As told by...

Stephen King's: Doctor Sleep

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 19:14:00 +0000

!REDRUM

Remember little Danny Torrance from "The Shining"?

He's back, and all grown up in Stephen King's novel "Doctor Sleep".

Picking up just after the boiler exploded in "The Shining", Danny (Doc) and his mom have survived and moved away to Florida where Danny (working with old Dick Hallorann, who had a little bit of the shining himself--if you recall) learns to deal with the ghosts that followed him from the Overlook Hotel.

Now fully grown and following in his father's

alcoholic footsteps, Dan Torrance finally finds the road to recovery in a small New Hampshire town where he works as a hospice specialist. His special talents help many find peace as they pass over, and gives Dan his nickname "Doctor Sleep".

There is a new evil, however: The True Knot. A Group of RV-driving folks who are not quite human, and who live off of children that shine...

Just down the road from Dan's new digs, a little girl named Abra becomes the target for The True Knot, and Dan Torrance has to face the challenge of saving her...

The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly downloaded this one over the holidays. Being long time King fans, we were hooked before finishing the first page (or screen, if you're reading it on a tablet like we were).

You owe yourself this spine-tingling treat of a novel. We highly recommend it!

Are you a long time Stephen King fan? Or, have you just discovered him? Feel free to leave your comments, recommendations, favorites etc. below.

PS--If you love King, go discover his son Joe Hill's latest!

Binge Watching: Some new titles to enjoy over the Holidays...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 18:23:00 +0000

Let's go back to the Sixties... "Not Fade Away"

is a familiar tale about a musical group that did not make it big...One of James Gandofini's last films, "Not Fade Away"

focuses on the changing times, attitudes and events that drove the American suburban lifestyle as Vietnam became dark news, as the Kennedy's and Martin Luther King were gunned

Huston without the mask

down, and as the American family began to loose its charm.

Inspired by the music of Bob Dylan, John Magaro plays Doug, the lead singer and main protagonist in the

Huston in his role from
Boardwalk Empire

story line. We also enjoyed seeing Jack Huston in a role that doesn't require a mask (you may know him from Boardwalk Empire).

We gave it five stars. Check it out...

In the same musical vein: "Losers Take All" sports a fine cast of new comers and chronicles the ups and

downs of a band of punks as they find out just how difficult the road is.

We gave this one four stars. It's also worth the watch.

Happy Binging and Happy New Year Folks!

Binge Watching: Will Ferrell and Absurdist comedy

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 21:49:00 +0000

If you're like me, my age or older, it might have taken a little while before coming to appreciate "Absurdist" comedy.

I was watching when SNL (Saturday Night Live) first came on

the airwaves. It was radical, new, cutting edge in 1975, and I can't count (or recall) how many Saturday Nights I spent with friends or dates watching and laughing my rear end off till my belly ached.

The years rolled by and the crew of The Not Ready For

PrimeTime players changed, albeit grudgingly for most viewers of its original cast. When John Belushi died, no one wanted to accept new comers like Eddie Murphy...At first anyway.

Full-on adulthood hit us and my viewing habits changed as I had to start explaining things like comedy to my children, at least when they were very young and impressionable, so I missed getting intimately familiar with the changing cast.

Once my oldest children were getting out of high school, I began to notice comic actors like Will Ferrell.

His over-the-top absurdity didn't sit well with me at

first. My initial reaction was, as most of us "old timers" probably felt likewise, not good. It felt as if he was just poking around at humor. Nothing was sly, or off-the-cuff or even as in-your-face as it had been by the comic super stars I'd

come up with; actors like George Carlin, Steve Martin, Robin Williams had that subtle way of getting in your head and leading you into what was funny.

Mr. Ferrell was that kid who seemed to be trying so hard

that he missed the point. It took a bit before I realized that it was me who was missing the point. That he was trying to be absurd just didn't seem funny to me, at first.

Gradually, I began to get it. When he starred in "Anchorman" as the one and only "Ron Burgundy", I was hooked.

Going back, I re-watched or even discovered for the first time, all of his large and growing body of "Absurdist Comedy", and developed a true taste for it as well as an acute appreciation for the (let's call it what it was) new genre of comedy.

More and more, I found other actors utilizing this style, taking satire to new levels.

Jim Carrey had a large bit to play in my development of this new taste. Let's face it, Ace Ventura is about as absurd as it gets. But, when Steve Carell stole the show in "Bruce Almighty" I became even more a fan of the absurd.

Let's not forget about the Adam Sandlers of the world either, nor the cast of characters that have played along with him and gone on to fantastically absurd films like "Grandma's Boy" or "Deuce Bigalow".

Somewhere in the mix a writer named Jud Apatow came

along and introduced a whole new cast of actors who have become masters of the absurd: Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Jason Segel are just a few.

But, for the purposes of this blog, I must return to the man I now consider a master of the absurd.

The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly started going to Christmas Day film openings a few years back. Our couple of years of homelessness put the damper on it until this year when we looked, once more, for the Christmas Day openings to see what would pique our interest.

Anchorman 2 stood out among many, and with a few clicks on her ~~laptop~~ Nook HD+ pad, we had our tickets printed and were on our way to an afternoon matinee.

Adam McKay must have pointed his cameras

at these guys and yelled "Go!". The rest is comic genius from the Action 4 News team of Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), Brick--so aptly named--Tamland (Steve Carell) and Champ Kind (David Koechner) "Whammy!".

The times were a-changing back in the early eighties as the onset of 24hour news came into its own. And, although his crew was slated in the worst time slot possible (2am-5am), Burgundy and the boys managed to bumble their way into the highest ratings by doing what they are so very good at: Being completely absurd!

If you haven't opened up to the absurd yet, let me invite you to give it another try. I haven't come across a single sports talk radio show yet that isn't a fan of Anchorman. When it seems to get too absurd, just sit up a little closer because they are making a point, a statement about the world we live in that you can either laugh or cry over.

I always find laughing is so much more fun...Don't you?

Are you a fan of Absurdist comedy? Please leave your comments and opinions below.

Here are some great (In our humble opinion) Absurdist Comedies to check out for a awesome Binge:

Anchorman
40 Year Old Virgin
Grandma's Boy
50 First Dates
Bruce Almighty
Knocked Up
Superbad
This Is The End
Pineapple Express
Happy Gilmore
The Other Guys
Step Brothers
Nepolean Dynomite
Dodge Ball
Meet The Parents
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Wedding Crashers
The Hangover
Shaun Of The Dead

BINGING It: Actors you'd swear were, or were not Americans...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 17:12:00 +0000

Just a while back, you read my Binge Blog on

Kiwi

the HBO series "True Blood", in which they take a gritty little fictitious town, deep in the back woods of Louisiana called Bon Temps (Good Times), and insert Vampires, Werewolves, Shape-Shifters, Witches and even Fae (Faeries) into the modern world, much the way Stephen King did in his novel "Salems Lot", sticking Dracula into Suburbia.

True Blood became an instant, breakout, runaway hit for much the same reasons that King has gone on to sell millions of copies of his books: by putting the extraordinary into everyday life.

British

The big reason for True Blood's continued popularity (besides a great story line and fantastic writing) has to be its cast: Anna Paquin (as the one and only Sookie Stackhouse), Stephen Moyer (as the lead vampire Bill) and Alex Skarsgard (as Eric, the Viking

Swedish

vampire sheriff of Louisiana district five) as well as Ryan Kwanten (Sookie's brother Jason, a guy who claims to only be good at one thing: sex).

If you haven't seen True Blood as of yet, I highly recommend binging on it (Amazon has it for 1.99 per episode), at least for one season, and then consider this: Sookie Stackhouse, that sweet southern voiced darlin was born in Canada, and lived, most of her life--even considers herself to be Kiwi--in New Zealand.

If that doesn't cause pause for thought: Vampire Bill, that ex-confederate soldier, 150+ year old southern gentleman is from the U.K.! In fact, he was born and bred in Brentwood, Essex, U.K., where he began his acting career doing Shakespere.

Ryan Kwanten (Jason Stackhouse) plays the true, southern bad boy. He has the vernacular of a has-been all star high school quarterback, but he was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. The Fabulous Feathermaye and I saw him in a cute little Aussy film called: "Giff The Invisible" in which he plays a simple-minded boy who thinks he's a superhero. Hearing him speak with his natural, Australian accent, especially after being introduced to him as Jason Stackhouse, well... It sets you back a step or two.

This finding started us into a little research about some of our favorite actors. We were startled more than once about a number of them...

Of course, we all know that Daniel Day Lewis can

pull off all manner of American dialect with great effect; but, did you know that Damien Lewis (Captain Winters in Band of Brothers) who starred as Los Angeles Police Detective Charlie Crews in the 2007 series "Life" and whom you most likely know

British

now as Nick Brody on the hit show "Homeland", was born and began his acting career in London, England.

Ewen McGregor is another one. The "Trainspotting" Scotsman has done a

number of American roles, including "Big Fish" and Grimes in "Black Hawk Down".

And, let's not forget Best Supporting Actor Christian Bale as Dicky Eklund in "The Fighter". Bale has done quite a few American roles, including--of course--"Bat

Man", as well as "American Psycho".

Hugh Laurie sounds as American as they come in the long-running show "House", but he's as British as they come in real life.

Of course, there are some that you knew were British when the film or show first came out: Jude Law was a well known Brit before he starred in "The Talented Mr. Ripley," and we knew Tim Roth was

British well before we ever saw him in "Reservoir Dogs".

Now, you may be asking yourself: are there any really good American actors who can play foreign, especially those all too critical Brit roles? Let's try and keep it current, shall we? I mean, guys like Brando, Dick Van Dyke were awesome in their day, but who can do it now?

Ask most folks from the U.K. and they'll tell you

that Johnny Depp does a few, very good U.K. dialects; after all, he is Captain Jack Sparrow.

