An Open Letter to Lucille

Lucille

Dear Lucille,

Six months ago yesterday, I told you goodbye not knowing I would never see you again. Since that time, your brother Rudy has joined you, and by now I am sure you have found Jasper, Bullet, and Sally.

You’ll be happy to know that I adopted another dog that needed a home. He’s a smaller Cocker Spaniel and has a lot of your traits. His name is Lucas. You probably know all this already. He plays with all your old toys and chews all your old bones. He especially likes the bones you chewed groves in with your teeth. His mouth is smaller you know. Lucas follows me around the house from room to room like you did and he jumps on the couch to  look out the window as you did.

I fight my memory trying to remember all the different looks you had. Some I can recall, but with time things are drifting further away. Your soft fur, your cold nose in my ear to wake me up in the morning and growling at the rabbits in the yard I miss, but you not being at the door when I get home I miss most.

Where ever you wound up I know you’re better now. Running, swimming, all day I am sure.  I know we’ll see each other again. I want you to know I am doing alright. You gave me the best thing in life. I tell anyone that listens, that I had the best and prettiest dog. You were so smart and never a problem even when you got sick.

You’re the bossy one so keep the rest of the pack in line. When I get there I’ll have your favorite egg nog and I’ll throw the frisbee for you until my arms fall off.

Miss you.

LucilleNog

Mary, Mary why you buggin’

Mary, Mary I need ya huggin’

Sorry was getting my throwback on with a little Run DMC. Such simpler times those were. Sometimes I really miss them and at others I’m happily contented that they are long gone.

Well its Friday again, there’s a hurricane offshore and the local media is in another full fledged “oh shit” panic attack because of it. To better illustrate the insanity of hurricanes and the local media for all you long distance readers of this blog, right about now all the native Florida “crackers” (non-derogatory term for life long Floridians) are pretty much wishing for another Romney/Obama commercial on TV as compared to another “weather bimbo” screaming about the destructive forces and possible cone of death we may or may not be in the path of. Its absolutely mind numbing to listen to the idiots on tv prognosticate about hurricanes. In the end though I guess its necessary because if theres anything I have learned from simple observation in life its that inherently people are stupid.

By now everyone knows Donald Trump is half a choad and surfs the waves of douchebaggery.  Earlier this week “The Donald” issued an offer to President Obama. The offer was simple, release all college transcripts entrance applications and his application for a passport and in exchange Mr. Trump would within an hour write a check for $5 Million dollars to any charity of President Obama’s choosing. That is 5 million dollars!!  A five and six zeros and two commas to the left of the decimal point for all you playing at home.

We all know Trump loves publicity and is an opportunists at every turn. Trump makes no bones about it. But lets look at this a little deeper and at its most fundamental core.

Who the hell is Barack Obama? Get past all the birther bullshit. (we’ll even disregard for a moment his “long form birth certificate is fake with every single document expert and authority stating as much) Who is the guy? Every single President before him has disclosed every single piece of information that Obama has under lock and key. Why is that?

I dont care that Obama smoked dope and sold coke in college. I don’t care that his grades reflect he’s a moron. We know all this already. My question is simple. Why hide this information from the public? Bush was an idiot and he put his grades out there to prove it. He didnt hide from it.

Obama claims to be transparent and run a transparent administration. Meaning everything is open to public and above board. Why does that train come crashing to a screaming halt whenever the finger is pointed to his past?

Do you folks realize President Obama went to college, post graduate, received a law degree and there isnt even a paragraph of a book report written by this man about a nursery rhyme? Who the hell is he?

Well Brock he wrote a book isn’t that good enough?

I’ll be honest, I read “his” books. I wanted to know who the hell the guy was more then “well Oprah loves him”. If you were like me and read the books then you know they are not his words. Those words belong to Bill Ayers. You might not know him. I’ll help you. He is essentially a homegrown terrorist who was part of the communist group called the Weather Underground in the 1960’s. Ayers and his pals bombed government buildings and police stations in protest of the Vietnam war. Ayers is popular in the corrupt Chicago liberal scene and has written a lot. Take a look at some of his writing and then Obama’s books. Just beware of the lightning during your own personal watershed moment.

When you get past the bullshit of Trump and then all the liberal media labeling him an idiot for making the offer to Obama for his transcripts, there is a fundamental issue at hand here.

Why does Obama jump up and down demanding that Mitt Romney should disclose twenty years of tax returns, but Obama tells Trump to go fuck himself before he releases a simple piece of paper showing his request to attend Occidental, Columbia or Harvard?

