowds pleasure! So I walked the steps and as the music began I shook my money maker. I didn’t win the hairy chest contest, that particular honor went to a man of Indian decent. That doesn’t bother me because India has a long tradition of dancers par excellence, and in the end I am still huge in India!! The rub is I saw myself on the ships TV a day later…..we are on the Atkins diet now! My target weight is only 25 lbs away (after a morning poo). 

Atkins Flu

So my bride, in an effort to keep me of the grave for a bit longer, suggested the Atkins diet. I love my wife more than air so I agreed; I mean it isn’t fair that she should do without while I indulge in anything I want to eat. Not to mention I could do with losing a few pounds and lower my cholesterol, since there is a family trait of bad cholesterol. So we started the other day…Monday evening I think…well it turns out the website warns of a thing called the Atkins Flu. No energy, groggy, blarg feeling, etc. etc.. Well it hit full bore about 12 o’clock today. I want a nap and a donut…at the same time! Here. Now. Smother the donut in Bavarian Cream and put it between two pieces of wonder bread and top with mashed potatoes and milk gravy. Atkins is the devil…… 

The sombrero diaries-Day 2-3

So the next day we met our steward. Steward, we came to find out, is an old Norwegian word meaning creepy Filipino guy who  is somehow always outside you door except when you are looking for him. Those Norwegians have a way with words I tell ya'. OK remember the old Looney Tunes cartoons that had the mad scientist who was supposed to be Peter Lorre? There you go! Our steward! Imagine opening your door, slightly hung-over and seeing that mug. You get it now!? 

Well it didn’t take us long to settle into a nice routine of eat, drink, be merry, and attend events. Now the events are a little weird, I say weird because I never imagined attending an art auction on a cruise ship. Yeah art auction. They sell art on ships. Not nice art but pretty pricey stuff! No I didn’t come home with anything for the walls but only because there was not a single Elvis on black velvet, let alone any dogs playing poker to be found! I mean how many light houses need to be painted people?! 

However the biggest two card monty grift, I mean event,  happening on the ship, is a thing that is referred to as a “raffle”. Now for those of you who don’t speak gypsy I will give a little background for you. It seems that in 1450, or there about, Vlad III (aka Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler, Vlad the Jerk, but most commonly referred to as Mr. "Oh please your highness don’t put that stake up my backside!") decided to do away with the leash laws for the gypsies of Romania and they all got out! This lead to the gypsies opening a burgeoning trade in fleecing rubes out of their money by fun things like raffles. Don’t get me wrong a fool and their money are soon parted…but leave my money out of it! Frankly the worst part of this grift is not that I spent any money on raffle tickets it is that I wasted my time! You see you get the tickets for free most of the times, but you have to bend the laws of the universe to attend them! There are 2-3 raffles running and they are staggered about 4 minutes apart from each other, but on different decks of the ship. So when one is finishing the other has already started, and all of them require that you must be present to win. It is the perfect grift because now you are either vying for an elevator or jogging the steps to get to the raffle on time or risk not winning because you were elsewhere. This cardio workout now has the end result of your stomach growling and you need to get a bite to eat...not to mention you are thirsty so you need a cocktail, which is about 37 dollars a cup. HA HA!! There's the rub! It is all trying to get you to buy expensive booze! It is like American Alley in Crete! Luckily our crafty friends had a nice ace up their sleeve that stuck a thumb in the cocktail lounges proverbial eye. I won’t reveal the secret (statute of limitations remember!) and we paid bubkis for our booze! Take that Dracula!