Of course, the same argument is in debate over Robert Downey Jr.

(Charlie Chapman, Sherlock Holmes). And, some say that Denzel Washington worked the Queen's words in "Queen and Country", but these are the 'top of the A-listers'. What about those guys that you know the faces, but not necessarily the names? Are any of those guys a surprise when you find out they're Yanks?

Plano, Texas

Alan Tudyk is one of those, for me at least. A classic American character actor, you've seen Alan in "Knights Tale" (...it's a lahnce, hello...) but he was born just down the road from where I sit writing this--Plano, Texas--and can put on just about any accent a role may require.

Peter Dinklage is another fine actor. He plays the Dwarf on HBOs "Game of Thrones". He was born and reared in

New Jersey

New Jersey, but there are many from the U.K. that would tell you his British accent is spot on.

Honorable mention must go out to Brad

Pitt for his role in "Snatch". His Irish "Pikey" Traveler portrayal was simply incredible.

And, let's not forget Forest Whitaker in "Crying Game", folks. I've heard more

than one citizen of the U.K. tell of how surprised they were to find out later that he was American.

Of course, other than Sookie-Sookie mentioned above, I haven't even gotten to the girls yet...

That's good fodder for Part two, isn't it?

Getting Justified, or: Why Elmore Leonard still rocks us, even after his death...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 20:10:00 +0000

We spent our down time this past weekend

getting caught up on one of our favorite series: JUSTIFIED, the gritty, backwoods crime show on FX, starring Timothy Olyphant along side a supreme cast of just-my-type-of characters.

AS the title of this blog infers, JUSTIFIED is an Elmore Leonard creation; he conceptualized it, wrote it, and put his money where his mouth went by producing it as well.

Leonard is, and has been for some time, one of

Raylan & Boyd are among an allstar cast on
FX's JUSTIFIED

my writing heroes. Born in the south (New Orleans) he carried the flavor of it with him as his family moved north where he went to school (Detroit, Michigan) and learned to combine contrasting characters, from their attitudes to their dialects.

There is a long list of works that you are most likely familiar with, but may not realize that Elmore Leonard wrote them. Much like Larry McMurtry (another writer that tops my list of

favorites, as well as one who has been a major

influence on Yours Truly, stylistically speaking) his work is more widely known by title, than by credit to the writer, as--I suppose--it should be.

When I first made the decision that I wanted to be a writer, it was men like these that drew me to the mostly thankless craft; perhaps that's why I always feel it my duty to thank them.

Often called: "The Dickens of Detroit", Elmore

made his bones with his early work, especially those that were taken to film. Works like "The Tall T", "3:10 to Yuma", and "Joe Kidd" launched his career, after several years of writing westerns for magazines.

In the 1970s he cemented his reputation with

such titles as "Mr. Majestik" and "52 Pickup" but many of you may be more familiar with titles like: "Get Shorty", "Stay Cool", and of course "JUSTIFIED" which if you have not caught it yet, get yourself on Netflix or Amazon and get to binging!

If you're starving for some book titles, Elmore's

Quinten Tarantino adapted this
one into the film "Jackie Brown"

list goes on and on, so many have been taken to film it's down right ridiculous, but he really mastered the fine art of what I like to call: streamlined fiction. Leonard always said of his writing style: "I always try and just leave out the stuff that most readers skip over..."

Like all good fiction, that's what leaves you ready to pick up the next one.

The Novel JUSTIFIED is
Based upon...

JUSTIFIED, just like his books, keeps you going, ready to get on to the next episode even before the credits finish running.

Elmore Leonard, folks: born 1925 in New Orleans, died this past August 2013 in Michigan.

Elmore Leonard: list of works can be further studied at his website, or at IMDB.

SHEEz...it's weather out there...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 19:45:00 +0000

"They're saying it's gonna get bad..." The

Fabulous Feathermaye said. "Of course, they said

Traffic and Freeways Frozen
to a standstill...This is I-35E
folks

that last week and we got zippo."

I nodded, looking at weather underground; the wundermap was all blue, purple, green and yellow. "You're right, darlin', it'll probably miss us completely...again."

Wrong!

Now, you should understand that we've been in North and East Texas long enough to have spent a couple of winters since leaving the constant, almost perma-warm of Houston and the Gulf coast.

We had seen a couple of snows, albeit short-lived, such as they were. With Feathermaye originally from Michigan, and Yours Truly growing up in the Carolina foothills and mountains, well...we thought we had seen bad weather...Probably more than most...We had been through hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and had to drive to Michigan for her dad's funeral in the midst of winter...So, yeah, we know bad weather.

One thing everyone should know about Texas:

don't count on the weather being predictable...If they say it's going to do X-Y-Z two days from now, it's usually going to do A-B-C instead.

This time, however, they called it. One reporter had said: "The DFW metroplex should expect to wake up Friday morning entombed in ice..."

I almost let out a guffaw, at that one. Just eight days before they were going nuts about a similar storm and how it was going to pelt the metroplex and screw up the roads. We got bupkus out of that one.

Last Thursday, The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly watched all day from our warm little office here where we manage a storage property. The wundermap glowed purple and blue to the west; it streamed from southwest to northwest as it moved closer, pushed by a Canadian/Arctic blast with sub-freezing temps.

"I don't think this is going to miss us this time, kiddo..." I said to my young wife.

We got a corporate email with instructions to put 'ice melt' and sand down over foot traffic areas. "Looks like you need to make a run to Lowes or Home Depot." Feathermaye told me.

Our working agreement is that she does most of the 'office' work (files, collection calls, the lion-share of rental contracts) while I take care of the 'outside' duties (cleaning vacant storage units, bank runs and yes: running down to the hardware store for 'ice melt'.)

It was fluctuating between 33 and 31 degrees as the rain started, mixed with sleet or 'ice pellets' as they've apparently started to call it now. Starbuck (The international dog of wonder) was ready to go. It's also part of my duties to take the dog with me on bank runs and so-forth, she was in her purple sweater and all set to go, probably wondering why I had waited so long to get her out on her daily ride.

The windshield was wet as we pulled up to the commercial window at the bank; this is Starbuck's favorite part of the day, they give out dog cookies at the bank, you see...

The girls at the bank all know how Starbuck is named for the show "BattleStar Gallactica"

She's named for Lt. CMDR Starbuck
from Battlestar Galactica, not for
the coffee franchise...

(the newer version in which Starbuck's character is a girl). Once she had her cookie ration, we headed for Lowes. Of course, Lowes was all out of 'ice melt' so I headed a few blocks over to Home Depot. The sleet/rain/ice mix was coming down pretty good by now, not sticking, but the temps were getting lower. I was damned cold walking into the store.

"No sir, we're all outta 'ice melt' and rock salt." The girl just inside Home Depot told me. "We had a bunch of pallet loads and it was all bought out in less than an hour..."

The guy that walked in right behind me groaned before I could.

"We got a bunch of that 'play sand' left over..." She added with half a smile. "Better hurry on up and grab some. The faucet covers are just yonder..." She pointed at the other freeze protection I was looking for: a giant bin of Styrofoam covers for outside faucets.

I grabbed 100 pounds worth of sand and got out of there. It was really starting to come down now, traffic was getting sloppy, people were going into panic mode and I wanted to get off the road--period.

We had already made a run to Sam's the night before, so we were ready to go, as far as provisions went. Of course, there are always going to be things you didn't think about...

The long winter's sleep began just as the real frozen stuff began to come down. Feathermaye and Yours Truly had been out, off and on, all through the early night to get a look and monitor the situation. By ten that night, it was starting to sleet in earnest. Everything was battened down, so we turned in.

At one in the morning, Feathermaye woke me. It was silent in the house, but for the sound of a 'woodwick' candle burning on her side of the room. At first I couldn't place the sound. "Is that sleet hitting the windows?"

"No, honey, it's the candle. The power went out, it's getting pretty bad out there."

"Great...that's wonderful..." I said with flatline humor. We had the heat running at around 76 with all the water trickling so the pipes here in the main building wouldn't explode. It was still quite warm as I dosed back to sleep; I even kicked a leg out from under the covers because I had become too warm.

I always wake up around six in the morning; I

don't even set the clock for it, I just always wake up then. This is cool because I always need to check that the gate is working so we don't have tenants banging on the doors to get on the property.

When I walked out into the office and looked, I

was stunned. The gate was frozen shut, and the parking lot/front drive was a solid sheet of ice. The ice sheet continued into the property; it covered the whole place. Even if someone could get inside, they would never be able to negotiate their way around without ramming into something in our parking storage, or one of the buildings.

Feathermaye came up behind me and caught her breath. "Sheeze...it's weather out there!"

I tried the gate override, forgetting for a moment that we didn't have power. No matter though, even if the power had been on, the damn thing was frozen solid; I could see the thick, shimmering ice formations coating it, coating the rollers and the chain that moved it open and closed. It wasn't going to budge, even if I got out there and hand-cranked it.

Besides, the ice was so widespread, covering everything, to the point where footing was impossible--to put it mildly.

We bundled up quickly, the walls and floor were still holding some of last night's heat, but the thermostats read 60, and they were only going to fall as outside it was in the mid-twenties, and frozen precipitation was still

blowing around.

Without power, we had no phones--except cells--and of course, no internet. No internet is hard for Feathermaye, as many of you know, she lives, vicariously-speaking, on the world wide web. Most of our spare time is occupied with the net, so we set about with as many busy things as we could, knowing that we were trapped inside the property (our car was in the garage and I wasn't about to dare

Grits & Eggs No Power Breakfast

sliding around in it) and we had to take extra caution even standing outside, where I started up the grill to make some gluten free breakfast (grits and eggs, boiled and poached in a cast iron Dutch oven).

