Here's to democracy...

Not quite the result I was hoping for. Hearing the news of our new president really just left me speechless. I've been annoyed by the entire process from start to finish. There really is a misinterpretation of what is actually being said and what is being perceived.

McCain was my man from the start. Being from Arizona I’m familiar with him and knew what kind of person he is. Its hard to see that most Americans felt Obama was more qualified to lead than McCain. Just my opinion. McCain had the experience, knowledge and the guy spent five years in a POW camp. That’s got to count for something. The only thing he had going against him was that he was a republican.

I'll start from the top. When Obama first was hailed as democratic nominee I said out loud ''He's going to win because supporting Obama is 'thing to do' .'' The Obama nation, I feel, is a fad and is no different that slap bracelets, pogs, trolls and sideways hats. And like all fads you feel like and idiot after it goes out of style. Everyone wanted to support him because he was a fresh face and he wanted to shake things up. I’m ok with that. I think Washington does need some change but when it becomes blind faith in the guy, that’s when I see problems

Now this doesn't come out of the blue. There were a lot of red flags that alerted me to this, my favorite being the rhinestone Obama shirt. This shirt and many like it were soon to follow. I’m ok with supporting your candidate but make up your own mind. It was a big thing at my work to make Obama shirts and wear them. So for a while we saw a flood of homemade Obama shirts. Everyone talks about the race barrier wanting to be broken down, well no one even approached me wondering if I was going to vote Obama. Why would they, I’m a silly white man.

This also plays into the race issue I wanted to approach. I have no issues with the race of the president. I think we are way past that as a country but people will find any reason to fan the fire. Race to me is a non-issue and that’s why its frustrating seeing it become a huge issue. What upsets me is that it seems like everyone who was the same skin color voted for him because of that reason. A statistic shot by on my news ticket at work stated 95 percent of black voters voted for Obama. Not sure of its validity but it seems to make sense from what I’ve seen. Again at my work, small groups of people would congregate, all wearing Obama shirts. I think voting for a president because he is black is just as racist as not voting for a president because he is black. The line has been drawn and you’ve staked your claim. No one will admit to it but I think it was up there on the list of how people chose their candidate.

What I respect about Obama is that I don’t think he milked the fact but I had conversations with people I work with who had these Obama shirts I spoke about earlier. When asking why they chose to support Obama all they could say was the want ''change.'' Ok, so you saw a commercial, what kind of change are you looking forward to? I would ask. Needless to say, no one could really give me an answer. It was George Bush did this and that. The country is going to the crapper. Well to echo my buddy McCain, it’s not bush who Obama was running against. From what I can recall only one person I spoke with had a legitimate reason to vote for Obama. Only one person told me because of ….

I feel as if this election is more like high school student council Election. Its a popularity contest and based of how many friends you can attracht. Obama didn’t win because he is qualified (Cleary McCain has more experience in politics). He didn't win because his stance on issues(He‘s stance is closer to socialism lined with communism. Bet you didn‘t realize that). He didn't win because he has America’s best interests in mind. He won because he wasn't republican. He won because everybody is against racism yet based their vote on race. He won because he was endorsed by celebrities that have no idea what the hell they are talking about. He won because the majority of US citizens blindly bought into his ''Change'' philosophy.

Change huh. The wife and I are in in a tough situation. She is self employed and is going to be taxed even higher than she is now. If Mitchi or I cant get a better job or another job we will not have enough money to afford our house payments. My dad is in danger of losing his job at yucca mountain because democrats are so closed minded and self focused they will act blindly to shut down the program. So, that’s the change we get. Lord knows what’s coming your way but I will bet most assumed it was going to be a good change.

I’m venting now. Anger is my first step and I’m upset and I'm torn. My stance on politics can best be wrapped up in a Dropkick Murphy’s song Boys on the Dock. The lyrics go as follows, ''United we stand divided we fall, we came to this country you made it our home.'' I think a person can do more harm with blatant disregard for the country that just trying to take every day as they come. I think that there is a point and time when a citizen needs to step up and be hear. But good luck in this government. I'm upset and its going to be a bumpy road for the Thomas clan but I spent the last 8 years defending the government trying to maintain the sense of unity. So now everyone will have to listen to me complain. Some times feel like Harry Waters putting a gun to my head and mumbling ''a man must stick to his principles.''

