Beer and Fire = Darwin Awards...

So today I learned how the Darwin Awards were issued.  I should begin with this did not start out as an alcohol related incident.  But honestly, what goes better together than beer and fire?  

So I leave what I used to call work, but now call a minor inconvenience in my day, somewhere around 3:00 this afternoon.  I manage to make it past Walmart and avoided spending $250, so I count this as a win.  After arriving home, I venture around to the back of the house and see that the fire from Friday night is still smoldering, so as any good pyro would, I rake up a handful of pine needles and throw it on the fire.  Nothing... Nothing that a little gasoline wont fix!  Wrong!  So my still smoking fire topped with dry pine needles (as dry as anything can be in Florida) with a kicker of gasoline gets me nowhere... Why not then, fill up a Diet Coke can full of said petrol, light it on fire the whack it onto the pile with a long stick?

WHOOSH!!!  And now we are cooking with gas... literally.  The gas drenched needles lasted all of about 37 seconds so it was time to locate other fuel. After combing the yard for tinder ("We ain't found shit!"), the 3 sticks I come up with are no help... nothing a log and a ton of gas wont fix though!  After 3 logs and $36 of gas (2 gallons), I have a nice small fire, nothing near what I wanted to burn the garbage that had accumulated in my fire pit.  

Here is where Darwin would have smiled.  As a rather intelligent individual, I understand that the three ingredients to fire are: oxygen, fuel and ignition.  Already having the three, I understood only one would make the fire better... I ran out of gas, so I had to settle with more oxygen.  An old air mattress pump and metal broom handle made for the perfect oxygen delivery system!  After only a few second of this thing being on, my fire burned hotter that I have ever seen!

So what else does one do than start drinking beer and burning shit in the fire?  Said empty beer can was no match for the extreme heat produced.  So naturally we switched to glass bottles.  These melted perfectly if they didn't explode sending molten glass slivers everywhere.  After creating a few price(worth)less pieces of artwork in melted glass, we noticed that after cooling they were more brittle than Ben Rothlisberger!  The slightest jolt would shatter them... We learned tin cans could not be melted by temperatures created by our supercharged fire, but an aluminum can or 9 would melt and actually make liquid metal!  

This addition of liquid metal to the night made for a number of discussions.  We obviously needed something to do with it so shapes is what we came up with.  We pretty much mastered crap but decided the market was littered with New Moon and Michael Jackson's This Is It, so we switched directions to hearts with burnt/dried in dirt.  After Tommy's girlfriend told me to take it outside we decided another method was in order.  Attempt number 2 will be done with plaster of Paris.  If anyone out there in Blogger-land has worked with this medium, I would be much appreciative of any advice...

P.S. How bad do you think a guy looks with no eyebrows?

A Death Near My Unit...

Well, we all knew this day was going to come at some point.  Yes my friends, this is the saddest day in my 8 year military career.  They have always told me if you stay in long enough you will lose a close friend.  Well fellow readers, today is the day I have to announce the death of a close personal friend of mine.  

My friend and I were introduced a long time ago initially.  Back when I worked at Nordstrom's Cafe is when we met initially.   We had a "brief" relationship.  Honestly, I have no idea why we were separated.  While a great friend, we just could not be together longer than a day no matter how hard I tried.  The two of us had a fantastic relationship!  

Time has a tendency of healing all wounds and sure enough, I had forgotten about my close friend after joining the Air Force.  However, less than a year had gone by before I started remembering my old friend.  However, as luck would have it, I was on my way back to Phoenix.  Back in those days, I was fairly poor yet I still vowed to meet up with my old friend.

There, sitting near a clearance rack was my old friend.  I could not resist nor could afford more than one pair of my 2xist boxer briefs.  My friend offers a perfect balance of support while still giving up the freedom of boxers.  Plus, the ladies dig 'em.

This morning, I went to pull up my 2xist's and as I did, half of them stayed around my ankles!  Not one to be a waste, I pulled the rest up and decided to go about my business. After all, maybe I could salvage them. However, after a day of wearing (waring maybe?) them even Jesus could not save these poor things.  They were stupid comfortable and I love being able to read the news paper through my underwear!

