Destruction for Fun and Profit

The Dark Side of the Pet Store

2020-05-20T11:32:00.001-04:00

During much of my college years I worked in various pet stores. At first it seemed like the perfect job. I loved animals, and didn't mind the day to day hard work taking care of them. However, life is not perfect, fair, or equal. And not all pet shops are equal, even within chain stores. Here are pets shops' biggest lies that you don't know about.

Fish.

I recently read a George Carlin quote. "Half the people you meet are dumb, and the other half of all people are dumber than that." That's the truth when it comes to people who try to own fish tanks. What ultimately made me quit working in pet shops forever was that, I figured about 80% of all the fish I sold were dead on arrival.

One reason pet stores ask for a person to bring a water sample in is so they can prove to them that they don't know what they are doing. Whenever I would ask someone, "How often do you clean your fish tank?" I was met with a blank stare. It was either, "What do you mean?" Or, "I change the filter pads once a month."

It seems no one knew that they actually had to perform water changes. I had one guy bring in a water sample. The short version is this. I would add chemical drops to the water sample. If the water was clear it was great. If it was pink it was acceptable. If it was a dark pink then there was trouble. The sample turned blood red. I'm not kidding. I asked him, "How are your fish still alive?"

My boss was nice enough to step in, and suggest he empty the entire tank out, and start new. There was no way he was going to clean it up with simple water changes. I was almost getting pretty angry. Again, I had never seen anything like it.

The other thing that made me angry was people always wanting to mix different types of fish with each other. No, it doesn't work like that. Again, you can sometimes get away with "community fish" if you have a big enough tank. Most people don't. And then I would have to explain that ciclids would destroy anything and everything in the tank that's not another ciclid.

I had one woman that myself and another co-worker spent 10 minutes trying to explain that nothing can go into a tank with African ciclids besides other African ciclids. After 10 minutes she said, "So how about I put (I think it was mollies) in with them?" I just screamed, "No! They will tear them apart!" That's when I grabbed a manager to deal with her. I was at the end of my rope.

One lady who I can only refer to as a "Nutter-Butter" was asking about fish tank lights. I started to explain what we all learned in high school science about the light spectrum. She had no idea what I was talking about. She couldn't get past the "The light is white. What do you mean light has other colors?" Again, I had to grab a manager to deal with her.

When she left he looked at me and half jokingly screamed, "Dude, why did you pass her off to me? Oh man! Never do that to me again!" Yeah, she was dumber than two rocks fucking. Obviously someone didn't pass high school science.

Then there are the people who cram way too many fish into a fish tank. One woman brought me a water sample. It was okay, but she kept losing fish. After about 15 minutes I asked her, "Well just how many fish do you have?" She had 26 tetras in a 20 gallon tank. I told her nicely that was too many, and it was stressing them out. She didn't believe me.

For those who have never read any of my blogs before, I know it may sound like I'm on my high horse about fish tanks. So I will post a few photos of my personal tank from over the last 10 years or so. That way you can see I know what I'm talking about.

Feeder Fish.

Feeder Goldfish are already brought into the store diseased and in bad shape. Then the tank is insanely overcrowded. There is no possible way to clean the tank the way it should be. But the tank never gets cleaned anyway so don't worry about that. Most of the time the feeder goldfish are never fed because many employees figure, "What's the point? They're just going to get eaten anyway." I'd hate to tell you how many dead ones I'd scoop out in the morning.

The Morning Fish Tank Routine.

Then there is the fact that store employees have to take care of so many fish. I worked at a pet shop that had 162 fish tanks. Think about that. Do you know how long it takes to go through the tanks, make sure everything is working, feed the fish their correct food, scoop out the dead ones, and do whatever needs done? It takes a long time.

But as an employee you don't have a long time. You have other animals to take care of. What needs to be done never actually gets done. There is never enough time or employees to take care of everything.

The Reptile Room.

In order not to scare customers reptiles usually have their own room. But employees are people too, and half of them won't go near the reptiles. Snakes only need to be fed once a week usually, but who is supposed to feed them? Everyone is working different schedules so the reptiles don't get fed like they should.

Let's say you love dogs and cats right? Who doesn't? Well, since you now work in a pet store you have to feed everything. That includes the scorpions and tarantulas. Do you think you could do that on a daily basis? I could. That's why I always got stuck taking care of the reptile room.

I had a great manager that made sure to purchase real vegetables for all the iguanas we had. When that boss was fired the new boss didn't want to waste money on real food for the iguanas. He had us feed them the dehydrated stuff from the can. But the iguanas were used to real food and wouldn't eat the canned stuff. So they slowly starved to death.

Between two different pet shops that carried iguanas I'd have to say their casualties were dang near 95%. I wondered why we even carried them at all? Again, I saw so much death working at pet stores. But I'm most haunted by the fish and the iguanas.

Feeder Mice and Rats.

Did you know that if you don't keep enough water in a feeder mice cage they will tear each other from limb to limb? We would fill the water bottles every day, but every once in a while one would break. When that would happen the mice/rats would go zombie apocalypse on each other.

Hamsters and Gerbils.

I don't understand why these creatures are considered "pets?" Hamsters will bite the living snot out of you. Gerbils will just do their best to escape and die in a corner of the house. Why they are given to small children I have no idea. Here are some of the lowlights I've had dealing with hamsters and gerbils.

I sold a family a hamster. Two hours later they show back up with a dead hamster. I didn't ask any questions. I didn't make a face or say anything. Hell, I didn't even mess with the cash register. I just grabbed another hamster, tossed it in a box, and gave it to them.

Since they are rodents, they breed like crazy. When a female hamster has babies the other hamsters will tear them limb from limb. In terms of nature it doesn't seem to make sense, but hey, such is life in a pet store. Oh, and no I don't plan on showing that photo on this blog. I'm sure it would violate multiple terms of service here on Blogger.

Crickets.

You have to feed all those reptiles right? What better way to feed them any with annoying insects who make a shitload of noise and smell awful. 1,000 of them would be delivered in a crate. So you had to carefully take the crate apart over your giant in house cricket box.

Of course, in any pet store crickets get all over the place. I mean, they get everywhere. If you see a loose one you have to kill it. You don't want to feed it to any of the reptiles in case the cricket wandered into poison. So even if you don't deal with the reptile room you still have to deal with bugs. Lots and lots of bugs.

Birds.

Truly the bane of my existence at pet shops were the birds. In all fairness we received them when they were still babies. They needed to be raised by their parents longer. The one store that had 162 fish tanks also had over 300 birds. At least 50 of them were big birds in cages. They were not happy about being there, and had no problems taking your fingers off.

Birds were meant to fly free in the outdoors. They are not a caged pet. They never will be. Of all the animals in the pet shop, I always thought that birds should not be there. Most are just too feral to actually be a pet. I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but again, I had to feed/take care of 300 birds in a short time before the store opened.

Ferrets.

It's a weasel. Just no. They were a hot item back when "Kindergarten Cop" came out, but their popularity has weened since then. They require a lot of special care or else they flat out die.

Rabbits and Guinea Pigs.

They are classic pets. I know they get bought for kids, and kids end up treating them like a toy. Eventually kids get tired of "the toy", and then Mommy and Daddy have to decide what to do with their pet. A lot of times it doesn't end well.

Dogs.

I worked at one pet shop that sold pure bred dogs. That wasn't such a big deal in 1996, but today animal rights folks are clamping down. The owners of that pet shop were fairly good people. I had my disagreements with them, but I think overall they meant well.

They actually traveled to the breeders they bought the dogs from to inspect the place. The dogs came from two different places. I remember one of them being out in Kansas. But no matter how nice a place a breeder might be running, the animals are only there for one purpose. That's to spit out litter after litter. I don't know what kind of life that is for a dog.

I looked over most of the pure bred papers for the dogs. The problem I noticed, was that, so many were inbred. They would have the same Grandmother or Grandfather on both sides of the family. The small poofy, poodle-like dogs were all dumb as rocks. Again, they were bred for looks and not smarts.

Cats.

Honestly, I never saw the difference between a pure bred cat and a cat that could be adopted from a shelter. They were all, well, just cats. Cats have their own personality despite what breed they are. The biggest problem I had with customers, was that, they would buy the smallest cutest kitten despite it's personality.

We had one cat at the store who was there for nine months. He was already big when he came in, so he wasn't "cute." I named him, "Bob. Bob the Cat." I taught him to ride around on my shoulder while I walked around the store. He was that cool. I was actually able to teach Bob a few tricks. I really liked him. But he was a Persian cat with long black hair that would make me sneeze. He did go to a nice home. I didn't sell him, but I was there when he was finally sold.

Customers.

I had a boss once tell me, "The customer is always right!" I've dealt with customers for many years, and you know what? Most of the time they don't know what they are talking about. Do you know the worst type of customer we had at pet stores? I bet you wouldn't even think of this.

We would receive a frantic phone call from someone saying, "My pet is sick! Can you tell me what to do?" I would then try to explain that I am not a veterinarian, and they should take their pet to one. Guess what was said to me after that? It usually wasn't anything too nice.

Here's the story that still sticks out in my mind. This woman was a Karen. A complete and total Karen. This was before the term Karen became popular, but looking back she was one. I was in the middle of helping a customer when she half swings/half slams the front door open. She started screaming that, "Her son's rabbit was sick and she needed help!!!"

I went over to try to help her. The rabbit wasn't moving. It looked dead to me. I picked it up, and it continued not to move. After a minute or so it jerked like it was in the middle of a death rattle. I looked it over and couldn't find an injury.

It was then I pushed it's lips apart to look at it's teeth. The teeth were so long they wouldn't let the rabbit eat. I immediately yelled something at her. I can't remember what. But I said, "This rabbit hasn't had anything to chew on has it? Didn't you have a wood block for it to chew on? It needs to work its teeth down! This rabbit is starved!"

She then said something like, "The rabbit was in her 5 year old son's room. She hadn't been watching it." My immediate thought was, "You son probably can't even wipe his own ass, and you are putting him in control of a rabbit? What kind of mother are you?"

I told the woman I wasn't a vet. She needed to take the rabbit to the vet. I know she wasn't going to do that. I knew that was one dead rabbit. She left in a huff. But seriously, what kind of people say, "My pet is sick! I know! I'll call the pet store!"

The Pet Store Workers.

I do want to say some of the best human beings I've ever met in my life have worked in pet stores. They gave so much for so little. They (including me) were completely underpaid, overworked, and treated like crap from the corporate office. I still can't go into a Pet Supermarket unless I need a special kind of fish medicine. I'm still horrified by how we were treated.

Stocking.

It's not all about animal care. You have to move product. Or more specifically, if the store doesn't move product the manager is fired, and a more cut throat manager takes his or her place. That store has to move some serious dog and cat food. The big dog food bags are 20 or 40 pounds a piece. The 5 pound bags come grouped in sets of 8 or 10 meaning the combined bag will weigh 40 or 50 pounds.

The truck delivers the stock weekly. If you sell 100 bags of 40 pound dog food that is 4,000 pounds of dog food that need to be rotated and stocked. Then you have to do the same for all the 20 pound bags. Guess what? The cat food bags are next. Everything needs to be stocked by the end of the day.

You might end up moving 10,000 pounds of combined dog and cat food that day. Oh, and because you are in a hurry you grab two 40 pounders at a time. When moving the 20 pound bags you move three at a time. How many times can you lift 80 or 60 pounds repeatedly?

Don't forget this. What goes in must come out. Kitty litter boxes come in 20, 30, and 40 pound boxes. Are you able to grab a 40 pounder in each hand off the pallet, carry it over to where it needs to be stocked, and then do that repeatedly? I worked with a lot of women during my time at pet stores, but the ones who were 120 pounds didn't last. In all fairness, trying to repeatedly life 2/3rd of your body weight is pretty much impossible for anyone.

Conclusion.

I had a friend whose parents were veterinarians. He said if you loved animals never become a vet. He didn't know how many cats he had put down in his life. Again, the numbers just seemed to weigh on his shoulders. That's exactly how I felt working at pet stores. Day in and day out the death toll was jus too heavy for my shoulders.

I realize that most employees who work in pet stores today are just like I was years ago. Back then, I was in college. Things were looking up. I looked forward to working at a pet store. But then, reality hit. For those persons who want to put in an application at a pet store, please heed my warnings. It's like combining the hard labor of working on a farm with being a customer service representative.

The hours are long and hard. You are usually covered in pee, poo, and or fish tank water at the end of the day. Your knuckles and fingers are bleeding due to being bitten by birds and rodents. You don't get paid squat because the boss receives 100 applications a week from people that "Just love animals!"

Do I even have to mention the kinds of customers you get? Sure you'll get the nice old lady with the miniature poodle, but you'll also deal with all sorts of weirdness. Just think about it before you consider working at a pet shop. You'll be glad you did.

New (Old) Guitar Pedal Day: DOD Mystic Blues Overdrive

2020-05-18T12:39:00.000-04:00

Back in 1998 I worked for Sam Ash. I was new to learning to play the guitar, and Sam Ash was a great place to learn about the musical world. I was still acquiring basic gear so I had to be very choosy as to what I bought. Not to mention I didn't have a huge amount of disposable income.

One of the hardest things I had to learn was terminology. When I bought my first amplifier I looked for the distortion setting. After having the amp blast me out I wondered, "What the cold Hell does "gain" have to do with distortion? And why does this thing keep squealing?" I eventually figured it out.

So little by little I started learning what all of us in the musical instrument business call, "Musicianese." One of the hardest things for me to understand was the guitar pedals. There were literally hundreds of pedals, and they all did different things. They did, right? Well, it turns out that wasn't exactly true.

I didn't know what flanger, chorus, echo, or reverb pedals were. I didn't realize that each company had their own version of those pedals. I knew what a distortion and/or overdrive pedal was. So I started playing with those.

There was a pedal in the Sam Ash pedal cabinet that caught my attention. At the time I couldn't afford the BOSS pedals, but I was digging the DOD series of pedals. They had one called the Mystic Blues Overdrive. During my lunch hour I asked to take it out of the case so I could try it out.

It was very different than anything I had heard before. But let me clarify. I was playing some pretty heavy music back then so I was trying out pedals that were serious heavy metal pedals. I knew what fuzz pedals were so I had tried out a few. But at that point in my life I had never played a Tubescreamer or an overdrive pedal.

So when I plugged in the Mystic Blues pedal it kind of surprised me. It didn't have near the gain that the DOD Grunge pedal had. (Note: The DOD Grunge pedal was the first pedal I ever bought.) The Mystic Blues pedal added just a bit of a bite to my sound. It really stood out to me. However, I was playing much heavier music at the time, and didn't really have a use for it. Still, I always held it in the back of my mind.

So here I am, 22 years later. I was on E-Bay, and thought about the Mystic Blues pedal. I found one that was selling for a fair price, so I pulled the trigger on it. In the last 22 years I can say my playing has vastly improved, but I would have to say that my ears are my strongest musical talent. I have a knack for tuning and telling the differences in EQ in pickups, amps, and pedals.

I wanted to see what my improved hearing would think about the Mystic Blues Overdrive. The first thing I thought when I kicked it on was, "Oh my God this thing is bright!" I immediately turned down the treble. I also had to bring up the bass. In the end my settings looked like this.

You know what? It was still bright. But then I got to thinking. Remember this pedal was released in 1998. Do you know what Sam Ash carried back then? I know you are going to list all the Fender, Marshall and Mesa Boogie models, but let's be honest. 95% of musicians couldn't afford them. They bought the other brands that Sam Ash carried. That would be Crate.

Have you ever played through a 90's solid state Crate amp? Not just that, but have you played through ANY 80's to 90's solid state POS guitar amp? They do one of three things.

1. They sound like a dentist drill. Bright, annoying, and buzzy.
2. Muddy. They sound like a big dog coughing.
3. They manage to do both. Be muddy while sounding buzzy.

So what does this have to do with the Mystic Blues Overdrive? Well, if you put a Mystic Blues Overdrive in front of a muddy amp, it will clean it up while adding bite to the sound. So you have to remember this was a useful pedal for the time period.

But these days I'm playing through a Genz Benz El Diablo 100 amplifier. It has more switches and knobs than I know what to do with sometimes. I can see this pedal being used as a clean boost for solos. It definitely works as a transparent drive. The drive knob has a pretty good range. It goes from, "No drive at all, to kind of a ZZ Top kind of vibe."

I'd have to judge the pedal like this. As a kid your house looked so big. Now as an adult if you visit your childhood home it looks so small. At the time I hadn't heard anything like this pedal. Today I own something like four Tubescreamer style pedals with this being the fifth.

