Live Big.

Ever increasing as the years roll by, I'm amazed and stupified (it's not that difficult) by the speed that the days roll by. At the end of a year I try and think just how the hell I spent the year day by day... and I ultimately have a recollection of it that likens to trying to focus on a deformed goat though the smoke of a forest fire.

Bear with me.

You think that you're looking at a goat, but it's so screwy looking because of it's deformities it might be a giraffe or a Buick, and with all the confusion of the acrid smoke... it's hard to discern even that much of what you're seeing.

You following me so far?

My year, 2008, has blown by so fast and was filled with so much life, events, work, fun and accidents... I can't clearly recall just exactly what I did with it. But I'll tell you this, I can think of it and it makes me smile. I am blessed with a pretty spectacular being while I'm stumbling about earth, banging my head on random objects.

When I was pretty young, my Grandpa told me this would happen. I didn't understand it at the time 'cause all I wanted to do at that point was grow up and ride motorcycles really fast and find out what a girl's boobs felt like. I soon attained both of those goals in my life. Several times. I realized that I needed to broaden my horizons a bit 'cause there's gotta be a whole lotta other things besides those 2 things to occupy my curiosity.

There was.

There still is... though I gotta admit, neither one of those things really bore me too much even at this point in my life.

I'm blessed with Sal, an amazing woman that makes me laugh daily... and better yet, still laughs at me and my attempts at humor. She claims to love me more than her luggage.

I believe her.

I've got children that most men dream of having. All 4 are incredible human beings, and I don't say that just because they're my kids... they truly are. I can sit and talk at length with any one of 'em about anything on earth. And both of us will be enthralled with what the other has to say. (Sometimes they might humor me in that respect.)

I love my work. I'm good at what I do... I know that and there's not a thing wrong with knowing that and saying it. I've worked hard to get to the point to where I am with my work, be it knowing what to do with a sick cow or fixing a busted chest of drawers. I look forward to my work.

In the past 2 or 3 years, music has come back to the forefront for me. I love playing for an audience, it's exciting, it's gratifying, with the band I play in... we make people smile and laugh. That's a wonderful feeling.



So that's where my days go. A look at a deformed goat through the heavy smoke of a large fire. I don't think I really wanna see what that deformed goat looks like. I don't wanna see the minute details of my last year... I've got a whole new year to live and experience and to take joy in. I'll just be moving on headlong into it with a smile on my face hopefully.

I gotta get my flashlight and go outside now... it looks like a midget beating the mailbox with a dead raccoon.


Live big. Live surreal.






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Freakin' Friday Night Videos!

I'm such a Youtube junkie, it's a bad deal. I'm only slightly ashamed of the fact, not enough to cower and hide my laptop screen, mind you... but still. I get so totally hung up in the YT loop it's amazing. I went to find a song that I wanted to hear and I end up watching a bear beating up a baboon with boxing gloves. How the hell does that happen?

Anyway, this first vid that I've saved from parts unknown and uploaded to Blogger's video thingamabob is... it's odd. It's fairly long and I apologize for that, but what this man does with his neck, holy crap. Chiropractors everywhere dream of patients like this guy. I give you "Elvis Mokko!"







The next one displays an invention that borders in significance to the wheel, fire, and aluminum scoop shovels. This guy needs a Nobel prize or some dang thing. I want one. Also this is real relevant for me today. I've had a bit of a "bug".

Pray for peace at the Cowguy household.







And lastly, a video of myself and my son Jake from many MANY years ago. My daughter and son in law unthreaded this from some ancient video tape and got it up on youtube. We have called this "the Christmas bird" video for years. It goes from the annoyance of a young pre-pubescent squeaking like a demented brain damaged bird, hogging the camera... to getting hit in the head by a bird on a stick whipped across the room.

Lookie at how much hair I had and how dark it was... and a miniature Jake.







That's all folks!




.

Here Comes Santy Claus...

Merry Christmas everyone!

Jace





.

MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT

Sal and I were in Sam's yesterday and while wandering around perusing packages of toothpaste with 12 tubes of pasty substance in 'em and 50 pound boxes of oranges and other such stuff, I stumbled across my once a year edible extravagance. The YARD O BEEF!






I half ran, half skipped across the expanse of Sam's Club Warehouse, with a silly grin on my face, ecstatic with what I perceived to be the best purchase of the day. Nay, the best purchase of the month! I paused to look at my Yard O Beef, looked up and spotted Sally across the store. Holding it high and waving it wildly "HONEY!!! LOOK!!!! IT'S THE YARD O BEEF!!!!" She was busy crawling under a pallet of beans, obviously looking for something, so she most likely didn't hear me... so I said it louder as I ran towards her waving my meat stick at her.

Girls aren't as enamored with Yards O Beef as men are. Here... looky at the end of it. Now there's some MEAT! All smokey tasting with some ground up beef parts and possible chicken parts as well and it wouldn't suprise if there was some pig parts in there too. It's THAT good.







Mmmmmmm! Jealous huh? Oh oh... this package was mis-labled. It's gotta be a collectors item. Check it out!








You get 4 guys together, drinkin' beer, smoking cigars... there's 4 servings there. LOL I laugh. 24? Lordy... what a misprint. Oh and this stuff burps great! It's almost like a whole nuther meal of it later on.

Get your guy one of these for Christmas and he'll probably take you on a cruise. Honest!






As long as I'm on the whole meat thing, Oprah was named "Person Of The Year" by PETA. If you've read my blog much, you know how much I LOOOOOVVVEEE PETA. Here's PETA's article 'bout Oprah.

Awesome huh? Wait! I've got a great picture of ol' Oprah and that guy that won't marry her. Here.









Cool coat eh?


