This is February, right?

I haven't blogged in a month.

I also haven't worked on the book/story I started, haven't finished ANY of the Windowblind skins I started, haven't finished ANY of the icon packs I started, haven't adopted a French Bulldog and named him Knuckles (finances are an issue with this one), haven't found a used PS3 I can afford to get Disney Infinity for the kid, haven't gotten Disney Infinity, haven't done any 'I Am Aaron' pics for too long, and haven't done a host of other things.

I haven't figured out where to start.

And Then I Came Across This

Now, I would have had to conceded to the 'possibility' of letting this fly...but I still stick to my story of not using the T-word.

Parent-Teacher Night 2013 or Shoot Me Now

So my all my fears are confirmed. I am the worst parent I know and there is now photographic proof of this. Of course, it had to be displayed on the wall outside of my daughters First Grade classroom on Parent-Teacher Night for everyone to see. While other children chose more 'upbeat' emotions to display, mine chose 'sad'.

"I feel sad...
When 'my parints yal at me and when peeple be mein to me.'"

I hoped against hope that her spelling would confuse anyone who saw it like other parents, teachers, child services....

And the 'face'! I'm sure the teacher was wondering what horrific image or 'recovered memory' my daughter called up to make that face.

We sat on tiny chairs in the hallway as we awaited our turn to be called in to the classroom. My wife and I tried to make light of it but gave up as we witnessed the facial expressions of other parents as they looked over the wall of photographic emotions or in our case, The Wall of Shame.

So Long, Guitar Man

This is a song I wrote and recorded over 10 years ago that I have had on my YouTube channel for a little while. I'm posting here because I just realized or found out this week that I can’t sing anymore and I am discovering that this is a much bigger deal than when I discovered I couldn't play my guitar anymore. I've kept my guitar. I fumble with it from time to time but can barely play one song straight through due to arthritis and degenerative disks (one of which is currently flattening a corner of my spinal cord).

The singing, though…hmmph. I figured if I couldn't play my guitar, I could always at least sing. Let’s face it, between you and me, my playing was nothing to write home about. A friend back home, who ran open mics all over the county and state, once told me that I was neither a very good guitarist or singer,

The Best Missed Connection Ever?

It’s almost impossible to believe this Missed Connection was posted on Craigslist. Odder was that I found it re-posted on i09, a sci-fi blog. It is ‘beautifully written’. Something I would love to hear turned into a song…or even better…something I would actually pay to see if it were turned into a movie.

Missed Connection - m4w I saw you on the Manhattan-bound Brooklyn Q train. I was wearing a blue-striped t-shirt and a pair of maroon pants. You were wearing a vintage red skirt and a smart white blouse. We both wore glasses. I guess we still do. You got on at DeKalb and sat across from me and we made eye contact, briefly. I fell in love with you a little bit, in that stupid way where you completely make up a fictional version of the person you're looking at and fall in love with that person. But still I think there was something there.

Counting Down.....

Just throwing out a few things for my wishlist with the big 5-0 coming up.

50th birthday Middle Finger Salute T-shirts 

by 50thbirthdaygifts_ 

Browse custom t-shirts online at Zazzle

All I need is a French Bulldog pup 

to go with this.

Star Trek Original Series Captain's Chair Dog Bed

Excuse Me

So, it’s been a little while, huh? Well, I don’t know what to tell you except to say there is nothing to tell. Sort of. If you follow me at all (here or anywhere) you know I have had some serious and troublesome back issues. Let me start by saying, this will be the last you will hear from me on it.
I want to thank anyone who patiently listened to me moan, whine, bitch, and cry over it as well as apologize to you along with anyone else who had to listen to it. To those of you who offered prayers, best wishes, support, I say thank you as well.
My reasoning for wanting to leave this part of my life out of any further posts is that it depresses the hell out of me and I am sure doesn’t leave anyone else feeling to upbeat as well. I originally wanted my blog to be entertaining and humorous if nothing else and I try to pull from my own life for these things. I think I’ve lost the ability to find humor in my health issues and the last thing I want to do is end up whining or, as was recently pointed out to me, come off like I am ‘crying for attention’.