Not only does Obama tell Trump to blow himself, Obama tells the very people of this country he claims to represent (middle class, under privileged, poor) to go to hell that essentially any charitable group representing those people in this country or world is NOT worth $5 Million dollars to Obama!

Do you know what $5 Million dollars buys for say Michelle Obama’s fat kid school lunch crap initiative?

This is the easiest and quickest $5 Million dollars this man will ever see in his life. All this for a simple couple of pieces of paper. Obama wont do it. Why? Obama has an opportunity to score a metric ton of cash for some people who could really use that money to make a difference. Obama has a chance to take a metric ton of money from a bonafide jackoff and shut him up for all eternity. Why wouldn’t he do that?

I’ll tell you why. Obama is a fraud. Everything about the mans life is bullshit. You think Bernie Madoff pulled a scam on the people of the world in epic proportions? You haven’t seen anything yet. When it comes to light, what and who Obama really is and has done to this country it will make Madoff look like he only stole a box of Girl Scout thin mints. The fraud Obama has perpetrated to get into office and then what he has done while there will only be surpassed on the shame the people of this nation will share in for putting him in the office in the first place. We all fell asleep at the switch, and for what? Some glimmer of “hope and change” when we were really down on our luck and starring into the abyss?

What did all of our grandfathers and mothers and their parents and the greatest generation that saved the world and this country teach us? We deserve what we do to each other under Obama. We put him in office. What we cant do, is go back to that greatest generation and honor their sacrifices and regain their trust for what we have done.

Obama’s got nothing and has done nothing. I am smart enough to see through his bullshit, and his biased and contextually incorrect “facts”. That doesn’t bother me. All politicians do that. My problem is far more simple. Who is Obama?

I’ll take Mitt this time. Is he showing up on some issues crooked as a dogs hind leg? You bet your ass he is. The difference is he shows up crooked and not a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’ll take that honesty in a scumbag any day.

Yes, “The Donald” may have a bad hairpiece and be a douche. When you get past all that, he cuts to the quick and knows a dirtbag when he sees one. Donald is dead on this time and he has $5 Million reasons in his pocket on why he is 100% correct.

Off the soap box and quick Lucas update:

Does your dog watch TV? Mine does. Well let me rephrase. All my dogs have watched TV.

When my Golden Retriever Lucille was around she really didn’t care about the TV when it was on. That is unless I was watching Cesar Millan the Dog Whisperer on National Geographic. No matter what if I turned on Cesar and there were dogs running around Lucille would walk up to the TV and very closely watch what the dogs on tv were doing.

Fast forward. Now there is a new dog around since Lucille decided to deprive me of her company.

Lucas doesn’t care much about TV. Same as Lucille. Lucas also doesn’t give a damn about Cesar and his pack of dogs. However Lucas doesn’t like scary movies. Paranormal Activity #3 to be exact.

I was watching Paranormal Activity 3 on Netflix this past week. I have enjoyed these movies in that past. They are silly and go for the cheap scare. Every time the suspense would build and I was getting that feeling of “oh shit something about to happen” Lucas would be staring at the TV growling and barking. It was so strange. There wasnt anything on the screen to catch his attention, but the suspense was building up and sure enough in a second or two…bam. Something scary would happen. Lucas would bark, growl and I’d piss myself.

Little guy has some heart. He was all bowed up ready to roll. I was so proud. The scene in the movie would calm down, so would he. Suspense would build back up, there was Lucas ready to throw down again.

So I can happily report two things. All my dogs have taken notice and actively watched some kind of TV program with great interest. Second, Paranormal Activity 3 is pretty good if you enjoy suspenseful cheap shock factor of these kind of movies.

 

Welcome back lover, its nice to see you again.

Friday that is, and in all your gloriousness you come back to me with your thermostat set to beautiful. I missed you. Please do not be in such a rush to leave me as I know you will. Let me enjoy and cherish you.

So as you may have noticed from my rather romantic or vomitus depending on your nature, opening statements the weather here in Florida has turned rather nice the last couple days. Furthermore its Friday and we all know what that means. Weekend freedom!

Last nights vice presidential debate went about as much as I suspected it would go. Vice President Biden better known as your drunken uncle barked, howled, flung his arms in the air and laughed between interrupting almost every word out of Paul Ryan’s mouth. Did he state anything of substance? Not particularly in my opinion. Obama came off as a pussy in the first debate and here comes Biden like a raving idiot. Very telegraphed response from the Obama administration and their mindless followers claiming the “old man” schooled the “young kid”. I thought Ryan handled himself professionally and much more maturely. The Romney team needs to clean up, and clarify some key subjects as abortion rights and tax reform instead of letting the Obama team intimate that they have no specific plan and that somehow no plan is much worse then a proven failing plan that we currently have with Obama. We’ll see what Romney does next week.