See? Here's the thing with me and PETA and it's followers. If you're so appalled at the idea that my fur coat (I don't own one...lol) is made from skinned animals... you oughta be so appalled that you wouldn't even wanna wear something that LOOKS like real fur. Seriously. I mean it. And to go even further, why in Hell do you wanna eat a veggie burger thing that looks like a meat hamburger if meat and the idea of it disgusts you? Here, look at this thing...







My way of thinking is, wad up that tofu veggie conglamoration and eat it as whatever it mashes out as, be it yellow goo or green pate`. Just don't make it look like meat on purpose. Lordy. Oh and that picture there... that tomato/pepper mess on the right, *gag*. I saw Eddie Pflum throw up a better looking meal in the back of the school bus in the 5th grade.


I think I'm all done now.




NO! Wait! I gotta Christmas picture! I got a shot of Santa doing some early shopping for y'all! I'm hopin it's not meat!










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Head Em Up, Move Em Out, Run A Stick Into Your Eye

Had to move the cows over to the winter pasture a couple of days ago, pretty much uneventful... 'cept for nearly loosing an eye and punching Jake in in the head. Nicky almost caught it all in action, but not quite.

Robert hung a bale of hay on the TOD (tractor of doom) to sorta bait the cows into a nice easy move.





And as usual, it worked just dandy. A few stragglers brought up the rear outta the frame. It's a big 'ol outdoors out there.







I went down to turn the water tank on that sits behind the pond dam and as usual I played a cruel joke on myself and left the valve laying in the bottom of the water tank. The water tank was full of water... which is now solid ice. I'm just guessing Nicky was entertained by the fact that I thought I could do something about it by kicking the water tank.

No it didn't help.







Eh, there's a couple of creeks that run through this pasture and they're still running good so far, so the stock tank ain't that big of a concern.... yet. Here's hoping for a nice 2 or 3 day warm spell so I can get it all running like it's 'posed to.


We were leaving and I happened to remember a corner wire gate that I'd opened a few months ago when I was chasing a cow. This thing is NEVER opened and I ain't got a clue how the heck I remembered it being open... at least until I had to chase cows all over Hell's half acre in the middle of the night after a phone call from some poor soul that dodged cows on the road.

I got outta the truck, Jake followed me, I reached down to hook the bottom wire and ran a twig in my eye. I staggered back a bit... see that little bent over Elm sprout? Yeah, in my near blinded state I backed into it, flailed my arms for balance. Jake happened to be RIGHT THERE behind me and while he was laughing, he caught a knuckle sandwich to the punkin' in my effort to keep my balance. I mean a good one too! It smacked like a raw steak hittin' the skillet.

It was his turn to stagger back.

I'm right on the other side of him in this "almost perfectly mistimed shot" holding my eye while he rubs his face.







Jake: I CANNOT believe you just punched me in the head!

Me: I think I just lost my right eye!

Jake: You almost broke my glasses!

Me: Is my eyeball bleedin'?

Jake: That REALLY hurts man!

Me: It's all blurry. I think I scratched it.

Jake: *looking at his glasses now* I can't believe you punched me!

Me: What the heck did I jab my eye on?

Jake: Would you shutup about your stupid eye? You just punched me in the head!

Me: My eye is more important than your head, for crying out loud...


As you can see it did NOT degenerate into a "pitiful me" discussion... it started there and never left.

Here we are still whining 'bout our massivie individual injuries. God love Nicky for never stopping the camera to come and check on us.







In case you're all worried and crap. My eye is fine. Jake's head is fine and so are his stupid glasses.

It's always high adventure 'round here.




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I'm Gonna Tell!

So I'm in the shop today working on a table leg at my lathe, and Jake comes in the shop and stands in front of me. But let me lay the whole story out first.

It's cold here today, bitter. It snowed about 4 or 5 inches of dry, dusty snow. Kinda uncomfortable outside. Jake (my son) is home between jobs right now until after the first of the year and has spent most of his time home hunting. Today though, Sal was in CLEANING MODE. When she gets like this usually she gives us a warning and that warning is.... "the ponytail". When we see Sally pull her hair back into "the ponytail" we run. We scatter like a buncha turds in the septic tank of life. We (meaning me and Jake) know that when the pony tail appears, nothing good is going to come to either one of us. It's going to be chores, details, do this type of things... and do it now.

On days when she's not in Ponytail cleaning mode, she's the sweetest, most fun woman I've ever had the pleasure to share company with. When the ponytail comes on she get's those swirling circle crazy eyes.

Today was a weird one... she didn't pull her hair back into a ponytail, but she went on the house cleaning vendetta just the same. Now me... being wise, I realized this and hightailed it to the shop and stayed there. Jake, being not quite as mature as I, didn't draw this conclusion quite so fast. And in all fairness, the task that Sally blindsided Jake with had been given to him days ago. *Finish the Christmas lights on the front of the house*

So back to the beginning, this 6 foot 1, 23 year old man, comes sliding to a stop in front of the lathe, a disgusted look on his face, and he stands there until I shut the lathe off. He's covered with snow, cause it's really coming down. He has on 2 stocking hats, cause it's bitter outside. He has his deer hunter beard going on, which matures his looks even more...

Jake: Where's the little aluminum ladder?

Me: I think it's beside the house where it was left after phase 1 of the Christmas light installation.

Jake: Oh.

Me: What's up? *smiling* You look kinda uncomfortable.

Jake: Mom's cleaning.

Me: Yeah I know. I'm out here.

And the line that killed me... spoken so matter of factly.

Jake: She's bossin' me around like I'm some kinda asshole.

Me: *staring*

Jake: Really.

Me: *just smiling*

Jake: *turns and leaves*

I called Sal in the house.

