KP in the AZ....again

The ASSHOLE of the UNIVERSE

2009-04-14T22:37:00.006-05:00

Alabama.

Where do I start?

Shaniqua, Shaneyney, Shabannon, LaDarious, Laquanda, LaShunny, La-I don't give a damn what creative name you come up with-qua. Such creativity, I do commend them on their efforts.

That was the first thing that comes to mind when I think of this waste of American territory known to many as ALABAMA. I have a few other choice words for that waste of space, but it behooves me to actually not put them in writing in case I decide to run for a political office in the future.

Let me give you a synopsis of my past couple months (if you have Facebook, this isn't anything new)

Jan 20 - Left paradise, willingly yet unconvinced, for a paycheck that was dangled in my face in the light of unemployment...very inticing at the time.

Jan 21 - Arrived, thankfully at night, because by the time we had arrived, I realized this wasn't where we were meant to be, and at least Amie has something to look forward to the next morning in seeing the sights and surroundings.....I didn't want her to be dissappointed from the onset of our arrival.

Jan 22 - Moved in, thankfully Amie was distracted by getting into our new place, which I must say, was a VERY nice townhouse. If we could have had that place here in AZ, we would be set for quite awhile.

Jan 23 - The first day of the worst job in the history of jobs in America.....and the very first time I actually kicked myself in the ass with the realization that my gay cousin Doug was right....for the first time. (Damn, why didn't I listen to him, I was thinking at the time. And this is the first time he's hearing this from me as he reads it...so pat yourself in the back, my favorite gay cousin, for being right! YES DOUG, I shoulda listened to you!!)

Jan 24 - Feb 10 - This was an optimistic period as I tried to make the best of the situation. Amie had found a job, we were both working, and I figured if I could just hang in there for a year, there might be better times ahead...........keyword MIGHT.

Feb 10 - Feb 26 - We were starting to get more settled in our home, the highlight of our entire experience. At the same time, the hate for our employment grew exponentially. There's only one thing that makes a shitty job in a shitty city tolerable, and that is money....and trust me, we weren't making enough money to justify our misery.

Feb 27 - Mar 1 - We planned a trip to Ohio to go to my cousin Zach's wedding which was Feb. 28. It was definitely nice to go home to the wedding and see pretty much everyone in the family and a lot of friends. We had a great time staying with Chas, Joy and Chase and hanging out with everyone. We were supposed to make the 9 hour drive back on Sunday, March 1, however, the thought of going back to the shithole and shit jobs repulsed us, so we decided we would be "sick" on Monday and just drive back then.......this was the height of my realization, if I would rather miss work and stay an extra day in GLOUSTER rather than leaving to return to my "new home" and "new job", then something has gone terribly wrong. I have longed to escape Glouster and here I find myself wanting to stay an extra day.....talk about a rude awakening. When I lived in Arizona, I'd go to Glouster and couldn't wait to leave, and now I live in Alabama, and suddenly I didn't want to leave. Anyone that understands Glouster knows that this is a total swing of the pendumlum and how dismal Alabama must be.

Mar 2 - 17 - Ever increasingly getting more frustrated, depressed, pissed off and unhappy.

Mar 18 - After talking with Amie, seeking advice from some close friends and a lengthy conversation with my Mom, we had decided we were both putting in our two week notices and moving back to the place that we were most happy....Scottsdale, ARIZONA, which I'm sure you all know.

Mar 19 - Two week notices put in.

Mar 21 - My last day of work which lasted one hour (explanation to follow)

Apr 1 - Amie's last day of work, we picked up the Uhaul, my Mom arrived to help with the move and drive across the country.

Apr 2 - We started the drive....I loathe packing and moving, but I have never been so happy to do just that.

As you can see, our adventure was short lived, however, in our minds, we were there 2 months and 12 days too many. It's amazing the rationale one goes through when they are unemployed and faced with a job opportunity 1700 miles away for a wage that, in hindsight, isn't nowhere near what a move would dictate. I often get super angry at the situation, however, the lessons we learned in our move are lessons that we could have never learned if we stayed in Scottsdale. (more on that in a bit)

Let me elaborate about the job for a moment, in an effort to give you a sense of my misery. Allow me to start from the beginning....................I have a cousin who has been invovled in Taco Bell for his career. He took an opportunity to be part of the lead executive team for the largest franchisee of Taco Bell's in the country. In the light of my unemployment situation, I spoke to him about possible opportunities. He offered for me to come to Alabama to see the area, observe what he did on a daily basis and then offered me to come there and run one of his stores. At the time, it sounded like not such a bad idea.........I went to Alabma, wasn't too thrilled with Birmingham, but thought we could manage and with the "promises" of growth and development in the company. Being unemployed, this seemed like the most logical course of action. The experience had it's value, but the explanation of the full details of the job had zero value. I was unaware that the company wanted your life for, comparitively, what seemed like zero money. That company absolutely does not compensate fairly for the level of committment they expect. Here is a rundown of the bullshit......The work week was 50 hours (I have no problem with that so long as it's fair), if someone calls off, it's your problem, if you work 100 hours, sorry about your luck; you get two paid days off (Christmas and Thanksgiving), you have an option of working 8-6, 10-8 or 4/5-2/3, which means you can never have a normal evening life...no normal dinners, no normal schedule, and I'd hate to see if you had to juggle a kid into that mix. What happens if your sick, you ask?? Well, you have two options...work 6 days in a row, or take vacation time!!! The day in Ohio we decided to stay extra, I returned to those options. I was expected to work EVERY Friday AND Saturday until at least 6, usually until 8. The mentality of the company was such that no matter what you did it was never enough. Sales were never high enough, speed was never fast enough...nothing but constant criticism, yet they tried to mask their constant bitching with false hopes to the underlings,the ones actually slingin the tacos, with the occasional word of encouragement. I'd hear those occasional words and just roll my eyes at the bullshit that was flowing profusely out their mouths. Their most intent words to the managers of the stores were to "ACT LIKE AN OWNER"......I wanted so bad to tell all those bastards that if you want "Owner" level of committment out of me, you'll find me tending to my own business....not this brainless shit you are barely paying me to do anyway. Here is the latest bullshit from this place that eloquently illustrates the way they roll........I put my two weeks in, with the full intent of working the last two weeks, and getting paid for it. They told me to go home on the second day of my two weeks and now, they are saying that I have to work my hours to get paid for it, yet, when they told me to go home, there was no mention of me not getting paid my regular pay up to April 2, which would have been my last day. Had I known, I'd have told them either I stay the entire time and get paid, or you committ to paying me up until the day I'd have left.....so now they are saying this bullshit. But, that just illustrates how much of a bush league company they are.

I had an epiphony several weeks into my adventure at this shithole that helped me realize why people actually put up with their slave-like labor iniatives. 99% of the people running this stores come from a background filled with minimum wage jobs, if not fast food, a simliar industry. The people running these stores truely feel like they've "made it"...and you know, they have, within the scope of their careers, so I can't fault that. They are successful in their own right and that I commend. But I have put this into perspective time and time again, and their version of "making it" and my version of "making it" are galaxies apart, hence my enormous frustration and total unhappiness at work. For example, the person training me, once worked 30 straight days from 8am to 2 or 3AM (depending if it was a weekend or not)........Trust me, there isn't enough satisfaction in slinging a sack full of chicken quesaDILLa's to every moody fat bastard that rolls through the drive through to make me want to do something insane as that...and here's the kicker, NO EXTRA PAY!!!!!! The people running these places started at minimum wage cleaning shitters and now they are telling people to clean shitters.....so, there is satisfaction for them. But for me?? Total Frustration. The deal for me to come to Shittybama, was that in a year I'd have multiple stores that I'd run, but even with that prospect, my frustration level was so intense that there's no way I could have lasted another 10 months. Retardedness runs rampent in this environment, and if you're offended, too bad, that's the way it is, and I'm calling it like I see it. This entire experience has been life distrupting and quite frankly pisses me off. We left a place we liked living, it cost me thousands of dollars and made us pretty much broke, it has forced us to postpone our wedding to May 8, 2010 and a multitude of other things, so hopefully you can understand why I'm so opinionated, if not, you'll get over it eventually.

Once Amie and I had enough, we made the decision to come home, made the arrangements for us to come back and here we are....back in the place we love.

We learned many valueable lessons......the biggest of which I'll highlight:
-We never fought once...not in the face of shitty jobs, shitty environment, daily unhappiness, and being broke....so, through that, we know that our relationship is solid.
-We know where we want to live for a LONG, LONG, LONG time....and that's right here in good ole sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
-We know we aren't naming our kid La - (insert any combonation of letters) - qua.
-We appreciate 8-5, M-F desk jobs
-We know how to relax.....most importantly.

We're happy to be back, we know where we want our future to lead and we're happy again, and that's most important. It's just annoying to have to "start over" when we should be more established....but I'd rather learn those lessons now rather than later.

Until next time,
Kyle

Alabama Sucks....

2009-03-28T15:53:00.002-05:00

Alabama sucks, horribly.....so if you haven't heard, we both put our two weeks in, and we are moving back...heading back to Arizona this Thursday, ironically on the same day I left Ohio last year. No, this isn't going to be a yearly event, trust me! I'll write a detailed blog on my thoughts of Alabama, my job from hell in Alabama and our decision to move back....a great decision I might add!!!!

Until then,
Kyle

Blogging Ineptitude

2009-03-04T23:13:00.003-06:00

I realize I have been slacking on my blogging about all the new things in my life....but I assure you they are coming soon. I'll be blogging on my displeasure with Alabama, the excitement of our wedding planning and the desire for us to get back to Arizona AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!! More to come on all those topics....It's just late right now here in Shitty-bama and I've got to carry on my insane work schedule tomorrow...but again, more on that in the very near future. I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't gotten too good for you all down here in luxurous Alabama......riiiiiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhhttttttt!

More later!
Kyle

Alabama....er, uh, Arizona?

2009-02-19T22:00:00.005-06:00

Have you ever wished so much that you were somewhere else, that when hear a simliar sounding word, it sounds like the place you would rather be?? That's everyday for me....I hear on the News, "Alabama's First Source of News" and what my mind tells me I hear is this, "Arizona's First Source of News"....I know my cousin Sydney understands living in the United Arab Emiretes, you hear "United" and your brain makes your ears hear "States of America"........It's a constant reminder of where I'd (we'd) rather be.

I do have to say, that we both do like Alabama a lot, we have a nice place, the people are the most friendly I've ever experienced, and the scenery is amazing (if you like hills and trees). It reminds me a lot growing up in Southest Ohio, except the hills are much bigger...but very similiar landscape beyond that. We are about 8-9 hours from home....which I guess could be a good thing, but I could be 8-9 days from home and it would be that much better.......it's a place I don't care to visit much, but we are actually making the trip back next weekend for a cousins wedding.....so, we'll see how that goes.

So far, everything is going OK down here. We are starting to figure out where we are going and getting our bearings, what's around us, where the nearest Sam's club and shopping mall is located. We are getting aquainted to the landscape, the traffic, and the craziness that is inevitable in a town full of rednecks and hillbillies. Life is lived much slower in these parts. If you expect fast service and good drivers, you better not take up residence in these parts.

Amie and I never wanted to leave Scottsdale in the first place, but the economy, and the fact that neither of us could secure employment, led to our decision to move. We understand that life doesn't always deal you the perfect hand, but nonetheless, you are still dealt a hand. If I had to compare, I'd say that we were dealt, in a game of Texas Hold'em, a Queen-10, with another Queen on the flop, and a 10 on the turn card, hoping to hit a Queen on the river....meaning we have to wait a couple rounds to see what the final result will be, but definitely worth staying from the initial cards. We are looking at this experience, probably for a couple years, each year being a new card. If after all the cards are turned over and we decide the hand isn't good enough to stay, we'll pack our shit, fold our cards and head back to the promise land we miss so much already (after a month). But, on the other hand, we could hit that Queen....and things will be totally different, but it's all about how long we can tolerate it, how well the business opportunities present themselves, and how happy we are with our surroundings. So, time will tell, and it'll depend on how big our "pot" is to keep us in the game here.

When I first moved to Scottsdale in April of 2008, I was dead set on living there for MANY years. I had a job, the woman of my dreams, a place of my own, a nice care and just enjoyed being in the Scottsdale atmosphere. Granted, I hated my job, but I only looked at that as temporary, granted I could find something else in the area. Unfortunately they got to me first by laying me off.........which I must say is the best thing that ever happened to me in the way of employment, because I thoroughly hated going into that place day in and day out, but I needed the paycheck. Then a month later, Amie got laid off, so here we are, both jobless, with car payments, bills, rent, and any number of things you can think of. Let me just take a moment to officially announce the company that laid us both off, since I usually just refer to them as my "Former Employer"....and I do this so when people google the company name, maybe they will get this blog and read it and find out what kind of company they really are.....and I do digress, but I must..................AERO JET SERVICES, SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA.....PIECES OF SHIT. Ok, I've done my duty on that one. So, we're both unemployed, both have zero hits on our resumes, zero prospects and looking for anything to pay the bills, because the cash flow is running desperately low! So, fast forward a couple months...enter Birmingham, Alabama. Going into it, I tried to look at it with the highest hopes and intentions, and I still do. Ironically, it's holding up to those intentions, but what I didn't anticipate is how much I love Arizona and Scottsdale. I think I got caught up in looking at all the positives of "starting over" that I lost sight of how much I loved where I was. But, that's normal I think...noone wants to leave where they are comfortable so they start irrationally rationalizing the acceptance of what's upon them. I did just that!! Now, I'm going on record in saying that we do like it here, and we will be ok, but I didn't expect my yearning for Arizona to be this strong. I mean, it's going to be 75 there today for shit's sake, and SUNNY! How can a person NOT love that?? There are some downfalls about Scottsdale too, like expensive housing and more importantly to me, unaffordable golf, but it's nice to know that once I can afford a $150 round of golf, I have an unlimited amount of world class golf courses to go enjoy it on (yes, there is some sarcasm there)..........the golf thing is my biggest bitch about Scottsdale, you have to be rich to enjoy golf there........but the golf thing is my biggest compliment about Alabama....it's actually affordable.

Scottsdale is just so much more entertaining....you have the Suns, the Diamondbacks, and the Cardinals.....pro sports year around, not to mention a BCS Bowl Game once a year, and they are part of the Super Bowl rotation, they had the All-Star game there this year, the FBR Open (PGA golf event), Nascar races and a countless amount of other things going on there, ALL the time. Birmingham??? They have good music, I have to give them some credit there, but zero sports. You have to be into college to enjoy sports here....it's all Alabama or Auburn, and quite frankly, I don't give a rats ass about either. Atlanta is two hours away, so I can get the sporting events there, but who likes Atlanta?..... and Nascar is 50 miles away, but it's not that same as when it's "just down the road".

So, all in all, we like it here for what it's worth, we want to most definitely find our way back to Arizona very soon. So, I'm giving this place a year to two years MAX and if nothing happens in the way of our careers, we're packing our shit and heading back HOME!

I'll post pictures on my next post of our trip back to the worst place of all....Glouster. It'll be nice to see everyone, but depressing to see how shitty the area is getting! But that conversation is for another day.

But, since I haven't put up a Perspective in Music for awhile, I'll do that now, so hopefully you'll enjoy hearing this artist that I'm sure a few of you haven't heard before....and if you have, hopefully it'll serve as a reminder at how great he is!

This post will feature an artist by the name of Nick Drake. Nick is not known for many productions, in fact he supposedly killed himself after only 3 albums....but his work is genius, at least it is to my ears....here is a brief biography and some video and audio of his amazing work!!

Since Nick Drake's death, his eerie, jazz-tinged folk music has had an ever-growing cult following. Born to British parents, Drake spent his first two years on the Indian subcontinent before moving to the English village of Tanworth-in-Arden. He played saxophone and clarinet in school but turned to the guitar at age 16. Two years later he began writing his own songs. He was a student at Cambridge University in 1968, when Ashley Hutchings of Fairport Convention heard him performing at London's Roundhouse. Hutchings introduced him to Joe Boyd, who managed Fairport, John Martyn, and other leaders of the British folk revival. Boyd immediately signed Drake to Island Records and put him on Witchseason concert bills. In 1970 Elton John was hired as a session vocalist to record Drake’s songs to use as demos to entice established singers to covet Drake’s compositions.

Drake was a shy, awkward performer and remained aloof from the public and press. By all accounts his isolation and confusion, results of severe mental illness that at times would leave him catatonic and requiring hospitalizations, grew more severe. By the end of 1970 he had stopped doing concerts. He lived for a short while in Paris at the behest of Françoise Hardy (who never released the recordings she made of his songs) and then settled in Hampstead, where he became increasingly reclusive, allowing the company of only his close friends John and Beverly Martyn. He recorded Pink Moon totally unaccompanied, submitted the tapes to Island by mail, and entered a psychiatric rest home. When he left the home months later, vowing never to sing another song, he got a job as a computer programmer. In 1973 he began writing songs again. Drake had recorded four when he died in bed at his parents’ home in 1974, the victim of an overdose of antidepressant medication. Suicide was considered probable by the coroner, but Drake’s friends and family disagreed. Fruit Tree is a box set containing his three albums plus the four songs recorded in 1973. In 2000 Drake’s music reached a much larger audience than during his lifetime after Volkswagen used his “Pink Moon” in a car commercial, which greatly spurred sales of his recordings. This music also turned up on a few film soundtracks and became the subject of tributes performed by such artists as Duncan Sheik. Drake’s original albums were remastered and repackaged on CD in late 2000.

A documentary....Worth watching! (Parts 1-4)

I know this one is a little less "mainstream", but I recommend checking out his stuff............let me know how you like it.

Have a good one!

Until next time!
Kyle

Sweet Home Alabama!

2009-01-26T23:27:00.000-06:00

After a VERY BUSY January, I have actually found time to sit down and update everyone of the past few weeks, with a glass of wine sitting in front of the fireplace of course! Blogging is supposed to be relaxing, so I figure it needs to be done with wine and fire.

Sunday, January 11, my car, my golf clubs, my guitar, a small suitcase and myself, in our lonesome, started an excruciatingly long journey, which I mentioned previously, from Scottsdale, Arizona to Birmingham, Alabama. I had two goals for this trip, the first to get my car and a few belongings to the state, and the second and more important, to find Amie and I a place to live! My journey started around 7:45 AM Sunday morning. I knew I was in for a long day but I wasn't sure exactly how far I'd get on day 1. The initial part of the trip was great of course, with the scenery surrounding Scottsdale, Phoenix and heading towards Tucson. I've driven to Tucson a couple times, so the drive started to get boring pretty quickly, but my salvation was that I have never traveled beyond Tucson in a car, much less through Southern New Mexico, so I was interested to see how that would go. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I should have known to expect pretty much nothing. It's just a bunch of desert landscape......long, straight, flat roads you can see for MILES and MILES.......Ever seen a 40 mile stretch of road, perfectly straight and never-ending?? I have, officially!! Up next, El Paso, Texas...affectionally known to myself as "El PassHOLE", Texas. WHY? Because it is definitely the asshole of the U.S. Anyone that has ever traveled to a "border town" between the U.S. and Mexico, knows the quality of town you are about to encounter. It could be considered an "economic center" gone terribly wrong. It's amazing you can see the very line where poverty is divided by extreme poverty. On one side of the hill/valley you have acceptable housing, and even in some areas, places I would consider living, and on the other, shacks hanging off the hillside that entice you to pull over just at the anticipation that they might all start one big "houseslide" down the hill. It's amazing the difference in less than one mile of landscape.

After scooting past El Passhole in one piece, I started on what I knew would be the longest, most uninteresting portion of my trip, which was the long haul across Texas. I knew Texas was a big state, but...SON OF A BITCH, it is HUGE!!!!!!!!!!! I found myself about 2 hours into Texas and was ready to be out of the state. I didn't know if it was because the lack of interesting landscape or the fact that this is the very state that produced the worst President in modern history. Knowing my feelings on that subject, I have money that says it was the latter. The one positive about Texas was after I got past the mountains of west Texas and into the flat lands, it was evening and the sun was setting and I got to see about an hour long sunset. Not just the setting sun for an hour like you see everywhere, but I mean a brilliant multi-color sunset that lasted longer than anywhere than I have ever seen it. Because the land is so flat, you can see the sun and its color for a lot longer than you can anywhere where it's hilly and the the sunsets last about 20 minutes......OH, and I can't believe I almost forgot, their daytime speed limit is 80, so I was balls to the wall on the gas pedal for a long as I could possibly justify it. Once the sun dropped over the extremely flat horizon, I was none too happy to drop back to a 65 m.p.h. speed limit. My first day of driving, I drove 1100 miles, give or take, and finally found a Holiday Inn Express about 50 miles past Dallas at about 1:00 AM. I spent the night there and awoke for the next 9 hours of my drive into Alabama. The scenery from there to Birmingham was pretty consistant. It was a variation of rolling hills, farm land and forest....it reminded me a lot of "back home" with the landscape, but also reminded me that I missed the desert already and I hadn't even moved. The highlight of this part of the trip was crossing the Mississippi river which is always a spectacle.

Once I got to Birmingham, I relaxed at my cousins for the rest of the evening to get geared up for my massive house hunt I was about to embark on the next couple days. Looking for a place to live, in an entirely new place, is a very daunting task, and at times very discouraging. More than once I had one of these two things happen: 1) Thanks for your interest but that residence is off the market; or, 2) (insert some long sales pitch for the place) and rent will be (insert a ridiculously unaffordable amount of RENT (an amount you'd rather pay towards a mortgage)). Going into this housing search, I had done enough research to know which areas I would be focusing my search. We all know that it's no secret that Alabama, in addition to a fair amount of southern cities, isn't necessarily the safest place to reside. So, I had certain parameters established, in which the areas I would consider had to fall in. Anyone that can read between the lines knows that these areas aren't prominent here, but, nevertheless, I found one!!!!!!!! On the evening of day 2 I found a place for us, in a very nice neighborhood. We have a three bedroom, 2 1/2 bath townhouse with our own yard and garage, backed up against a forest. I'm pretty excited for how things are going to be when everything starts blooming and growing and I can take Amie for a hike back in the woods, reminiscing how it was growing up. She's always been a suburban girl so this is all a new experience for her and I want her to be able to appreciate this wilderness the way have I have been able to growing up in the sticks of Southeast Ohio.

After I secured our future residence, I flew back to Arizona to pick up the rest of my stuff, Amie and her stuff, and the dog. We decided that we both felt better with all of our stuff in our possession instead of some shipper, so we decided we would rent a truck and we would make the drive again. Initially, we had planned to tow Amie's car behind the moving truck, but after some careful consideration, we decided we would check into getting it shipped. The initial estimates were way too expensive, so I enlisted the help of my favorite gay cousin Doug, who is in the automobile brokerage business. (If anyone has a dealership that they want to liase with to buy/sell any type car, Doug is your guy.....introduce yourself, introduce Doug and his company, let Doug do the work, you get a healthy commission....WAY SIMPLE and EASY MONEY....go to http://www.ctsullivans.com/ and contact Doug...No, Doug didn't pay me for the Plug!) So, through Doug we got a smokin deal and decided we'd send the car and not have to stress about dragging it behind us.