Our steward

The sombrero diaries-Day 1-1.5

So my bride and I were honored to be invited on a birthday cruise last year, for an old friend’s husband.  We accepted the invitation and as neither of us had been on a cruise before we were very excited by the prospects of water, sunshine, new destinations, and booze. Well as life would have it the days crawled by until the day of departure had crept up on us both. So as the final arrangements were completed and all the kids’ safety was ensured we flew out for the great state of Texas. We arrived to beautiful weather and gracious hosts who promptly filled us with Texas style Barbecue and adult beverages galore! The birthday man (who I will call Ross until the statue of limitations run out) is a maestro on the smoker/grill and as patient a host as I will never hope to be! After a good night of food, booze, and cigars everyone went to bed throughout the house. I say throughout the house because this was a family event and family flew in from the highlands for the event. Highlands as in Scotland, highlands…so space was a premium! Even then my love and I still had a queen sized inflatable bed in the upstairs that beat the snot out of the full sized torture rack that we shared while together in Crete. Yes the hype about Texas is true. They do NOTHING small! So after a sound night of sleep we were greeted to a batch of scrambled & scattered (scrambled eggs with sausage and other goodies cooked up together) served in a cook pot the size of my head! I can still smell the yummy the goodness Mmmm Mmm! After that we packed out the vehicles and hit the road.

Now a quick aside to comment on the Lone Star State. Texas is exactly what you would imagine. Gleaming cities, rough docks, open prairie, desert, marshes, the list goes on. If you ever saw it on TV or the movies and went “oh that’s Texas” you will see it in Texas. Because Texas is HUGE. Sure you can look at a map and go “big” but until you get there it doesn’t sink in. The last time I was in Texas I was 15 years old and then it realllllllly didn’t sink in, now that I am…older than 15, the magnitude of the place really becomes apparent .  

So anyhow we arrived in Galveston after driving 4 hours or so (it seems I blanked out after the first 2 light years) and made our way to the ship. Lucky for me I am former Navy and am used to the concept of hurry up and wait so lines and ID checks are pretty much routine. So the cruise line took our credit card info, rights to our first born, and copy righted any intellectual proper we may ever create and let us onboard….or so we thought. It seems there was a small glitch in a computer somewhere that held our group up for a little while. So after a short duration we were allowed on. We promptly shoveled food in our mouths and had to move on to mustering at our lifeboat stations. You see since the Titanic mustered up at Davy Jones locker, maybe it was the Lusitania, you have to learn your lifeboat station. During this 15 minutes of bliss you learn to rapidly proceed to this vitally important place as every screaming kid, fat hillbilly, and Arab rug merchant tries to shove, elbow, threaten, bite, and cajole their way to past you. I applauded the industry on their use of realism in conducting this training as the same people will most likely stampede over your bloody wreak of a body in an actual emergency. As the old adage goes, The more you sweat in training the less you bleed in battle. Anyhow the rest of the day was delightful! We ate dinner and had drinks with our group until the wee hours and fell asleep nicely buzzed by booze!

Our blonde friend (the e is European ooh laa laa)

 So Today as I got home I had a very pleasant surprise. Our friend U (name withheld) was Skype-ing with my lovely bride! For those of you in my family who don't know U she is my wife's best buddy and sister from another mother. She is very sweet and holds a deep seated hatred for me for whisking her best friend away from her to the other side of the planet. However she is very understanding about it, so I have to love her, and I do! She has 2 beautiful children, a sweet dog, she has traveled, is messy, enjoys coffee with good company, and loves tequila nights with my Mrs.

 Now to truly appreciate U you have to understand that she speaks 3 language conversationally (English, Greek, & Swedish) and a bit of French and  Spanish too I just learned. Pretty amazing considering that I have yet to master English (American dialect, Mid-Western sub-dialect)! However you have to understand that at the end of the day she is blonde (ooh laa laa). In the midst of all this multilingual brilliance, nay genius, there is one thing that can wreak her head.....the letter "J"! Below is the quick and dirty of why this is the case.

U-The letter J makes a K sound.
Me-Wait (reaching into the fridge for a jar) so is this a Jar, Kar, or Yar?
U-Its a Jar. No wait!!
Me-But you said a J makes a K sound. So is it a Jar, Kar, or Yar?
U-I said Yar!
Me and Shona-No you said Jar! It is a jar!

 You see the Jam Jar was a long running source of frustration for our friend as Yam Yar would be the way it would be pronounced using Swedish as the mother tongue. Yam Yar was a constant source of good natured fun for everyone because in the middle of all this brilliance there was one tiny little snag that she just had a little trouble working past. J. The funny thing was I was never Yarboe! At least not to my face anyway.

