Made me think

Sunday night as I was watering the jungle the Misses and I call our garden. I started thinking back to when my Auntie C used to watch me while my parents were at work. My Grandpa Eddy use to plant a garden in their back yard. Most everyday he could be found with a wide brimmed hat and long sleeves bent over picking weeds. He always had a smile and a pleasantness about him you don't find in most people anymore. As I sat there watering I remember the trips we took with him. We (the three musketeers, better known now as the drunk cousins) took a couple trips up to his property to "help" fix up the place. I say "help" because we mostly spent our days shooting our BB Guns at whatever poor unfortunate critter came by. Grandpa didn't approve all the destruction we caused, but couldn't really tell us no.

Earlier in the day I was out to Grandma's to have a barbecue (I think this is why he was on my mind so much that night). The barbecue wasn't as big as they used to be. It used to be that any reason we could come up with was a good one to go out to their house to have some food and hang out. You could always see it in Grandpa's eyes, he was proud of what he created. A huge family with lots of love. Now days his kids have grand kids of their own. They are busy sitting being proud of what they created at their homes. Now Grandpa's house is reserved for Mothers Day and Christmas Eve.

Some of my fondest memories of Grandma and Grandpa was when me and my Cousin "The Cutie" would head out to their house on a Friday evening. Sometimes we would take a pie, sometimes flowers, or sometimes nothing at all. It was such a great way to spend an evening sitting and listen to the stories of how Deon fell in love with her Eddy. They would always tell stories of the church dances they attended and how good of a dancer each of them were. I can still see him when I shut my eyes sipping on a coke. At the end of ever sip he would say "AAaahhhhh. A coke and a smile is all you need." And it really was.

After the barbecue I excused myself. I made an excuse about my stomach and told everyone I had to leave. Truthfully I was sitting there thinking about Grandpa and how much I missed seeing him in his chair. I have never dealt well with death. I can remember very well my Great Grandma in her final resting bed. And everyone that was there remembers the painstaking time I had trying to speak at Grandma B's funeral. I wish I had closure when it came to the great man that was Grandpa Eddy.

I was fortunate enough to come home for leave the two weeks prior to him passing away. I spent a lot of time with him. At that point it was hard for him to talk and get around. I am so thankful I had that time with him. He passed away the day I flew back to the Army. In my little world I like to think he waited for me to see him one last time.

As I finished up watering and looking at all the plants. I know I couldn't have done it without him. Sure I was far to young to remember any words of wisdom he had for me on gardening. But I have my pops and I am sure a good deal of what he tells me came from Grandpa.

To be honest I couldn't tell you where he was placed to rest. The tape with his funeral recorded on has never been played. I just hope when me and the Misses are old, our grand kids will stop by like The Cutie and I did (even if it is just for a coke and a smile).

God Damn HGTV & Extreme Makeover Home Edition!

If one more homeowner makes a comment about how something is done on HGTV or Extreme Makeover Home Edition I am going to throw-up on them.

People don't realize just what goes into these shows to make them look like they do. "But, I saw this cute idea on HGTV this morning..." Oh, I'm going to be sick. "I am sure we can do that, but it's going to cost..." "Cost more? But the insurance company is supposed to pay for the painting of this room." HHHUMMM I sigh, "Your insurance company is paying for the white color it was before. They ARE NOT paying for a faux italian villa scene on your wall!"

OR

"So how long is it going to take?" A question I dread hearing. "Well, I don't like to give an exact time frame or date we will be finished. But, probably three weeks." And then it starts. "Three weeks??? I saw on Extreme Home Makeover that it only took them 1 week to tear down a house and build a new one. Three weeks for this little loss?" Jeeeeezzus, do I really need to explain this? "Okay, it is only going to take 4 days but I have to work into everyone schedule." "But, why can't you just do mine first?" (F-ing East siders!!!! To those not from the land of zion you have no idea what I am talking about)

To Both of you..... Kiss my ass and find someone else!
But instead "Lets see what I can do, it's my job to make you happy." (Bastards!)

Why does fire fascinate us so?

Last night as I was watching the news about all the fires taking place here in Utah. It made me think back to my childhood and remember all the times me and my best friend AOC spent lighting fires. (It is amazing to think I still consider AOC my best friend even though we have seen each other so little over the past 5 years, but that is a story for another day).