I flew back on Thursday, had Friday to get things finalized, the movers were coming at noon on Saturday to load all of our stuff onto the truck. I've practically broken my back moving before and I have vowed to NEVER, and I do mean NEVER, to ever move myself again. My rationale is the money I'd spend in movers loading my shit for me is astronomically cheaper than paying for a back surgery. Call me lazy, pompous, selfish or whatever, but I figure if people are maintaining a business of moving, then I'm going to be a consistant customer and relish in the fact that I'll be able to walk when I'm 40. We got all of our things loaded on Saturday, had a Tuesday morning departure planned, so we planned time to enjoy our last couple days in beautiful Arizona with our families before we headed out for the big trip across the country.

The trip across in the comfort of my own car was bad enough, much less in a moving truck, so you can sense my enthusiasm, I'm sure. But, thankfully this time, I had Amie and the Dog to keep me company and we made it "our" trip of sorts. Even though the noise level was way loud and sitting on a shitter would have been more comfortable than the truck seats, we made the best out of it and had a great experience. Even though the landscape was the same, the trip was preceptually different because we left at a different time, had a slower vehicle and I got to see different places along the way in different light. For example, I had not idea what East Central Texas looked like because from Odessa, Texas to east of Dallas I drove in total darkness. On the first trip, just past Odessa I started seeing all these flashing red lights, on and off in unicen, and thought they were oil rigs....thousands of lights along a 50 mile stretch, on and off all at the same time....it was very interesting to see at night. We drove through during the day light hours, I realized was I was seeing was a wind farm that stretched for miles and miles.....Thousands of windmill's generating electricity. It truely was amazing to see such an engineering feat. It was totally ironic to me at the time as well. What I thought was oil wells and their contribution to destroying Mother Nature was in fact an enormous wind farm trying to save Mother Nature. Amie is passionate about green energy, so this was her favorite part of the trip, which made me happy as well. Once we passed that, we went into Dallas, which I only saw at night, and that too as pretty interesting to see Downtown. We quickly scooted past Dallas and headed towards Louisiana and Mississippi River. We arrived at the Mississippi River just as the sun was setting ont he horizon. At the where we crossed the river, it juts back to the west a bit, and since the sun is setting in the southwest due to the winter months, it looked like the sun was setting on the river which made for some amazing colors and scenery. We both didn't want the trip across the bridge to end. So, after that, it was dark and on to Birmingham we went.

We stayed at my cousins house that night, and promptly in the morning went to sign our lease. After the lease signing we celebrated with a breakfast at the Cracker Barrel. Once that was over we headed to our new place to meet the movers. I hired them on this end for the same reasons that I stated before. That went realatively quick and we were once again inundated with boxes, but this time, since we have a lot more space, it doesn't seem quite as bad. Amie did in an amazing job in two days getting most everything organized and put away while I started the new job. I'm thankful that she has a knack for organization and wants thing as tidy as I do.

Amie flew to Denver today to meet with our wedding planner in a series of meetings at different venues for the wedding and reception, floral suppliers and photographers. I told her she needed to go now, because once the job hunt commences and she finds a job, there won't be any time to do all the things that need accomplished IN Denver and they need to be taken care of. So, she is there now and will be coming back Saturday to start the massive job hunt. So, if anyone knows someone in BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA that wants to HIRE a PRETTY GIRL to WORK for them, let us know! FYI: based on the last sentence and the way the web searches for things, this blog will probably be a hit on the web for something non related (side note: the above capital letters does not insinuate prostitution ;-))....but it's all about exposure.

In a nutshell, everything is going good...we both like it so far and we are looking forward to all the exciting things we have planned for this year (except for the summer humidity)!!!

Until Next Time,
Kyle

New Year, New Chapter

2009-01-06T00:10:00.000-06:00

A couple big events have happened since my last post, so this will serve as an announcement of sorts. First, I have decided to accept the job in Alabama so Amie and I will be moving to Birmingham in the next couple weeks. The prospect of a new job is exciting in that I'll start getting a paycheck again, something that I've missed the past 2 1/2 months. I've heard good things about living in Alabama, so I'm anxious to see what that's going to be all about. I'm dreading the humidity though, but I'll probably be used to it since I'm not totally climatized to desert life yet. I do feel sorry for Amie though, having only lived in Denver and Scottsdale, both very dry climates. I will drive my car over this Sunday or Monday and spend 5 or so days looking for a place for us to live. Then on Jan. 19, I'll fly back out here to Phoenix to get Amie, the dog and our things. We are going to do the Uhaul option as we feel better if our stuff is in our possession at all times. Plus, the experience of driving across the country will be a first for Amie, so we'll make it a fun trip. The only shitty party for me is two 25-hour trips in as many weeks. I'll keep you posted on the move as things progress, in addition to addresses and such.

The next announcement, and definitely the bigger of the two, is that this past Friday, Amie and I were officially engaged. I've posted some pictures of the day below. We spent the day in Sedona, Arizona, one of my favorite places. Amie had never been there before, and having living lived here for 6 years and being so close and never having visited, it was an absolute must that we visit before we leave for 'Bama. We took the long way into Sedona, via Oak Creek Canyon. You basically go to Flagstaff and come in from the north. When you reach the canyon, you drop about 3,000 feet in a couple miles so it's a pretty dramatic drive into Sedona. Once we got to Sedona, we looked around for a bit and then decided to have a beer while taking in the amazing scenery. On the way out of town, there was one more place I wanted to take Amie. There is a church built into the red rocks that has the most amazing view of the entire area, and the church is amazingly beautiful. It was there that the question was asked. We are planning a September 19, 2009 wedding in Denver, Colorado, and we'll also be having a reception in Glouster a couple weeks afterwards. I'll keep you all updated as those developments happen. All in all, its going to be a busy few months with the move and wedding planning......enjoy the pics.

(I thought by changing my layout, I could get this picture thing figured out....apparently NOT! Talk about irritating.)

Almost to Flagstaff, foot of snow on the ground

More Snow.......

Amie's dog, Brooke

Me, Amie and Brooke

Amie at the Canyon

The road down to the bottom of the canyon

The Canyon to Sedona

Having a frost adult beverage

Driving up to the Church

Another angle of the church

Walking up to the Church

The inside of the Church

Us at the Church

Amie and Brooke

Me and Brooke

The Very Spot the question was asked

The hardware

Until next time,

Kyle

Another Perspective In Music

2008-12-25T22:41:00.000-06:00

Since I don't have any happenings in my boring life, and people want me to write more, I thought I'd entertain this post with another Perspective in Music. Afterall, with all the time I have with my unemployment status, why not spend some time doing what I love to do best.....listen to music.

This Perspective In Music features a band from a previous generation of pot smoking hippies....which is the generation of music that I, on any given day, tend to pull my playlist from. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, depending on what album your talking about, sometimes they are called just Crosby, Stills and Nash, is a band that I had never heard of until I attended on of their concerts. I was a freshman in college at Ohio State University, and some friends of mine from home were coming to Columbus to see a concert. I had asked who they were seeing, and they told me, "Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.". My first reaction was, "Who the hell is that?". After some research on the very first music downloading site Napster, I found that I actually liked these "old guys". So, I bought my ticket, and because I was so late into the game, I had to sit by myself. In hindsight, it turned out better because I was able to really pay attention to the concert.....and what an AMAZING concert it was. It was only the second concert I had been to, but I was an instant fan. I have since seen them two other times, and each time they continue to amaze. The nature of the band is that you only sometimes see all 4 of them, other times you just see 3 or them, and sometimes you just see 2. So, the videos I'll post below may have some or all of them. They could all have their own post, but they are best served together (I'll do another of Neil Young, he most definitely deserves his own post). But first, a brief biography........................ Enjoy!

Crosby, Stills & Nash, also Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when including occasional fourth member Neil Young, are a folk rock/rock supergroup. The band is known for their distinctive vocal harmonies and activist politics, and have a strong association with the segment of 1960s counterculture known as the Woodstock Nation. They are commonly referred to by their initials CSN or CSNY.Initially formed by the trio of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, the genesis of the group lies in two 1960s rock bands, The Byrds and The Hollies, and the demise of a third, Buffalo Springfield. Friction existed between Crosby and his fellows in the Byrds, which came to a head specifically in 1967 over two issues: his substitution, at the invitation of Stills, for an absent Neil Young during Buffalo Springfield's set at the famous Monterey Pop Festival in June; and the Byrds' rejection of Crosby's controversial "Triad" composition as either a single or an album track in August. As a result, Crosby was dismissed from the Byrds in the fall of 1967. By early 1968, Buffalo Springfield disintegrated over personal issues, and after aiding in putting together the band's final album, Stills found himself unemployed by the summer. He and Crosby began meeting informally and jamming, the results of one encounter in Florida on Crosby's schooner being the song "Wooden Ships," composed in collaboration with another guest, Paul Kantner. Nash had been introduced to Crosby when the Byrds had toured the UK in 1966, and when the Hollies ventured to California in 1968, Nash resumed his acquaintance with Crosby.At a party at the home of either Cass Elliot of the Mamas and Papas, Joni Mitchell, or John Sebastian, depending on differing accounts, Nash asked Stills and Crosby to repeat their performance of a new song by Stills, "You Don't Have To Cry," blending a second harmony on the spot into their singing. The vocals gelled, and the three realized that they had lucked into something quite special.

The Hollies, who had enjoyed pop hits in the mid-sixties, had been struggling with the changing music scene in England due to the advent of psychedelia, and were planning to do an album of all Dylan covers. Seeing this as a step in the wrong direction, and creatively frustrated with the Hollies, Nash decided to quit and throw his lot in with Crosby and Stills. After failing an audition with the Beatles' Apple Records, they were signed to Atlantic Records by Ahmet Ertegün, who had been a fan of the Springfield and disappointed by that band's demise. From the outset, given their respective band histories, the trio decided not to be locked into a group structure, using their surnames as identification to ensure independence and a guarantee against the band simply continuing without one of them, as had both the Byrds and the Hollies after the departures of Crosby and Nash. Their record contract with Atlantic reflected this, positioning CSN with a unique flexibility unheard of for an untested group. The trio also picked up a unique management team in Elliot Roberts and David Geffen, who had engineered their situation with Atlantic and would help to consolidate clout for the group in the industry. Roberts kept the band focused and dealt with egos, while Geffen handled the business deals, since, in Crosby's words, they needed a shark and Geffen was it. Roberts and Geffen would play key roles in securing the band's success during the early years.

Their first album, Crosby, Stills & Nash of 1969 was an immediate hit, spawning two Top 40 hit singles and receiving key airplay on the new FM radio format, in its early days populated by unfettered disc jockeys prone to playing entire albums at once. Other than the presence of drummer Dallas Taylor, Stills had handled the lion's share of the instrumental parts himself, a testament to his talent but leaving the band in need of additional personnel to be able to tour, now a necessity given the debut album's commercial impact.Enter Neil Young.

Déjà Vu album coverRetaining Taylor, the band decided initially to hire a keyboard player, Stills at one point approaching Steve Winwood, who declined. Over dinner with Ertegün, the Atlantic label head suggested Canadian singer/songwriter Neil Young, also managed by Roberts, as a fairly obvious choice. Initial reservations were held by Stills and Nash, Stills owing to his history with Young in Buffalo Springfield, Nash due to his not knowing Young at all outside of his work. But after several meetings, the trio expanded to a quartet with Young a full partner, the name duly changed law firm-style, the terms allowing Young full freedom to maintain a parallel career with his new back-up band, Crazy Horse. With Young on board, the group went on tour in the late summer of 1969 through the following January, their second gig being a baptism-by-fire at the Woodstock Festival in front of their peers, CSNY with their hit record of the event later being seen as its embodiment. By contrast, little mention is made of the group's subsequent appearance at Altamont, CSNY having escaped mostly unscathed from the fallout of that debacle. Great anticipation had built for the group, and their first album with Young, Déjà Vu, arrived in stores in March of 1970 to zealous enthusiasm, topping the charts and generating three hit singles. Reflecting unerringly the tastes and viewpoints of the counterculture as the sixties changed into the seventies, with protest against both the establishment and the Vietnam War gearing up, the group made no secret of their political leanings, Crosby in particular. While staying at a house down the peninsula from San Francisco, the ubiquitous reports of the Kent State shootings reached Young and Crosby, inspiring Young to write his protest classic "Ohio," recorded and rush-released weeks later and another Top 20 hit for the group.

Between "Ohio," their appearance in both the festival and movie of Woodstock, and the runaway success of their two albums, the group found themselves in the position of enjoying a level of adulation far greater than experienced with their previous bands. The collective talents allowed the band to straddle all the flavors of popular music eminent at the time, from country-rock to confessional balladry, from acoustic guitars and voice to electric guitar and boogie. Indeed, with the Beatles break-up made public by April of 1970, and with Bob Dylan in reclusive low-key activity since mid-1966, CSNY found itself as the adopted standard bearers for the Woodstock Nation, vouchsafing an importance in society as counterculture figureheads equaled at the time in rock and roll only by The Rolling Stones. An entire sub-industry of singer-songwriters in California either had their careers boosted or came to prominence in the wake of CSNY, among them Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, and The Eagles. All were managed, incidentally, by Roberts, and all but Nyro signed to Geffen's Asylum label, which would be the home for what came to be known as the Mellow Mafia for the remainder of the decade.

However, the tenuous nature of the partnership, built into the group philosophy from the onset and strained by their success, weighed on the individual personalities, and the group imploded after their tour in the summer of 1970. Concert recordings from that tour would end up on another chart-topper, the 1971 double album Four Way Street, but the group would never completely recapture momentum as years would pass between trio and quartet recordings

This Song, "Ohio", was written in the aftermath of the shootings at Kent State University that ended with several students killed and wounded. I actually know one of the people who was wounded, shot in the back, and now confined to a wheel chair. This era of politics and music are pretty powerful, and brings a whole new meaning when it hits close to home.

Umployment During the Holidays

2008-12-22T23:02:00.000-06:00

I first my apologize in my severe lack of motivation to post another blog, but when your live is boring, with no work, there really isn't much to write about. Amie and I definitely have a lot of time on our hands these days with us both being in the cheese line. The good thing is, we aren't totally broke in that we are finally both collecting unemployment, Amie from Arizona and me from Ohio, strangely enough. So, thank you to all of my readers paying taxes in those states!! Your contributions are appreciated!!

Our days have been filled with lots of job hunting. We have expanded our search to Denver, Colorado, in addition to here in the Phoenix area. Amie is from Denver, and during our visit, I really liked the city, so I wouldn't have any problem living there...other than the snow, but coming from Ohio, I know I would already be accustomed to it. Let me just say that job hunting during the end of the year, during the holiday season, during a recession, is undoubtedly the most "futile feeling" effort I've ever put forth. No companies are hiring in this economy, and noone hires normally this time of year.....so there ya have it, resulting in a 2 month unemployment stint. My best advice to anyone reading this, make sure you have a "rainy day fund" for the unknown twist and turns in your life. If not for that, I'd be up a shit creek without a paddle.

On a positive employment note, I may have a potential opportunity to work with my cousins company in Birmingham, Alabama. I went to visit Birmingham last weekend, and it wasn't all that bad actually. Birmingham doesn't sound like the most attractive city in the world to visit, but everyone I've spoken to that has lived there, or known people that lived there, say it's actually a great city to live in. The location is great, as I see it. Birmingham is 2 hours from Atlanta, 3 hours from Nashville, 3 1/2 hours from some of the so-called most beautiful beaches in the United States on the Gulf, 4 hours from Memphis, 5 hours from New Orleans and for the occasional trip back "home" (and for people to visit), it's only about a 9 hour drive to Glouster. The major negatives of Alabama, and there are only two that I worry about, humidity and mosquitos. I've so much enjoyed the lack of humidity out here in Arizona, that I totally dread going back to it. Even in Denver, it's a very dry climate, so I'm sure the humidity wouldn't be nearly as bad as it is in Alabama. But, in the grand scheme, I have to go where the opportunity and money lead me, and if it's Birmingham, then I'll go....and to all those who are asking, Amie will move with me to. So, stay tuned on more developments on this situation.

Downtown Birmingham

Just in case you don't know where Birmingham is....Here ya go.

Christmas - Past and Present

This will be my first Christmas spent away from home. I'm certainly going to miss my family on these days, but really, as you get older, Christmas consists of an hour of opening presents in the morning, an hour of visiting, then you head to a dinner for a couple hours and then the day is over. With my current situation, I just couldn't justify the expense of going home for a few hours of socializing. I'm going to miss everyone but I know they all understand. If I lived in Birmingham, I definitely would have made the drive up. Amie and decided that we would have our Christmas once we both got jobs and had some money to spend on gifts. Until then, we are just focusing on the meaning of Christmas, something I think people tend to forget as they get showered with gifts. So, this will be a new type of Christmas for us, but it is most definitely humbling and allows us not to forget why we even celebrate the holiday

I was recently scanning some pictures into my computer for the sake of preservation and ran across the following pictures. I am only posting the Christmas pictures in this post, but will post others in the future.....it's always fun to look back and wonder what is going through your parents head when they take some of these pictures.

(FYI: I STILL can't figure out these damn pictures. All the sudden one day, the pictures didn't fit on the screen. It's extremely irritating!!!!)

The anticipation.............

What every kid wants.......riiiiiight

My first visit to Santa

Trent and his new doll.......still plays with them to this day...hahah

Anxious to see what Santa brought

Jackpot!!

You weren't cool until you had an E.T. Pal.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!

Kyle

It's Official.

2008-12-04T20:10:00.001-06:00

I'm an idiot.

Pictures

2008-12-04T20:05:00.000-06:00

OK, I'm an idiot. Someone who has experience with this bullshit we call blogging, can they enlighten me on how to fix the damn pictures so they aren't cut off.

Thanks.

Let me experiment one more time and see if I can figure out this picture bullshit. I'll try to show you in one complete picture you don't have to click on to see what a cloudy day in Arizona is like, since they don't happen that often.

Coldplay

2008-12-04T19:26:00.000-06:00

For my birthday back in July (17), Amie had gotten me tickets to see Coldplay. They were orginially supposed to play on July 12, but something was going on and the show got rescheduled to November 23. So, a couple days after our return from Denver, we got the pleasure of going to see the show. Again, if this wasn't paid for prior to the Cheese Line, I definitely wouldn't have went.

This was my first time seeing Coldplay in concert. WOW. They were great. VERY energetic. My gay cousin Doug says they start sounding the same after awhile, but I kinda have to disagree. I think they've got enough new material out now that it gives their sound quite a bit of diversity. After the first two albums, I'd agree, but now, not so much.

Here are some pictures of the show, I'll post some YouTube videos below the pictures for those few of you that may not know who Coldplay is...............

Until next time,

Kyle

A Birthday Trip To Denver

2008-12-04T17:53:00.000-06:00

Amie celebrated her birthday on Friday, November 21 and to mark the special occasion, we decided we would take a trip to her stomping grounds, Denver, Colorado. This decision was made while we both had incomes and thankfully, the bulk of it was paid for by the time I joined the cheese line. We had plans to visit some of her family, hang out with some of her friends, hook up with one of my college buddies and the grand finale was attending the Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders game on Sunday before flying home late Sunday night.

On Friday the 21st we headed to the airport around 7AM so we could make our 8:45AM departure on United ("U-knot-head" in the aviation world). We were sitting on the plane, and they were nearly about to shut the door, Amie and I were talking about the things we were going to do, I mentioned the game, and then she asked me the dreaded question: "Did you bring the tickets?"......The tickets were hanging on the refridgerator on Thursday night when I last saw them, and sure as shit, they were still hanging there as we were sitting on the plane. It took me some convincing Amie that I really did forget them before she would believe it. Our options were limited at this point because they had shut the door to the aircraft, and we all know once that door is shut, there is no getting off, at least for forgotten football tickets, per FAA regulations. We brainstormed for a moment, and Amie ended up calling her Dad who had to come back to my apartment (thankfully Amie has a key, which her dad happened to have her car), get the tickets and go FedEx them to me for a Saturday Delivery. After an inconvenienced trip back to town for her Dad and a $48.00 charge to my credit card, those two little pieces of paper were on their way......and it was those two little pieces of paper that was the main reason for our trip. My fingers were crossed that they would arrive. I was confident, that it was my luck, that the tickets would get lost in the shuffle somewhere.......so, it took a few drinks Friday night to forget about the predicament and worry about it on Saturday morning. It was out of my control.

Once we took off, the captain advised us of Denver weather. We took off in 70 degree sun, but was soon informed at about 18,000 feet, that it was a balmy 25 degrees with freezing fog at our destination. My bones started cackling right then, most likely because I only had a short sleeve shirt on and a jacket. By the time we arrived it had warmed up to a steamy 32. We grabbed our bags, headed outside where the wind felt like a knife stabbing you in the back. We waited patiently for the bus to get our rental car, the whole while bitching about the fact we could see our breath.....we were second guessing our choice in destinations by this point. We finally made it to the car and couldn't get into the heat fast enough. We first went to Amie's Grandparents house. We all went to a birthday lunch at PF Changs, which is one of my favroites. After that, we went back to the house to have cake and ice cream. After hanging out a little bit with the grandparents, we started our trek downtown to check into our hotel. In the meantime, I had been in contact with one of my college buddies, Dave, who I haven't seen since college. He and some of his friends were heading out for the evening, so we decided to join. I'll spare the details, but we had a great time, hit a few bars, had way too many birthday drinks and shots, and spend the better part of Saturday morning trying to decide if we were dying or hungover. Good times, well worth they end result.

As we neared recovery on Saturday, we headed back out to her Grandparents for a few minutes. Then we went and met up with a couple of Amie's friends for dinner. We had all intentions of going out again, but we just didn't have it in us. Call it age if you want, but we were beat. One night of heavy partying is about all I can handle anymore....damn getting old!!!!! So, we stayed in, and we were very thankful for that decision as was my wallet. Our main goal was to not be hung over for the game on Sunday and also because it was going to be such a long day, not getting back down to Phoenix until midnight.

We met up with my buddy on Sunday before the game at ESPNZone in downtown Denver, a few blocks from the football stadium, Invesco Field. We had lunch and had a couple beers to set the tone for the game. As kickoff neared, we headed over to battle the traffic and find parking. It was the first time in my life I paid $40 to park a f'en car....SERIOUSLY!! I was flabberghasted. I'm in the wrong damn business......well, I WAS in the wrong business (when I was employed). The game was a great time, our seats were damn good, the atmosphere was great, the scenery was beautiful, the weather was perfect...........Everything was great, except the Broncos got their asses beat. If you are a true Bronco fan (and I'm getting there, but I've learned through Amie), if the Raiders beat you, it's damn near a national tragedy. If you're a Raiders fan, I'm sorry, but I have to say, every Raiders fan I've met out here is an obnoxious arrogant asshole that is not delight to hang around. But that's just my observation.

After the game, we went to the airport, boarded the plane back to the valley and the warm weather. We would have stayed for an extra day but at the time the arrangements were made, we assumed we had to be back to work on Monday, but it turns out, we were both able to sleep in the next day, since we are both in the cheese line. But, because of that trip, and how much I enjoyed the city, we are not looking for work up there, in addition to here in Phoenix/Scottsdale.

Here are some pictures from the trip......... (I just discovered I boned up the pictures again...so you have to click on them to see the whole picture. You'd think for as popular as this blogging shit is, they would at least make it more user friendly. Damn.)

