10 years ago today, deep in a Costa Rican rainforest, on the side of an active volcano, at the foot of a towering waterfall (sheese, that’s a lot of prepositional phrases in one sentence) my lovely wife and I were married.
I love you more, most, and it’s science. Happy anniversary, baby.
(which is why blogging has been sporadic-to-non-existent — we’re in the midst of a week-long celebration with each other and our family)
Happy New’s Year eve, ya’ll.
Headline above via The Lonely Conservative:
A progressive laments how they have taken over our culture, yet Americans have still failed to embrace their destructive economic policies. If only we were more like Europe, we’d have found utopia!
Her post is in reference to this post by Mandy Van Deven at Salon.com:
In two centuries, the movement’s history in America is plagued by failure.
In the book, you argue that the left has been very successful at changing American culture — but not at making real economic or political change. Why?
It’s easier to get people to think about things differently than it is to construct institutions that alter the basic building blocks of society. When leftists talk about having a vision of how things might be different, they attract an audience and create a new way of perceiving things. It’s a different issue altogether to go up against entrenched structures of wealth and political power. There are few obstacles to talking differently, singing different kinds of songs, or making a different kind of art, but it takes a sustained movement of millions of people to really change the structures, and that is much harder to organize. Also, most Americans accept the basic ground rules of capitalist society. The ideas are that if you work hard you can get ahead and that it’s better to be self-employed than employed by the people. They believe that the basics of a capitalist society are just or can be made just with small alterations. Americans want capitalism to work well for everybody, which is somewhat of a contradiction in terms since capitalism is about people competing with each other to get ahead, and everyone’s not going to be able to do well at the same time. That’s simply not possible.
Why has the left in Europe been so much more successful at making real change?
The left in Europe arises out of a more traditional class structure, and the left parties there were formed on the basis on those class divisions. Most European countries had feudal societies before they transformed into nation-states. When those societies became capitalist, they retained many of the old divisions both in terms of people’s consciousness and in terms of the new social structure. Peasants and lords became workers and employers. So, the parties there tended to fall along class lines much more than in the United States, and people growing up on either side of the class boundary fueled the movements on the left. Even though the differences between the labor or socialist parties and the centrist or right-wing parties have diminished over time, the vision of a socialist society is still alive in many European countries. In America, however, socialism and communism were never more than marginal beliefs. …
Except that “saving” or even “helping” a school district is not what the unions care about. All the unions care about are the unions, specifically growing their bank accounts.
Via Betsy’s Page:
I just wanted to add in this report from Byron York about the Kaukauna school district in Wisconsin and how they’re seeing immediate savings from the end to collective bargaining with the teachers union. As I reported below, the school district has now gone from a $400,000 deficit to a $1.5 million surplus. A lot of that is because of the contributions that the school employees will have to make to their pensions and the increase from 10% to 12.6% contribution to their health coverage. But school employees claim that they would have made those concessions without having to give up collective bargaining if those evil Republicans had been willing to negotiate. It was just Governor Walker’s rabid desire to kill the teachers unions that led to the impasse.
I’ve been meaning to put up a post about my new tattoo (second sitting was in March), but haven’t gotten around to it until now.
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I got my first tattoo when I was 28 years old — a generic tribal armband that was ubiquitous back when I got it done. I might have been a little drunk at the time.
I knew I wanted another tattoo, just didn’t know what I wanted. So I waited. And waited some more. Finally, nearly 14 years later I got my second, a half-sleeve portrait of a male gorilla from Mike DeVries in Northridge, CA.
The tattoo took two sittings, about 8-9 hours worth of ink each sitting. Mike thinks he has 4-5 more hours of work to tighten it up some, but it will be several more months before I can make a third trip out to LA to finish it (this tattoo has cost a small fortune).