So, if you’re still reading, stick around. I promise to get back to what I originally intended, which was to keep it light, fun, and entertaining.

*I've disabled comments for this one post. If you really feel the need to give some feedback, feel free to shoot me an email. ;)

Roan WB / Day Three

Day three and I think we're almost finished with the Start Panel and Taskbar areas of the Windowblind skin.

The folks helping me (Vampothika, neone6, and 2of3) along with everyone else who stops in the thread have been great.

The only little snag I had was with the Taskbar Start Button. Originally, I was going with an 'A' or an 'O' like you see in the image here. I wasn't happy with either and was afraid I was going to be stuck with one of the ones I didn't care for. It may seem trivial, but the start button, for me, is important. When you log on to Windows, the first thing besides your wallpaper that you see is the taskbar and that start button. Of course the taskbar should look good but you know what they say about first impressions and perception and all. So I think the start button should give a good indication about what you're going to find under the hood, as it were. I beat my head in trying to come up with something when I found an old graphic in my files of the Trinity Circles. That was it. Perfect. It goes with the name (among it's many meanings, it's an old word for a form of leather) and it's my little thank you to the three skinners who are helping me. My little holy trinity of skinning. (You can see them on the folder and on the copy of the actual start button that is on the letter 'A' in the image)

Tomorrow we'll be starting a new thread to go with the new pieces. I'm kind of surprised how quickly it is going but imagine it's going to slow down a lot when it comes time to open up Skinstudio and try and assemble the thing. I'm feeling pretty optimistic and looking forward to the challenges.

Bed Bugs And Night Lights - Jan 17

 Winding down for the day. My fellow skinners that have been helping me with the Windowblind project today are probably just waking up half way around the world.

I think I have the Taskbar complete (if I stick with the Start Buttons I have made but don't care for) and will hopefully finish the Start Panel tomorrow. Then I can start the next thread and piece of the blind.

Today was a good day. It's an interesting and wonderful thing to see an internet community you're involved in (and like) pulling together and even more so when they are pulling to support something you really want and need to do.

A Windowblind Tutorial : Roan WB/Day One

 Windowblinds is a wonderful desktop enhancement application that allows you to change your windows themes, colors, textures, wallpapers..your entire windows experience. I’ve tried to tackle the software for it that allows you to create your skins for a few years to with no success, until now.

Thanks to some offers from some wonderful community members at Wincustomize, I believe I may finally get a handle on it.

We started a thread today to document the process for posterity, others like me who want to learn, and for fun. And so far it has been fun.

If you are familiar with Windowblinds or just interested in what goes in to making Windows look the way it does and how it can be altered, into desktop customization or just like making stuff with Photoshop, the thread may be a good place to hang out.

One Piece At A Time: A Windowblind Tutorial Part I

Today being the first day, it went pretty well. We’re doing this ‘One Piece AT A Time’ so every part of the process can be fully explored before moving on to the next and so on. This first part is concentrating on the Start Panel and Taskbar. It’s interesting that after using the software for as many years as I have (and Windows in general, from W2K to W7) and hanging out on line with so many talented skinners how much I still don’t know about Windows itself and Windowblinds as well.

I hope you’ll come by and check this out, maybe follow along.

My Winter's Tale

I miss snow and every thing about it. Since moving to South Carolina from Pennsylvania eight years ago, I have experienced one serious, measurable snow fall. That snowfall that came in January of 2011 only reminded me how much I miss snow.

The winters here aren't even terribly cold. I am reminded of this every time I say 'It's not that cold' and someone calls me a damn yankee.

I think I miss the sound of snow falling. The million whispers, like a secret song, of the delicate snow flakes as they fall, float, and dance from the sky to pile up on one another to form a blanket so serene you are afraid to disturb it. I miss the smell of the snow, clean and rich, as the air surrounding it fills your airways with a coolness that makes you feel like you are breathing heaven itself.