I would like you all to take a moment of silence to mourn the loss of a friend.  I know I sure did!

 

A hitch in my giddy-up?

I have been lazy and haven't written in a long while.  Seems I have been too busy with other things; be it Leon Phelps, the ladies dog or well Bud Light to be honest...  But more recently-much more recently which honestly kind of scares me- I have a new occupier of my time and she goes by the name Elizabeth.

It is a very strange story that seems to be more fitted to a Hollywood romantic comedy than my life.  Over a year and a half ago, during a late breakfast at the Cracker Barrel up in "Crestucky" my friend Jill and I meet this awesome hostess with whom I shamelessly flirted.  She kept coming around so I kept flirting.  After breakfast I thought to myself, "Damn, that girl was really cool.  I wish I could see her again."  Lucky for me, Jill says, "I got her number."  After a number of texts, Elizabeth and I end up exchanging numbers and continuing to chat.

The following weekend, in one of my more stalker- no wait scratch that, obsessive follower, stalker sounds creepy- moves, I drive all the way up to have breakfast just to see her again.  I had the Strawberry Shortcake for dessert and it was fabulous!  After that visit, I tricked, I mean convinced her to see me outside of work.  We had a great date just walking around a park.  That was the last time I saw her.  Nothing bad happened, we just stopped talking.  She went to New York for a couple of weeks, then I went TDY for a few and we just grew apart.

Here is where the story gets all Hollywood.  Nursing a pretty righteous hangover last Saturday morning, Jill calls me up and asks if I remembered Elizabeth from Cracker Barrel.  Turns out, she had been trying to contact me and no longer had my number.  So I told Jill to give it to her.  Not 2 hours later I get a text message from her.  We text nonstop for the next two days and she decided to come to town to visit me.  These last few days have been incredible and I can't recall ever having had a better time with someone other than my family.  We are just so comfortable around each other.  It is almost intoxicating.  Or that could be the Bud Light...no, I just opened my second.  Definitely her!  

Now here is where the hitch comes in.  Before her, I had these great plans to move back to Phoenix and I still really want to.  But on the other hand I don't want to lose her AGAIN!  She knows of my plans and it doesn't scare her off and obviously it is way too soon to ask her to move across country.  I only have 140 some days left and need to start making plans.  I am still scared that this is too good to be true.  Some freaky 4 day dream maybe...I don't know.  Like I said, things like this happen in movies, they don't happen to me.  Help me, Jebus!

Opening week!

Okay so opening week of red snapper season was two weeks ago;  I have been a busy man... All I can say is what a week!  Well not all I can say but you get the idea.  Out of seven days we fished five and rested the other two.  Fishing is pretty hard work fun work but work nonetheless.  Here is a quick break down of the week.

Monday:

The roomy and I decided we'd take the whole week off thinking that starting Monday morning would mean we'd be one of only a few boats on the water.  Apparently everybody else with a boat in the Gulf Coast thought the same thing.  So at 4:00 a.m. we fired up the boat and hit the water...

With the rest of the Spanish Armada apparently!  This picture doesn't do a whole lot of justice but you get the idea.  We caught our bait fish and motored over to a spot we prefished the week before and killed them at.  Matt did an awesome job positioning the boat and keeping us on the wreck and off the other boats.  We thought it a good omen that within 5 minutes and the first cast Joe lands an amber jack.  It was undersized but these reef donkeys put up a great fight and are a fun catch either way.  We were catching the hell out of the AJs around 4-1 to the other boats out there that day.  But we could not land a snapper.  We ended the day with 2 fish.  One red snapper and one smaller mingo snapper. 

   
     

     

Tuesday:

Day 2 was a whole lot better.  It was a livelier bunch of people which made it fun too.  Oh yeah, and we didn't go out at 4:00 a.m. either and that helped a lot.  We even took my girlfriend.  Luckily, day two had a bunch less boats.  So that was nice.  We went looking for the fish at a couple of different wrecks and managed to find them all over the place.  We sit at a spot for a few minutes and pull a bunch of fish off it then hit up another.  After we caught our limit of red snapper we even trolled around to bring some more meat home.