During our first sitting, Mike and I spent about an hour going through a bunch of gorilla images until we finally found one I really liked that conveyed the profile of strength and wisdom that I was looking for. Here is the original photograph, photoshopped by Mike to get the colors and contrast that we liked:
Initially, I was going in for a much smaller portrait piece — 7″ or so — that could be completed in one long day. However, once Mike saw the size of my arm (I have huge guns) and that it was a blank canvas, we talked about doing a half-sleeve epic piece. Mike said it’s the largest gorilla portrait that he’s done.
Here’s the stencil Mike drew based on that drawing:
Somehow or another all of those lines meant something to him, and he could envision all of the colors and textures he’d apply to ‘em.
At the end of the first 9-hour sitting in February, which consisted of finding an image, photoshopping it, drawing a stencil, and mapping it in, here is the mapping:
I went back about a month later for the second 9-hour sitting, and here is the nearly finished piece:
Mike is an absolute genius, and nobody does realism tattoo art quite like he does. I couldn’t be any happier with the results.
Of course, the first question I always get is, “Why a gorilla?”
It symbolizes primal me. Yep. That’s me on my arm; a self-portrait of sorts. In my CrossFit training, I strive for and train for what Zach Even-Esh calls “gorilla strength,” in this article Train Like a Gorilla, Eat Like a Gorilla. Striving for a more primal lifestyle (eating primal/paleo, gorilla strength training, barefoot running, etc.) has resulted in tremendous gains (in strength and fitness) and huge losses (in weight: down 31 lbs since February).
I’ve always been freakishly strong (despite being one of the older athletes training at my CrossFit box, I’m one of the few athletes who trains there with an +1100 lb CrossFit Total), but living primal has taken it to some impressive PRs in strenght, despite the weight loss.
So, I knew I wanted a gorilla tattoo to remind me to continue striving to lead a primal life, now and always. And when I googled “gorilla tattoo” and found this image from Mike’s gallery, I knew I had to have a DeVries original on my body:
My tattoo will be a gorilla portrait similar (but different) than this one.
No blogging for the next 24 hours or so, as I’m flying back out to Los Angeles this morning to get my tattoo finished by Mike DeVries at his studio in Northridge.
Mike worked on it for 10 hours (that’s a long, long sitting) last month, but it’s a much bigger piece than I had originally anticipated getting done, so it’s going to take another sitting to get it finished.
I’ll post a picture of the completed piece once I get home on Wednesday.
In the meantime, here’s some stuff to read and discuss:
2010 has been a year that a lot of people are probably happy to have behind them. So here’s hoping that 2011 is a better year for everybody.
My year, other than fretting about the direction that Obama/Pelosi/Reid were taking our country, was a good year. And tonight it will end on a high note, with a house full of family — both of my brothers and their families, filled with food, drinks, games, and loud fireworks.
Also, 9 years ago today, beneath a 200′ waterfall on the side of an active volcano, deep in the Costa Rican rain forest, my sweetheart and I exchanged vows and she became my lovely wife, and I became the happiest man alive.
Talk about your memorable New Year’s Eve. Happy anniversary, baby — I love you the most.
Where I'll be for the next 5 days...
Got my toes in the water, ass in the sand; not a worry in the world a cold beer in my hand; life is good today. Life is good today…
Me and my lovely missus spent all day on the road yesterday getting the hell outta Austin and getting our butts down to South Padre Island for 5 days of much needed R&R.
I’ll probably do a little light blogging in the evenings once we get back in…but not much. So ya’ll be nice to one another.
Just discovered a fantastic new (to me)blog, House of Eratosthenes, written by an IT professional in Sacramento named Morgan.
I spent a good part of yesterday evening reading all of the posts in his side bar section titled Items of Interest (of which there were many).
One of them, which I’m going to steal the idea for a post of my own, is his post “Things That Make Me Smile,” which Morgan introduces thusly:
I have just about had it with things in general lately, and I doubt like hell I’m alone. I thought it would be just as therapeutic for other folks to read the following, as it would be for me to jot ‘em down.