Against today's pedals the Mystic Blues is an okay pedal. It's better than some, but there are a lot better Tubescreamer clones out there today. The TC Electronics El Mocambo Overdrive is a much better pedal for $58 new. Not to mention it goes on sale quite a bit. Oh, and you can find plenty of them used.

I'll say this, I'm glad I bought the Mystic Blues. I'll keep playing with it. Again, I've only played it through one amp so it might work better with other amps.

For more information about this pedal, check out this link. It has some great information.

https://en.audiofanzine.com/overdrive-pedal/dod/FX102-Mystic-Blues/

New Guitar Pedal Day: TC Electronics Grand Magus: A Review For New Guitarists

2020-05-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

I remember the excitement I felt when I bought my first guitar. Unlike most guitarists who start with a guitar that resembles a piece of gloried plywood, I actually had a pretty good guitar. I still have it, and it's still a dang good guitar.

But I also remember the first time I walked into Mars Music and tried to buy strings for that guitar. Before I purchased it, my guitar had been sitting a long time and the strings were beyond dead. As a cello player I had the experience to know to put new strings on it. There was no doubt about that. I could hear how completely lifeless they were. Not to mention rusty.

So I walk up to the guitar string counter at Mars Music. There were over 200 types of strings hanging on the wall. I ask the salesman "What strings do I need to put on this guitar?"

He said, "He didn't know. They were all good."

I just looked at him, and thought, "Um, isn't this your job?"

For the record my guitar was/is a 1998 Paragon Music Center (PMC) copy of a Joe Pass hollow-body guitar. It was built in the same factory as the Epiphones at that time. It's only difference was the headstock design. It actually came stock with Epiphone pickups.

So I ask the salesman, "Well, I see the sets come in different sizes. What size do I need?"

He asked if he could check out my guitar. I said, "Sure."

He replied, "Yeah, those are 10's on there."

"So I guess I should buy some 10's?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay, what brand do you recommend?"

"I dunno."

I started to get a little perturbed. "I just bought this guitar a few days ago. I need to put some strings on it. What should I do? I don't know jack squat about any of the brands."

So he ended up handing me a pack of GHS 10's. In some weird way I'm glad he did. After playing for 20 years I like GHS strings the best. They have the best bite to them, and they work for my style of playing.

But then a month goes by, and I decide I need a distortion pedal. Again, I go up to the Mars Music counter, and see hundreds of pedals. What am I to do? Where do I start? This time I asked a different salesman. Might I say this was also before YouTube and websites that would let you hear what a pedal sounded like before you went to the store.

I tell him what I want, and he says, "Why not try out the DOD Grunge pedal?" Long story short, I ended up trying it out, and buying it. I'll say this, it was a good starter pedal. But also looking back there were much better choices out there.

Now I think of today's new guitarists. They have ten times the choices that I had! That goes from guitars, pedals, pickups, amps, picks, cables, mods, etc. Where does a new guitarist start? The good news is they have YouTube and guitar forums. That's a huge help. I personally have learned a lot about electronics from the internet.

One of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome was music's "marketing language." You see, a brand can't really say, "This is our take on Marshall's blah, blah, blah." No, that's trademark infringement. So companies have these code words they use to describe when their gear has a similar sound to another companies' product.

It goes like this:

American Rock Sound = Fender.
British Rock Sound = Marshall.
California Sound = Mesa Boogie.

When they can't say "Les Paul" or "Les Paul style" guitar, they say, "LP" or "Single Cutaway."
When they can't say "Stratocaster" they say, "Double Cutaway."

If you read study enough and look around the internet you'll start to pick up the lingo. And why is that important? Because like I said earlier, todays' musician has more choices than ever before.

When I started the very first distortion pedal everyone usually bought was the Boss DS-1 Distortion.

It's a simple circuit and has been used by many famous guitarists despite being a relatively cheap pedal. For years you could buy one new for $39.99. Heck, Kurt Cobain used this pedal on a lot of Nirvana's songs, especially on the their first release "Bleach."

Today, the pedal market is at an all time high for the sheer number of pedals on the market. You have the brands that have been there for a while, "Boss, Digitech, and Electro Harmonix." You have also more custom builders now than there ever has been. And then you have everyone at every price point in-between.

Lately TC Electronics has been making some great pedals at a dang good price point. During a holiday sale two years ago they had a special going at Guitar Center. Three pedals for $99. You have to remember back when I bought that DOD Grunge pedal, it cost $54.99 in 1998.

With inflation think of what that pedal would cost today. The CPI Inflation Calculator says that would be $87.85 in today's money. And those were the cheap pedals! So this leads to the question, "Well, how good can TC Electronics' pedals be if they are that inexpensive?"

To be honest, I have found them shockingly good. I love their Choka Tremolo pedal. The Nether Octave is a great octave for it's price point. The El Mocambo is one of the best Tubescreamer clones I have heard. I'll say it this way, it works for me. It may not be for everyone, but it works for me.

So when I saw that TC Electronic had a pedal called the Grand Magus I was immediately interested.

What surprised me was how many I found on the used market. Unlike a lot of TC Electronics' products this one didn't have as many good reviews. I listened to a few clips of it on the internet, and was really on the fence about it. It sold new for $50, and used for $25 plus shipping.

I ended up pulling the trigger on one, and couldn't wait to plug it in when it arrived. I immediately loved it. So what changed my mind? There are quite a few reasons. Let me start at the beginning.

One of the best pieces of advice I can give any beginning metal guitarists, is that, there are two main ways of EQing your amp. I'm going to keep it overly simple because again, I want to speak to a beginner. First up is what I'll call, "The Metallica way." On your EQ knobs you turn up your treble and bass, and turn down or (scoop) the mids. Dimebag Darrell's signature sound was also like this.

Next up, we have what I'll call, "The Slayer way." Think of Slayer's song, "Seasons in the Abyss." That first really heavy cord you hear? That's mids baby. Slayer uses what they call the "frowny face" EQ. They turn town the bass and treble and crank up the mids.

So the "overly simple" explanation is there are two main EQ's when playing metal. #1. Scooped mids, or #2. Lots of mids. Players tend to be in one camp or or the other with no in-between. The scooped sound is all the rage, but your bass can be lost when playing with an actual bass player. I'm in the camp that says, "Mids are where the angry lives."

Marshall's sound is known for their full midrange sound. This is due to their use of EL-34 tubes. The Grand Magus pedal has a lot of mids. When you go to the Grand Magus webpage they use every bit of musician lingo to try to let you know this is a Marshall type of sound.

https://www.tcelectronic.com/Categories/Tcelectronic/Guitar/Stompboxes/GRAND-MAGUS-DISTORTION/p/P0CAU#googtrans(en|en)

There are a few reasons I didn't care for the reviews online. First, recording and making mids sound right is tough. It tends to come through as buzzy. Then, when that same clip is played through computer speakers it sounds even worse.

The other reason I didn't care for the reviews online is for something you wouldn't think of. The tone control on the Grand Magus pedal is extremely wide. It's so wide you can get a bad sound out of it. Think of it this way. The doom/stoner metal crowd is a big fan of Orange amps. To me they always sounded muddy with no harmonics, but to each their own.

Well, the tone control on the Grand Magus is so wide that you can get into that doom/stoner metal territory. But if you turn the tone control up, you can get that classic Marshall sound. I also want to give TC Electronic props for having the gain control have such a wide distortion. You can use this pedal for slight blues breakup to full blown Marshall stack. One thing you'll learn is a lot of pedals' gain knob maxes out of 12 O'clock. The Grand Magus makes full use of the gain control.

I realize I may get a lot of hack on this post. I'm sure a lot of more experienced musicians will say, "So you think a $25 pedal is good?" I'm saying I wish when I started it was the first pedal I bought. It would have been a lot more useful to me than the DOD Grunge.

And for the record, my "good" pedal is a Hughes and Kettner Tube Factor pedal.

But I'm not going to tell a new player they should buy a $279 pedal right out of the starting gate. I'm saying if a new player wants that mid heavy Marshall sound at a decent price, buy a used TC Electronic Grand Magus. It will be a great decision. Also if they hate it, they can get their money back on it by selling on Craigslist.

So to my beginner guitar players. You have many choices out there. Remember this. You vote with your dollars. That goes for anything in life. My small amount of advice to you is this. If I was the salesman at Mars Music, and I had a first time pedal buyer asking me about the first pedal I should buy, it would be the TC Electronic Grand Magus. (Note: Yes, I realize they didn't exist back in 1998.)

For those players who say, "No man! I want that mid-scooped sound!" Well, you can always buy a Biyang Tonefancier Metal End King. That will sure scoop the hell out of your mids.

Son of Dog: A Telemarketer And A Madman

2020-05-11T08:30:00.000-04:00

I've always said it. I if a telemarketer calls my house, they are fair game. In this house I am the hunter and they are the prey. They called into my property, my lair, my wildlife management area. If they want to fuck with me, I'm going to fuck with them even harder.

For a while we were getting many scam calls a day. Almost all of them were from the Philippines. They would say they were from either: 1. Microsoft. 2. The IRS. 3. Social Security. 4. A Law Enforcement Agency. 5. Apple. 6. The Cable Company. 7. One of the major banks, usually Bank of America.

So not only were they telemarketers, they were scammers. They were trying to steal important personal information for illegal purposes. So guess what? I'm going to stick it to them without mercy.

After I messed with them, most would tell me, "Fuck you!" and hang up. However, one time things went completely off the rails. Every day I would answer the phone in different accents. That day I happened to pick a very refined British accent. That's when "Tom" called from "Microsoft." I always thought it was funny the spammers were always named, "John, Tom, Robert, or Tim." That was a dead giveaway.

So "Tom" says (with a strong Filipino accent) that he's with Microsoft, and my computer has been hacked. He wants to help me fix it.

Me (Again, in a posh British accent): "Oh my. That sounds serious."

Tom: "Are you at your computer now?"

Me: "You sound like quite a young beautiful man."

Tom: (Tries to continue with his pitch.)

Me: "Are you circumcised?"

Tom: (Somewhat confused because he's not sure what I mean.) "If you can get to your computer I can help you fix it."

Me: "Tell me Tom. Are you a homosexual?"

Tom: (Silence) Then, in an extremely angry voice: "You.... you son of dog!!!!!!!!" Then he starts screaming in Filipino."

Me: I can't help but start laughing.

Tom: "Americans are good people! You are not good people (sic)!"

Me: "What are you talking about? Us Americans voted for Trump! We want to bomb and kill half the world! We're not good people at all!"

Tom: (Screaming a mixture of English and Filipino.)

Me: "Yeah, we want to kill all the foreigners including you!"

Tom: "You are not a good people (sic)!"

Me: "I'm not? You're the one who's lying saying he's from Microsoft when we both know you're not! C'mon, just admit it's a scam! You know it is!"

Tom: (Still screaming a good amount. I got to give hit to him. He's got some powerful lungs.)

Me: "How about those Filipino ladyboys? Have you ever gotten to fuck one of them?"

Tom: (Still yelling. Honestly, I can't remember the last time in my life I set someone off this badly.)

Finally "Tom" hangs up. I start laughing for the next ten minutes. When I finally catch my breath and tell my Dad what happened, he explained a few things. You see, my Dad is a Vietnam veteran. He said that one of the worst insults you can tell someone in that Southeast Asia is to call them a "son of dog."

Dad went on to say, "You must have really torqued him off if he went straight to calling you that."

"You know, I started off in my nice British accent. I really tried to come across all proper-like before the shouting match." I replied.

You know, I really wish I had recorded that call. I think Jim Florentine would be proud of me. That call went to below average to epic in half a second. That call could have been played on Howard Stern for laughs.

To this day I have to consider that my biggest win when it comes to messing with phone solicitors. I've had some great ones, but I've never had one that completely blew his top at me. I mean, with all the screaming and yelling I'm surprised a supervisor didn't come over and grab ahold of him. Again, he had to remember, if he comes into my territory he's fair game. Boom.

The Swamp Prank: Playing The Long Game

2020-05-10T08:03:00.001-04:00

Let's be honest. I have a weird sense of humor. It has gotten me into a bit of trouble over the years. It has cost me friendships and really pissed a few people off. Sometimes my humor is so off the wall that it goes over people's heads quite a bit of the time. I was constantly doing this to Wes, one of my best pals I've had in my lifetime. I would say something, and then five minutes later he would say, "Wait a minute... Did you mean....?" Yeah, I'm sneaky like that.

However, when it comes to pranks, anyone can pull off a quick prank. Think of it as a "Three Stooges pie in your face" prank. But it takes a genius to pull off the long game. This is where two things come into play. My brain and my sister. My sister and I have been like two Rottweilers pissing on each other's legs the moment she was born. Needless to say we've gone back and forth with insults, pranks, etc. over the course of our lifetimes.

About fifteen years ago there was a point of contention concerning where/how I mowed the yard. We had this place in the yard where the water would flood when it rained. So barely any grass would grow there. She ended up planting a bunch of plants with thorns in that part of the yard.

Well, I couldn't get the lawn tractor through that part of the yard without it cutting me to shreds. It was decided that I should skip mowing that part of the yard. Namely, since it was swamp-like, and those bushes were trying to take root. So I ended up calling it my "Sister's Swamp."

One day I noticed she dragged a small log over to her part of the swamp. I asked her why she did that? She said it was because she was attaching plants to the log. These types of plants normally attached themselves to trees in the wild, so that's why she decided to do that.

I asked Dad about it. I said, "Are we really just going to leave a log lying about in the yard?" He said it wasn't hurting anything, and besides, it was in her area of the swamp. That, of course, gave me an idea. Since we have many enormous oak trees around us, they constantly drop limbs and branches.

So when I would find a log, limb, or branch I would just drag it over to her area of the swamp. But I didn't do this all at once. I would only add a branch or two once a week. Sometimes, I would wait two weeks. But over the course of a year I built up the swamp full of all sorts of rotted wood.

I'm not kidding. I literally did this over a year's time. Heck, it may have gone on for two years? Just little by little I kept adding to the pile. You know what? She never noticed. Dad would see me working out in the yard. Of course, I would have to pick up sticks and such before I mowed the lawn. He would see me drag wood off to the swamp, and just give me that look.

Like I said, I was in this for the long game. But the game became so long that the brush really started to pile up. I mean, it really looked like an overgrown forest on that side of the house. When I returned home from work one day I had a surprise waiting for me. I saw that Dad had pulled the utility trailer over to the side of the yard and loaded it completely full with all the brush from the swamp. He then hauled all the brush to the dump.

So I don't know if I can say my prank was successful. I mean, I did get under the skin of my Dad. But that's wasn't my intended target. But I still think it's funny that I kept the prank up for as long as I did. That takes dedication... and a weird sense of humor. But it mostly takes loads of dedication.

I searched all my photo albums for pictures of the swamp, but couldn't find any. I remember snapping them long ago, but I think they ended up being lost as I switched computers over the years. I really wish I still had those photos. The swamp just looks hilarious and out of place. It's like, here you have a nice house. And over here you have this complete wildlife refuge.

Just look at it this way, when God gives you dead branches, you can put it in the yard waste containers or make a swamp. I made a swamp. Or possibly a wildlife management area? But you know what else I made? One of my top three pranks ever. So I feel pretty good about that.

New Guitar Day: Slapa Da' Bass Edition

2020-05-06T11:03:00.000-04:00

About a month ago I had a longtime friend of mine decide to clear out some of his old basses. He's a touring musician, and has collected quite a few instruments. He told me that he's made a lot of friends across the country, and would pick up instruments at great deals. But all those great deals were taking up space in the house, so a few had to go.

He posted a photo of a Squier Classic Vibe 60's Jazz Bass, and said he was happy to let it go for $100. I immediately said, "That's an awesome price. Someone will snatch that up for sure!" I would have bought it, but I already had a Dean Juggernaut bass. That's their version of the Fender Jazz Bass.

But then I got to thinking. I remembered when the Classic Vibe Jazz Bass series came out. It was everything I wanted in a bass. The Olympic white with red tortoiseshell pickguard was the exact color scheme I love in a Fender type guitar/bass. I also really liked the fact that the neck was a golden vintage tint with a rosewood fretboard.

After about two weeks I messaged my friend, and asked him, "Say, has anyone bought that bass from you yet?" Shockingly, he said, "No." When those basses were new they cost $400 plus tax. $100 was a steal. So I told him, "I had to have it! When can I drop by?"

