Spring Cleaning In Dec.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm a hoarder. With the crappie weather lately we have not taken the balloon out so I thought I would clean up my garage. I have my wood working tools and my rock blasting stuff out there and I have the bad habit of doing one project and switching over to another project without cleaning up my mess from the first one until I'm tripping over all kinds of stuff out there and have no room left to do any thing else. I don't have any where to put what I have so I rearrange my stuff in a neat order until I use something which is usually in the back of everything else that I've stacked up so I have to unstack stuff which I leave laying about however I unstack it and have a mess again. It is a never ending cycle.
 I got the garage rearranged and stuff stacked real neat and was bored so I decided to tackle my closet. My closet isn't like a normal persons closet I have no clothes in there but I do have stuff in there. I use to have the bad habit of collecting stuff that was hot at the time and I was gonna get rich. About the time I bought it the price would fall out of the market and I was stuck with it so I just held onto to my collectible stuff until it is collectible again but the sad thing is they ain't collectible again. Like those damn TY Beanie Baby's I have a whole bunch of those things in that closet. When McDonald's came out with the little Beanie Baby's back in the 90's I ate I don't know how many damn burgers just so I could buy one of them little beanie babie's until I collected the whole dang set. That's probably why I'm having heart attacks now, anyway I have 3 whole sets of those little bastards by the time I collected the whole set of them they weren't worth anything. I have some bigger ones also same thing they ain't worth nothing so I just look at them and cuss.
 Remember when those damn Furby's first came out in 1998? I do because it was around Christmas time and they were selling for over $100.00 on EBay. Well I was going to get rich off those little bastards I searched and searched and found a place that would sell me all I wanted for $50.00 apiece so I bought 7 of them. When the dang little furry SOB'S came in the mail the company that made them release a whole dang shipment of them and flooded the market with them, the price at the store was $19.95 a piece for them so the bottom fell out on them for me also. I lost my ass on those too but I still have them in the closet.

I have a Phillips 66 Truck Bank in the box.

Remember the Budweiser Frog's I've got them to.

Let's not forget the M&M radio in the box. He wiggles and shakes when the radio is playing but it has never been used.

I have a ton of Joe Camel stuff also. I don't know how many Joe Camel Zippo's I have back there in my closet I just looked at them this time didn't count them. I've got a remote control R2D2 still in the box from the 90's in there I even found some 16 gauge shotgun shells back in there which they havn't made in a long time. I just rearranged everything so it looks neat until I get something out of there then it will be a mess again.
After I was through in my closet I tackled the spare bedroom with all my photography stuff. Did I tell you about my glass cutter for my picture frames I make. When I made my first frame I went to Lowe's and had them cut my glass for me and it dawned on me that this could run into some money having them cut glass for me.I fell in love with that great big ole hunk of metal glass cutting machine they had hanging in there. I buy me one of those little hand held glass cutters but I just couldn't get the hang of it so I got mad and bought me a glass cutter that takes up one whole wall of that bedroom. Damn that thing can sure cut glass. I rearrange stuff in there and it looks neat again until I need something from in there also. I made it into the computer room today and the closet in here is a trove of vintage Cd's from AOL from the 90's that for some reason I just kept never used them but I kept them. I have windows 95 install disks all the way up to Windows 7. Games I still have all the games that I had over the years and enough parts to build a computer all the way back to the old 486 probably. I even have a complete Compaq 66M computer from the early 90's with monitor and a complete Compaq 4/33I from April 30th 1993. The pricing for a 3/33i back in 1992.
A Deskpro 3/33i Model 120 (all of the above features plus a 33-megahertz i386DX chip and a 120-megabyte hard drive) will have a list price of $1,979, Compaq said. A Deskpro 4/33i Model 210 (i486DX-33 and a 210MB hard disk) will cost $2,549 a lot of money back then.
After looking in that closet and seeing some of whats in there I decided to wait awhile before I tackle that.
 It has came to the point that its time to get rid of stuff. I'm thinking about donating the Beanie Baby's and some other things to a hospital if they will take them, put other stuff on eBay and just get me some more room. My collecting days are over.
Think I'll go see what else needs rearranging.

Kattie

Kattie went to join her family in doggy heaven this morning.

