Enter McStud…

A few weeks ago L Bird and I got invited to go to a Halloween costume party that a restaurant was holding. So we we made plans to meet Dinker and Cheesepaws Mom at his place then head over Connelly’s Cove. We also talked Capt. Insano and Lucy into going with us.

So here we go with the costumes:

Dinker as  that creepy clown from The House of 1000 Corpses, Cheesepaws Mom looking pretty hot as a flapper, and the Capt. as a biker.

Again, clowns are just plain creepy anyway.

L Bird as a pretty sexy cowgirl.

Me as McStud. I had a big fake belly, mullet wig, Genny Cream Ale trucker hat and my shirt said “McStud” and Lucy as the other half of the bikers.

These people were super creepy. There were like five of them with the same masks, and none of them talked at all. They had their drink orders written in marker on the palms of their gloves, so they never said a word they would just show their hands to the bartender. Creepy, right? Look how freaked out Lucy looks and that was before one of the creeps stole an onion ring off her plate. Yeah that was gross.

L Bird and McStud dancing and doing the bump.

It was a great night with great friends and now that our dress up fun is over we are gearing up for a big night of trick or treating with A Bird. I’ll keep you posted on her adventures tomorrow.

Happy Halloween!

Strong Shoulders...

I have been in a funk for about a week now and I have no idea why. Have you ever had that feeling where there is something hanging over you and you are just waiting for it to fall on you? But you can’t see it, so you don’t even know what it is or how to prepare for it. I feel foolish for feeling this way, I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the weather. It’s been cold, damp and dreary and is going to stay that way awhile so maybe its just that affecting my mood. Hell, who knows maybe its just stress.

I know everyone has stress and when they hear about someone else’s stress in the back of their minds they’re thinking “Yeah sure buddy, you got stress. You should see what I have to deal with everyday then talk to me about stress.” So I don’t want to sound like I am complaining or whining, this is just more venting than anything else. I know how good I have it, but I am just now able to put it into words and I just want if off my chest.

I am a pretty durable guy, God blessed me with a strong shoulders and a tight mouth. So it takes a lot of weight on those shoulders before my mouth cracks to reveal that anything is bothering me, and even more weight to make my knees buckle. But this month has just seemed to be the perfect storm of stress. I had a colossal bungle land in my lap with work, things could have gone a couple of ways and the stress of that left me on unsure footing for a little bit, but things are right as rain now. Then I have some family stuff going on that is stressing me out. I have my own personal medical stuff that I don’t want to get into and then my parents are going through their own trials so that stress is just compounding things. Out of respect for them I am not going to divulge what they are dealing with, just that it worries me. I am grateful that my parents feel like they can talk to me and tell me what’s going on, but sometimes the weight of their stress and my stress feels crushing. There are times that I feel it is a role reversal, where I am the one they turn to for my opinion and it feels strange. But I would much rather know what is going on than be left in the dark. At least if I know what it is I can pray about it and make my plans on how to help and how to deal with it. I guess the biggest stress is just the not knowing. Not knowing how things are going to work out and not knowing the repercussions of those things.

I know things will get better, they always do. It’s just this plodding on through with my head down that is getting to me. Things already feel slightly better, just by getting this off my chest. The light at the end of the tunnel is dimly lit and barely visible, but it visible all the same. OK I’m done venting for now, I don’t want to swallow everyone up with my funk. So bring on the weekend and enjoy yours!!!

NaNoWriMo Here I Come…

I have been playing around with writing a few short stories, some are good and some are, well let’s just say less than good. But at least I have been writing some to practice what little skill I have. So a few days ago, L Bird’s Aunt Jan, who is always super supportive (Thanks Jan!) sent me a link to the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) page which you can see here.

The whole thing is pretty interesting, apparently November is National Novel Writing Month. I mean c’mon who would know something like that, but I suppose if you can have National Peanut Day or National Testicles Day why can’t you have a novel writing month, right? The concept is just to write with reckless abandon to editing for 30 days with the goal of writing 50,000 words or roughly a 175 page novel by 11:59:59 November 30th. In their own words “Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes.”

