BIG SALE AT JOANN FABRICS! ! ! !

Actually, this doesn't have anything to do with a big sale at Joann fabrics. If the number of sale flyers that hit the door here at our house are any indication, it's a lot like JC Penney's Sale of the hour. They have a LOT of sales... lol

This post might have been better titled "Found Art In Your Home". This found art just happened to be a defaced Joann Fabrics sale flyer, and is our son Jake's handy work while he was on the phone probably or... who knows. Doesn't really matter. It's there.

I'd be a really lousy art critic, because my criteria is... if it makes me laugh, by crappy, that's good art! This is excellent art.


By all means, please click the pics for a larger view of this talented artists handiwork with a Sharpie.


An original (we get 2 of these everytime they come) (double coupons) (shhh)









...and the artist's modified version. It's for sale, make an offer.









I'm ruined every time I look at this. LOL

Burger King's Steakhouse Burger Killed Me Dead.

I had to run into town today to pick Jake up, he had to drop his truck off at the body shop, and we went into Burger King for lunch.

I am still suffering the aftershocks of this luncheon of mung on a bun.

Standing at the counter, I'm looking up at the glitzy and glamorous (glamorous in the fast food hamburger sense of "things that are likely NOT to kill you dead" and nothing else) and I see what may be the most stupendous fast food hamburger of all time... the Loaded Steakhouse Burger. Here's what the thing looked like up on the wall of fame at BK...




I stole that image from BK's website, I hope they don't mind, if they do... well tough. :-)

Sitting down at the table I unwrapped my Loaded Steakhouse Burger and I sat there looking at it, and the conversation went like this.


Me: *just sitting there looking at it, then looking up at the picture above the order counter, and back again, and back again, and back again.*

Jake: What the hell is that?

Me: I don't know.

Jake: That's disgusting.

Me: *just staring at it*

Jake: Dude, I wouldn't eat that.

Me: This is the ugliest hamburger I have ever seen in my life.

At this point a Burger King girl who was, unknown to me, standing behind me cleaning or doing something, walks to the side of the table and asks what I ordered.

Me: That Loaded Steakhouse Burger up there on the top row.

BK Girl : *eyeballing my sandwich while I pull the top bun back* Yeah, that's what you got there.

Me: Does this look like that one up there... I mean... AT ALL?

BK Girl: *Just smiling*

Jake: *Trying to choke down his Whopper*

BK Girl: You DID order the "loaded" one, right?

Me: Yeah...

BK Girl: That's it.

The BK girl then walks off, undoubtedly to identify other patrons meatmounds on a bun that they've purchased with hard earned money. I take a few bites of the thing and take it apart and start scraping stuff off of it.

Jake: What in the world is THAT you're scraping off man?

Me: Looks to be mashed potatoes.

Jake: I'm gonna be sick. What are those brown things that look like maggots?

Me: I think they're like onion ring parts or something.

And so it went. I ate about half and couldn't choke down anymore, got in the car and left. I got home and noticed I had my receipt shoved in my hoodie pocket and it had a customer service toll free number... so I called it. The electronic BK voice on the other end asked if I'd do a survey and I poked 1 for yes and it took like 10 minutes and at the end of the survey it gave me a secret code for a free Whopper... and then it hung up on me.

Right there is the definition of "irony" played out in real life.

I looked around for another hidden phone number and lost interest in the effort and had to go eat some Rolaids, and some anti death drugs.



More than anything, it's just like my own personal little public service announcement for you. Unless you want to be killed to death by a Steakhouse Burger, steer clear of 'em. Stick with the fries. They have really good fries... and ice.

Take A Picture, It'll Last Longer.

Our son Jake, is home for a few days and he and his buddy Jed, scored a couple of primo tickets to the IRL (Indy car race) at the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City yesterday. The tickets were complimentary and.... AND.... VIP tickets for Danica Patrick's VIP tent. They could hardly believe their good fortune.

Don't know who Danica Patrick is? This is Danica...

(click any of the pics if you wanna see 'em bigger... for whatever reason. lol)




I think you can see why two, 22 year old young men were somewhat happy to be placed in her lil' ol' VIP tent. She's also the big talk right now when the topic of discussion turns to Indy Car racing.


So Jake and Jed took off yesterday morning and I told him to grab a camera and get some pics of him and Jed with Danica or with the car or with someone cool. He bought a disposable camera somewhere along the way and.... took pictures.

Now keep in mind that the most impressive thing to Jed and Jake, being located in the Danica VIP tent was the fact that you get a lot of "free" things... namely beer and food, and alot of both items. The pictures that I'm posting are pretty typical of what the rest look like, mostly out of focus shots of one another. Lordy...


Here's a great shot of Jed drinking free beer. He's got his Eastwood squint going on there for effect.






Oh and here's a shot of (in Jake's words) "a totally hot chick with the wrong guy". Mostly what killed me with this picture though was the closeup of a humongous Jed chin.





Amazing camera work eh?


Oh and here! Good golly! Here's a shot of Jake drinking free beer!






And so the rest of the roll of film went. They did manage to get one nice shot of Danica's car, surrounded by techs and crew, before the race. I think she popped a wall or something... so no after shots.






I got a beer hugger (of course lol) for a present and a little hot wheels sized version of her car. (complimentary too I'm assuming) :-)

Sunday Serenade

Well................ lol After all that fracas, things are running pretty smoothly and it's time to get back here with real posts. I'm just gonna post this video this evening of us doing an original song by our bass player, Mary Beth and sung by Martina. I think this was only our 2nd time through this song, but it turned out pretty nice. A nice Christian song titled "I am your daughter".

TWW is getting close!

In case you've clicked and wondered.... "what the...?" It's getting real close to being lit back up.