Me: You got told on. *laughing*

Sally: How's that?

Me: Jake came out and said you're bossing him around like he's some kinda asshole.

Sally: *hysterics*

Me: *hysterics*

Sally: That all?

Me: Yup. *laughing*




Some days it's just the little scenes in life that catch my attention.






.

Guilty

This is our 2 dogs... that's Stella on the left, the cute little redhead that she is. On the right, that's our other dog. She'll remain nameless today to protect her identity.





I've made an attempt to disguise her, just in case you happen to run into her some day on the street. I don't want her to suffer the ridicule that might be tossed in her direction if she were to be found out.

See... today... she's got a case of the doggie vapors to end all. All three of us were sitting here on the couch just watching Kelly's Heros. well not so much the girls as me, but we were all here sharing the same air space.

Suddenly the one on the right stood up, looked at me, sniffed her rear end, looked at me, paused, blinked a few times in rapid succession, looked at me again with what I swear was a grin... and then crept off the couch to the other room.

Now my nose is not exactly virgin territory to animal odors, or people odors for that matter. Hell, I'm a man after all and as a whole, we're a pretty gauche bunch of hairy, scratching, picking, human beans. Just wanted to clarify that, cause what came next was of monumental proportions.

For a few seconds I didn't realize just what had been perpetrated in my breathing quadrant, and then the cloud assaulted me. My sweet little doggie had slipped a whisper of colossal immensity. I'm afraid the couch is damaged. Stella (the other dog) just lays here beside me shivering and whimpering... much like I am.

I don't know if we'll ever be right again.



Can you give a dog Exlax? I mean without damaging the dog further than she obviously already is. Sumpin' needs to get outta that lil' dog's bottom.




Dang...

I Dunno...

I'm taking the loser blogger way out on this post, 'cause it's just a video... but not just ANY video. I watched this and at first it was just a "what the....???" reaction, very soon though I laughed so hard my spleen lunged up out of my innards bringing with it my appendix and half my colon which resulted in my soiling myself, and how.

Yes it's THAT funny... but I ain't right, so your mileage may vary.

Sal sent this to me this morning. Yes, we live in the same house yet we communicate via emails and IM's as regular as we speak. Racy MSN messages are all the rage on our little wireless network. *wink wink* I met her on the internetials, you know. :-)







Oh crap! It's garbage day! Gotta get it out! Later!

!


!


!!!!




!




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Toys To Avoid For Christmas 2008

Some toys you may wanna avoid this Christmas... there's a couple here that just don't look safe to me. I'm not an authority on this stuff by any means... but there's one or two that just don't appear to be PC either.


























Later tater.
J.





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The Trick Is... To Get There First.

Sal and I went to a luncheon with my folks yesterday, this kinda stuff is almost always high adventure for me and usually results in Sally at some point laughing and saying "You're awful".

Eh well, I do what I gotta do.

So they'd invited us to go to this deal with 'em, followed by a play at the local theater. The lunch was to be at 12:30 so in the interest of having plenty of time to get there... they came to our house at 11:00 AM in order to make the 15 minute drive to the luncheon in time. See, my Dad is a firm believer in the notion that if you get somewhere waaaayyyy before you're supposed to be there, people and circumstances will re-orientate themselves in order to oblige his own personal time frame. Believe it or not, some times it works, but mostly it doesn't and then he gets agitated and tries to rationalize out for everyone else why it should've gone the way he had it figured out in his head.

Make sense? No? Okay, here's a for instance. Doctor appointments. I take them both to them quite a bit, everyone needs a hobby... and I guarantee you that if they have a 11:00 AM appointment, they will want to be there at 8:30 "Just in case they can work us in earlier." Now my logic with this is simple, either make an early appointment to begin with (in their cases they'd probably want to get there the day before) or go on with my normal life and show up at the 11:00 AM appointment at 10:59.

I can remember several instances where their early plan actually worked. Of course my Dad will go to the receptionist, make buddies with her, tell her how he needs to get outta there to go eat at exactly noon and then.... give her candy. I'm amazed at how many receptionists in this old world can be bought off with the little individual sized pieces of Hershey's milk chocolate with an almond in it. His success with this maneuver is frequent enough that if I were single and looking, I'd be dragging around a bag of chocolate and administering it to every single looking receptionist and waitress in the tri-state area. I'm serious... and yet I don't "get it."

Anyhow, yesterday. We are the first people there, we knew that one was coming, we're always the first with my folks. They chose the table that we'd be sitting at at this buffet style luncheon being catered by an awesome local catering and BBQ business. Dad was happy with his seating. He had it all analyzed that we'd be very near the first table to traipse past the buffet.

We waited.

An announcement was made, instructions on how they were gonna herd about 150-200 people through this buffet line......... and those instructions put our table very near the end.

Panic.

Immediately Dad started rationalizing out loud how they SHOULD have herded us all through. I'm cracking up.

Dad: This is wrong. By the time that long table gets through, that other long table is going to be worked in the line and put us even further back.

Me: *whispering to Sal, and we're directly in front of my mom and dad* He's almost ruined.

Sal: *giggles* You're awful.

Mom: You really picked the wrong table Benny.

Now this kinda comment really gets him all ate up and mom knows it... and sends Dad into further autonomous discussion about how things SHOULD have gone.

Our line slowly snakes forward, the whole time dad is talking to me about how long it's gonna take to get food and sit down and how wrong this is going for him. I'm still giggling. Sally is giggling.

Suddenly Sal elbows me and says, "Look at your mom!"

Mom has jumped line, took a side detour around the outside and got herself up at the buffet a good 25 people ahead of us.

I'm in near hysterics at this point. Dad punches me in the back and says "Look at your mother!! How the hell did she get up there? LOOK! She started a whole 'nuther damned line! We'll never get up there."