We had just enough battery power on our devices to do a little reading, and even to watch a DVD or two as we waited, hoping, that the power would return before too long.

With our phones, we learned that thousands upon thousands were without power. I guessed, based on our experience with hurricane Ike, that we would bet power back first, since we sit, as most storage properties

do, on the main grid, right along the interstate.

Sure enough, around 3:00 that afternoon, the Christmas tree blinked on, then the blower on the heating system kicked back on. We gave out a mild cheer that startled the dog.

With freezing to death no longer a concern, we followed the news channels. Besides the power loss all across the metroplex, the roads were even worse. Even though winter indeed does come to the DFW area, it's usually not frequent enough for the local governments to invest too heavily in snow plows. And, with the precipitation a good three to six inches of ice, rather than snow, even the rocksalt/sand that the trucks plaster over the roads did little to take the ice away. Besides, it was only going to get colder for the weekend, right on into Monday and Tuesday of next week!

There are a lot of bridges in the metroplex, miles upon miles of freeway with mix-master type interchanges; bridges that curve up and over and around and span hundreds of yards were caked with ice, and peppered with abandoned cars, left by those lacking enough sense to let it go. The metroplex was down, frozen, out-of-order, until further notice.

By late Sunday afternoon, we were finally able to get the gate open, but the lot was still completely overladen with a hard sheet of thick ice. We couldn't allow anyone on, and even had to go as far as explain, multiple times to a few hard-heads, that they would not be able to drive inside the lot, that they would get stuck, and that we were not about to house them while they were stuck, and that if they damaged anything, it was on them. This last

message seemed to finally stick, and thankfully, we only had to explain this a few handfuls of times.

We caught up on a lot of binge watching: Sons of Anarchy season six and The Walking Dead fit nicely into the weekend, along with a few good films we squeezed in as well. We feasted on homemade, gluten free soups, grilled steaks and chops and put our slippers through their paces.

The poor dog just didn't understand why we weren't taking her out into the big open field across the street, nor could she figure out why there wasn't a street anymore, just a lot of this white, slippery stuff, that looked like snow, but was as solid as concrete.

By Tuesday, I needed to make a run over to Plano to pick up some Advocare supplies. We live off of Spark, and love their wellness products like Probiotics and Clear Mood, not to mention the benefits I get from their Muscle Gain--that I take for all the lost tissue I suffered with my PMR.

"I'll take the toll road..." I said. "It should be good and clear by now."

The news had been reporting how all the bridges and overpasses had problems with what they were calling "CobbleStone Ice"...It's that hard refrozen slush that builds up and becomes not only treacherously slippery, but so jagged and rough that it can actually puncture tires. As you can see from the video, Starbuck and I did not have an easy time of it, going the twelve miles to Plano took over three hours!

As I write this blog, it is now Wednesday, and the temps are finally going to break the freezing mark (it's supposed to hit forty!) and most of the ice should finally dissipate.

Feathermaye was angry last night and got all

over somebody on line. People were actually chuckling about our wintery mess. It seemed funny to a few Yankees that a metropolitan area had to close down for nearly five days just because of a few inches of ice. She fired back hotly: How dare you find humor in the suffering of others! This type of weather event is not normal for those living here. We don't make fun of you when you are having a heat wave and people are dying because of a few days of over ninety degrees, just because we are used to 107, it's just not funny! How dare you make fun of another's fear! Shame on you...

You get the idea.

We were grateful that we have a job that only has a six-second commute--we walk from the kitchen into the office. After all the clean up, I'm finally able to put words down again. Plus, I had plenty of time to think about the other blogs I've still to write.

Gone Gluten Free: GF Tortilla Soup...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 21:08:00 +0000

It's now officially cold here in north-central Texas. Time for chicken soup--TexMex style...Oh and Gluten Free too!

1. Assemble the ingredients: we'll

need a can of chunk white chicken; two cups of chicken broth (stock is fine); a can of Rotel (I used a generic here); three cubes of Pop&Cook brand Cilantro; half a tea spoon of sea salt; I also grabbed the Mrs. Dash for rounding out the flavor (watch this stuff...I nearly burnt The Fabulous Feathermaye's mouth out...this one contains both black pepper and cayenne); Bird's Eye blend (bell peppers, celery, onion blend); an avocado; and of course, a few gluten free tortilla chips (here I'm using some leftover 'South of the Border' brand, which is all corn and totally gluten free.

2. Let's get started: mix canned chicken, rotel, cilantro, salt, Mrs. Dash and veggies in your pot. Bring to boil and simmer for 10-15 minutes. I find that it's done when the celery is relatively tender--you be the judge--this is a quicky recipe, so you don't need to go all OCD here...

3. While the soup's cooking: crunch

best way to cube an avocado
just toss them over the chips

your tortilla chips into your bowl and then cube your avocado...Drop those cubes right on top of the chips.
When the soup's ready, ladle it right over your chips and avocado cubes. I like to toss a couple of slices of Jack Cheese along side, or even over the top if you want it all melty-like.

*Note* I made this one twice in the last couple of weeks. The first one I took care with the

amount of spice. The Fabulous Feathermaye loved it! She raved about it on facebook. This last one, I wasn't as careful; I used regular rotel (instead of mild) and found out that the Mrs. Dash I liberally shook into the pot contained the aforementioned cayanne & black pepper. She was not amused...

I'll used caution from now on with my ingredients,

and not just to make sure they are all Gluten Free, but the correct amount of spice/heat as well. Otherwise, I'm standing in the three foot flame. That will burn anyone's ass. But, that's another blog altogether...

Memory Lane: My parents courtship, and a Football Life

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 17:45:00 +0000

Virginia Poly-technical Institute 1954

When he got off the bus at VPI (Virginia Poly-technical Institute, now known as Virginia Tech) he heard the sounds of football practice off in the distance...

My father was a high school All

Football 1950's Style

American tight end from Toccoa, Ga. His hope had been to play just down the road at the state college--The University of Georgia. As luck had it that year, the Bulldogs recruited the entire Athens High offense, including a guy named Fran Tarkington, that had defeated Toccoa in the state finals.

Uncle John: Dr. John P. Bond
All American UGA 1933
Still holds record/longest punt

It left Daddy out in the cold. Needless to say, he wasn't happy about it; our uncle John Bond was an All American at Georgia, and had fought hard to get his nephew in as well--to no avail...So, it was with some heartbreak that he took the scholarship and went to Blacksburg, Virginia instead.

I must have had him tell me this story

Momma and Daddy, Lake Burton Ga
1954, headed into the future

dozens of times; so absorbed by the love of the game as I was, not to mention the normal curiosity a child has for the details of his parent's courtship...

"They took the top half off of a mountain up there," he told me. "I couldn't see the fields from where I got off the bus, but I could hear the coach's whistles, and someone screaming "HIT! HIT! HIT!" from were I stood. Could hear it even over the sounds of the bus idling.

"They had us go change into issued pads and I got a helmet..." He chuckled at this, shaking his head. "I had never worn a face bar, and the one they gave me didn't have one either, and my dang ole head was so big that the helmet sorta rode high; left my jaws and face exposed. But, those were days when we just played, even if you lost your helmet on a play, you kept going. You may have seen some old, black and white film of guys running hell-bent-for-leather down the field, bareheaded--you get the idea.

"They put me in against a Senior and on the first play, that ole boy come up with his fist and knocked out my bridge, and three more of my front teeth!" Daddy told me. "I came over to the coach, blood running down my chin, and asked if I might get one of those new face bars..."

"I thought you Georgia boys was supposed to be tough, Herndon...you gonna get back in there and establish your presence? Or, do we need to hold the bus soes you can go home to Momma?"

"What'd you do?" I remember asking.

Daddy shrugged and said: "I just ran back out there. On the next play, I punched that fella back, broke is nose, we both bled like stuck pigs the rest of the day."

Freshman Cadet Herndon

He played five years at VPI, always waiting for a call from UGa to say they had a spot opening up for him so he could transfer. Back then, freshmen did not play on varsity--freshman team only--then he was red-shirted for

Gobbler Mascot

his sophomore season. By his junior year, he was starting for the Gobblers (yeah, I know, they call 'em Hokies now) at tight end, opposite the great split end Caroll Dale, who he roomed with.

By then, VPI had gone co-ed, and had terminated their military cadet program, for which my father was grateful. He grew three inches between freshman and sophomore years...

"I'd pull the bed covers up at night, and they'd be at my knees by morning..." He used to joke about that last growth spurt that ended up with him listed as
6'3" in the game programs. More than anything else, he was happy he didn't have to wear that scratchy wool cadet uniform anymore.

Twice every year, around mid October and around Spring

Daddy was NOT about to loose,
his trips to see Momma meant
a lot to him...

Break, the school athletic program put on a Greased Pig contest with a two hundred dollar cash prize. Daddy won it nine times in a row, and used the money to hitch-hike down to Rock Hill, S.C. so he could see our mother, his high school sweet heart, who was attending Winthrop Collage as a fine arts major.

Caroll Dale kept calling Daddy'
"We got a new coach, Herndon..."

Their courtship continued through Daddy's last year at VPI. By that time, he had changed his major to pre-med and had a lot of credits to make up, which also allowed for his last year of eligibility. He and Caroll Dale were both drafted by the Packers in 1957, Caroll went on up to Green Bay, but my father, who was now married and expecting a baby, didn't see how the 1200.00 a

Hartwell, Ga. Herndon Drug
Store was on the corner
downtown...

year salary would pay for much, and was waiting for UGa to accept him in med school. So, he took a job coaching down in Hartwell, Ga., about fifteen miles from his hometown and another place where the name Herndon was well known.

The Hartwell Football Field is called
Herndon Stadium, to this day...

His Uncle Walt Herndon ran the Rexall Pharmacy in town, and the football field was, and is to this day, called Herndon Field.

