Wine, Kilts, and Cougars

Last weekend my friends (Peter, Chris, Steve, and Dave) and I went to a fundraiser for Pancreatic Cancer research. It was held at Rombauer Vineyards in St Helena. During the planning for this 'Man trip' someone (not me) suggested we wear kilts.

Now only Chris and I own Utilikilts, well Steve owns my first kilt because it never quite fit me right and it fit him perfectly. So Dave and Peter borrow some kilts and we plan on meeting at Peter's house on Saturday morning.

When I show up at Peter's, Dave is already there and he's starting to rethink this idea. He's worried that we look a little 'Brokeback', not because of the kilts but because it looks like we tried to coordinate our outfits.

Steve and Chris show up, we take some pictures (none posted) and we make like a baby and head out. We drive up to the valet parking and the Valet gives us a funny smile, but the women start waving and calling us over to them. They ask if we're a soccer team? "No, just hooligans" I reply. They send us on to the caves where the wine is stored. We taste wine answer question about the kilts, I haven't had this much attention since High School.

We finish the 'cave tour' and head up to where the food is and we get ambushed buy one of the owners. She wants pictures for the newsletter. Other women are coming to get a closer look, they ask the question. "what's under the kilt?" our reply..."Boots and socks." It's always fun to be the unintentional entertainment, and it was all for a good cause.

Cat Attack

Now if you look real close at these blurry pics, you can see the vicious mouse that is attacking Spike.

It was hard to get good photos, as the fight was fast paced and it was really dark outside. I'm sure this was a struggle of epic proportions.

In the end Spike won the battle. He ate the small beast, and threw it up the next day. Good boy, mighty hunter.

Parties and crap...

So one day last month I get this call from Chris. He and I work together (sort of) so we call each other throughout the day to complain about (aboot for you Canadians) traffic, our boss, customers, our boss...you get the idea. "Guess what just arrived?" he says "Our (special edition) Utilikilts for entering the mock-u-mercial contest." He's as giddy as a school girl. "But they didn't send just kilts, you won't believe what the sent."

So I'm sitting in my car, outside an account, and he goes over everything they sent. The kilt, a special edition hoodie, and a check for $150.00 in-store credit. "Holy crap" I said, "how come?" Well, it turns out the kilts didn't turn out the way they had planned. The silk screen doesn't adhere to denim very well so it just flakes off. The black denim bleeds into the white denim (on the pockets) and the thing ways about 5 pounds, maybe more (should I break that down into metric for our friends and family up north?).

Oh yeah, here is Taylor's golden snitch cake before I forget. The wings took Morgan and I about an hour to do and it's filled with chocolate fudge swirl ice cream. I also made cupcakes (because we knew that this would not be nearly enough cake) with an H, S, G,and R on them. The initials of the 4 houses. She had quite the haul this year.

So anyway back to the free stuff. Screen print, schmeen print... who cares it looks better when its all scratched up and faded anyway. And if I just keep picking at it, it will all be gone soon anyway. The hoodie is hella cool (that's right, I said hella, I'm from Northern California. Screw you) the stitching is all on the outside, so its super soft, and the hood is extra huge to fit my fat head. The in-store credit went to a new black workman kilt, now I have one for every day of the week. I just need a new job so I can wear it to work.

Welcome to my garden

This post is like an episode of 'Cribs'. Just pretend I'm famous or something, and you care about what kind of crap I have in my house/yard.

Step inside, Morgan and I made this path. Taylor and I planted 2 rows of carrots on the left and a row of radishes on the right.

On the left, I've planted some crookneck squash, dill, cucumber, cilantro, basil,and 4 tomatoes.

At the end of the path, I planted 2 red bell peppers, and an Anaheim pepper.

On the right, I planted pumpkins, zucchini, summer squash, yellow zucchini, and another crookneck, because Shannon likes them.

I just like this picture 'cause it looks like a face...or boobs depending on how much beer you've had.

Taylor planted peas at the fence posts, and flowers along the fence line. That's pretty much the whole thing except for the hops, which are coming along nicely now after the initial shock of being moved. I'll take some pictures of those when they are a bit taller.

This years garden

This year I'm trying to get an early start on the garden. Most of the time I'm trying to plant it at the last minute. This year my friend Phil and I pulled out 3 stumps. Well 1 stump and 2 bushes, but we pulled them out the roots. Hopefully they won't come back.