And she had, a whole new line of white headed folks had followed her lead like sheep to the trough and now the new line was blocking our line. Dad was fit to be tied. I could barely stay standing for lack of oxygen. Sally kept saying "where's my camera". I whooped out my new cell phone and snapped some pics, but I got now idea how the hell to get 'em offa this one... so no pics.

We finally got to the trough, Dad was happy. The food was excellent. The play was excellent. The day was excellent.... and hillarious.



Couple of vids thrown in.

Today in 1980 we lost him...







And yesterday in 1949 we gained him. Tom's got a lot to say. Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis.






And I can't find the toad. I think he's gonna be okey doke... he disappears for days at a time. :-)







.

The Toad Got It.

So going back to this post you'll remember 'bout my toad. The one down in the basement. Well, being as we're in an old old farmhouse, we usually get a few mice that try to come in when winter comes and stake a claim... I'm not real jiggy with that whole plan, so I set traps. I'm pretty good at it too. I usually get up in the morning and go run the trap line and see if any meeses met their demise overnight.


I was all in a hurry this morning, we taped 2 more episodes of North Missouri Woodworking today and I had to get going, but about 6:30 am I heard a trap in the basement *SNAP!*.


I finally got time this evening to run down there. One trap sitting in front of the furnace tripped... no mouse. And then I looked over by the floor drain... the toad.


I came upstairs and told Sal.

Me: My toad got smacked by a mousetrap.

Sal: (who hates the toad and all that he represents and is completely creeped out by the fact that there is a toad in our basement.) *excited* REALLY?

Me: Yeah, he doesn't look so hot.

Sal: It's not dead?

Me: He's got a boo boo on his forehead, I'm gonna check on him in the morning.

Sal: *incredulous* What?

Me: Yeah, I think he's a little dazed right now. I'd put a bandaid on his little toady punkin but I don't think it'd stick and it might just make him crazy.

Sal: You need to shoot it.

Me: Shoot it? SHOOT IT?

Sal: Yeah, that thing just totally creeps me out. There's more of 'em down there you know. I saw 2 little toads the other day when I was down there. *shivers*

Me: You can't just go shootin' a person's toad just 'cause he got his punkin popped a little by a Victor mouse trap. I think he'll be alright. Hell honey, he's been down there over 3 years.

Sal: I can't believe this. You're actually gonna go check on him?

Me: Well yeah. That's a pretty doggone good toad down there honey. We've kinda connected. I think he knows me when he sees me.

Sal: *rolling her eyes*

Me: Maybe he'll grow a new head if that one falls off.

Sal: That's lizards and it's their tails, not their heads.

Me: Prove it.

Sal: *more eye rolling*



So, I'm gonna go down there in the morning and check on his toady little head and see how things are humming for him. I might take him a bug or something... if I can find one.

Just This...

Anything that I could possibly write here this evening would pale in comparison to the pictures of this evenings sunset here in North Missouri that my wife Sally took just a few minutes ago. So with that...


Click the pics.










Have a great evening.
J.





.

Here I Am!

I figured I'd better post something so's y'all wouldn't think I was deader than a hammer.

Had a great Thanksgiving, did a little shopping, mostly window shopping. Went to Guitar Center yesterday which is like Disneyland for musicians. Played 'bout half the guitars and all of the mandolins there. Way cool place. I love just watching people there, everything from beginners to pros, country/folk musicians to death metal. You're completely surrounded by music of some sort from the time you walk in the door until you walk out. Even if you don't play it's worth a trip to one of their stores just to watch and listen.

Played Wii with my son in law and Sally. I'm addicted. lol What a blast that was.

Ate more food than you can shake a bowl full of jelly at. What a feed!

Came home and had an evening of visiting and having a few drinks with my buddy Gary and his daughter Sarah and Sal yesterday evening.

Sorry I was derelict in my duties... I'll do better. :-)



Have a great week everyone!






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Rollin' Rollin' Rollin', Keep Them Doggies Rollin'...

Well kids, tomorrow is payday. We got the herd in yesterday and sorted off calves to sell this morning. Got 'em shipped out to the auction barn about noon. I'm a wee bit scared with the whole economy thing and the cattle market being "off". In case you don't know how it all works... we sort off the calves that are ready to be weaned and moved to a feedlot or to grass somewhere. They go to an auction barn and buyers bid on them... and away they go. You don't have a whole lotta say, it's just whatever the market is at the time. It's been a pretty rough year all in all, with much MUCH higher than ever operating expenses for the cattle and now a shot to the nads with a depressed market.

On the plus side, this batch of calves is one of the best looking bunches we've sold for several years. There was plenty of grass with all the rain and the momma's milked like crazy, putting pounds on those babies. We sorted off 65 head to sell in this batch, all of 'em weighing in the 400-500 pound range with a few 600 pounders tossed in. We'll sell the rest of them in the spring after wintering 'em.

About 12 noon central time... keep your fingers crossed.

No one got trampled, kicked, maimed, wooled up. No gates broke open, no cows went bat turds and flew the coop. It was as calm and collected sorting morning as you'll ever see. Didn't make for any good stories but it sure was nice having an easy go at it.


Welp, some of y'all have purchased copies of the DVD from Chariton Valley Communications of my woodworking show and a few have got to see it without breaking out into congenital puking. In case you missed it, and from some of the talk over on the woodworking forum, I think you did... here's the phone number again.

660-395-9600

10 bucks and a little postage gets it to you. It'll make a good drink coaster after you watch it.



Ran across a silly little video the other day that I've watched repeatedly trying to figure out "what the???". Here tis...








Cute eh?



Have a great Tuesday y'all.




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Wine, Women, And Song.