To All Members Of The Wood Works

Martin and I spoke again this morning about our situation and are in complete agreement on the fix. Martin prepared in words what has taken place and asked me to post it here on Sawdust and Cowpies. Here tis...

*****************************************************

On Monday we experienced a catastrophic hardware failure on my server. Not only was the system damaged beyond repair, but it also wrote something to thedisk array that somehow managed to overwrite the partitioning information on the drives. To make life even more 'interesting', the tape that I was using for backups decided to self destruct in the drive.

I have spent the last 4 days pulling together the parts for a new web server and attempting to recover the data on the drives. On Wednesday, I decided that the problem with the drives was beyond my experience to repair and I engaged ESS Data Recovery to assess the drives and attempt a recovery. The initial prognosis was a 70% or less chance of recovery of the data. Return time on the attempt is approximately 1-2 weeks. Unfortunately, upgrading this to a 24X7 recovery attempt was well beyond what I can afford to pay for the data. As it stands now, if they are able to recover the data, there will be a 1K$ charge. There is no charge if the data is not recoverable.

Jace, the other moderators, and I have been discussing the options throughout the week. I think the time has come to relaunch the sites 'from scratch' so that we can begin rebuilding the communities. There is still a chance that within the next week or two that the original data might be recovered, but as the prognosis was not promising, I believe it is time to roll up my sleeves and get things going again. If ESS is able to recover the data, I have already been researching methods for reimporting the old posts back into the new forums. If this happens, I will attempt to do this in a non-disruptive manner. I do not however want to delay bringing the sites back up while we wait for a recovery that might not happen.

This has been a very humbling experience for me. I pride myself in my ability to manage IT operations. Coincidentally, we had a few other hardware issues in the data center that happened in the same time frame. That partly slowed my efforts on The Wood Works and other sites as those servers are part of the job that pays my bills. Luckily, all of those systems are functional. I'm not sure at this point if the damage was earthquake related, or if other factors were present. Either way, it took 3 points of failure (Bad server hardware, mirrored disk array failure, backup tape failure) to cause the data loss we experienced. For this I offer my most sincere apologies. I understand fully that the value of a forum is not the server or the software, but all the time and effort that are put into the posts contained within by the members.

I have put additional procedures in place to reduce my reliance on tape backups. While I can not say that we will never experience another issue in the future, I can guarantee that this situtation will not occur again. Future backups will be transfered offsite and will not be reliant on tape technology.

The goal right now is the get everything back in place for a Sunday relaunch. Nicky and I will be rebuilding the templates and configurations tonight and tomorrow to make this happen. Unfortunately, everyone will need to create new accounts. If possible, please retain your original account name, as this may help in the event that we are able to migrate the old data back in place. It may take a few more days for all features to be funtional again, specifically member gallerys and banner add rotation.

I appreciate the words of support that Jace has received and relayed to me from all of you. I hope to see everyone back together in the forums very soon.

-Martin

**********************************************************

So, boys and girls... that's where we're at. If you have any questions, please by all means email me at webers@cvalleyDOTnet I'll do my damnedest to get the proper answer back to you.

I apologize for this happening as well. Thank You for all your understanding and support.


Best Regards,
Jace

Fleas, Ticks And Other Things That Suck...

Tick season is starting off with a bang here in North Missouri, I've already flicked a few offa my pant legs when I've been out in the weeds. We get them in abundance here, great herds of ticks that disappear over the horizon and stampede in thunderous unison across the plains of Missouri, looking for a handy dog or human bean to latch their gnarly little fangs into.

Some years are worse than others, I'd hope that with the never ending winter that we had, that some of the little urchins perished and their numbers may be a little less than usual. Another week or two will tell the tale. At any rate, I was getting out the Frontline to put on the dog and noticed a warning on the package that made me laugh. I'm a big warning reader from way back... not that I worry 'bout stuff, but I'm looking for the ludicrous warnings that make you go "what the hell?"

Now Frontline is a chemical that you put on your dog, in between their front shoulders, and it keeps ticks, fleas and other vermin off of em for 3 months at a time. Pretty cool stuff. Basically the same thing we use to worm cattle with, but in much smaller dosages. Anyway I had a box from last year, leftover from our border collie, Pete that passed on, and I was doing the math in my head to reduce the pre-measured dose in the package for our little dog, Roxie.... when I noticed "the warning".






*smile*



Now what crazy honyock actually tried to get rid of his personal "bugs" with Frontline, that has precipitated this particular warning on the box? And what exactly is the side effects of doing this?


Most of all though... does it work?

Eh well...

TWW Thursday Evening Update

No real news to tell you folks this evening... Martin was busy with work today, tied up in meetings all day and we haven't spoken, but it's still looking like this weekend to get lit back up.

Thanks for all the great emails and offers guys and gals. You're a great bunch!


I talked on the phone with C.John today and he sounded great and was doing well. Recovery is progressing like it's supposed to, and he had a real familiar tone to his voice that means... he ain't gonna be down long with this surgery.

Have a great evening!

Jace

Bacon and Eggs... Chukar Eggs.

My Uncle is gone so while I was feeding the cows this morning I had to take care of his bird dogs and... feed the Chukars. You ask "What in the name of Aunt Jemima's underpants is a freakin' Chukar?"


This is a Chukar.





Freaky huh?


So you're probably wondering why a man keeps a pen of these odd looking things, 'cause I did for awhile too. He originally got 'em to train his bird dogs. In Missouri you don't need a permit for 'em because if they escape from the pen, or if you don't shoot 'em while you're training your dogs... they don't survive here. So there's no problems with bringing in a non-indigenous species. But...... then he started to just like looking at 'em and feeding them and stuff. He even bought an incubator and hatched out a few.

Now me, I got to seeing all the eggs that they laid... and they lay a bunch. Gobs. I dunno how many they normally lay in a clutch, but these things put out a pretty impressive amount of eggs. So one other time when Robert was gone and I was taking care of things, I started keeping the eggs every day and saved up a couple dozen in the fridge...