 So what is the big deal? The big deal is while she still occasionally has trouble with J she is still able to correct my spelling while speaking 372 languages and playing scrabble (in English...her 3rd language)!!!! Meanwhile I have yet to wrap up a complete sentence in Greek, French, Swahili, or Pidgin Hawaiian (ok that is made up, I speak wicked Pidgin Bra!)! So I have to ask what in the world do the Swedes put in their water?

I am huge in India

So I looked at my stats today. Stats are a graph and map showing where in the world people are looking at you blog. USA-#1 as always! but oddly enough India is the next highest country watching me....ok they breezed through. But hey that is fine with me because I love Bollywood movies! Dabaang and Shingham are quite possibly the best thing to happen to cinema since Desperado and El Mariachi as far as I am concerned! Also I think it was a crying SHAME that NBC cancelled Outsourced. Gupta (played by Mr. Parvesh Cheena) is a fantastic character and Mr. Cheena deserves another shot at prime time! Also for any of those nay-sayers who think I am just selling out to my demographic try to open your own minds and embrace the world!

Creature of the night!

 So last night Shona and I went to the Admiral Theater and saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show together. I think it goes without saying neither of us are virgins to the RHPS (I have seen RHPS in Evansville at the old Ross Theater & in Jacksonville, Florida. Shona would watch it at the Dream Theater in Monterey, Ca) but last night was the first time we saw it together, so there was a certain amount of concern to the whole thing. I mean something so iconic, and you know that both of you enjoy it should not be marred by a bad experience! Also it was a spur of the moment decision, as we both forgot about it until my bride reminded me about it playing last night. But hey, ALLONS-Y as the French say!!
 So we got to the Admiral with time to spare (unusual for us) which also provided us time to make snarky comments about fat ladies in too-tight Halloween costumes. What is this trend of fat people dressing like they are svelte (is fat the new average)? It also gave us time to see that next year we will need to get there even earlier because the downstairs area was set up as a dinner theater and MUCH closer to the bar! So we ended up sitting upstairs but still had a good view. The actors who played Frankenfurter and Columbia were fantastic and it seems like they have been playing the parts for a while now. They're not aged mind you, just comfortable with their parts (yes Freudians will pause at that I am sure). The set props were easily the best I have seen, simple yet multi-purposed. There was one lady we both took notice of in the audience who had a NEAR PERFECT Columbia outfit. She had obviously been going to RHPS for decades now and was a fan. Fan in the strictest sense of the word. Fanatic. Not creepy fanatic but fanatic none the less. I found I would look over at her, a dowager-princess-Columbia, from time to time, and just enjoy watching her as she enjoyed & interacedt with the show. That is the best part of RHPS the interaction! One note about RHPS is that you really need to go to one show, in one area, for a while to become fluent in it. The big ticket items are all the same. Toast, squirt guns, newspapers, playing cards, rice, confetti, etc. etc. (if you don't understand then go find a RHPS and learn for yourself as it is the best way). However I've found that some of the verbal interaction varies from venue to venue. Yes, Brad and Janet are still the same expletive as everywhere else but some of the other interjections are different. So while RHPS remains universal in many ways it also takes on a life of its own depending on where you go. In the end we both had a very nice time! H3ll we didn't even have to call 911, like we normally do when we go through Bremerton at night! So a good night in all!!

So why a blog?

Why not? I enjoy my nephew and nieces blog and my God-daughter's blog and other  blogs I have come across so why not? It is a nice way of getting the word out as to what is happening with the family, without being chained to that electronic designer drug known as FAceBOOK (needed to change that up lest a fleet of lawyers come knocking at the door). You can expect a bit of a yearly recap in future postings and weird little things that pop up from time to time, such as the quotes of the year 2011 below. Later!

Also to my better educated family members, if you feel the need to correct my punctuation and grammar...go ahead. I don't mind. Just ask my wife, she will tell you I don't mind well at all! HA!

Best quotes of 2011 we've heard so far

Clean? By the tenet we evicted who was baffled by our statement that we had been cleaning his former abode for the last 2 weeks.

Do they hire felons? By the survey taker at the mall when my bride mentioned the census was hiring people.

OHHHH MYYYY George Takei