I'd love to be proved wrong. I'd love to have all my concerns cleared out but I’m nervous. I’m going to bitch and complain for a while but yes I am an American and he is my president. The people have voted and that’s the idea of this country. Its just really hard to say that these days.

Legend of the Seeker

A former co-worker of mine alerted me to this TV show that is coming out for ABC. It's called the Legend of the Seeker (http://www.legendoftheseeker.com/) It sparked my attention because me and him had conversations about books that we would like to read and the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkin was one of the book series that was often visited. I had read one book, Pillars of Creation that is in that series and liked it well enough. I never go around to reading the rest of them.

So i saw the website and I'm excited to see this come out. I don't know to much about it but it beats another CSI type show. Unless they did a CSI:crusades, that i could enjoy. Any way. Keep an eye out for it and let me know what you think.

Las Vegas 1

So I did my first big “yard repair” the other day. My sprinkler was leaking a lot of water that was flooding the yard. I usually get really upset when I see this in other people’s yards so I figured I shouldn’t be the jerk and fix it right away.

First things first I have to get down to the actually sprinkler connection itself since that is where the water is leaking from. Removing the top layer of sod was relatively easy. The ground was wet and it just ripped up no problem. In the picture above the sod is on the left hand side.

I get to the next layer which was expecting but still really annoying, the small rocks dirt. You can’t really use a small shovel at all because it doesn’t quite puncture the ground. It just gets stopped by small pebbles. I used a flat head screw driver to loosen the dirt and pull it out by hand. Not to bad because the ground was still moist. You can see that in the middle section of the pile of dirt.

Now I have to admit I was surprised by the last layer. This was when I actually got down to the elbow connection. There were some decent size rocks that where a pain to get out. Those rocks are seen at the end of the pile. It was a bit of a task because the rocks were stuck under sprinkler. I did my best to be careful not to ruin the connection and fix the sprinkler.

Two things I learned from this.

Whoever decided to settle in Las Vegas is an idiot. I could dig a hole in a parking lot faster than the one I dug to get to this sprinkler. Although, the ground only 6 inches deep was around 50-60 degrees which would make geothermal cooling an amazing option.

2. Always cut your nails before you dig. Rookie mistake I guess

Small accomplishments

I was fishing around my phone photo files and really didn’t see much that “inspired” me to write something. It was a toss up between this one and another picture of my cat. I chose this one.

A bit of background for this picture, Sunday I got an invite to go play some disc golf with Brother Kyle and good friend John. Naturally I said yes. The course itself was really cool but the air around us was humid because they water the grass once every ten minuets it seems. But to make a long story short, this was on the back leg of the course and Kyle sinks a midrange shot a good distance out. I was so jealous.

Now I also have an amazing shot under my belt as well at a different course. I hold that shot high and enjoy its replay in my mind. But I’m here at work writing about this and realized that I could get stupid “Kudos” for a good call or any other sort of office life praises and I would gladly trade them in for an amazing disc golf shot. I would rather have a terrible day at work and an amazing disc golf shot rather than an amazing day at work and not disc golf whatsoever.

This can go two ways I think. I can have my priorities in perfect order or my priorities can be way out of alignment. Knowing myself, the latter is probably the case. But (like the heading states) the few smaller things in life really get me through the day. It’s my own personal accomplishment that I can be proud of even if no one else understands.

- Setting up my computer finally the way I want it, small accomplishment.
- Finally remembering to actually cook dinner for Mitchi, small accomplishment
- Organizing my action figures so the bad guys are not mixed with the good guys, small accomplishment.
- Riding my bike to Smiths with Mitchi to go grocery shopping, small accomplishment.
- Amazing disc golf shot, small accomplishment.