You're probably guessing where this is going already aren't you?








Hell yeah I ate 'em! Jake helped me too. Sally wouldnt' have any part of it. She was curious... just not THAT curious. :-)





How'd they taste? Just like chicken eggs, maybe a little "richer". Seemed to take 'bout 4 of 'em to equal one hens egg.

I think you could whoop out a "dozen egg omelet" and make history. :-)




On another note. C. John Hebert whooped through his surgery just dandy and is back home being a total nuisance for Denise. :-) I don't think she even had to stuff him in the dumb waiter to get him home... he went right up the stairs.

Have a good evening!
Jace

Wednesday morning The Wood Works report

Nothing much new to tell y'all. Martin and I talked yesterday and it's looking like we'll be back up and running this weekend. I hope you guys and gals are snapping lots of pics of what you're working on so we can see what's been taking place while we are down.

You too Pat... :-)



Kinda funny, I get a pretty respectable visitor count on my blog during regular times... but right now with the re-direct from The Wood Works coming in here... Holy Jamole! I almost need to put grease on the counter to keep it from overheating.


Feel free to leave comments or communicate with the comments, here on Sawdust and Cowpies.


Have a great day folks!

Jace

Mud 'N Manure

Well, while TWW's is down I might as well tap dance for y'all or something, or at least give you something to read.


(Click any of the pictures to make 'em big.)

We got the cows up to the barn yesterday to worm them, get 'em all ready for spring time grass and get 'em built back up from a real miserable winter. Even though we run about 120 head of brood cows (give or take) this is a pretty fast procedure usually taking about an hour and a half. 4 1/2 hours later... we were done. The mud was miserable, we were worn out, a couple of cows were pissed off and had slipped into "kill the farmer" mode during the whole fracas.

At one point I had walked back to the north end of the lot that the cattle were in to get a couple that had wandered back up there. My uncle Robert (who if you remember, has things "break" when he looks at 'em) was chasing with the Kawasaki Mule, a cow that had plans to go somewhere besides the barn... when I heard KABAAAM! It sounded like a bomb went off in the barn. You know that old saying "Can't hit the broad side of a barn"? Robert can. When I looked the Mule was planted pretty firmly in the side of the barn. Robert's waving "I'm okay!" and grinding it into reverse to carry on with his endeavor.

Holy crap... LOL



He came over to where I was and patted the Mule like "good dog" and said "Boy I coulda tore up the Mule... think I can turn the barn wreck into the insurance company?"

"No." :-)

So it came yet another deluge of rain this morning... poured. I got up to the farm , fed a bale of hay, got on the Mule and immediately planted it in the mud. Robert was gone this morning, so i hoofed it back to the house and got the TOD (tractor of doom) and a log chain and went back down to where I had parked the Mule.

I sure can gather a crowd... wonder what the heck was going through their little cow brains.






And then I just decided to haul the whole mess up to the barn to save me from anymore mud trompin'.... and the herd decided it was some kinda parade and fell in behind me as I pulled the Mule.





Then confusion set in for 'em as I went through a gate and left 'em in the lot where I'd unhooked from the Mule.





It looked a little like a riot situation was about to take place as they surrounded the Mule like a cop car was about to turned over and set on fire.... there's just the top of it back there.





Thankfully, cows are real lousy at striking matches and things like that... but they do know all about feed buckets and got that outta the back and licked that baby clean, slick as a whistle. Thank God I didn't have to use that teargas on 'em to break it up.





Of course with the rules of cows having calves being what they are... we had 3 new calves in the weather last night and this morning. All are doing good and spunky. AND one is the Halter Faced cow that is in my title banner at the top. A little bull. Handsome eh?





Alrighty folks... I'll update you on the status of The Wood Works as it happens. Keep checking back here.

Jace

Tuesday morning TWW update

Well, Martin and I talked quite a bit last night, he and Nicky have been non-stop busy sorting stuff out. I will tell you this this morning... it's all fixable.
I'll be able to tell you more this evening, friends.

In the meantime guys and gals... go make some sawdust, round up some pictures and tales you want to share and we'll get things going again VERY shortly. I KNOW how much a part of our lives that these online communities are and how important that they are to so many. Don't think for a second that this is the end... we don't operate that way. Just give us a couple of days to get back up and running, better and stronger!

Have a great day folks,

Jace Weber, admin TWW

Well.. you got a re-direct here huh?

Martin setup a redirect from www.woodworkslive.com to my blog to make it a bit easier to keep y'all informed about the status of everything.

If you didn't get an email from myself or Brent or one of the other guys today... there was a whole bunch of stuff gone wrong with our server this morning. The server is a very very dead dog. Toast. Martin has been working on stuff all day today and is still working on it as I type this... it's going to be a few days most likely before we get the The Wood Works back up and running.

Sometimes, all the preparation in the whole wide world, can't prevent something like this from happening.

Again guys, we're very sorry about all this, but we'll have it back very very soon.


To my blog readers, I apologize for using my blog like this... but it's something to read huh? :-)


Thanks for being understanding folks,
Jace Weber, Admin The Wood Works

The Wood Works server

This is just a notice for readers here that are members of our woodworking forum www.woodworkslive.com aka The Wood Works. Our server took a pretty serious kick in the shorts this morning. I emailed all members that I had in my personal address book. You may email me if you wish, but I'll try to keep you informed as to the status.

I apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

Jace Weber
Admin: TWW

The Paying Gig... What A Blast!

Our group, "Keota" had our first gig last night and it was an utter and complete success... we had more fun than you could shake a stick at and pulled the whole schmazz off to a full house. Sally had the video camera running and I put together a few youtubes today.