WINE! Salute! Cheers! I coulda swore I wore underpants! MORE WINE!

My bloggin' buddy Katie is a pretty cool chick. She and her ol' man Clyde own themselves a right respectable lil' winery down south here a piece in Steelville, Missouri. Katie needed a frame, I make frames. I needed wine. Katie and Clyde make wine. Katie likes frames. I like wine.

We made a trade. I think I got the best part of this deal. I'm pretty certain of it.

Pugsly, my FedEx dude... wait. Wait. Yes, my FedEx drivers name is Pugsly. That's what he answers to. Yes, he looks just like a grown up version of Pugsly from The Adams Family. He's pretty cool. He likes delivering at our shop, usually just hangs out for awhile and visits.

Anyway, Pugsly pulls in and brings me in a box, I read the label and start ripping the box to shreds like a rabid dog after some sort of imaginary mailman leg in the box. I pull out a bottle of their Huzzah Valley Sweet Rosé AND a bottle of their Late Harvest Chardonel Dessert White.

I looked at Pugsly and said "You gotta go now. Goodbye" I ran to the house, briefly had the thought that it'd be awful if I fell right then... blew through the back door, slid to a stop in front of Sally and said....

"Wine. I'm thirsty."

Sal said "Me too."

Half a bottle later of the Huzzah and I was chasing Sally 'round the kitchen island like some sex crazed middle aged guy with a beard that plays mandolin, has cows and does woodworking. It was an amazing transformation. Utterly amazing.

Seriously folks, if you wanna taste some of the finest wine that comes from my home state here, this stuff is it. They've got a pretty extensive list of wines AND they do mail order and internet sales. You don't even have to get outta bed. Is America great or what?? I mean it!

Here's all their pertinent info.

Peaceful Bend Vineyard (click that like crazy)

Or give 'em a call 573-775-3000. If you live in CA, CO, ID, IL, IA, MN, MO, NM, OR, WA, WS, WV you're just a click or a phone call away from having this wonderful elixir of life and marital bliss, speeding it's way to your door via your very own Pugsly.

If by chance Katie or Clyde answers the phone themselves... just tell 'em you want the "Jace Special". It'll be good for a laugh anyhow when they say "whaaattt?"



Okay, music next. We played at one of our regular gigs the other night and it was a cooooolllldddd one. Pretty light crowd because of the temps, but we sure outdid the bar across the street. I think I saw one truck over there all night long and it belonged to the owner. HA!

As always, we had a barrel of fun.







And we shot the second episode of North Missouri Woodworking. It went awesomely and we had a great time and loosened it up a bit this time. Here I am suffering under the heat of all the lights. No I don't know what they're all there for... other than I need all the help I can get to look good.







Sorry... no women pics. I lied about that part.

Have a great one! CHEERS!!






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Hacksaw? HACKSAW???

Welp folks, we got to watch the first of the woodworking shows, "North Missouri Woodworking with Jace Weber" last evening and I am sooo impressed. Impressed with the quality of work that Martina, the producer and Drew, the cameraman/editor, turned out. I was totally blown away. If you remember when I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago, I didn't have a clue how they were gonna put it all together in the end with all of the "let's do that again but from this point this time" type of stuff.

I'm just amazed how that all works. Those 2 are really something.

My part turned out pretty nice as well and I was happy with it until I blurted out "Hacksaw". Yes, on a woodworking show I said hacksaw. Don't ask me what the hell was going through my thick rind' punkin' of a head when it flew outta my mouth. I was telling how to cut out a piece of wood on the bandsaw and said you could just as easily do it with a couple of different saw types if you didn't have a bandsaw.

What my brain said was "backsaw".

What rolled off my tongue was "hacksaw".


For the unknowing amongst y'all, here's a backsaw.







And this, is a hacksaw.









A backsaw is for woodworking, a hacksaw is for just hacking the crap out of the dangling tailpipe on your Buick or for sawing the aluminum hand railings off the stairs somewhere to sell for scrap, or even for getting under your sink and ruining all your plumbing. They're best for that. I've ruined more plumbing with a hacksaw than a politicians got promises.

Eh well, it made me laugh. And laughing at myself... well, I excell at that.


But truly people, these 2 made me look like an old pro. It's a pretty cool little show and entertaining too!



So, if y'all want a DVD of this show, call this number:

660-395-9600

That's Chariton Valley Communications. Tell 'em you wanna copy of "North Missouri Woodworking with Jace Weber". They'll probably question your sanity for a bit but just play along and they'll give in. :-) Seriously though, it'll be 'bout $10 bucks and a little postage probably.

Tell 'em I said to call.



Annnnnnddddd ... we're shooting episode NUMBER TWO tomorrow! Yessiree Bob. After this it looks like it's gonna be a once monthly program. I'm real grateful and real excited about this whole thing folks. I truly am.




Now then I wanna give a shout out to some friends of ours down in Knoxville, TN that run themselves one helluva set of radio stations, including one net radio station (you can listen to it on your puter) (technology... I tell you whut!) WDVX

Tony Lawson, Program Director

and

Red Hickey, DJ extraordinaire

These folks are online at www.wdvx.com Click on the "listen" button and choose the windows media player on the next page. Awesome AWESOME American style music.

Give 'em a listen, you'll love it. Great stuff!




Also Keota is playing tonite (Thursday, November 20) over in Bevier at Ugo's. We'll start playing about 7 pm. Come on over, we'll tear it up for y'all. I promise! Got some new stuff too!



Have a good one!
Jace





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Things You Shouldn't Put On Your Lips. Item #8

For your convenience I've compiled a short list of things you shouldn't put on your lips. This list is in no way 100 percent correct, but it's pretty danged close.


Things You Shouldn't Put On Your Lips.