Just the bluntness of the purpose was enough to entice me to give it a shot. I mean it will force me to not worry so much about how each phrase sounds and who knows I may actually finish a writing project. I know that whatever I write will not be in any shape to be published, but who knows it may serve as a good starting point to go back and edit and tweak so who knows maybe it could be published and then I could be a bona fide novelist. Pipe dreams, man pipe dreams.

So any of you aspiring writers out there, join me in bringing it full on to this thing. Yeah we’ll produce a bunch of schlock, but it should be fun, right? Wish me luck…

The Things You Do For Your Kids…

This afternoon I did something I would never have thought I would do. I made doll diapers. yes, that’s right I made diapers for a doll.

It all started with this:

A crisis, A Bird’s new baby, “Baby Poof  Poof” had worn out her diaper. You see Baby Poof Poof is one of those babies that you give water and they wet themselves. So as any kid would do, A bird filled her so full of water that the provided plastic diaper was soon destroyed.

So you see, this really is the problem. Yep, that’s the business end of Baby Poof Poof.

Because there have been no diapers for awhile, A Bird hasn’t been able to “feed” her baby and has been asking L Bird and I if either of us knew how to make a diaper. Finally,  I felt guilty because she has been playing with this baby non-stop and she couldn’t feed it that today I ran to Michael’s Crafts for supplies.

I am a grown man, I could figure out how to make a diaper, right? Of course, right. It just took me about a half hour of wandering the aisles to find what I needed.

A sheet of felt and some stick on velcro, yeah that would do the trick. So here’s how the process went:

Cut the felt to, “diaper” shape

Stick on the velcro. It took a few tries to figure out that one part of the velcro had to go on one side of the diaper and the other part had to go on the opposite side.

Then put on the doll in the diaper.

I know it’s not the prettiest thing, but it will work. I know felt isn’t the most absorbent either, but at least when it gets wet, you can take it off and air dry it.

OK, I’m off to manufacture a few more,so A Bird has a few to spare. Good luck in any task you take on. If I can make a doll’s diapers, you can do anything!

The Letter

He sat down at his desk and fired up his computer and thought about what he wanted to say. As he was mulling over the thoughts in his head, he mindlessly typed his password to his email and opened up a new message. His fingers rested on the keyboard like old dogs stretched out on a sunny front porch waiting for a squirrel to chase, only his fingers weren’t chasing squirrels. They were waiting to chase those elusive words that described his feelings and how he really felt about her. Words and feelings had never been easy for him and today it seemed they were even harder still. After what felt like an eternity he turned from the screen.

He looked over his desk, at all of the things that had amassed on it through the course of a career. He had the usual arrangement of office supplies, staplers, tape dispensers, paper clips, post it notes and an endless rolodex of clients. He knew he was stalling but sometimes his best ideas came when he was doing mindless things, so he continued. He opened up the drawers and started fumbling through things and then he saw it, his spark of inspiration. It was there under a pile of business cards, it had gotten pushed to the back of the drawer and had long been forgotten but it was there. He reached into the back of the drawer and pulled out the elaborate fountain pen set that she had given him when he had gotten hired on so many years ago. He felt a tiny pang of shame that he had never even opened up and used her gift, but well they were just too damn nice to waste he thought. He carefully opened the package and pulled out the pen and admired it. It became immediately clear to him, he had lost his way.

He knew then that an email would not do. An email was for business colleagues and clients, it was formal, business-like and impersonal. Everything he was not when he was with her. He pushed away the keyboard to give him room to write. He pulled out a blank sheet of paper and began to write with his feelings flowing from that pen like running water.

My Love,

You are my moon and stars. You have had my love from the first time I saw you. These years together been the greatest of my life. I have tried to remember my life before you but I can not, it is as if my life truly started the day I met you. I can't imagine a life without you in it.You have given me true happiness and I feel I can be my true self when I am with you. You have been a wonderful wife, a great mother to our children and the love of my life. I love you with all of my heart, my moon and stars.

Love,
Me

He pushed back from the desk and eased back in his chair to re-read what he wrote. He smiled as all of the warm memories of their life together flooded his mind. Satisfied, he folded the letter into thirds and wrote For My Love on the outermost third. He gently placed the letter on his desk, and turned to start shutting down his computer. It was already five o'clock and she was on her way to meet him. It was their 35th wedding anniversary and they would be going out to dinner.