It’s in that same spirit that I offer my own list of “Things That Make Me Smile” in a world otherwise gone ape shit (some of the things that make Morgan smile, happen to also make me smile — like guns and beer):
Dogs – I love my big ol’ dogs. Angus, our oldest Great Dane, is affectionately called “Grumpy Old Man,” while his younger brother Jersey, is — well, retarded. Which means that he does something to make us laugh at him on an almost daily basis. I love running and playing with ‘em out in the hills and canyons behind our house — their athleticism and boundless energy is an amazing thing to watch.
Guns – Putting rounds down range makes me as happy as anything in the world. The heft of a finely crafted handgun that feels like it was custom made for your hand (because it was), the focus of lining up your sights on a spot the size of a nickle, the controlled breathing and steady finger pull, the recoil as the barrel bucks back and up, and then bringing the sights right back onto target to do it again in less than a second… It’s hard to think about anything else when you’re at the range. And that’s fine by me.
Good, cold beer — Few things are more pleasurable in life then sucking down an ice cold beer after toiling in the hot sun. And if the beer is cold enough and I’m hot enough, the beer doesn’t even have to be anything special; an ice cold Miller High Life after mowing the grass on a muggy July Texas morning is nearly heaven.
Good whiskey — whether it be Scotch, bourbon, or Irish. I drink mine nearly neat (just add two cubes of ice). Power’s Irish Whiskey is my favorite daily sipping whiskey. Sitting out on the front porch sipping a whiskey, watching the sun set while the dogs run around chasing rabbits never fails to fix what ails me, and always makes me smile.
Golfing with my buddies — The three other guys who comprise our normal foursome have been my close friends since I was a kid in junior high school. We’ve been telling the same lies and stories so often that we no longer remember if truth from the embellishments. And when we’re out on the golf course, drinking cold beers, and telling those same old stories, nothing else seems to matter. There’s something special about having friends later in life who knew you when you were a kid. You can’t lie to these people and you can’t pretend to be something that you’re not — they know better. And it’s nearly impossible to replicate those kinds of friendships later in life.
Old women or waitresses who call me “honey” and young children who call me “Sir.”
When good things happen to good people.
When bad things happen to bad people — like death row inmates being executed for their crimes; like terrorists getting blown the fuck up by our good guys.
Motorcycles — Have you read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? Well, it’s like that for me and my bikes. I do all of my own maintenance and modifications on my bikes. When you’re life is dependent on two wheels and a layer of leather between you and the asphalt, you want to make sure that everything is tightened just right… Regardless of how bad my day has been, getting out on my bike and riding through the Texas hill country, or even just my commute home, is enough to calm me and make everything all right again.
Central Texas BBQ — Smoked meats, actually. No sauce, just good meat cooked slowly over hot wood coals with much love. And all the better when eaten in 100-year old BBQ joints like Smitty’s Meat Market in Lockhart or Southside Market in Elgin.
Unabashed and unapologetic displays of patriotism — Fly your flags, wear it on your t-shirt, be the guy in the arena singing the National Anthem so loudly that it inspires others to pick it up a bit.
Kemo’s homemade pizzas — made in the wood-fired brick pizza oven my best friend Kemo built himself in his backyard. I watched him build this thing from the ground up. A true labor of love, with a genuine respect for craftsmanship and function. But it didn’t stop there. He then learned as much as he could about the art of making pies. Experimenting with different flours and yeasts to make the perfect dough, learning how to throw and stretch that dough into the perfect NY-style thin crust. Growing his own fresh ingredients to top his simple but perfect pies. And the community that gathers on special evenings at his home, to sit around drinking good wine, cold beer, and sharing in the wonders of a guy who took extreme pride in building something himself to share with others.
Being on or in the water — A good swimming hole on a hot day, jumping off a cliff into a deep lake, body surfing waves in the Pacific, or sitting in a lawn chair on a shallow gravel bar in the middle of the Guadalupe River.
Men and women proudly wearing our country’s uniform. Especially OD Green.
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I just noticed that Daphne has a similar post up over at her place about the things she loves about summer.