All of us at the bar....I'm sure we've had too many by this point

Me and Amie

Me, Amie and Dave at ESPNZone before the game

The old "Mile High Stadium" made out of Coors cans

The Bronco on the Scoreboard

Our Seats

Me and Amie heading into the game

Denver at Dusk....very photogenic city

Until Next time,

Kyle

The Age Old Question

2008-11-20T20:21:00.000-06:00

What do you want to do when you grow up?

We've all been asked, and we all have changed our answers a hundred times (unless you are one of those lucky people that knew from the time you left the womb what you wanted to be). I, like the majority, have tried to figure out time and time again what exactly it is I'd like to "be" when I grow up, and I have to be honest....I still don't know. Isn't that a hell of a note, twenty eight years old, and still can't figure it out.

In my effort to explore as many occupations as a person can explore in their lifetime, I continued my quest by attending Real Estate licensing classes over the past two weeks. Before I get into the recollection of that experience, first let me to explore my path that I've traveled thus far.

It's my opinion that one doesn't really have a consciousness about what it means to choose a career and tread that path for the rest of their life until you near the age of 10, and even then, you don't realize the permanancy of it, and every action you take in school, every penny you spend and every effort you make needs to be directed towards that goal of having a career. I do, however, understand that many people change careers along the way seeking that one illusive"career love" that unfortunately some don't ever find. I envy those of you who knew exactly what you wanted to do from a young age, stuck with it all these years, are still doing it and have enjoyed it along the entire way. I, on the other hand, haven't been so fortunate.

When I was very young, before my entrance into the career consciousness state of mind, I had envisioned I would be a Doctor. This was simply because my Grandpa was a Doctor, and what kid doesn't want to like their Grandpa. That desire was somewhat short lived at the time, because I had found something else I was interested in. Being from small town Ohio, you don't have much exposure with the types of pofessions that have a lot of glitter, such as flying airplanes. Looking back I can remember, in vivid detail, all the times I got to go to the airport to pick up Aunt Dianne and Uncle Bill (and some combination of their kids if they made the trip). This was back in the day when you could walk all the way back to the gate and actually meet your party as they got off the airplane. Of course the best thing was seeing my family, but I couldn't help but be distracted and mezmorized by the airplanes and everything about them. Even when I wasn't going to the airport for a pick up, I'd look up in the sky at passing jets and their contrails and wonder what it would be like to fly, and of course, Dianne and Bill were on every flight that crossed over, so I thought, so I'd always wave thinking they might be able to see me! I had never flown, I didn't know you couldn't see the ground with type of detail. How nieve our young are!! I knew that I loved airplanes and flying, but didn't have the means, exposure or need to get close to the profession, and certainly not at such a young age.

As I grew older and entered high school, the topic of "what you want to do when you grow up" was a subject heavily talked about, rightfully, because we were nearing the next phase of our life which is where we have to make those lasting decisions about where we want to take our lives. By this time, I had reverted my ambitions back to considering being a Doctor, but always had that burning interest in aviation. Additionally, because of my lack of exposure to the industy being from the "asshole of the world" better known as Glouster, I thought that my being 100% deaf in one ear (yes, it's true) that an airline career would be totally out of the question. But, I decided that I would look at other options in the field, along with options in the medical field. Examing the medical field, I realized that I really can't handle blood and guts, so my focus shifted to Dentistry, which I very much liked and could see myself in a role like that for many years. Additionally, I thought that if I couldn't fly the planes (because of the hearing) I would become a mechanical engineer and design them. Both viable careers, both well respected and well paying. As my Senior year was in full swing, it came time to start applying to colleges. Through the research I had conducted, I determined I would apply to Ohio State University because they have an exceptional Dental program and a nationally recognized Aviation program. I also decided to apply to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana because they have one of the top Engineering programs in the country. Fortunately, I was accepted to both schools, but I had the ever confusing decision of which college to attend. After some further deliberation, I decided that if I couldn't fly the airplane, I sure as hell didn't want to design it....it would have just been a tease to what I actually wanted to do. So, I made the decision to go to Ohio State University and enter into the pre-dental progam.

Once I had decided to go to Ohio State, I had to do the orientation over the summer for new incoming students. Mom went with me, I got all signed up for classes, and took my foreign language placement test (I was praying I'd test out, but had to take 3 classes instead of 4, so I guess that's better than starting from the beginning). While we were there, we had decided to go have a conversation with the Chair of the aviation department. Much to my amazement, as long as I could demostrate "normal" hearing, I would be able to fly, which I certainly could demonstrate the hearing (this is proven by the fact that there are some of you who had no idea I had the problem, so obviously, I demonstrate "normal" hearing). To get my aviation feet wet, I decided that the first quarter I would take Aviation History.....class went well, so I thought I would take it a step further and take Private Pilot Ground school. That went even better and I LOVED the subject. I made the decision that I would pursue my private pilot's license starting spring quarter. Worst case, I would at least get my pilots license and fly as a hobby. Wow, was I mistaking, after my first flight, I knew that Dentisty was out the door and full blast ahead for being a Pilot. I started the pilot program and everything was going great. I was getting A's in all my flying, I was finishing my license early and starting the next phase early, I was on track to achieving my flying career. What I didn't realize, well, I realized but just not to the degree I needed to, that flying costs a LOT of money. I finished my private pilot license, moved on to the next step, the instrument rating, achieved that and started on my commercial license. I was about 1/3 the way through that and guess what....THE FUNDS WERE DEPLETED. So, I weighed my options and switched my major to Aviation Management. I did this because I was so far into my college education that any change would have set me back probably about 2 years. So, I got my degree and went to work for an employer in Columbus where I stayed for 7 years (I don't like to say company names in a blog...too much liability).

During my first position at this company, I hated my job so much that I tried to decide what else I could do. Seeing that this company had tuition reimbursement at the time, I decided I would pursue my Masters Degree in Special Education.........that's right, you didn't read wrong, Special Education! I completed a years worth of coursework at Ohio University in pursuit of this degree. However, I obtained another position at the company which didn't allow for much flexibility, so the special education gig was over for what I thought temporarily, but ended up being permanent (as of the writing of this blog).

Fast forward about 3 years in the same company, it was a cold winter, February day, in tropical Columbus, Ohio. I said I'd had it. I'd had it with the cold, the grey days, the lack of advancement in the company, the flat land, the (insert negative Ohio comment here)...and I decided I was moving. I contacted Aunt Dianne and Uncle Bill and asked if I could stay with them for a bit out in SUNNY Arizona....of course they said yes. So, April 4 was my first day out here as a resident. If you go to the beginning of my blogging days, you'll see what I was contemplating at the time as far as employment. Long story short, I got a job for another private aviation gig out here. Come to find out it was a SHIT company, so if you want to know the name, contact me and I'll tell you so you don't do business with them. It's not because I got laid off, but because the way the operate.........that shit wasn't for me.

When you are in the "Cheese Line", as I like to affectionately call it, you tend to have a lot of time, naturally. At this point, looking for a job, enter thoughts into my head of Real Estate classes. My cousin is a licensed agent out here and we had previous conversations about the process, so I did some research on what it would take to obtain this certification. There are many options through the school, but I chose the most vigorous option....9 straight days (minus the weekend), two 4 hour sessions a day, to complete the classes...............then a school test and then a state test. Just today (Nov. 20), I completed the class. Let me tell you, absolutely grueling...SHIT!!!!!! My brain is filled with useless information. These places teach you to pass the test, not what really happens in the real world. My school test is Wednesday, once I pass that I'll schedule the state test, and once I pass that, I'll be officially licensed. So, if you plan on moving or know someone that is moving out here, have them contact me, if for the very least a referall fee!! Look at me being a salesperson already!! hahaha. I don't believe in the sleezy sales bullshit, so for me, if someone wants my services, its because they tell me what they want and I go find it.....I'm not forcing a property on a person and going to try to convince them to buy a place just because I need a sale....it's what they want, not my savings account. My rationale for real estate to begin with was that at the very least, I could get 3% back on my own first purchase, and I won't get screwed on my first deal. I've always wanted to be educated on the transaction of buying a property anyway, so what did I have to lose besides tuition....but it's always on my resume.

So, fast forward to today..........in short, I'm sick of real estate, all is "testing concepts", I'm having a drink to unwind, reminiscing on how stupid people are in these adult education classes. Has anyone ever noticed it's the same people in class asking the same stupid questions......it's inevitable. Sometimes when I think I don't get something, all it takes is about 4 people to simultaneously ask 4 different crazy off the wall questions that even I knew in my oblivion. I'm the sit in the back of the room, read the chapter, try the homework and if I don't get it, ask the question to the instructor in private type of person. As a result, I'm the "impatient, quit asking DUMB questions guy who thinks we'll get out of class 20 mins early if noone asks questions and saves it for personal instructor time" kinda guy. I've spend the last 2 weeks thoroughly annoyed, as one can imagine.

In my quest to find out what I want to do when I grow up, I've not embarked on the real estate adventure. Yes, we all know that market sucks, and I do know that too...but it HAS to come back, and it WILL.....and I'll have another job until it does, but when the getting is good, I'm gonna be there to partake. I look at this as an investment in the future, not in today.

I'm heading to Denver this weekend for Amie's birthday, the next blog will be a full account of that trip.

Until then,
Kyle

Jackson Browne

2008-11-08T12:17:00.001-06:00

Besides the fact that I couldn't wait to get out of Ohio because of the boredom, upon my return, I had a concert to attend that I was very much looking forward to. I had bought tickets a couple months ago for Amie and I to attend the Jackson Browne concert at the Dodge Theater in downtown Phoenix.

Last March, my buddy and I traveled to see Jackson Browne in Louisville, Kentucky during his solo acoustic tour. WOW, was it amazing. Anyone that is a fan can imagine how it would be with just him, a guitar and piano on stage (I'll post some videos from said concerts below). So, based on that concert, I was highly anticipating this one, even though he would be accompanied by a full band and playing some of his new material. He recently released his latest album called "Time the Conqueror" and this tour is in promotion of that album.

I'll spare you the long review, but the concert was GREAT!! It was a great mixture of his new stuff along with is old stuff. Just like with the solo acoustic show, he allowed the audience to yell out the songs they wanted to hear, and he'd play them, which is great, because we all want to hear the same ones....the great ones!! He played for 3 1/2 hour with a 20 minute break in the sets. If anyone has an opportunity to see him in concert, it's definitely worth the money if you enjoy his music.

Here is a brief biography and some videos of him in action...some from his younger years, some from his older years, and some from the solo acoustic shows.............enjoy.

In many ways, Jackson Browne was the quintessential sensitive Californian singer/songwriter of the early '70s. Only Joni Mitchell and James Taylor ranked alongside him in terms of influence, but neither artist tapped into the post-'60s Zeitgeist like Browne. While the majority of his classic '70s work was unflinchingly personal, it nevertheless provided a touchstone for a generation of maturing baby boomers coming to terms with adulthood. Not only did his introspective, literate lyrics strike a nerve, but his laid-back folk-rock set the template for much of the music to come out of California during the '70s. With his first four albums, Browne built a loyal following that helped him break into the mainstream with 1976's The Pretender. During the late '70s and early '80s, he was at the height of his popularity, as each of his albums charted in the Top Ten. Midway through the '80s, Browne made a series of political protest records that caused his audience to gradually shrink, but when he returned to introspective songwriting with 1993's I'm Alive, he made a modest comeback.

Born in Heidelberg, West Germany, Jackson Browne and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was three years old, and by the time he was a teenager, Browne had developed an interest in folk music. He began playing guitar and writing songs, which he sang at local folk clubs. Early in 1966, he was invited to join the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, whom he had met through the L.A. folk circuit. While he was only with the band for a few months, the group recorded a handful of his songs on its first two records. By the beginning of 1967, he had signed a publishing deal with Nina Music, a division of Elektra Records; Nina helped Browne secure songs on albums by Tom Rush and Steve Noonan in 1968. During 1967 and 1968, he lived in New York's Greenwich Village, where he played in Tim Buckley's backing band. Browne also began working with Nico, who recorded three of his songs on her Chelsea Girl album. When their relationship disintegrated in 1968, he returned to Los Angeles, where he unsuccessfully tried to record a solo album and form a folk group with Ned Doheney and Jack Wilce. Browne continued to play local clubs and his reputation as a songwriter continued to grow, with Linda Ronstadt and the Byrds recording his songs. By the end of 1971, he had signed with David Geffen's fledgling Asylum Records on the strength of his widely circulated demo tape.

Jackson Browne was released in the spring of 1972, spawning the Top Ten hit single "Doctor My Eyes." Shortly after "Doctor My Eyes" reached its peak position, "Take It Easy," a song Browne co-wrote with Glenn Frey, became the Eagles' breakthrough hit. Many songs from his debut, including "Rock Me on the Water" and "Jamaica Say You Will," became singer/songwriter standards, but the album itself didn't establish Browne as a pop star, despite its hit single. On his second album, 1973's For Everyman, he began a long-term collaboration with instrumentalist David Lindley. For Everyman was a commercial disappointment, yet it consolidated his cult following.

Released in the fall of 1974, Late for the Sky expanded Browne's audience significantly, peaking at number 14 on the charts and going gold by the beginning of the following year. Browne's first wife, Phyllis, committed suicide in the spring of 1976, but in the wake of the tragedy he recorded his commercial breakthrough album, The Pretender. The record climbed into the Top Ten upon its fall 1976 release, going platinum in the spring of 1977. In the summer, Browne launched an extensive tour, recording a new album while he was on the road. The resulting record, Running on Empty (1977), was a bigger success than its predecessor, peaking at number three and launching the hit singles "Running on Empty" and "Stay/The Load-Out." With his career riding high, Browne began to pursue political and social causes, most notably protesting the use of nuclear energy.

The success of Hold Out, the 1980 follow-up to Running on Empty, was evidence of Jackson Browne's popularity. Though the album wasn't as well crafted as its predecessors, it became his only number one album upon its summer release. In the summer of 1982, "Somebody's Baby," from the soundtrack of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, became Browne's biggest hit, climbing to number seven on the U.S. charts. Divided between love songs and political protests, Lawyers in Love was another hit due to success of the hit singles "Lawyers in Love," "Tender Is the Night," and "For a Rocker." Nevertheless, the album also showcased a newly found social consciousness, which dominated 1986's Lives in the Balance. The album lacked any hit singles, yet its fiery condemnation of the Reagan era won an audience -- the album stayed on the charts for over six months and went gold.

Jackson Browne continued to write primarily political songs on 1989's World in Motion, but the record became his first album to not go gold. Browne was quiet for the next four years, working on a variety of social causes and suffering a painful public breakup with his girlfriend, actress Daryl Hannah. He finally returned with a comeback effort in the fall of 1993 entitled I'm Alive. Comprised of personal songs, I'm Alive received his best reviews since the late '70s and the record went gold without producing any major hits. In the spring of 1996, Browne released Looking East, which failed to gain the same attention as I'm Alive. In 2002, he released The Naked Ride Home. Two years later the two-disc The Very Best of Jackson Browne hit the shelves as Browne was being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by fellow Hall of Famer Bruce Springsteen. Around this time Browne took to the road and played intimate acoustic shows around the globe. The 2005 release Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1 was compiled from these concerts and appeared on Inside Recordings, an independent label founded by Browne. Solo Acoustic, Vol. 2 appeared in 2008, while an album of new material, Time the Conqueror, followed later in the year. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

This is the actual concert I attended:

Life In The Unemployment Line

2008-11-05T18:56:00.000-06:00

If there is one thing the unemployment line offers, it's an abundance of time. Besides the obvious task of looking for a job, I wondered what I could do with my newfound time in my schedule. So, after much deliberation and contemplation, I decided to take a quick trip back to Ohio. The next logical question would be, "shouldn't I be conserving and saving my money for the tough times to come?". Yes, that question is valid, however, I had a free ticket on Southwest Airlines, I'd stay with family, bum rides and eat cheap....so, I did the whole trip for less than a hundred. Due to the uncertainty of my employment future, I decided it best to go now instead of later because who knows if I would be able to get the time off. Additionally, I knew I couldn't use my free ticket around the holidays due to airline blackout days. So, essentially, this was my "Home For The Holidays Trip", which technically it was since it was Halloween, just noone got any Christmas gifts. (And don't expect any, my unemployment budget won't allow it). So, I decided on Tuesday that I would be going back Wednesday morning. So off I went.........

The first part of Wednesday we filled with travel, from Phoenix to Columbus with a brief stop in Chicago-Midway. Remind me to never again get a flight that goes through Midway. The appoach patterns they have going into that airport is enough to make a person blow chunks (and for your smart asses out there, chunks isn't the dogs name). With downtown being so close coupled with the approach paths of Chicago's Ohare, it feels like the plane is all over the damn place.....taking off out of there isn't any better. Alas, I made it to Columbus at about 2PM, my buddy Mark picked me up and I chilled out at his place till my Glouster entourage arrived to take me back to the Promise Land (Anyone that knows Glouster will see the sarcasm in that reference). On the way home, we stopped at Applebys for dinner and beer, then on to Athens for a couple beers then I found myself at the place I was staying way too late, and probably a beer too many.

NOTE: Apparently something screwed up with how I posted the pictures, so you have to actually click on them to see the entire photo....It's too big of a pain in the ass to repost them, so next post, I'll see went wrong. Thanks.

Flying into the Sunrise over Eastern Arizona

Pretty large wind farm, hopefully we'll see more of these (Boone Pickens fans would be pleased)

Chicago on a sunny late October morning

Getting ready to duck into the clouds

Thursday night was trick or treat in Glouster, so I did my civic duty and handed out candy to all the kids that are too embarrassed to say trick or treat, but I'm not sure I even said it at that age. There were some good costumes, and some not, but it's the effort that counts. Nothing much else went on Thursday, except my realization at how BORING that town is. I had half a notion to book my return for Friday, but I figured I stick it out and see what happened.

Friday was filled with more trick or treating and halloween festivities, only this time I had travled out of the abyss known as Glouster to hang out in Columbus. Halloween is my buddy Mark's birthday, so it's been tradition to hand out candy and have a couple drinks while doing so. After a couple hours of passing out candy, I went in to get ready to go out on the town with my a couple of my other friends. We went to a bar to watch this band called The Webesters. It was a pretty good time, I probably saw one of the better costumes of the season being worn by the lead singer...it was priceless, as you can see below.

Mark's baby, Jackson, in his Lion outfit passing out candy with us

Full sleepware, Homer Simpson slippers, eye cover and sportin' the morning wood. hahaha

Random Photo: What's left of Fall in Ohio

Saturday was filled with Halloween Parties. I drove back down from Columbus to another boring afternoon in Glouster. I went out to some friends house for a garage halloween party and then from there I went down to the Annual Halloween Block Party in Athens. For those who don't know, the block party is an annual gathering on Court Street in Athens. They close down the street and the masses decend on the town for the party. It's literally THE party night in Athens and the Ohio University campus. It's not just OU students down there, it's every other student from a 100 mile radius as well. The count usually is between 30,000 and 40,000 people at this gathering. There are probably about 20 or 25 bars along court street, they are all over flowing, in addition to the outside entertainment the city hires. Needless to say, there are some interesting things you see. I was only there for about an hour in on small area, so I didn't see as much as I could, but was still interesting to say the least. Below are some pics from both parties.....

When you don't have any money, you can go with the proverbial "Dick in a Box" costume, and have every chick on the street take a look at it. That costume definitely fits my current budget.

Me and my good buddy Krista

What the hell is this?? Looks like a bunch of pregnant tele-tubbies....I couldn't resist a picture

Everyone at the garage party that dressed up

For those who have been to Glouster, we all know what kind of hillbilly redneck backwoods kind of place it is. You're lucky if you can piece together one good set of teeth out of all the people that attend the Friday night football games. I was sitting in line for the ATM at the bank, yes I was shocked, too, that they are actually in the 2000's with ATM technology, and this car was in front of me. I sat there and watched this and tried to figure out what the hell the point was. There was this deer apparatus attached to the hitch of the truck, and when the brakes were applied, a red bullseye lit up on its gut and it started moving. The only thing close to this I've ever seen is those douchenoozles that hang a testicle bag from their truck hitch. Seriously, what's the point?? But, here is a little flavor from home for ya..........

Sunday was uneventful, flew home Monday, and now I'm on the full job hunt.....trust me, I'd rather be whacked in the nuts with a bag full of a thousand doorknobs, but it's one of those things you have to do! Ugh.

Until Next Time,

Kyle

Sanity Restored

2008-10-23T16:46:00.000-05:00

We all have been affected by this shitty George Bush economy in some way or another, and today I felt the effects for the third time. The first being the drop in my 401k account, the second, a positive effect, when I paid $2.99 for a gallon of gas and filled up for less than $50…..and today, the third, when I got laid off from my job. Now, before you start saying your “oh, that sucks” or “how unfortunate” and start offering your condolences and apologies, let me just say that this actually is a GREAT thing, and the following will help you understand why.

Back in April when I moved to Scottsdale, I didn’t have a job. So, naturally, I sent out resumes and finally landed a job at a local charter company. The job wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but I had no other options at the time, the pay was what I was accustomed too, so I figured I would take it and if something better came along, I’d cross that bridge when I got to it. The job was working in the operations department, essentially being the bitch of the department, which was fine at the time, because I didn’t expect to be there long. So, the first day, maybe two, was filled with learning pretty much how to effectively be a bitch to the Director of Operations, but hey, it was a paycheck right?

The next 5 months were filled with a lot of boring, monotonous things to do, which literally was about to drive me crazy. I was doing ok mentally until I got moved into another office with this 50 year old fake titty bitch that could find something to bitch about every single minute of every single day. I’ve never heard, in all my life, someone sigh and groan as much as this bitch. There were days it took everything I had not to sling my stapler across the room and knock the bitch unconscious and then just continue about my day in total peace knowing I wouldn’t have to hear her fuzzy jaws bitch for the remainder of the day.

As you know from my previous posts, I was offered an opportunity to go to Vegas for a few weeks to work in that office. Because of the monotony, and the “bitch next door”, I decided to take the offer for my sanity. Off to Vegas I went the following Monday, where I was for 3 weeks. I’ll spare the rehashing of the details since I already posted them previously, but let’s just say that as hectic as it was up there, it was nice to not have to deal with any of the idiots and bitches in my regular office. Fast forward to Monday of this week, my first day back in the Scottsdale office, it was as BORING as ever. Same shit, different day. Fortunately, I’m smart enough to see a situation that isn’t going nowhere, so about 6 weeks ago, I hired a place to redo my resume and assist me with a job search, cause I knew I’d have to get the hell out of that purgatory. SO, now I have a pretty sweet resume and some job leads out of the deal. I come back to the office, realize it’s the same shit, not that I expected it to change, but my tolerance level was even less than before I left. I spent half my day looking for jobs and half my day resisting the urge to throw a box full of staplers at ole McFake-titty McGee that’s 10 feet from me. Wow, did that prove to be a challenge.

So, this morning, I get the ole talk from Jabba The Hut (that’s what I call my boss, if you could see, you’d understand why)….”Economy..blah blah blah blah f’en blah, sorry …blah blah blah”….so, I was officially “laid off”. When I heard that, I actually had a sense of relief come over me…relief that I wouldn’t have to be miserable in that office any more, relief that McTitties wasn’t going to press charges on me for assault, just major relief in general. The one thing that irked me the most was how they took advantage of me with my stint in Vegas, cause they had this discussion about me a few weeks ago, and then the Vegas thing came about, and I got used. But, never fear, they certainly now know that where I stand on that issue, and I’m sure they didn’t like what I had to say. But, quite frankly, they can kiss my ass, since I no longer work for their shitty company.