I wrote this blog because so many of you had been commenting on facebook about the picture of my parents shown above, with them standing in swim suits at Lake Burton. As many of you know, Daddy passed away from a brain tumor in 1973; Momma followed just a couple of years ago.

Just before Momma passed, I got the chance to take The Fabulous Feathermaye down the neat little highway that leads down from I-85 to Hartwell, and show her around that pretty little town. It's a spotless little place; not even a spec of litter could be seen along the highway. I took her to eat and the waitress kept asking if she wanted more "Sweet Tea". Lord, I miss that part of the country...

Writing this blog now, makes me wonder: Have any of you gone down memory lane lately? What sort of experiences would you care to share? Feel free to impart yours, good or bad, below...

ART BLOG: With better hands, the brushes are calling once again...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 17:35:00 +0000

My last commission did me in...For a while, that

Lazy Dayz Lane inspired me to pick up
the brushes and paint it...you could say
it got me started again...

is. Like writing, painting is equally compelling for Yours Truly. Many of you dear readers have followed along and know that I was a painting fool while up on THE MOUNTAIN in Canton, Texas.

I'll be painting from here...

Since our lives have come back to normal again: the day job, the residence/studio surrounding us, not to mention the simple fact that what might happen tomorrow is a little more predictable, ART is calling

My Impression of Lazy Dayz...
Almost all of it was lost in the fire

me back.

This blog is up and running at full steam once more--thank you all for following--and we are back in

planning stages for publication of more NOVELS, and with my PMA back under control--little or no hand/shoulder pain to slow me down--I feel the need to gesso up a few dozen canvasses and start getting all the fantastic landscape impressions out of my head.

Impression composed of many Mountain Elements

Of course, as always, I'll once again be accepting commissions as well; more than a few of you have asked for an impressionist interpretation of a photograph you've been holding onto, thinking: this would make a great painting!

We starving artists stay alive by working on just this sort of work. So, if you have a spot of earth you feel like you would want--or better yet, need--to have captured on canvas, I'm back in business and at the ready to talk with you about YOUR PAINTING.

It took many years to develop the particular style that I use. Working with it up on THE MOUNTAIN in Canton, having folks stand around behind me as I painted, allowed me the rare chance of instant feedback on what I was doing with brush, pallet knife and paint. That feedback was just the thing I needed to take my

Mountain Boardwalk
from behind Mardi Gras

work to the next level: Work that people would BUY! It didn't hurt that on many occasions, art sellers, reps, show agents etc. came by to watch as well as to invite us to one show or another.

If you want to own an S. Bond Herndon original work, just make contact with Yours Truly, or with The Fabulous Feathermaye

on our facebook links, where you can pretty much always find us. We'll discuss the sort of piece you want, price it according to materials and the time it takes to finish the work.

The value of these sorts of paintings I can only

Pen & Ink Mountain Tree Buildings

leave to those who've made a life out of setting such estimations.

However, rest assured that the finished piece will be something that I'm happy, and proud to have put so much time

This is a series of sketches that depict
market on The Mountain...

and, yes, pain into.

...and the flare and flavor of the
unique market venue

Such is ART...

Just so you know...
All of my new work will be accompanied by a step-by-step video that will document the methods I use, as well as materials. Much of the work I'm about to undertake will be MOUNTAIN settings that I sketched on THE MOUNTAIN, Canton, Texas...Since my PMA interrupted the last several pieces I had intentions of doing.

Your commissioned work will likewise be accompanied by video documentation, parts of which we will post for you as it is underway.

We hope to hear from you soon and look forward to discussing the work you want; and, hope to see you up on The Mountain next market!

Just to the right of this post you'll see the donation block where you can donate to help those afflicted by the fire that devastated the buildings and shops along LAZY DAYZ LANE. Please give, even just a little to help out those owners as well as the first responders that helped save the rest of THE MOUNTAIN!

FOLLOW THIS BLOG: Get with the click!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 18:19:00 +0000

I NEED YOU to follow this page!

There's sort of an orange/yellow button over to the right that says SUBSCRIBE on it... I really need y'all to Click that sucker!

Or...down just from that button, you'll find the Google Friend Connect button...it would also help if y'all would click that one too! It says: Join This Site

Or...way down yonder at the very bottom you'll see the Networked Blogs button that will complete the trifecta of following!

It's pretty easy, and absolutely painless. All it will do is put you on the list as somebody who likes to follow/read this blog.

In the long run, the more of you who click and follow me, the more blogging I can do. Eventually, sponsors will/might/gee I really hope start paying Yours Truly and I'll at least get free GF bread, or some other product to test, try out, and report to you, dear readers, on whether or not it's worth the time or expense for you to try yourselves.

I know this is shameless, but I also realize that many of us don't even realize that follow/subscribe/network buttons actually mean anything.

Like I said, it's only important to me, but if you click it and start following the blog, you'll get notified whenever a new one comes your way!

Looks like we all win with this one...

Please give a click.

Thanks,

S

FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN: Birth of the "Mountain Strong" fund raising campaign...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 15:52:00 +0000

Whether you've spent a little time on THE MOUNTAIN in Canton, TX., or you have spent the night in one of the B&B's, roamed the lanes and shopped for something unusual, sang a little karaoke, or maybe sat on one of the many porches to listen to a singer-songwriter do his or her thing, you've tasted the magic of The Mountain, and took it with you...

You may, or may not yet know, that a fire

broke out in the wee hours of Saturday

morning 11/09/13, and the old boardwalk area, just above Buffalo Girls, was destroyed.

Old Mill Marketplace/The Mountain has established a fund raising campaign--Go Mountain Strong--to help those that lost everything, the general push to clean up and restore our wonderful MOUNTAIN, as well as a donation to the

first-responders whose gallant efforts saved the rest of the shops and B&Bs from the flames by containing them; a feat of supreme effort on their parts kept the fire from spreading and limited the potential damage

Please dig deep and help us rebuild THE MOUNTAIN and come along with us as we GO MOUNTAIN STRONG!

December market starts Thursday, November 28th, and runs through Sunday December 1st.

Come join us for a strong Christmas market!

See more from The Mountain and Old Mill Market Place here!

FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN: One of our favorite places caught fire in the night...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 20:10:00 +0000

I woke up early this morning; had to make sure the property was ready for Saturday's business. The TV news was on and I heard--as I poured my first cup of coffee--about a fire in Canton, Tx.

Freezing in my tracks, I waited to hear details, but all they were saying at that time was that it was near 1st Monday Trade Days area...Then I saw the video and knew for sure.

Of course, the whole town is, more

Canton, Texas 1st Monday
Trade Days, on the first
Monday of every month...

or less, 1st Monday Trade days once a month, and has been for over a hundred years. My worst fears were confirmed

I painted this scene, one of a collection
painted: Impressions of The Mountain
This one is among the first to inspire me
to pick up the brushes and get busy.

later when it was reported that indeed fire had ravaged THE MOUNTAIN, and my heart just sank.

Many of you

The other end of the same street,
now devastated by fire.

have read my blogs about life up on THE MOUNTAIN, where Feathermaye and Yours Truly were sheltered by the many good folks that called the place home--if only for a few days a month, but many full time.

Back in the 1980s an artist named "Wild Willy" (he was a sculptor turned promoter) started up The Mountain.

He invited several of his artist friends to join his little movement, and like a bunch of kids with scrap lumber and a pocket full of gumption, they began to assemble the grandest bunch of shacks and tree-forts you ever saw.

My wife and I felt the unusual energy of this place when we first set foot on it; magical, whimsical and down right

imaginative. A place filled with fellow starving artists and part-time entrepreneurs with a shared dream and a lot of hopes.

Mountain Cat by Feathermaye

Feathermaye's photography and my own impressionist paintings came to fruition up on that old hill and we came to know so many good people that gladly

linked their lives with ours.

Our very dear friends The Ziebers, Laurie, Dan, and their sons Keith and Randy offered up a roof to put over our

Sugar Britches Night porch

heads when we were laid off two years ago. It was THE MOUNTAIN that they had only just discovered themselves, and invested in; Sugar Britches on The Mountain, as well as a cute

Mardi Gras B&B

little B&B called The Mardi Gras, where we were housed the first few months at the end of that long, hot summer.

From what we can tell, everything on
the right side of the street and behind
is destroyed...

Later, Laurie insisted we move on into Sugar Britches, where we helped that old building go through many changes, working

side by side with the Ziebe

r family, until the building had evolved into what it is now. Today, Laurie and Dan live right there; they bought the little Gingerbread hou

se next door and that's where Dan and Keith put on Karaoke on 1st Monday Friday and Saturday nights.

From behind Marty's place, the old
board walk is all but ashes

The fire, it seems, broke out somewhere down the lane I painted that summer. Our good friend Marty, a woman who had been on The Mountain since the beginning, who

More Impressions of The
Mountain, I did a lot of
these as well as a few
commissions folks had me
paint of their buildings

knew Wild Willy himself, and who can tell you more stories about the old days, opened up her hospitality to us often. For several months of that year she stayed up on the hill and would always come by, or have us come down to use her WiFi, sitting on the open breezeway of her building--that's where I broke Feathermaye's laptop one night when we were the only two people out there (it was mid month and hot and the place was otherwise deserted).

When I saw the first pictures of the fire damage, I knew at once that it was Marty's place I was looking at, all four shops that she and her son owned, tucked into the side of The Mountain, were burned to the ground.

Both Feathermaye and I, even though we were in different rooms at the time, searching for news about the fire, thought about the painting I did of the little street where Marty's places were situated, along with so many others: testaments to a time now long gone. From Sugar Britches, I would often sit and look down that street, taking in the crazy shapes of buildings and poky-limbed cedar trees pushing up through overgrown oaks all the way down to a lone door, which was the only thing that looked back at me, other than Marty's little white sign.

