Vacation Right Around The Corner...

Next week I'm headed to Fort Smith, Arkansas. That super exciting metropolis in the Ozarks. Nothing is planned. I'm just gonna stomp around the region for few days and see what I can get into. I'm really hoping they have a club where I can catch some local bands. (If not, I'm thinkin there's always Fayetteville to the north.)

On the agenda, sort of: checking out the land and housing prices for (hopefully near) future reference, and of course, the job market.

Outside of that, I'm wingin' it.
A reserved car rental, a head full of curiosity, and four and half days of... well, I don't know what.
Haven't even bothered with lodging.
I'm playing that one by ear.
And everything else by whim.

I've already been duly warned to be on guard for ticks and chiggers in the woods this time of year. Ticks I know (from the Georgia woodlands). But Chiggers?
I better look that one up.

Any suggestions?

Take Her Out To The Ball Game...

Eight bucks to park?! I thought these tickets were free?

Ok, so here we are.
Nice place. Never been here since they re-done it.
(Jade's wide angle lense would have really come in handy for this one)

Wow, I can almost see the action.
Got what I paid for, I guess...
I feel a nosebleed coming on...
Meanwhile, as the Los Angeles team was recieving a 12-5 beat-down by the Mariners (happy,happy me), the real Anaheim team, The Ducks, was clinching the first game of the Stanley Cup finals, right across the street at the Honda Center.



Go Ducks!!!!

Tranquility Interruptus

The grueling work hours continue, as the lack of activity on this blog bears witness to.

I was really looking forward to this weekend: a time of rest, repose, and beer. But no... had to work my 12hrs Saturday, and spend most of Sunday moving the years of accumulated worthless, useless shit valuable possessions of a family member to another zip code. You'd really be surprised just how much crap a member of the transient community can accumulate. Damn good thing I sprung for the U-Haul.

OK.
Monday's here. This is my day,dammit! I ain't doin nothin for nobody.

So here I am, slipping into another nap on the sofa, and barely watching The Outdoor Channel and the phone rings.
"Hi, honey." (Damn!It's The Blonde)
I'm drinking Baby,call ya later...
"Well, put the beer down and clean it up"
Why?
"Because you're picking me up at six for the game,remember?"
no...
"I got Angels tickets from a client last week, Remember? I told you."
I wasn't home all week...huh?... oh,yeah, now I remem...What? It's today? You didn't say it was today...
"Yes, I did"
Damn Baby, I need a break...
"Oh, come on, it's just a few hours..."
I don't like the Angels. They su...
"Just go with me. I haven't seen you all week."
See me next week...
"You're leaving town next week"
Right,right...
"So sit with me tonite,we'll hold hands and cheer for the Angels..."
Baby,I don't cheer for Los Angeles teams. You know that!
"Fine. Just keep quiet and and eat a hot dog with me then"
I want beer.
"OK. Beer and hot dogs."
So when was that? Tomorrow night at six?
"TONIGHT! Don't get all smartass..."
Awright...
"Thank You,Honey!"
grumble.

Thank God next week is only a week away.

wow...

Just. Wow.

Tag: I'm It

King David has tagged me with some sort of predictions thing.
Thirteen predictions for when I'm an old man. Then tag three.
Dont know when that'll be, but sense it coming on by the day. With any luck, I may keep my wits enough to realize it.

1.Somebody named Bush will be on the GOP national ticket.(I know. This is an easy one)

2.Poland will be invaded by either Germany or Russia or both. The next day, France will surrender, just in case.
(Yeah, another easy one. So beat me with a stick)

3. Kal will die of home based vaporized mercury poisoning after spending 20 years in dimlightedness.

4.Massive third world starvation ensues when all the earth's corn crop is converted to costlier, less-efficient-than-real-gasoline ethanol (to save the planet, of course)...

5.Leading to an increase in greenhouse gasses due to all the rotting bodies.

6.Plastic bags will become the hip, environmentally-sensitive fad again (to save the trees,of course).

7.Islam will still suck.(well,duh!)

8.Los Angeles wont have an NFL franchise, but there is still talk of stealing relocating the Buccaneers, or some other team whose name has no cultural tie-in to the city...

9.But it wont be noticed since everybody will be watching Major League Soccer at the newly built sports venue Estadio de la Reconquesta.

10.Israel will be near self-destruction due to increased birth rates among its current 20% Arab minority...

11.Prompting millions of fundamentalist Christians to renounce Christ to become Jews and move to Israel, saving the Zionist state at any cost.

