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!




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Here Comes Santy Claus...

Merry Christmas everyone!

Jace





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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.






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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. :-)







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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.





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