Knocking Nickelodeon

My four year old daughter has been watching Nickelodeon for a while now. Though I don’t resent the shows I have had to give up so she can watch hers or the ones I have had to give up because they have been banned, I do have some issues with a few of the shows.

Olivia : Olivia is ‘the little girl pig with the big imagination’. She’s also precocious, obnoxious, and selfish. I do not like Olivia. If I have to watch pigs, I would prefer to watch Peppa Pig, who is only cheeky compared to Olivia. All the personality issues aside, I often watch these shows with my daughter and I can’t help but wonder about certain things. In the case of Olivia and Peppa and their families I made the mistake of asking my daughter “What do they eat with their eggs?” She looked at me and asked what I meant and I said “You love bacon with your eggs. What does Olivia and her family eat with their eggs?” She smiled and said “Bacon” to which I was quick to point out (because she needs to know these things and how messed up these shows are) that bacon comes from pigs. She wasn’t to thrilled with that little tidbit and took it to her mother. In mere seconds she came running back to me , smiled, and said “Turkey bacon!”. I yelled down the hall to my wife “You don’t know that!” My daughter behind me also added “And mommy said we’ll be getting turkey bacon from now on!” 
Son of a bitch.

Franklin: Why is Franklin (a turtle) the only one who wears any clothes? Bear, Fox, Rabbit, Beaver, and Snail do not wear clothes. Franklin is the only one with a name for that matter. There is some kind of elitist-class thing going on here. Then there is Bear. This kid (and I use the term loosely. He’s twice the size of the rest of his friends) is always hungry. He’s hungry to the point that his friends feel they have to hide their food from him or when food does go missing he is the first one to be suspect. If there was any reality to this at all, Bear would have eaten Rabbit two seasons ago and Franklin would be afraid to come out of his shell. Hell, Bear and Fox should have gone in together and wiped out Beavers family by now. But none of this happens, of course. In the meantime, my daughter thinks all the little woodland creatures are buddy and buddy and no one eats each other or any meat at all for that matter. The one thing I do notice is that the fish are still just fish. They don’t talk or go to school. More elitist-class crap.

Max & Ruby : Here is the description for this bullshit- “Max, a rambunctious and determined three-year-old rabbit, and his big sister, Ruby, a patient, goal-oriented, sometimes restrictive seven-year-old rabbit” . Max is a three year shit that gets out of all the fucking trouble he causes by being cute and his inability to put more than two fucking words together at a time. Ruby is controlling, overbearing, anal,  and is suffering from OCD and and is going to end up a spinster-cat-lady on the other side of town. The real question here is where are the mother fucking parents!!??  They are nowhere. Ever. This is like Home Alone meets The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane. The grandmother shows up once in a while and she doesn’t even ask where the parents are! She knows what I know and that is that Ruby got pushed to hard or Mom forgot to fluff her fucking pillow and now mom and dad are worm food in the basement. Of course, I am not allowed to voice my opinion around my daughter so I have had to settle for referring to it as The Bad Bunny how, which still gets me the squinty eye across the dinner table.

Yo Gabba Gabba : I’ll keep this one short. One character looks like a fucking dildo (a studded-for-your-pleasure-dildo and he even has just one eye in case you can’t put it all together), another looks like a butt plug, going with this theme the third looks like a damn love mitt, the cat-costumed-one is obviously some reference to pussy,  and the fucking robot is obviously the power supply for the first three because they are all battery-fucking-operated. The host, DJ Lance Rock, dresses the way I imagine Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch did for his senior prom right down to the boom box. Oh, and ‘Gabba Land’! Isn’t that where you go when you get the good crack??! And just what the fuck does Yo Gabba Gabba mean?!?!

There are days where she does not want to watch Nickelodeon. On those days we often end up watching Barney and I realize as bad as I don’t want her to grow up I need her to because I’m liable to throttle the shit out of the first innocent dweeb that crosses my path in a dinosaur costume and it won’t matter what fucking color it is, he’ll be going down.