One day after school AOC and I were sitting around watching Mr. Wizard (he was our version of Bill Nye the science guy). I don't know what he was thinking when he showed us that you could put a lit match out in gasoline. I can't remember why he was showing us this, but he actually made it work. You can imagine what to the two of us started thinking. Worst of all my mom and pops were away at work so we were home alone.

We both looked at each other and it was if both lights over our heads switched on. I went to the kitchen cabinet and pulled out a red plastic dixie cup (this would end up being mistake # 2, mistake #1 was this whole idea) and a book of matches. We went out to the garage and shut the door so no one could see what a mess we were getting into.

As I slowly poured the gasoline into the dixie cup we noticed the cup started to melt. AOC quickly lit the match and attempted to put it out in the pool of gasoline. By the time the match hit the gas it had created two large holes in the side of the cup. The match quickly ignited the gas and began to spread onto the floor of the garage.

We quickly looked at each other and stated to scramble to find something to put it out. I don't remember which one thought it would be a good idea to try and stamp it out with our feet (mistake #3) but this made the gas spread even further on the ground. Soon the fire had consumed all its fuel and sputtered out. I looked down and saw a huge black burn mark on the concrete. There was nothing we could do to cover it up. I don't remember what pops ended up saying to us, but in the end he was probably thinking he was lucky we didn't burn his house down.

I am sure you would think we learned our lesson but no, we were young and dumb. One day in junior high. After school we started talking about molotov cocktails. It didn't take long for us to think it would be a good idea to make one. In AOC's back yard was a small man made pond. Instead of throwing the burning bomb we thought it would be an even better idea to put it on a wood plank, push it into the middle of the pond, and shoot it with our BB guns. Maybe we did learn from our first experience with fire. We truly thought the water would contain the fire and put it out,

AOC put the molotov cocktail on the board. He lit the dirty sock that was stuffed into an old beer bottle we found. As he pushed it about 3 feet away from shore we began to fire at it. It didn't take long until it was hit. The gas pored out of the bottle and was ignited. The one thing that never crossed our minds was the fact that gas floats on water. The fire began to spread across the water straight toward the shore. Panic began to fill us. We quickly jumped the fence. AOC grabbed his parent garden hose and I grabbed the neighbors. The black smoke was starting to get thicker and thicker. AOC was running back to turn the water on as I was prepared to douse out the flames.

Luckily we were able to put it out before anyone noticed. We thought for sure we were busted. We ran across the street to my house and ran inside. Thinking back now I can't believe how dumb and lucky we were. I can only hope when I have a child he wont be as fascinated with fire as I was, and please let him be smarter then us.

A Cold Day in Hell

You've heard them all, it's a cold day in hell, or when pigs fly. You can choose which you like best but one of them must of happened yesterday. About a week ago I got a message from my Mom that said "You need to call your Father, and be sitting down when you do." I quickly dialed my parents back and my Father picked up the phone. All I was thinking was something happened to Grandma T or to Jeda and the kids. Instead I heard "Well, I did it." "Did what?" "I signed up for cable."


For the past 20 years I have been bugging my Father to sign up for cable. He has always said "hell no!" His hate for cable comes from his first experience with the old cable company. Back in the day cable would tend to go out for hours and hours at a time. It was during this time when my Dad decided to give it a try. After two weeks in which the cable went out three times. He ripped the cable box out of the TV and disconnected all the cable wire from his house. He took it down to the local cable company and placed it in the hands of the poor girl that was working behind the counter and proceeded to tell her where she could hook it up.

About three years ago when I moved out and was able to purchase it myself every time a good game was on, or a good series that was only shown on cable. I would call up Pops and ask him how he liked watching it. He would reply with a "what channel is that on?"

"Its on cable?" I would reply, knowing exactly what he would say next.

"Whats that?"

This has gone on for three years. I think it was when he came over to help around my house that he decided it was about time to get it. That day he was able to chat with his grand kids in Norway over the Web Cam. He realised then and there he was missing out on seeing them every week. Instead of every year or so.