1. A Nuclear warhead with anything less than 1 hour on the timer.

2. Battery acid.

3. A speeding bullet.

4. Any part of Rosie O'Donnell.

5. Badger teeth. This is especially true if said teeth are still attached to a living, breathing Badger.

6. A taxi driver's seat cushion.

7. Anything found under a seat in the theater.

8. Spiders.


Let me stop this list here at number 8 and move on to what I'm gonna call the "Show and Tell" portion of todays show.


This is a respirator. This is actually the respirator that I put on if I'm walking in the finish room of my shop to spray something real quick like. I've got another fresh air respirator that I put on if I'm gonna be in there for awhile.







Now this next picture is the backside of that respirator, that is strapped onto your face nice and tight. Looky at all those flippy flops of rubber and spacious cavity inside.









So... yesterday I pull on my respirator, snap it behind my head, pull it over my punkin, put my glasses back on and put my cap back on and start into the finish room... and I feel something. Something in my mask. I stop and try to decide if it's just something itchy on my nose and then... nothing. I open the door and then... something runs across my lips.

I'm dead serious. Something ran across my lips. I whip off my cap and start tearing the respirator offa my face, flinging my glasses to who knows where. I'm in a major panic now. I'm trying to unsnap the snap behind my head on the stupid strap and finally get it undone and then... a spider hops outta my respirator and onto the floor.

I applied my boot.









I've got no clue if it was a deadly poisonous variety 'cause I just didn't get a real good look at him before he looked like he does in that picture. Twernt no parts of my face swelling up or falling off this morning, so I'm guessing I never got bit.

Wanna know the worst part? This ain't the first time this has happened. Only the other time I didn't get the thing on my face before the spider scurried outta there. AND I'd just fumigated for bugs in the shop not over 2 weeks ago.

LOL Now everytime I put the thing on today, I was shaking it out and looking around in it.

Gaaaah!

Youtube'n Saturday

As y'all know, I'm a YouTube junkie. I get stuck in the YouTube loop, one thing leads to another and I've gone from watching a vintage Hendrix video to Hank Williams III videos (not for the faint hearted... lol) to Segway Polo. By the way, Segway Polo ranks right up there with one of the dumbest danged things I've seen in awhile. The guys riding the things all seem to have a stick up their rear end and the Segway's are evidently powered by smugness.

I bet Hank III could write a right purty little ballad 'bout those boys.

So this first video is "Boomer Supermarket 1962" but I think it's mistitled... looks more like 1957-1958ish to me. The Nelson's go shopping in a supermarket. Now it's a little tedious watching some of it, but there are glimpses that are pure joy. The butcher pulling down a hanging veal and cutting Mrs. Nelson the roast she wanted. The veggie department dude weighing up her produce and pricing it for her and best of all... stick around for the very end and check out what the cashier rings up her groceries for.

You'll pee your pants sideways. I promise.









Next is all kinds of toy gun fun. The kid in this commercial is Billy Mumy, he was Will Robinson on the old Lost In Space TV series. I laughed out loud when his dad says "You can't read". Talk 'bout the public smackdown. Hopefully he went to Pop's dresser and put a little Atomic Balm in the old dude's underpants.

"You can't read... I'll teach him some driver's seat acrobatics while he's stuck in rush hour traffic on his way to work tomorrow morning."

Lordy.

Anyway check out the Tommy Gun action and the kid hoses the old mans newspaper with his snub nosed 38. Awesome!









And lastly is "Six Finger". I actually Googled this and it was "Egads!". Who would have known there were so many people with six fingers for real. Some of the pictures were pretty creepy.

Okay, I had one of these 'cause it was all 007ish, Man From UNCLE'ish, cool like. I actually remember pulling this thing out on the playground in grade school and all the guys ooohing and ahhhing over it. As I remember it the range of the "flying cap bomb" was pretty dismal. Pathetic is probably a better term. It'd shoot it out like 3 feet or so and was a pain to put the caps in it... but it looked cool. I got it taken away from me by the playground monitor but I can't remember why now. Got it back at the end of the day at the Principal's office, that was the important part.

Watching this video now, man this was a stupid toy. lol

"SIX FINGER SIX FINGER MAN ALIVE, HOW'D I EVER GET ALONG WITH FIVE!"











Have a great Sunday!
J.




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I Realize It's November But This Is About July 4th

Actually after the post about the blue truck that was my Grandpa's old truck, I've had things rattling around in my punkin'. Things that my Grandpa and I did when I was a kid. He spoiled me something terrible and had a sense of humor that fell right inline with mine.

When I was about 6 or 7 my Grandpa and I were sitting in the front yard just before July 4th, aimlessly tossing firecrackers around. I kinda shudder thinking about this now, but his logic was he didn't want a 6 or 7 year old shooting firecrackers without some adult supervision... BUT, it was okay for that same 6 or 7 year old boy to light 'em then throw 'em (hopefully) just as long as he was there watching.

I dunno. It worked okay, I got all my fingers and stuff.

Anyhow he loved noisy fireworks as much as I did and we're having a big ol' time when I noticed a knothole in the big maple tree in the front yard, that was about the size of my thumb. Well hell, you got firecrackers, you got a tree hole, what the heck you gonna do? Darn tootin'! You're gonna start shoving lit firecrackers in the tree hole.

And I did. A lot of 'em.

After about the twentyteenth firecracker an entire army of black carpenter ants started rolling outta the bottom of the tree. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Gobs, at the very least. Now both of us were pretty entertained by this, not because it was mean. Nothing like that at all, it was just a reaction to an action that we hadn't really expected and the action was taking place in spades.

