I wish I was cooler...

Man, sometimes I wish I was cooler. I read a lot of blogs and it seems that people are always doing interesting stuff. Then I sit there and wonder how they have the time or energy to do some of these things and why can’t I think of something like that or be that cool.


There are two blogs that I read pretty consistently, the first of which is Bill's Brew-B-Que. Now this guy has taken beer reviews to another level. He and his friend review beers candidly and openly while on film. They then upload to youtube and have their own little beer television network. That is just an amazing idea and they both obviously have the knowledge and love for the craft that it shows through in their posts. I would love to do something like that but don’t have the stones to try.

The other blog is Aesthetic Outburst by a woman named Abbey that lives in upstate New York actually not too far from us. Now this is probably not the typical blog you would associate with me, but I find her and her posts fascinating. A lot of her posts are about her house and kids, and I am in awe that she can keep her house so immaculate and her style showing through with two toddlers in the house. I have an inner “artsy” side and I dig a lot of what she does, plus it gives me inspiration for things to do with A Bird.

The fact that these two bloggers can find things that are very interesting to post about on a regular basis is amazing to me. I find myself wishing to be cooler and more interesting, but the confines of daily life seem restrictive to this. I leave early for work every day, work all day, then pick up A Bird, rush home, let the dogs out, check for eggs from the girls, then frantically start dinner. By the time dinner is finished, I normally have about 2 hours with A Bird to hang out and play before she has to go to bed. Then once she goes to bed I only get another 2 hours to hang out with L Bird, catch up with her and possibly squeeze in some TV before I sack out and start the cycle all over the next day. This is my life and I love it, but I wish I had more time to do more interesting things. More time to expose A Bird to new experiences, more time to spend quality time with L Bird, just more time to find cool things to do and then have the luxury to go do them.

Because of this I am slowly notching out time to go and find new adventures, new cool things to do, to spend the quality time with my ladies. It’s definitely a struggle to designate time for this but it needs to be done. I don’t want to keep getting caught up in the details, I want to experience life and really enjoy it, at least when I can.

So kudos to Bill from Bill's Brew-B-Que and Abbey from Aesthetic Outburst for inspiring me on a regular basis, who knows maybe one day I’ll be cooler too.

More green thumbing, I guess…

Well, I am still on my green thumb/spring needs to get here quick kick. So yesterday I was in need of another project and as I was thumbing through a magazine I saw an interesting bird feeder that used simple materials, wood and a mason jar. I figured what the hell, I could probably figure out how to make that and set out to find some scrap wood and a mason jar. I'll give you a quick and dirty look at what I did.


The base cut, and crude circles drawn on the two sides and the front.

Holes cut and walls attached to the base.


The jar put into place.

A backstop put in to keep the jar from backing itself off the feeder and a quick coat of stain and there you go an interesting feeder.
You put some seed in the bottom of the mason jar and then slide the mason jar into place. Then the birds can fly in through the side holes and then into the jar to eat. It works well for small birds like sparrows and finches while it keeps blue jays and starlings out.
I thought it was pretty neat, so I thought I would share.

My Green Thumb Is Starting to Itch

We have had a recent burst of warm weather, that has melted all of our snow pack and got me to all fired up for spring. One of my out door projects this spring will be building raised beds for our garden so we don’t get waterlogged like last year. I have been reading a lot of gardening magazines and I came across something that struck me as very interesting.

It was an article about squash and zucchini plants that flower, then produce tiny fruit that ends up rotting on the vine. The article was claiming that it was because of a lack of pollination. As I sat there I did realize that we had a pretty big absence of bees last year. I can honestly only remember seeing a couple. The article also went on to talk about Mason Bees and what great pollinators they were. Apparently they are 20% more efficient than honey bees, and the huge plus is that they are completely non-aggressive. The males do not even have stingers and the females will only sting if squeezed, they don’t even guard their homes. After reading this I did  a quick google search for mason bee houses and it turns out that you can make a mason bee house from scrap lumber you have laying around.

So because I can’t be outside building the raised beds yet, I figured I’d throw together a mason bee house. So here is how easy it is:

A 6-7 inch chunk of Maple  I grabbed from the wood pile. ***It doesn’t have to be prisitne, it is a house for bees for pete’s sake. Also two 8 inch sections of 1x8 pine board I had laying around.

Two wood screws in the ends of the boards and voila you have a roof.

Take a 5/16” drill bit and drill random holes in the wood. Mason Bees don’t excavate their own holes, they use preexisting holes. Apparently 5/16” is the optimal size of the holes as well.

Attach the roof with a couple of long wood screws and there you have a Mason Bee house. Just take it outside and hang it on a tree.

I know it’s not the prettiest thing in the world, but I wanted it to blend in with the pines out back and that was all the scrap lumber I had. Plus,  it’s for stinking bees, it doesn’t have to be pretty.

So hopefully, this spring some Mason bees will take up residence and I’ll have a garden full of delicious vegetables. We’ll see I guess, but I wanted to pass this along in case any other gardeners out there wanted to give it shot. Good luck!