Usually I just plant my garden in this small strip, but this year I want to move the hops over here.

This year I used Phil's rototiller and did this larger section. I amended the soil with horse manure from Elayne (she's got lots of it).

Just look at that dirt, now I need to figure out what to plant.

The Annies Show

So I had practice today, and the guys told me that there were some videos posted on our MySpace page. I thought I would share them with you.

Look close and you can see my kilt. I'm so cool.

The Up and Down Live at Annie's 1-26-08

Add to My Profile More VideosThe Up and Down Live at Annie's 1-26-08

Add to My Profile More Videos

And Another Thing

This is the morning after the show. I asked Shannon to take some pictures so I could send them to Utilikilts for a contest (hopefully another free kilt, no I don't know what the other free kilt looks like yet).

Yes, these are my new cool Vans. I saw them when I was buying some shoes for Morgan, and had to come back for them.

I can't do my 'Brain Age' with you staring and taking pictures of me. Ya done?

look at that great smile, it looks sort of like her brothers.

which looks sort of like mine, but not as good.

AND ANOTHER THING!!!!!

This is my old school (Clifton), it has since become the "independent learning high school" (Redwood). They are tearing it down to build a new facility, because even the F--- ups need a clean state of the art place to learn.

This is the last remaining wing, I got in so much trouble here.


Enough rambling, this blog makes no sense.

Morgan's B-day

This year we had a party for Morgan during the day, and he had a sleep over that night. The party was good, and the sleep over was pretty good. Morgan had 2 friends spend the night, Kane (who was great), and Justin (who can be a total snotty little jerk). Justin brought his PS2 over, so the kids could play Guitar Hero. I was out picking up some Zachery's when they were trying to hook up the PS2, when I got home they were having some trouble. It turns out that when I hung the TV on the wall, and I ran a connector around (the connectors for our TV are all in the back) to the front, I hooked up the S-connector as well and it cancels out the RCA connector.

We could hear the sound but no picture. I realized this and said "I know why it won't work"

Justin: "because your TV doesn't work?" (in a snotty tone)

I stopped and looked at him (I was kind of taken aback) and said "F--- you." That little jerk pretty much pissed me of the rest of the night.

What a little asshole.

Like I said earlier, Kane was great. Well behaved, sometimes loud but I can deal with that. He has really become a great kid the last couple of years.

Pooptacular!

Here is Shannon on the computer (probably fixing my financial screw-ups). She's been having a tough time at work lately, and I know my overspending for Christmas doesn't help with her sanity. I just wanted to say I'm sorry, but you're worth it.

Everything else is just pooptacular. Our new washer/dryer are great, so far everything is washing great and nothing has been ripped, torn, shredded, or otherwise destroyed. Knock on wood.

Time for another kilt (oh yeah, I'm getting a free one).

My Workman Kilt has Returned!!

So I got my kilt back last week and I'm very happy to have it. I gotta tell you, I don't wear my tan original much anymore (it's a little big) so it seemed like I only had one kilt. They just stitched it up (which Shannon could have done) but it only cost $5 for shipping and they fixed it for free. Thanks to Joe at Utilikilts for all of his help.

Utilikilts also announced the winners of their Mock-u-mercial contest, and...............I didn't win. Oh well, I get a free special edition kilt just for entering. For some reason my Mock-u-mercial doesn't play all the way through on the UK website. So if you want to it in its entirety you can check it out on www.youtube.com it's called UK team.

The Happiest Man In Disneyland

This is me and Taylor in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle (yes I wore a kilt). We had a great time, and learned a few things too. Such as; Sleeping Beauty's Castle was not wheelchair accessible and there was no way to put in an elevator, so they had to close it. The Monorail is a very complicated system, and it's not easy to pull off a train to work on, so in the off season (now) they only run one train. Also, those damn pins cost too much. When you buy 1 or 2 it's no big deal, but when you walk around the park and see more and more. That crap adds up, and you don't notice until later and you have no money for food.

This is California Adventure in the day (well, dusk).

This is California Adventure at night (well almost night, Ca Adventure closes at 6pm in the off season).

Yes, we do the character breakfast for my benefit not the kids. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a breakfast buffet. I like to see the kids (not just my own kids) reaction to the characters walking around and coming up to them at breakfast like it was normal. So cut me some slack, this is where Disney magic really happens. Oh yeah, some rides are hard to get on when you're wearing a kilt. 'Nuff said!!