That door and her sign kept speaking to me until I set up a canvas and painted the street; a street that just invited you to walk down its length, to see what was on the next porch.

Some are already saying that this

will be the end of The Mountain. But, knowing the folks there, and knowing the magic of that place, not to mention the sheer will and determination of so many of the fine folks involved, I'd be willing to wager that this Phoenix will rise from the ashes in some new form.

I've seen the Kemah Boardwalk

(just off the ship channel, down in Houston) rebuild and rebuild, time and again after a big storm knocked it to shreds. My hope is something similar will take place here, where we called home, at least for a magical while.

When it was off market, The Mountain was so quiet, that Feathermaye and I used to sit out on the porch while she ticked away on her laptop and I

played guitar and sang along with the night birds. Like I said: it ~~was~~ is a magical place; where

Waiting In The Wings
photography by
Feathermaye

magnetic ley lines criss-cross and Native American tribes once gathered; where later the settlers came together for want of a place to assemble and trade horses, supplies, pocket knives and stories; a place to go to see someone else's face, in a time when the next neighbor was miles and miles away.

I'm linking my many other blogs that I have archived here at 'as told by', for you to go back and get some idea about this place and how it affected The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly. Take your time and look them over; maybe you'll get a little of that magic yourself...

New Year's Eve Market 2011

Mountain Art Blog

Inspiration on The Mountain

ARTs Cool on The Mountain

A Mountain of Subject Matter

Photo Explosion on The Mountain

The Mountain It's all about the Porch!

B&Bs On The Mountain

People and Places on The Mountain

Calling All Starving Artists

How The Mountain comes to life

First Impressions of The Mountain

There are many more Mountain Blogs. To find them go to my archive link HERE

Gone Gluten Free: Hotdoggin it or: Yes, you can have all the bread you want...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 19:30:00 +0000

We buy our Gluten Free Bread and
Buns in bulk, it comes to us
like this...

...As long as it's gluten free, of course. All kidding aside, giving up bread is what most of us think of when we even entertain the idea of going gluten free.

And don't even start on pasta! But, you can

Great pasta! Cooks easily and we
really don't notice any taste difference

have that too... It's all available in gluten free form, and although the choices are not, so-to-speak, what you've developed a PROGRAMMED taste for over the course of your life; those choices are getting better all the time; they're even more available as well!

The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly have found a lot of places that offer up gluten free product lines. In fact, most of the Walmarts have a constantly growing section of GF products, everything from cookies to cake mixes and pasta, right down to snack crackers and breakfast bars. All of it is pretty good, too.

Schar Sub Rolls

What one must get their pallet ready for is the difference between the regular, doughy, glutenous texture of bread and the not-so-doughy, typically

crumbly texture of most varieties of GF bread products.

What we've discovered, and actually enjoy--quite frankly--

is that toasting your GF bread gives back that familiar texture, especially on sandwiches, burgers and hotdogs.

That's right, I said hotdogs! Although, we steer away from the norm there as well.

Instead of those cheap packages of dogs, usually ten to a pack--when those glutenous buns come by the eights, go figure--we like to grab the local sausage offering.

Now, you should understand, we live in Texas. Sausage out here is second only to football. Enough said? Okay,

Bum Phillips Blue Ribbon...
R.I.P. Bum

I'll elaborate a bit then...

Go down the grocery aisle in a big Texas-sized supermarket and you'll notice they have more brands of sausage than you can keep up with. No...I have not tried them all...yet.

Bum Phillips (R.I.P.) and Earl Campbell and Nolan Ryan and many other sports celebrities have their own brands of sausage, as well as dozens of smaller, usually ranch produced, offerings, not to mention all the Tex-Mex sorts that add in heat, peppers etc.

Who wants Oscar Meyer when Earl's links are gleaming up at you, just a few feet away?

Personally, I enjoy mine with spicy brown mustard, a little chili and cheese and some good ole sweet, Carolina-style slaw (out here they make it the same way, except they add in jalapenos and cilantro--damn good too!)

Now, we add all that into a toasted, gluten free bun and... Sorry y'all, I had to pause and wipe up the drool here.

Anyway, you get the idea, right?

I'm here to testify: a person can give up glutenous bread and pasta without going into withdrawal pains--this really isn't heroin, after all.

Right now, as I write this blog, I have a pot of my famous spaghetti sauce going, loaded with all the good stuff (most of the good stuff IS GLUTEN FREE after all) and this pasta that I can guarantee you'll not be able to tell is gluten free.

It's easy to fix too! Boil two minutes, put the

lid on, and let it stand for 16-18 minutes and presto: you're ready to chow down.

Feathermaye and I like to order most of the bread products on line; we are members with Amazon Prime as well as Vita-Cost and can not only save a few bucks buying it, but we get free shipping on just about all of it.

Coming in the next Gone Gluten Free:
Wait till you see what this stuff is
all about! OMG!

ARK LIFE: What the Hell are we doing and why? Part Deux

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 11:00:00 +0000

So let me make this clear: ARK LIFE can be

lived anywhere, any place; all one needs is what you carry with you...

This is especially good if you are, like Feathermaye and me: starving artists.

Between our writing, painting, photography and jewelry design, we have a lot of keen interests which, along with sixty-five cents, will get us a cup of

"Waiting in The Wings"
Photography by
Feathermaye

coffee...Just not at Starbucks.

The pursuit of ART is not only solitary, it's most often unrewarding, financially. Ergo, one needs the proverbial day job to pay the expenses, which we try hard to keep minimal.

S. Bond Herndon's New Novel
Coming Soon

We did a year of cruising through the great wilds of East Texas, taking photos, writing great American Novels, blogging about it all, and selling our wears at one of the oldest swap meets in the

1st Monday Trade Days
Canton, Texas
One of the oldest swap meets
since the late 1850's

country.

This got us a lot of material, but as funding ran low, we had to get back to our jobs: Self-Storage Resident Managers.

For us, it's the perfect fit. You see, The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly enjoy each other's company more than anything else, so working side by side, day in and day out, living without neighbors or distractions just works.

Plus, our ARK LIFE STYLE leaves us with

Many of the residences we've been
housed in have huge, open space
great for studio work. Paint, photography
music recording, we do it all

plenty of space in the apartment (usually included with this job), so we turn that space into a studio.

If you stop by our place to visit, we'll happily set you up on an air mattress--don't knock it, we slept on them for two years--right next to paint canvasses and drop cloths. You'll get to look through stacks of photos, paintings and we'll probably talk your ears off when we're not watching something on ROKU.

You'll get to dine on fine, Gluten Free cuisine,

and if you want to hit the town, we take the train (station is just behind the property) into downtown to take in museums, music, parks etc.

It's the simple life, with focus.

More about that focus, as well as a lot of tips on ARK Living in future posts...

BINGing It!: Blood Splatters and Aliens...good times!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 17:11:00 +0000

Netflix put up "new episodes" of Dexter: the blood splatter expert/serial killer. By "new" Netflix means, season 4, even though the show is now on season 8--Showtime.

Good ole Dexter--Serial killer of the evil doers--is one

we've been waiting to catch up on, especially since we'd seen the teaser ads showing his sister 'Deb' walking in on one of his kills--this was NOT in season 4, just released for BINGing on Netflix.

Part of the drawback of BINGing TV this way is the let down when it's over,

those cliffhangers leave you wanting to get right into the next part of the story line.

Fortunately, Dexter: seasons 5-7 are already available on Amazon for $1.99 an episode. We're sort of cheapskates, for the most part, so we'll put this off a bit...

...Since we have "Falling Skies" season 3 already available on Amazon Prime (no rental fees with shows and

movies on Prime). Our History professor Tom is now "President" of the "New United States", which consists of about twenty square blocks of what used to be Charleston, S.C.

Intrigue abounds as new alliances have been formed between human and aliens; sort of a

"The enemy of my enemy is my new bud..." kind of deal. Anyhow, it works and we're now back on the Falling Skies BINGE.

Dexter is still in the queue, as well as others. We've still got

the last season of "Damages" to BINGE, and many others as we wait, patiently, for season three of "Game of Thrones"!

Keep in mind: BINGING doesn't have to happen all at once. Personal schedules may only allow a couple/three episodes an evening, along with the occasional weekend BINGE that may allow us to watch an entire season, or two, of a show, not to mention the latest, greatest film gem...

Speaking of which: Have y'all seen "The Conjuring"? If not, consider this your recommendation!

*WARNING* You'd best like the scary stuff if you dare to stream this one...

Happy BINGing, everybody. More to come...

ARK LIFE: What the hell are we doing, and why?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 22:16:00 +0000

Although we did not start out with such

intentions, The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly have spent the last two years experimenting with life style choices.

Circumstances forced many of our decisions; we had to, for example, keep ourselves in a state of ready mobility. Mobility requires planning, so we first had to become well versed in our own communication with each other: how each of us was holding up, as far as our state of mind.

Keeping a positive outlook is paramount to any sort of success when two people are living in a, relatively constant state of flux.

Also consistent, was the research we had to keep up with.

For my wife and myself, at least, all of this was new territory; in terms of both where we were geographically, as well as what we were doing with ourselves.

Have no doubt that if not for many good friends, our journey would have been troubled with problems: shelter, food, unforeseen expenses etc., the list is as long as one's imagination.

Along the way, we discovered answers to big questions like: what to do next? or do we really need this or not? The latter question was one we found ourselves asking more times than not when we first set foot on the trail.

Like the Great Plains Native Americans, we found that keeping our life mobile was the simplest method for adapting to the unanticipated problems, and learned to turn them into opportunity.

Through the course of our efforts, we discovered that we were among thousands of Americans that were learning, or had already educated themselves, with solutions to our changing times and conditions...