We've tried to hit a unique sound, no drums, one central (most impressive) microphone, all acoustic instruments and trying not to sound too bluegrassy or folksy, and from the smiles and laughter and applause... I think we may have pulled it off. So here we go...

First one is a little different version of Del Shannon's "Runaway". We moved it to the key of C and slowed it down a tad. Our bass player, Mary Beth and the younger gal, Martina are mother and daughter. Mary Beth was trained in classical opera, Martina... well, it looks like she's heading places.





Next is a great song done by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils back in 'bout '73. A nice little ditty 'bout gardening and seeds and stuff... :-) Watchin' our animated harp player, Louis (Louie) is entertainment all by itself. lol





You know who did his damnedest to tear it up on Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road" A loverly little song 'bout illegal whiskey, fast cars, momma, the law, viet nam, growing dope and becoming a complete success at life. This is our "we need a laugh" song. If you can play a D and a G chord... you're in the band!







I did another by Don Williams... little rough to pull this one off for personal reasons. Sally changed the words a tad for me, my daughter is Amanda. I think it made my mom cry so... I had that going for me. :-)






And the last song of the night, our girl Martina W. absolutely kicked the slats outta the bed with Martina McBride's "Broken Wing". I swear I get weepy playin while she sings this one. I'm an old softy. lol


It'll take your breath away...






I'll dribble a few more in tomorrow hopefully if ya wanna hear 'em.

Splat

So in the comments of my day before yesterday post, my beloved mentioned her disappointment with me not blogging of my fall that evening. That comment snowballed a little arousing the curiosity of a couple of other readers... so... sheesh.

I'm a little accident prone, things just happen to me. Usually nothing serious that I can't get over in a couple days or so, but it's pretty common. My family loves this about me. *sigh* I think it's like having their very own built in, pratfalling Chevy Chase.

Tuesday evening just before dark Sally said she wanted to go plant a couple of flowering vines down by the east fence and at this point in the day I was already nice and comfy in my recliner in my reclining garb. My reclining wear that evening was a t-shirt and a favorite pair of lounge pants which happen to be bright blue with Southern Comfort whiskey logos all over 'em. I pulled on a dirty grey hoodie and my work boots, but not bothering to lace 'em up or tie 'em. And off I went across the yard to help Sal plant things.

I was soon to plant something else in the dirt.

After the last thing was planted Sally and I got to "foolin' around" like husbands and wives do. ( :-) ) I started chasing her across the yard in a run that can best be described as what you'd picture Carl the grounds keeper in Caddyshack, crossed up with drunk goose and stymied by unkept shoelaces. I still had the yellow handled shovel in hand as I *Forrest Gump voice* "Ra-an lak the wi-ind blows" after my blushing bride.

I then stepped on my right shoelaces with my left foot, in full boogie, which launched my right boot into the sky in a spiraling arc, landing some feet behind me. My shovel... launched like an athlete's javelin, speared into the yard at an awkward angle, and my nose rooted into the yard like a pig going for a grub worm. Sally was especially entertained by the sound effect, which she kept repeating all the way to the house... over and over.

Sally: *laughing hysterically* I... heard.... BOOOFFFFFF!

Me: Thanks for the concern honey

Sally: BOOOFFFFFF! BOOOFFFFFF! BOOOFFFFFF!

Me: I could have died

Sally: *second or third wave of maniacal laughter* BOOOFFFFFF!

Me: See this shovel honey?

Sally: *wiping tears* *getting a straight face on* BOOOFFFFFF!

Me: Dang it! I got grass stains on my Southern Comfort pants!

Sally: *totally loosing it now and leaning on the car to keep from falling, unable to even say BOOOFFFFF at this point*

Me: *sigh*

Hotstuff For Your Mexican Dinner Valentine While Your Cow Is Stuck In The Mud.

Wow, what a title for todays post! :-)

I've got a stat counter on my blog and it gathers up mostly totally useless information that has no purpose for me or you, or anyone for that matter. One of the useless, but more comical bits of information that this little stat counter gleans from the wide wide world of the internet readers that stumble upon these misdirected ramblings of mine is.... search strings from Google that bring people here. For me, this is the very best part of the stat thing, 'cause some of the words and phrases that folks type in just make me laugh out loud.

Maybe this is a new thing, I dunno. I noticed it on mine a couple months ago and since then I've ran across a couple of blogs and forums that have posted these. So, I shoulda posted when I saw it, 'cause now I look like a follower. But what the hell, huh? lol Here's some that amuse me.


Sheep 101
Why do cows eat sawdust?
What happened to peanut butter and bacon?
Pornographic stores kansas city. (I bet they were disapointed with THIS result)

Why are cows getting down in the mud and cant get back up? (lol)
Hot stuff baby tonight
I need hot stuff
Reet reet (that one kills me)(pun intended)(lol)

Famous women couples
wooled up
cow paralyzed (there's a whole lotta misdirected veterinary questions that bring em here.) :-)

Big toe hot to touch and sore (what the???)
His Trombone
eh grandpa?

*this one oughta win a prize of some sort... and talk 'bout Google misdirecting someone*
"My rat is flipping around like he has a broken spine. Whats wrong with him?"

Family trombone
Mexican food that starts with I
brothel food
colonoscopy

pictures of a cows body
the flu poem
ode to the flu
mexican valentines day

i need some, baby tonite (undoubtedly typed in by a very lonely person)
song brickhouse
what is a honyock
lulu belles restaurant in hannibal

cowpie thrown in face
love me like a man
cow pies bouquet
Killer Cows

cows ears freezing off
honyonker
prosperity is just around the corner
picture cow lot cow pies

KILLER HAT CLOWNS (lol)
furniture Chisholm trail chair
harbor freight sawdust cowpies (huh? lol)
leftover bacon


What a list huh? And there's tons more! I've tried a few of these in Google and sometimes Sawdust and Cowpies is nearly the first hit, sometimes many pages back. Almost all of 'em make you wonder a bit.