As he was putting the last of his files away a sharp pain ripped through his chest. He forced himself back to his chair and slumped down into it. His left arm started to tingle and it felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest. His mind was racing, he couldn't go like this, no not now he thought. The pain was searing his body, then finally it was if his whole body went numb as his heart gave it's final beat.

****

After she had found him slumped in his office chair all cold and clammy, she screamed and grabbed her cell. She dialed 911 and did everything the dispatcher had told her until the paramedics showed up. They did all that could be done, but in the end it wasn't enough.

She slumped down in his chair in shock and disbelief. She couldn't believe that he was really gone. She was looked over the things on his desk, she spotted the pen that she had bought him so long ago and the tears started to fall. As more and more of her tears softly fell upon the leather inlay of his desk, she looked up and that was when she found it, the letter.

Back to the land... maybe??

So I have always been a planner. I get an idea in my head, then I go crazy researching and trying to learn all I can about the subject to see if it is actually something I want to get into. I guess you could say I am a very calculated risk taker. But once I decide, yeah I can do this, then the planning really starts. I come up with multiple plans and tweak them as they go.

With that said I have an idea that I would really like to try if it pans out. It seems like as each day passes I feel a stronger and stronger pull to return back to the land and get into some small scale farming. I’m not a hippy or a green activist, I’m more of an old soul who likes the satisfaction of producing what you need without the help of the government or big business. I like the idea of being self sufficient. A few of my friends, think I’m nuts and are always busting my chops because I believe in the “Guns and Gardens” (or Cocks(roosters) and Glocks as some of them lovingly call it) movement somewhat. I’m just paranoid worried about the infrastructure and state of this country as well as the world. If the financial economy collapses in one country it has a ripple effect that effects the rest of the world and we are seeing that now. Too many post apocalyptic movies have made me nervous for the worst case scenarios. So being more self sufficient can’t hurt me, right? I love having breakfast with eggs that my chickens made, because I know they a ton healthier than traditional sweat shop eggs. But anyway I’ll step down off my soapbox now.

So my idea is to buy five to ten acres and plant a variety of different vegetable crops with the goal of having a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. Basically you sell shares of the vegetable crop to people in the community, then on a weekly basis those share holders come and pick up a “share” of the crop. So you get a crate full of fresh vegetables every week and you know that they were grown locally and you are supporting your local economy. Then I think I would get a few more chickens to also offer fresh pastured eggs, and have a few beehives to help pollinate the crops as well as produce honey. I know that I probably wouldn’t make a ton of money, maybe just a little extra to supplement my day job, but I think that this endeavor would be incredibly satisfying. I would be supplying my family and other families with healthy, locally grown produce and eggs and that would be enough for me.

My planning kicked off last night with taking a class at the Cornell Cooperative Extension. It was an “Intro to Farming” for small scale farmers given by Jim Ochterski. The class was extremely helpful. They covered everything from start-up capital to common pitfalls and mistakes. There were also a ton of people there that are operating small scale farms and they offered their real world advice, which was extremely valuable. Overall it was a great class with a lot of great interaction from attendees. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking into ideas about farming.

Well, that’s where I am at now, so who knows maybe in a couple of years I’ll be making it happen. Here’s to wishful thinking and pipe dreaming!!

Apple Pickin’…

This week has been a true Harvest Summer, it has been in the 70’s & 80’s all week and just plain beautiful outside. We have had plans with my Pop to go apple picking this past Saturday so the weather was awesome.

We had a little miscommunication on when and where we were meeting, but when we finally figured it out everyone showed up. My Pop, Jan, my brother Zach, my sister Kali and her new boyfriend, plus us. It was definitely a full house. We all got our bags ands waited for the wagon. One of the best parts about apple picking is waiting for the tractor to come around with its long flat bed wagon and having everyone pile on to ride out to the rows that are ripe for picking.

They dropped us off and we got to picking. L Bird, A Bird and I picked 38 pounds of Macouns, Cortlands, and Empires. We always go overboard on apples for some reason. It never seems like we have enough until we are back at the storefront weighing them at the register.