So I started shoving firecrackers in the tree hole faster and faster. Ants started covering the ground. Good Lord we'd never seen so many ants in our lives! The ground was moving with the dang things! And then, as with a lot of other things in life, we just ran outta bang. No more firecrackers left to poke in the tree hole. Most likely that was a blessing for my Grandma who was suffering out all the noise inside the house in the kitchen... the room furthest from the ant tree.

Me and Grandpa just sat there in the yard laughing 'bout all the ants when all of a sudden he just stopped talking and was staring at the top of the tree trunk. I looked too. Smoke was billowing outta the hollow center of that old rotten tree which was only a few feet from the house.

The ant tree was on fire!

Later in life I've come to understand this type of reaction as "Karma". Run the ants out of their home with fireworks, your house burns down. Simple as that.

In my young years all I really knew how to do was panic. I started crying that the house was gonna burn down... Grandpa was yelling at me to drag the garden hose out there while he got a ladder. I drug this ginormous old red hose out.

"NOT THAT ONE!" he yelled "It's fulla holes! Get the green ones! So I run back in the garage and come dragging out the 2 green hoses that are hopelessly tangled into a wad that looks like garden hose hell. I'm cryin'. Grandpa is cussin'. We're both fighting garden hose war trying to get enough length to reach from the hydrant to the tree. It's pure pandemonium.

And to think only moments earlier there was nothing but laughin' and firecrackers and ants. Life sure is funny sometimes.

We get the garden hoses all stretched out, the hydrant on and Grandpa is up the ladder spraying water down inside the old maple tree and after about 30 minutes of hosing 'er down... the fire is out. Life is almost back to normal.

I can still picture my Grandma in her apron, standing on the front steps with her arms crossed just watching the whole fiasco take place in the front yard with the 2 boys. Me and my Grandpa.






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Pancakes, Chocolate Bacon, Sea Kittens And Other Crap I've Noticed This Week.

So I get up this morning and decided that I need to make myself pancakes. This event happens so seldom in this household I have to go to the chest freezer in the basement to retrieve the pancake mix that lies there just in case some fool decides they need pancakes once a year at the buttcrack of dawn.

I get it, set the bag of pancake mix on the counter and stare at it. I shake it some and stare at it some more. Still no pancakes jumping out of it. "Hummph!"

THEN, I happen to read these instructions printed on the bag... (you may wanna click that pic for a larger view.)








Well, Hell. My pancake cookin' went a whole lot better after following THOSE instructions. Dang.




Staying with the whole food thing, I ran 'cross this story last week about this big ol' boy that loves bacon. Now if y'all been reading my blog for awhile, you KNOW I'm a nut for crisp bacon and lots of food combination's based on bacon. Well, this feller has cooked himself up some crispy bacon, stuck it on a gol danged stick, then poured milk chocolate all over the thing.

Half of y'all are going "GAAAHHH!", the other half are going "Hmmmmmmm, sounds kinda good!". I'm of course, going with the latter. Hey, I got you folks a youtube of it! Here!








Now let's move on to one of my more favorite organizations to poke at with a stick.

Wait. Know what's brown and sticky?






Give up?







A stick.

Okay... PETA. PETA this past week hit the news with their new ad campaign of wanting to rename fish... "Sea Kittens". Yes, they're serious. They want everyone to start calling fish Sea Kittens so it'll be less appetizing to eat fish. Lordy Lordy Lordy...

The only thing I can see that this is gonna do for me is when I drive through McDonalds and order my Filet O Sea Kitten Sandwich, fries and shake... I gotta spit out 2 more syllables than usual.

What? Don't believe it's true. Hell yeah I got the website. Make sure and read the bedtime stories... the cartoon of the kid eating the mercury laden fish made me laugh out loud. Not that a kid eating mercury is amusing to me, it's the whole nanny state ludicrousness of the whole thing.



Here, read about Sea Kittens.




And whilst I'm railing on PETA here's another unbelievable. PETA offered Ringling Bros an Animatronic elephant in exchange for all of Ringling's elephants to go into retirement. Yeah, animatronic like ol' Abe Lincoln in the Hall Of Presidents at Disneyland. LOL It goes on to state how mistreated they are. For crying out loud... the elephants (and other animals) are their lively hood. Most likely they're getting fed better and housed better than half the people working for RB. What about PETC? People for ethical treatment of carneys.

I'd post a link to PETA again for this... but I figure most, if not all of y'all wouldn't click it no how.



Here. Here's a link that's a lot more fun.




A few of y'all have wondered about seeing the woodworking show that we shot last Thursday. As soon as it's done and available I'll let you know. Martina posted the phone number to order it from on another post here at S & C. I'll put it up again as well.

Have a great week!
Jace





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One Step Closer To That Ceeement Pond!

What a blast today! In case you missed yesterday's post, click here. I told y'all 'bout the local cable tv company starting a local station and they were coming out today to shoot a woodworking show at my shop. I can't begin to tell you how much fun it was and what a great NEW experience.

Martina is the producer and she's just incredible at her job. The camerman and editor is Drew... the guy is amazing. He had fancy schmansy lights of all kinds all over the dang shop with little silver umbrellas and wires and cords and the most impressive camera I've ever seen. It was so new it didn't even have a crank on the side of it! Really! It run off 'lectricity just like your clock radio!

Technology... I tell you what.

I got a little microphone that clipped on my shirt, had a wire that ran down my back with a thing clipped on my pocket. I felt so important! It kinda went to my head, sorry to say. I got a little indignant at one point and ran outside to go sit in my ginormous RV in the studio lot, you know, just to pout. I realized I didn't have one when I got outside so I sat in the blue truck instead, smoked a cigar and ate beef jerky. I got over myself pretty quick though, it's just not that much fun sitting in the blue truck.