The Small House Movement for example, has grown by

Small House/Tiny House movement

leaps and bounds. Rather than taking up so much land, so many resources and unending expense, the movement takes a different approach: USE LESS SPACE, USE ONLY WHAT YOU NEED, and REDUCE THE COST OF LIVING, so that the QUALITY OF LIFE, is at the forefront.

Today's America, we have found, is no longer supportive of keeping up with the Jones. Hell, the Jones can hardly keep up with themselves. We're all (96% at least) struggling, at best. As a nation, we're making it hard on ourselves, our children and social structure, by keeping with the old American Dream...the way it was always put to us.

Going into debt, so we can have it now has never been a

good idea; but most of us do it anyway.

We want the big house, we want the latest car, the finest apparel, we want to look like the images on TV! But those images are fools gold, as Feathermaye and I found out, by letting them go, one by one, until we reduced our lives...to what really matters for us.

Now, we live in an ARK. We can take our ARK

ARK LIFE can take place nearly anywhere, fixed in place
or on wheels, ready to go anywhere...

anywhere, at any time with little notice. All we need is a prevailing wind (opportunity) and we can get moving toward a new destination.

Inside the ARK, are the few things that matter to us; that make our life comfortable, reasonable and worthwhile. We can set up our ARK almost anywhere, and leave a very small footprint--environmentally.

Inside the ARK, we live as well as anyone, and we enjoy life because life is good, life is enjoyable.

END OF PART ONE...

Gone Gluten Free: Spices you gotta try!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 20:55:00 +0000

Not too long ago, The Fabulous Feathermaye and

Yours Truly came across a really cool product while grocery shopping...Gluten Free, of course!

Gluten free living just got easier! These spices from Pop & Cook

remove all the hassle. We found them in the frozen food section and jumped on the wagon.

Garlic, crushed and ready to use! Just pop a cube or two into your next masterpiece. We couldn't wait to make a big pot of spaghetti.

Feathermaye quickly discovered the wonders of adding chopped basil to a good

many of her Gluten Free creations. Like all Pop & Cook products, she pops a basil cube into the crock pot.

And, you just can't go Authentic Mexican without adding in the chillies and cilantro!

Folks, it's hard to beat fresh...But I'm here to tell you that this is a close as you get without your own garden.

Please add your comment below. You can follow this blog by clicking the little button you see above and to the right. You can also find us on facebook, twitter and digg.

Ark Life: Paring down to the essentials...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 18:50:00 +0000

The best rule of thumb we've come up with

when it comes to reducing the amount of crap you have to carry with you: if you haven't used it in three months, you don't need it!

When The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly were forced to make choices like this, we had, like so many of us out there across America, accumulated quite a lot of stuff. Some of it was sentimental, a lot of it fell into the category of: stuff we might need to hang on to for a while, to: Jeez, this is still a pretty good bit of (junk we weren't using).

In all honesty, we might still be accumulating junk if we hadn't been laid off. Our day job allows us to work together; we prefer it that way...Yes, that's another blog altogether so I'll remain on point here.

As resident managers, housing comes along with the job, so when we were suddenly handed pink slips, we had to scramble, not only for income, but for housing!

It was at this point that we decided to do what we had talked about for a long time: Never let anyone, any company (You know, THE MAN) put us in such a position again.

We had a week to move out. Our accumulations

amounted to a house full of stuff, as well as a 10' by 20' storage unit full to the brim. By the time we left for parts unknown (at least at that time) we took everything we felt was essential, and only that which we could pack into our small Hyundai.

Necessity forced us to get RID of everything else; we gave it away to the kids, sold a good deal of it, and free cycled out as much as possible, trying not to leave a big environmental footprint.

You might think it a painful process. But it was actually quite liberating. We no longer had to stress over things! And, we began to focus on the important items we needed to put into our ARK.

After some trial and error, we broke it down like this:

portable is best, when you can
have it! But do NOT sacrifice
the quality...

1. Bedding-getting comfortable sleep is paramount. You can't think, work, have any sort of fun, nor can you keep up your energy level (highly important) without a good way to rest.
If you are an old fart, like Yours Truly, or a sprite young kid like the Fabulous Feathermaye, you will come to find how much one appreciates a simple, glorious night of rest.

2. Communications-The internet is the most powerful tool mankind ever came up with, second

The Web and a good WiFi
keeps you in touch...

only to fire (perhaps) or air conditioning (if you're in Texas). The best way to transport important documents, photos, birth certificates etc. is on the portable laptop, or smart phone, push-come-to-shove.
Keeping with this theme: When we started out on our journey, it was not as easy to find Wi-Fi as we had first hoped. We spent a good deal of time in McDonald's parking lots, and lawn chairs close to someone's free signal, in order to keep blogging, posting on social media, or keeping up with friends and family that were concerned about our well being.

Here of late, we've noticed that Wi-Fi signals are becoming more and more common place. It all depends, really, on where you are making camp, or holing up, as the case may be.

3. Entertainment-A big one for us. Since it's just the three of us (Feathermaye, Starbuck the dog of wonder, and Yours Truly) we don't have a lot of big time needs in this aspect, but it is important to keep entertained and

stimulated. A couple of cool but portable items we take along is a device called ROKU, and
paid memberships to NetFlix and Amazon Prim

e. We opted not to take our 65" Big Screen TV--sold that puppy--we did carry our 39" with us, along with a compact DVD player, which is becoming more and more obsolete.

It's been a two year odyssey from our former resident job, to the one we have (in this last month) settled into. We made a lot of new friends, and encountered quite a few characters, many of which are mentioned in other blogs on this site.

We've come to the conclusion that we will never

again burden ourselves down with things and now keep geared to get on the move with short notice. One goal we've in mind now is getting set up in an RV to take the show on the road with. But that's another blog as well.

I'll have more stories, great innovations we've discovered, and tricks of the traveler to share in future ARK LIFE posts. Life is good in the ARK, because we make it that way!

Please feel free to leave comments below. We'd love to hear about your own encounters in this new America. Also, you can follow this blog by clicking on the "follow" button here on the page, or follow us on facebook, tweet us on twitter, or digg us on Digg.

BINGing IT: Monday morning post binge blues...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 20:08:00 +0000

This past Saturday night, The Fabulous Feathermaye and Your's Truly sat down to begin a BINGE on one of our all time favorites:

SONS OF ANARCHY

Sunday evening closed with the

final episode of Season 5

Leaving us with grand expectations

and the Monday morning POST BINGE blues.

It's a condition common for us Bingers; having the opportunity to view, without commercial interruption, an entire season of a well written, superbly cast and sharply executed production allows us to form real attachments to characters we come to love or dislike.

Sons delivers on all fronts! If you recall: this was the season that JAX takes over the gavel at the head of the table. Thrown head long into dealings with rival gangs, mafia, drug cartels as well as the CIA and IRA. All this while struggling--Michael Corleone style--to get the MC out of the gun and coke-muling business.

We were sad to see one of our favorite characters leave the show.

But, like all the good ones, Sons of Anarchy left us, once again, anxious for next season.

That's what Binge Watching does, after all: It allows the viewer to be pulled in fully, taking us through the drama without pause, except for those moments you choose to hit the rest room or Binge in the fridge.

It leaves us chomping at the bit for shows like: AMC's

HELL ON WHEELS in which our hero Bohannon is left to assume control of the construction of a rail road, cutting through the Post Civil War American West.

Bohannon, and his partner face compelling odds as they attempt to not only meet deadlines, but also keep the wild assortment of townspeople in line.

Binge Watching shows like these takes away the need to wait a week between episodes. Personally, I've always hated TV scheduling for network programming. It's like the man behind the curtain has always been in charge of what we watch, and when.

NETFLIX has already figured this out and is

gearing new shows for us Binge Watchers! Case in point: House of Cards...

Kevin Spacy leads a slick cast in this Political Drama that peels back the behind the scenes back stabbing and double dealing in

Washington.

Likewise, one of our new favorites is based on a best selling book about women's prison:

Orange is the NEW Black takes the "Life in Prison" genre to new levels.

Just like House of Cards, NETFLIX is releasing EVERY EPISODE at ONCE! So, no waiting on what happens next...Until you reach the end of

a season. And, they are not going light weight on subject matter, or hesitant when it comes to subjects that you might not want to discuss in Sunday School. Orange is the New Black doesn't hold back

on the shock factor, or the blunt trauma of Prison Life; and yet, even in the darkest recesses of a life most of us can only imagine, Orange is the New Black finds more than one way to bring humor to the front. The characters are amazingly

flamboyant, while remaining painfully human.

How about that? Just telling all of you about Binging last weekend makes me feel so much less Blue... Now, what will we Binge Watch next?

Gone Gluten Free: Making sure your guests don't panic cause they're eating some gluten free stuff...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:40:00 +0000

We had our good friend Lu drop by for a couple of nights. She's in the loop with the fact that

Glutens up in the HOUSE!

we've gone gluten free. But, she wasn't sure what that might entail for her gastronomically speaking, while she spent some time visiting.

Quickly, she found that we were not eating things with
strange names, that in fact: most gluten free food is as common as table salt. It's merely food without wheat, or barley, prepared, hopefully, in a facility that does not cross contaminate the two.

So last night, Feathermaye whipped up a Gluten Free, Asian inpired, cajun-like (sorta Jambalaya) dish; she assembled Rice with stir-fry veggies...

Then pulled out the proteins: A fantastic south texas Sausage made by the good folks way down yonder in Houston, known as Holmes, Pecan Smoked All Beef Sausage.

We've speculated that the good folks at Holmes have hired on a recent AGGIE grad who came up with the brilliant idea that since sausage has no wheat or barley added (at least not in this sausage) it would be a good marketing scheme to add a little label to that effect: Look y'all! We're Gluten Free!

Keeping with a Cajun-Asian theme, Feathermaye then added some fajita chicken from another supplier of good, wholesome, Gluten Free food: John Soules.