While we were picking we snapped a few pictures, but A Bird was antsy and didn’t really want to stand still long enough to get many good pictures.

 

When we finished picking we rode the wagon back down to the store and A Bird got a special surprise. They had pony rides, she was super excited.

She looked like a natural, like she had been riding for years. If I ever get my dream of owning a small farm, I guess I’ll have to get a couple of horses.

Yesterday was a great way to spend one of the last warm days of summer. Now to start dealing with all of those apples. Apples for lunch, apple crisp, apple pies…….

Oktoberfest - Lake Placid

This weekend was a great weekend, L Bird and I went up to Oktoberfest on Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid with another couple. It was kind of a whirlwind trip, because we drove up Saturday and drove home Sunday, but we packed a lot in.
We left Saturday morning fairly early, we were on the road around 8 AM. We had 4 ½ hours of driving in the rain. That was awesome (Can you detect the hint of sarcasm?) But along the way we learned a lot of interesting tidbits from each other about zombie apocalypse plans, bears scratching pine trees, and new gross interesting uses for salad bar containers. But we finally arrived and checked into our hotel.
It was around lunchtime, so we dropped our bags off in our rooms and headed straight to the festival. We got there and hit a beer vendor quickly. Then we lazily wandered through the vendors in the drizzle. It was pretty cold so the girls went in search of gloves/mittens. They ended up finding one tent with gloves, but with it being as cold as it was everyone was buying gloves and there were only two pair left. Dinker’s girlfriend “Cheesepaws Mom” (Yes, that is her nickname until we can come up with a better one.) bought one pair and while L Bird was going to grab the last pair, some lady in pajama pants scooped them on her. So Cheesepaws Mom shared her gloves with L Bird so they had one glove on their beer hand to keep it warm. They both looked like beer drinking Michael Jacksons with one red glove on, but it worked for them.
We finally talked L Bird into taking the gondola ride up to the peak of Little Whiteface. L Bird is pretty afraid of heights so I knew this was going to interesting. Being the loving husband I am, the first thing I did when I got in the gondola was grab my video camera and start filming L Bird’s reactions.

and here is the video:

and another: If you look way down you can see a little white speck of the huge oktoberfest tent.

 
We made it to the summit where it was only 32°F and a mix of snow and rain. We wandered around and snapped a few pictures where we could.
 

You have to have drinks for the ride.




Then we headed back down to the festival. We got there we were just in time for the Alpine Trio. They were pretty cool, because they played the giant Alpine Horns from the Ricola commercials.

After they played a few songs they scanned the crowd looking for people who would come up on stage and give playing the horn a shot. L Bird was lucky enough to get picked, so she marched up there and gave it her best. (The lead player said it sounded like “the Canadian geese are back”). But that was pretty cool that L Bird got the chance to do it and she was pretty excited about it because it was all we heard about for the next few hours.

We were finally done with the festival and pretty hungry so we drove into town and had dinner at The Lake Placid Pub & Brewery. The food and beers were great, I won’t go into any detail because I posted about it on my beer blog and you can check that post out here.
After dinner we headed out in search of swim shorts/suits. I hadn’t realized that the hotel where we were staying had an indoor pool and hot tub so no one packed any suits. We drove around and finally found an Olympia Sports store. So we hit the bargain rack and everyone ended up with shorts. We raced back to the hotel got changed and hit the pool. We relaxed between the pool and hot tub for about an hour trying to be polite to the other bathers. We finally called it quits after the hot tub got rather crowded with a few French, possibly French Canadians “joined” us.
We went back to our rooms, had a beer and called it a night. The next morning we checked out of the hotel where Dinker and I got eye humped by some barefoot European guy just hanging out in the lobby. So we quickly got the hell out of there and drove into town and found some breakfast. After breakfast, we wandered through downtown and did a little shopping. Dinker, Cheesepaws Mom, and I got new hats at a rocking hat store, but other than that it was a pretty uneventful shopping trip. So we loaded up the car headed for home.
All in all it was a very quick trip but a ton of fun. Hopefully we’ll be able to repeat it next year with a few other friends as well. Have you have been to Oktoberfest???