Dogs

I don't know why I get so attached to animals I treat them like they are my own damn kids and love them as such. I hurt when they hurt and will stay up all night with them when they are sick. They give so much but ask for so little and are by your side no matter how much you chew their butts out for doing something destructive, they love you.
 Back in 1992 we got this dog for the daughter. The daughter was getting at the age where boys looked better than the dog so me and ole "Smoke" that's what we called him because his coat looked "smoky" me and ole smoke hung around together at night and became real close. He would set in my lap all night long and I got to love that ole dog, we where pards.
 Ole Smoke was getting a little age on him and was such a great dog we decided to find him a mate and find him a mate we did. I drove all the way to Dime Box,TX to get Kattie the love of his life. They hit it off real well and Kattie wasn't quite a year old when ole smoke nailed her and she was pregnant in a very short time, we thought that she was to young to have pups and really didn't think she could get pregnant but she did so in a little while we had pups out the ass around here chewing up brand new shoes, furniture and towels god I can't take all these damn dogs tearing the house all up. So we are gonna sell all but one of these pups and get back to a little normal.
 You have 9 pups and 2 people trying to pick just one cute puppy guess what it ain't gonna happen I wanted this black boy dog and she wanted this black female dog. Guess what, we kept both of them and so the journey of the 4 dog household began.
 Ole Smoke passed way at the age of 16 from a heart attack and it felt like part of me died with him. He was family and for the longest time when I walked into the house it felt so empty I loved that ole dog.
  We called the male pup Bear and the female Little Bit because she was the runt of the litter
Ole Bear dog was around 10 years old when he got cancer and had to be put down.That was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. We took him in because he looked constipated he wasn't in any pain he was running and having a good time that morning just being his old self. The news was that he was ate up with cancer and had this big knot blocking his intestines and he couldn't go to the bathroom anymore so it had to be done we had to put him down. We left the vet in a state of shock we just lost our ole Bear dog.  He was a great dog he loved everyone and at times he just needed to be assured he was loved and would climb up in your lap and take a nap with you. He was the guard dog of the back yard and look out squirrels he loved chasing them.
 Little Bit was the runt of the litter and turn out to be the love of my life, me and that dog went and did everything together. I didn't really have to teacher her anything it was like when she started to do something bad and I got on to her that was the end of that she wouldn't do again. I would go out in my wood shop and look over at the table I had setting outside and she would be on it guarding the place and god help anyone that came walking up. She would give them hell she never bit anyone but she would give them a good barking until I told her enough. She loved riding in the truck and just loved life in general.  She was her own little self. She didn't liked to be held or petted that much she just wanted to hang around you and listen to what you had to say and see what was going on. She wouldn't let anyone touch her but if we were setting outside she would lay between us and listen to what was going on she liked to be around people but not interact with them.The day after I came home from the hospital after having a heart attack she feel over with a heart attack  around the age of 11. My little girl died and went to doggy heaven.
Now we have Kattie, poor ole girl is 17 years old now and is going into congestive heart failure and will not be with us much longer. She has missed Smoke,Bear,and Lil Bit since they died as much as we have and her and I have a special bond now. I sat up with her last night till around 1:00 and the wife took over guard duty. I'm setting here with heavy heart knowing that in a very short time my family of dogs that have been in our lives for all these years will come to an end.This is the first time I have talked about these dogs since they have passed it just hurt to much to talk about them and it still does. 
Did I tell you I love my ole dogs and I will miss every one of them for a long time to come?

Lil Bit setting on her table

 Smoke at 15 years old

 Ole Bear

I have to find a picture of Kattie.

Hydroponics

I haven't quit on my hydroponic plants, in fact my pepper plant has more peppers on it than any pepper plant I've ever grown and another thing I've noticed is the peppers seem hotter grown by the hydroponic system than in the garden. This plant was grown from some seeds I had laying around so I just threw them in some dirt to see if they would germinate and grow. My best guess is they are Peter Peppers but something happened to the peter part of them, its like they havn't been circumcised yet. I put this plant in the hydroponic bucket in the middle of Sept.when it was about 10 inches tall and when it started getting as big as I wanted it in the hydroponic system I added blooming fertilizer to it to make it start blooming and it went crazy with blooms. 

                               This plant is loaded with peppers and still is getting blooms.

 

 

 This is my light setup I threw together. I've had these lights setting out in the garage for a few months thinking I would build a frame for the lights but hell no I waited till the night that its going to freeze to

throw something together to hook the lights up with. It ain't fancy but it will work until I can figure out where my plants will live for the winter and then make a plan on the light set up. I'll probably go with an 8 bulb T5 system instead of this setup.

 8 bulb T5 system

One thing I like about this 5 gallon bucket set up is the ease of taking indoors in the really cold weather unhook two hoses and take the bucket in and then bring the pump in and hook the two hoses up plug it in and your good to go.