12.Federal toilet regulation is taken one step further with the mandated installation of "Residue Sensors" to monitor the level of trans fat intake in Americans' diet. All a part of the now fully implemented HilaryCare health care system.

13.Former President Jimmy Carter will still be an ass.

There's mine;
I'm tagging RW,Kal and Andy.

Paradise Lost

For the past 15 years or so I've been longing for a slower pace of life.
I don't want sound all 'hippie' and stuff, 'cause i ain't one of them long haired, unwashed weirdos, but the years I've spent living in a place where the "forests" consist of yearly burning scrub (and few trees), rivers have cement bottoms, and anything called a lake is totally man made(and regularly stocked) has gotten a bit old. Everything here is fake and preplanned.

Basically, civilization in southern California doesn't just happen. It is scheduled.

Sure, I've never really lived anywhere else, and it's easy for me to fall victim to "the grass is always greener" mindset. But I do know what I don't like, and I know what I want. This place has too much of one, and not enough of the other.

One big factor that makes it hard to continue living here is that so many others have come here from elsewhere, driving up the cost of housing to ridiculous levels. Here, in the working class neighborhoods of Southern California, where the houses were built back in the late 50's, the starting prices are in the high 400's (for a 1200 sq ft fixer). If you rent: a bare-bones,roach-infested two bedroom pad in the barrio starts at $1200.
As I don't much favor living with roaches or barrioistas, my rent is much higher. And increases yearly, without fail.
Factory wages, on the otherhand, are declining in real value.

In short, I can no longer afford to live here anymore. And I'm tired of chasing the ten hours of overtime every week to make it happen.

True enough, I've made a shitload of bad moves over the past 20+ years that put me in exactly this place I find myself in.
With one exception:
Over a decade ago, I'd made an investment in some acreage in another place,far,far away, and am now about to see the fruits fall from the tree. The means to my ends are not far around the corner.

So yeah, it's time for me to do what I've always wanted to do, but for various reasons could not.
No more excuses.
It's time for me to go.

All The Young Dudes

When I was 19, after spending nearly my entire life growing up in the Los Angles area, I began to make half-hearted plans to leave this crowded place and establish roots elsewhere.
Seems all guys have the same ideas, at about the same stage of life. The desire to find his own way. To claim his own place. Establish manhood on his own terms.
I think it's a 'gene thing' among us.

For me,two places held allure. Chicago was the city of my birth, and sole foundation of my family roots, and the foremost in my thoughts. As most of my relation was leaving for points west(California,of course), or passing on, I never made that move. Actually, it's a longer story than that,also involving a girl I never married. Nuf said.

Promised Land #2: Arizona. Everybody was doing it. Arizona was new and still had a rugged reputation, with a lot of technology industry type stuff moving there (to flee California.)

Generally, jobs were there for the taking. A couple buddies of mine drove east supplied with gas money and $185 between them, landing jobs on the day of arrival, and living out of a '72 dodge station wagon for two weeks until the first paycheck, which put them into a slummy pad. Within a few months, they upgraded to a nice apartment, returning to visit California to preach the Arizona gospel to the rest of us, and disappeared again, to resurface a couple years later with homes(and mates).
Arizona was happening,ya know?

Soon, lots of restless young dudes from California were hitching their wagons eastward on Interstate 40,and that desert trail swallowed up a few more of my gang, never to be seen or heard from again. One spoke of never returning, proving the point by leaving behind two unanswered traffic tickets.
Stickin' it to The Man on his way out. Gotta respect that,yeah?
He urged me to follow. But by this time, I was hitched to a different kind of wagon, had sired twice, and accepted the reality that I wouldn't be leaving for anywhere in a very long while.

We shared some beers, hugs and tears, and he drove off into the night.
(I miss that crazy bastard more than all the others.)

It's been a long time.
And finally, I sense my time is coming.

In Praise Of The French

Now that the French have had their election, and eventually got around to at least marginally rebuking euro-socialism, if only for a day, I want to commend them for producing something a little nicer on the eyes in the Showbusiness For Ugly People catagory.




We wont be seeing as much of Segolene Royal as before. Generally speaking, a nice looking woman who, at 53 years old, still seems have some of 'it'.












Meanwhile, we here in the United States will prepare to be scolded by this woman until about the year 2016.


Politics sucks.

Observation

It really annoys me to see Americans making such a fuss over the British monarchy after George Washington went through so much trouble to end such foolishness.