We showed our guest how it was best to assemble it all

together, and offered up some Gluten Free condiments if she was so inclined: I love that I can chow down on food with Louisiana Hot Sauce, Wasabi paste, or even Chinese Hot Mustard, without fear of gastric repercussions.

It seems like we watch a lot of the Food Channel show: CHOPPED. Not long after we had finished with the main course, it was time to make the desert!

This is one of our new favorites: Feathermaye's Pudding Cake (converted from a glutenous original recipe). I made this one under her guidance and instruction...

Step One: Gluten Free Cake mix (Betty Crocker shown

Mix with an electric mixer

here, but we also enjoy Hodgson's Mills, which is an exclusive Gluten Free manufacturer). You'll also need: 4 eggs, a quarter cup of oil (we use sesame in this one, but olive and others work fine as well), plus a box of Jello Instant Pudding mix (banana cream) along with a cup of Rice Milk.

Oven preheated, of course

Feathermaye likes to use a coconut oil based cooking spray, which she applied to our round, 9 inch glass pie dish.

Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes until a

Easy frost has no gluten!

knife blade comes out clean, or it looks like this:

And yes, that is a can of Easy Frost sitting just beyond the cake. Here, I'm just waiting for it to cool down a little.

On goes the frosting, just shoot some spirals around it, starting from the middle, and let it melt down, sorta glazed doughnut style, until it covers the whole cake.

I popped it in the freezer for about twenty minutes to harden the glaze before the girls finally demanded to be served! Warning: Do Not Be Surprised if one of these doesn't make it through the night!

More recipes about going gluten free to come...

Film Review: I Ain't In It For My Health a film about Levon Helm

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 16:54:00 +0000

I grew up listening, and emulating Levon Helm.

When I pick up a guitar and warm up my fingers and voice, it is with "The Night They Drove Ole Dixie Down"; in the background of my mind, I hear Levon's version playing, and I'm just singing along.

Ain't In It for My Health
is a film about Levon's life; his days playing drums and singing lead for The Band, and his last days of struggle with the cancer that took him from us in the end.

Many of you will remember him as Loretta Lynn's father in

the film: Coal Miner's Daughter. As with most of his roles, he's so good, so in character, that we forget he's the same guy who sang "Up on Cripple Creek".

You may also remember his role as Chuck Yeager's wing man in "The Right Stuff".

I'll always remember Levon from the first time I became aware of him: Singing tunes on a stage in front of half a million people at Woodstock.

Last night, I streamed "I Ain't In It For My Health" through my ROKU. It was like watching an old friend; even more saddening to see how time and a life in the Music Industry along with cancer had taken its toll.

Levon was fighting through the film, battling his voice, trying to get it so he could at least utter a familiar sound and not disappoint his fans. Spliced with vintage footage of The Band, and peppered with heartfelt confessions about his financial struggles after they dismantled the group.

This film takes us down memory road with an ICON of his time.

Well worth the watch! I gave it 4 of 5 stars.

Levon Helm, ladies and gentlemen 1940-2012

Please feel free to comment below. If you have a favorite memory of Levon Helm, be it a role he played in a film you enjoyed, or a splice of time that you were fortunate enough to see him playing live, share it with us!

Going Gluten Free: Don't think you're going to miss out on the GOOD STUFF!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 15:44:00 +0000

Over the course of the last year, Feathermaye and I have found a number of really great, ready-to-go, Gluten Free products that I simply have to share. It's always good when you find something your really like that fits the bill.

Cookies and cake are one of these--one must have one's goodies!

Our local Walmart stores have started to carry the Immaculate Brand of Gluten Free, chocolate chunk

cookie dough. This stuff is the BOMB.

Not once, out of dozens of times, have I offered one to someone else and not watched their face as they bit and chewed and made that cookie "Awe! Man!" sound.

"That's the best cookie I've ever had!" They say...no kidding, y'all. To a person, they all moan and mutter those words, and that's before I tell them: "And it's gluten free."

Every now and then I get a few what's that mean?s as they finish chewing. But those in the know looked shocked, stare at the rest of the cookie in their hands (if they haven't already crammed the whole thing in their gobs) and exclaim, something along the lines of: "You gotta be kidding!"

And NO, the fine folks at Immaculate are NOT paying me for this. At least not yet, anyhow.

I'm just happy to pass it along to the rest of my Gluten sensitive readers out there. Otherwise, how would we ever know?

Gluten irritates joints and can cause all manner
of digestion issues. Most of us try to ignore it.
But eventually, it becomes too much to ignore.

Glutens are no longer something that many of us can tolerate. We've grown up eating fine breads and pastries and pasta and...well, what we called wheat, back in the day, no longer exists in that state. It's been genetically altered into something else, and I, at least, found it was killing me.

Giving up the good stuff, was a very gloomy prospect for Yours Truly. I was loathe to spend the rest of my days eating food that I was equating with a sheet of notebook paper. I wanted taste! Texture! I wanted my food to be real!

Immaculate has put it together with this selection. These cookies are big, they're soft batch-type, and you will get such a taste sensation that your brain will take a moment or two to get a grip on those taste buds.

(Gulp) I had to swallow again just telling you this. These things make my mouth water.

Look for them at your local store. Ask your store manager to start carrying them if they don't already. Go someplace else if they don't follow up. It's worth it!

Happy taste buds, my fellow GFers!

Coming up next: Feathermaye's awesome pudding cake conversion recipe that will send you over the edge. As Scarlet O'Hara is my witness, it will leave you saying "This Gluten Free stuff is GOOD!"

You know...you all look like you could stand a good cookie.

Life without Gluten: Is it really easier to quit Heroin?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 19:16:00 +0000

We found out I was gluten sensitive by accident. I had, of course, heard about how we ought to give up gluten; but paid it little attention. French baguettes, Italian garlic bread and San Francisco Sourdough are among, what I once called, the "good" things in life. Biscuits and gravy, a good fresh Rye (Jewish or otherwise--I was never all that picky) and all manner of sandwiches, burgers and hotdogs were things I refused to admit were "Bad" for me.

As many of you already know, I was diagnosed with a disease called

Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR)

a couple of years ago.

A harsh form of Arthritis, it only strikes after age fifty, and with treatment (steroids) it can go away altogether after about five years, or cripple your ass if you do nothing. I took the 'roids' for a year and a half before I attempted to ween myself off of them. Not a full week after I stopped taking prednisone I was in severe pain again, worse than ever, and had lost so much muscle mass that I found myself too weak to move without feeling as if I was going to die from the pain.

We were working a resident manager gig down on the Bar-S Ranch in Palestine (Pal-ess-teen) Texas and knowing that I could not just sit around and hurt all day, and the fact that we were without medical benefits of any kind, we opted for some alternative medicine.

Dixie Dorsett L AC, is an acupuncturist in town, in practice with her husband John, a Chiropractor.

Frankenstein with his ass hanging out

Desperate for some relief, I had Feathermaye take me down to see how I'd do as a pin cushion. Dixie's very good. She had me full of needles in no time, some of them even hooked up to low voltage wiring. Feathermaye took pics of it all, of course--I supposed I must have looked like Frankenstein's monster all wired up and waiting for the next East Texas thunderstorm.

The needles gave me some relief, but it was temporary. So, Dixie, a supportive natural healer, suggested I do some cleansing. She recommended chlorophyll extract, for daily use, as well as a really good "whole body cleanse" kit which the little health food store down the street sold. We picked all that up and I listened while Feathermaye read to me all the stuff I could NOT eat during the cleanse: No this, no that, no bread, no pasta...

This sort of thing had been discussed and de-cussed between Feathermaye and Your's Truly. I never wanted to give credit to anything that didn't come with a prescription or cost billions of dollars in Medical Research.

But, medical science didn't really have much to say about my disease. "We don't really know much about this disease, Mr. Herndon," my Rhuematologist told me. "Just keep taking the steroids and if they don't do the trick, we'll discuss putting you on some other cocktail."

Of course we already knew what he didn't say: with even more side-effects!

So, moving ahead...

The third morning of the "cleanse", I woke up, bracing myself for pain--something I was doing as a reflex by that time. The strange part was at that moment I realized I didn't have any...

"Hey, I don't hurt anymore!" I said as I ate boiled eggs and drank coffee with Stevia, instead of sugar.

Feathermaye smiled and nodded. "Now all we have to do is pay attention as we add stuff back into your diet."

The next week, I fixed pasta, with my famous sauce and a couple baguettes of French bread.

The following morning I was in pain again. What the hell?

Before I could say anything, Feathermaye was ticking away on her laptop; she's a marvel at research as well as editing. In no time she nodded...

"Hmm...looks like you're going to have to stay off the Glutens, big guy."

"Okay," I said, "Tell me again what that is?"

"Bread, pasta, anything with wheat or barley."

"You mean...I can't even have beer?"

She shook her head, "Not unless they have one that's gluten free."

Yes! Bud makes my new favorite GF beer!

I felt like a heroin addict who suddenly found himself on a deserted island. "You gotta be shittin' me!"

"No, sir." She did not look up as she said this part. "You either quit eating glutens or you remain in pain. Your choice."

Jumping ahead...

Even heroin addicts eventually get over not having heroin any more. Hell, that may be easier. It's not like they have to walk by heroin when they go grocery shopping. The smells of fresh baked heroin aren't seemingly everywhere, tempting, tempting and tempting. It's not like heroin is on the menu at every damn restaurant they go to.

No...it's just gluten: Bread, pasta...anything made of wheat or barley...(gulp) including beer--damnit.

I cheated a couple of times after that. My PMR made me pay dearly for it.

And, I have to say this: no sandwich, no big'o plate of spaghetti or lasagna, no biscuit or cake or cookie is worth THAT kind of pain, folks. I QUIT!

But wait! All is not lost!