It will be so nice to go over and visit and not have to watch a TV screen that is full of fuzz. And not needing to stand up and play with the antenna every time you change the channel will be great. The only problem is now we have to try and explain how to start chatting, install a Web Cam, and try and explain how the cable remote control works. Crap that is truly going to be like teaching an old dog a new trick. Good Luck Pops, and welcome to the 21 century.

Introducing Jeter

Ever since I discovered blogging. I was always so jealous of everyone with kids. Kids are always doing something amusing to write about. Well, its my turn.

This past weekend Alice and his wife, and the Misses and I went down to Phoenix to visit Alice's Uncle. It is almost a ten hour trip which for me is an eternity to be in a car without easy access to a toilet, but I made it. As we got out of the car I couldn't understand why anyone would want to make Phoenix their home. The heat was truly unbearable.

The reason for this long trip was to pick-up our new dog. Alice's Aunt and Uncle breads Boston Terriers. Alice had let them know we were interested in a dog and they told him they would pick one out for us to have. Luckily Alice's uncle lived in the mountains and it was about 10 or 15 degrees cooler. Which made it almost bearable.

The night before me and the Misses laid in bed and was very excited, it was almost like Christmas. We had been talking about getting a dog for about 6 month and it was finally here. Alice had mentioned that these dogs were very good. He said they were friendly, cute, and best of all house trained. As we walked in Bella the mother of our dog came to great us with a huge smile on her face. Her tail was wagging as she stopped to let me and the Misses pet her. Her puppy was in the pen asleep. The one thing we noticed right away was there wasn't any barking. Altogether there was about 6 Boston Terriers there and none were making a sound. We later found out the only time they do bark is if a cat wanders into their yard. Then the males take off after them with a couple Yelps just for enforcement. I couldn't wait to send our puppy out the door to chase the godforsaken cat that keeps shitting in my yard.

The Misses bent down and picked up the puppy. He looked at her and sniffed her face and then gave her a sloppy kiss. She was in love. We had already decided on a name long ago. I wanted it to be "P.O.S" for Piece of Shit, but the Misses quickly vetoed it. We decided on Jeter. I didn't like the fact that I was bringing something in my house that had the word "Boston" attached to it. I thought the only fitting thing to do was name him after my favorite ball player from the Yankees, Derek Jeter.

Hopefully there will be many amusing situation that will give me more things to write about. Hopefully none of them will involve a stain on my carpet of a hole in my sofa. So it is with great pleasure that I introduce to you the newest member of the Taylor family, JETER

I Love You, and Absolutely I Do

It finally happened, and I have to say it was better then we hoped. For the better part of a year through all my sickness the Misses has been planing our wedding and I have to say she did a wonderful job. Our only argument throughout the whole process was where to host the wedding. We decided to have it up in the beautiful mountains of Alta, Utah. The whole cast of characters were there. Jeda's family made the long trip over the pond, which made the event better with her beautiful kids.

Reverend K created a great Wedding Sermon, to my great pleasure there was no exchanging of vows (I hate public speaking). Although I have been told, I don't remember instead of just "I do", I elaborated it to "I love you, and absolutely do."

The evening ended with a "first dance", no really I think it was the first time we had danced together. Thank you to everyone who put so much into this event. Especially The Best Friend, I couldn't have done everything for the Misses without your help. And Alice, thanks for being a true friend.

Oh yah, to the drunk person who charged $80 worth of booze to a room you weren't staying in.....They made us pay for it. Your Welcome!

Friends?

I am feeling fairly rejected today. For the past three month I have been talking to my two close friends about going Golfing the Friday before my "Big" day. Both sounded excited to be apart of it....back then. Now that the time is here, I have been given the "Dude, I can't get off of work Friday." And "Sorry bro, I am taking Saturday and Sunday off for your wedding, so they scheduled me to work that day."

Truth be told I have been expecting this. Ever since I have been feeling better, one of the only active things I can do is golf. So most every Saturday or Sunday I have been setting up tee times for the three of us. But wouldn't you know they haven't been able to make it. They always have an excuse, sometimes a good one but most of the time not. Lately I have just stopped asking them.

Recently there was a mishap involving one of my best friends couch. Since then, she has said "I have no need for friends like that in my life!" This has become my new philosophy.