Lately I have been calling Lucas “Little Booty” more then I have been calling him by his name. There are a few issues at play here that I have been analyzing over in my head.

This dog’s southbound end is as cute as his northbound. When he is excited his whole butt shakes back and forth with the little nub of his tail doing the same thing. I cant help but laugh or smile. If the old saying “the sun shines even on a dogs ass at least once a day” is true this dog was born with his ass eternally planted in sun-shinny happiness. Naturally I have started calling him “Little Booty”.  Sorry, not sorry. Don’t Judge me.

If I call out to him “Little Booty” he will come running. He will also come to his name “Lucas”. Professionals will tell you that dogs don’t necessarily distinguish between the actual words or names more then the sounds and inflections of the words. No, go, and flow may all be the same to what a dog hears, but they become aware of the inflection of the words.

I mention all this because well, because it makes me feel better about calling my awesome little dog, “Little Booty” without feeling the least bit shamed or fixated on my dogs ass. He has a cute boot. What can I tell you?

Now for myself, standing in the street yelling, “LITTLE BOOTY” come, stay or heel? That is entirely a different matter. As much as I love the little dog, Im not willing to relinquish that masculinity or self respect yet. Well at least not when someone may be watching. LOL. So in those cases it’s back to “Lucas”. I find myself pausing from time to time when I am about to call Lucas, Little Booty that I need to also call him Lucas and mentally checking the “dog actual name and dog nickname” score card in my head to keep things even.

For the last three weekends, I have told myself that I will pressure clean the driveway. Now  in my defense one of those weekends it rained the entire time. The others however and my bad habit of procrastination has gotten the better of me. I should pressure clean the driveway right now. Coffee and this blog dictate much more important matters so the driveway goes further down the list of “get this shit done” things I really need to do. Its a brutal game I play with myself. I make a mental list of things, chores mostly, that I should do and I know if I do them all then I was very productive and I will even feel good about myself. Inevitably though I will not get to or really try to do all but the most necessary chores like laundry, house cleaning, grass cutting. I know this is going to happen every time. I make a list of things to do, know damn well I wont do the suckiest of chores, then feel shitty I let it slide again. Lather, rinse, repeat! It’s usually not until one of two things happen that I force myself to do the most crappy of chores. The complete and utter shame of having blown the item off for so long I cant stand to look at the situation any more, or I think I may impress a cute girl. Hey no shame. Even Hitler had a nice piece of ass. Didn’t do anything with it cause he had no penis but none the less, women make this world function.

Well thats it for now. I am about three recipes in the hole for the blog I need to work on, my coffee is getting low and then there is the damn driveway. Anyone want to take bets on what actually gets done? Hint safe money says watch the recipe section and find out.

Little Booty Lucas has his priorities set.

 

You don’t have to play

You can follow or lead the way. 
 I want you to join together with the band,
We don’t know where we’re going,
But the season’s right for knowing,
I want you to join together with the band.

It’s humpday Wednesday again. I find myself wondering when will this awfully slow week end? Time just seems to be dragging along this week. This nonsense doesn’t happen between Friday afternoon and Monday morning.

Tomorrow is the vice presidential debate. I am eagerly waiting to see how Paul Ryan handles himself. My personal opinion is that a fifth grader should be able to intellectually checkmate Mr. Biden, but I am not assuming anything in this election. Paul Ryan is a smart man and he should decisively put the old fool away. Fingers are crossed.

Oh yeah, this just in. Don’t eat cockroaches for something so ridiculous as a free pet snake. Eating cockroaches generally isn’t harmful but being a dumb ass is proving to be lethal. A pet snake? Really? Ah NO.  A new Harley? Sure. A date with Jenny McCarthy and a bottle of Rohypnol? You betcha! Not a free pet snake.

Does anyone out there watch the seminal cable show on FX, Sons of Anarchy? In the last two weeks its beat everything on TV ratings wise. Kurt Sutter is the creator and writer. Its about a fictional motorcycle club. If you have not watched this program I suggest you get your Netflix fired up to catch the first three seasons, and by the time you are done with that you can catch the forth season playing now. Or is this currently the fifth season on TV now?  Hell I don’t know, but the show is 110% awesome. You don’t have to be a biker, like motorcycles, or Honey Boo Boo to like this show. The writing is perfection. I wont give any spoilers here. Watch it and come back with a two page written report for next weeks homework. Ok kidding about that last part. I was just testing out my school teacher voice.