So I dropped in the next day, and handed over the cash. I wish we could have talked more, but with the Covid-19 craziness happening we had to keep it short. But it was good to see him, even if for a short time.

I immediately loved the bass. The set-up was different than how I set up a guitar or bass, but somebody really took the time to make it easily playable. What has shocked me the most on the entire Squier Classic Vibe series are the pickups. They have installed some extremely awesome pickups for a guitar or bass at that price point.

Before I go into my tinkering I'll post some photos of her.

I have to say someone had performed a wonder fret-dress on this bass. It was smooth. Again, everyone has preferences on how they like their instrument set up. With this bass I decided to shim under the neck. This way it would lower the strings from the fifth fret up.

I know I said I loved the pickups, but I still had to tinker with them. A few weird coincidences happened. I had a Jerry Sentell Jazz Bass bladed bridge pickup that was going to go into another build. That build never happened so I've had it laying around for a while.

I also managed to snag a used Seymour Duncan Vintage Jazz Bass neck pickup for a good price. So I installed both pickups into this bass. I also used some really thick and strong foam to push the pickups up closer to the strings. I also changed the strings to my usual GHS Boomers. I also prefer to install Fleor strap-locks, so I did that as well.

All in all it didn't require too much work on my part. I cleaned it up a bit with my favorite Ken Smith polish. I also used a large paintbrush to knock some of the dust away from the bridge saddles, but after that I could call it a day.

I gotta say I'm having fun with it. I don't play bass that often so it takes me a while to get back into the groove when I pick one up. Now I just have to find a place to keep it. Like my friend I'm starting to run out of room here. Oh well. Such is the life of musicians.

Cat Craziness Explained: Part 2: Big Cat Craziness

2020-04-20T14:44:00.000-04:00

Back in 2014 I wrote this blog post:

Cat Craziness Explained

Adam Corolla explained what "Cat Craziness" was. The short version, is that, Adam had a chart to measure how crazy a person was by the number of cats they kept. He said it wasn't as simple as one cat plus another cat equaled a level of two cat craziness.

No. Cat craziness was exponential. Here's a chart to help.

1 Cat = 1 CC.
2 Cats = 2 to the second power (2 X 2) which = 4CC.
3 Cats = 3 to the third power (3 X 3 X 3) which = 27CC.

As you can see, the more cats you have the faster it goes up. Anything beyond two cats is starting to border on cat craziness. A month ago comes this show on Netflix called "Tiger King." Yeah, we've all heard about it. We've all watched it whether you admit to it or not.

As I was watching "Tiger King" I kept thinking to myself, "What level of cat craziness are you to work around any big cat? Yeah, you may have a fat housecat at home. But honestly, what does it top out at? 30 pounds? Do you know the stats of a Bengal Tiger?

The male tigers can reach a length of 10 feet and a weight of 550 pounds. Let's stop right there. That's one hell of an apex predator twice the size of a human.

I realized keeping full grown big cats (tigers, lions, etc.) was a whole new level of craziness. It now occurred to me I needed to make a few adjustments to my math. If you are keeping even one tiger the cat craziness level has to start at 100CC per big cat.

But let's talk about Joe Exotic. He said several times during "Tiger King" he had 277 big cats at his zoo. Again, that's not 100 X 277 = 27,700CC. No. It has to be exponential. That means 100 to the 277th power. Let's do that math on that.

277 (exponent)
100 (base) = 1e+554

So you are wondering, "What the hell does that mean?" That's okay because I was wondering, "What the hell does that mean?"

Here's the best explanation:

https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/e-eulers-number.html

Okay, I'm not going to pretend that I can come up with a number that gigantic. Let's just say it's a one with more zeros than I know what to do with on this page.

This reinforces my point that when you start messing with big cats the cat craziness is literally off the charts. Just watch "Tiger King." Any and every one of the zoo owners are nuttier than squirrel poo. I mean, who knew it only took meth and tigers to turn straight boys gay?

So before I go I suggest we all just stick with dogs or fish. I think they're the pets that keep us the most grounded. I can't deal with housecats, and there's no way I'm going anywhere near a full grown tiger. Let's just all have one dog, or one fish tank and call it a day.

And I can't end this post without this song. Because this song says everything we were all thinking.

Guitar Repair Day: Dean Resonator Edition

2020-04-18T12:01:00.000-04:00

So with the Covid-19 bug going around there hasn't been much to do. However, my friend Phil found something for me to do, by accident of course. He owns a Dean resonator that has been his number one personal guitar for years. And during all those years I have repaired it numerous times. Let me think off the top of my head what I've done.

1. Complete re-fret.
2. Fixed a broken headstock.
3. Repaired the electronics a number of times.
4. This includes replacing pots and capacitors.
5. Buffing out the guitar.
6. Replacing both pickups.
7. Repairing/replacing the screws that hold the tuners in place.
8. Set-ups (of course.)

So yeah, I've tweaked it a few times to say the least. Well, this last time the guitar ended up falling and putting a hell of ding into the binding and fretboard.

So, what to do? Well, if this was an episode of Dan Erlewine's trade secrets here's what he would do. He would take out all the frets. Then remove the binding. Next, he would fill the small pieces of the wood back in. Then it would be time to install new binding. After that was set, new frets would be installed and dressed.

That, of course, would be something like a $700 job. For $869.00 Phil could buy a brand new Dean resonator from Musician's Friend.

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/folk-traditional-instruments/dean-chrome-g-acoustic-electric-resonator-guitar/515945000457000?rNtt=dean%20resonators&index=2

So I had to fix it in a way that wouldn't interfere with his playing, but not cost an arm and a leg. Here's what I decided to do.

First up, it was time to break out the C.A. glue. I was simply going to fill the crack, and sand it smooth. It sounds easy, but a lot of things can go wrong. Here's what's going on in the photo. I filled the crack with C.A. glue, covered it in cellophane. and clamped it tight. C.A. glue won't stick to cellophane which is why I used it to protect my clamp.

Now let's see what we are working with.

The good news, is that, it's holding all together. The bad news, is that, it doesn't look great. But that's to be expected. That's what the next phase of the project is for.

I normally don't put duct tape on guitar, but this called for special circumstances. I planned to use my rotary sander, and I didn't want it sanding parts that weren't the binding. Important note: With a rotary sander I made sure to wet sand with a fine grit sandpaper. In this case 600 grit.

Since I can't hold the guitar, sand, and take photos at the same time, we're going to fast forward to after I've sanded.

The side is getting there, but let's concentrate on the top. I took a straight razor blade, and shaved the binding flat.

Now, to smooth this down I needed to sand it with a high grit sandpaper. Luckily C.A. glue sands out extremely nicely. I used 1500 grit automotive sandpaper.

The trick is to wet sand. Keep plenty of water on it, and don't be afraid to wash out the sandpaper.

If you look up on the neck you can see where the neck had previously broken. But back to the sanding. The sanding smoothed everything out. I also shaved down a few places on the fretboard with the straight razor again.

But my next tool is the real secret that shouldn't be a secret to anyone in the luthier trade. Break out a buffer!

I've found a buffer to be my best friend in my workshop. It can take care of all sorts of things. In this case, it smoothed out where the wood met the binding. It also smoothed out the hardened C.A. glue. This is the result.

I should have taken a better photo, but good news is that, the side of the guitar and fretboard are smooth once again. The binding is whiter where I repaired it, but it is smooth. After this, there is one last thing to do.

Don't forget your Ken Smith polish. That stuff is great. It's getting kind of hard to find these days which I don't understand. It's the best stuff I've come across in over 20 years of repair.

After all the work that came before, the next part was easy. I set her up, double checked a few things, and make sure everything was right. Phil was happy with her. So yeah, it was a tough break, but at least I kept the cost way, way, way below the Dan Erlewine special of $700 or so. And if Phil puts another ding in her, he knows I'll be here. Repair's my thing, and I enjoy doing it.

Idiot Scoutmasters: No Pizza For You!

2020-04-10T06:24:00.000-04:00

You can't spend almost 13 years in any organization without a few wild and crazy stories. During that time you are also going to catch people on a bad day. However, some Scoutmasters always seemed to be having a bad day. Due to all the time I spent in the Boy Scouts of America I have managed to write quite a few stories in my "Idiot Scoutmaster" series.

What makes this story so strange is I think my patrol just happened to catch our Scoutmaster, Mr. Brasher, at a bad moment. I'm sure something had to have happened to him earlier in the day to put him in a foul mood. What's funny, is that, I wasn't even the one who was:

A: Being a pain.
B. Running my mouth.
C. Trying to get his attention.
D. Or even talking in general.

The conversation started with two of my Patrol members, Mark and Brian. They were top notch quality human beings. Eventually, they both ended up earning their Eagle Scout rank. This was back before they changed the rules and made it much easier to do so.

We were talking about our upcoming campout, and what we should cook. We had gotten into a bit of a rut. You know, sandwiches and hot dogs. Brian brought up the question of if we could actually make a pizza outdoors? The flour didn't need refrigerated. We could carry a stick of pepperoni as well as vegetables.

The only question Brian had was how to keep cheese from spoiling. Mark brought up that we could carry a can a parmesan cheese since that didn't need to be refrigerated. Brian immediately thought, "Oh yeah! That's a great idea!" He couldn't believe that he hadn't thought of it.

It was at that time that Mr. Brasher came out of nowhere, and laid down the law. "We're not cooking pizza out camping!" I have to admit I was completely caught off guard. I said, "But we have the grill that we use for hot dogs. Couldn't we just set the pizza pan on top of it?"

Again came the stern and final decision. "We're not cooking pizza on a campout!"

I have no idea what set Mr. Brasher off. I mean, our patrol was just spit-balling ideas when he came in with the drill sergeant routine. What made him so angry about pizza. Had he never heard of wood-fired pizza?

Was he afraid our pizza would turn out ugly?

I want to reiterate that I've been in troops with Boy Scouts who didn't act like Boy Scouts. But Mark and Brian were some of the best troop members I've ever come across. They really were model Eagle Scouts.

I think back to the words of wisdom from my Father. "I don't know why you stayed (in the Boy Scouts) as long as you did?" Maybe I was gathering material for all this writing gold? No, that's not it. But if art is suffering, then I suffered during quite a few backpacking death marches. So now I don't feel one bit terrible about writing my "Idiot Scoutmaster" series.

For more great reading of my Idiot Scoutmaster series, follow these wonderful links:

Idiot Scoutmasters: I'm The Idiot Scoutmaster!

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2020/03/idiot-scoutmasters-im-idiot-scoutmaster.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: The Idiot Committee

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/12/idiot-scoutmasters-idiot-committee.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: The Dishwashing Paradox

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/02/idiot-scoutmasters-dishwashing-paradox.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: Once Bitten, Forever Stupid

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/01/idiot-scoutmasters-once-bitten-forever.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: A True Story of a Scout's Canteen

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/09/idiot-scoutmasters-true-story-of-scouts.html

Bored Scoutmasters and the Tale of the Wampus

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2014/07/bored-scoutmasters-and-tale-of-wampus.html

Adrian reminisces about his childhood days with the Boy Scouts

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2011/02/adrian-reminisces-about-his-childhood.html

Chasing Tone: 50's Guitar Wiring

2020-03-31T16:16:00.000-04:00

As you know, I, like many other musicians, are always on a quest for tone. I've written many posts on this blog about the subject. Whether it is guitars, pickups, electronics, or capacitors, I am always on the hunt for a way to achieve the perfect. tone.

I came across an article a few weeks ago that was talking about a surprisingly easy and inexpensive way to improve the tone of a guitar. Here's the link:

Mod Garage: Three Ways to Wire a Tone Pot

The author brought up a good point. We look to the 1950's Gibson PAF pickups as the "Holy Grail" of all pickups. But in all honesty, pickup makers today can create pickups that are just as good, if not better than those vintage PAF pickups. So what's the difference?

As I've written before, many players are extremely fickle about their tone capacitors. Some claim they can hear the differences between cheap ceramic caps and paper in oil caps. Here are a few blog posts I wrote about trying out different caps.

Squeezing The Tone

Squeezing the Tone, Part 2

Long story short, changing the capacitors did nothing for me. For the heck of it I bought an old Russian paper in oil cap, and soldered it into my Dean Dixie Rebel. Honestly, I couldn't hear a bit of difference. That cap cost me $5, and that's on the cheap side. The modern day Emerson paper in oil caps cost $20 a piece. Let's be honest, $20 is way over the top for a capacitor.

So when I read the article posted above I originally took it with a grain of salt. But the author said something that I hadn't thought of. We accept those PAF pickups as the "Holy Grail" of pickups, but we are forgetting one thing. They were also wired with 50's wiring.

Now I know you are wondering, "What does that have to do with anything?" Well take a peek here.

From the article:

The tone cap connects to the volume pot’s output lug, rather than its input.

What’s so special about the ’50s wiring? It will influence the guitar’s performance in three major ways:

1. The overall tone gets stronger and more transparent. It’s difficult to describe, but I think of it as more “in your face.”

2. The typical treble loss that occurs when rolling back the volume is greatly reduced, and both the volume and tone controls react more smoothly and evenly without the typical hot spots. As a side effect, it’s easier to clean up an overdriven amp by simply rolling back the volume on your guitar a bit.

3. The tone and volume controls interact with each other—something you may know from certain early Fender tube amps. When you change the volume, the tone also changes a little bit and vice versa. Such interaction may feel strange at first, but it only takes a few minutes to get used to.

I've cut out a lot of the technical jargon, so I'll boil it down here. The main problem with modern wiring is when you roll back the volume or the tone knobs. Simply put, it doesn't sound great. When backing off the tone knob, the biggest problem is the loss of volume in the high/treble sounds.

So I decided to use my Guild Bluesbird as a guinea pig for this project. I've written about it before. Here's the link:

New Guitar Day: Guild Bluesbird

In that blog post I showed a few mods that I had made to "squeeze the tone" out of it. Namely, I replaced the Alnico 5 magnet in the 59 neck pickup to an Alnico 2. I also changed the cheap ceramic caps out for "Tropical Fish Capacitors." (Yes, that really is what they are called.)

So here is the guitar we are working with.

And here is the inside control cavity.

Let's fast forward to changing the wiring.

Honestly, it wasn't that hard or time consuming. But here's the question... did it deliver promised results? I mean, I've heard a lot of rumors, inuendo, and B.S., but did this actually work?

Yes. Yes it did. I noticed a huge difference. The sound really was more, "In your face" as described by the article. Where I really noticed it was turning down the tone pots. The high/treble sound didn't drop out like it had done before. In other words, there was no loss of volume of the high/treble notes.

I also noticed the pickups sounded much brighter. The 59' neck pickup (with an Alnico 2 magnet) sounded extremely balanced. They might be considered too muddy for high gain/metal players. But with 50's wiring it sounded amazingly balanced and soulful.

The 59' bridge pickup (stock) was much brighter. It actually reminded me of 1950's music. I know all the advertisements like to say their vintage pickups are warm, blah, blah, blah, etc. Have you ever listened to late 50's/early 60's music? Think of the Beach Boys. Listen to them and realize how bright their sound is. I know they are playing Fender instruments, but still, the 50's sound was pretty bright.

With 50's wiring the Seymour Duncan 59' sounds exactly like it rolled off the line at Gibson back then. What also surprised me was that the bridge pickup had quite a bit of bite that it never had before. I think some folks might mistake it for a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates pickup due to the amount of bite it had.

The verdict? The verdict is yes. In fact, it's a huge yes! In complete honesty I didn't think it would make that much of a difference. And the one thing I hadn't thought of was, "How do different types of capacitors react with 50's wiring?" Those paper in oil caps might make a bit of a difference with 50's wiring.

I already had quality Tropical Fish Capacitors installed in the Bluesbird. So I'm not sure how much (or little) of an upgrade they are over cheap ceramic caps. But to get back to the point, 50's wiring really did make that much of a difference. I'm going to be doctoring a few of my guitars in the coming weeks.

I am thankful for Premier Guitar for running the wiring article. I am reminded of what a violin luthier told me. He said, "We can make anything as good as Stradivarius these days due to sharing so much information. We don't have to keep reinventing the wheel every ten years."

So I have written this blog post to keep sharing information. I believe it's important. I've seen the quality of guitars skyrocket in the last twenty years. I've seen the parts on those guitars skyrocket as well. Sharing information is pivital to making amazing music. I hope I've helped you out some.

Idiot Scoutmasters: I'm The Idiot Scoutmaster!

