Igster's Inklings

My daughter was in the Christmas concert at school today. The video quality sucks… Sorry I don’t have one of them there fancy flip cams or nothin. Plus I didn’t get a close enough seat. That’s what I get for waiting in the warm car. This was uploaded to qik.com.

I have 2 more videos, I will add to flickr. One can be seen here. The other one says being processed.

So, tired of being mocked online, street3 decided to do some learnin. He bought a state of the art high tech device he could afford with his poker winnings. He is the artists rendition of his first encounter. Obviously not drawn to scale.

Hope you enjoy!

This will be a feature. The frequency should be every friday once a week whenever we feel like updating the damn thing.(Thank you to @chrishiter who holds the copyright to the street3 corner.)

This is an artists “rendition” (I say rendition and that means it doesn’t have to be good and a 5 year old with one eye and no hands could do a better job) of an actual conversation, and by actual I mean @street3 may or may not have made the whole damn thing up. But, I saw it on twitter and if it’s there,well it must be true.

it would seem his “investment” opportunity did not pan out and he couldn’t make it to the casino.

Better luck next time dude.

Maybe this will become a regular feature, then again maybe I’ll get bored and it won’t. Could go either way.

Not long ago, I featured a video from Chris Blake. Every so often I’ll put up a video that has a special meaning, or one I just like. Tonight is one of those times. My friend Fokiesd is pretty cool. I already thought he was smart and funny as hell. I had no idea he was talented as well. Must hate him. Here it is, and I hope you enjoy it.

It must have been the Christmas of 88 or 89. I can’t remember. I do know it was in the week leading up to Christmas.

We were in port, in GA. We were refitting the boat to go back out to sea, the4 Gold Crew was already gone. Must have been a slow week. The crew was split into watch or duty sections. Just a skeleton crew really. Enough people to keep things running smoothly. There were 4 of us my roommate Paul, myself, Powell and one other guy. (fading memories suck). We had been given roughly 48 hours of liberty. Stay in Ga or make the 4 hour drive up to Charleston? It was pretty much a no brainer, and Paul had his car with him. As I recall it was a newer model Mustang. So, we left Ga and it had been snowing, with more storms on the way. That’s one of the perks being on the water, snow and lots of it. But, we were young and stupid so we pushed on. Paul was driving, I was riding shotgun the other 2 guys were in the backseat. Im not sure,  but I’m thinking we were about 1/2 way home. Somewhere along the way, I’d fallen asleep. Long days take their toll. Something woke me up. Looking back it must have been Paul  or one of the other guys yelling. We had hit a patch of black ice and spun out. It was a small 2 lane highway. We crossed the center line and slid down the embankment backwards.

I woke up in time to witness us spinning sideways and the tree rapidly approaching my window. The hood was all bent up and steam was pouring from the engine. Obviously we were panicked and scrambling to get out. I tried my door, but the tree was having no part of letting me open it. So, I had to climb over his seat and get out on the driver’s side.

You wouldn’t think I would be using the word lucky. Well lucky that we weren’t hurt, and we had our accident across from a small motel. One of the occupants witnessed our accident and let us come into his room to warm up.

What happened next was out of a movie of the week or something. He asked where we were from and going. We told him we were on leave and heading home for a couple of days. He said “Well I have a car I’m not using, and as long as you don’t mind no heat, just bring it back and drop it off on your way back to base.”

We were all silent for a moment. I mean who does this stuff. But we quickly agreed and Paul gave him his info. Twenty minutes later, we were on the road. Now, I had mentioned the no heat thing. That wasn’t the worst of it. I was sitting in the back seat behind the driver. Where my floor should have been was a gaping hole. I was watching the road pass by under my feet at 50 miles an hour. So, not only was the heat non existent and the windows cracked to keep the windshield from fogging up, but I could have done the flinstone thing. I mean. I don’t want to complain, a car is a car right?

So we were within an hour of Charleston, and the roads were worse. So, we spun out again, and pulled off the road. I’m not sure why we got out but, we did. Within a few minutes another vehicle lost control and pulled off near us. So, we’re standing there and Powell was near the front of the car by the driver side door. Guess what? Yup another car lost control and smashed into ours. The driver side door was open(for whatever reason). The new car hit the door and bent it all the way forward until it was stopped by the front of the car. Seconds before, was where Powell had been standing. He had managed to jump back onto the hood just in time. I shudder to think how bad he would have been hurt.

So, the car was banged up. In hindsight, it was a shitty thing to do but, we left it there. What choice did we have really. We couldn’t have it towed anywhere. The people in the mini van were nice enough to give us a ride back to my house.

The next night we were in a Navy van on our way back  to the base. To this day, I can’t really sleep in a car anymore. On long drives it really sucks. Every noise, every little jostling of the car brings me  right out of my dozing.

So according to my best recollection and http://www.timeanddate.com/ it’s been roughly 272 days since my last soda. Now, I will admit I have cheated a little. When we go out and my kids order a soda with dinner, I do steal a sip. My mind screams out WTF is that? That is not soda. Alas, it is. Based on how it tastes now, I don’t see how I was addicted to it for as long as I was. It’s so nasty now.