Down-time- What I Do to Recharge

The one thing I often complain about is that I don’t have the time or enough time to blog, get crazy in Photoshop, or just catch up on this and that on my PC. Now I have nothing but time, however, unfortunately it’s not by choice. You might ask ‘What does it matter? You have the time you wanted!’.  To which I might respond ‘Bite me.’

I’m going bat-shit and it’s difficult to concentrate or free my mind from more stressful matters to find any spark of creativity inside me. I open and close PSP like my old man used to flick the lid on his stainless steel Zippo lighter while he was trying to decide if he should just ground me or take me out behind the stables. Coming up with ideas to blog about is even more frustrating. The things I would like to blog I have to restrain from and this makes everything else seem trivial in comparison. This leaves me trying to find ways to recharge. Recharging is not something I have ever been very good at.

They Stole 'The List'

I don't know how. Perhaps when I removed my tinfoil hat for my Saturday night shower. But the bastards have been swiping stuff from my brain with their thought-machines again.

 

Did I Leave You Hanging?

So it’s been a while, eh? I’ve had a lot going on and though I tend to share personal stories here (much to my wife’s dismay – who, by the way, has told me she is willing to offer her services as editor for my blog. Apparently she has issues with my grammar and spelling. Me?!! Imagine that.) I can’t share everything. Legal crap and all. But what I have been going through is similar to something that I have been through and wrote about before. After talking to a good friend tonight who is going through a similar situation, I thought I would repost the story here. It’s not one of my best blogs, to be honest, but one of my favorites. I’d like to dedicate this to Stephen, to my on-line medical expert Seth (Doc), and Aaron who reminded that you have to actually 'post' shit to your blog once in a while. There is some truth to the saying ‘Misery loves company.’ I like to think I’ve been in some pretty damn good company.


I have discovered something. Something we need, all of us, to find a way to utilize. I firmly believe it could put an end to war, bloodshed, and loss of life. Some of you may say, “That’s nothing new.” when you hear what I have discovered and you may be right. It’s what we can ‘do’ with it that has yet to be explored. So gather ‘round and listen up and for the love of God, don’t let this information fall into the wrong hands.

How Not To Register Your Little Vampire For Pre-School

Tonight was ‘”Registration Night’ for my daughters pre-school. I missed it last year, which, I have been reminded about frequently since last- year. Of course I arrived fashionably late. (Thirty-nine minutes is fashionable, right?)
Walking into a room full of tiny tables and chairs is odd enough. A room full of grown people sitting in the tiny chairs at the tiny tables is just freakish. I quietly made my way over to my wife, seated in her tiny chair, and reached for a tiny wooden chair that was next to her. At this point, I was under the assumption I would be able to blend in without any fanfare or undue attention as the teacher was going over the school handbook. Reaching for the tiny wooden chair put a quick end to that illusion as my wife and the teacher both spoke up “Not that one.”

What’s In A Name?

This was originally posted about five years ago. God, in all his wisdom and humor, looked down on this 40-something year old man and said “I have one more little prank surprise for you.”
__________________________________

The List : A True Story

My wife has a list. It’s kind of a long list, but it’s hers and she’s entitled. I think we all have lists. Some of us keep them private; some of us limit them to certain things. My wife’s list is broken into categories.

For example, there is the celebrity category. We do not watch movies with Brad Pitt, Angeline Jollies, Tom Cruise, and a few others. I cringe when a favorite celebrity gets their name in the headlines. If they have done anything to offend my wife, they are going to end up on The List, and there will be a whole new library of films, video’s, or music we will know longer enjoy. Though I have yet to actually see The List, I imagine it as a scroll of yellowed parchment with worn wooden handles. It’s thick, and when unrolled, could easily reach from Intercourse, Pa. to Nowhere, Az. You can find me there, right in-between screwed and lost.