2020-03-25T11:12:00.000-04:00

I've had this Idiot Scoutmaster series going for quite a while now. When you spend over a decade in the Boys Scouts you are bound to come up with a few head-scratching moments from your adult leaders. However, I got to thinking. Yes, I know it's a dangerous thing to do. But I looked at it from the other end.

I was an Assistant Scoutmaster for two years. Was I perfect? The definite answer is a resounding, "No." So this story is about the time I was the Idiot Scoutmaster. Yes, I am admitting that even I screw up.

When I became an Assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 180 out of Lutz, Fl. there had been a shift in youth members. They had lost a lot of boys to turning sixteen. I know you are thinking, "But aren't the boys allowed to be youth members until their eighteenth birthday?" Yes. That is true.

But when they turn sixteen they start driving, and become more interested in girls than Scouting.
I heard one of my own Scoutmasters say, "We've got to get these boys to Eagle by fifteen, or else they'll never get it." ("It" being Eagle.) Again, the subjects of girls and cars were brought up.

So Troop 180 was in the middle of a member shift. It mostly consisted of Scouts that were one to two years removed from Webelos. So they were quite young and inexperienced. I remember the first campout that I somehow ended up being in charge of for the first hour. I was running ragged answering question after question. They were coming at me like a machine gun.

That was one of my stronger moments. But like I said earlier, I've had my Idiot Scoutmaster moments. It all started with two of the Scouts doing something extremely stupid. I can't remember what. But I was giving them unholy hell for doing it.

That's when I said/yelled, "You're acting like a bunch of God Damned twelve year olds!" Yeah, not one of my better moments. It was then that one of the Scouts said back to me, "But I'm ten!" I didn't quite know what to say to that.

So I calmed down a bit, and thought about the situation. I realized I was dealing with not just kids, but ten year old kids. They were inexperienced, and when it came to communicating with youth so was I. So I learned something new that day.

I screwed up a bit, but I tried to be a better Scoutmaster because I now knew what I was working with. Also, the Scouts quit doing whatever dumb thing I yelled at them for. So they learned a bit as well.

Does this mean I'm going to quit posting, "Idiot Scoutmaster" stories? Hell no. I'm sitting on a goldmine of stupidity stories. I can't let that go. But look at this way. The Scoutmasters who were idiots will have stories told about them, and those who weren't will not.

For further reading, here is my Idiot Scoutmaster collection:

Bored Scoutmasters and the Tale of the Wampus

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2014/07/bored-scoutmasters-and-tale-of-wampus.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: A True Story of a Scout's Canteen

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/09/idiot-scoutmasters-true-story-of-scouts.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: Once Bitten, Forever Stupid

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/01/idiot-scoutmasters-once-bitten-forever.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: The Dishwashing Paradox

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/02/idiot-scoutmasters-dishwashing-paradox.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: The Idiot Committee

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/12/idiot-scoutmasters-idiot-committee.html

Here's a post that goes back over a decade. This was posted on my old Myspace Blog.

Adrian reminisces about his childhood days with the Boy Scouts

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2011/02/adrian-reminisces-about-his-childhood.html

No One Laughed At My "Sad Keanu" Meme

2020-03-18T20:05:00.000-04:00

I like to think I am a funny person. But every comedian has a joke that falls flat. I recently had that happen. What upsets me is I really thought this was "the one." It turned out to be, "the one that nobody thought was funny.

I was cooking dinner when a thought came to me. Back when I played high school football we had the cheerleaders screaming behind us the whole game. I never thought much about it. But one thing stuck out because it's a saying that all, and I mean ALL, cheerleaders yell at each other.

So here's the meme.

I asked my Dad "Why didn't he like my meme?"

His response, "I didn't get it."

"What do you mean you didn't get it?"

"I didn't get it. It went over my head."

"Dad you went to every one of my football games. What did the cheerleaders scream at each other?"

Dad said, "I don't know."

"They always yelled, "We have spirit! Yes we do! We've got spirit! How bout you?" I replied.

"I never thought of that. It went completely over my head."

Okay, I realize my sense of humor is out there. Maybe this joke would be funny to cheerleaders and football players? Of course, I have to consider the possibility that it's just not funny. Maybe I'm not as funny as I thought I was.

The Crow, Or... Adrian Ruins Wicca Again

2020-03-07T20:29:00.000-05:00

On Facebook I follow a Wiccan Private Group. It's more for shits and giggles than anything else. Most of the posts are people dealing with tough things in their life, and want magical advice about it. The problem I have is most people are all too willing to give magical advice, and not real "get it together" advice. Honestly, it's mostly issues that people should talk to a therapist about. Not get advice from uneducated amateurs on Facebook.

I've actually never posted on the Wiccan webpage, nor have I responded to a post until today. I read a post that was in need of more practical advice than any post I have ever seen on the webpage. Here's how it went.

Robin asked, "So, to me....no question is a dumb question, so here is mine. 9 times out of 10 when I go out back (just right behind my apt.) I have this crow that seems to show up. Either on the lamp post, tree or ground very close to me making his noises.When I go in he leaves. Am I nuts or ??"

Okay, not a bad question. The responses were less than stellar though.

Chris responded, "The crow is a messenger, but it also connects to many deities. Was there some specific event they happened before the Crow showed up the first time?"

I think Chris meant to say "that happened," and not "they happened."

Cheri also replied, "We have cross on campus at my school...I always feel very special when they visit me."

Okay....

Mel said, "If you have recently lost a loved one it are thinking about a lost loved one more than usual recently it could well be a message from your loved one that they are watching over you! Crows are messenger from the spirits that have crossed ahead of you so don’t be alarmed instead pay closer attention to other signs you may think irrelevant and the message you are meant to receive will reveal itself to you. I follow Reet Psychic Medium she does live feeds and readings for free daily sometime twice daily and as long as you say please when asking for a reading she will read for you if your name draws her to you if she’s drawn to you and you don’t say please she won’t read! She’s a bit crass and very energetic but she has been spot on in the readings she’s done for me!!!"

Well, it sounds like Mel has consumed a few wine coolers, but okay. I don't agree that the poster needs to visit an "Internet Psychic," but that's just me.

Michelle replied, "The crow represents higher purpose... higher knowledge..crows are also associated with alchemy and transformation , intelligence...stay tuned and tapped in to source..also a call to be fearless and audacious ..take that risk ..and to be flexible and adaptable 🖤

At least it appears Michelle opened a book. Good for Michelle. Again, I totally disagree with her, but I'm glad she bothered to crack a book.

So what does "High and Mighty" Adrian have to say about this?

Adrian replied, "Someone has fed the crow, and it's learned that humans equal food. So when it sees you, it comes over for food. Remember, birdseed not bread."

(Adds tally mark to others.)

Once again, I've ruined things for others. Seriously, someone had to do it. Crows are dang smart, and are one of the best animals on the planet for picking up learned abilities. Someone had been feeding that crow, and it picked up that "humans equal food" really quickly.

Think about what Robin originally said. She steps out her apartment's back door and the crow shows up. She goes back inside and it goes away. Someone at that apartment complex has been feeding the crow. It doesn't take a genius or a Wiccan genius to figure that out.

When it comes down to it, I really hope I helped Robin out. Actually, I hope I helped out some of the other posters. Maybe they can think outside the metaphysical box? Not everything requires a metaphysical solution. And for those who have read this to the end, and thought I was going to write about the movie, "The Crow," I apologize.

The Most Ron Swanson Thing My Dad Ever Said

2020-02-21T12:34:00.001-05:00

Everybody likes my dad. Everyone gets along with my Dad. He's just the most genuine and caring person I know. He doesn't go out of his way to say anything rude about anyone or anything. However, if someone is rude to him, my Dad just ignores them. He just lets things slide off his back like water off a duck's feathers.

So it surprised me one day when my Dad blurted out the most Ron Swanson thing I had ever heard. Well, from anyone but Ron Swanson.

For those that don't know, Ron Swanson is a character on the NBC show, "Parks and Rec." Here's the Wiki description of him:

Ronald Ulysses Swanson is a fictional character portrayed by Nick Offerman from the situation comedy television series Parks and Recreation on NBC, created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. In the series, Ron is the director of the Parks and Recreation department of fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, and the immediate superior of series protagonist Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) until Knope's election to the Pawnee City Council at the end of Season 4.

In demeanor, political philosophy and work ethic, Knope and Swanson are polar opposites: where Knope is sunny and outgoing, decidedly liberal and constantly working, Swanson is distant, and as a staunch libertarian, is a strong advocate for small government—stating his belief that government should be privatized—and therefore believes that the parks department should not even exist.

There are quite a few memes and web pages full of Ron Swanson quotes. If the show was still in production I would suggest my Dad's quote to the good folks at NBC.

So what did my Dad say? Well, we were watching TV when the commercials came on. The station had repeatedly shown Corona Beer commercials throughout the day. For those who don't know, this is a Corona Beer.

Notice that it has a lime in it? The commercial said the best way to enjoy a Corona was with a lime. To which my Dad replied,

"If you have to put fruit in your beer, it's probably not a very good beer."

I almost fell on the floor when I heard that. It still cracks me up to this day. That is the perfect Ron Swanson quote. I can hear Nick Offerman's voice when I think about that quote.

So that's your laugh for the day. I hope it brings you a smile. Of course, I'm sure the people over at Corona aren't laughing. But then again, try to make a better beer. You know, one that doesn't need fruit in it to taste okay.

New Guitar Day: Dean Custom 450

2020-02-17T11:12:00.000-05:00

I know, I need another "New Guitar Day" like I need a hole in my head. However, there's a story behind this one. There's always a story, but this one is pretty good. You see, it was a dark and stormy night on Facebook Marketplace. I had noticed an add that simply read, "Guitar" in the Musical Instruments category.

I opened up the ad and saw it was a Dean guitar. Now for those of you who've read my blog for a while, you know I love Dean guitars. When I looked at this one I recognized the shape, but couldn't remember the name of it. So I went to the Dean Guitars official page. It wasn't listed there. It seems they don't make it anymore.

After that I went to my trusty friend, "Google." It was there I found the name of the guitar was the "Custom" But something didn't look right. The listed guitar was a set neck with EMG pickups. The Custom 350 wasn't. As I wandered around the internet I found out that Dean made a "Custom 450." That's what this guitar was.

It was exactly as pictured. It was a set neck with EMG pickups in a natural color. I think the seller made the same mistake as I did. He thought this guitar was a Custom 350. You see, he was selling the guitar for $200. The Custom 350 sold new for $300. But the Custom 450 sold new for $600. Again, they look a lot alike.

When I talked to the seller, he said he bought the Dean to learn to play guitar. It just didn't happen for him. So he was moving on. That's one reason he probably listed the guitar as, "Guitar" on Facebook Marketplace. He just didn't know the in's and out's of the music industry.

So while I don't need another guitar, I just couldn't let this deal pass me by. And if I want to sell it later on, I can do that. Hey, even I realize the resale market isn't great for Dean guitars, but I could possibly make a small profit.

So now let's go onto the photos!

And it came with a leather soft case to boot! So that added to the deal.

First up, the good.

All the wood and parts are top notch. It's really well balanced. After setting it up, the fretboard doesn't have a wave or twist in it at all. It's perfect. Dean likes using the super jumbo frets. I ended up fret dressing it for two reasons. The first, is that, I always fret dress my guitars. Every guitar built needs one, but only high end guitars end up receiving them.

The second reason is the frets are so dang high it knocks them down a bit for easier playing. The third is I can set the action extremely low with a great fret job.

Next up, the gray area.

So Dean factory installed EMG pickups on this model. That's quite a step up from the usual overseas pickups. However, players tend to either love or hate EMG pickups. I've never been crazy about them. I've always been with the crowd that says, "EMG pickups make all guitars sound the same." I've found that to be somewhat true except for two guitars.

The first was on an ESP Eclipse 3 that I jammed on in a Sam Ash. That guitar has an EMG 81 bridge/ 60 neck set. For some reason it wasn't overly bright like so many I had heard before. I don't know what made that guitar different? I had never played that model before, but it was an amazing guitar. I can see why players like them.

Of all the EMG pickups, I have to say I liked the EMG 85. It has an EQ that is similar to a Seymour Duncan Distortion. I'd say the EQ was: Treble:9, Mids: 8, Bass: 5. I always thought it should be the main bridge pickup for active pickup equipped guitars. Instead, they always put it in the neck.

So I immediately decided to so a little pickup swapping. Since EMG's are quick connect, I just swapped the EMG 81 and EMG 85's positions. I have to say that was one of the best musical decisions I've made in my life. The EMG 85 rocks in the bridge position, where the EMG 81 makes a clean neck position pickup.

Like I said earlier there were only two EMG equipped guitars that I've played that didn't sound overly bright. This was the second one. I'm not sure why it sounds so balanced compared with so many other EMG equipped guitars, but this one sounds really good.

The next upgrade for this guitar, is that, it has 24 frets. Take a look at the double dots on the last fret. Yep, that's a 24 fret guitar.

I put this under my "Gray Area" since some players don't need or want 24 frets. I realize that for some songs you need those two extra frets. But I realize that a lot of us don't play past the 15th fret. In fact, a lot of us just play "Cowboy Chords" on the first three. So again, this would be great for some players, and dismissed by others. It's really up the individual player.

The Ugly:

Let's be honest. This guitar is supposed to compete for metal player crowd. Specifically, this is Dean's alternative to Ibanez's RG Prestige series. Here's an example:

So if you ask any metal player what Ibanez guitars are best known for they'll say, "Steve Vai!!!" But after that they will tell you, "The Ibanez Wizard 2 neck. For those not in the know, Ibanez has extremely thin necks. Shredders love thin necks. They help make playing easier and faster.

So what kind of neck does the Dean Custom 450 have on it? Well, it's not good. You start with a Gibson 50's neck, then you make it wider. By the time you are at the 12th fret, it starts to feel like a seven string guitar. At the heel this has to be the biggest neck I've ever played in my life. I know Dean likes big necks. Heck, I own six Deans and have owned a bunch of others in my life.

However, this is ridiculous. The neck up to the first three frets starts off just fine. It just keeps getting thicker and wider as the neck goes on. Any player who would put this up against an Ibanez RG is going lean towards the easier playing Wizard 2 neck on the Ibanez.

The New:

As I mentioned earlier Dean has discontinued the Custom 350, 350-F, 450, and 450-F series. However, they have replaced it with something that I think will compete with Ibanez a little better. It's called the Exile series.

The first time I saw the photos I was amazed. This one comes with the new EMG pickups, the 57 and 66. It's also built with 24 frets. However, it also comes with a heck of a price, $1,100. Whew! And if you buy the Floyd Rose or seven string models the price only increases.

It's wonderful guitar. I only hope they haven't priced themselves out of the market. I mean, I had a hard decision on paying $200 for the Dean Custom 450. Paying $1,100 is a big jump up from that.

But let me get back on track. I'm digging my new guitar day. I'm having fun with it. Now I just have to find a place to put it. Maybe it's time to build a new wall hanging guitar rack? Yeah, right after I add a new wall. Till then, keep rocking, and above all else, have fun with it.

House Repair, Err, Actually Bird House Repair

2020-02-15T12:14:00.000-05:00

A year and a half ago I put up a number of birdhouses around the property. I've actually written quite a few blog posts about them. I was really proud of the work I completed. Not only did I customize them with "Squirrel Guards," I also made sure there were drainage holes for water.

And to absolutely make sure they would last, I painted them with enamel paint. Next, I used enamel spray paint so the birdhouses would match the colors of an oak tree. Honestly, I went all out for those houses.

So it made me pretty angry when I found the roof tore off of one. Well I decided to do something about it. I was going to make a new roof, but when I went to take the birdhouse down, I found the roof sitting inside the house.

Then, a Cuban Tree Frog jumped up out of the house, hitting me in face, causing me to fall off my ladder. I really hurt my left toe falling. But after I felt a little better, I took the birdhouse to my workshop. I made sure to take lots of photos of the repair. I'll explain my work as I show the photos.

So here's the birdhouse and roof on my bench.

It's not in that bad a shape. The wood was a little warped, but other than that it's alright. Let's take a peek inside to see if there's anything wrong with it.

No, it's just a little dirt. I decided to use some "helping hands" in the form of clamps. They held the top on while I nailed the roof down.

I found these awesome tiny white finish nails in one of Dad's parts buckets. They were perfect for this job.

And here she is, as good as new.

Now it was time to put the birdhouse back on the pole.