Ive been walking the kids to school some days and walking them home everyday. Well until this week. I just can’t commit to walking when it’s only 41 outside. If you’ve read my blog, you know that this town is windy, alot. So add 41 plus driving wind=no walkies for me. Granted the school is roughly 1 mile round trip. I can’t et an accurate distance from my workout program on my phone. The step counter doesn’t work. And the distance varies by day. Which makes no sense to me. I walk the exact same route everyday. Some days it’s .8 miles some .9 or point .75. Who knows why. I have been using Cardio workout. Available in the android marketplace for free. According to it I have  60 workouts for a distance of 55.30 miles and 19 hours and 21 minutes. As you can see, that doesn’t really add up. But, it’s the best prg I have found so far. I was using a pedometer, also available in the marketplace. It would change by the day as well.

As for weight, I haven’t checked in awhile. I stopped using the wii fit back in august. I had minor surgery under my arm, so I couldn’t do anything to pull on the sutures. I also have arthritis in my neck, back and shoulders. So no real wii anything for months now. I played wii sports tennis everyday for about a 1/2 hour or so. No more of that either.

If I could get a used treadmill, at least I could get my walking in, on days like this

SNOW

See, now I have no desire to walk in that anymore. Must be old age setting in?

And Im quite nervous. This is a slight departure for me and this blog. Normally I don’t mix this with business. I’m starting on a new project. It’s something my wife and I have been kicking around for a few years now. She is one of the top people in the country for dealing with Mobile home titles/issues etc. This is not bragging. It’s what she/we hear from others in the real estate/REO world. People seek her out at national conferences for questions. It’s kind of awe inspiring as a husband to see this actually.

With this in mind, she and I are going to start our own company. Maybe this is a bad time, with the economy in the tank as it is. But, if I keep waiting for things to improve, I’ll never do it. If we start small, and manage our time wisely, I think we’ll do just fine. I’m not looking to be a millionaire (not this year anyway )

So, today I bought the domain name and I have two years to make it work. I’d appreciate any positive energy you can spare.

Submarines have a unique smell. It’s a combination of Amine, diesel fuel and various other chemicals.
I wouldn’t find this out my first day at the pier. That would wait until the second day. I was still fairly new to the Navy, and had no clue what to really expect.
Probably 95% of the crew was made up of people that had been to the sub for patrols before. They all had a good handle on what to do expect.
The first night we went to the base enlisted club. I also wound up sleeping in a top bunk. I was not used to sleeping in such a small place that high up. I did not stay in the bunk long. After that I didn’t sleep much after that.
The next day I got to see the sub up close, this would be my home for roughly 90 days. Climbing down the ladder into Aux upper level, I was hit with this umm aroma, smell stench. Actually it didn’t even take getting into the sub. It was more like wafting out of the hatch. This was not a good sign.
I think it took me a week being underway before I didn’t notice the smell anymore. Maybe halfway through, we went up towards the surface to do something, we also ventilated the sub, bringing fresh air in,exhausting the bad,stale air.
That’s not to say the air was bad for us, quite the opposite. On board we had equipment to make oxygen, scrub out co2 etc.We also desalinated the water for fresh,non-salt water to drink with, bathe etc.
Anyway, we were bobbing up near the surface and I was in the control room. I was asking what the horrible smell was. Turns out, it was air from the outside and it smelled horrible. I had gotten so used to the basically manufactured air, that real air almost made me sick. I don’t recall, but I think I was steering and diving the boat at this point. 6 hours of watching gauges and level indicators or bubbles. Solely keeping the sub on the prescribed course and depth. It was exciting for about 30 minutes. Some of the guys would play games to keep us awake, etc.The only time it was tough was if we were close to the surface and the seas were rough. Then it became a game of chasing that stupid damn bubble. One operator worked the planes in the front and one worked the planes in the stern. I also learned, that if I had to, I could hold it for 6 hours. The human bladder was not designed for this, but it can be done. I do not recommend this practice at all.

Oh, the smell I was talking about, permeates everything, including your clothes and seabag. It’s very obvious to anyone from outside the sub. My mother in law at the time, came home from work, my bag was in the laundry room. Her first words were, what the hell is that smell. Nothng like sharing the love.

My son turned 10 today. It’s amazing, I can still recall the day he was born. The same with my daughter.
He is everything a father could ask for in a kid. Smart (straight A’s) He’s been reading since before he started school and was surfing the web around age 4.
He is kind and generous, and has a great heart. I am split on wanting him to be older to see how he turns out yet, at the same time, I don’t want him growing up too fast. Im sure every parent goes through this.
Happy Birthday son!
Daddy loves you more than he can ever say.

This is what happened while scouting filming locations. Carse heard it was cheaper to film up North. He didn’t bother saying how far North. He thought elf girls were easy. Besides Eskimo hookers are the same as Asian hookers, right?
See your favorite donks pelt one another with snow. It’s a good time for all.