For what it's worth, nearly every single day someone somewhere and usually more than one... a few, type in some variation of "I want some hot stuff baby tonight", and some variation of "mexican valentines dinner" runs a close second.


Hot stuff baby... lol

Bumper Sticker Brainstorm!

So this evening I was checking the cows and got a real nice surprise, one of the girls had herself a vaginal prolapse. "Dang." I'm just making a guess but I'd say that the cow was thinking the same thing. Got her up to the barn, ran her in the squeeze chute and looked things over and my Uncle walked in the barn to see what I had going on.

Robert: Whatcha got?

Me: Either a vaginal prolapse or she sat on a cherry bomb.

Robert: *looking things over* Yeechh

Me: Yeah, Yeechh is a good word.

Robert: You wanna put it back or call the vet?

Me: Eh, this one looks like a vet deal, I'm kinda wondering what's going on inside her. This one looks kinda wierd, even for a prolapse.

Robert: *just wrinkling his nose and making the "stinky face look".

Me: Exactly.

Robert: I'll call the vet.


And then I got a weird idea and made myself laugh... cause... hell I don't know why. But this is gonna be the all time best bumper sticker for people with cows, and that have had to deal with things pertaining to "animal husbandry", so to speak.





.... yeah I know, I ain't right. But check this out! LOL

Random Stuff On A Saturday

I was stripping some chairs the other day and noticed instructions and warnings that came out of a carton of either framing or roofing nails for use in a nailgun. I'd stapled 'em up on the wall when I opened the carton years ago, 'cause the cartoon "Don't do this" cracked me up at the time. I really don't know how many years it's been up there, but long enough that I don't "see" it anymore. Made me laugh all over again when I saw it the other day.



I wanna know what the whole story is that causes the nail company to have to put a warning in the nailgun nail carton telling you specifically "Don't absentmindedly sit your nailgun on your buddy's head that's kneeling down on the floor working"

Lord have mercy.


I finished up this little kitchen island/dinette/work station/little girl play area thingamajig for our daughter this week and they came up and took it back home.





And she wasted no time putting it to use... or it looks more like the girls (2 and 4) immediately took it over, shoved their Christmas step stools up it and started "baking a cake". LOL



If you wanna see other pics of it, they're here.


And, the paying gig (LOL) hits the big time! :-) Up on the billboard at one of the banks in town. It don't get much bigger than that. Hoo Boy....



I think we got a name, unless we change it again before Friday night... we're so fickle. "Keota" We're borrowing that from a little, now non-existent town in our area. Comes from the Choctaw language and we're still fussing about what it really means. It either means "coming to visit" or "the fire goes out" or "Van Halen".

"The Ruby"

We've got 3 sheep here at our place, 2 are idiots and one is a genius. Take into consideration that I'm using the term "genius" very loosely, but adhering strictly to the term "idiots" for the other two... the Psycho Sisters, Dummy and Stupid. But then there's the good sheep, Ruby.



Ruby thinks she's part dog, and it's probably my fault... I've spoiled that old wool winter coat with hooves something fierce. She's bound to me 'bout as bad as my folks are to eating at Ponderosa, she just can't help herself. She loves chewing gum, and I oblige her penchant for it almost daily. Leftover salad? She's up to the fence before you're even halfway there with it.

Now the only reason we've got ANY sheep left is because it's that much grass I don't have to mow... and between me and you... I like pampering Ruby. We didn't figure she'd make it through another winter, she's like a million in sheep years, and we nearly lost her about a month ago. She got down in the mud and was partially paralyzed with the cold. I found her and got her up out of the mud, got her all propped up on a hay pile and poured about 10 gallon of nice warm water over her and 'bout 3 or 4 hours later... there she went walking across the yard. Good as ever. :-)

I put a bird feeder up a couple of years ago on one of the fenceposts beside our yard and couldn't figure out where the hell all the birdseed was going. If we had birds emptying that thing THAT fast, there had to be some mighty fat birds in the trees just waiting to bust a limb off, fall out on someone and hurt 'em.

Then, I found the culprit.



Ruby the genius got it figured out if she just stood there and butted the fencepost, she had her own little version of the Ponderosa "all you can eat" food bar. Everytime she smacked it, 'bout a 1/4 cup of bird seed splashed out and she sucked it up. She's playing innocent in this picture... don't fall for it.


Then this evening, Sally is standing at the sink looking out the window and said, "I think Ruby's stuck." I looked out the window and she had her head at an odd angle through the barbed wire fence. She was just kinda locked up, frozen there. So I grabbed a pair of scissors (to hack wool off that was most likely tangled in the wire), pulled on my boots and a coat and sure enough, she was stuck. I clipped her a little and started pulling on her head and wire trying to get the whole mess untangled. Now she had her head through the fence onto the yard side and everytime I pulled on her head, it inched her lips a little closer to the forbidden fruit of "yard grass" and she took full advantage of it. I'd pull on her, she'd start nibbling as fast and furious as she could. This happened a few times until I was laughing so hard I couldn't hardly untangle the old girl.

I think it was a ploy to get me to help her get yard grass. I dunno... it worked if that's what it was. :-)

Computer cleaning etiquette, etc.

While we were doing all the renovation stuff here at our house this winter, the keyboard to the media center puter that's hooked up to our TV, satellite, surround sound... got left out in the dust and mayhem. Thing is, we just don't use this keyboard much, hardly any, and no one had noticed how nasty the thing was, until today. Sally was offended by the dust and dirt that had settled into it and decided to de-nastify it as only the queen of clean can. When she pulls on the Playtex rubber gloves and has her hair back in a ponytail, that's my sign to just get the hell outta her way 'cause she's in no mood for my foolishness. She's gonna scrub the murder offa everything in her path.