Now that I've fixed the birdhouse I'm hoping to have a pair of birds nest in it this spring. If not, I'm sure the Cuban Tree Frogs will hang out in there. They will bide their time until I walk by, jumping with all their might, smacking me right on the forehead.

Bartender! My Personal Recipes For A White Russian Snowball And Toasted Almond Snowball

2020-02-14T09:33:00.000-05:00

I'm one of "those" persons who likes to cook at home. I actually enjoy having friends over and stuffing them with a ridiculous amount of food. So you'd think I would be good at mixing alcoholic drinks and such. Well, kinda. I'm really good at making two kinds of mixed drinks.

You see, due to health and medications there is no way I should drink alcohol. It's a recipe for disaster (pun intended.) It's a real shame because I have created/adjusted a recipe for White Russians and Toasted Almonds that I love. The people who I've made these drinks for absolutely love them. Which kills me because I undeniably love a White Russian.

I had mentioned this subject on Facebook to my friend Kathy. She asked me what I did differently to make a "White Russian" into what I call a "White Russian Snowball." I went over step by step what I did, but I got to thinking. Wouldn't it be much better if I made a blog post about it? I could show photos of my step by step process.

So thanks to my dear friend Kathy I am sharing this recipe on my blog. There is another reason I want to share this. If you've read my blog you know I'm a woodworker. What's made me a better woodworker is other artists' sharing what used to be called "Trade Secrets."

I had a violin luthier tell me one reason so many amazing violins were being made right now, was that, the internet had helped them share information. If no one has to keep reinventing the wheel, then they can concentrate on other things.

So I gladly share this recipe so that others can use it. Then, they can share it. So let's start first with the "White Russian Snowball."

Let's start with the correct kind of glass you will need. You will want to use a "Double Rocks Glass." It's sometimes referred to as an Old Fashioned. You will want one that is at minimum 12 ounces.

Now it's time to start adding alcohol. Add one shot of vodka. And remember folks, it doesn't have to be a high proof vodka. 80 proof is fine.

The next step is to add one shot of Kahlua.

After that add TWO shots of heavy whipping cream. Of all the ingredients, this may be the most important. Don't use regular milk. Don't use half and half. Don't use regular whipping cream. You want HEAVY whipping cream. And since I'm from Florida I absolutely use Publix brand heavy whipping cream. Remember TWO shots!

You can start to see why I recommend a minimum of a 12 ounce glass. So far you have four shots of liquid. At 1.5 ounces per shot you are already up to 6 ounces. Stir it around so that all the liquid is mixed. Now comes the part to make it a "snowball."

You want to use crushed ice. Some of you (like me) are lucky enough to have a refrigerator that has a crushed ice setting. You want to use fine crushed ice. The finer the better.

Now what you want to do is pack that Double Rocks Glass with crushed ice. I mean pack it like a snowball. You were wondering when that term was going to pop up, huh? Stir it as best you can. It will be thick. You are now the proud owner of a "White Russian Snowball."

(Sidenote: I'm sure professional bartenders will tell me that I need to "shake a cocktail" if I am using ice in it. I won't disagree with them, but I'll say I've never needed to do so for this drink.)

The good news, is that, alcohol has a lower freezing point than water. So the ice will melt rather quickly. The flavor will be smooth, flavorful, and creamy. I like this because it feels like you get your moneys' worth from this drink. The ice will all be melted by the time you are finished.

I made one of these for my former girlfriend years ago. Her response to it was, "Oh my! This is dangerous!"

I said, "Oh no! I'm sorry!"

To which she replied, "No. You don't get it. This thing is so smooth and delicious that I'll have one, then two, then be on the floor. You can't taste any biting alcohol at all. This is dangerously good!"

I have to say I was rather proud of myself when she told me that. That's when I knew I had a killer recipe on my hands.

So now let's go over how to make a "Toasted Almond Snowball."

A Toasted Almond isn't that different from a White Russian. Really we are just trading the vodka out for Disaronno Amaretto. Let's start from the beginning.

First up, let's grab our trusty Double Rocks/ Old Fashioned Glass (minimum 12 ounces.)

Next we pour one shot of Disaronno Amaretto into the glass.

Next we pour one shot of Kahlua into the glass.

Now we add our two shots of heavy whipping cream.

Now we stir our glass around some mixing up the liquids. Next we pack the glass with crushed ice like a snowball.

If you really want to be fancy, and I completely suggest you do this, add a maraschino cherry to the glass. Or add about four. I love those things. And if you really want to make it special, add some of the maraschino cherry juice to the Toasted Almond Snowball.

Now stir the glass, and you have the ultimate "Toasted Almond Snowball." Please enjoy, and please, please, please!!!! Drink responsibly!!! Remember each one of these drinks has two shots of alcohol in it.

A 90 pound young woman might get white girl wasted after having, "Just two drinks." Yeah, because she just consumed four shots in half an hour without realizing it. So please drink responsibly.

Again, please feel free to pass this recipe on. As a history buff/major/graduate I believe in the sharing of information. Also, as a history buff/major/graduate I am still mad about the destruction of the Library at Alexandria!!! But it's that anger over the loss of information that propels me to share things. It's one reason I write this blog.

So please, if you are a bartender, or just feel like sharing drinks with friends, please try this recipe. If you like it, please pass it on. Take care and enjoy everyone.

A Coach's Prayer

2020-02-13T08:58:00.000-05:00

About a year ago I was listening to Howard Stern on Sirius XM. He was playing a clip of a football coach yelling at his team's players. One of the players on the team secretly recorded the screams, curses, insults, and threats of his football coach. I think the player had enough of being demeaned game after game and recorded the coach to show people what was going on.

Once the tape hit the media listeners/viewers were aghast. Many women were shocked that someone would use that kind of language at high school players. A lot of men responded, "That's exactly the kind of things my coach said to me." Howard asked his employees that had played high school football their thoughts. Every one of them said, "Yeah, that's exactly what my coaches said to me. Exactly."

I played 5A high school football in Tampa, Fl. during the early 90's. Here's a list of things that were said to me by coaches when I played.

1. (Wide Receiver's coach) (Note: I was an Offensive "Strong Side" Guard.) "I don't give a fuck about your parents, the school, or any of that shit! I will fucking MURDER you if you don't move!"

He didn't so much say or yell it at us, but just kind of snarled with spit coming out of his mouth. And get this. That day was a rainout! We were in the gym practicing basic skills. You know, running, jumping, squats, stretches, and walking through plays.

I honestly, in my heart of hearts, thought the coach was going to take a swing at one of us. To this day I have no clue as to why he was so pissed off. It was complete overkill for nothing.

2. (Defensive Coordinator.) As you can see my last name is "Long." He liked to call me, "Shlong." He was also a former Navy S.E.A.L. He could be a cruel man.

3. That same D.C. just lambasted the entire defense at halftime during spring season football. He used every curse word I knew at the time, and a few I didn't. I have never heard someone yell so loudly in my life. Like I said earlier, I was on offense. He was yelling at the entire defense in the next room, and it felt like he was yelling directly in my ear.

4. (Linebacker's Coach) I had the LB's Coach grab my facemask, and twist it. As in, he was intentionally trying to hurt my neck. He was mad because I was going after the defensive tackle's knees. I was told to block a certain way by the Offensive Coaches, and instructed to tell the D Linemen to, "Watch your knees."

I did this before every play where I was supposed to block like that. I knew it. The D-Linemen knew it. Everyone knew it except for this LB's Coach.

Still the LB's Coach really tried to hurt me. He actually stopped practice to come over, grab my facemask, and yell at me. Yeah, this happened in front of the entire team. And when I say "team," I mean the players, coaches, and trainers.

This coach had played for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1950's and at one time was the highest paid defensive player in the league. He admitted he had the, "Old School" attitude when it came to
coaching and playing football.

I told the LB's Coach, as he was twisting my helmet, "Coach Tolley (the Offensive Line Coach) told me to block like that! If you don't like it, you need to talk to him!" He didn't like that, or didn't believe me.

Once play continued, the coaches met up, and informed the LB Coach why I was blocking the way I was. After about five plays he came up and apologized to me. Somehow he didn't know about the blocking scheme. I was still pretty angry about how no other coach stepped in when he was twisting my facemask.

5. I was huffing and puffing since we were running so many plays in row during practice. I was just sucking wind when the head coach yelled, "God damnit Tolley (the O-Line coach) is he going to fucking die on me?!!!" Coach Tolley was the most level headed coach by far. He just stepped in and calmed the situation down.

So that brings me to my title. There was one week when Team Chaplin Lane was not able to make it that Friday (game day.) So our Head Coach took over the inspirational words of the week. How did it go? Exactly like you think it would.

He said, "Now you may not believe in Jesus, but you have to admit, it took BALLS to do what he did! He rode into that city KNOWING that they were going to fucking kill him! He KNEW they were going to painfully crucify him to death, yet he walked into that battlefield despite the odds being against him! But you know what? Despite the odds, three days later he emerged from that cave VICTORIOUS!"

At seventeen years old I had never heard the story of the resurrection put that way. Actually, I'm sure no one else had either. The good news, was that regular Team Chaplin Lane was back the next week with a more levelheaded inspirational talk. He didn't miss a game after that. He was a real good guy. However, when it came to that week's game, we lost badly. But hey. You win some, you lose some.

Birds of Prey... In My Backyard

2020-02-12T13:34:00.000-05:00

It started out innocently enough. I wandered outside the house to take a few photos of my garbage cans. Pretty boring, right? Last week we had a storm come through, and a few tornados touched down. Even though we were miles away from the tornados, we had some extremely high winds. I realized that I was going to have to pick up a bunch of fallen limbs if I was going to mow the lawn. Otherwise, I would end up destroying my lawnmower blades.

I was aiming to post on Facebook about picking up four garbage cans full of limbs when I thought, "Why not take a photo of the garbage cans?" A photo can express the things I can't put into words. I realized that it's a somewhat uninteresting photo to take, but I had the time and didn't mind.

While I was out there I heard a bird screeching loudly. I immediately knew what it was. You see, we've had a pair of hawks that have lived around us for over twenty years. I'm not sure if this is the same pair, but we've always had a pair hang around the property. What's funny, is that, they had a nest in a pine tree behind us for almost fifteen years that I know of. The pine tree was perfectly straight, and right at the top the hawks built their giant nest.

However, the pine tree ended up being hit by lightening and dying. I hated to see that, because the hawks kept their nest in the same place. Every year they would add to it. That's one reason the nest was so big. And that brings me to today.

I heard the screeching, and looked up. I saw one of the hawks sit up on the electric pole near my house. When I took a closer look I saw it's mate was sitting up there with it. I took a number of photos, but here are the best ones I shot.

In this part of Florida we have both "Red Shouldered" and "Red Tailed" hawks. I'm not sure which species these are. Either way, these two are always hanging around the property.

There was one time I was mowing the lawn, and one of the hawks hung out in the oak tree I was mowing around. It was looking for bugs and mice that I could scare up. You know what? One time I did scare a mouse, and the hawk managed to grab it.

Which brings me to their nest. You know that oak tree that the hawk was watching me from? Well, it's the same oak tree they have their nest in now. Here are a few photos I took of the nest. These two photos are the ones I took before I saw the hawks.

These two photos I took later. I tried to take the photo from almost underneath the nest, instead of an angle.

I'm going to keep an eye out on the nest. It won't be long before a few eggs are laid, and chicks hatch. I won't be able to take photos directly inside the nest. You can see just how high up it is. Even if I had a drone to take photos, I'm sure the hawks would take it down hard. The hawks can be a bit aggressive.

So I'll try to get a few photos once the chicks leave the nest. Maybe I'll leave a steak out for them? I'm sure they'd like that. Okay, I won't do that. It would be funny if I did, but I won't. I'll stick with shooting photos. Stay tuned.

Creative Writing Paper: The Great Dope Run

2020-02-11T11:45:00.000-05:00

Back in 2001 I took a creative writing class in college. I felt really good about my short story, "Strom Thurmond's Body Must Be Destroyed." I felt so good about it I decided to continue the story of my lead character, Raymond Steele. (Yeah, that's a 90's name if there ever was one, huh?)

My creative writing teacher loved me. She absolutely adored my writing. But then again, I took her class seriously, and turned in quality papers.

So, if you are out there in internet-land I hope you enjoy this story. But please! Last minute writers! Do not plagiarize this work. It will easily show up in Google Search. It will take your professor two seconds to check it. Otherwise, enjoy!

The Great Dope Run

"Oh..., ah..., pain..., unbearable... pain," I barely muttered. "Oh my God..., the pain..., get me a.... Budweiser for God's sake.., get me... some sort of alcohol."

I could barely open my eyes, couldn't even lift my arms. It felt like they were chained down. Now that I thought about it, I couldn't feel my legs either. Which was odd, because I generally had to drink a lot before my legs would go numb.

"Ray!" someone shouted. "Ray, are you awake? Do you know where you are?"

"Who... is that?" I asked.

Truthfully, I didn't know where I was, if I was awake, or if my name was Ray, although that did seem familiar.

"Ray, it's Jack, your friend and lawyer. Do you remember what happened?"

"Hey..., I'm the one... who should be asking.... something like a question.. I .. , where ... am....," I didn't get a chance to finish.

"Nurse!" yelled Jack. "Get this man something! He's in excruciating pain!"

I could only hear. I couldn't see what was going on. I heard the nurse say,

"Ray, Ray, give me a sign. Can you hear me?

"Yes...," I whispered.

"That's good Ray," said the nurse that I could just start to make out. "Are you in pain Ray?"

"Oh God yes," I muttered.

I felt like I was starting to come around. My voice was a clearing up as well.

"You should not be in pain," said the nurse with puzzlement in her voice. "You're hooked up to a morphine tap."

"Nurse...," I started. "I am a professional drug addict..., and you're going to have to give me a hell of a lot stronger stuff than a simple morphine tap. I would kill for a Bud to drink, and a bud to smoke, as well as some Vicodin, Heroin, Percocet, whatever thirty-one flavors of drugs you have."

My eyes were starting to focus. The first thing I saw was Jack and the nurse standing over me. This was not one of those twenty-seven year old hot body nurses fresh from college. No, she looked like my grandma. Right now she was looking at me like I was being completely ill rational. So I made myself a little more clear.

"More... drugs..., please!" I exclaimed as best I could.

"I'll get the doctor," she said as she took off out the door.

Well, at least she had a good work ethic. Anyone who would run that fast to get drugs for me can't be all that bad.

"Ray!" yelled Jack... again.

"Jack..., you're at an eight...., I need you at a two and a half," I said.

"Thank God you're alive," he said, much quieter this time. "Ray, do you remember anything, and I mean anything that happened."

"Happened?," I asked. "When, what, I don't know. My head is still spinning. Tell me, I've been unconscious haven't I?" "It feels as if my brain was shoved into a blender, and poured back into my head. Jack, why can't I move my arms and legs?"

"Ray," he said with a look of extreme sadness. "You can not move your arms because the police handcuffed you to your bed, and you can not move your legs because you bruised your spine in the accident."

"What accident?" I wondered aloud.

"I'm still trying to put the all the facts together. All I know is ....," he paused. "There was an accident involving your boat. It somehow flipped and crashed. After it crashed, the beach was littered with drugs, pieces of your boat, dead Cubans, and an injured manatee that is now recovering at the Lowery Park Manatee Hospital in Tampa. Ray, I hate to tell you this, but your political enemies are coming out of the woodwork on this."

"A manatee?" I asked. "I love manatees..., they're so... darn cute. I have... a... manatee... license plate."

"Yeah, well, the press loves them too. This one's getting more air time than President Bush. They're calling him Snuggles, Snuggles the Manatee," stated Jack with an irritable look on his face. "Damn it Ray! What the hell were you doing out there? What happened?

That was a good question, what the hell did happen?

(48 hours earlier or, what the hell happened)

In the land of waffles, the man with the biggest waffle iron is king. In the land of fishing the man with the biggest rod does not always catch the most fish. That's why I use dynamite. The underwater shock wave obliterates anything near the initial blast. After the fish come floating up to the surface, it's as easy as throwing a cast net out to collect dinner, and the cat's fish head buffet. It's been hard to fish for mullet as of late, with the illegal netters and all. Almost as hard as finding a hungry hooker with no front teeth.

I love fishing. A true fisherman has no excuse to waste a day of his life. Every day has potential, and the excuse to get away from crazy housewives who's minds are more fucked up than West Virginia's gene pool. My boat is a thirty-five foot Excalibur cigarette style boat with a seven-hundred horse power inboard engine. Cigarette boats are built for one thing, and that's speed. However, I like using the Natural Disaster for dynamite fishing because the hull is reinforced for high speeds. Fishing puts men back in touch with their roots. Where else can a man get totally shit-faced, kill animals in obscene ways, drive at inappropriate speeds, and still be legal?