Oh L Bird Quotes

Well, through the years L Bird has had a number memorable quotes. She really has no filter, so whatever she is thinking just kind of blurts out. One of the memorable ones was at a crowded bar and she is talking to the bartender about shots and all I hear from across the bar is “Vodka? I love vodka!” Yep, those are just some of the things that come out of her mouth. But today I heard a song by R. Kelly and it reminded me of my favorite L Bird quote. Let me set it up for you first:

L Bird, Dinker and myself are out to dinner at a pretty nice restaurant waiting to meet up with the Goof Troop. We have a couple of drinks and we are talking to each other and R. Kelly comes up in conversation. Now you know how sometimes you are in a crowded place and you are talking loudly just to have your friends hear you because it’s so noisy, then it seems like everyone in the place shuts up at the exact same time so it is so quiet you can hear a pin drop? Well that happened to L Bird right as she was professing rather loudly her love for R. Kelly’s music. The room goes quiet and all you hear is L Bird “I don’t care if R. Kelly did pee on that girl, I still like his music!”

IT WAS AWESOME! You should have seen the looks our table got. So this one is for you L Bird.

The View with Men and Less Bitching & Crying

Remember “The Man Show” with Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla? That was a great show, they had guys, beer drinking, girls on trampolines, everything. It was just an awesome show. I used to love to watch that show and see what dumb things they would come up with next.


As I watched that show, I always thought it would be awesome if I could put together a show similar to The Man Show but with a slightly different twist. I was thinking more of a combination of The Man Show and The View, except without all of bitching and crying. It would be more like The Man’s View or something cheesy like that. But I figured it would be like a call in advice show.

This is what I see, there could be a nice wooden bar, and Captain Insano, Dinker, Butters and myself would make up the panel and sit behind the bar. We would be drinking beers and answering phone calls, e-mails, etc on the air. We definitely have our experts, Butters could field any questions relating to anything bacon, maybe even do a man’s cooking segment. Then you have the Cpt. fielding all home improvement questions, Dinker is an expert in motorcycles and blowing himself up, and I could handle any beer or wine questions. Then when it came to women questions or questions from women about relationships or whatever you ladies ask about we would have an open round table.

Now I think that would make for some funny and interesting TV. Advice from four normal everyday guys, I think our advice would be comical informative and depending on the amount of beer we were drinking possibly slurry. I think that people, especially women would appreciate honest opinions/advice from normal men.

Well, that was just my thought, but if sounds like a good idea to you and you know a TV executive, let me know. Don’t worry, I won’t hold my breath, lol. Until I hear the phone ring with my deal, I’ll just casually hand out my advice where I see fit. Yeah right!

Author’s Note

Well, not exactly, but anyway ever since I was a kid I have been a voracious reader. I have and will read just about anything. I have said in the past that my two favorite genres are True Crime and anything Sci-Fi, but if there is nothing else I will read anything. I have read westerns by Louis L’amour, horror by Stephen King and I hate to admit but those smutty old harlequin romance novels that I lifted off my Great Aunt Gin.

As a kid I always had a million things I wanted to be when I grew up, and being an Author was one of them. I used to write numerous short stories.I always hated English class in school, but I would love when we got assigned essays about anything we wanted. As I grew older I continued to write short stories and had dreams of maybe becoming published. I still dream about that sometimes, but I doubt that my writing is that good to be published.

As it is now, I probably have two or three starts to stories I wanted to write. But it seems like I never finish them. I will get a few chapters in then lose steam. I start thinking that what I am writing isn’t that interesting and is probably only interesting to me. I get self conscious about how people view what I write, and I decide it’s better to keep my ideas and thoughts to myself,and so I never finish writing anything.

However, I am slowly more confident in my work, so I am writing a little more and more. So who knows, maybe someday I’ll post a snippet up here. We’ll see I guess.

Water Cures The Sick

OK, OK water doesn’t cure the sick but it definitely helps you feel a hell of a lot better. Unfortunately for us, we have been fighting the flu or some other sort of pestilence since about Tuesday.

It all started Tuesday night, A Bird seemed a little out of it, so we took her temperature and of course she was running a fever. She has been spiking fevers on and off through the week and still now today. L Bird is a little off and feeling run down too, then yesterday I felt like I was going to puke all day and when I got home from work, I had fever and chills. So it’s been a rough few days.

But back to this post’s title, through the last couple of days baths and hot showers have been the only thing that are easing the symptoms for any of us. I have put A Bird in the shower or the bath numerous times this week, and it is the only time she has acted like her normal crazy self. It must make her feel better, because she actually forgets she is sick and she smiles and plays with her toys.

I think she gets this from me. Every time I feel sick, the first place I head is to the shower. I’ll turn on the water and get it nice and hot, then I’ll sit down in the tub and let the hot water just pour down on my stomach. For some reason this always helps me feel better. I’ll alternate the water between hot and cold until I feel like I’m not going to get sick anymore then I get out and I feel better. I don’t know why it works, I just know it does.

So in my book, the shower/bathtub is a savior when we are sick. Well, I have to run, we are having a bath time tea party and my cup just finished being brewed. Ta Ta for now!