So, here I sit, in my apartment, I cracked a beer, writing this blog and trying to plot my next move…..so stay tuned for more on that. Until then, I’ll once again enjoy unemployment just as I did when I quit my job in Ohio! In fact, I may travel back to Ohio on a free ticket for a few days to de-stress and relax….but we’ll see on that one.

I just realized that I hadn’t done a Perspectives in Music piece for quite some time, so, here ya go…………..

The feature for this post is going to be a great singer/songwriter/musician by the name of Ray Lamontagne. You'll hear him coming through my speakers on a daily basis....ENJOY

Biography (www.mtv.com)

Ray LaMontagne was born in while his family was passing through New Hampshire, one of six kids from various fathers, all raised by their resourceful mom. His mother and father split up soon after his birth, and Mom went wherever she could put a roof over her children's heads—from Utah to Maine and points between, where they resided in an assortment of unusual domiciles: the backyards of his mother's friends, in cars and tents, a cinderblock shell on a Tennessee horse ranch, a New Hampshire chicken coop. LaMontagne admits that he had a horrible time in school. But, by the time he became a senior, he knew he wanted to graduate. So he went to school during the day and at night for a year. LaMontagne left his family right after his high school graduation, with no idea what he wanted to do. Four years later, while working long hours in a Lewiston, Maine, shoe factory, he experienced an epiphany—one that shook him out of his deep ennui. After working there for about a year, LaMontagne had his clock set for 4 a.m., like always, and woke up to this amazing sound coming from the clock radio. It was Stephen Stills, doing a song called "Tree Top Flyer." Instead of going to work that day, he went to record stores and sought that album out. It was called Stills Alone, and after listening to it, LaMontagne knew what he wanted to do. Knowing he wanted to sing, he quit his job—before ever to talking to anyone about his dream. LaMontagne started listening to Crosby, Stills & Nash, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Ray Charles, and Otis Redding. In the summer of 1999, LaMontagne recorded his first demo—a collection of 10 songs. There was a little theater in town that would bring in folk acts. After bringing his tape down to the owner, LaMontagne started getting chances to open for people like Jonathan Edwards, John Gorka and other traveling folkies. Soon after a friend hooked LaMontagne up with a chance to meet Jamie Ceretta (at Chrysalis Music Publishing). LaMontagne was signed to a publishing deal at Chrysalis soon thereafter. In a period of just two weeks, Ray and the gifted, single-minded producer/player Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams, Kings of Leon, the Jayhawks) created Trouble. Soon after wrapping up production on Trouble, LaMontagne signed to RCA Records, where his debut album was released in 2004. It would seem that serendipity is now Ray LaMontagne's middle name. He went from the middle of nowhere to making his first record in collaboration with a brilliant producer (Ethan Johns), and he did it without making a compromise or even breaking a sweat.

Home

2008-10-17T00:07:00.001-05:00

I'm back in Scottsdale now for good......and I'm going to say one thing.

THANK GOD THAT SHIT IS OVER IN VEGAS!!!!!!!

P.S. Do not go to Vegas unless you plan on staying for no more than 3 days, take a group of friends and a pocketful of money.......any other way, you'll be ready to claw your eyes out and everyone elses within a 5 mile radius.

Hearing the word Vegas is damn near just as bad to me as hearing Palin say Maverick. (Doug...drink).

Family in town this weekend.....more to come soon!

Kyle

With all the focus on the two men that are currently out there trying to become the next president, lets not forget about the fact that George W. Bush is a worthless piece of shit with the LOWEST EVER approval rating for any president.

Vegas - Week 2

2008-10-07T16:34:00.000-05:00

Here I sit, in Las Vegas for a second consecutive week. Bored. At work. (which is better than being bored in Scottsdale with bosses circling like chickenhawks). Who would have thought, bored in Vegas. I'm certain this stems from the fact that before I even came up here I was broke which doesn't sit well with my love of gambling. I did manage to scrape together a few pennies to play a couple games of cards, but as my luck typically has it, those pennies were gone as fast as I could pull them out. Let me give you an idea how my luck is here in Vegas, the pretty much sums it up.

I'm walking through the casino back to my room, I have a loose $20 in my pocket. I walk past the routette table (which by the way is the WORST casino game to play), and I look up at the board that displays the last 15 numbers. EVERY SINGLE NUMBER WAS BLACK!! For those that do not know that game, there are red number, black numbers, and two green spaces. One of the bets you can place is whether a red or black number will come up next. So, naturally, I figured what the hell, and put my 20 on red, because why??? You know we all think this, "Because it HAS to be red THIS time!!". Well, let me tell ya, that logic will send you to the poor house. After losing my money, I could have slapped myself, because I know damn good and well, that the next number to come up has zero dependancy on the previous numbers that have hit. Our brain doesn't let us think like that, we see all black, and we are just sure as shit that the next one has to be red. You think I'd learn my lesson?? HELL NO! This time, I had a loose $10 and was walking past a roulette table, and I see that the previous 10 numbers have been ODD. Like the red/black bet, you can make an even/odd bet. So I'll give you a chance to try to figure out what was going on in my brain..............................................You got it!! "EVEN HAS to hit this time". Well, I lost. That's my luck in a nutshell. No matter what game I play, some variation of my shitty luck will show it's ugly face. So, to answer your question....YES, I've continued to learn the same lesson I've figured out after literally YEARS of visiting this ghastly place. My money now stays in my wallet, as it has for most of this trip.....and it will only make an appearance if I have a planned vacation up here, where I save, budget and plan to loose my thousand dollars.

Vegas definitely isn't the place to come when you are by yourself. There is all this indulgance and temptation and noone to partake in it with you, so it's kind of anticlimactic....but from a people watching perspective, it's definitely an interesting place. I'm staying at the Luxor this week. For those of you who don't know, it's the hotel that's shaped like a pyramid. My room is on the 25th floor, facing north. The trip up to the 25th floor is interesting in and of itself. They do not have elevators, but they instead have inclinators. They move up and to the side at the same time, which can be quite unnerving at times. Then you get off the elevator and you have to walk around the edges, staring straight down to the bottom from walls that are sloping backwards. My first time up there, I had to hold some papers to block my periphery so I wouldn't get sick and hurl. I'm used to it now, but it took a couple trips up and down for me to adjust. I despise open heights as well, so that only served to complicate matters.

More Politics

On the day of the second presidential debate, I think we can all agree that we are tired of the political bullshit, commercials, slandering, debates, analysis from so-called experts, blah blah-blah blah blah f'en blah! Lets face it, our current president is the worst in history with approval ratings less than 20% (which blows my mind), we are in a never-ending war that was initiated purely based on personal interest (Bush's bank account), our economy is in turmoil and we are about to choose a our next president. Yes, change is good, but still, a change of a countries leader during such a volatile time can still be unnerving. However unnerving though, it's still better than that piece of shit we have in there now. We have a choice: Obama, who lacks experience and will undoubtedly face some racial resistance with a VP choice that most likely out of the 4 should be the leading presidential candidate; and we have McCain who is about 3 heartbeats away from going tits up and chose a VP that has three words in her vocabulary: Maverick (Doug...DRINK), Soccer and Mom. Frankly, I don't want to vote for any of them but you have to ask who is the least of all these evils, and I still haven't figured that out. For this race, I think we need to look to the VP nominees to help us decide. Let's face it, even in this day and age in our country, at the peak of equal opportunity and fairness for all, I'm sure that Obama will be the target of some racially motivated actions. It's public knowledge how old McCain is and who knows how many days we have left with him. So, enter Vice President candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. Need I say more? Biden a seasoned vetern of the Senate and Palin, Mayor of a small town of 7,000 and Alaskas governor in addition to self proclaimed soccer mom and advocate of John McCain's "Maverick-hood" (Doug...DRINK). When I look at Sarah Palin (before she speaks), vice president isn't what goes through my mind, and I'll spare you those thoughts (maybe if she loses, Playboy will offer her a spread)......which proves to me that the selection of her as a VP candidate is nothing more than a ploy for votes. Most likely, I won't vote because I don't think there is a good choice.....and then when I bitch about the president, and someone gives me shit, I can just say that I wasn't the idiot that voted them into office.

These next 4 years should be interesting, no matter who is elected, I'm just ready to get someone elected and to brace myself for what's to come.

For those of you I didn't send the below "flowchart" too, I don't think this could be a more accurate description of how the VP debate when the other night.

Click on chart for full picture

(Doug....Drink)

Anyway, you can probably tell I tend to favor the democratic ticket, so if you are a republican, I apologize you haven't seen the light yet, but I do assure you, once you realize that noone reading this blog is rich enough to be a republican, you might come back from the dark side.

(as you can tell, cousin Doug and I play a drinking game...everytime Soccer Mom says Maverick...it's a drink.....y'all are welcome to come join the fun, but it's not for the light-hearted considering the frequency)

Until next time,
Kyle

My New (Temporary) Office

2008-09-30T11:32:00.000-05:00

VIVA LAS VEGAS!!!!!!!!

That's right, I'm working in Las Vegas....scary huh? My company has an office in Las Vegas, and their office manager resigned, and they needed someone to go up and man the office, temporarily. They had asked me to do it, since a few days earlier, I told my boss I was unchallanged, unengaged and bored out of my mind. Who ever says lighting a match under the Boss's ass doesn't get a fire started. Anywho, they asked me to do it, I thought about it and agreed. So, I drive up to Vegas Monday mornings, and return Friday afternoons. It's a 4 1/2 hour drive, but the scenery isn't that bad, and the traffic is minimal, plus the company is paying for my gas to and fro, in addition to a hotel and some food money. The gig will last probably about a month, so we'll see what this brings. I'll basically be dealing with the office stuff, crews, meeting and greeting passengers, and also some outside sales stuff with the casinos and other flight departments, so the experience should be enlightening....if not, at least it's Vegas!!

I spent my first night here last night (Monday), in the Excalibur. For all of those who haven't stayed there, let me just say they are one of the cheapest on the strip for a reason. The place is a SHIT-HOLE. I felt like I was in the 300 level of Diamondback stadium with all the riff-raff running about. So, I told them to cancel my reservation for the rest of the week, cause my ass is heading across the street to the MGM, which is the common man's luxury, for only 15 more a night. So, tonight, and probably for the duration of my stay in Vegas, I'll be at the MGM or New York New York, whichever has the cheapest deal for that week. If you wanna get away and need a place to stay, c'mon out to the city of the lights.

I think a real medieval castle would be more hospitable than this shithole

The coolest part about the drive, is the trip over Hoover Dam. I've been there a couple times, and it's still an amazing thing to see. I don't have a camera with me, so the camera on my phone is the best you're gonna get.....sorry for the quality, but here are some pics of the dam.

Here are a couple randome pictures I took with my phone out at Amie's house. The sunset was much more vivid and amazing than the pictures lead on to believe, but again, shitty camera quality on the cell phone.

Hopefully, I'll have some interesting stories from Vegas, so we'll see what happens. Next weekend, I have a friend visiting, then the following weekend I have a cousin visiting, so I'm sure I'll have some pictures and stories from those events.

Wish me luck on the tables, my poor, broke, unlucky ass needs all the help I can get!

Until next time,

Kyle

Birthday Trip to the Valley Of The Sun

2008-09-17T23:50:00.000-05:00

As you know from my previous post, I flew my Mom and Aunt out for my Mom's 50th birthday celebration. Anybody that's ever been from Glouster knows that you most likely don't want to spend such a special day there, but in a place where you can relax, know noone, lay by the pool, be totally anonymous and sulk in the fact that you have transitioned to a new decade.....your 6th decade to be specific. I know that I want to be able to do that in a couple years, and I'm only going to be 30!!

Mom and Linda arrived on Wednesday, September 10, amongst many small isolated Thunderstorms that are so common out here in the evenings during "monsoon season". Yes, that's right, I called it Monsoon season. How a place that gets 5 inches of rain a year can have a monsoon season is besides me, but I simply join the masses and call it what it is. To me it's a light shower, but people freak out here when there's a drop of rain on the road, and it's highly illustrated in their driving abilities....and I thought Columbus was bad!!! We had a few drinks that evening, caught up and went to bed to get ready for Thursday, which was the actual birthday.

We got up Thursday fairly early in the morning. Amie had arranged pedicure's and manicure's for Mom and Linda. A treat that they have never had before. After the appointment, they said they felt like royalty! haha. I had to laugh because the presence of self indulgance in Scottsdale is as certain as the sun coming up everyday, so the fact they were so entertained and priveledged to have such treatment made me realize how much I've become numb to this culture out here after only 6 months. After the royal treatment, we came back and laid by the pool for a few hours before it was time to get ready for dinner. I wanted to take Mom and Linda to this resort on the side of Camelback Mountain where you can see the most amazing sunsets I've ever seen. Mind you, out here, you see the sun set 362 days out of a 365 day year........wouldn't you know it, the ONE time I take someone there, a freak windstorm blows in and you can't see shit for no more than an 1/8 of a mile in front of you. I guess the upside was that they got to see how the weather can go from so perfect to so hideous with one fell swoop of a small storm cell moving through. Mind you, a couple miles south, it was sunny and sunset was amazing, I'm sure. So, we enjoyed our $31 dollar round of drinks then headed to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. The rest of the evening was great. We got home and Amie had the cake out with candles lit and ready to sing happy birthday for one last birthday surprise....I think all in all, it was a great 50th for my Mom. Short of flying her to some exotic resort island in the middle of the Pacific, this was the next best thing I could do within the means of my budget.

The Birthday Windstorm.....what luck!!

The Cheesecake Factory enjoying dinner and drinks

Mom and Her cake Amie arranged for her

Mom celebrating with her Birthday Princess crown on, ready for bed after a long day

After dinner when we got home

All of us celebrating, ready for bed

Blowing out the candles

Someone call the fire department

When trying to decide what to plan for when they were here, I knew that I had to take them to the Grand Canyon and Sedona. How could you be so close to such an amazing landscape on this earth and not go see it....and who knows when they would ever be back to see this. So, on Friday, off to the Grand Canyon we went. The 3 hour drive north was unevenful....we climbed about 7000 feet, dropped about 30 degrees and alas, we arrived at the main gate!! Prior to actually going through the gate, we stopped at the Wendy's right there, and was waiting in line, and got asked by this total stranger if we were going into the canyon. My initial reaction in my mind was this, "Well, we drove up from Phoenix to have lunch at Wendy's, then we are gonna head home here in a few minutes....UH, YES, WE ARE GOING INTO THE CANYON." But, after my sarcasm ran it's course, we were nice and of course said we were going into the park. He offered us his pass which had listed on it two patrons, but I figured it didn't matter since it's a $25 dollar flat charge per car, regardless of number of pax. So, after him trying to talk me into going through the gate in the trunk, we took the ticket to see if it would work. The irony of this "meeting" was that he had his cousin out there, who was helping him with a job, that said he was from West Virginia.....and this was obvious if you heard him speak. So, we, naturally, said we were from Ohio, the southeast region, from a little town called Athens. Well, strangely enough, he was from Pomeroy, which is literally 25 minutes from Athens down on the river....such a small world!! Anyway, we took the pass, we got into the park for free....so I have to send a thanks out to my good ole West Virgina buddy. One hillbilly helping another!!

This was my second time to the canyon, but wow, what a spectacle it remains. It was great to see the expressions on Mom and Linda's face....they couldn't quite grasp the magnitude of its size at first, which is how I was when I first went on my drive out here back in April, so I know exactly what they were feeling. After they were through being mezmerized, we snapped a few pictures which you can see below:

Mom and Linda at the Canyon for their first time

Mom

Me and Mom on what seems to be the edge of the world

Peace from the Grand Canyon

Mom and Linda

Our next stop on the trail home was Sedona. Sedona has been said be some to be the most beautiful place in the United States.....and I actually have to agree. The topography and the red rocks are so amazing to see in person. Mom and Linda both liked Sedona better than the Grand Canyon. To say this after just visiting one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World, is a bold statement....but Sedona is amazing, and I highly encourage people to visit this town if you are within a few hours drive.

Our view from where we ate and had a drink

The canyon we drove down on our way down to Sedona from Flagstaff

Saturday was another busy day for us during their visit. I told them from the beginning the first few days were going to be SUPER busy but the last couple were just going to be total relaxation and for them to do whatever they wanted. It was a delicate balance between doing the things that I wanted them to do, and things you have to do while you are in Arizona, and doing too much and not really feeling like it was a vacation. So, Saturday was our last day. We had planned to go up to Amie's parents house for appetizers and drinks in the early afternoon, which we did and had really nice time. Amie's parents were very welcoming and we all had a good time for a couple hours hanging out and mixing the families for the first time! Fortunately, everyone got along great and had a good time. After the "happy hour", we were headed to the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game. It just so happened that the Diamondbacks were playing Mom's favorite team, the Cincinnati Reds. So when I found this out, I undoubtedly had to get tickets. We had amazing seats, 6 rows from the field, right beside 1st base and above the visitors dugout. Definitely worth every penny. We had a very nice time at the game and it was a great game at that. The Reds won in the tenth inning, only after mounting a comeback in their last attempt in the 9th inning. Below are pictures of the day:

Amie and the light of her life, her 14 year old shi-itzu Brooke

Me at Amie's house....amazing view from the lookout

All of us at Amie's parents house.

Mom on the observation deck at Amie's

Me and Amie at the game

Mom, Amie and Linda at the game

The view from our seats

Me, Linda and Mom at the game

Sunday and Monday there is nothing to report on, because as I said earlier it was their day to do whatever they wanted, and they chose to relax by the pool, which after the 3 busy days we had prior, I don't blame them one bit. I took them to the airport early on Tuesday morning for their jaunt back to hills of Southeastern Ohio. They had a very nice time, as did I, and I'm thoroughly looking forward to their next visit. I'm trying to talk them into coming out in February when you freeze your balls off in Ohio, but yet you can still lay by the pool out here......seems foolish why people even live anywhere where's it's thats cold for so many months in a row, but then again, I spend 27 years in Ohio.....why??? Who knows other than the family bond is a strong one to break away from....I have no better answer after living here for 6 months and trying to figure out why I didn't come out sooner.

Until next time.........

Kyle

Bittersweet

2008-09-11T04:16:00.000-05:00

Yes, today is September 11. This day is most definitely one of the most significant days in World (and American) history, bar none. It's up there with D-Day, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the dessimation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia only a few short years ago, and quite a few others I've failed to mention. All of these events are associated with one day of the year, and for those people whose birthday's are associated with those days are left forever marred with the negative stigma of these events.

I have the utmost respect for the survivors of the September 11 attacks, and my heart aches for the families of the victims.......but September 11 is a day of celebration for me amongst the tragedy. Why you ask?? Because today, September 11, is my Mom's birthday!!!! It's extremely hard not to think of one and not the other (bday and world trade center). Although I respect this day of mourning, it's a day of celebration for me. Especially this year, as you've most likely read, this is my Mom's 50TH bday!!!!!!!!!

Her gift from me was a plane ticket for her to fly out, accompanied by her sister Linda. They arrived this evening around 8:15 Pacific..........which I was skeptical when they would arrive because anyone that has lived in the Phoenix area during July, August and the first part of September know how the thunderstorms can be in the evening. The lightning is incredible, and they had to fly through it!!! But they made it, safe and sound, and now they are here to enjoy the next 5 days in total relaxation.

So, I'll post on the events of the next few days with pictures once we are done with our days of relaxation. We have a lot planned for their time here....Grand Canyon, Sedona (the most beautiful place in the states), Diamondbacks game versus the Cincinnati Reds (Mom's favorite team, 10th row behind first base, awesome seats), a gorgeous birthday happy hour and drinks, and lots of pool time. Total relaxation for anyone that turns 50, even if it's on a day of national mourning.

The families of the victims of the tragedy will undoubtedly be in my thoughts, as they are everyday, however, my September 11's are days of celebration for my Mom's bday.....especially this special year.

Pictures and a detailed account to follow soon......................

Until then,
Kyle

Birthday Surprise and Episode 4 - Perspectives in Music

2008-09-08T00:02:00.000-05:00

Monumental milestones in a persons life are only fitting if they have monumental memories to accompany them. My Mom is turning 50 this year, September 11 to be exact, so I felt it was necessary to do something fun and surprise her with an unannounced visit back to Ohio. Some background is necessary to better understand this story. For those of you that don't know, a little town beside my hometown, called Jacksonville, has a yearly street festival called "Old Settler's Reunion". The festival is nearing it's 65th or so year of existance. My Mom's family, having grown up in Jacksonville, take this festival close to heart and it's basically the best time of the year in Jacksonville. You can imagine being a little kid and that week coming near, being so anxious to be able to run around unsupervised, get all the tickets you can for the rides and not have a time to be home, simply because the "carney" was in town. Well, that same excitement and anticpation is still present today. It's been engrained in the genetic make-up of any "Jacksonville-ian", and if you are from there, you understand what I'm saying. It's tradition to at least gather at the Jacksonville Eagles club at least one afternoon on the weekend and tie one on.......it's un-Jacksonville-ian to not partake in this ritual.

Over recent years, this ritual has been unofficially combined with the annual Dave Davis 5K Run. For those that do not know, Dave passed away unexpectedly back in 2001. He was a runner, biker, marathoner and most importantly, like a second father to me. His wife, Linda, hosts this race every year in his honor. After the race, those who wish and are of age, go to the Eagles club and Dave buys everyone their first round (courtesy of Linda, of course). This year happens to be special since my Mom and her cousin (who's like a sister) Kim, are both turning 50 this year, 11 days apart from each other. So, it was decided that the after race party at the Eagles would also double up as a birthday Celebration for Kim and Mom. What better opportunity to make a grand enterance

A few months ago, I had told Mom I wanted to have her come spend her 50th bday out here in the Valley of Sun so she can relax, and just enjoy getting another year older. She thought that was a great idea, so for her birthday, I bought her and my Aund Linda plane tickets to come out for a week. She set to arrive this Wednesday, Sept. 10 in the evening. Because I had purchased the plane tickets already, and she knew she would be here to visit in 2 weeks, I knew that she'd not have the faintest idea that I'd be dropping in for a surprise visit. Not only would she be surprised to see me, but she was also about to meet my girlfriend, Amie....a double surprise of sorts.