What makes you smile? What are the little things in life that bring you the most pleasure.
During the first 31 years of my life, I’ve lived in 28 different homes, apartments, dorms, or barracks.
Nowhere I lived as a kid or as a young adult was ever “home” to me; I just never lived anywhere long enough to feel attached.
Until my wife and I moved into our current home. Which was just over 10 years ago. For a lot of reasons, this house is more “home” to me than anywhere else I’ve ever lived.
But today is our last day in our home.
Tomorrow, my wife and I move into our second home; our first spanking-new, never-lived-in-by-anyone home. We’re moving just a little further west into the Texas Hill Country (near Spicewood, TX).
And, though I’m excited about the new start — I’m also a little sad knowing that today is the last day in this place that has meant so much to me; a place that is filled with so many precious memories.
We’re busy packing and cleaning right now — I’m just taking a quick break for a bite to eat and to check in on my little corner of Al Gore’s inter-webs.
I go pick up the moving truck at 4:00 this afternoon, and we’ll start loading it right away. We have to be out of here by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning to go to the first closing on this house. We should be done closing on our new home by noon. At which point we’ll start unloading the truck into the new house.
My sister-in-law and my 11-year old nephew are here to help my wife and I…so we’ve got a long night ahead of us: completley move everything into the moving truck (except for the mattresses and blankets we’ll use tonight), and then clean the house for the new (lucky) owners.
So, uh, that’s what I’ll be doing for the next couple of days.
Hopefully we’ll be mostly settled in by New Year’s Eve…which happens to be our wedding anniversary.
I’m in the midst of three days of intensive management/leadership training for my company, and they are intentionally keeping us unplugged from the real-world and — especially — from the office.
Just got home a few moments ago and this is my first chance to check email and to run through my blog moderation and administration tasks.
So, no time for blogging. Probably won’t have anything new up tomorrow either.
And slim pickings on Friday as well. Will try to do some catch up blogging over the weekend.
In the meantime, click on some of the great blog links in my sidebar blog roll to for some interesting blog reading.
Austin Twitter’er Zachary Ricks posed the following question via Twitter this morning:
What’s your top three things to accomplish in 2009?
Right off the top of my head — the three things that I most hope to accomplish in 2009 are:
What about you? What do you hope to accomplish in 2009?
My wife and I were going through old photo albums to find some old pics to put up on Facebook.
We ran across a folder that has all of my school pictures from, 1st grade through 9th grade (we didn’t purchase my 10-12 class pictures because I didn’t want them).
And I have come to the conclusion that my elementary school photographer hated me. I remember the old guy that took our grade school pictures because he was also one of my Art teachers when I lived in El Paso.
Let’s start with the 1st grade picture — Could I look any unhappier or less enthused about taking my class picture? Maybe, just maybe the photographer could have said, “Smile” or something? He could have at least tried to take a picture that didn’t make it look like my puppy had just died that morning.
And then there’s my 2nd grade picture — At least I’m smiling. Must have just got paid by the tooth fairy that morning. But hey, Mr. Photographer, could you do a kid a solid and at least pull his shirt collar out from his shirt so that he doesn’t look like a retard who can’t properly dress himself?
Moving on to the 3rd Grade — Yes. My mom was still making all of our clothes for us at this point. In fact, if I could find some pictures of my brothers and sisters from the same year, I’ll bet we all have a shirt made out of that same bolt of fabric. Back to the Photographer that hated me: Could you have mabye loaned a kid a comb and a mirror before you sat him down? Maybe sent him to the boys restroom and told him to slick down that cowlick? Sheese.
Which brings me to the 4th Grade — In case you can’t tell, two things happened of extreme significance in the 4th grade: 1) we got a new school photographer, one who didn’t hate me, and 2) for the first time ever, my mom was buying our clothes rather than making them all. That #12 jersey was my favorite shirt of all time. And this is also the last time that I took an “all-American boy” good school picture.
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