Bananas are an awesome food. Potassium is good for your brain and the rest of your body. I like to eat bananas. Not when I am on the boat fishing. That shit is bad luck. All other times though bananas are fabulous. I especially like when I forget to eat bananas and they turn all brown and black. I turn that into banana bread. I have some in the oven right now.

Kelly Ripa made some flippant stereotype comment on her talk show yesterday about gangster dogs are probably some sort of mean Pit Bull type dogs. The internet is in an uproar about it and frankly I don’t blame it. Pit Bulls get a tremendously bad rap and its mostly by a very minority few people who know absolutely nothing about dogs at all. I’ve had in some way or other pit bulls all my life. My mother who will jump out of a moving car on the New Jersey Parkway if a bee flies into the window, has had Pit Bulls for years. Most of my close friends have one or more, and I happen to work with anywhere from a bakers dozen of them every week. In the care of knowledgeable, and loving people these dogs are probably one of the best breeds on the planet. The bad reputation these dogs have gotten over the years is in my opinion been a direct result of the people whom have owned the dogs.

Dogs are a lot like guns. There are toys that shoot caps and go bang that children can play with, and there are .50 Cal riffles that will bring down jumbo jets. Both guns in the proper hands and respected are safe and can be happily owned. If you give one of these guns to an idiot, even the toy cap gun can hurt somebody. Pit Bulls are much the same way, except the Pit Bull by its natural build is more towards the .50 Cal riffle then the toy cap gun in my above analogy. In abusive hands a Pit Bull can hurt someone. However in a loving home with responsible owners these dogs are some of the most loving and loyal dogs out of all the breeds.

That’s about it. Oh, I forgot to mention, I put chocolate chips in the banana bread.

That’s what I got for a Wednesday. Hang in there folks Friday is in sight.

B-cool
B-real
B-rock

I’ll meet you any time you want

In our Italian restaurant. 

It is another Monday. Beware of the suckage. So far mine isn’t too bad and the weekend was nice.

The dinner club met again this weekend hosted by my friends Amy and Allen with six of our other close friends to even include a few associated children.

A funny thing, Amy was concerned that this meet up couldn’t be classified as an official “Dinner Club” assembly because she invited eight people, when in the past it was only been four of us. I explained to her that it was nonsense and it still counted as “Dinner Club” and that the more people the better. My home is a little smaller and I had set the precedence in the meet ups to four people, but as I think about it more and more I can feed and entertain more then four and I am going to do it next time. At least I’ll extend the invitation. Folding chairs and a TV tray around the table here I come.

Amy and Allen made one damn nice dinner. Sausage and peppers over spaghetti, garlic bread, and Cesar salad. Dessert was a lemon cake with whipped cream topping. It was an excellent meal, with a great group of friends.

There are a few thoughts I came away with from the dinner club meet up from last night. The first being, as a single middle aged man, my home is decorated or should I say lack of decorating in a very appropriate manner. I am not sure how I feel about it either. I am not messy, or ultra neat and my tastes are pretty utilitarian. There is no warmth here. The house is mine and its home but there is admittedly no woman’s touch. I don’t have an eye for decorating. I can spot good color combinations, good furniture and arrange them in appropriate ways to use space wisely and efficiently, but beyond that I am useless and have no idea. Pictures, plants, window treatments, table-scape, and I am like a politician is to honest. Just not there. It is not that I don’t want or wish my home had the warmth of a discerning eye of a great woman, its just I can definitely see that my home lacks it for certain.

The next thing I came away with is the reinforcement of the meaning of friendship. My refrigerator like most in the free world is a place for pizza, pest control, and other associated magnets. These magnets hold pictures of things I enjoy looking at. My nieces, goddaughter, and my dogs. A few years ago, Amy, Allen and myself would take our dogs (Lucille and Tucker) out on Amy and Allen’s boat to the intracoastal / sandbar and let the dogs swim and run all day. Amy took some pictures of Tucker and Lucille a few years ago and those pictures have been on my refrigerator ever since. Last night at dinner, Amy pointed out one of the same pictures of Lucille and Tucker on her refrigerator. Now I know for a fact Amy has had this picture of Tucker and Lucille on her fridge for some time. I have seen it there before. Last night however when Amy pointed out the picture to me, I dawned on me that these are friends. Lucille not only lives on in a pictures in my house with her buddy Tucker, but she also lives on in the thoughts of Amy and Allen too. All too often in our busy lives we forget and take for granted small things like friendships and people in our lives. All it takes is a simple picture on a refrigerator to remind you of that goodness. Last night I was reminded of that goodness again. When I thought no one was looking Tucker got a piece of my lemon cake right from my fork that I happily used after to keep eating the cake from his mouth to mine.