Tonight was a dark and stormy night, well, no it wasn't. True, it was dark on account of being nighttime, but a nearly full moon echoed like a soft lightbulb across the water. The few puffy clouds that were in the sky made me think of my pillow, and that I should really be at home sleeping right now.

I, however, was on another mission. At 2:00 in the morning and 20 miles off Miami's shore, I was here to meet somebody, or should I say pick up a package for a friend of mine from Cuba, by way of South America. At three foot high, the waves were not that bad for being so far offshore, I hated any kind of rocking of my boat. Especially when I'm trying to cut cocaine with a fishhook, because I forgot my razor. My friend's associates were already an hour late, which gave me plenty of time to savor every drop of my gin and Gatorade. The gin was to get drunk as fast I could, so I would actually go along with this plan, and the Gatorade was to keep my electrolytes up so I wouldn't get that nasty hangover in the morning, which I probably deserved. Mainly for going along with this crazy scheme.

After some heavy drinking, a few lines, and enough speed to kill a horse, I finally heard the plane. Looking out with my Bushnell binoculars, I could see the lights of the small single engine plane. Those morons probably hadn't changed their watches over to Eastern Standard Time. I grabbed the CB and let those egg layers have it.

"Breaker, breaker, this is Flapjack, did you get lost? It's only ninety miles straight up, you mentally deficient red commie bastards."

They started spouting something back at me over the CB, but hell if I knew what they were saying.

"Hey Castro!" I shouted. "You're in the U.S. now. Speak English or die!"

Again, all I could hear was mass confusion over the CB.

"Listen, you are acting way too unprofessional for a drug dealer. I am going to have to report that your work is very unsatisfactory to your boss. Also, I don't give a hoot in hell what your problem is. I am here to do a favor, and you are not making this easy for me you fucking retards."

At this time I could see the plane coming in. It was one of those water landing, single engine, prop planes. I also noticed a much bigger plane sitting almost on top of it trying to force it down. I guess they had a reason to be panicking.

"Sico..la...ah..no....ah.....no...Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!" yelled the pilot over the CB.

At least, that's what it sounded like to me.

"Hey Chico!" I shouted into the CB. "Get your head out of your ass, and land the damn plane!"

At this time, both planes were flying low and fast. I could just make out the letters on the big plane. D.E.A.

"Oh fuck me like a thirteen year old runaway." I muttered.

The United States Drug Enforcement Agency. This guys were worse than the Alabama Highway Patrol, and twice as vicious. These guys would rip your guts out with a plastic fork, or nearest utensil. Well, at least they were predictable. Their next move would be to bump the plane, and send it spiraling into the Atlantic ocean.

"Yep, yep," I muttered to myself. "Here they come."

With one almighty swoop, the federal pig's plane blew over the smaller aircraft disrupting the air flow, sending Pedro and the grass into a tailspin straight into the ocean. As all this was going on, I cranked up the engines on the Natural Disaster, and started making my way to the aerial dogfight.

The show was spectacular, from my perspective anyway. Lupe was probably shitting his pants right now. A very unprofessional thing for a smuggler might I add. The light display was grand, almost too grand. That's when I realized that the LSD that I was carrying in my sock had gotten wet from the saltwater, and was starting to kick in. Thank God for those little blessings.

"Hey Jorge, pull the goddamn plane up you worthless excuse for a smuggler!" I yelled over the CB.

This was starting to become way too much work.

"Where did you get your driver's license?" I screamed. "New York or Walmart?"

Ricardo might not have heard me, seeing as how he was still in a tailspin with the nose of the plane pointed straight down at the ocean, and he was only five-hundred feet off the water. I just knew that a lot of good home grown pot was going to end up in Davey Jones' locker, along with a small plane and some dead Cubans. At about two-hundred feet above the water, Lupe somehow managed to pull the nose of the plane up enough for it to land.

"Thwap!" echoed across the water as the plane touched/crashed down.

Thwap, a kinda half thud, half slap, a thwap. Although the plane was mangled, it did manage to float, although probably not for long. I kicked the boat up to seventy miles an hour to pick up my delivery, now that they had finally landed.

I thought to myself, most people would run from this sort of situation. I mean, it's pretty obvious that they've been caught, and why should I put myself at risk? I've got a dog and a turtle at home that need me. However, the bacon isn't expecting the pickup to be so close to the crash site. Hmmm.

At that point I kicked the engine up to eighty miles an hour. Hey, I had a job to do, and I had to show these amateurs how it was done. This situation actually reminds me of something that one of those communists reporters over at the St. Petersburg Times said about me.

"In trying to pull something this big off, it shows just how crazy, how insane, how.... arrogant you are."

Of course, I was in a different predicament then, but I still kicked him in the nuts as hard as I could. It wasn't about the insult, it was about integrity.

I pulled up to the plane to see a grizzly scene. It seems one the Cubans was sticking though the front window. He was bleeding profusely with a piece of the plane's window in his stomach and sticking out his back. Believe it or not, he was actually moving. He was whining about his mother and some chick named Mary, whoever the fuck they were?

"Hey Pedro," I yelled. "I'm here to help you out."

"Crack!" went my Smith and Wesson thirty-eight revolver as I shot him in the head.

"That hurt me a lot more than it did you," I told the now dead body.

I now counted three Cubans in the boat. Why the hell did they send me so many? I needed drugs, not immigrants.

"Listen up!" I yelled. "Fuck the Pope, and your filthy cunt mothers! I'm your new boss, and I'm going to make you work for a living. Not like living off the government tit, like you do down there in Cuba!"

At this point they started to question my authority. A very bad move, if I do say so myself. They immediately jumped into the water, and tried to get aboard the Natural Disaster.

"Back, back!" I screamed as I beat them mercilessly with my boat paddle. "Back to plane!" I yelled as I pointed to the plane. "Grass first, boat ride second! If you don't move it, I'll turn you over to Aryan Nation, the Black Panthers, or U.S. Immigration, whichever I get to first!"

Now that I had asserted my authority, they suddenly got a lot smarter. In no time they were moving the huge, carefully wrapped cube blocks of Mary Jane out of the plane, and into the boat.

"That's it! Put your backs into it!" I said trying to sound like one of those pirate captains from 1950's television. "Arrggghhh! I'll make ya walk the plank. I'll shiver me timbers. You know, I'd hate to think that Castro has to put up this shit everyday to get you people motivated!"

Now the Natural Disaster is thirty-five foot long, but it's not very wide. It's built for speed, not comfort. It's a typical cigarette boat with it's center console located halfway between the back and middle. So cubes of pot, or square groupers as they're called by the authorities, had to be set up near the front of the boat. Therefore, by adding all that weight onto it, it's a pain to keep it balanced enough to hold the nose down so it doesn't flip.

"Here's the rope! Tie it down tight! Move the contraband up near the front to keep the nose down, and center it down the middle to keep us from leaning so bad! Stack them low, so the center of gravity helps to keep the boat from flipping!" I yelled, forgetting the fact that they didn't understand a word I was saying.

However, though my great managerial skills, and tough love, all the weed was secure.

"Get on the floorboards now! Put your fingers in your ears, and open your mouths. I'm going to cause some major destruction.!"

It was then, that I took out the rest of my dynamite sticks.

"In case you wonder what I'm doing, that plane needs to be gone when the feds get here. These twenty-four sticks of dynamite are going to help me accomplish that," I said as I wrapped the wires together.

"Thirty seconds after I light this, we need to be as far away from here as possible."

I fired up my Zippo, and lit her up.

Like Joe Namath, I threw the bundle of dynamite over the dead guy/cornerback through the giant hole in the windshield.

"Thirty seconds!" I yelled as I kicked the boat up to four-thousand RPM's and climbing.

"Hang on boys!" I told them. "We have twenty miles until we hit shore. Get down on the floorboards to keep the center of gravity low!"

At this point, I could tell by the look in their eyes that they were going to try and pull that, we don't speak English bullshit. Totally unprofessional, seeing as how I couldn't get the boat up to speed unless the center of gravity was right.

"Get on the ground!" I shouted as I waved my revolver around. "Hit the deck, you monkeys! We have fifteen seconds!"

Smith and Wesson, the ultimate in motivational techniques.

"Alright, all engines Go!" I bellowed in my best Captain's voice as I kicked the engines up to escape velocity.

I had put a comfortable distance between the plane and the Natural Disaster when I heard the explosives go off.

BOOM!

I could hear the explosion echo across the water, as well as see the fire reflect off my windshield and dashboard.

"They're not going to find anything now," I said talking out loud to myself. "I can hear the morning news now, the D.E.A.'s plane bumped a suspected smuggler's plane, and sent it spiraling into the ocean where it was destroyed upon impact killing all crewmembers."

I could pull this thing off yet, and make the D.E.A. look bad to boot. Not a bad day's work.

"Listen up mateys!" I said yelling over the roar of the engines. "The first ten miles may be a little rough! Once we get inshore, the water will be like glass, and I can kick her into high gear! Just watch the merchandise, and make sure it doesn't go sliding around!"

For the first time on this disastrous trip, things were starting to go right, grass on deck, Cubans on the floor, compass pointing me in the right direction, and Elvis on the radio.

"Oh yeah, this is what it's about boys!" I said doing my best Elvis impersonation. "Come on, sing with me! Cause there ain't nothing higher, than the sweet smell of desire! Come on, you're not singing! Burnin up! I said a hunka hunka burnin love!

You guys are such pussies. You see boys, that's your big problem. You just roll over and play dead. Then you wonder why Cuban women act like such bitches, and not just to you, but everyone. Do they collect your balls upon receiving a certificate of marriage? You need to smack em around a little, show em who's in charge. Show some initiative."

I shook my head in disgust.

"You might think I'm being a little hard on you boys, and you might be right. What you have to understand is that the merchandise comes first. This whole thing is bigger than any one man. Me, you all, the dead pilot, the president, we are all a far second to the merchandise.

The waves were now starting to become nothing more than little ripples. This gave me the opportunity to show these tourists just how fast this boat could go. However, they would probably freak out if I really showed some gumption, so I figured that sixty miles an hour while carrying a full load might be about right. That way it also kept the engine at about forty-five hundred RPM's.

"Things are starting to look alright boys," I said.

It was that very moment that a spotlight shined brightly in my eyes. There is no greater feeling in the world than thinking that you have pulled off a great crime. However, there is no worse feeling than having the marine patrol shine their lights on the hundred bails of marijuana that are sitting on the deck of your boat.

"I am so fucked," I said knowing full well that I was, so fucked.

"This is the D.E.A., stop your engines, and prepare to be boarded!" said the voice out of the loudspeaker of the approaching boat.

Shit! These guys weren't the usual sea pigs. Someone had called out the big guns. Not only were they in the air, but on the sea. This could only mean they had been tipped off, or I had been set up. Either way, I was pissed.

"Mr. Sulu, prepare for warp speed!" I yelled.

Like I told the boys, you just can't roll over and die. Especially when you've been set up, sold out, and own a boat that can go three times faster than anything the D.E.A. is driving.

"Hold on to your hats boys! The ride is going to get... fast!" I yelled, thinking of nothing better to say.

At this point I kicked the engines up to nine-thousand RPM's, while the Cubans were in the floorboards, lying in their own urine. Almost in unison, six boats flipped their high beams on the Natural Disaster. This was starting to get worse by the second. I could outrun them, but I couldn't outmaneuver them.

"Boys," I started. "It's times like these that you know, no matter how doped up you are, that the end is near. If you believe in God, now's the time to start praying."

I only had one option.

"Prepare for ramming speed!" I yelled as I steered the Natural Disaster toward the Fed's boat that was directly between myself and land.

"I've never had her full throttle before boys, but there's a first, and a last time for everything!" I yelled as I pushed her to the max.

"Stop your engines, and prepare to be boarded!" came the voice from the loudspeaker again.

"Go fuck your mother!" I screamed, drowned out by the roar of the engines.

You should have seen the Feds scatter as they saw me and the merchandise coming straight for them at one-hundred-thirty MPH. It's a wonder that the Natural Disaster hadn't flipped yet. When a boat this big, is driven this fast, it actually rises off the water, with only the engine props touching the water. It felt like I was flying.

"Prepare for impact!" I shouted, as we bore down on the Fed's boat with only seconds left before imminent destruction and annihilation.

Woosh echoed across the water as my boat dodged to the right of the Feds. I may be eccentric, but I'm not stupid. Although, I didn't turn so much to my right, as the Feds turned to my left. They weren't in the mood to play chicken, especially with a man who can't turn the wheel of his boat too far, because he is using one hand to give them the bird.

"Sit and spin on this you monkey fucks!" I bellowed at them while giving them the one fingered salute.

"Damn I'm good!" I half yelled, half laughed.

Now came the hard part. All the boats were behind me, but I had only four miles to go until I hit shore. Speeding at one-hundred thirty miles an hour, that gave me less than two minutes to come up with a plan. I could start to make out the mangrove islands as I was coming in. I had to keep the Natural Disaster down the middle of the channel where she could run in the deep water.

"What to do? What to do?" I kept muttering to myself.

The best thing I could think of was to make a run at the boat ramp, and then cut right into the harbor so I could dock in my private hanger. I had enough distance between me and the Feds, to where, if I could make it to the hanger, the merchandise could be loaded into the awaiting truck in five minutes or so. This was depending on a lot of ifs, but's, and maybes.

I was now half a mile from the boat dock. I was going to have to time this turn just right. I needed to keep my speed up enough to avoid my pursuers, but I needed to slow down just enough to make my turn.

"Get ready boys! We're going to be pushing our luck!"

The mangrove islands were close on both sides of us. As long as I stayed in the channel we were alright. At five-hundred yards from the boat dock, I cut the speed back to ninety MPH.

"Just hold her straight." I muttered. "Only a few more yards till we..."

My eyes almost jumped out of their sockets. In the span of a few seconds, everything went wrong. It was early morning, nothing should be in the channel. Nothing except a school of manatees passing through.

"Oh shit!" I screamed, knowing they were too close, and I was going too fast to avoid them.

Just as I threw the engines into reverse while turning a little too sharp to the right, the Natural Disaster hit one of the manatees.

"Aaahhhhhh!" I could do nothing but scream, as my boat was ejected into the air, and sent into a roll.

I was flying, sent into the air trying to scream again, but I couldn't even breathe. I felt like a golf ball being hurled forever through space and time. The only thing I could do was watch myself being thrown towards the mangrove island that was originally to the right of my boat. I kept flying and flying, knowing full well that I was not going to hit the water.

This is the end, I thought. Please God, not the big tree.

Splat!

(Back at the Hospital)

"I'm sorry Jack, I don't remember anything," I said.

"Ray," Jack started. "For the time being, try to get some rest. I am going to find out everything I can. Ok buddy?"

"Thanks Jack," I said with a smile.

Jack was the best lawyer that a guy could have. His cool demeanor said everything about him. How was I to know that in five minutes all hell would break loose, and Jack would be in the middle of it all?

"Mr. Raymond Steele?" said a voice walking into the room. "I am Officer Kraft, and this is Officer Clem. We are here to read you your rights."

"Ray!" Jack halfway screamed. "They are required to read you your rights by law, ok. Just let them read them, but keep your mouth shut! Don't say anything!"

"Excuse me sir," said pig number one. "I'm going to have to ask you to step aside and let us do our jobs."

"Excuse me sir!" Jack stated with an apparently irritable attitude. "I am Jack Bourgois, and I am this man's attorney, and I am here to make sure you do your job, without violating my client's civil rights. Let me say this, you and myself are going to have a conversation about placing handcuffs on a man who can not move from the waist down."

I loved it when Jack went into full lawyer mode. He was tearing new assholes for the both of them. I couldn't understand three-quarters of what any of them were saying, but it was funny to watch.

"Alright," said Jack. "You can read my client his rights, but he will make no statement."

"Fine," said Officer Kraft. He walked over to me and started to read this giant warrant.

"Mr. Raymond Edward Steele, you have been charged by the State of Florida on this, May 4, 2001 with the following offenses.

One count of endangering a federally protected animal, a manatee, tagged as manatee number 1247, also known as Snuggles the manatee, a first degree felony.

One count of endangering a federally protected tree, a mangrove, a third degree felony.

One count of possession of LSD, a second degree felony.