Seriously though, the professionalism of these 2 young people is pounds of impressive. Drew is a genius with lighting, making it all look perfect through his camera. We'd do a take and I'd get to a point and he'd stop... then we'd do a partial re-shoot from a point that he'd want me to start at. I dunno how all that works out in the end with the editing and stuff, but him and Martina had it all figured out.

I did a little introduction of myself, some blatant plugging of my business, wearing a Keota cap and then we moved on to a full fledged demonstration of doing a "dutchman inlay". I'd done a photo essay of this on The Wood Works a couple of years ago and it went over pretty good, and I thought that it'd be a cool thing to do for the show. It went real nice, I didn't let any power tools get out of control and I didn't cut any appendages off during the process, although I did start bleeding from a box knife wound I did to myself yesterday on my left hand. LOL

We won't be able to youtube this or anything. CVTV will own it and they'll sell DVD's of it as well as broadcasting it several times on the air. Perhaps in time, a year or so down the road it might be a possiblity though with permission.

We're gonna try and shoot another "episode" before December too!!! Drew will be leaving the company and a new cameraman will be taking his place. I'm sure the new guy will be good too, but Drew really impressed me. I want to get the next one done before he leaves.

Sally fixed us a huge lunch after we got done, and Martina and Drew packed up all the myriad of lights and equipment and away they went! It really was sooo much fun, folks. I've got some pics (of course) that Martina and Sally took.













I need to work on my posture... Lordy I look like a midget... Martina, Me and Drew.






And Drew and Martina asked for a good "normal" pose while setting everything up, doing I don't know what with buttons and dials and crap like that. I'm here to please.






A totally cool experience. I loved it!


Martina, Drew and CVTV... y'all rock!




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Line Up For Autographs 'Cause It's All Swimmin' Pools And Movie Stars From Here On Out.

That's right, you heard it here... uh... second, the boys over on the woodworking forum heard it first. At any rate, I'm gonna be famous.

It's true!

So you're probably wondering what the hell has that man done now to rate all of this. Well, I'm gonna be a TV star, just like Little Joe Cartwright, but not as dead and there won't be any horses or a fat older brother, and I'm gonna be doing woodworking.

Actually, that ain't nuthin' like Little Joe, but he was a TV star and I'm gonna be one too!

So here's the scoop. The local cable/internet/phone/cellular company started a new station this spring that goes out to all of it's cable customers, hit's 'bout 8 or 10 of the local towns. ( I just made up that number, I ain't got the foggiest notion how many it goes to. I might be close though.) (We'll pretend that I am so I can get on with the rest of this story.) (whew!) Anyway, mostly what they've been doing for programing, which is all original, has been HS sporting events and interviews with folks with a cause, stuff like that. A cool little detail to all of this... Martina (singing in this youtube), from our band (a very cool chick as chicks go) has a pretty big hand in the thing. She does the interviewing and the planning of the shoot.

So I'm in the shop a few weeks ago working on a chair and got this gigantic brainstorm that I, Jace The Sawdust Maker, had the potential to be a celebrity, even if it's in my own mind. I gave her a call, pitched the idea, everyone started talking in really high pitched voices, and by the time the day was over we'd set up a day and time to shoot this thing, me doing some sort of woodworking technique.

That day is tomorrow morning... the 6th of November. Yessiree bobalouie. Californey here I come!

AND.. yeah it just gets better and better, hopefully it'll go over pretty well in the local towns, and we'll make it a little bit of a regular thing.

HA! 'Fore you know it, I'm gonna be nationwide.

Seriously though, I'm real pumped for this thing tomorrow, and real appreciative that the cable company is giving me the opportunity to do it and for my bud Martina kinda givin' it the the impetus to make it happen.


A side effect to this whole thing... I had to clean my shop and it was a helluva deal. LOL took me 3 1/2 days! Really! 3 1/2 days. Here, take a look at all the pics and stuff of it over on The Wood Works. That right there is a whoooolllllle bunch of cleaning.

Hopefully I'll have some pics of the blessed event in my next post.

Wish me some luck tomorrow, I don't wanna get nervous and throw up on camera or glue my hand to something, or get beat half to death by my flap sander..... or worse. :-)




NITE!




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Blogolians... We Have Trenchage!

I couldn't be happier if I were twins, and the world probably don't want any part of that. I'm sure Sal doesn't. I own my very own trench (filled now). If you missed the first part of this saga, it's here.

The trencher dude, Mark, called and asked about the area that he'd need to maneuver in and we talked and he decided to bring his mini-excavator instead. It was perfect.







Whatta great guy, Mark is my new best friend forever. He unloaded and went right to work...









I had to bust out a 2' wide wound across the driveway, but that's not as bad as it sounds. It wasn't a thing of beauty to begin with... kinda looked like the Keith Richards version of a driveway with all the cracks and creases that run across it.








Lordy that's harsh...



Anyways, Mark trenched on...








And then we tossed the tile in that contains the lines and insulation and wiring for the outside wood stove and he covered the whole schmazz up.









I dunno if you noticed it or not, but that's the look of happiness on my face. Here... look again.








See?




Okay, now onward. All I gotta do now is get my neighbor over here with his loader to pick the stove up, it's about 1800 to 2000 pounds, and sit it where it's gonna live. It's cooking hot here right now, a whole bunch of 70 degree days in a row, so I got a few days... and I'm gonna need it. I sorta got my week pretty full with a whole buncha stuff, which brings me to...

I'm on day 3 of "the shop cleaning". A little event coming up this week that I'm major pumped about, I'll fill you in on the next post.


Sal and Nicky scored some tickets to see Sarah down at the state capitol tomorrow morning, so were scootin' down there to see what she's got to say. Oughta be some fun eh?




Later!





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