Today I am making turkey pot pie from scratch. I’ll post the recipe and writeup in the recipe section later. Its a good way to get rid of a lot of crap in the kitchen. You’ll enjoy this one.

Today I am also going to set up the end grain cutting board ordering page come hell or high water. I almost had it done Friday, but I broke the database with the application I had for the online ordering and spent most of Friday fixing what I broke. After some research and simplification I will try again.

Stay tuned.

When tragedy befalls you, don’t let it drag you down

Love can cure your problems,
You’re so lucky I am around. 

I havent been fortunate enough to have any children of my own yet so the closest comparison I can relate to are my dogs. They have been as much my children to me as a kid is to a parent I venture to guess. Its with that understanding I relate this story.

Recently I got news of an old friend of mine whom tragedy of the worst kind has befallen. The hows and whys are not important but I’ll tell you when I say the worst kind, yea worst kind. A parent having to burry a child. Even though in this case it was a step child, but knowing this person it hardly would have mattered to her. This person was always an open hearted type woman that seemed to like or at least give everyone a fair chance so biological or step child probably had no real distinction to her anyway.

When I heard the news, of course you go through the emotions of loss and heartache for that person. I couldn’t help but think about my Golden Retriever, Lucille whom I lost this summer to cancer/tumor at only four and a half years old.

I can’t remember my parents or brothers birthdays without looking it up somewhere. I cant remember anniversaries, valentines day (any wonder I dont have kids?). I know my own birthday and the Marine Corps birthday. I also know June 11, 2012.

On June 11th of this year, after dropping my sick dog off to a veterinarian for emergency surgery I got “That” call.

Mr. Kingston we got her on the table and opened her up and it was bad. I worked as fast as I could to fix her up, the mass on her spleen was large. I got it all out, but due to the blood loss and anemia her heart was going a million miles an hour. She arrested just as I was finishing up. We got some meds into her and I got her heart re-started once. Five minutes later she arrested again and nothing I could do would get her going again. I’m so sorry.

That was it. That was all I had left of Lucille. I think I held it together long enough to thank the doctor for trying and hung up the phone. I ah, yea, I collapsed after that and the rest of the day is gone from my memory.

Parenthetically sure Lucille was my “child”. What the hell was I going to do now? I know those deep horrible feelings of loss. I felt horrible for my friend Gabrielle. This wasn’t a pet for her, this was a child. If I felt that way over a dog, a pet, how can you quantify that when its another person? Its not so hard for me. My pets have always been my kids. Maybe if I have a kid one day I’ll see the difference, but I somehow doubt it. So in a way, I know where my friend Gabrielle and her family is right, now. It’s shit.

But I also know something else. Something else I am certain Gabrielle will later get to feel too.

You see after an amount of time, that only you know the amount of, “love” comes back through your door. Love from your family, friends, your pets you lost, and the people you may have lost. That love and time, fixes everything and shines the light of perspective back into your life. All you have to do is let it in.

I volunteer a few hours a week at an animal shelter for an obligation for me and for Lucille. I rescued a dog from that shelter that I connected with. This is how the love I had for Lucille has manifested itself back into my life. The work is sometimes gross and a pain, but I come home and see Lucas jump on a particular couch and look out the window, just like a certain Golden Retriever did her entire life and I know what I am doing and the path I am on is the right one. That is my love.

I have cursed god, cursed doctors, cursed luck, cursed myself, cursed everything over the loss of Lucille. I needed to curse all those things. I needed the time to curse all those things. Now, I am done.

I got plenty of love back in my life and thats good enough. When i see Lucille and Jasper again with Lucas and whatever other four legged children I may have in my life, I’ll be a bigger baller that that bastard Cesar Millan, and I wont be whispering shit with my pack. We’ll be running and swimming with War Pigs turned up to fucking 11.

Gabrielle, If you read this, I miss you and I love you. Be strong and you got this!

Friday how I love thee!