One count of possession of LSD with intent to use, a second degree felony.

One count of being under the influence of LSD, a second degree felony.

Fifty counts of possession of a square grouper, better known as bails of marijuana, a first degree felony.

One count of drug trafficking, a first degree felony.

Three counts of smuggling illegal aliens into the borders of the United States, a third degree felony.

Three counts of smuggling illegal aliens into the borders of the Untied States with intent to avoid law enforcement agencies, a first degree felony.

One count of possession of an incendiary device, dynamite, a second degree felony.

One count of intent to use an incendiary device, dynamite, a first degree felony. One count of using an incendiary device, a first degree felony.

One count of resisting arrest with violence, a first degree felony.

One count of resisting arrest using a moving vehicle, a boat, a first degree felony.

Eleven counts of reckless endangerment, a third degree felony.

Three counts of manslaughter, a first degree felony.

Twelve counts of interfering with the duties of a law enforcement officer, a third degree felony.

One count of destruction of evidence, a second degree felony.

One count of speeding in a no wake zone, a third degree misdemeanor.

One count of criminal mischief, a third degree misdemeanor.

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do, can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can not afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the charges brought against you, and your rights?"

"No," I said. "I just had my head bashed in. My middle name is Edward? Yuck. What the hell kind of mother do I have?

"Shut up Ray," said Jack. He then turned to the cops.

"Under federal law, you can not take my client into custody, or take a statement from him since he is not mentally competent, and I will have any number of doctors testify to that right now. Get those cuffs off him this second or I will have your boss, the Miami Herald, and the ACLU on the phone in the next thirty seconds."

That's why Jack was worth the money. The cops knew they were beat, and my wrists were free at last. After they left, Jack said to me,

"You realized that you just created a lot of paperwork for them, don't you? Of course, I didn't make things any easier for them myself."

"Jack, I don't remember much, but I know that I love you man."

"Remember this," Jack said. "You don't know it yet, but the whole world's a show to you."

"What's the world to you?" I asked.

"Right now," he started. "It's a card came. However, I'm not playing to win. I'm playing not to lose. You really messed up this time my friend. They have enough charges to put you away for life, or at least two-thousand years. The only thing as certain as those dead men on the beach, was the marijuana found scattered everywhere. Do you remember anything?

"Truthfully," I said. "I don't remember anything."

"I was afraid you would tell me that," said Jack with a mournful look on his face. "I'd hate to think, that all this death and destruction, was the result of a few smokes.

Creative Writing Paper: Strom Thurmond's Body Must Be Destroyed

2020-02-10T09:17:00.000-05:00

Back in 2001 I took a college creative writing class. I was in my Dr. Hunter S. Thompson phase at the time, and wrote this short story in the vein of Dr. Thompson. I was quite happy with my writing. I was thinking about it the other day, and realized that I never got around to posting it.

I've had my blog for coming up on twelve years now, and I can't believe that I never even thought of posting it until now. My blog is for all things that come in and out of my head, and this story is directly from my head. But the good news, is that, I am now posting this. I hope you enjoy.

And for those high school/college students who are thinking of ripping off my story for their creative writing class... Don't do it. This will easily show up in Google search. Besides, this story is about 20 years out of date.

Strom Thurmond's Body Must be Destroyed

"Break out the guns and neutron bombs!" I declared as I broke into my lawyer's office. "It's an emergency!" I made a mad dash for the secretary's desk, and grabbed a hold of Jean. "Jean, didn't you hear me? I need to see Jack right away. It's an emergency I tell you!"

"Mr. Steele, please, you're going to have to calm down," she said. "Besides you know you need an appointment. We've been through this before."

Damn secretaries, they always think they know everything. I never met one I liked. Especially Jean, she was the ultimate bitch. She looked and acted like an angry librarian gone dyke. I knew I needed an appointment, and she knew I needed an appointment. Why then, did she even bother telling me something that we both knew anyway? I wish I knew what her problem was. However, since I knew, that me knowing what her problem was wouldn't help either of us, I decided to drop it.

"Damn it woman! I need to see Jack pronto! Our very lives are at risk!" I shouted. Looking very perturbed in her wire rimmed glasses, she said,

"Mr. Bourgois is busy right now, you just can't barge in here and demand to see him without an appointment."

Obviously this woman didn't realize, or didn't care about the danger we all were in. I had to put up with this type of attitude all the time, she was no different.

"Jean, if you don't let me in to see Jack right now, you leave me no choice but to strip naked and run through the lobby. Come on woman, what's the point of having a lawyer on retainer if I can't barge in and talk to him?" I asked.

"You know that's not the issue Mr. Steele," she replied. "You are in here three or four times a week, and twice on Tuesdays. You know Mr. Bourgois has other clients he has to meet with."

I think she was trying to use some sort of reverse logic on me. Too bad for her it wasn't going to work.

"Ok," I casually replied. "I understand." I was down to my boxers before she finally broke down and called Jack on the speaker phone. She was unhappy, but she'd get over it.

"Mr. Bourgois, I am sorry to interrupt your meeting, but Mr. Steele is here, and he is in one of his moods... again."

Out of the speaker phone I heard Jack's voice.

"No problem Jean. Mr. Martinez and I have finished. Send Raymond up." Jean glanced up looking slightly afflicted,

"Mr. Bourgois will see you now. I'm sure you know the way."

After putting my clothes back in order, I raced up the stairs into Jack's office only to find Jack, and some well dressed Cuban guy speaking to one another. If this was "Mr. Martinez," why was he still here? More importantly, what did he want?

"Ray, come on in," said Jack. "I want you to meet a friend of mine, Mr. Robert Martinez of the Law Firm Martinez and Fernandez. He works in this building as well, on the seventeenth floor."

At this point I had bigger things to worry about, than Jack trying to get in good with one of the cites most powerful lawyers. The fate of the world was at stake.

"Yes, hello Bob, have we met? Oh, you were just leaving right. Ok, see you soon, bye." This was no time for niceties. Sometimes you have to help people help themselves by giving them a shift kick in the shins. I used to play rugby, and I can kick hard.

"We'll talk tomorrow around ten," Jack said to Bob as he quickly walked him to the door. Bob looked as if he were stuck in a black hole and didn't realize it yet, but Jack knew what was important.

Jack closed and locked the door behind him to make sure our private conversation would stay between me, him, and the goldfish. It took me a while to break him into the habit of locking all three locks on the door, in fact, I'm the one who put them there. I consider it a good investment. We didn't need any anyone on the outside meddling in our conversation.

"Ray, have a seat," he said shaking my hand. "What can I do for you today?" he said as he leaned back in his huge leather cow skin chair smiling a wide grin.

He was in one of his "smiley" moods. I hated it when he was like this. He was always so much more ineffective like this.

"Damn it Jack, there's no time for niceties!" I yelled, as I never even bothered to sit down. "We have a crisis on our hands!"

"Actually Ray," he said, as he put his feet up on his mahogany desk. "I need to know before we start if you are on any type of drugs."

I couldn't believe he said that to me.

"Hey, you know I don't do illegal drugs anymore. I've found the legal ones are much better," I replied.

"Honestly, please tell me what you are on right now so I know how serious to take this," sighed Jack.

Jack was a good lawyer, but I found his lack of faith most discouraging. However, Jack was always honest with me, so I tried to be honest with him, or at least as honest as one could be with a lawyer.

"I had two Xanax, one hallicon, a shot of blackjack, and some herbal tea. Overall, a light morning. You know, you really should have a full body cavity search performed on your secretary," I informed him.

"If any man other than you would have said that, I'd take that a lot differently. Also, please don't crawl under my desk and start looking for listening devices again. I had the place swept this morning," he said as he got comfy in that monster of a chair.

"Really?" I replied.

"Really" he said with that smiley sort of smile.

"Well, you can never be too careful." I said with a crook in my brow.

I could trust Jack. He was a good Catholic man. Not necessarily a good Catholic though. A good Catholic would have turned me over to the Pope's goon squad years ago for all the meddling I've caused them.

"Anyway, I came here to tell you something drastically urgent, and I don't think you're going to like it."

"Tell it to me straight, and I'll help you out the best I can," he replied, again with that smiley sort of smile. Looking him straight in the eye, I told him,

"Strom Thurmond's body must be destroyed."

At that point it took me a few minutes to calm him down. Some people cry when faced with adversity, but Jack tends to laugh. He laughs hard. The kind of laugh that sends one sinking into the extravagant carpet of their glamorous eleventh floor downtown office complete with big chair, and a desk the size of a Volvo. Jack was definitely taking this one hard. Being the compassionate soul that I am, I helped Jack back to his chair, and poured him some ice water. After he finally regained his composure he said to me,

"I'm not a fan of the GOP, but why does Strom Thurmond need to be destroyed?"

"No!" I shouted from across the desk. "Strom Thurmond does not need to be destroyed, Strom Thurmond's body needs to be destroyed!"

He put his hand to his forehead. Suddenly, the smile was gone. I knew he was not taking this well. Jack started to raise his voice.

"What's the difference? Ok Ray, just stop right there. This is where you need to start at the beginning, and work your way forward."

This was the hard part. This was always the hard part.

"Forty-six years ago Strom Thurmond was elected to the United States Senate representing the state of South Carolina. During the 1950's and 60's Thurmond was best known for being the main leader for the pro-segregation forces in the Senate. Because of his hard line stance, he has become a symbol of hatred and intolerance for the rest of the U.S. since the 70's." Jack interrupted,

"I know this, but that isn't a reason to kill the man. As your lawyer I am extremely concerned about you. You've never wanted to go this far before," he said with a storied look on his face.

"You have to let me finish man!" I screamed, as I stood up once again. "Do you know how old Strom Thurmond is?" I asked while sitting back down.

Jack thought for a bit,

"He's pretty old. I know that."

"Strom Thurmond is ninety-eight years old," I replied, as my knuckles turned white as I gripped the edge of the desk. "You see, it's not that the man should be dead. The man is dead! He died!" I found I was standing yet again. "His corpse was then taken over by aliens trying to infiltrate the government!"

Jack suddenly turned very white. He did however manage to croak out a few words.

"What the hell do you mean aliens?"

He looked like I hit him with a giant tuna. It was time to let him in all the way. There was no backing out now. I walked over to pour a drink of ice water from his mini-fridge.

"You see, nobody likes Thurmond except those damned racist rednecks in South Carolina. He's always a sure bet. If you were an alien race trying to infiltrate the Senate, there would be no better person to take over. Your re-election is guaranteed."

Jack sat there for a while as I poured two glasses. I didn't want any water, but he looked like he could use some. We sat there quietly for a few seconds while Jack regained his composure. This kind of info is always hard to swallow at first, but like bourbon whiskey you get used to it.

"Ok," he started out. "Let's say I actually take you serious this time, besides the age factor, what leads you to believe that Strom Thurmond's body has been taken over by aliens?"

I knew for Jack to believe me, I had to let him in slowly.

"It started when I was websurfing. I found a conspiracy site, or should I say, an enlightenment site that taught me the true nature of the world's affairs."

"Wait!" he interrupted as he threw his hands up. "You don't mean to tell me that all this commotion you've brought in here is based on some degenerate website?"

"Can I finish, please? Can I?" I asked as we both leaned into each other across that huge desk. I had to keep Jack under control to some extreme or else he might never let me finish.

"Go ahead, my time, your money." Jack said as he leaned back in his chair while throwing his hands up in defeat. He was no longer smiling. I continued.

"This webmaster who goes by the name Placebo dug up information going back to over a decade. It seems that in 1989 Strom Thurmond went on a business trip to California. On his way there he was suddenly struck ill, and hospitalized in Las Vegas, Nevada. This brings up the question, what was he doing traveling by car, and not plane, to California? Anyway, before he got sick, his route took him close to Area 51, the secret Air Force base where human/alien hybrid spacecraft are tested out. You see, if his destination was California, he would have traveled by plane."

"Again," he interrupted. "I have to interrupt."

He turned his chair to look me dead on.

"Many older persons travel by ground, because they can't travel by plane. Their bodies can't handle the pressures that are exerted on them during flight. And if he did get sick in a plane, how would he get help? More than likely he is medically required to travel by ground."

I looked at Jack. I almost looked through him, but I thought better of it. I was going to start yelling again, but I thought better of that too. I just kept sitting and continued.

"The true destination for Senator Thurmond was Area 51. A project that he helped create in the 1950's. However, while he was there, something happened. Whether by accident or purpose, his body was taken over. Then, he spent the night at a Nevada hospital, but not just any hospital, but a U.S. military hospital, and here's the kicker. He never completed the trip to California.

Since then, his behavior has been erratic, even when dealing with his own political party. As of late, he has not been acting normal at all. He has misspoke at times, can't remember at others. In addition, he has been hospitalized repeatedly in the last year for a variety of illnesses. He has taken to having two "aides" at his side at all times. Two guesses as to who, or should I say what, they really are. You see Jack, the body is dying. The alien implant inside the body is spending as much energy as possible in an attempt to keep it going, but eventually it will lose it's fight with mortality.

The two aides have been sent to collect the alien parasite once Strom Thurmond's body has finally died. They want to do this quietly so that the alien can be implanted into another U.S. Senator, like Jesse Helms. This is only scratching the surface however, the real question is, why are the aliens are here. What is their purpose?"

Jack just looked at me for what seemed an eternity. He took a long drink of water, and thought for a bit. I could hear the mouse in his brain turning the gears. Taking a deep breath, and looking me in the eye he said,

"Well I can see why you wanted to see me. The way you put it, it sounds very serious... to you. Tell me Ray, has it occurred to you that this sounds like an X-Files episode?"

"Actually, it's more Invasion of the Body Snatchers." I hated to correct Jack cause he immediately got that pissy look in his eyes, but it had to be done.

"I mean," he said harshly, "that this is over the top. This is TV science fiction. It's some asshole on the internet twisting the truth and jerking people off. Tell me, do you actually know what Placebo means?"

I stretched out in my chair and thought for a minute. Then I just half assed guessed.

"Isn't it a medication of some kind?" I said with a look of perfect innocence on my face.

"Well, it's a type of pill. It's a fake. A fraud. It's a pill that they give to hypochondriacs that demand medication. It's a sugar pill that is harmless, and causes no effects, but hypochondriacs think it magically cures all their problems." he stated as he set his hands in his lap, and leaned back in that wonderful chair.

I was wondering what Jack was getting at.

"Jack, what are you getting at?" I asked.

He again came forward in his chair, this time speaking a bit slower, and a lot softer.

"Ray, you've been a great client a long time, and you know that I have always tried to help you with advise, whether it's legal, financial, or personal. Trust me on this, and please don't do anything stupid, this Placebo guy is just messing with you and others on the net."

I couldn't believe Jack was saying this. The evidence was so clear. With a startled look I asked him,

"Are you telling me that you think all the evidence is fake, and just like that, you're going to dismiss this entire conversation?"

He calmly got up from his chair, and came around his desk. He pulled up one of the smaller chairs so we were looking face to face, just inches apart.

"No, no listen to me," he said quickly, effectively, but softly. "I heard everything you said, and yes, at first I thought it was hilarious, but now I'm concerned because you seem to be taking this too far. This theory, if you can call it that, has more holes in it than Swiss cheese."

According to your logic, why would aliens want a dead body to implant a parasite in, if Thurmond was dead at the time of implantation? This Placebo guy said that the parasite needs a live body to survive, but he contradicted himself by saying that Thurmond had already died while in Area 51."

"O' Lord I can't believe I just said that," he mumbled under his breath quickly. However, he quickly regained his thoughts."

"Not only is this guy a liar, but he's a bad liar at that."

"Another thing," he exclaimed while still sitting only inches from me. "Why control the GOP? Sure, they have the money, but their conservative philosophies might make it hard for them to accomplish an "alien agenda."

He was starting to get on a roll, speaking louder and louder.

"Why come to America at all? Trying to climb up our political ranks is impossible, trust me I know. Why not go to Iran, Iraq, or one of the former Soviet republics? They could climb the political ladder a lot faster over there.

He kept getting a little closer. I could start to feel his breathe on my neck.

You know," he started to shout. "I can't believe I'm even arguing with you about this! I don't even believe in aliens! The other stuff you bring me week in and week out I can deal with. Drugs, yeah so what. Explosives, sure why not. But, aliens in D.C. Come on! You don't need a lawyer, you need a psychologist and a padded cell."

He was almost standing with his hands resting on the arms of my chair by the time he finished.