   

Wednesday:

We woke up on day three to bad weather.  So we waited it out for a while and when we thought it was clear we headed out.  As it turns out, we did not wait long enough.  As soon as we hit the pass the rain started and the rough seas started kicking our asses.  We didn't feel like putting up with it for too long so we actually headed back in pretty early.  The rain picked up even more on our way in so we stopped at A.J.s for lunch and drinks.  Even still, we didn't come home completely empty handed... We still did better than Monday.

Thursday:

Health day...

Friday:

It was just me, Matt, and my girlfriend for day 4.  We did very good.  The weather was awesome and the fishing was better.  We didn't catch our limit, but the fish we caught were donkeys!  It was pretty sweet.  Unfortunately the seas didn't want to cooperate and the waves were out of control.  So it was tough fishing and we called it with a pretty good catch nonetheless.

Saturday:

Saturday was the pinnacle!  It was me and Matt of course, but we also brought along my girlfriend and her three friends.  So it was a rough day out there.  Ha!  Mostly calm waves, sunny...it was great!  Again, not the best as far as numbers was concerned, but even bigger fish.  Courtney reeled in this awesome red grouper, I caught a huge red snapper and my girlfriend landed a lane snapper that we should have had weighed cause it was close to a world record.  

Unfortunately I don't have the pictures after Tuesday back just yet.  It was a great week.  No work tons of fish...it was awesome!

En Tequila Es Verdad

Well friends, you might think from the title that I am cheating on my old friend beer, but that is only partially true.  We have developed sort of a symbiotic relationship.  As we all know, beer is full of delicious gut-making calories.  Since I have been trying to maintain my girlish figure, I have decided to stop drinking beer at home as much as possible.  I know what you are all thinking, and don't worry, I will still be able to write...just sober.  Ha! Gotcha... No, I'll be using other means.  

Now I have tried to take a page out of my roommates book and drink "Beam-eronies" but I am not a huge bourbon fan so that didn't work out.  Straight vodka is pretty good but wicked expensive when you take into account the need for the top shelf stuff and lemons.  So that leaves chick drinks and tequila.  Up till recently that was a nauseating thought.

Let me take you all on an adventure that took place a little over 7 years ago.  I was dilligently working on my degree at the University of Arizona (I know you are all thinking about how I misspelled diligently, but hell, I got kicked out of the school for a reason...).  It was Halloween night and I was working on a pretty good swerve.  Out of nowhere come these two Mexicans fresh across the border carrying two large bottles of liquor.  Me being fluent in drunken Spanglish decided it was my duty to go talk to them (read: drink of their bottles).  I say "hellola" to the first bottle, I mean guy and take a drink...my first taste of Southern Comfort (very good in a Mind Grinder(beer, orange juice, and a shot of soco)). Mexican #2 holds up Senor Jose... I tilt the bottle with no need of salt or lime.  He decides to stop me when he feels I am taking too much of his precious bottle.  30 minutes later I am being poured into my friends Javelin by a gorilla and an ear of corn.  Next thing I remember is a rather large hairy dude in a pink dress and a blonde wig screaming "My belly..." at the top of his lungs whilst holding the hem of his dress over his head.

Since that day for some reason unbeknownst to me, I have not been the biggest fan of tequila.  This all changed after my trip to Key West (more to come on that).  A local their ordered what he called a Mexican Sunset.  In all actuality, a Mexican Sunset is my Mind Grinder minus the SoCo...that was our own addition.  His version is more of a really retarded version of a Salty Dog; tequila and grapefruit juice.  After showing my disgust, he made me try it and it turns out I like it a lot!  Just not enough to pay for it at a bar...

Hence where the symbiotic relationship between beer and tequila comes into play.  When I am out drinking, I'll stick with the cheaper beer.  But when I am at home I'll go with the yummy Mexican Salty Sunset Dog-thingy...it's like healthy and stuff!  Jose Cuervo you are a friend of mine, I'd like to drink you with a little-uh grapefruit juice?  Eh, Shelly West won't mind a little creative bastardization.