It’s another glorious Friday. End of the work week and the Jets play the Dolphins this weekend. The new iPhone 5 is on the shelves, a coffee is next to my hand and there’s a loyal happy dog at my feet. Not bad. Well other then a winning powerball ticket, Kyra Sedgwick for a wife and my own Island nation life is pretty good. (or darn tootin’ for all you Minnesota folk)

Can I ask a question? Thanks. I knew I could.

For any and all new mothers, parents, people with kids, people who know people with kids, people whom have seen little kids, lately I have noticed small babies with what looks like little mitts or glove like things on their hands. What the hell is this all about? What is the purpose of these mittens? These aren’t eskimo kids laying in the snow either. I am talking about normal babies, at home, day care, mall, gas stations, crack dens, brothels, Vegas casino count rooms, designated smoking areas at government taxing agencies. I have noticed small babies and these mittens all over the place.

I admit being single with no children, (well any that I am aware of in this country or access to any support agency that has any legal jurisdiction over my life) that I don’t keep up on the newborn hand care fashion. I looked back at some of my baby pictures to see if I had to wear mittens or gloves, nope none there. So I ask, is this some kind of new eco-moon-bat type movement for new babies to keep them from scratching their asses or picking their noses until some new age or stage of life? What the hell? Someone help me out here and rock the comment section with some knowledge for the out of the know middle aged guy.

This got me to thinking about all the new trends in child rearing as compared to my generation. Look I realize and completely understand that since the birth of time, every generation of people always looks forward or backward with disdain for the next generation as to what one group had to do to get by with in regards to how they were raised. Its natural and normal as we evolve and advance as a race.

However I contend that a lot of the new things we do with children today that we didn’t do when we were kids or our parents were kids is not to the betterment of children or society in general. I think it actually to the detriment of the children and society. I think there is a number of factors in place that have brought about these changes. Economics, society, education are to name a few.

Let me give some examples.

I haven’t seen a child learn to or continue to ride a bicycle without a full DOT class crash helmet on since I am guessing 1990. What the hell is this all about? Did children in 1990 in mass numbers all of a sudden start learning to ride bicycles and through no fault of their own start flinging themselves head first into the pavement, parked cars, fence posts, or other such blunt objects and become brain dead vegetables? What happened? I learned to ride a bike without a helmet. So did my brothers, friends, family, and pretty much everyone I knew. To my knowledge we all survived without major trauma. Now you teach a kid to ride a bicycle without a dork pot on his/her head and family services or some such will show up to beat you with a lead pipe and brand you unfit. What the hell? Do kids make ramps out of trash cans and stolen plywood from construction sites to jump over other kids laying in the street with their bicycles any more?

Sports, Little League, Pop Warner, Soccer, Bowling or any organized competitive function. All the children no matter what are winners. Say what? Yes, I have seen it with my own eyes. There are no more losers. All the children are winners. Christ, there are season ending banquets going on all over the country with trophies being awarded to teams and individuals all they way down to last place. Seriously? I shit you not! Where’s the competition? Where is the spirit of work hard, work your ass off, work as a team and win! Win first place. Win every time. Not only win, but with grace and sportsmanship, win and win big. Make the losing team choke on a blow out. Send them back home thinking their mothers and fathers all failed them and had retards for babies and to never show back up on the cities baseball field, football field, bowling alley, hand ball court, soccer field without permission or risk a beating over by the water pipes.

My father used to come to my Little League games at Sportsman’s park and from the stands ridicule me for striking out. Yelling from the bleachers, “What happened Brock, you should have swung on the 2-1 pitch and drilled that pitching sissy down his throat!” You know what? At first as a kid I was mad and upset that I didn’t do good and make my father proud, then I took more batting practice, and then drilled some hits down pitchers throats and won some games. Golf Gallery, PSL’s finest in 1978. Every game we won, free pizza and soda in the Fort suckers!

Soccer, same thing. Rinse lather repeat. We won and won big. Second place was for suckers and chumps.

Are parents even allowed to speak the word “loser” within a thousand feet of a public athletic facility?

When I was in school and during recess no matter what the activity, softball, baseball, dodge ball, duck duck goose, there was going to be two team captains, and kids were going to be picked for teams. Rule of the land was, if you got picked last it was because you were fat, sucked, dumb, slow, retarded. You lived with it. You didn’t cry. You sucked it  up and you played anyway. Maybe you did good, maybe you did bad, but you where there. You were there a few years later in high school too with your own car, some sweet high school ass, or not, but you were there and learned to adapt and integrate.