"Uh Jack," I interrupted. "Do you need a Nardol and Vicodin? See, I'm just trying to save the world man, and I just thought you might want to come along for the ride. I didn't expect you to go Tony Soprano all over me."

I knew he was upset. Whether it was because of his straight edge moral beliefs that left him unprepared for the event of an alien invasion, or because he hadn't been getting any lately, I suspected that he just wasn't ready for this.

"Ok, let me calm down," Jack said.

He stood all the way up, and walked back over to his big comfy cow chair. After taking a drink of water, and rubbing his temples he said to me,

"To tell you the truth, I just wasn't ready for this. When you came in here, I thought you were going to take me dynamite fishing with you this weekend."

I thought that wasn't a bad idea, but I had other things to do.

"Listen, we can go fishing when the earth isn't being invaded. Although, I did just get a full case of dynamite from one of my friends in Madagascar. Traded him a few cartons of Marlboros. I think we both came out ahead."

"If I could get us back on track here," Jack interrupted... again. "As your lawyer how about if I suggest a compromise."

That's what I liked about Jack, he was quick on his toes, however, he danced like shit, but that's another story.

"What do you have in mind?" I asked.

I was anxious to see what he had thought up in just ten minutes. Like I said, he was fast off the cuff.

"First off, do not kill or harm anybody. Ok. That's a must. If you want answers about Senator Thurmond, look up things on public record. Then contact this webmaster about things you know are true, and see if he falters. I guarantee he will. Again, this guy is a fake who either has way too much free time on his hands, or gets his rocks off by jerking people around. Don't waste your time with this stuff. That's the best advice I could give you. That, and don't kill anyone," he said as he leaned back in his chair, proud of himself.

"So what you're saying is that, this is just some guy who enjoys messing with people in his spare time?" I asked.

"Exactly," Jack said with a strong look in his eyes.

"One man who messes with another just for the fun of it? Why? Why would he do that?" I asked while shaking my head in wonderment.

"Maybe he's ill rational. Maybe he's lonely, or has nothing better to do. I don't claim to know or understand those types. All I know is that they are out there, and sometimes we have to look out for them," Jack said with a look of satisfaction in his eyes.

That's the look he gets whenever he feels he's won an argument, or any verbal battle. That was my Jack. I knew the alien business would get him at first, but he never fails me. Like a true high powered attorney, he comes across great. Everyone should have their own personal lawyer. It's sad that some people don't. It's even sadder that some people actually believe in aliens.

I'm Starting To Think All RPG's Are The Same

2020-02-09T09:45:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe, but I've lived though all the major video game system releases. I remember my parents coming home with an Atari 2600. Yes, the one with the fake wooden paneling. In the late 80's my Mother and Sister fought through the lines to bring home an original NES. A few years later the SNES showed what video games could do with decent graphics.

I've played all varieties of games, but I have to say I love role playing games the most. However, I've noticed they have gotten kind of stale lately. Heck, even College Humor made fun of the whole genre a few years ago. If you haven't seen this video, it's worth watching.

It's kind of come down to the same plot.

1. I'm just an orphan who was raised in this backwater village.
2. Oh no! There is a fight between two large cities! I must leave to see if I can help in some way.
3. Those cities are being controlled, or working with other (much bigger) cities on this continent.
4. But there are larger forces at play! There is a worldwide faction that is controlling war between the people of the planet.
5. This faction lives in a floating city.
6. The evil ruler is bad, but is also being manipulated by another force/man/devil/whatever.
7. The ruler dies, and the real evil behind everything shows it's face.
8. You end up fighting God, or a God-like figure.
9. No, you just ended up defeating it's first form. There are two more forms to go.

Along the way your party includes:

1. Your spunky childhood friend who is a technician.
2. A princess/ white mage.
3. A heavy brawler with a bad attitude.
4. Comic relief in the form a thief/ranger.
5. An old wizard, or a sexy, nearly naked hot witch covered in red tattoos.
6. Some sort of robot.
7. An animal that can talk/fight/do stuff.
8. Someone who was on the opposing side. but is now on your side. Usually a hot female general.
9. A spunky kid who knows everything.
10. Ninja. There's always a ninja/martial artist type.

So when I saw a game called Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, (pronounced Ees (as in "Grease") Eight: Lack-Ri-Mow-Sa of Donna) I thought this would be my kind of RPG.

It was said to be a cross between Zelda, Harvest Moon, and a pirate type of adventure. (Warning! Spoilers ahead.!)

I liked the idea of a game about pirates, being lost at sea, crashing on a deserted island. I also liked the idea of having to put a village together, growing your own food while searching for survivors of the shipwreck. That sounded awesome.

Instead, it relied on too many RPG tropes. But I'll give it this. Instead of fighting an angry God at the end, you had to fight evolution. Even the Wardens of Evolution tell you, "You can't fight it. You just have to go with the flow. No one can stop it. I mean, unless you really want to? Then you can just fight a bunch of stuff. But, please! Don't even try to do that!"

Of course, the plot of the story is you do just that. So like everything else on the island, you end up fighting evolution. Hence, you save the planet without them even realizing. Then, you make your way off the island. The End.

Don't get me wrong. I liked the game. Sometimes it was a little bit repetitive, but overall I liked it. I just thought it was funny that they substituted "Evolution" for "God" this time. Although I did find the nun character pretty funny.

First she's all devout and praying all the time.

Then she realizes she can't run well in her habit, so she makes a few "alterations."

Suddenly, she's the "sexy" nun, and I'm surprisingly okay with that. I mean, she's still praying all the time. She's just praying while showing a lot more skin.

The game is fun, but every now and then a big ass dinosaur shows up, and you have to run like hell.

Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out why a level 42 tyrannosaurus rex is right on the path when I'm only level 18? It seems the only way to deal with it is to run like hell until you make it to the next screen.

Maybe I need a break from RPG's? I hear the new Animal Crossing game is coming out soon. I can waste a large part of my life that way. It's called "New Horizons" and sounds like a good laid back game for me. A little fishing. A bit of building. Hanging out by the beach.

Of course, if I really wanted to hang out by the beach I could just drive 25 miles West. I mean, I do live in Florida. Or if I really wanted to, I could hang out by the beach in Animal Crossing while lying on the beach in Florida. Honestly, that sounds like something I would do. I just have to remember my beach umbrella.

The 2020 Orlando Guitar Expo: Bring Home The Spoils Of Rock!!!

2020-02-02T16:51:00.000-05:00

I've been lucky enough to attend the Orlando Guitar Expo for four years running now. I've attended with a few purposes in mind. 1. I usually had something I wanted to trade. 2. I was looking for a few small items for myself. 3. I looked for things I could buy cheaply and then resell. This year I managed to do all three.

So let's get to rockin! First up I was aiming to trade a Hagstrom Ultra Swede w/ OHSC for.... something. The good news, was that, a lot of people were interested in it. I had both attendees and dealers looking at it. I must have showed it to twelve different dealers. Every one of them said the same thing. "Somebody will jump on that."

One reason they said that was because I had it priced extremely fair. When going to the show you have to take a grain of salt with the prices. I had it priced so that they knew I wasn't going to jerk anyone around. And you know, people appreciated that.

I had one dealer who asked to see it, and I was happy to show it to him. In fact, his booth had a big sign that said, "We Buy Guitars!" So he was the guy to show it to. He looked it over and said, "Due to the damage (it was dinged in a corner) he couldn't buy it. " Then he said an almost throwaway line. "I mean, I'd trade for it."

That's when I pointed out a guitar that I'm sure a lot of people passed by. It was a D.B.Z. Bolero. Now for those who don't know, I love Dean Guitars. Their founder Dean B. Zelinsky started a new line of guitars called DBZ Guitars in 2008. They were partnered with Diamond Amps, and later became Diamond Guitars.

But this looked to be a first year model with the original DBZ logo on the headstock. I tried it out, and dug it. It reminded me a lot of my Luna Apollo (owned by Armadillo Enterprises who owns Dean Guitars.) Actually, the DBZ Bolero is the copy of Dean's Soltero. But in all fairness, Dean Zelinsky designed it in 2006.

I asked the dealer how much cash plus the Hagstrom he would want for the Bolero. He thought about it, and said he would take $200 plus the Hagstrom. I thought about it, and said yes. My "Guitar Show" price for my Hagstrom was $350. I would have taken $275 cash for it. So the fact that he gave me $300 credit is a total win for me.

The other good news, is that, the Bolero came with a DBZ OHSC. And I have to say, it's a nice case. So now, onto the pictures!

Next up, I talked to a dealer who had a bunch of parts. He had a bunch of Dimarzio pickups that he just wanted to get rid of. So he cut me a heck of a break. He sold me four of them for $80. I plan on keeping one, and will sell the rest. I ended up buying one HS-3 and three Virtual Vintage Blues pickups.

Also included in the bag were a Fender single coil and a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails. Unfortunately, neither of them were working. But they were free so I can't complain.

The third dealer I bought from was a great seller who I had bought from before. Again, I looked through his parts drawer. I think I must have cleaned him out last year as he didn't have any pickups. But I did manage to find a pitch pipe and a mandolin bridge.

At a grand total of nine bucks I wasn't going to argue with him. He has always been good to me when I've talked to him at guitar shows.

Except for lunch that was all I managed to buy at this years show. I made quite a few loops around the place. It was actually much easier this year since the rain kept regular attendees from coming in early. I didn't let the rain stop me. It's Florida. That's why I carry an umbrella at all times.

So I feel good about the whole thing. I managed to trade the guitar I bought. I brought home an awesome guitar. I also managed to grab a pickup I had always wanted. And I have a few pickups to sell on Reverb to recoup some of my money. All in all that's a great show.

Duck Tales: That Shouldn't Have Worked

2020-01-19T08:46:00.000-05:00

The other day I was thinking about one of the craziest duck hunting trips I ever took. After thinking about it, I realized I hadn't written about it on this blog. What follows is not only a great "Duck Tale," but also a hand drawn map to explain everything in further detail.

My Father and I used to duck hunt at Cockroach Bay out of Ruskin, Fl. And yes, that really is it's name. Despite the name, it's an amazing estuary where the Little Manatee River flows into the Bay. All sorts of wildlife lives there, whether it be fish, birds, or plant life. I've seen a flight of Rosette Spoonbills sitting in the mangroves a number of times.

Of course, Dad and I were there to duck hunt. We had our favorite island that we always hunted at. Depending on the tide, the water around the island could be anywhere from six inches deep to three feet deep. Usually it was about a foot and a half to two feet deep. Just perfect for ducks.

Below I've drawn a rough map of our hunting spot. I've marked, "Our Island," as well as, our decoy spread. We would run two rows of candy cane shaped decoys out from our duck blind.

The trick to duck hunting is to get up insanely early. The idea, is that, you want to have your decoys out before it's light out. So getting up at 4 AM is not uncommon.

This particular morning everything went as planned. From the time we got up to the time we were in our blind everything went as planned. So Dad and I were sitting in the dark waiting for daybreak. Once the first few rays started shining through I noticed that we had ducks. Although, they were on the shore about 250-300 yards away from us.

Duck hunting regulations say we can only use steel shot in our shotguns, so our range is limited at about 40 yards. We actually put the last decoys out at 40 yards so we can judge our distance. If the ducks are beyond the decoys we know not to shoot at them.

Well, the sun starts shining through, and I notice what appears to be quite a few ducks setting up... at the shore away from us. Fifteen minutes go by, and I can hear them quacking across the water. This is usually when we would have a few ducks come over to our decoys. However, none were making their way over.

A half hour goes by, and the sun is now up. About 100 ducks are over at the shore. A group of bluebills swims near our decoys, but they are still out of range. I'd say the closest they ever got to us was about 70 yards. Again, that's way too far for steel shot.

By this time, from the time we first saw the ducks it had been one solid hour. Not one duck had come over to our decoys. Now there were at least 200 ducks over on the shore. There might have been upwards of 250 ducks. When there are that many it's kind of hard to judge.

I could see Dad was getting frustrated. As long as he had been hunting nothing like this had ever happened to him. Suddenly, a thought came to my mind. I said, "Dad, how about I shoot one shot into the air to scare the ducks up?" Dad replied with, "I don't care." Dad never talked to me like that. But it just goes to show you how frustrated he was.

I said, "Okay, but let's get a few things organized. I took shotgun shells from my box, and lined them up so I could quickly grab them. I then held one shell in my hand so I could quickly reload after shooting. I then asked, "Are you ready?" Dad said, "Sure." Again, he was a bit frustrated.

So I aim up high and straightaway, and I pulled the trigger. What happened next could only be called a mass exodus from the shore. Ducks started swarming all over the place. It took about a minute, but some of the ducks swung back over our island, and dropped in our decoys. And as you would expect, we blasted the snot out of them.

But our second round of shooting caused something else to happen. The ducks we had driven off the shoreline with the first shot had flown to another spot as expected. But when we shot a second time those ducks started flying again. And wouldn't you know they came over to our decoys.

Dad didn't even have time to get out of the boat to go pick up ducks. They kept coming in waves so we kept shooting. After about 10 minutes Dad was able to go our and retrieve our ducks. Again, most of them were about 20-25 yards from us. Dad barely made it back into the boat before the next wave of ducks dropped into our decoys.

Again, we started knocking them off the water, and out of the sky. We were shooting green wing and blue wing teal. Back then the Florida FWC rules said we could shoot ten of them each if we didn't shoot anything else. It was on a point system which was kind of weird and hard to explain. The short version, is that, we were allowed 10 teal a day per hunter.

So, going back to the beginning of that morning, we sat in our duck blind for a solid hour without even thinking of taking a shot. After I fired that first shot to stir the ducks up, it only took us about 20 minutes to limit out. That's right. We managed to shoot our 20 teal.

I think back on that hunting trip, and the only think that comes to mind is, "I can't believe that worked? I mean, I can't really believe that worked?" I could have easily scared all the ducks away, and we might have never seen another one that day. Any number of things could have happened. But as luck had it, we managed to have one of our best hunting days ever.

That trip really stuck out to me. If you've ever watched a hunting program you'll hear them say, "It's not so much about the hunt as it is the memories." And that's definitely the case with that trip. It reminds me on "Family Guy" when they had the segment called, "Damn Nature! You Scary!" Yes, nature can be scary, but it can also be really weird. And this trip fell into the weird category.

Time For A New Watch

2020-01-12T11:07:00.002-05:00

When I was fourteen years old I received my first high quality watch. Before that, I only had watches that couldn't even last as long as the battery. But how I received it was kind of an interesting story. My Father and my birthdays are close together. My Mother decided to gift him with a watch for his birthday. She had found a great deal on a Mathey Tissot watch at our local Sears Outlet store.

Dad, however, already had a watch he liked quite a bit. Since I was in need of a watch, it was handed over to me for my fourteenth birthday. I was more than happy to have a decent watch. So I ended up wearing it for the next twenty-nine years.

During the time I've owned this Mathey Tissot watch I've had about five watch bands for it, as well as, a number of batteries. Ten years ago I opened a refrigerator at a convenience store, and the door handle caught the crown of my watch. It ripped it completely out. It cost quite a bit to get it repaired, but I paid the price to bring it back to life. Unfortunately, the new crown wasn't a perfect fit. My watch was always hard to adjust after that.

Another time I cracked the crystal. So once again, I paid the price to have it replaced/repaired. I'll admit, I'm a bit rough on the crystal. The last few years I've used my workshop buffer to buff it out. Which works a lot better (and quicker) than I thought it would. I've ended up buffing it out quite a bit. It's great that I can buff it at home so I don't have to pay someone to do it.

A few weeks ago the replacement crown broke. Once again, I was trying to adjust my watch, and the head of the crown just came off. This time I knew my watch needed to be retired. Unfortunately, I knew it would cost a lot more to repair this watch than it would cost to buy another one.

So it was time for a new watch. Or at least, a moderately well priced used one. At least I knew where to start. My Mathey Tissot watch had worked so well for me that I decided to look for another one. Luckily, that is what E-Bay is for.

And lucky I was. There were quite a few watches for me to choose from. Mathey Tissot makes a few high end watch models, as well as, a few more affordable models. I focused on the used, more affordable models. I picked three watches for my "cutdown" list. But one watch stood out from the three, and I bought it.

I have to say, I love it. It looks even better in person than it does in the photos. I might end up replacing the watch band, as I don't care for the kind that it came with it. Otherwise, it's exactly what I was hoping for in a watch. Secretly, I am hoping that I can get twenty-nine years out of this Mattey Tissot watch. It could happen. Although, I have to make sure not to rip out the crown again.