Up Yours, Amateur Economists!

I sit here with my two favorite thigs in front of me- A 32oz Bud Light (FL doesn't sell 40oz) and a second so the first doesn't get lonely. Apply the proper lubrication to the sheer boredom of being lonely and it equals your favorite and mine, blog time. One would think, since it has been forever since I have written, that I have neither been bored nor drunk in a long time. This however, is not the case...I have been very drunk and very bored very recently (are you allowed to use the same word 3 times in one sentence?). It just so happens luckily for me and not you that they have not coincided. Insert tonight...primed and ready, I shall expound on the one thing that has been on my mind for the last few weeks...sex. No wait, that is always there. Un-assing the Air Force! That is it!
I have 294 days to go until I sit down in front of my computer and listen to Tamil Radio Online (www.fmworldmusic.com) and spark up a fatty. Not that I have and real burning desire to really smoke pot as I hate the smell, but the Air Force has forbidden it and I am kind of in a mood to go against whatever the AF is for for a bit... I don't want people to get the wrong idea here. I do not regret the time I spent in the AF. I have grown a lot as a person and met some kick ass people. It is however, time to move on. Recently, everyday at work seems to have reinforced this sentiment. For the most part, everyone I have told about my plan to terminate my enlistment has been pretty cool. A handful though can't seem to keep from telling me how terrible the economy is and how shitty it is "out there". I love this statement! "Out There"... As if I live in a world free from monetary obligations. Do they think we are party to a different set of rules because we wear a cool outfit? Who knows!
All of this compounds even further when I tell them I am passing up a $75K bonus to get out... However, while sitting at the bar tonight I did some quick calculations and came up with some startling numbers. After taxes, (I went low at 30% cause...well, I was at a bar. Give me a break) it breaks down to around $8750 a year, $730 a month and an earth shattering $24 a day. I know what you are all saying..."I'd take $24 a day..." But lets take that even further. As I sit here drunk writing, my phone could ring and I could be called into work. So yes, I work 24/7. That means we are talking $1 an hour! Anybody up for another 0300 (3:00 am for you non-military folk) recall to be at work in an hour just to make sure we can?
I am by far not the only one planning on telling the Air Force to shove their $1 an hour either. My coworker Sean W. and I were talking earlier today about it. We were discussing filing the pipe-dream paperwork that would allow us to get out 120 days early to go to school. I brought up the fact that maybe the extra 4 months savings would be nice (like I am saving...Ha!). He made the point that the little savings that would be accrued would not make much of a difference. I like the way he thought until he told me he has been saving $500 a month since he has been in and now has around $40,000! After I picked my jaw up off the floor I began thinking how pathetic I must be that my savings account has a minuscule negative $3 in it (it was an expensive month, give me a break). This thought vexed me for the next few hours.
It wasn't until after I canceled plans with one girl to go out with another that I began to change my thinking. Sure, I may not have any money in the bank or any real material possessions to show for my 7 years in the Air Force, but I have a lot of miles on my body. I have had more fun in the last 7 years than most people have had in a lifetime! Sean can keep his World of Warcraft and his $40K. If we go back 7 years and find out that my reason to join the military was arrant boredom, then I would say I fulfilled my goals! Sure, having school finished and money in the bank would be pretty sweet, but what would have been the point?
When it comes down to it, I have had a lot of fun. I have drank my way through most of the US and over 24 countries spanning 5 continents! I'll have to vacation to Australia and Antarctica doesn't count. All in all, I am very pleased about my experiences, but I would still not consider staying in. Flying is inherently dangerous and I have been lucky to not be injured or killed or to have to bury one of my friends. You know there are people out there who are actively trying to kill me (no I did not sleep with their girlfriend)? Getting shot at is not fun...especially when you can't shoot back. No my friends, it is time to move on. I know I still have just under 300 days left, but God willing it will go quickly. Wish me luck in my future endeavors and I promise to try and get bored and drunk more often!