 See that pitiful looking plant in the black bucket That is a tomato plant that has been through hell and back a couple of times. I had 2 big tomato plants in my 18 gallon totes and this limb broke off when I was messing with the damn plant showing it to someone so I stick it in this five gallon hydroponic bucket. This tomato plant started growing and looking great. Then we had some high winds come through blowing like hell, I looked out side and this dang plant was laying out in the yard naked as a jay bird and I think to myself that ain't right so I go put and have a look at it and its broke smooth off at the base. I go and get the roots and stub of this plant out of the 5 gallon bucket it was in and replant it. When you replant these plants they look like hell for about a week until their root system starts kicking in and then they start growing and looking great again,that is what happened to this one, it started looking good again and our first really cold front came through and the weather guys tell me its not going to freeze that night so I just let stay outside. We had a flight to do the next morning so I'm out the door at around 5:30 that morning and what the hell is that on my wind shield, I believe that's a real nice thick coat of ice, them lying bastards I get home and the tips of that poor ole tomato plant are brown, they got frost bitten and looks pretty bad. Just for the heck of it I'm leaving it the bucket and see what happens.

I'm still kicking

I came back from Terlingua earlier than I wanted to I came down with something and didn't do hardly anything out there but feel bad. I didn't even see the Shelby Mustangs. I worked around the place some and felt so bad I just came home and stayed sick most of Oct. The Doc thanks its allergy's cause I get it every year around this time
 I did kill me a Rattler in my drive out there scared the hell out of me. I know some of you folks likes snakes but I can't stand Rattle snakes they scare the hell out of me I almost picked one up when I was little and have hated them ever since. I was pulling into the drive and he was just laying there looking at me. I back up and and went around to the other drive and go up to the place I get my gun and head back down the road and dang it he wasn't there I thought I had lost him and started looking off to the side of the road and there he was about 10 feet off the road just stretched out there. I take one step off the road and he jerked around coiled up and ready to strike in a blink of an eye I take aim and blow his dang head right off damn that gave me the hebbie jebbies. If you ever killed one of these you know they wiggle around for a long time even without a head. I just leave him there and was gonna come back in a little while when he quit moving and cut the rattles off. I go off and do some work and come back in about an hour and the damn thing was gone. Something wanted him more than I did.

I can always count on my ole friend porky coming bye. I can be doing something around the place and look up and ole porky is giving me the old I'm hungry look. I don't know why he is so friendly but we have hung around together for a few years now and I feel sorry for him, he is getting old and the others won't let him eat when they are around. I can tell him apart from the others because he is lighter than they are. I guess he is getting gray hair.

So I put some corn out around the feeder and set back and wait for all his kinfolk to stop bye for some supper.

Everything was green and grown up. It looked like I haven't been out there in years. I had to break out the weed eater and cut weeds for 2 days. That might be where my allergy's got stirred up. This is looking out my front door before I cut it I don't know why I didn't take an after pic of it. I like it cut real close to the ground around the house so I don't step on a dang snake.

I get home and really don't feel like doing much so I kick back for a few days and start to feel better.  I figure I would down load the pictures I took out there and about half way through down loading them this damn little window pops up and tells me I'm out of disk space, I said dad gum it and said to heck with it. I sure didn't feel like installing another hard drive at the time so I just let it set for awhile. 

  We had a lot of balloon rides for the month of Oct. and had one wedding in the basket which led me in another direction I had no idea I would head.The minister that was going to marry the couple couldn't make it and they asked me if I could marry them I have never been asked that question before so it kind of set a light bulb off in this ole fried brain of mine, maybe I can do this. I tell them let me see what I can do and I would get back with them. I get on line and look around for awhile and all of a sudden by God I'm an Ordained Minister and I can marry you right now. 

 Well hell they found someone before I could get back to them with the news that I can marry them so I'm setting here waiting to do my first marriage. 

If you see some guy walking around with a lighting rod don't worry its just me I don't need no dang lighting bolt coming out of the sky and striking me until I get the hang of this Ordained Minister title.

We took the Scott Felder balloon out to the F1 races Sunday and did some advertising while the cars buzzed around the track

and that just about catches me up. 

GONE TO TERLINGUA

I'm heading out in the morning to Terlingua and some much needed Terlingua time see y'all when I get back. Maybe I'll have something to post for a change when I get back or while I'm out there.