I came in this evening and sat down, she came in the living room with the keyboard and a grin on her face. "Made you something!" she said as she handed me the keyboard...




I think she got it a little "damp" in the process of cleaning it and decided to sit it on the stove, back by the oven vent, to speed up the drying process. Funny thing is, when she handed it to me, water was still running out of it. :-)

If you ain't seen it, you'll probably enjoy taking a peek at our kitchen stove, a 1940's something Magic Chef that I restored. She's a beauty.



If you wanna see the restoration of it, it's here.


Back to your regularly scheduled weather... it's a muddy freakin' mess here.

A Meat By-Product.... Cold Cuts

Today for lunch I had cold cuts. In this part of the world we call it "lunch meat" which is a pretty loose term and can catch anything from baloney (we don't say bologna here) to sliced turkey breast to little weenies (vienna sausages). I was in the grocery store yesterday with Sally and she said I oughta grab some lunch meat so my choice was a package of smoked ham, some beef cotto salami and.... pickle loaf.

Now I've seen the types of beef that is destined to become lunch meat, and to be honest it's not the type of meat that you'd welcome into your freezer or barbecue grill, or to marry your daughter, if you saw it languishing in the meat counter at the store. Some of it'll just make you say words like "Gahh!" while you shudder. But... lol I eat it anyway. I figure it's pretty much purified and de-Gahhed by the time it get's packaged up in shrink wrap goodness.

When I was a boy there were 2 country stores that we shopped at some. One was the store at Cherry Box and the other was the Nickellton store. Both had a meat counter and the store keeper sliced off whatever you wanted while you stood there eating cheese he handed out for you to sample. One of the things that my Grandpa always got was liver cheese, and when I was a little, I remember loving this stuff. Me and Grandpa would eat it on saltines with mustard and I thought it was great! 5 or 6 years ago Sal and I were in a store and I spotted some liver cheese in the meat case and had the meat cutter slice some for me.

I can't tell you how eager I was to get home and actually "eat nostalgia". I had all these happy visions of me and grandpa and the country stores and stuff like that. I smelled the liver cheese and it brought back even more memories... I looked at the traditional band of white fat around the outside edge of it... I was almost driven to tears with happiness and remembrances.... and then I bit the sandwich.

OH HOLY CRAP! WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH ME WHEN I WAS LITTLE?!?! HACK! GAG! BLLEEEECHHHH!!!! I couldn't get that nasty, gooey, pastey crud spit into the garbage can fast enough. I sat there and ate a slice of bread and bit an onion to get that taste out of my mouth. Good grief, they could fight a war with that crap, and win. You'd send soldiers out with 5 pounds of liver cheese each and when they ran into the enemy all they'd have to do is just pull it out and show it to 'em and the bad guys would just lay down their guns and throw up.

Sometimes we need to just leave happy childhood memories alone. Seriously.

Oh... and want to see what liver cheese looks like? I knew you did.

Brace yourselves.



So today I calmly ate my pickle loaf sandwich with some cheese and thanked God that it wasn't liver cheese.

Skunk Hunting

Before I start... lol yesterday's post was pure fiction. 99.9 percent of what I write is truth and fact, that post was not... I was in a funky mood and felt like weaving a big fat one. Those people in the pictures are not my family, nor do I know them. If you had a great aunt Beatrice, chances are real solid that I did not know her. No one in my family was named Cletus, if you've got a Crazy Crotch Cletus in your family, I'm sure he was a fine fellow and practiced proper hygiene and had great table manners. I apologize for leading you down a rabbit hole in your search for limbs on your family tree.

Egads...

Okay, this is a long one and it's 100 percent fact. The people in it are real, it happened and no names have been changed to protect anyone's innocence, because no one is innocent in this house. Ever. A couple of y'all were disappointed that it was left out of this post. Well save that disappointment for your wedding night, 'cause here's the skunk story.

*************************************

The night before Sal and I were married is an evening that will live on for all of us here in the Weber household. It all started as a normal enough warm summer night, everyone making preparations for the big day, I was getting ready to leave to go back to my house when Jake came burning in the house with the news that a Possum was hanging out in the backyard. Now there had been a problem with something getting the chickens and eggs, but I was pretty well focused on just about everything else in the whole wide world except errant possums. So I did the old "clang the possum hand off" and I told Jake to take his ball bat and pop said possum on the noggin, thereby making him miss Christmas and saving aforementioned chickens to live for another day. Jake wasn't real hot on this idea, he was thinking more along the lines of getting a gun and blowing the ugly right off the overgrown rat. The up close, personal contact just wasn't getting it for little Jake.

I've never actually had a possum bite me, I had one make a fairly valiant effort once when it lunged at me and bit a stick on the ground beside my foot instead. Seems possums have some pretty poor vision. I yelled just the same so he'd think he'd gotten a mess of me. It's easy to fool 'em that way, not too smart you know. Anyway I digress, just wanting to get the task out of the way, I walked out in the backyard with the ball bat, Jake in tow, and there was the possum headed, as only a possum can head, to a hole in the corner of the barn wall. AH HA! Said I, now I've got him. So around to the big gate door of the barn, Jake still on my heels at least a good half step behind me, now not wanting to miss any single piece of this pie, and into the darkness of the barn. Now Jake in his tiny little youthful years must have sensed something very wrong about this whole situation, and he stayed in the gateway, close enough to be where the action was, but ready to bail if the case called for it.

I poked around in the barns darkness, leaving the light off so I wouldn't scare the possum and suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I caught a bit of movement. Slowly I raised the bat, getting ready to let fly, tensed my muscles and... HOLY SMOKES! SON OF A HAIRY TRUCK DRIVER!!! I stopped midswing with an audible screeching sound. (I'd never screeched out loud before), SKUNK! I yelled SKUUUNNNNNKKK! and headed for the gate door. Jake, in the wisdom that children seem to intuitively possess at times, had started running and from out in the middle of the yard I heard his voice. "What is it?" I really thought I'd explained that already. For elbow macaroni and flying catguts Jake, (I've changed a few of the words here) it's a skunk... the possum has become a skunk.