Amie and I flew home on Friday and stayed with my cousin Brittany, who was so gracious to let us crash for the night. Every trip can't go without a snafu.....Southwest lost my luggage!! What luck!!!!!! But, as much as I travel, it has to happen every so often. It wasn't a big thing, I washed what I had at Brittany's and wore the same thing the next day....noone had any clue but Amie of course. (I ended up getting my bag the next day as Southwest delivered it Glouster). So, Amie and I got up the next morning, made the drive from Columbus to Logan Walmart to stop and get a bunch of flowers and a vase. Amie was super nervous at this point, and we were both hungry, so I suggested we find the nearest bar to get some drinks most importantly, and also to eat and give Amie time to put this flower arrangement together. We soon found ourselves at The Home Tavern in Logan with flowers spread all over the table, a Crown and Water accompanied by a Vodka Tonic and some food on the table. We were well on our way to the surprise. After the drinks were drank, the flowers were arranged and the grubb was consumed, we continued our trek over the hill to Jacksonville. We arrived at the Eagles, of course both of us nervous....Amie to meet the family, and me just curious as to how the surprise was going to go off. We walk into the Eagles, make our way to the back room where everyone was sitting. We walk in and I can't see Mom anywhere. I'm looking all around...needless to say, I couldn't see very well cause my eyes weren't adjusted from just being outside, but many fingers pointing in the correct direction steered me towards the cake table where she was debating whether she wanted a corner piece, and end piece or a center piece. This couldn't have been any more perfect cause she was over the cake with her back turned and facing away from the area from which we entered. I walked up behind her, tapped her on the shoulder, she turned around and I gave her the flowers and said Happy Birthday. I've never seen such a perplexed look on her face. I'm sure my calling her about 2 hours prior and acting like Amie and I were in Scottsdale heading to breakfast had something to do with her confusion. She gave me a second look then finally realized that I was there, in the flesh, standing right in front of her. Once that realization came about her, she gave out a shreakinglyish excited "Oh my gosh, what are you doing here".....and the arms came out, the big hug and tears ensued. It was a great feeling to see her so happy.......The surprise couldn't have worked out any better!!!!! The rest of the afternoon was filled with lots of conversation, lots of Amie meeting the family and close friends, and lots of stories about how we met. After the afternoon subsided at the Eagles, we went out to my cousins Kim and Lori to continue the party. Once we got there, it was filled with more bullshitting, enjoying the GREEN wilderness (you learn to appreciate the green once you live in the desert, even if for 5 months)....of course with any party, the guitar comes out and we all take our turns playing the songs we know....it was a perfect ending to a perfect day!!

The next day, we said our goodbyes and headed up to Columbus to spend the night with my best friend Mark and his wife Heather and their newborn Jackson, who I hadn't got the chance to meet yet! What a cute, cute, cute baby! I would have liked to stay another day to spend more time with them, but unfortunately, that little thing called a job got in the way. Considering I already called in sick to fly home on Friday, I'm sure they wouldn't have liked if I did the same on Tuesday.

Mom and Aunt Linda arrive in Phoenix this Wednesday, September 10 for the week long stay. We have a birthday dinner planned, a trip to the Grand Canyon and Sedona, some VERY sweet seats for the Diamondbacks game when they play Cincinnati (11 rows back, right by first base) and lots of pool time planned. Afterall, turning 50 is an experience that should be remembered and most definitley should be accompanied by tons of fun. I'll be sure to post about the week she's here and let everyone know how great it can be to turn 50.....(although, I'm not looking forward to it myself...thankfully, I've got another 21 years and 10 months).

Mom getting her beautiful Family Dollar gift from Kim. It's a battery operated fountain!

And, in true Jacksonville fashion, we turned it into a beer fountain!! It was pretty classic!

Trent and Amie

Me pickin a song and Mom singing

Me and Amie down by the pond

The Cross in Nelsonville. It was a beautiful day, and Amie wanted a picture...I thought it turned out well.

Perspectives In Music - #4

This post's feature musician is a man by the name of Gordon Lightfoot. I tend to compare him to the likes of Mickey Newbury, who I posted earlier, in that they are one of the great, not so well-known folk singers from the 60's and 70's. The biography I found below was the best I could find as there isn't anything too extremely comprehensive out there based on my research. You may or may not know or recognize his music, but give him a chance, if you are open to a folk type style of music, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Gordon is going to be coming to Phoenix for a show at the end of October, and I'm debating whether to go....lemme know if you think it's worth it.

This is the best biography I could find on the internet.....it's brief, but if you wanna know more, you can search him on the internet and there will be a wealthy of information.

Canadian Gordon Lightfoot first began to gain recognition in the mid-'60s as a songwriter when his compositions "For Lovin' Me" and "Early Morning Rain" became hits for Peter, Paul & Mary, and Marty Robbins topped the country charts with "Ribbon of Darkness." Lightfoot's own style was understated, his tasteful folk arrangements topped by a gentle burr of a voice. His albums began to appear in 1966, but it was not until the start of the '70s that he became a big success as a performer, scoring in 1970 with Sit Down Young Stranger, which contained his hit "If You Could Read My Mind," a song with a typically flowing melodic line and gently poetic lyrics.

Thereafter, the first half of the '70s were his. Lightfoot hit a peak in 1974 with Sundown, which went to number one, as did the title song when released on a single. Though he had developed a timeless style, Lightfoot was caught by the popular decline of folk-based music in the latter half of the 1970s, and has performed and recorded less frequently since, sometimes trying to conform to perceived commercial trends without success. But concert appearances in the early '90s confirmed that he remained an engaging performer and that his catalog of original songs was hard to match. A Painter Passing Through was released in 1998.

In 2002 Lightfoot suffered a near-fatal abdominal hemorrhage while performing in his hometown of Orillia, Ontario, causing him to cancel his fall tour. When he awoke from a coma weeks later, the tenacious artist immediately began picking tracks from the 18 demos he'd recorded in 2001 and urged his band to flesh them out in the studio. Harmony, his 20th album, was released in May of 2004

Until next time,
Kyle

Perspectives In Music....Episode 3

2008-08-26T01:13:00.000-05:00

One of the very few things I miss about being in Ohio is being able to go down in the woods of Southeastern Ohio, with friends and family, consuming our favorite beverage whether it be beer/whiskey or otherwise, lighting a campfire and playing some old classic folk tunes on the guitar. The peacefulness and enjoyment I get out of that is amazing...and I miss it so. One of the great things about these campfire sessions was that I learned about SO many older (50's, 60's and 70's) folk musicians that have become some of my favorite musical talent. I can listen to their music over and over, and it doesn't get old, it gets more intriguing and interesting to me. I will feature these musicians over time. The feature musician for this blog is one my absolute favorites of the time and he is truely a joy to listen to............Jim Croce. The following is a biography I picked up online from music.yahoo.com. Enjoy the music!

In the music industry, arguably the worst tragedy that can befall an artist is to die in their prime, when he or she is just beginning to break through to the mainstream and reach people on a national level. One such artist was Jim Croce, a songwriter with a knack for both upbeat, catchy singles and empathetic, melancholy ballads. Though Croce only recorded a few studio albums before an untimely plane crash, he continues to be remembered posthumously. Croce appealed to fans as a common man, and it was not a gimmick -- he was a father and husband who went through a series of blue-collar jobs. And whether he used dry wit, gentle emotions, or sorrow, Croce sang with a rare form of honesty and power. Few artists have ever been able to pull off such down-to-earth storytelling as convincingly as Croce.

James Croce was born in Philadelphia, PA, on January 10, 1943. Raised on ragtime and country, Croce played the accordion as a child and would eventually teach himself the guitar. It wasn't until his freshman year of college that he began to take music seriously, forming several bands over the next few years. After graduation, he continued to play various gigs at local bars and parties, working as both a teacher and construction worker to support himself and his wife, Ingrid. In 1969, the Croces and an old friend from college, Tommy West, moved to New York and record an album. When the Jim and Ingrid record failed to sell, they moved to a farm in Lyndell, PA, where Jim juggled several jobs, including singing for radio commercials. Eventually he was noticed and signed by the ABC/Dunhill label and released his second album, You Don't Mess Around with Jim, in 1972. The record spawned three hits: "You Don't Mess Around With Jim," "Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)," and "Time in a Bottle." The latter would become Croce's breakthrough hit, shooting all the way to number one on the Billboard charts. Croce quickly followed with Life and Times in early 1973 and gained his first number one hit with "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown."

After four years of grueling tour schedules, Croce grew homesick. Wishing to spend more time with Ingrid and his infant son Adrian James, he planned to take a break after the Life and Times tour was completed. Unfortunately, the tour would never finish; just two months after "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" topped the charts, Croce's plane crashed in Natchitoches, LA. Croce and the four other passengers (including band member Maury Muehleisen) were killed instantly.

Ironically, Jim Croce's career peaked after his death. In December of 1973, the album I Got a Name surfaced, but it was "Time in a Bottle," from 1972's You Don't Mess Around with Jim which would become his second number one single. Shortly afterwards, "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song" reached the Top Ten. Several albums were released posthumously, most notably the greatest hits collection, Photographs and Memories, which became a best-seller. Several other compilations have since been issued, such as the 1992 release The 50th Anniversary Collection and the 2000 compilation Time in a Bottle: The Definitive Collection. Listening to the songs Croce recorded, one cannot help but wonder how far his extraordinary talents could have taken him if he would have perhaps lived a few years longer. Unfortunately, such a question may only be looked at rhetorically, but Jim Croce continues to live on in the impressive catalog of songs he left behind.

Pig Pickin' (East Coast Terminology - Hog Roast)

2008-08-22T01:06:00.000-05:00

DAY ONE

I knew when I made my arrangements for my Idaho Pig Pickin’ adventure, it would be a trip of a lifetime….and it was that and then some. The pig pickin was held in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho (for those that do not know, it’s 40 miles east of Spokane in the panhandle). I flew into Twin Falls, Idaho, which is in the bottom of the state, to meet up with my cousin Doug who I hadn’t seen in about 12 or 13 years….to which we joked that it wasn’t quite long enough after we had a couple hours together in the car. We stopped and had a beer at the snake river canyon which you can see pictures of below. After that, we hopped in the car drove up to Boise to spend the night at my cousin Marcia’s house (Doug’s sister). That night we took to an adventure in Downtown Boise. Boise is a very nice, quaint type city for those of you have not been there. It seemed very clean, the people seemed nice and the surrounding scenery is pretty great. There are lots of things to do within a short distance, primarily outdoorsy type activities from what I could gather. But, it’s definitely a city I’d like to go back and visit when I have more time……living there?? I’m not quite sure about that yet, I’d have to give it another chance.

The Puddle Jumper airplane I was on from Salt Lake to Twin Falls

One of the falls into the Snake River Canyon

The mound of dirt inthe distance is what Evil Kanevil jumped off of in his Snake River Canyon attempt.

A couple of golf courses at the bottom of the Canyon with the river winding through them.

The Drive

After our night in Boise, we began our trek due north to Coeur D’Alene (CDA I’ll call it from now on). CDA is about a 9 hour drive, primarily because it’s 99% two lane roads winding through the mountains, valleys and prairies of the state. I must admit, and it came as quite a surprise to me, but Idaho is a beautiful state. I always thought that it was just, well, you know…..Idaho. You don’t think there is much there…..and really, their isn’t, but the landscape is some of the best in the nation that I’ve seen. The drive meandered along many rivers and valleys, though lots of little towns that are there solely because of skiing in the winter and water sports in the summer. They town aren’t big in size, but they are big in fascination simply because how they are situation….either between mountains on the twists and turns of the river, on lakes with the clearest, bluest water you’ve ever seen among the mountains of pine trees, surround by millions of acres of wheat fields on flat plains…...it is a drive I recommend everyone take at least once in their life.

Salmon River

Burning the wheat fields

Kaden

The little man of the hour for the entire trip was Kaden. For those who do not know, Kaden is the first Great-Great Grandkid of My grandpa Patton. My Aunt Dianne and Uncle Bill’s first great grandkid, so needless to say, everyone was ALL about Kaden….including me. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a cutest kid ever!! He has such a great personality, even at 1. He was definitely the entertainment of the week….and it was great to finally see him. You can keep up with Kaden if you so wish on my cousin Sydney’s blog (http://www.sydney-itsalwayssomething.blogspot.com/). Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Sydney, husband Stu and Kaden were visiting from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates where they are on a year and half long assignment for Stu’s work….you can read more about that on Sydney’s blog. It was such a joy to see the first addition to the new level of grandchildren in my family.

Kaden trying his hand at Cornhole

Kaden and his Uncle Doug

Kaden and his Papa (Great Grandpa Bill)

Kaden and Mimi (Great Grandma Dianne)

Cooking the Pig

Cooking the pig is definitely a process that will test your patience. It’s a family tradition of my Aunt and Uncles to cook at least one pig a year, and it’s certainly being passed down through the generations so it’s becoming a fine art, hence all help. But my Uncle Bill and Aunt Dianne obviously have done more than one a year since they are well over the 200 pig mark. They’ve got the science down to a fine art, literally…..Everything from knowing the proper amount of coals to put into the grill and the proper distance of the coals from the meat to the amount of time it needs to be cooked (1 hour per 10 pounds if you’d like to know). This section will be more of a photo essay with explanations of what’s going on in the pictures……it’s not for the faint hearted, some of the pictures can be viewed as gross. I’ll probably be getting a call from PETA within a day or two…..Oh well, they can kiss my ass, survival of the fittest is what I say

The arrival of the pig. Even though it only weighed 200 lbs, it still took 4 of us to carry it due to its awkwardness....dead pigs aren't easy to get a handle on. Plus it was packed with Ice which made it that much heavier. But we managed to get it near the grill.

This is where we held the pig on ice until it was time to put it on the grill. For a 5PM the following day finish time, we had to get it on the heat by 9PM the night before.

The pig just got put on the grill. It's time to unwrap and start flattening it out.

The first step is to open up the chest cavity more than it already is so you can get down to the spine

With the assistance of others, you spread it out as much as you can and start hatcheting the spin so it will lay flat on the grill.....look at those babyback ribs...this could be a Chili's commerical.

Putting on the finishing touches

She's ready for the coals.

You may think this is cruel, but look....the pig has a smile on it's face, so you don't have to feel so bad.

My little cousin Harrison showin some love! He didn't actually touch it, just looks like it from the angle.

After the pig is on the coals for a little while, it's time to grease the pig to keep the skin from drying out

The GREASIN CREW!!

How the pig met it's fate....hole in the forehead!

This is the next morning.....you have to pay special attention to the grease spots in the coals....that very last thing you want to do is have your pig catch on fire. You can see that the pig is defintely starting to get cooked up.

I thought this picture was cool.....looks like that pig is pissed off and could come up from the dead at anytime and kick our asses. Kinda spooky, eh?

When it's 100 degrees, humid, and you are standing over the fire for hours, and there is a lake 5 minutes away, you take the opportunity to go for a quick swim....so that's what we did.

The swimming crew....a mixture of some of my cousins that were there.

The pig is just about to be turned....it's legs are broke from cooking which is a sign it's well on it's way

Time to eat......super tasty!!

The end of the road for this pig!

After the party on Saturday, it was time to had back home, unfortunately. It was great to see everyone, especially the ones I haven't see in many years! I can't remember the last time I laughed so much I was sore the next day....I accomplished that every day I was there.

Next on my agenda, Mom is coming out to spend a week relaxing and celebrating her 5oth birthday. She arrives September 10 and will be joined by my Aunt Linda. It should be a great time and I'm looking forward to spending some time visiting with them. I have a trip the Grand Canyon planned, a Diamondbacks game, and lots of pool time!

Until next time..................................Kyle

Moving In.........Idaho...........Another Episode of "Perspectives in Music"

2008-08-11T00:43:00.000-05:00

I have officially moved into my new digs, which of course with any move, was extremely exhausting!! I vowed in 1999 that I'd never move myself again after a horrible, painful experience of moving a member of my family to a new residence.....ever since, I've totally justified the few dollars it takes to have someone else move my shit.....this move was not any different. I paid some pakistani's to move my shit from Ohio to here, and I paid some local boys to move my shit from storage to my place....all is well!!!! I'll have official pictures of my place up once I get my new couch and other stuff delivered which they said would be September 6......I wasn't happy about the wait, but what can I say. Moving is a process, once that can't be rushed, so I'll just have to wait for it all to come together.

When I first started thinking about moving out of Ohio, I had no reservation about where I would go. The mere thought of relocating can be daunting but I knew the place I was going to stay was going to be just like home. I vacationed out here probably 8 times, a week at a time, and I loved it more and more every time. Then my aunt and uncle moved down here, so the extra persuasion helped my decision along tremendously. Having family here has made the world of difference. The hospitality I've received since being here has been to a degree that is unexplainable so I'm not even going to try. Those of you that know Dianne and Bill, know what kind of treatment you get when you come here......the BEST!!! So, to them, and I know you are reading, and I probably didn't/don't say it enough, THANK YOU for helping me successfully move into the next phase of my life.....one that had major hurdles to overcome! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

This Wednesday I'm flying up to Twin Falls to meet my cousin Doug and we are going to go to Boise to spend the night. Then the next day we are making the 9 hour drive up to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho to see the rest of the family. Every year they have a hog roast (Pig Pickin in these parts) and this is my first time in attendance at the west coast version of a hog roast, so I'm VERY excited to see how this all takes place. I'll have a future post with all the details from this "West Coast Rutter" event. (If you wanna know what a rutter is, go to www.urbandictionary.com and search for the word, and ask questions later). So, more on that trip later!!

The "feature musician" of this post is someone that I've listened to time and time again (once you listen, you'll be surprised) that helped me get through college.....and I do not joke when I say that! In the every busy environment of college life, the dorm parties, the constant nagging to go out, the ever present noise and even the random slut the roommate brings over, there's always a distraction from the most important thing at hand...your education. SO, when I wasn't distracted by the things mentioned, or an infinite number of things that distract a person in college, I'd throw on some Enya. She alway made an appearance in my CD player when I had a healthy paper to write. She has that sound/ability to just get lost in your thoughts and totally focus on the task at hand...So, I must say, THANK YOU ENYA for the assistance in the many 20 page papers I had to endure. I hope that you can find the same relaxation and focus I found in her music. I have to admit, that until I started writing this blog, I hadn't realized that her music has been around for many years.....truely timeless. You may recognize her song "Only Time" from the musical fallout of the 9/11 attacks.

It's most definitely a diversion from the norm, but I hope you enjoy.......................

The following is an online summary of her biography, I hope you find it as interesting as I do.......Enjoy the following!!!

Known as Enya - was born in 1961, 17 May, and spent her childhood in Gweedore (in County Donegal, situated in the north-west of Ireland, one of the main redoubts of the Irish language). There are nine brothers and sisters. Apart from Enya, who is in the middle, there are four other girls and four boys. All the family have won many competitions and are famous in national traditional [music] circles.

Whilst at school, Enya studied the piano and classical music. Three of her brothers and sisters, Máire Ní Bhraonáin (Mary Brennan), Ciarán Ó Braonáin (Kieran Brennan) and Pól Ó Braonáin (Paul Brennan) formed, together with their uncles Pádraig Ó Dugáin (Patrick Duggan) and Noel Ó Dugáin (Noel Duggan), a folk music group (at first with a certain American feel and then more purely Irish, though influenced by jazz and by others such as Pentangle). The group was named Clannad, a contraction of "the family from Gweedore" in Irish. In 1980, at the suggestion of their manager, Fachtna O'Kelly, Enya became a member of the group, participating in the recording of two of their albums, Crann Ull and Fuaim. Apart from providing vocals, she played the Wurlitzer electric piano and later the Prophet 5 synthesizer. She performed with Clannad on many occasions, until, in February 1982, on completing a European tour, she left the group, no one really knowing why. Perhaps she was fed up with being treated as just the little sister.

Since then she has lived in Artane, in the north of Dublin, sharing a house together with Nicky Ryan and Roma, his wife, who comes from Belfast. All had been involved with Clannad at some time. Nick Ryan had worked as a sound engineer with Planxty and later with Clannad, at the time the group was starting out. In 1980, their manager, Fachtna O'Kelly, took charge of the new group The Boomtown Rats, for which reason Nicky thenceforth took charge of their [Clannad's] work. In his house he installed a recording studio, Aigle. There he has recorded, for example, Christy Moore's album Ordinary Man, which has three songs in which Enya takes part in the chorus.

It was also Fachtna O'Kelly who suggested to Enya after she left Clannad, that she devote herself to composing for films. And so, in 1984, she approached her first important task. Roma Ryan had sent a cassette of Enya to film producer David Puttnam, who already had to his credit such titles as Midnight Express, Chariots Of Fire and Los Gritos Del Silencio. Puttnam asked her to compose dreamy and romantic music with a sixties feel for the feature film The Frog Prince.

Having a studio at her disposal, Enya worked almost always at home with the Roland Juno 60 synthesizer or the Kurzweil sampler, and then added piano and voice. Nicky Ryan recorded everything and helped to put the compositions into their final form.

The next commission was for the BBC. It was to prepare music for an important television documentary series on the history of the Celtic civilisation throughout its 2700 years. The series was called The Celts. The composition took ten months work. The music was liked so much that the BBC decided to release a selection as an independent record, before the series was broadcast and entitled simply Enya, with barely a mention in the liner notes that it was a soundtrack. She played nearly all the instruments on the album, sometimes doubling up as many as eighty voices to create her characteristic sound, of dense textures, and ethereal voices, dreamlike and enchanting. It was to paint by means of synthesizers a modern sonic landscape that could evoke different atmospheres, from the mournful lament of 'Deireadh An Tuath' to the striking 'Boadicea', with its astounding dynamic of overdubbed voices. Nicky Ryan acted as producer and co-author of the arrangements and his wife Roma wrote nearly all the lyrics, for the most part nearly inaudible or impenetrable, giving an evanescent character to the music by being sung in Latin, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic.

Only on three of the pieces did other musicians take part, one on each. Patrick Halling, a classical violinist who frequently plays in recording sessions for rock artists (Jethro Tull and Steve Howe, for example), added delicate nuances to the final track. The great piper Liam Óg O'Floinn (or Liam O'Flynn, founder member of Planxty and regular collaborator of composer Shaun Davey) played the melody part of 'The Sun In The Stream'. Lastly, the guitarist Arty McGlynn (ex-member of Van Morrison's band and of Planxty and current member of Patrick Street) correspondingly completed with his elegant flourishes the only song whose lyric was comprehensible to us, being in English and sung clearly, 'I Want Tomorrow'. It was, moreover, the song chosen as a single and video (curiously, in the video the guitar is not heard.)

This record subsequently climbed to number one in the Irish charts, which started the commercial rise of Enya. She collaborated with the singer Sinéad O'Connor reciting a short text on 'Never Get Old' from her album The Lion And The Cobra.

She signed with an important multinational (WEA), and had a resounding success with her second album Watermark, which has passed 10 million sales worldwide, and has gone platinum in 14 different countries, helped by the single 'Orinoco Flow', a No 1 hit in Britain. Then she repeated her world success with Shepherd Moons, which spent an amazing 199 weeks on the Billboard charts in the USA and has sold over 11 million copies.

A new version of the album Enya was released as The Celts and in 1995 with The Memory of Trees was yet another smash hit album. Enya has been nominated for four Grammy Awards and has won two, both for "Best New Age Album", Shepherd Moons in 1992 and The Memory of Trees in 1997. Also in 1997 she released a compilation album titled Paint The Sky With Stars that contained a selection of the Enya better known themes and two new songs: 'Paint The Sky With Stars' and 'Only If...' That year itself came out A Box Of Dreams; a box set that contained a three CD collection and an illustrated booklet. The CDs were entitled Oceans, Clouds and Stars, and they cover the Enya career since her debut in 1987.

The artist spent the remainder of the decade contributing soundtrack material to various projects, before returning to the studio to record A Day Without Rain, her first new studio album in five years. Of this album she says, "The title refers to the mood on a particularly peaceful day on which there was no rain. We do get a lot of rain in Ireland in all seasons. We had a run of days where it had done nothing but rain. Then one day the sun came out. It was then that I wrote the title track, so what else could I call it?".

The album shot up the US and several European charts almost a year after its release, thanks to the use of the track "Only Time" in news coverage of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.