Bullying? Bullying has become all of a sudden this nationwide epidemic? Bullshit. Bullying has been going on for generations. The only difference now is all these emo kids that are being raised lazy and think that being winners is a given and automatic are finding out in the real world things don’t work that way and aren’t capable of coping. One post on one of these kids Facebook page calling him a pussy and he’s running to the closet to hang himself with his favorite pink Britney Spears belt his sissified parents convinced him it was ok to wear for show and tell.

In my day, which honestly wasn’t too far back, someone called you out, pushed you, shoved you, took your lunch money, you solved that problem in one of a few ways in which none included telling your parents or a teacher. You solved that shit on your own. You either stood up for yourself and whipped the bully’s ass, or if you couldn’t, then you learned to use your head to diffuse he situation with humor. If none of that worked you fell back on your friendships and personal networking skills to scheme an elaborate plan to have a bunch of friends kick the bully’s ass or set him up for a suspectd crime or auto accident. In any case you overcame and adapted to adverse life situations then you moved forward.

I guess this turned into a rant. I’m sorry. I think about these things from time to time.

To my dog loving readers. Friday fun tip #1. When giving your dog a bath, instead of paying for all those specialty dog shampoos that honestly are nothing special, wash the dog with some of that leftover Axe Body-wash liquid soap crap.

You know you have two or three bottles of that junk in the shower. You know who you are. You read the sexy Madison Ave advertisement in FHM, Mens Health, Esquire magazine with the good looking six pack abs model douche with the hot semi-naked woman licking his neck. Then you saw the crap in the supermarket next to the deodorant and toothpaste. You bought it, thinking it would make you smell like a million bucks and magically get you laid. You used it twice and now there is a soap scum ring growing around it in the shower caddy by the shaving cream and old Bic razor you use to clean up your nut hairs.

Use it for the dog. It lathers up great its not irritable and actually the perfume works good on the pooch. Now I have a clean dog who smells great. The bitches are showing up and loving all over him. Go figure.

Thats it. Have a good and safe weekend. Be kind to each other. Smile and remember to treat your waitress good. She really may be only doing that job while putting herself through college getting her medical or law degree. It could happen. 😉

Tamper if you like between the doors.

I suggest you step out on your porch.
Run away my son to see it all.

Guess we should update everyone on the “Help me name my new dog poll”.

Say hello to “Lucas Jackson War Hero”.  Lucas came home with me yesterday after working at the shelter. No more crate of shame and he seems all the more happy for it. (although he does have a crate here his is going to live in when I am not home)

As one may expect he’s been running around sniffing and checking out the new digs. So far so good no accidents in house. I am pretty certain he’s housebroken but I take him out often and watch him like a hawk. Lucas isn’t afraid of water as he walked right into the shower last night when I called him so he got his first bath. If I lay down, he lays down. If I get up, he gets up. I seem to have another shadow again.

This weekend will be mostly chilling out with Lucas and getting him used to his new home. Well that and probably getting douched out by tropical storm Isaac. We could use the rain in Florida so it’s hardly an issue other then for the local news and weather stations getting everyone into a full on “oh shit a storms coming” lather. Happens at least fifteen times each hurricane season down here. No native Floridians pay any attention to hurricane warnings until sixty hours out. Anything more in hurricane prognostication is at best a wild ass’d guess no matter what “computer” models may show you or how much the local weather imbecile may be ranting.

So with this entry I’ll bust out a TGIF, and hope everyone has a decent weekend.

 

Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song

I get by with a little help from my friends.

I get high with a little help from my friends.

I am going to try with a little help from my friends.

Working at the shelter today and I was greeted by this little guy. We go way back. Way back to about two weeks ago. You see he was adopted out early last week. Prior to that time he and I had made good friends. He’s a 2-3 year old Cocker Spaniel. I would go down to his room in shelter and hang out with him. He was always in good spirits, behaved, and would come right up to me, stick his nose in my ear and lick my ear lobe. Just a good all around dog and I liked hanging out with him. As I said he had been adopted out so I never thought more of it. Until this morning.

Came into the shelter this morning and there he was as you can see above in the “crate of shame” since another K9 took up residence in his old room. I asked why he was back and one of the shelter workers told me “he bit the woman whom had adopted him” and that in fact “had bit the old man that had adopted him prior to this incident”. I told shelter worker how surprised I was because I had spent time with the dog and thought he was great. That’s when the shelter worker told me that since this was his second time being brought back for biting that they were thinking the dog wasn’t going to be adoptable and they were going to have to call a Cocker Spaniel rescue somewhere to see if they could unload him.