 

I GIVE UP

This heart shit is getting old. I've just about come to the point of saying to hell with the frigging doctors and just let what happens happen I'm tired of all of it.
 I go to the hospital thinking I'm gonna get another stint and all will be well again, HELL NO I don't get another stint, my system is different than most peoples, my body has to do weird shit to get everybody excited but me. I'm laying on the operating table with my heart Doc showing me my artery's and where the last 2 stints were put in last year and how nice they were doing,he says to me ,"see how nice the blood is flowing through here" and I say why yes that sure is nice. He then points out this other artery and tells me this is the one I told you was 40% clogged but as you can see its flowing real good through that blockage and I say why yes it is, so he says while I'm in here I'm going to run a wire up into that artery and see what the blood pressure is on each side of that blockage and we will know for sure that is not your problem He says he needs to put my heart under some stress and I my feel a little discomfort. We get started and sombitch my chest is burning like hell and I'm curling into a fetal position and can't breath for crap, I'm having a damn heart attack and the doc says to his sidekick did you see that all excited and then looks at me and wants to know if I'm OK which I tell him hell no I'm not OK I'm having a damn heart attack, they give me some nitro and put me under some more stress and bam I'm having another heart attack and the doc is all excited asking his side kick if he saw that again and gives me some more nitro. The last place you would think your doctor would be like a kid in a candy store is when he is all up in your heart, he says to me look at this all excited, they recorded all of this so I get to see a replay of what got him and his side kick all excited, he says look at this artery below that 40% blocked one and I study it and it looks like a nice healthy artery just pumping away and then all of sudden it just looks like its empty for a few seconds and then fills up and is pumping again. He says that I'm having a spasm that shuts the artery down for a few seconds and then opens back up causing a heart attack. I'm thinking now if this ain't the shits, I just developed this problem here on the table because I damn sure wasn't having that kind of chest pains when I complained about not being able to breath the past few months but he says that just might be the problem and I say I wasn't having heart attacks when I came in and he says it was the stress he put my heart under that gave me the heart attacks now I'm thinking this guy is full of shit and he goes ahead telling me we can control the spasms with pills, more damn pills to take. They get out of my heart and are cleaning up when his side kick tells me that he had only seen in books and on video what my heart was doing on that table. I ask how long has he been doing this heart stuff and he tells me thirty years.Thirty friggin years and this is the first time he has ever seen this happen in real time that's just great they ought to pay me.
 I get my pills the next day and the wife starts reading all the side effects of this drug off to me, headaches,dizziness, your man parts will fall off and start growing out your forehead and a ton more side affects if you know what I mean. Then she starts reading what will happen if I quit taking them ,I tell her I ain't taking it that I would rather die. Later that day she convinces me to take it. Holy crap right off the bat I get a headache and then the next morning I wake up like I have the flu, all my joints and muscles hurt and I still have a head ache and can't breath very good. I sleep most all day not knowing if I have the flu or if its those damn pills so I take another that night and wake up the next day feeling like hell and sleeping most of the day in my chair with the TV on thinking I'm sick I take another that night and tossed and turned all night with my muscles aching the next morning still with the headache and muscles hurting like heck I'm starting to think its those damn pills knocking me on my butt instead of being sick so I tell the wife last night I ain't taking no more of those damn pills that they are killing me and that if I'm gonna die by not taking them at least I'll feel good when I die and not be sick as hell when I do so I quit taking them last night and slept like a baby and feel a hell of a lot better. Those are some brutal pills.
The pills did nothing for my breathing which is what I went in for so I'm right back where I started.

Another Stint

I have not felt like doing much for the past couple of months and then my breathing started going away and now I can't even tie my shoes without gasping for air so I go back into the hospital tomorrow for I hope another stint so I can get back to normal. This crap is getting old this is the 3rd stint in a year. The doc is getting rich off of me an I'm getting to feel good a couple of months before he gets another 100,000 for a stint. This ain't fun and I'm getting tired of it.

 I hope when I get out of the hospital I'll feel a lot better and get back to my blog.

What a week

It's been crazy around here, about the time it couldn't get any more crazy something else happens. That headstone I made for that little couple It was for the wife's brother that had died of a overdose in which they say he was poisoned instead of a drug overdose I don't know what the hell happened to the guy but he is dead.
 I had them over to draw up how she wanted the headstone to look like and everything was spelled right so if its wrong its their fault.
 I had that happen on another headstone I did for someone, luckily I had them call and leave a message on my answering machine on how they wanted it spelled and the times on it. I blasted that damn rock and they came to pick it up and right off the bat they say I put the wrong date on it. I bring them in the house and play the message he left, after listening to the message he asks me to blast anther stone for them that he had messed up on the date. I cover my butt on the rocks, I don't like spending all day on a job for nothing.
 Back to my story,after I finished that headstone for the little couple I called and let them know that it was ready they came over and picked it up on June 24th., he was all yes sir and no sir and seemed like a real nice kid and they loved the rock. Well I get a call Thursday the 27th and am told that he was shot and killed real early Thursday morning. So I might be making another headstone. I feel sorry for that young girl to lose a brother and her husband in 8 days and the crazy thing about all this is they both died within a block of each other and on the same street. 