Her music has appeared in many more smash hit films, including "L.A. Story", "Green Card", "Toys", the TomCruise/Nicole Kidman film "Far and Away" and Martin Scorcese's "Age Of Innocence". Enya's new song 'Only Time' features in the film, "Sweet November", starring Charlize Theron and Keanu Reeves. In 2001 she records 2 brand new songs for Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack, "Aniron (theme for Aragorn and Arwen)" and "May It Be".

She has made appearances at benefits and has played for the Pope, the King of Sweden and the Queen of England, but these involved playbacks of her work while she played and possibly sang along, not a true live performance. "It’d be a really great thing to do,” Enya says of performing live. “We’ve first been talking about next year, trying to at least do a TV special performance, having the setting, say, in a cathedral or something and involve quite a few people - orchestrating the music, having choir. It’d be fantastic to try. You can’t emulate the same sound, but definitely the music can cross over to a rendering for a live performance. We’re both very confident about that.”

In 2002 Enya got a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination for "best original song" with "May It Be". Wins a new Grammy Award for "Best New Age Album" with A Day without Rain. Wins three World Music Awards: "best-selling Female artist", "best-selling New Age artist" and "best-selling Irish artist", and wins the award for "best pop-rock single" with "Only Time" in the Echo Awards (Germany)...

Although fronted by Enya, the music released under her name is the result of collaboration between three people: Enya, who sings, writes and performs all the music, her producer, sound engineer and co-arranger Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan. Enya has previously stated that without any one of them, "Enya" would not exist.

I'll be back with ya after Idaho with pictures and a report on how my West Coast Hillbilly Experience was!!!

Thanks for reading (all 3 of you)!!

Kyle

A New Perspective

2008-08-06T01:28:00.000-05:00

The dictionary defines the word RELAXATION as the following:

1. abatement or relief from bodily or mental work, effort, application, etc.
2. an activity or recreation that provides such relief; diversion; entertainment.
3. a loosening or slackening.
4. diminution or remission of strictness or severity.

HOWEVER, I define the word RELAXATION in only one word: MUSIC

Simply stated, I LOVE MUSIC........music across all spectrums. I don't have a favorite song, singer, album or genre. I appreciate ALL music. So many times, I've listened to the classics, I've discovered people that are classics that I hadn't been introduced to, I've discovered classic singers that weren't well known in their time, I've listened to the popular singers of today, I've stumbled upon singers that were just starting and are now popular and I currently am listening to musicians that I think have the potential to be huge. The point I'm trying to exude is that I listen to everything and I constantly search for new and old talent thanks to websites like YouTube and Myspace. My dream job is to be a talent scout for a record label, but how the hell does one stumble upon such a position, especially coming from Glouster where the best we have is our local no-toothed long haired hippie throwin out his best vocal at the weekly open mic night. Now, I must say, I thoroughly enjoy those events, but it's just not something you can make a living in.

I've decided to interject some musical culture into my blog. I'll still continue to give you all the updates of whats going on in my life, however, I just want to spice it up a bit and make this more of an experience for all the readers as opposed to just you reading a play by play of the things I do. I'm going to "feature" (so to speak) only one artist per blog. I'll try to include a brief biography of that musician so you can maybe better relate to the type of music they sing and portray...but that's all dependant on what I can find on the web. Additionally, I won't include an artist if I can't post videos or sound files that everyone can hear.......because what's the point of me doing this if you can't listen to what they have to offer vocally. With all that said, I'm not trying to be a musical historian, I'm just trying to share something I love with my 4 or 5 dedicated readers.

I understand if you only like a certain type of music, or music from a certain era, but I ask you, open your mind and find some enjoyment in the artists that I either introduce to you, remind you they exist or even a new type of music you haven't ever considered.

There's nothing better than putting on some music of your choice after a long, difficult day at work....or dealing with life in general.

So, for no particular reason, other than I ran across a video of his tonight and it reminded me of the only song I know of his, my first "interjection" of my music onto everyone is going to be a not so well-known (by today's standards) musician by the name of Mickey Newbury. I discovered Mickey Newbury from a song that noone knows, and I can't even find it online for you to listen to, called Thirty Third of August. There's a long story behind it that I won't explain, but it has to do with the Old Settlers Reunion and where I grew up.....but, from the following lines and videos I hope you can gain some appreciation. I certainly apperciate his love for music and song writing. If not, that's perfectly fine, I'll have a new singer/songwriter up very soon.!!! Thanks for reading!! KYLE

Mickey Newbury was born Milton Sims Newbury Jr. in Houston Texas, May 19, 1940 to Maime and Milton Newbury. As a child, he was inseparable from younger brother, Jerry; a friendship that continued throughout his life. In high school, Mickey decided to write songs. As a teenager, he shut himself up in his room, writing poetry and learning to play guitar. He organized a doo-wop group called The Embers.

In 1959, Mickey joined the Air Force and was assigned to England for three years. When he returned to the United States, he pursued his dream of being a songwriter. He lived in a ’54 Pontiac and traveled around Texas, Tennessee, and Louisiana playing gigs and working on shrimp boats. Eventually he found himself in Nashville, and in 1964, signed a publishing contract with Acuff-Rose. He moved to Nashville in 1965 and about this time, his first child Joe was born. Shortly thereafter, Jimmy Elledge was first to cover a Newbury song, Just as Long as that Someone is You.

1966 was the year the music industry noticed Mickey Newbury. Don Gibson had a Top Ten Country hit with Newbury’s Funny Familiar Forgotten Feelings, while Tom Jones scored a world hit with the same song. In 1968, Mickey saw huge success; three number one songs and one number five – across four different charts; Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) on the Pop/Rock chart by the First Edition, SweetMemories on Easy Listening by Andy Williams, Time is a Thief on the R&B chart by Solomon Burke, and Here Comes the Rain Baby on the Country chart by Eddy Arnold. This feat has not been repeated. That year, Mickey’s first album, Harlequin Melodies, was released by RCA.

Mickey met New Christy Minstrel member Susan Pack on a blind date in 1967 and would not see her again until 1969. Soon thereafter, they were married and living on a houseboat on Old Hickory Lake outside of Nashville. Over the next four years, Mickey released three albums that raised the bar on Music Row. Produced at Cinderella Studios outside of Nashville, and utilizing Nashville’s best musicians, Newbury’s trilogy of albums - Looks Like Rain, Frisco Mabel Joy and Heaven Help The Child are often referred to as masterpieces.

Following the birth of their first child, Chris, in 1973, the Newburys moved to Oregon, to Susan’s home town, just down the street from her parents, to raise their family. A daughter, Leah, followed in 1977. In 1980, Mickey was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame.

During the 80s, Mickey took a break from the music business to concentrate on his growing family and golf. Stephen joined the family in 1983 and Laura was born in 1986. In the early 90’s, he started writing, recording, and performing again, encouraged by his friends Bob Rosemurgy, Marty Hall, and Owsley Mannier. In 1995, Mickey’s health began to fail, but he continued to produce beautiful music. 1995 to 2002 were some of his most productive years, during which time he almost doubled his catalogue. He also directed his attention to other ventures, beginning work on children’s books based on his story-songs. On September 29, 2002 he succumbed to a long time lung disease and passed away in his sleep at home in Springfield, Oregon.

Mickey Newbury’s songs have been covered by hundreds upon hundreds of artists; over 1,000 covers have been documented. Mickey also recorded 25 albums over 35 years. Though he considered himself a songwriter first and singer second, his own albums are critically acclaimed and highly desired by a very passionate fan base the world over.

Many consider him to be the best of the best. Kris Kristofferson says, “God, I learned more about songwriting from Mickey than I did any other single human being. To me he was a songbird. He comes out with amazing words and music... I’m sure that I never would have written Bobby McGee, Sunday Morning Coming Down... if I had never known Mickey. He was my hero and still is.”

Mickey’s love was the music, not the business. Among Mickey’s peers, he was always seen as a champion of the songwriter. Among his family members and associates, he was seen as a wonderful son, husband, father, and friend.

Enjoy some Mickey Newbury, I know I do...............Kyle

This isn't Mickey at his best obviously, but you have to respect his legacy.....this was his last performance before his death (Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4). It's amazing to see a person at the end of his life produce such heartfelt tunes.....but that's his legacy.

Timeless

2008-08-03T12:08:00.000-05:00

The Timeless Classics of James Taylor - LIVE!!!

After a month and a half of waiting, this much anticipated day had finally arrived.....the day I finally get to see James Taylor in concert. He had been to Columbus probably 2 or 3 times in the past but I had never made it a priority to go see his show, even though I'd heard how great it was. Needless to say, some of my friends gave me shit about missing out on his shows. When I found out he was making a stop in Phoenix I knew that I'd for sure have to go, and how glad I am that I did.

Once Amie and I arrived at the theater, we grabbed a couple drinks and headed for our seats. Our seats were actually very good, as you can see from the pictures below. We were kind of off to the side a little, but it was still close enough to see everything, and the TV's were right above us so we got the best of both worlds. The show started promptly at 8PM with a couple songs from his new album which were good. I think we've established by now, that pretty much anything the man sings is gonna be some good shit. Once he got the first couple out of the way, he started in with the classics we all know....Fire and Rain, Carolina, You've Got a Friend, Sweet Baby James, Steamroller, Mexico, Walking Man.......just to name a few.

During the intermission, he was nice enough and patient enough to sign autographs for whoever wanted to go down front and try to get one. Usually when these guys have an intermission, we all know they had back to the dressing room to refresh their adult beverage, smoke a joint or something, but whatever it is, it doesn't involve autographs and crowd interaction. Not James!! He finished his first set, came to the front of the stage, signed autographs for a good 20 minutes, stood back up, walked over to his guitar and started playing the second set. I was pretty impressed he took the time to do all that. Of course I was even more pleased because I in fact got his autograph twice, once on my ticket and once on a dollar bill. When I made my way up to the front, I asked him if he'd turn my dollar into a million....he laughed and said, "well, if that's the case, this is only worth 98 cents now". He seemed to be a super patient and humble guy.....I'm sure he's learned those ways over the years, or he's just too old to be an asshole, but I think he really is a genuine person.

Just when you think a person can't sound any better, you hear them live and they sound so much better. I didn't think it was possible for JT to sound any better than he does on his CD's, but the way he sang his classics with his own twist that has taken decades to develop, made the so familiar sounding songs seem like something totally new and even better! I've seen a lot of these classic guys over time (James Taylor, Elton John, Simon and Garfunkle, CSNY, Neil Young, Willie Nelson among many others) and the all sound better live now today than they do on their CD's of 30 years ago. A song that was so good when it came out back then, is even so much better now after it has been shaped and molded by 30 years of repitition, experience and creativity.

If you get a chance to go see JT.....do not hesitate!!

Opening Song - A view from our seats

Another view from our seats

JT on the BIG Screen

JT posing for one of a hundred pictures

I was next in line for my two autographs

JT signature times two

Coming Soon To a Blog Near You:

August 8-10 - Moving into my own place

August 13-17 - Coeur D'Alene, Idaho for a family Pig Roast

August 22-24 - Buddy from CMH flyin in, Dave Matthews Concert

Stay Tuned for me.

Later,

Kyle

(Click on picture for bigger version)

VEGAS for Your Birthday - The Only Excuse for a 2 Day Hangover

2008-07-17T00:36:00.000-05:00

La Fin De La Semana De Mi Cumpleanos En Las Vegas

I have yet to spend a weekend in Las Vegas that wasn't an absolute amazing time, followed by a 2 day hangover. To me, that just shows you gave it your all, partied your ass off, and have tons of great memories and good stories to tell. This past weekend surely didn't dissappoint based on those things mentioned.

I had originally decided that I was going to go celebrate my 28th birthday with a long weekend in Vegas. I decided to do this since my idea of being 28 is one that officially puts me into the class of folks that are officially "PUSHING 30". So, I set out to find some people to come with me. My friend Uriah from Columbus (who some who are reading this may know) decided he was going to make the trip. He too, was having a birthday just 4 days prior to mine, so it suddenly turned into an even bigger birthday weekend celebration. I also invited the girlfriend Amie to come along, and she was all about a crazy weekend in Vegas. So, we made the plans....Amie and I were going to go up on Friday, Uriah would come in on Saturday, Amie would leave on Sunday and Uriah and I would leave Monday. After several hundred dollars of airlines and hotel reservations we were all set for this journey.

Friday Amie and I got the party started right by having a couple drinks in the airport. We arrived in Vegas around 3:30, grabbed our bags, checked into the MGM and headed to the bar with the video poker machines in the counter top to play some cards and drink for free. So, after about a half hour of playing, I hit a straight flush and turned my 10 dollar investment into 80. So, by this time it was time to go start to get ready for our show which started at 7:30. I had bought tickets to the Cirque Du Soliel show called Zumanity. Zumanity is their more risque show that they advertise as exploring the "sensual side of Cirque Du Soliel"......so you can imagine how simple the costumes were since there really weren't any costumes to be seen. Lots of nakedness in this show, which I certainly was complaining. We had literally front row, center seats....and the seat was actually a love seat couch which made it that much better! Anyone that goes to Vegas, I absolutely recommend seeing this show. Besides the tits and ass, I was totally impressed with the show in and of itself and the performers amazing talents.

First picture of the trip.....OSU cup filled with whiskey and water.......how appropriate!!

After the show, we thought the red carpet wall made for a perfect photo op.

Once we got back to the hotel it was time for dinner. Because both of us love Sushi so much, I decided that for my "Vegas Birthday Dinner" I wanted to have some sushi! So we hit up a sushi joint in the MGM which turned out to be very good! I've come to find out that Sushi joints are like Chinese joints......you find one you love and it's hard to find one as good as what you are used to. This place we found in the MGM was extremely close to what we are used to here in Scottsdale, AND, their smoked salmon was better than our place here, but in overall rating, I still have to hand it to my hometown joint. But, let me be clear, I have no complaints about this place and would totally recommend it!

Me illustrating my chop stick skills.....a skill that was underdeveloped until I moved to Scottsdale........the beer drinking skill was refined long ago.

After dinner, doin some gambling, losin my ass at this machine.

Saturday morning around 9, my buddy Uriah arrived to the wonderful world of Las Vegas. He was in extra trouble because he has NEVER been to Vegas, AND this was his birthday. So my immediate mission was to show him how we do it in the city that never sleeps. We were at breakfast by 9:30 and with our eggs, we got our first beers of the day. After a couple beers and a 70 dollar breakfast, we found ourselves back in the room contemplating what to do. We were only contemplating because it was overcast.....so, do we go to the pool or do we go bar hopping?? So, we decided to hit up the MGM pool, which turned out to be our best move. We grabbed some chairs, laid out, bullshitted and baked until about 5PM. Lets just say by the time we were back in the room by 5, we were ready to hit the town. We all got ready and was out and about by 8. We headed over to VooDoo Lounge on top of the Rio where we met some of Uriahs friend's who were also in town.

Me and Amie at the VooDoo lounge with a drunk photographer (Uriah), hence the extremely centered and clear shot here.

Me and Uriah at the VooDoo

After the VooDoo, we headed across the street to The Palms. Our plan was to get some dinner and head up to the top of The Palms to the Ghost Bar. Any of you that watch MTV and the Real World will know that a season of the Real World was filmed at this hotel and they were constantly partying at this bar. The season was about 5 or 6 seasons ago, but this is where the place gets its fame. So, we went and had dinner at a restaurant called N9ne. Absolutely amazing!!!!! (And so was the 180 dollar bill). One of the best pieces of salmon I've ever had and one of the most tender filets ever. After dinner, we headed up to the Ghost bar. Besides being a very energetic atmosphere and great place to party, on their patio, which is on top of this 30 story hotel, there is an area that's all glass. So, you party on this area where you are looking straight down to the ground. If I hadn't spent an afternoon and evening of consuming a mind and perception altering substance, better known as beer, I'd probably have gotten light headed, and if I didn't pass out, I would have head back towards the indoors; however, at the time, it was some pretty cool shit! I tried to take a picture but all I got was reflection from the glass, and I wasn't about to screw with the flash to get the pic to turn out. After some dancing, bullshittin, drinking and being drunk, we decided to grab a cab back to the room and crash out for the night.

Me and Amie at N9ne

This was the "shot heard round the bar".....it did Uriah in!

Bottoms UP!!!!!!!

Sunday we all woke up and the first thought in our minds was "get some of the hair of the dog that bit ya." So, we got ready for the pool. Uriah and I were going to head over to the Hard Rock Hotel to their pool called Rehab. On Sunday's it's the pool party to go to. Unfortunately, Amie had a flight back to Phoenix and wasn't able to join us. So, Uriah and I go over to Hard Rock and see the line and decide to say fugg it and grab a cab back to MGM. We get in the cab, explain our plight to the cab driver, to which he responds, "If you guys want to go to a pool, I'll tell ya the best pool to go to". So, of course what are we going to say..NO?? SO, the cabbie recommends we hit up Venus at Cesaers Palace. He continued on to tell us it was a topless bar!!! So, of course our reaction was none other than, "HELL YES, take us there!". So, we head over to Cesaers, and what a fantastic idea this was. First, and the most obvious, the "upper body" scenery was great.....but the entire atmosphere of the pool was super chill, very nice and absolutely relaxing! This was Uriah's actual birthday, and what better way to spend the day than at a topless pool with a bunch of nice fake you know what within all angles of view? I don't think any guy reading this would object, and quite frankly, most of you ladies wouldn't mind either. Here is a picture of the pool taken with my cell phone. I had to sneak this one in, because as you can imagine, there were MANY signs announcing their dissatisfaction of patron taking pictures!

Venus Pool at Cesaers

After spending many hours at Venus, which is appropriately named because you feel like you are on another planet, we started head back to the hotel, but first, I wanted to stop across the street at one of my favorite places in Vegas.....The CARNIVAL Bar!! I've had more great times here than anywhere on the strip. It's a fun, entertaining, exciting bar where all the bartenders are doing all the crazy tricks and shit.....but the great thing is, the energy is amazing and it filters to everyone that is there, so you can imagine how great of a time that everyone has while they are there. Everytime I've ever been there, there are people of all ages having the times of their lives. It just so happens we ran into a group of ladies on a "girls trip"...........well, you can look at the pictures and see where this night was leading for them. Thank the Lord we only had a couple beers and left or else we would have been some couger pray!

The Carnival Bar - raining for a few minutes hence the white spots

I'm sure the fun didn't stop here

Nope, it didn't.

They were lovin them some Uriah.....he was fuckin with them. Everyone needs a goal right? He just happened to be their goal that they wouldn't be obtaining.

Focus on the chain....I can only imagine how this night ended for them!

Shortly after these pictures, we headed back to the MGM and found ourselves deep into a much needed nap. Before the nap we had decided to go see the Cirque Du Soliel show called Love. This show is set to nothing but Beatles music, and let me tell you, it was another amazing show. My only advice is to do NOT go to this show on Mushrooms or on Acid. Lots of trippy lights, lots of trippy costumes, and just basically lots of trippy 60's shit, which makes total sense considering the soundtrack. I found it to be totally worth the money an overall great show. It was totally different than the one I saw on the first night, so I really can't compare the two......but if I had to pick, I'd go to the Zumanity show.

After the show, we just hit a bunch of different casinos on the way back having drinks at each one and meeting people......which lead to a 6AM bed time. We were back up at 9AM to get ready to head to the airport. Of course, we were both feeling a bit pekkid.

To make a long ending short, the plane ride sucked cause it was super bumpy and I felt like hell, I couldn't wait to get on the ground, I felt like shit the rest of the evening, slept like shit so Tuesday was a combonation of feeling like shit and being tired, I slept like shit Tuesday night and just now as I write this on a Wednesday night, more than 48 hours since I've gotten home, I'm just now starting to feel back on even keel.

Anyone that knows the ropes of Vegas, this is an indication that it was a fantastic time and I'd do it all over again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next blog?? A recap of my birthday festivities here in Scottsdale!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (Today, JULY 17).

Until next time,

Kyle

Still Yet Another Weekend in Glouster-tucky

2008-07-01T21:17:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I took my third trip back to Glouster in as many months as I've lived out here, but it was all for prior committments which is fine. All my prior obligations have been met, and it will now be a much longer time before I come back to Glouster. The two main reasons being time off work and the cost of airline tickets. I'm tenatively planning a return near the end of October for an OSU football game, but as I said, it's all tenative.

I arrived on Wednesday in Columbus and went straight to happy hour where I saw quite of few of my good friends in Columbus. It was nice to see everyone again, have a couple drinks and bullshit for the evening.

Half of Thursday was spent sleeping in since I was still on Pacific Time. But I didn't do much of anything....just hit up another happy hour with some friends and went back to my buddies and hung out and then hit the sack.

Friday I went golfing with a couple friends in the morning, then went and got a rental car and headed for "God's Country". I called up Avis and asked for a compact car, I get there and they have a Mustang waiting on me...I was quite pleased. I'll attribute that upgrade to the simple fact that as far as Avis is concerned, I'm still a preferred member with my former employer. That even got me out of paying for insurance since it's included with the company's plan. So, I paid a whopping $18.50 a day for the Stang. Friday night we converged on the Shingle Inn for the annual Calcutta for the Doc Patton Golf tournament. To save a bunch of explanation, a calcutta is essentially an auction for the team you think is going to win. This is nothing but a gambling thing and no money benefits the scholarship, and you don't even have to be playin in the tournament to partake in this event. So, that went off pretty successful. Afterwards, I went home and got some sleep for the big golf tournament the next day, which was the primary reason for coming home.

For those of you that don't know, as I mentioned in a previous post, I had established a scholarship in my grandfathers name that we give away every year. Well, as with any scholarship, the funding has to come from somewhere. So, the family, namely Jerry Lackey, my cousin, puts on a fantastic tournament to raise money for the award. Its always an absolute blast and this year was no different.

Saturday morning arrives, and I'm up bright and early at 5:45 getting ready to get some breakfast before the tournament. I'm surprised I got up that early considering my body was still on Pacific time. I was at the golf course by 8 and was playing by 9. It was a long day considering we had 24 teams on a 9 hole course. There were golf balls flying everywhere, and too my surprise again this year, noone got hit with an errant shot. The tournament was tons of fun, the beer was flowing early, the weather was great and I got to see a lot of my friends. Our team didn't win, although we should have, we just didn't hit the shots when we needed to....but you win some, you lose some, but all and all it was a fantastic time. I did win a very nice golf bag that I sold so the day wasn't a total loss. Saturday night was pretty laid back, went to some family's house and then hit some back roads and drank some scooby snacks.....by that time, after getting up early, golfing all day, then going out in the evening, my ass couldn't get to the manger quick enough.

Sunday was a day of recovery for the most part. I got up and went to breakfast with my Mom, then went to visit some more family, then back to Columbus I went. My flight left early Monday morning and I didn't wanna have to get up at the ass crack of dawn to drive to the airport. So, Sunday evening I just hung out at my buddies....grilled out, had some drinks and wasn't far out of bed since I had to get up early again.

All in all, it was a pretty fun weekend. There aren't any stories that grab your attention, but it was an overall good time.

My next ventures are Vegas next weekend for my birthday, then Idaho in August for a family party, then in September I'm flying my Mom and Aunt out for her 50th birthday, then back to Ohio in October for the OSU game, at which time I'll be making a trip to Glouster as well.

Here are some random pictures from the weekend.

At the start of tournament, we recognized the Knoderer family (who owns the course)

I was tryin to mess with my cousins cart while we were driving......you can imagine this was a few beers into the day.