I am married to the most awesome girl. She has found so many ways to replace gluten with things I love just as much that...well...I figure I just need to crank up this old blog and tell the world how good it can be going GLUTEN FREE.

You might think you'd really miss a cheese burger, if you go gluten free. So I'm going to show you, right here, right now, how to have an awesome blue cheese, avocado, bacon and cheddar supreme with jalapenos.

I'm here to inform you that the gluten free bread industry has its issues. Most that are already made and

sold are crumbly and hardly resemble what we've all come to know and think of as bread. Hamburger buns are especially difficult to find, but here is the best we've found so far:

The good folks at Schar make not only buns, but loaf bread as well. It keeps very well--for a rice flour based bread, but there are a couple of things I've found necessary for Your's Truly:

This type of bread is a bit crumbly, when you first open and try it. The stuff will fall apart unless you toast it. I like to butter and toast it under the broiler.

A little crumbly at first, but don't panic or despair!

Butter the tops and pop 'em under a broiler...

Until they look something like this...

In this case, I've topped with Blue Cheese and Avocado

It IS as good as it looks!

The burgers were brought to us by Bubbas Burgers!
They're not only awesome, they're gluten free...

Lays potato chips are also gluten free and we loaded down our plates with them as well. And, that's the thing, you'd be surprised at the number of things you already eat that are gluten free.

But the real kicker is: how much weight we lost. In the picture above, the one where I'm getting poked with

Me on the right at 180lbs.

needles, I was weighing in at a tubby 238. In the last year of completely gluten free dining, eating three squares a day, I've dropped sixty of those pounds. We were shocked when I reached 180. I haven't weighed that since high school, back when I looked like this>

That's right, folks. I'm back to my fighting weight and I have to attribute it to a gluten free diet. I also get a good amount of exercise, but it's not like I run five miles a day or anything like that.

180 lbs today

Since I--more or less--had to go gluten free, Feathermaye--by direct association--went along with me. She lost about 30lbs so far. Not only that, we just FEEL better! Neither of us has been sick; no colds, flu, and I find I can eat hot sauce or munch on jalapenos without worry about indigestion since I took the steps to remove gluten from my diet and my system.

Of course, it is easier to be motivated when the alternative is so damn painful. But, I'd be willing to bet you that if you suffer from gastric disorders, joint pain, even head aches and constant bothersome ailments, you might just find that gluten is at the very least, aggravating it. I challenge you to try it for yourself and see if it helps. All you have to lose is some weight, and maybe a little discomfort.

I'll post many more recipes that we've come across in future posts.

ARK LIFE: BINGE WATCHING IS WHERE IT'S AT!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 19:28:00 +0000

WHEN Life gives you lemons or: making chicken salad out of chicken shit...

The Fabulous Feathermaye and Yours Truly have a lot of life lessons we've collected over the past two years. In that time, a sudden unemployment tuned us in to life in a bad economy, and just how drastically America has changed from the wonderful land of opportunity we were raised to believe in, to a more dependable truth: we needed to downsize and start living as if it can all change tomorrow!

This new philosophy is not the big disappointment one might think it is; rather, it opens up the eyes to new ways of living, and pursuing the American Dream. Very simply put: we've learned that we don't need the standard "fixed fortifications" we'd been lead to believe we had to have: house, cars, toys etc.

Instead, we've boiled it down to the essence of "What we really enjoy" and "What we actually need".

We call it "ARK LIFE"... Living with mobility in mind.Let's face it: Moving is a bitch, so make it easy on yourself. Only take the essentials with you, so you can set up camp quickly, without feeling as if you're missing or lacking anything important.

*A good rule of thumb: if you haven't used it in the last three months, you don't need it*

One important essential component question is: "how will you entertain yourself in downtime?''

Since today's technology has become more mobile, we discovered a little device call

"ROKU" that we carry with us everywhere. Through it, and a decent WiFi signal, we can stream videos, movies and TV shows. Which leads me to the current topic: Binge Watching.

Have any of you tried this? Seems to be catching on with many of us Baby Boomers. We saw a report just a couple of days ago from one of our favorite actors, Sir Anthony Hopkins, in which he told of how he caught up on the fantastic AMC Drama: Breaking Bad. In two days, Hopkins watched every episode of Brian

Cranston's characterization of a High School Chemistry teacher who began to produce high grade Methamphetamine, and ended up destroying his family, and himself as his efforts lead from a "little extra cash for cancer treatments" to becoming the infamous Heisenberg, Drug Lord of New Mexico.

We did the same here in our portable ARK; only we did it in stages; the first two seasons (which my buddy Bill Keith recommended) and then waited with baited breath as each new season was offered on our favorite stream providers: NetFlix and Amazon Prime.

Personally, I've always hated the distraction of commercial TV. I can't stand the constant bombardment of "over-run" commercials--Super Bowl ads being the lone exception, but that's once a year, right?

With streaming TV, you catch it all in succinct episodes. This has allowed us to keep up with all

our favorites, and we tend to do so in "Binge" periods, taking in the whole show in that period of time, be it a few episodes a night, or a weekend Binge from beginning to end!

Sure, there are other ways with which we spend our spare time: Exploring the different cities we find ourselves in, or the surrounding country side. Feathermaye's photography comes from these excursions, and often my own impressionist paintings are inspired from those very same captures.

However, being "homebodies" by nature, not to mention the simple fact that we just enjoy each other's company so very much, streaming video together has become a routine we look forward to every day.

For more information on ROKU, Netflix, Amazon, and all the other streaming sources available today, you might try these links.

And, I'm curious to know how many of you already Binge Watch? Feel free to leave a comment below, and include your favorites!

I'm finally back or: Why the Geek Squad Sucks

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 22:14:00 +0000

First of all, I'd like to thank all of you who asked after me when

We work best side by side

I sort of...disappeared. There is a lot to the story, and a good many of you follow my wife: The Fabulous Feathermaye, and know that she has kept up the news of what's been going on during my blog absence.

Many of you were following our exploits through our quazi-homelessness, as we meandered from Greater Houston to Canton Mountain, to Palestine (pronounced: Pal-ess-teen around these here parts) then our movements to Dallas, which has finally brought us back to a position where we sort of started from: with a roof over our heads, and employment in the storage business, leaving us once more working side-by-side...whew!

The Old Mine on Canton Mountain

As you may recall, I was blogging like a madman from The Mountain. Then, the stupid power cord on this lap-top developed a little, shall we say: wiggle? I was having to stop, rig a constantly changing jig with which to shore up the plug, just to get a little juice so I could plunge into the web's waters. This worked briefly, and became so much of a hassle that I could not finish anything without hours upon hours of head-banging effort just to power up.

Finally, I gave up and went back to work --literally-- as our unemployment ran out and we had not yet found this new little opportunity.

On our way to where we are now, I attempted to get the lap-top serviced and spoke with numerous individuals who nodded in agreement: all I needed was to have a new power-port installed, the bad one had just enough play in the contact points that it simply would not stay put! I even consulted with an area manager for Best Buy, and he agreed that the good ole boys at the Geek Squad could tackle that job, and would probably only run in the pricing neighborhood of around 65.00. I promised I would not hold him to that price exactly, and even nodded at the "give or take 10-15 bucks".

As it turned out, his little cluster of Best Buy stores did not include the one in Mesquite, Texas...which was the closest one to the area of East Dallas that Feathermaye and I were renting a room in. We called ahead and did as much research as possible about the Best Buy/Geek Squad procedures and felt that since the lap-top had to be shipped off for repair anyhow, it didn't matter which store we dropped it off at.

We paid our 35.00 deposit and sent the unit on its way to repairsville.

While I was at work a few days later, Feathermaye sent me a text telling me that the Geeks felt that my poor laptop needed a new motherboard to fix the problem and they wanted 367.00 to button'er up.

I know, I know, you're all chuckling and saying: You can buy a new one for that price! AS important as writing is for me, this was not in our budget.

When Feathermaye attempted to pursue the "can't you just change the power port?" argument, they addressed her as if she were a mentally challenged individual. A condescending "No ma'am..." was the answer she received from the Geeks.

"Just tell 'em to send it back, then..." I said to her, mentally adding "I'll just have to put off writing for a while longer".

It was Best Buy's third strike

"I figured you'd say that," she said. "I already told them that, along with a few expletives I felt you would want me to add in. I promise I didn't call any of them anything that did not fit the situation."

"That's my girl..."

Back to the ole drawing board.

Having moved everything in to our newly remodeled residence, I took advantage of a rainy day and finished unpacking our stuff for like the upteenth time in the last two years. Atop a shelf sat the laptop once I was done, along with the disagreeable power cord. It called out to me this morning and I had a moment of inspiration.

When the morning duties were done and we reached a period of quiet (one of the real advantages that Feathermaye and I love about this type of work) I grabbed the laptop, power cord and a little aluminum foil.

I had actually thought about using the foil long ago, but dismissed it because I really thought the Geeks could fix this for a songs worth of pocket change. I fed my power cord up through the holes in the back of the lower counter top and opened the puter.

"Honey, breathe..." Feathermaye told me when I was working on it. At last, I had everything positioned and neatly folded a bit of foil, which I then carefully wrapped around the male portion of the cord prong. Remembering to exhale, I gently pushed the shimmed tip into the hole; it was a nice firm fit; I saw the little red "charging" light come on. It stayed on.

I stared at it, waiting for it to blink off again, as it had so many times over the last year or so.

"Honey, breathe!" Feathermaye said again, not looking at what I was doing, but noticing none-the-less.

But, the little red light was staying on!

It's still on!

I've written this entire blog without it going off...

The angels are singing: hallelujah!

And even after we broke for lunch, it stayed on...

Oh wait...It just turned green. I'm charged! I'm charged! Great god almighty, I'm charged at last!

As for the Geeks...well, I guess everyone needs a paycheck. I'm just not contributing to it.