When I started taking pictures with digital camera's some turned out half way decent and I wanted to put them in picture frames, well the prints my printer spit out was the wrong size for the store bought frames so I get the wild hair to make me my own picture frames. These wild hairs I get they get expensive at times and this was one of those times. Luckily I had the saws for making the frames from another wild hair I got some years back so all I needed was glass and a matte cutter. I found the matte cutter on Craigslist for around $100.00 so all I needed was a glass cutter so off I go to Lowe's and buy me a hand held glass cutter I bought the higher end one they had since I had tried cutting glass before with a cheap one and it just made me cuss a lot it didn't work. Guess what the higher end one don't cut any better so I get mad I ought to know by now I shouldn't go shopping mad. I get online and search for glass cutters I see all kinds of hand held cutters and just can't get it out of my mind that big ass glass cutter they had at Lowe's, that sucker was about 6 foot wide and 4 or 5 ft tall and cut glass like butter now that is one hell of a glass cutter, guess what I have on my wall that takes up the whole damn wall, yep one of them big ass glass cutters and it works great. It came with some attachments that I can cut matte board with and plexie glass also. Its a glass cutting sumbitch.

When I went out to the ranch this last time I had met Amado Pena the artist so I figure I'll buy a couple of prints. That's all I can afford after buying that big ass glass cutter. I made me some frames for them out of old fence pickets I have them framed but have no place to put them right now.

BEN WOODS

Today is 1 year since my ole buddy Ben Woods passed away. I still have his blog "An Older Texan Remembers" on my blogs that I follow list. I go to it at times just to remember Ole Ben. I knew Ben from the 80's when I lived in Alpine Tx. we had some good times together with him and his wife Ann. It doesn't seem like its been a year since his passing, he is missed.

                                                    R.I.P. Ole Friend



 I haven't felt like writing much for about a month now I have some things going on in my life right now that I'm dealing with and and I just don't feel like writing hopefully things will start getting better in a month or so. I will probably be moving out to my place in Terlingua pretty soon and starting a new life out there. I don't have anything left here in Austin to keep me here and I'm ready to get the hell out of this hell hole.

Ballooning has been all but dead around here because of the wind so I've blasted a few stones for some people. I try to help people out that don't have a lot of money and can't afford to buy a headstone. I've been lucky so for from people giving me the stones to make the headstones out of and save some people a lot of money.  When I bought this setup headstones was the last thing I thought I'd be doing with it.This one is solid marble 3 inches thick, 3 feet long, and 2 feet tall and it weighs a ton. It took 4 of us to get it in my blast cabinet.

I took down all my hydro ponic stuff ,it is getting way to hot for the shallow water tubs I had and I'm starting to down size for the move so they had to come down. I will say one thing I did learn is once the tomato's started getting big they start using a hell of a lot of water. I was putting 6 - 8 gallons of water in that one 18 gallon tote every other day just before I took it down.

ROT RALLY

Well the ole Rot Rally is back in town this weekend so I won't say much just post some pictures.

Back Again

Made another trip out to Terlingua for a birthday party and some other things that I'll talk about in the future.
One thing I've learned about going out there is you never know who you are going to meet. I went to that birthday party and right off the bat I meet Amado Peña, if you don't know who he is you can check him out here "Amado Peña". He is one heck of an artist. Turns out he went through school with the lady who was having the birthday party and he came for her party.

Diana is one nice lady,Ive been going to her party's for a few years now and they are always great. She rents the whole dang place and has food and a live band each year for her birthday. This year it was at the Bad Rabbit cafe down at Terlingua Ranch.

I worked some more on Yucca Flats and it looks like the wild donkeys like pretty well it looks like they hung around for awhile and had a lot of fun rolling around in the dirt. Every time I think I'm done with that place I see something else that would look better if I cleared it out some more.

                         I thought that it would look better if I cleared out around this yucca.

So I ran over the brush with my 4-wheeler to knock it down and make sure there aren't any critters that might want to bite me and then I grabbed my pick and rake and went to town on that damn brush.

Now that looks better doesn't it.

                I have some more that I knocked down and will clean up on my next trip out there.

I plan on cleaning out all around that tree and have a little more shade for someone camping out there.

I need to blast a sign that will advertise my Yucca Flats Camping Area and put a couple of picnic tables out there and I should be done. Who knows I might make a dollar once a year from someone or group wanting to have their own private camp site in the middle of nowhere with mountains all around them..