There was playoff so you can see we just grabbed some beer and went to be a spectator. I counted about 60 people watching the playoff, pretty exciting actually

Me and my teammate Brian....we had a blast, and put a dent in the cooler.

Me and my Cousins....Britt and Kate. Can't tell they are sisters at all!

Me and Britt later that night before the Road Trip

IN OTHER NEWS: I'M A FUGGIN MORON

I haven't started my motorcycle in about a month, so I figured I would start her up, let her purr for a little bit to circulate some gas and then put the cover back on. So, I did just that........but when I put the cover back on, I was being totally conscious of the exhaust pipes which obviously get ridiculously hot. I was focused on the back part of the pipes and totally forgot about where they leave the engine cyclinder. The following pictures are the results of my being a total douchenozzle for a split second..........I've got some major amounts of cleaning to do now since my fuggin cover is now COOKED onto my pipes. See below for todays moron of the year award pictures......

The cover with a couple nice holes melted into it.

This should be totally shiny, but you can see it looks like there is a black mesh surrounding the pipe........And that's because it WAS a black mesh, now it's a hard melted plastic mesh. (You can also see how dusty the bike is....You can't keep anything clean out here.

I'll be back with more soon, but hopefully with updates on events that aren't as damn dumb as me baking my motorcycle cover to my pipes......Sometimes I think I should have been a brain surgeon.

Until next time,

Kyle

Yes, it's official....I'm a slacker.

2008-07-01T00:46:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been absent for quite some time on here....but that is about to change. I just recently got back from still yet ANOTHER trip to Ohio. Fortunately, my next trip will be some time from now. So, I'm working on a new blog with pics about my trip. Stay tuned and I'll be with ya again soon!!

See ya,
Kyle

Diamondbacks and Mustangs.....A day at the Zoo

2008-06-14T19:00:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine was able to score some killer Diamondback tickets, so Friday night a group of us went to the game. They were playing the Kansas City Royals, who doesn't have a very respectable record so far in this season, but they put up a fight and it was a great game. The game was 0-0 after 9 innings, so to the 10th it went. The Royals batting first were at 3 outs pretty quickly. The bottom of the 10th was heading down that same path until one of the players hit a home run to end the game, 1-0 in the bottom of the 10th. Needless to say, everyone went crazy, including the team which you can see below. The seats were 4 rows back from the Diamondbacks dugout, so the game was pretty much right in your face. Since it was Friday the 13th, they had a nice fireworks show which was a good way to end the evening.

Chase Field

The Mascot (I know, doesn't look like a snake, but you just have to roll with it)

If you look at the catcher, you can see the pitch was quite low

Chase Field Scoreboard

Just after the homerun, celebrating with the nights hero

More celebration

The evenings savior being interviewed

The finale of the fireworks show

After a couple months of comtemplating whether to buy a new car or not, I finally decided to make the plunge after I was offered a deal I couldn't refuse. SO, I traded in the gas efficient Hyundai Accent for a gas guzzling Mustang GT.........So, I am now a proud owner of a car that uses way too much gas......But, I freakin LOVE the car. Check out the pics below, I think the interior is my favorite part. I'm sure I'll be bitching when I have to start the payments, but damn, I love it right now.

Until next time.........Have a good one.

Kyle

One Step Closer

2008-06-05T19:57:00.000-05:00

OUT WITH THE OLD.................................................

IN WITH THE NEW..........................................

As you can see I spent some time at the MVD (BMV in OHIO).......now I'm one step closer to being an authentic Arizona resident! Check out the expiration of the Arizona license....year 2045!!!!!!!

I'm flying back June 25 and staying until June 30, for the Doc Patton Golf Scramble. Come play and have a good time. Hope to see you soon!!

Kyle

Had to Share This One

2008-06-05T11:51:00.001-05:00

I recieved this forwarded email and I just had to share it!! This pretty much is how the chain of events will transpire over the next 2 months.

Dear Diary:June 10th:Just moved to Arizona ! Now this is a state that knows how to live!! Beautiful sunny days and warm balmy evenings. What a place! It is beautiful. I've finally found my home. I love it here.

June 14th:Really heating up. Got to 100 today. Not a problem. Live in an air-conditioned home, drive an air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun everyday like this. I'm turning into a sun worshipper.

June 30th:Had the backyard landscaped with western plants today. Lots of cactus and rocks. What a breeze to maintain. No more mowing the lawn for me. Another scorcher today, but I love it here.

July 10th:The temperature hasn't been below 100 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? At least, it's kind of windy though. But getting used to the heat is taking longer than I expected.

July 15th:Fell asleep by the community pool. (Got 3rd degree burns over 60% of my body). Missed 3 days of work. What a dumb thing to do. I learned my lesson though. Got to respect the ol' sun in a climate like this.

July 20th:I missed Lomita (my cat) sneaking into the car when I left this morning. By the time I got to the hot car at noon, Lomita had died and swollen up to the size of a shopping bag, then popped like a water balloon. The car now smells like Kibbles and $hits. I learned my lesson though. No more pets in this heat. Good ol' Mr. Sun strikes again.

July 25th:The wind sucks. It feels like a giant freaking blow dryer!! And it's hot as hell. The home air-conditioner is on the fritz and the AC repairman charged $200 just to drive by and tell me he needed to order parts.

July 30th:Been sleeping outside on the patio for 3 nights now. $225,000 house and I can't even go inside. Lomita is the lucky one. Why did I ever come here?

Aug. 4th:It's 115 degrees. Finally got the air-conditioner fixed today. It cost $500 and gets the temperature down to 85. I hate this stupid state.

Aug. 8th:If another wise a$$ cracks, 'Hot enough for you today?' I'm going to strangle him... D@mn heat. By the time I get to work, the radiator is boiling over, my clothes are soaking wet, and I smell like baked cat!!

Aug. 9th:Tried to run some errands after work. Wore shorts, and when I sat on the seats in the car, I thought my a$$ was on fire. My skin melted to the seat. I lost 2 layers of flesh and all the hair on the back of my legs and a$$ . .. . Now my car smells like burnt hair, fried a$$, and baked cat.

Aug 10th:The weather report might as well be a d@mn recording. Hot and sunny...Hot and sunny...Hot and sunny...It's been too hot to do $hit for 2 d@mn months and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Doesn't it ever rain in this d@mn state? Water rationing will be next, so my $1700 worth of cactus will just dry up and blow over. Even the cactus can't live in this d@mn heat.

Aug.14th:Welcome to HELL! Temperature got to 115 today. Cactus are dead. Forgot to crack the window and blew the d@mn windshield out of the car. The installer came to fix it and guess what he asked me??? "Hot enough for you today?" My sister had to spend $1,500 to bail me out of jail. Freaking Arizona. ..What kind of a sick demented idiot would want to live here?? Will write later to let you know how the trial goes...

Now you see why I don't own a cat out here! haha.

Kyle

Memorable trip for a Memorial Weekend

2008-05-31T18:31:00.001-05:00

Well, here I am, finally back at it. Sorry for the long delay in getting this posted regarding my trip back to Glouster, better known to some as "God's Country", "Poverty Gulch", or simply, "The Asshole of the Universe". But, call it what you may, I had a great time, saw many great people, family and friends alike, and it was truely another memorable trip home.

I arrived into Columbus on Tuesday evening after uneventful flights to Atlanta and then up to Columbus. Real quick, can you believe the audacity of these airlines to charge $25 for a second checked bag?? As if flying isn't already expensive enough due to soaring gas prices, they decide to charge you for your checked bags. It seems to be inevitable that we will soon end up with airlines that have "Skybus" service practices (pay for everything) while still retaining major airline prices. What gives?? Lately, it's been my wallet that's giving and quite frankly it's pissing me off.....but the shitty thing about it is that we have to travel if we want to do anything. Anyway, I digress....back to the story at hand.

I arrived in Columbus on Tuesday evening when Mark picked me up and we headed over to our staple happy hour location, The 94th Aero Squadron. I had Mom pick me up a little bit later so we had time to catch up and have a couple beers. Mom arrived to pick me and we headed back for Glouster-burg.

The event of Wednesday was one of the primary reason's I went home. Wednesday evening was the awards ceremony at the high school in which all the scholarships for the seniors are awarded. For those of you that do not know, back when my grandfather passed away in 2001, I created a scholarship fund in his name which awards a graduating senior who has intentions of pursuing a career in a medical field $500 to further their education. My grandfather was a Doctor in our town for 50 years, hence the medical stipulation attached to the award. This year, I decided to honor the success of the award and gave out 2 scholarships, $500 each. This will be a continuing tradition with the Dr. Charles F. "Doc" Patton Memorial Scholarship. The criteria for the awards has also broadened. We will maintain that one award will go to a student pursing a career in medicine, and the other will be discretionary. We hope the success continues and we can give out even more awards in the future to graduating seniors of Trimble High School.

Thursday marked a day of remembrance for me personally. I went with my Mom, two Aunts and Great Aunt to the cemetaries to lay flowers and remember the family and good times. It's always interesting to go to the cemetaries and realize how many people that you know have passed and that have touched your life one way or another, family or otherwise. Because of growing up in a small town where everyone knows everyone, you will undoubtly know numerous people, and if not them permanently, you can name all their family, who married who, what kinds they had, who their cousins were, etc., etc. I wouldn't trade the "personalness" of that area for nothing, even though I prefer the city now. Everytime I go back to visit, I can always count on seeing tons of people I know.

Center: Aunt Punk

Rear (From left to right): Aunt Carolyn, Mom, Aunt Linda

Later Thursday evening, I called up Jason to see if he wanted to get together for a beverage and some dinner. So, off to BW's we all went. When in doubt, go to BW's.....it's always good for some killer boneless wings and a hangover in the morning. Everytime I go, I swear I'm not going to have the hangover, but it's pretty much as guaranteed as the sun coming up. In this case, I'll blame Jason for that last pitcher he bought and put on my tab!! hehe.

Jason, Shana, Angie and Me after BW's

Me and Jason after BW's

Friday and Saturday were consumed with partying and alumni festivities. This year happened to be my 10th reunion, which was the other primary reason I went home. Friday was the "Pre-Alumni party at the Shingle Inn. I went to Angies for a little pre-pre-party which is always a good time. It was at this pre-pre-pre-party that opened up the refridgerator to refresh my beverage, and I look down and see these beautiful perfectly ripe bananas. Now, one has to ask themselves how long banana's have to be in a refridgerator to take on this magnficent hue of brown? I think these might be the most perfect banana bread banana's I've ever seen. BUT, anyone that knows our good buddy Angie, knows two things: 1) She probably didn't even buy them and know they were there; and, 2) She ain't makin NO banana bread. She'll go to Kroger to get a loaf!! haha, you know I love ya Angie, but damn....nice banana's.

Yes, that's a bottle of tequila in the upper left hand portion

After the pre-pre-pre-banana discovery party, I went up the hill to the Moore's for the pre-pre-alumni party. That was nice to go have a camp fire and drink a few beverages. Out here, if you even so much as strike a match, you run the danger of the whole damn mountain range going ablaze. As the fire went dormant, we all hopped into the cars and went over the hill into town to the actual "Pre-Alumni Party". It was pretty packed, I saw a lot of people, but it was pretty much surprisingly calm, which is out of character. At least it was calm where I was standing, so who knows what went on elsewhere, but I didn't see no knock down drag outs. I would say I didn't see any teeth flying, but I'm sure there was only a few good sets of teeth amongst the entire crowd.....still yet another reason I love the gulch (only to visit). Friday night, I had made plans to meet a couple of my high school buddies at the golf course bright and early at 10AM for a round. BIG MISTAKE!!!! Needless to say, I didn't roll out of the manger until about noon for obvious reasons. I did make it out to the course though, and played a few golf holes with them, but naturally, I didn't play well at all. My class reunion was to commence at 1530 sharp at the Jacksonville Fire House. In tune with my high school days, I showed fashionably late at approximately 1548, covered dish and cooler full of beer in hand. We had a great time looking through all the yearbooks, all the pictures everyone brought and all the "Do you like me, Circle YES or NO" love letters! What a riot. Now adays I'm pretty sure it goes something like this: "Do you like me, TEXT me YES or NO".....oh how the days of technology are upon us. After 7 hours of partying our asses off and a few 10 year rubbermatch games of Euchre. After the reunion we went up the Shingle Inn again for the actual Alumni Party, and again, uneventful. I'm dissappointed I don't have anything to report that's good and juicy drama. But, again, it was nice to see everyone! Below are a series of pictures from Friday and Saturday.

Class of "98 (12 of about 56)

Me, Terri and JoAnn

Me and my good buddy and ex-roommate Ali-cat

Me, my second mom Linda and Trent

Sunday was travel day, and shit, how I wish it wasn't. Anyone that's ever flown with a hangover can attest to that statement. The events of the weekend has just caught up to me and I was feeling like I'd been drug from a damn truck hitch for about 100 miles. There is nothing worse than being hungover and then have the nerves I get from flying dumped on top of that! It was f'en miserable. So, as the wise old age saying goes, "get some of the hair of the dog that bit ya".....and that's exactly what I did. The below picture is what my tray looked like for the trip home. A stiff drink and my Ipod, that's the percription for a case of nerves and monster hangover.

Anyone that has ever been back to Glouster for Memorial Day weekend and the alumni festivities, they know first hand how much of a drink fest it is. It's the one weekend of the year that you just pickle your liver and it's socially accepted. Parties everywhere, drinks everywhere and TONS of hangovers, hence the common them of parties and drinks in this blog. My liver is thankful to be back in Arizona.

I leave you with this pretty cool picture I took from the plane as we were banking taking a turn to the southwest destined for the valley of the sun.

Stay tuned for more!

Unexcused Absence

2008-05-30T02:06:00.000-05:00

To all my loyal readers, I have not forgot about you. I've been busy since returning from the good ole Buckeye State and haven't had a chance to devote a significant amount of time to writing a blog and posting pictures, which is not a good excuse, but I promise it's coming soon!! I do have lots to write about those so hopefully you'll be thoroughly entertained.

Thanks for the patience, stay tuned for more very soon!!!!!

Kyle

Until next time, I'll leave you with a bit of humor. You may have seen it, but I'm sure this condom machine resides in my hometown.

One Step Closer to OFFICIAL Arizona Citizenship

2008-05-18T23:05:00.000-05:00

Since the first inklings of my crazy idea to up and leave Ohio and move to Arizona, a lot has happened. Today marked another step towards the very long process I've experience in becoming an OFFICIAL Arizona citizen. Today, ALL my stuff, let me reiterate that ALL of my stuff arrived here today. Not one lost box, chair, TV, bed, dresser....NOTHING. I was actually very shocked that it ALL arrived here.....UNHARMED at that, which was a real shocker. So far, it's looking something like this:

Feb. 13 - Announced I was quitting my job and moving to AZ
Mar. 14 - Last day of work
Mar. 14 - Apr. 2 - Lots of partying and a little bit of packing
Apr. 2 - Columbus was in the rear view on my way to AZ
Apr. 2-5 - Drive to Arizona with overnights in Tulsa and Flagstaff and a nice day trip to the Grand Canyon and Sedona.
Apr. 6-16 - Sleeping in every day, pool every day, livin the high life
Apr. 17 - Decided it was time to take a day away from the pool and start sending out resumes.
Apr. 22 - First interview with AeroJet
Apr. 23 - Flew home to pack the rest of my shit
Apr. 27 - Met the moving company at my place to get the rest of my shit
Apr. 28 - Flew back to AZ
Apr. 29 - Second interview with AeroJet
May 1 - Accepted job with AeroJet
May 5 - Started job with AeroJet
May 6 - Realized that I miss my pool time and that no matter what the job or where the job, I just hate to F'en work. Powerball became my new obession.
TODAY - May 18 - GOT ALL MY STUFF!!! So, everything about me and my life has officially been reduced to a 10 by 10 storage unit, except for my clothes. BUT, I feel right at home here at my aunt and uncles, so the living situation has been somewhat seemless for me.

?????? - Need to get Arizona drivers license
?????? - Condo/house hunting - I'm gonna buy something, prices are low and now is the time
?????? - Move all my stuff from storage to "MY" home
?????? - Everyone who wants to come out, buy your damn ticket, and get your ass out here.....but I must warn you, you will be overcome with the uncontrollable urge to quit your job and move here..........I speak from experience.

So, when the question marks above get filled, I'll be sure to send an update to my "blog posse"...haha.

I'm flying home on Tuesday for some prior committments. I have to give out the family scholarship on Wednesday and I have my 10 year high school reunion on Saturday. I'm flying back to AZ on Sunday so I can have all of Monday to relax by the pool in 100+ degree weather and get ready for the work week ahead. I'll be sure to update everyone on the events of the weekend. If I know my hometown of Glouster well, I'm more than confident I'll have an endless supply of stories to share. Anyone who knows Glouster will know that the next blog I post has the potential to be very interesting. Of course I'll have plenty of pictures to share from the trip, which will also be interesting.

Have a good week and I'll be back with more a day or two after Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day!! Enjoy your days off.

Kyle

HOLY SHIT!! It RAINED today......................................(3 drops)

2008-05-16T01:49:00.001-05:00

I walked outside today while I was at work, and there was one cloud looming overhead. The Cloud was kind of dark, but I attributed it to it's own shadow. But, I'll be damned, I felt 3 drops on the back of my neck. It was a total rain storm, I was quite pissed I forgot my umbrella in Ohio. I almost had to go home and get my coat, it was that bone chillingly cold :) I was even more pissed that the wash I got on the car a month and a half ago went to shit. I had 3 drops on the hood that you could visibly see amongst the uniform dust blanket. Chances are, I'll get my car washed soon which will be good when the next drops come 5 weeks from now.

I don't have any pictures to post, but I thought the 3 drops were worth reporting on. I'm sure it will rain each of the 5 days I'll be home, so I figure I'm going to enjoy it now.

Hope all is well with everyone, stay tuned for more.............

Kyle

34 Days and Still Not a Drop of Rain

2008-05-13T00:08:00.000-05:00

As the title indicates, the weather has been flawless since I've been here. I arrived on April 5 and have spent 34 total days here and 5 days in Ohio since my arrival. Not one rain drop here, and 3 out of the 5 Ohio days it rained. I certainly do not miss the weather back there. As I said before, ask me in July and August about the heat and I'm sure my tone will change slightly. However, the 115 degree dry heat will be WAY better than the 90 degree humid hell. I'm going back to Ohio next week from Tuesday until Sunday for some prior obligations, but I'm sure at least a couple of those days I'll be blessed with the wet stuff.

This past weekend was filled with 2 of my 3 favorite things. Laying by the pool and riding my motorcycle (the third is golf, but didn't make it to the links). Friday night after work, I went over to Kohl's and slurged on a sale they were having. I call it my biannual shopping trip. About twice a year, I'll go to a store, whichever is having the best sell at the time, and just buy tons of shit. Well, that's what I did at Kohl's on Friday. I needed some shirts for work because most of my polo, casual type shirts have my former employer's logo on them and it might not be in the best taste to sport them around my current employer. I had every intention of stopping only to get a few shirt, but after an hour, I walked out with lots of shirts, several pair of jeans, socks and a pair of shoes....but also over $300 less in my wallet....but like I said, biannual shopping trip. The most challanging part of the entire experience came when I walked out the door after my purchase. I was on my motorcycle and at the time thought all the shit would pack nicely in my saddle bags, but wow, did I misunderestimate my available space. I was determined to make it work though. So, I spent about 5 minutes on one saddle bag stuffing all the clothes and on the other stuffing the shoe box. Lets just say that it all didn't fit. So, I did the best I could, but driving down the road, I had half the sack of clothes hanging out the top and the lid on the shoe box wouldnt' close......fortunately I only had to go about 1/2 mile home, but I'm sure I looked like a big douche riding down the road with all this shit hanging out my bags. Oh well, I'm sure I gave quite a few people a lot of entertainment riding through one of the biggest intersections in Scottsdale. I was amused, so that's all that matters I guess.

Saturday was a day of relaxation. I went to the pool around noon, laid around there for about 4 hours and then came back to get ready to go to Greasewood Flats again for dinner. Greasewood reminds me so much of home, so of course it's a fun place to go out. We got burgers, which is their specialty, then sat around and had a few beers and listened to some live music. What more can you ask for!! Anyone that decides to come visit, this will definitely be a stop along the Tour De Arizona.

Sunday I had the pleasure of doing a 115 mile motorcycle ride. I went riding around Lake Pleasant, which you can see pictures of on the recent blogs. Nothing much to report on that other than it was a very nice day. Great weather, great company, got a lot of sun and relaxation........everything a person could want out of a day. This also will most likely be a stop on the Tour De Arizona, if you decide to visit. The highlight of the day was the Rattle Snake taking refuge near a rock by the visitor center.......I've seen them before out here on previous golfing trips, but this is the first I've seen since moving here. After looking at the pictures, it's not wonder people get bit by them out here....they are harder than hell to spot.

Can you spot the snake???...............Scroll down below the pictures to see the answer.

The snake is located between the two rocks just below the stick.........can you see it yet??

Thank you for playing the Arizona version of "Where's Waldo?".

An overnight in Nogalas, Mexico and a trip to Tombstone, AZ are tenatively planned for next weekend, stay tuned...........

See ya!

Kyle

A Couple Nights of Great Motorcycle Riding

2008-05-08T23:33:00.000-05:00

This quote explains perfectly why I have no qualms about getting up early on a Sunday morning, skipping Church for a ride and not feeling guilty in the least. Even though the past two days weren't a Sunday, but it still portrays the feeling.....riding on a sunny, 90 degree evening, amongst the mountains and blue skies.

"I'd rather be riding my motorcycle thinking about God than sitting in Church thinking about my motorcycle"

Those who know me are already aware that I'm not a church going citizen, but they also know that I'm a believer. It gives me heartburn to think that I have to go to a designated building to be closer to God, but in my opinion, as long as I believe, it doesn't matter who, what, where, when, why or how I believe, but just so long as I do.

Enough with the philosophical religious bullshit, I'm writing this about my last two nights of riding.

Evening #1 (Wednesday)

The owner of the company I work for mentioned I check out a place called Grease Wood Flats at the base of Pinnacle Peak (which you'll see photos of as your scroll down). He had told me it was a really neat place, kind of a dive, with a bunch of old shit laying around amongst the animals they have pinned up on the grounds. So, I was bored Wednesday night and decided I would go check out this Greasewood Flats dive. Pinnacle Peak is fairly prominent landmark in the area, so I knew it wouldn't be that far of a ride. So, I hopped on the scoot and within 15 minutes, I found myself driving through the neighborhood at the base of Pinnacle Peak looking for this "gem in the rough". If you drove through the area, you'd realize the magnitude of the "oxymoron-ism" of that statment. The houses in that area are absolutely spectacular.....and here I am looking for a "dump", for lack of a better word. So, I find the entrance, which is about a quarter mile of dirt/sand road, which on a motorcycle, needs careful attention. I crawled my way to my parking spot not really knowing what to expect. I walk into the Greasewood Flats grounds and I have a hard time figuring out where the "bar" is because it's just nothing but "old" structures, and "old" shit laying around. I could tell I'd feel right at home within about .3 seconds. So, I find the bar behind the huge tree growing in front of it and go in and grab myself a beverage and order some food. I walked around the grounds and took pictures of the animals, the old truck and tractor, the horseshoe pits, the mountains, the old wagons, etc., etc., which you'll see in the pictures below. There are no waitors or waitresses, you just go in the bar, grab your drink, order your food (which you have to go back in and pick up) and find an open spot at one of the many red picnic tables. I will for sure be going back up when they have live music going on and more people are there. So, anyone that comes to visit, this will be one of our stops.