These are small goals that try to reach and these I seem to be more proud of then anything else. I often feel like a child asking my parents to put my work on the fridge and I’m truly blessed that Mitchi doesn’t make fun of me for it. She really seems to understand that part of my seemingly messed up head.

My big accomplishments are usually non existent. Last big goal, get a house, Success. Before that, get married to Mitchi, success. But I don’t set a lot of big goals because I’m often disappointed. I could list out a few failed big goals but it would just make me frustrated.

Which brings me to the Saying “Aim for the sky because if you miss your still among the stars.” I hate it. I often think. Yes you’re among the stars but now you can’t breath because there is no oxygen. You’re also going to freeze because the temperature would be -459 and you probably didn’t bring insulation. If you plan for both of those then you also have to think about radiation. Then the idea of food, water, bathroom and all that.

So not only are you among the starts but your plan B, C, D, E must also be planned out and finalized. Knowing the attention span of the average human by bet would be that plan A would be 50% thought out. Also, if you shoot for the starts and come up short, that’s one hell of a journey back down to earth. You may just end up wishing you shot for the top of your house, the worse that’s going to happen is a sprained ankle.

Kyle and I had made a trip over to our local Sports Authority to pass some time looking at disc golf gear, pink tennis balls and eventually the camping equipment. This picture shows Kyle testing out a sleeping bag that was on clearance. Less than 24 hours earlier we had come back from Mt. Charleston to the furnace of Las Vegas. This test was prompted by Kyle’s small sleeping bag that he didn’t really fit into. Thus, we needed to see if it fit.

Kyle ended up not selecting the sleeping bag but filed it away for a purchase at another time. But after leaving the camping equipment the day was fairly ho-hum. Me and Kyle had painted the day before and had a tasty meal of Fuddruckers earlier. Kyle ended up having to go to work so I went home to get ready for the big move. (That has come and gone.)

I felt it hard to motivate my self to do anything. I hated driving because it was too noisy and to hot outside. “Shopping” for house décor also didn’t sound good because that meant dealing with people directly or indirectly. I finally put my finger on it and realized that I just wanted to go back up to the mountain with my fire and good book…and maybe a Newcastle.

Being back around people was really getting on my nerves and I felt like locking myself in my room with the lights off to just relax. I like the people I know; my family and friends, but I have no desire really socialize or “mingle” as the pompous Vegas crowd would say. My social networking groups have my friends list at around 20 or 30. That makes me proud. That’s less people I have to worry about and the less excuses I have to come up with for not wanting to “hang”.

I’ll take a trip up to the mountains over a trip to the bar any day. Life gets to congested and eventually small meaningless things start to annoy me. People who park in two spots on purpose, sidways hats and Obama T-Shirts; they all have nothing to go with the in’s and outs of my daily life (for the most part) yet they will put me in the worse mood. It makes me want to crawl in my sleeping bag and hide. How’s that for a full circle Mr. Annoying freshman English teacher?

Missing....?

So I’m about ready to put up a missing cat poster for this lethargic bag of fur. After we moved into our new house we loaded the devil spawn into a cat carrier and we heard complaints from them non-stop. Once we moved all the furniture in we still had no power so opted to stay at my parent’s house. Before we left we let the cats out and saw all of them hiding somewhere.
The next day was spent running errands and finalizing a few things. Upon return to the house, we saw the girl cat, the black cat but no white cat. Another day goes by and still no white cat. The other two walk around and are becoming very accustomed to the new house. So in anticipation of your thoughts, no I don’t think he could have gotten out. White cat was able to plow his way through a mobil home wall but I think that dry wall is far more superior.
I also don’t think a 17 pound cat is easily hidden but still we cannot find him anywhere. My hopes is that he transformed into a mutant creature and is guarding us from afar but I won’t hold my breath.
In regards to the photo, yes he got in the blanket himself and no he is not currently wrapped in the same blanket.

8/14/08

Rotten bugger was behind some boxes then kept us up all night trying to break into our room. Jerk

Concert #2

So a bit of a break but here we go with concert number two. This show was directly after the Finch show so I was already a bit worn out. My feet still hurt and I’m sure I still had the smell of sweat and cigarettes in my hair, even after the shower. Being tired and sleepy is not the way to get me to bow out of seeing Less Than Jake with Goldfinger.