So here we are, a man and a small boy, standing in the backyard in the dark, with a bat, breathing heavily, staring at the barn.

Jake: You alright?

Me: Yeah.

Jake: What happened to your shirt?

I look down at where my sleeve used to be, but now was only arm.

Me: I dunno, it was there a minute ago.

Jake: Do you think the skunk got it?

Me: I don't think they go for the sleeve Jake, I must have caught it on a nail or something when I walked outta the barn.

Jake: You mean when you flew outta the barn!

I excused him, he was only a small boy, his eyes weren't mature enough to really see real clearly yet.

So NOW it's time for the gun. I go back in the house and get a rifle while Jake animatedly tells everyone what's transpired so far. I grab a flashlight and hand it to Jake and tell him he's the light man.

The plan now is to dispatch the skunk with a bullet in the noggin and hope that he doesn't relax too much. I tell Jake that his job is to blind the skunk with the flashlight, while the skunk is stunned by the light, I'll take him out.

Jake will not enter the barn.

His manner with the flashlight is to stand outside the barn, with his arm and flashlight sticking in the barn and wave it around like it's the disco barn or something. Everytime I tell him to hold it still he points it in my eyes and says "What?" Good Lord, I'm blind in a barn with a live skunk and 12 year old comedian outside. Finally he gets the skunk lined up with the light, I take aim and it's all over. No smell. Us 1, Skunk 0.

Then Pepe Le Pew relaxes.

A smell wafts over our little place in the still, damp night air... and hangs there. It hangs there for days, for weeks, for a couple months. We put lime in the barn, we cleaned it up, scooped it out, limed it some more. People driving by asked if someone hit a skunk in road or what the heck happened.

Somewhere along the way of the evening, I killed the possum, that started the whole melee. The next day, the day of the wedding, Jake, being the little mortician that he aspired to be at that point in his life, buried the skunk and possum in the same hole that a few days later he'd use for a chicken also. A resourceful and well thought out grave digging if there ever was one.

Thank heavens neither one of us got sprayed that night... I'm afraid it woulda put a damper on the wedding festivities. It was bad enough as it was with the smell in the yard.

Family Photos

Everyone gets a little curious about their lineage at some point in their life, and well... I did too. Digging around on the wide wide world of the internets, trying to find some trace of my family heritage. Lord have mercy, did I hit the jackpot! Not only history of my family but pictures!

Make sure and click the pictures to make 'em big!

I'll give you a short little tutelage of the kind of folks that I sprang from the loins of.

Here's my great Grandma Beatrice (on my Mother's side) out at the clothesline. She ran her household with an iron fist. In this picture she's just taken little Uncle Rodriguez's favorite toy away from him. "Bucket" They didn't have much, but boy that sure was a fine bucket. Look at Uncle Rod pouting. LOL what a stitch.



And of course as the years went by, things prospered. They moved up to a swell treehouse. Here's a pic of some friends of theirs sitting around just smoking and getting drunk. Ha.. good times, good times... those were the days eh? Watch that first step Uncle Louie, it's a doozy!




And of course to go along with the new digs (up in Oak Tree Mansion, as Grandpa liked to call it) they scraped together enough jingle to throw up a swell vacation cottage. My mom says she remembers picnicking in there as a little girl. Mmmmm mmm nothing like a good egg salad sandwich in the old vacation cottage down by the lake. Ha ha, look at the sign that Grandpa painted on the door. I don't know what the "lid" is, but you sure don't want flies on your sandwich now do you?





Oh and in the backroom off the southeast corner of the vacation cottage, Grandpa was all cutting edge and stuff... put in a media room! Grandma spent hours trying to get a better picture on that damned radio. Grandpa finally snapped one night and smacked her in the head with his newspaper. Looks like he's 'bout ready to let go here! LOOK OUT GRANDMA!





And then there was my Great Uncle Harold. Harold was all about teaching self defense with the trombone, but no one took him seriously because of those stupid pants he insisted on wearing. Pull 'em up a little higher there Uncle Harold, your armpits must be cold!




Having failed at getting folks enthused with his trombone defense classes he sorta snapped and according to what Aunt Esther wrote down, he build a weapon of mass destruction to destroy the world and everyone on it that laughed at him. He called it "The War Tuba". Unfortunately the only thing he destroyed was the vacation cottage. Don't have to worry 'bout leaving the lid up anymore huh?





The explosion from the whole War Tuba episode left him nearly deaf, so with parts left over from that thing he built himself a hearing aid. The cool thing is that the damned thing actually worked, the old guy could hear a gnat fart at 50 paces. Unfortunately my 3rd cousin Ernie tossed a cherry bomb in there one day and it was "So long Uncle Harold" Those boots are still in the family possession... it was the only thing left. Great boots though! Ernie later became the Governor of Arkansas.




Some of my family were gifted apparently when it came to sports ability. Here's a picture of my cousin Cletus (circled in red). Somehow he garnered the nickname "Crazy Crotch Cletus". Go figure.




And of course old Uncle Bob. LOL He desparately wanted to play basketball, but at 4 foot 3 he didn't have a chance. Here he is handing the ball off to a normal sized player just out of screenshot. Give Uncle Bob a belated round of applause for giving it the old team effort!




Mom said when Grandma didn't have chickens in that crate, the kids used to fight over who got to ride in "the caboose". You just don't see kids having fun like that these days, do you?