A row of old Wagons

An old tractor under a carport built for a midget

Yes, you read it right.....HORSE parking

One of the Wagons filled with broken bottles.....the point?? Who the hell knows.

From the parking lot

I thought this picture was cool.....Pinnacle Peak

From the back looking to the front

The "back yard" (so to speak)

Horseshoes anyone???

Some random old truck

The Bar behind the trees

The stage

The inside of the small bar

Can you see the red table?

Another picture of the inside of the bar

Evening #2 (Thursday)

Thursday evening I didn't take hardly any pictures, but I still had a nice time. I rode up to Cave Creek, which is about 15 miles directly north of Scottsdale. I stopped at the first bar, which are the only pictures I took which you can see below. I stayed for a bit then I went down the road to another bar called Crazy Ed's. I got to yapping with the bar tender, who happens to ride motorcycles also, so we exchanged numbers and hopefully I can meet some other riders through her. She said they ride all the time, so we'll see where this leads, but I'm open to anything. There is so much great riding out here that I'm excited for any ride at this point.

Obviously the past two evenings have been consumed with some great riding. I'm looking forward to see what comes next in the way of motorcycling in AZ. Anyone that rides, it's imperative you plan a trip out here, rent a bike and spend a few days riding. I can say this and I have only ventured within the confines of civilization. I'm very anxious to get out in the mountains and canyons where it's just you, your bike and road (and the random bug who gets turned inside out on my forehead......quite gross I might add) and do some riding.....I'll definitely have pictures for when those rides take place.

This weekend is still somewhat up in the air....my options are pool time, the natural bridge which I mentioned in a previous post since we didn't go last weekend, and more motorcycling out at Lake Pleasant which you saw in the last post.............chances are, it'll be a combination of each.

Have a good weekend if I don't talk to you before then.

Kyle

The Last Days (Before Employment)

2008-05-05T21:05:00.000-05:00

BIKE ARRIVAL

After a VERY long 2 weeks and 4 days of seeing everyone and their brother here in Scottsdale on a motorcycle, mine FINALLY arrived. They said it would take about 3 weeks to arrive, so they were right about that, but the anticipation was starting to get to me. It arrived at the perfect time since I started my job today, I can ride my bike down the street to work. I only live 1.5 miles from the office, so I'll be riding my bike as much as I can. I figure I'll ride until the heat gets unbearable. The later parts of June, all of July and August and the beginning parts of September the highs everyday are over 100 degrees, so I'm sure I won't be riding during those times. Right now, it feels perfect when you ride, except if you get stopped at a stoplight for any period of time. I was stopped today for about 5 minutes waiting on some contruction and I was drinched by the time I got moving again. Even though the temperature is about 90, when you are sitting on black asphault, the temps have to be up in the 110-115 range. Needless to say, I was happy to get moving again. As I mentioned previously in this blog, the gas savings will be indescribable. Hell, I'll feel like I'm getting a second check just by the gas savings. I recieved the below joke picture the other day and thought it would be appropriate to show. Basically, I'm thrilled the bike is here, I washed and cleaned it up, bought a cover for it and I'm sure it'll be a good time year round.

My bike with a fresh wash

Another Angle

Isn't this the truth

Cinco De Mayo - Downtown Scottsdale

We saw and advertisement in the paper that there was going to be some Cinco De Mayo event in downtown Scottsdale, so we decided we would go check it out. It was supposed to be on the "mall" (town square) and there were to be crafts, food and international dancers and other possible entertainment. We hopped in the car, cruised downtown expecting to be entertained for the evening, and arrived to the exact opposite. On the "mall" there were no crafts, there was no food, BUT, we did have the good fortune of seeing the "international dancers".....so we stuck around for a few minutes and watches these people dance. It was kind of like Egyptian Bellydancing for lack of a better discription. All we were missing was the Indian Guy in the turbine blowing on a flute and a cobra poking his head out of a basket. After about 15 minutes of being blessed with the dancing, we hopped back in the car and headed to a Mexican restaurant so we could at least have a Margarita and some chips/salsa (which was pretty tasty).

The "International Dancers"

International Flag Corps (I guess....didn't quite understand this one)

Lake Pleasant - Peoria, Arizona

On Sunday, we decided to take an afternoon drive. We originally were supposed to go up to the Natural Bridge in Tonto State Park, but we had a change of plans and decided to go drive up to Lake Pleasant. Lake Pleasant is about 30 miles to the west and slightly north of Scottsdale, located near Peoria and Sun City. We had to go over near Sun City to look at a house my cousin is considering buying, so we thought we'd take a gander up to Lake Pleasant after looking at the house. So, we packed a cooler full of scooby snacks and hit the road. It was my last day before employment, so my goal was to relax, have a couple beers, take in the scenery and enjoy cruising in the convertible. We looked at the house then headed north to the Lake. The lake had some of the bluest water I've seen. There was a lot of activity on the lake, skiing, boating, jet skiing, partyin on the banks, etc., etc. It was a somewhat busy place, but at the same time peaceful. Definitely a place I'd like to go back and visit again. This is still yet another reason to find friends that have boats! This may be the valley of the sun, months of over 100 degree highs, and no rain for months, but these people sure do know where to find the water, and have a great time on the water. The glory of it all is that you never have to worry if you are going to get rained out! I arrived here on April 5, one month ago, and I have yet to feel one rain drop in this state! I go back to Ohio for 4 days, and get may ass soaked. I can't believe I didn't move out here sooner. Anyway, here are some pictures from Lake Pleasant.

Me, in front of a Saguaro Cactus, with the lake in the Background.....also gives you some perspective at how big these things are....and this was a smaller one.

West Side of the Lake

More of the lake

I thought this picture was kinda cool looking. Everything Arizona. Water, Cactus, Mountains

What my friends need to have....haha. Actually, I should just buy my own.

More of the lake

Me standing on the Helipad overlooking the lake

Still on the helipad, just closer and a slightly different angle

One of the coves of the lake....and a place to launch sail boats

First Day of Employment

Well, what can I say about this?? I'll be brief.

1. Laid by the pool Thurday, Friday and Saturday for several hours realizing how much I've enjoyed life in the unemployment line. I recommend to anyone to go to the Doctor, claim mental instability, take 6 weeks off, and come back! Best time of your life.

2. Work Sucks - not my job specifically, but ALL work. I mean, who the hell wants to work, especially after sleeping in, doing what you want, laying by a pool, not answering to any corporate assholes....it's the life.

3. I'm playing Powerball religiously........the website says I have a 1 in 146,107,962 chance in winning the big jackpot.....but dammit, there's still a chance!

Thanks for reading, I'll be back with another soon!

Kyle

It's Official, I'm EMPLOYED

2008-04-30T22:32:00.000-05:00

Well, you read it right, I'm officially employed. Pool time is coming to a screaching halt, althought I still do have the weekends I guess. After these past 6 weeks, employment is somewhat bittersweet for me. It's a known fact that we all HAVE to have a job, unless we hit the lottery (I'm still hopeful, I'm playing Powerball every week!), but I'm going to miss just being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want. There is my conscious that knows I need to start making some dough, but then there is the side of me (that we all have) that just wants to keep doing what I'm doing until the money runs out, then run up the credit cards, then file for bankruptcy, THEN think about getting a job. As long as my car continues to run, I figure I have a least a good year, maybe two, that I can live that lifestyle. But, conscious prevails everytime, and now I'm suckered back into a 8-4, Monday through Friday work week. Here are the positives though, it's day shift, it's Monday through Friday and it's not a large corporation, which if you know me well, you know I hate them (hence one of my desires to leave my previous employer). Let me elaborate on that for a moment - First, it's a cube. Need I say more? Sit there everyday, listening to everyones bullshit, stuck in a perpetual dead end, and it's YEARS before you see any forward movement or growth, and that's IF you are lucky. Second, the politics. I don't think that needs much elaboration, but in crude terms, it's not what you know or your job performance, it's who you are screwing, who you want to screw, and who wants to screw you. Third, they throw you shitty pay and justify it with good benefits......WHATEVER! I could go on for days, but I'll spare you the bitch session, I'd just be beating a dead horse, or elaborating on something you already know about.

Anyway, let me get to the details, which is the point, not me bitching. I began my job search by researching the most obvious place, the internet. What did they do before Al Gore invented the internet, I'll never know. So I came up with a comprehensive list of contacts of all aviation operators at both Sky Harbor Phoenix and Scottsdale Municipal. From that list, I had 16 different organizations that I felt I would be interested in applying. I finalized the resume, wrote a cover letter for each, printed it all on paper thicker than the bed sheets I cover up with at night and then sent them all out. Within a couple days, I had a phone call from a company with AeroJet Services which resulted in setting up an interview.

Let me back up a couple weeks for a moment. On my initial drive out here, I recieved a phone call from someone that saw my resume on Monster and thought I'd be a good candidate for a position at Boeing located in Mesa. After some conversation, my resume was submitted to Boeing for the position. The position was a 6 month contract position working at the Mesa, AZ plant where they build the Apache Helicopters for the US Army. In a nutshell, the position was working with the Apache program, determing the time and financial impact of rogue/defective/inoperative parts during the recieving, production and test flight phases. At the time, sounded very interesting, and I had no other job leads, so a 6 month contract job was a start. So, everything was in motion for that, but I didn't hear anything for a couple weeks.

Fast foward to present day................I had the interview with AeroJet early last week, had a conversation with Boeing over the phone later in the week. AeroJet wanted me to come in on Tuesday to meet with the owners, Boeing wanted me to come in Wednesday for a walk through of the operation and do an interview. The result of both of those events was that they both wanted me to work for them. Of course, as anyone would do, I put them off for a day or two to see how things played out with the offers and then to give me time to make a decision.

So, while I was laying by the pool realizing that those days were coming to an end, I made my decision. I decided I would accept the offer from AeroJet. My main factors for this decision was that AeroJet was permanent employment, and Boeing was a 6 month contract with no guarantees where it would lead. AeroJet has benefits, the contracting agency for Boeing did not. AeroJet is 1.5 miles from where I live, Boeing is 25......one way (this is where you are supposed to think of gas prices). Overall, it just made more sense financially, and for my future.

Now you know I chose AeroJet, the next question is what I'll be doing there. Well, I'll be working directly for the Director of Operations. So, it's basically what I was doing before, involved in the operations, which anyone familiar with aviation knows that pretty much can include anything. But being a smaller operation, I feel like with time, I can actually make a difference and make an impact utilizing my experience at my previous employer. The owner of AeroJet is a no bullshit kind of guy, straight forward and seems very honest. He says he believes in incentives for his employees. Basically, if I can save the company money or come up with something to make more money, then I should get part of the benefit financially........previous employer you could have saved millions for them, not got any recognition, then maybe 10 years down the road, they'd tell you that you are in line for a raise or promotion, then 10 more years you may actually get a quarter of what they promised.......Again, the benefits of a large corporation.

So, anyway, I think I've bitched enough. Basically, all this was to tell you that I got a job, I'm pissed my pool time is over and I'm loving it out here.

On another note, my motorcycle should be arriving in the next few days which I'm very excited about. So, since work will be so close, and it never rains here, I can ride my bike to work every day (Again, you should be thinking gas savings here......its going to be like getting an extra check in effect).

This weekend, we were originally supposed to go to Nogalas, Mexico for Cinco De Mayo, but all the hotels were sold out, so we are going to the Natural Bridge in Tonto State Forest near Payson, AZ.......Here's what it looks like, so stay tuned for a new blog and pictures from this trip.

So, thanks for reading...........I'll be back in Ohio in about 3 short weeks for some prior committments that I have to take care of. Hopefully see you all then.

2008-04-29T00:09:00.000-05:00

WEEKEND OF MOVING

For those of you that don't already know, I spent the past 5 days in Ohio packing up the rest of my shit so the movers could pick it up and start the trek out west. Hiring a moving company proved to be the best idea I've had in a long time, driving across the country sucks even in the most luxurious vehicle, the sheer pain and torture of doing it in a Uhaul type box truck makes my skin crawl. Let alone the discomfort of the ride, the gas prices would paralyze my already non-existant cash flow. That's a downside of unemployment I guess. Oh well.

I don't have any interesting pictures because, well, for those of you that have ever been to Ohio know that there just isn't too many opportunities for an interesting picture. One word pretty much describes it all - BORING!! But fortunately, I was able to hang out with some friends in Columbus and also was able to get out for a motorcycle ride, so that was definitely the highlight of the weekend. For all you Glouster folk, I'll make it down for a few days when I come back for Memorial Day. This trip was dedicated specifically to moving and taking care of all my business in Columbus.

I arrived Wednesday and met some friends at the local watering hole for a few "welcome back" beverages. The evening was pretty uneventful after that. Thursday I was met at my apartment by my Mom and Aunt Linda who helped me pack up all my shit. Thanks to their help, it only took a couple hours to get everything sorted out and boxed up. Thursday night again was uneventful. Friday was uneventful, grilled out at Mark's which was a good time and consumed a couple adult beverages which is always fun. Saturday the morning started off like a typical Ohio morning. Grey, overcast, drizzle, but by noon, the sun started peeking out of the clouds and we began to prepare for a motorcycle ride. After about 75 miles on the bike, we came back and went to the Columbus Crew game. I'm not a huge soccer fan, but the atmosphere is pretty fun, and if you keep the right company, it'll turn out to be an all around fun time, which it was for me. Sunday was full of a lot of waiting for the movers. They ended up showing up at the apartment around 5:30 and got all my stuff loaded by 8. Unfortunately, I was on a motorcycle and the rain started at 8. Talk about a cold and slippery ride home. Note to all: Don't ride motorcycles in the rain. It's cold, it hurts the face and it's super slippery. But, after all that, finally made it back to where I was staying. Today was spent flying back here to Phoenix.....another long 4 hours of just sitting. The flight was uneventful, which is always a good thing.

Overall, the weekend was productive. My stuff will be here in a few weeks. I'll be putting it in storage until employment begins and I acquire my own pad. So, this is all just one more step in the process. Word of advice: It's not cheap to move!! Especially 2000 miles away, but so far, so good.

Here are some of the uninteresting pictures......sorry for the boredom.

This is pretty much my life reduced to a few boxes. Hopefully it arrives out here all in one piece

Columbus Crew Game

The Crew scored and someone let of a smoke bomb. Pretty much the only excitement of the game.

So long, 231 Vista Drive

All my things are gone, the keys are turned in and it was a memorable 1 1/2 years in this place.

Southwest Boeing 737-700 I flew home on.

Heading Back to Ohio and Other Stuff

2008-04-22T14:43:00.000-05:00

LIFE IN THE JOB MARKET

I have been successfully unemployed for 1 month and 5 days, and quite frankly, I've loved every minute of it. I've gotten to spend some time loafing, I've spent time packing, I've spent time driving across the country, I've spent time sleeping in most every day, I've gotten to see great things such as the Grand Canyon, and most importantly, I've gotten to spend some time golfing and laying by the swimming pool in this perptually beautiful weather found out here in the desert. In case anyone needs to know, this time of year, it's in the 80's every day. How much more perfect can it get than that?? The temperatures are supposed to get into the mid to high 90's this weekend so it's starting to slowly creep into summer time here. Ask me in about 2 or 3 months how the weather is, and I'll probably be bitching about the heat.....but I'll take a couple months of hot to have it nice the rest of the year. Anyway, back to the job market. After doing all those things mentioned above, I figured it was time I start sending out resumes and start looking for a job. I had been making contact and applying online at various places, but I gave in to the fact that it was time to start getting serious about finding employment. So, reluctantly I sent all the resumes out and gave way to the fact that "vacation" can't last forever.

I got a call from a charter management company called AeroJet. AeroJet is based out of Scottsdale airport and basically they do aircraft management and charter, somewhat simliar to what my previous employer is doing. So today I had the interview, everything went very well. The official job has to be approved by the owners before it can be offered to me, but we'll see what happens in the next few days. This is one of those situations where you have to ask, "Do I settle for something that isn't quite exactly what I want just for the sake of having an income while I look for other work, or do I hold out on the unknown possibility that another job may arise?". It's a quite perplexing question actually. If you decide to take the job for the paycheck, it's important to maintain the motivation to find something else and not just settle for the fact of having a job. But, if you decide to not take the job, who knows when the next offer will come around. One of the risks you take in that is running out of money and settling for even less of a desirable job in perhaps a totally different industry, thus resulting in a true hate for your employment. Although, there is a good side to this potential job offer. During the interview, I basically was interviewing them on their company and how it operates, and I could already tell that due to the size and how they operate, they have many many ineffeciencies. Because of this, it will give me a good opportunity to go in there and after a few months, show them drastic improvements in certain areas, areas that I'm familiar with from the days at my previous employer. So, in the meantime, we'll see what comes my with this potential offer and any others that my come about.

There is one good thing in all this job hunt experience and it is this realization:

I don't regret quitting my old job in Ohio, I just regret that it took me so long to make that decision.

HEADING BACK TO OHIO

Tomorrow (Wednesday), I'm heading back to complete the packing of my apartment. When I originially made the decision to come out here, I decided my first trip (which was the LONG ASS 2100 mile in my little shit Hyundai with no cruise control) that I was only going to bring my clothes and come back for the furniture later. My rationale was dictated by the thought that I was stuck in my lease until July. So, if I'm paying rent, why not just keep it essentially as a storage unit. But, I later found out that I can get out of my lease, so my plans moved up several months, and saved me a lot of money. After researching moving options, it came to my attention that it's actually cheaper to have a moving company come in and move your stuff as opposed to renting a truck (Uhaul, Budget or otherwise). Even if you find a deal that's a little cheaper than a moving company, the extra money to not have to buy gas and the pain of driving across the country again is totally worth it to me. So, I'm packing up all my shit, and the movers will be there on Sunday to ship it out here for me. It's about a 3 week moving process which is fine with me as I'm not going to be out of my Aunt and Uncles until after that anyway. Yesterday I went and found a storage unit out here to put everything in. Most of the units out here are all air conditioned because of the intense heat during the summer. So, I went and got a unit which I will hopefully only have for a couple months. I'll be in Ohio until Monday, so I'm hoping to get some motorcycle riding in if the weather holds up, which is skeptical, because everything I mentioned above about the weather here, is the exact opposite of the weather there. So, who knows what I'll be doing. Regardless, I'm sure it'll be eventful, but I'll be ready to get back out here come Monday. Speaking of moving, shipping and motorcycles, only about another week until mine arrives out here, I'm getting a bit anxious here.

OTHER STUFF

Well, since I didn't have any pictures to post this time, which is the primary purpose of this blog, I'll leave ya with a couple "Other" pictures......

OK, that's enough political commentary for this blog.

Driving the Apache Trail

2008-04-21T04:33:00.000-05:00

Today, I took one of the most amazing drives I've ever taken. We decided we wanted to drive the Apache Trail today. The Apache Trail was used in the early 1900's to haul supplies up to the location they were building Roosevelt Dam. The trip started off with a great view of Superstition Mountain.

Me in front of Superstition Mountain

From there we starting winding into the smaller mountains. The road was filled with a countless number of 180 degree turns. This is definitely a road I'll be taking my motorcycle on when it arrives out here. About 10 miles in, we saw our first lake called Canyon Lake. It was the smallest of the lakes we saw, but definitely beautiful lake. Canyon lake attracts about 250,000 visitors annually, and I can see why now with all the boating that takes place and all the motorcycling that happens on the road to the lake.

Me standing at Canyon Lake overlook

Past the lake a couple miles is a little place called Tortilla Flat. This place was the first stop for the Apache workers transporting the supplies up to Roosevelt Damsite. This place consisted of a restaurant, bar and gift shop. It was very cool to see the old structure and when you go inside, you could definitely feel the history.

Superstition Saloon

Watch out for those "Rattlers". Corny, but struck me as entertaining.>

From there, we proceeded on our journey over the Apache Trail. Approximately 1 mile past Tortilla Springs, the pavement ended. We talked about whether to continue on the 22 mile stretch of no pavement or to turn around. We decided to press on!

This sign spells adventure!

It was kind of daunting at first, but then the excitement of the adventure set in. It took us about 30 minutes to go 3 or 4 miles. The first part of the trip you have to literally go down the side of a very steep, jagged rock mountain. I was constantly hoping the brakes were going to continue to work properly because guard rails were very minimal. Once we got down to the bottom, you could look up and see a couple cars that had went over the edge!

Several hundred foot drop off just past that sign

Difficult to see, but if you look in the right center of the picture at the white cars, that's what was in store for us about a minute later.

This is the corner you see in the above picture where the white cars are. You can see where the guard rail has been busted. At the bottom, we looked up and saw the car half way down the mountain that we presume ran through this.

This was the looking down at the road from on the side of the canyon wall. Straight downhill from here.

Our next landmark on the trip was Apache Lake. Apache Lake was close to the second stop for the Apache workers on their trip to the dam site. Apache lake is 17 miles long and is connected to Roosevelt Lake by way of the Salt River. It was quite surprising to see how many people kept their boats on this lake considering it is literally out in the middle of nowhere. But, I can only imagine the fun you could have out here. I'm thinking a requirement for my friends I'm going to have out here is that they have to own a boat, and have it on Apache Lake.

Me with our first glimpse of Apache Lake

A better view of Apache Lake

After a lot of winding up and down through the mountains and hills, we finally arrived to Roosevelt Dam. We turned the corner, and there is was, looking like a mini Hoover Dam. At that point, the pavement started again which was very welcomed. The last 14 miles had been nothing but washboard roads! I'm surprised any car can stay together after that much vibration. The 22 miles of no pavement took us 2 hours to navigate. So, we stopped for some pictures at the Dam and continued on. From there we were back on the highway along Roosevelt Lake. The scenery is amazing and I'll for sure be taking this road at some point on my motorcycle as well.

Roosevelt Dam

Me at Roosevelt Dam

The Sunset on Lake Roosevelt.....Amazing View!

Lake Roosevelt Bridge

Lake Roosevelt Landscape

The Car after 22 miles of dirt roads

This inside was just as dusty with the top down all day.

We had a 30 mile drive back to Globe, Arizona where we picked up the highway back to Phoenix. At about the halfway point on the road back to civilization, trafficstopped. There was an accident about 1/4 mile ahead. We ended up sitting there for 2 hours and watched 4 LifeFlight helicopters come in an fly people out. We listened to a lot of music and watched half of Good Will Hunting on the IPod, so the time went somewhat quickly (except the urge to piss the entire time made it slightly more difficult). Once the wreck was cleared, we headed back to Scottsdale.

Today was a day filled with new appreciation and new perspectives. I'm hoping this is only the beginning!

No Bullshit!

2008-04-21T04:28:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am, first Myspace after much reluctance, then Facebook because that was the thing to do, now I'm blogging. Next up for me, the Betty Ford Rehab center equivelant for internet addiction. Since moving across the country, I figure this may be the best way for me let everyone know what's happening in with my life, be it dull or exciting, and also a way for me not to clog up all your email accounts with all the pictures I continually send. If you enjoy, you can continue to regularly check to see if I've posted anything, if not, there's a little "X" button in the top right corner that doesn't require much effort to click on. Whichever, I hope you enjoy the updates of my little journey called life.