This show ranks in my top five concerts that I’ve been to. It was a good old fashion ska show with a bunch of silly dancing and singing. The band in the picture is Suburban Legend. They were the opening band and were loads of fun. There was plenty of disco-ska as they put it. It really set the stage for the next few bands.

Second on the list was a band called Big D at the kids table. A ska band but one I’m not to familiar with. It was good times but nothing compared to Goldfinger. Goldfinger came out with a ton of enthusiasm and started yelling at us right from the get go. The guys are getting kinda old but they still put on an amazing show. Claim to fame for that band, when the lead singer jumped into the crowd, it was none other than my head that caught the first and second kicks from his vans. Oh yeah, and the drummer lit his cymbals on fire. Awesome!

So on comes Less Than Jake. Probably my favorite band depending on the mood I’m in. I’ve seen them before and it’s not the last time I’ll see them. Lots of energy and lots of swearing. The show is always fun and at one point they tried getting security to jump on stage and dance. I don’t have to many pictures because it was a mad house. Mitchi and I were up front with Jasmine and Selene. I did spend time being an enforcer. I had to strike down with the Thomas Hammer that I call my right arm to try and keep the girls from harm.

I’m so out of shape. I sweat more that night than I have in a long time. All-in-all I left with a shoe print on my head, a few bruises and a bloody finger. Not to bad.

Concert #1

So this week is a busy week. Las night I saw a favorite band of mine by the name of Finch. It was all and all a fun night of some standing, sweating and suppressing my urge to punch high school kids in the face. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a decent rock show. Last concert I went to was Thrice if I’m not mistaken.

So the night started off leaving directly from work and heading to Mandalay Bay where the House of Blues is located. All and all, a ten minute drive only because of rush hour. One of the things Las Vegas has managed to ruin about good rock shows is starting the show really early. Luckily I get there and no bands have come on. First band, Tickle me Pink. Never heard of them. Decent band over all. Kind of a sad story, the bass player passed away earlier this year so it was a type of tribute show.

Second band goes by the name of Foxy Shazam. On stage, a legitimate band of crazy people. I take it most people have seen One Flew Over the Coo Coo’s Nest. Imagine that movie that with no giant Indian and as a musical. I had to stop looking at the piano player because he was making me uncomfortable. The bass player at one point jumped into the crowd holding his guitar letting the crowd play. The lead singer ran around the stage like a gorilla and at one point ate a burning cigarette. When everything was said and done it was good times.

Finch was Finch, a good show, a lot of energy and no girl pants worn by the lead singer. A plus in my book. Got some decent pictures with my tiny phone and enjoyed the night. Best part was Finch singing a Nine Inch Nails cover song. Don’t recall the title but it was amazing.

Round Two is tonight. Same place, new bands. Less Than Jake, Goldfinger. Probably one of the best two bands you can toss together in a show.

The Battle Has begun....

This is probably the best picture I have ever seen of me and my brother. Its grandeur is met only by its intensity. Why are we so intent on destruction? You take your pick. Aliens, terrorist, girl scouts, whatever, we can take them on all at the same time. Here’s the catch, we would win!

This picture reminds of an old set of lyrics by the band The Atari’s. It goes as follows. Being grown up isn’t half as fun as growing up. I will say that I must agree with that statement %100. I sometimes think I’m stuck in a world were I can still become an astronaut or a world traveling scientist tracking down the worlds unsolved mysteries. I know all this are not actually going to happen and probably never could but the fun is the wondering what would happen if I did.

In this picture I seem to think that my brother and I are some sort of fighting elite team. I know they are fake guns and I know if my brother shoots me the worst that could happen is a welt. Is it so wrong for a grown man to still dream the adventures of a young boy sneaking around the city in looks for a criminal mastermind? Can I still keep that small thread of excitement for myself?

Yes, it’s a funny picture and yes I know I’m not a GI Joe type warrior but who cares. I still look much cooler than you ever will.