And finally cousin Gustaff. Came home from the war and after having a tank run over his head... just wasn't quite right, as Grandpa put it. He spent years building this thing in the backyard out of an old propane tank and some pipe. Then according to family history he just sat in it for the next 30 years screaming "RATTA TAT RATTA TAT RATTA TAT" every time he saw a chihuahua on the sidewalk. No one could figure out why he pinpointed that breed. Uncle Bill said they shaved the cat so it'd look like a chihuahua just to hear Gustaff go at it. Kinda sad, but the good part was they didn't have problems with door to door salesmen.





*sigh*

Note to Self : Make Note

I'm a note scribbler and when I say scribbler I mean the type of calligraphy that a heroin addicted chimpanzee in the throes of withdrawal might manage to write out. My handwriting is amazingly illegible. The worst that you'll see. I don't really know what happened to it over the years, it didn't use to be this bad. It's crummy enough that often times I can't figure out just what the hell was so important that I made a note to myself, obviously writing it while I was riding horseback through a demolition derby.

What brings this to mind is today Sal handed me a stack of notes that she'd collected from a couple of my roosts around the house... and honestly the only ones that I could figure out were a series of 4 that were just scrawled pictures of an aerial view of some land of ours. I even remembered why I scratched those out. Really! After going through that stack I figured I might as well go for broke and clean out my wallet. That's when I came across this...

"Aver pringle for ogersnats. Larry Tumor 17 1/2" x ? "

I looked at this and tried to stir some memory of what the heck this really said and why it was important... until finally I developed my very own larry tumor. I threw it away. Looked like it had been in there for awhile.

I've got notes all over my shop, lots of 'em wrote on my work table top, it's that white melamine stuff, and is handy as a pig in a poke. (I don't know what that means, but it sounds good.) The trouble with using my work table for the worlds largest notepad is my notes get rubbed off, or even worse partially rubbed off leaving a sketch of some piece of furniture or furniture part without any measurements.

After writing this I can see a trend... I can actually decipher my notes that are just pictures, so I need to just live my life of note taking like a never ending game of Pictionary.

The last time Sal and I visited our Daughter and Son in law, I got up before anyone else and was standing in the kitchen just waiting for coffee to come outta the pot, when I happened to notice that the 34th goldfish that they'd tried to turn into a fun and educational pet for the girls... had apparently swallowed too much water during the night, and drowned. So I left our daughter a note beside the bowl. I think Sally is the one that took the picture after choking near to death on a bite of bagel whilst noticing my handiwork.




See? Now isn't that a clear, concise and legible note?

April Fools is for amatuers.

Sal and had a busy day today and April Fools just sorta slipped past us without much fanfare. We had a funeral to attend this morning that I was a pallbearer at, not a sad one... the old girl was 94 and ready to move on, but still, not April Fools day fodder.

Want to know what TRUE April Fools day fodder is? I got divorced on April Fools day about 10 or 11 years ago. My lawyer, whom had taken thousands of dollars of my hard earned money getting ready for this April Fools day divorce.... refered to me as "Chase" in the courtroom, until my soon to be Ex corrected him while she was on the stand.

See? :-)

One of my very best endeavors into prankdom took place about 15 years ago and I worked at this one single act of prankedness for about 3 weeks. It was beautiful, truly beautiful.

I owned a gunshop for many many years and did a lot of law enforcement business with ammo, equipment, etc. All the things that a cop needs to be a cop. A company came along that made these truly incredible 3 dimensional, life size, self healing targets of bad guys and good guys. They looked exactly like a human being from the thighs up and you could shoot them over and over and the bullet holes sorta sealed back up. Pretty much cutting edge stuff for that time period. They were very expensive and that sorta killed the sales for them, but they sure were cool.

Anyway I had one in the shop for a sales sample and the one I had was a guy of middle eastern heritage, dressed in khaki and holding an Uzi submachine gun. We had him around the shop for quite awhile and he sorta got to be a mascot, dressed him up and crap like that.

I had an everyday pickup account with UPS, and the driver would usually take his break at my shop and have a candy bar and a Pepsi and shoot the breeze for a bit. So one day I got this wonderful idea....

I sat a chair by the door where everyone came in, and sat the terrorist on this chair. I put a Pith helmet on him (you get a lot of weird stuff accumulated in a gun shop over the years) and a big pair of mirrored aviator style sunglasses. Now when you walked in the door, this was the first thing you saw and I swear, for about 2 or 3 days the damned thing even startled me. But the guy that I was breaking in... just to get used to seeing old Bob the Terrorist... was Rich, my UPS driver.

For a solid week Rich would come in and kinda catch his breath when he saw Bob there on that chair in his pith helmet and shades holding that Uzi on him and then.... things got normal. Rich just became accustomed to seeing him there, it was normal. I left Bob the Terrorist there for a full 3 weeks.

Then, I sat up my video camera behind a counter display across the shop.

Then.... When we saw the Rich the UPS man come over the hill to the driveway, I took Bob off the chair... I put on the Pith helmet and the big mirrored sunglasses and an old busted, black gunstock.... and I got on the chair on my knees.... and waited.

Rich came thru the door carrying some stuff and I just leaned in a little bit and touched him with the end of the gunstock and said a very quiet "hey".

I swear on my grandma's grave that that man jumped straight backwards a good 8 feet. Flat footed. UPS packages just thrown. And then the most awful language began to flow from him... words that I didn't even know existed. I can't even remember them they were so awful, something like "YOU FLINGLE FLACKED SUNNY BEACH RASSIN FRASSIN FLINGLE FLACKER SUNNY BEACH!"

It was horrible. Took the paint right off the doorway of the shop with all that talk. :-)

Then Rob, the guy that worked for me, quietly popped the tape out of the camera and stuck it in the vcr/tv thing I had for hunting video stuff, and showed Rich his performance. He actually offered to buy the tape. He got up to $50 bucks and I turned him down 'cause I figured owning that tape was my only ace in the hole to protect me from retribution, and it was.