Yeah, it took me about twenty minutes before I raised my hand and offered to foster him and give him another chance. You see I used to be a hard-nosed son of a bitch in this manner but as I have gotten older I have found myself always looking for the hard cases and I am a firm believer in second and hell sometimes even third chances. I have screwed up plenty in my life and frankly if it weren’t for some close people and family believing in me, I wouldn’t be here blogging about this now.

So with any luck tomorrow evening I am springing this little guy from his crate of shame to come home with me.

Emotionally I have made peace with losing Lucille. Mostly. 🙁 So Its time and this little shit could use a friend right about now. So could I. Home he is coming.

Now for the fun part. You may have noticed a lot of “He’s” and no name. Well it seems some at the shelter have been calling him “Playto” but he doesn’t respond to that or any other name due to the circumstances of his short but awkward life. This is where you the reader comes in. You’re all going to help me name him. So get to voting. The dog is a hard case. Lucas Jackson was a hard case. I like Lucas, but you can vote for any of the below suggestions. You can also leave a comment with a name not on the list if you want. We’ll tally up the votes this time tomorrow and highest vote wins and this dog will be forever named by the faithful readers of this blog.

What sealed fostering this dog for me? When I first looked at him a couple weeks ago, the very first thing that came to my mind was that he almost looked like a Golden Retriever just with short legs. Today I text messaged a picture of him to my friend Amy who is also a dog lover, and she replied to me, “he looks like a Golden Retriever only shorter”. F’ing Karma right there man.

So lets get out the vote friends. This election is better then the one coming in November. You get more then two choices and all the choices are better then those two lame asses we get for the White House this November.

What should I name my new dog?

  • Lucas (75%, 6 Votes)
  • Coconut-Head (13%, 1 Votes)
  • Babalugats (13%, 1 Votes)
  • Dragline (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 8

Loading ... Loading ...

Jackwagon! Where have you been?


Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio,


A Nation turns its lonely eyes to you.


Whats that you say, Mrs Robinson


“Joltin” Joe has left and gone away.

I know it’t been a few days since last update. Sometimes life gets a little hectic.

I have been reading up on and studying some ways to improve my macro photography of food items. I have the equipment (mostly) but need some technical knowledge on natural and artificial lighting. As you can see from my awesome dinner this past Wednesday night of a Hungry Man turkey dinner, the photos white balance and saturation are washed out from the flash.

I figure if I am going to blog about some awesome food I have been shoving down my fat ‘effing mouth the pictures should convey that awesomeness. I need somewhat of an excuse for eating this unhealthy but delicious grub. At least that’s my story, until I start posting about what goddamn salad or gluten free cardboard I am currently not enjoying.

No worries though, I am running or working out daily and I can eat whatever the hell I want. Well in moderation anyway. You see age is catching up with me, but damn it I still have my treachery. So, no this portion of the Whats Up Brock blog likely wont turn to healthful dishes I may be engaged in. Well unless of course there may be some interest. I doubt it though. If there is one thing I know, healthful eating pretty much blows goats. It sucks ass. Lame. Any other euphemism for “blech I suffer through eating this shit to fit in…”

Different subject and small update:

The Lab/Retriever mix Hershey I mentioned in a previous entry on this blog, went to his new home sometime last week. When I was at the shelter this past Tuesday, I went down to his room to check on him. Well thats a lie, I went down to love on him since it had been about a week and I missed the turd. Hershey was gone and Sergeant was in his place. Kinda felt like Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting when Matt Damon’s character Will hauled ass after his girl and didn’t say goodbye to his buddies. Sad but happy he got out of there.

Anyway Sergeant here is a four year old German Shepard dog. Guy drops him off at shelter, “because my wife said to get rid of dog, she doesn’t like him anymore.” It’s probably a testament to why I am still single, but frankly I’d have told my wife, mother, virgin mary to “better go pack your shit, the dog stays long after I get rid of you”.

Of course I have seen the good and bad in people and to me dogs usually win, so I may be biased.

Sergeant is depressed and leery of people so I am spending time with him. We’ll see what happens. The first real dog I was introduced to in my life was my uncle’s dog named Kojak, which was a German Shepard. The breed has a place in my heart.

The only problem now is figuring out and the political correctness of changing Sergeant’s name to El’ Negro Wolfenstein.

It’s friday. I am done. Let’t get this mother of a weekend started!!!

Love, peace, chicken grease, this one goes to eleven.