Shannon's home

yeah!!!

Tragedy...(sort of)

Okay, so in the grand scope of things (death, illness, death, and death again) it's not really a tragedy. Needless to say I am really (RREEAALLYY) mad. Really I am, I scared the kids, I totally didn't mean too. I'm sorry for that. It starts with this washing machine, never buy this "Kenmore Elite" no matter what the fuck Consumer Reports says about it. (BTW they rated it #1 for 2 or 3 years, bullshit!) I loaded it this morning and set the timer, so it would be done before I got home. When I opened the door I knew something was wrong.

I saw my brown Workman kilt in the front but it didn't look right. I pulled it out and saw a huge tear. Right across one of the pleats. This is not the first time this washer has torn our clothes. We had 2 of Shannon's shirts torn and 1 of the sheets for our bed.

Taylor was on the phone with Shannon when I found the kilt (and yelled), she got a little scared (when I yell it can be scary, Daisey hides, kids cry, it's really not cool). So I gave her a hug and told her that I was sorry for scaring her. I really hate this washer. The dryer sucks too, it keeps turning off when the clothes are still wet. WTF! P,S,T,F,CS,MF,andB!

The only possible bright side (besides taking a sledgehammer to this piece of shit washer) is that Utilikilts has a repair program, so I'll have to call them tomorrow sometime to see what can be done. I'm not sure if Shannon's considerable talent can fix this. What do you think?

Halloween '07

This is Morgan and Taylor handing out candy to our first trick or treaters of the night. After this was taken, Taylor and I headed out and Morgan stayed home w/Corinne. Taylor had to pee about halfway through so we came home. Morgan went out with us the rest of the night.

Morgan wore the same costume as last year, but I don't think it will fit him for long. I wore them out, I asked them if they wanted to keep going but they said they were tired.

Taylor was Catwoman. She looked great, and for the first time I can remember she was warm. Shannon made her boots and hood part of the mask. Look at her belt, its a whip (nice touch).

These were our pumpkins, Morgans on the left, mine in the middle and Taylor's on the right. We carved these on Saturday night. we normally carve pumpkins at our friend Ryan's house, but this year he couldn't do it. So everyone came over here, and we carved them downstairs. The tile was easy to clean and everyone had a good time. I wish Shannon was here to enjoy Halloween with us, but we'll just have to have a bigger Halloween next year.

What a load of crap!!!

Shannon's out of town, so I took the kids out to D&E's for the corn maze. When we got there we found this. Apparently, they bought a manure spreader. WOW!!!! is all I can say. A whole machine dedicated to spreading shit.

So Taylor, Morgan, and I jumped in the back of the truck. Darryl hooked-up the poo thrower, and we drove out to the field. Darryl hops out of the truck and flips the handle. He climbs back into the truck and off we go.

Look at that poo flying through the air. It has these tines on the back, so you could say that the shit really hits the fan. I swear monkeys at the zoo are jealous. It's quite the sight, I have to say. It will save them a lot of time cleaning up after the horses. Lets face it there is nothing like flying crap. It's craptastic.

Oh yeah, we went to the corn maze too. There was no poo flying there, but it was still a lot of fun.

Falling Down Drunk (almost)

So last night was the crawl, and I got DRUNK. Not tipsy or a little drunk but wasted. Apparently the other reason I like to have Shannon there is to act as my anchor. I don't think I drank as much as last year, but I don't think I had a big enough dinner before the crawl. Luckily Angie was there to give me a ride home. I got home and got sick, a first for me on the crawl.

The night started off well, as Shannon was dropping me off 'Living on a prayer' was on the radio. I thought it was a good omen. Ryan had the idea to tell people to come in costume. The idea behind this was in hopes of getting women dressed as 'slutty nurse', 'slutty cop', 'slutty slut', in short, Ryan is a pig. But that was fine with me because Angie and I had a good time discussing if they would make it to the end. (Some of these girls had very high heels, not sensable for walking)

The only drawback to the costume crawl, was that people thought my kilt was a costume! I politely told them no and they didn't believe me. If Steve or Ryan were around I would ask them "whens the last time you saw me in pants?" That seemed to convince them. Chris wore his kilt too, I gave out some Utilikilts business cards (I really need to open a store, I can so sell these things) and I ran into a friend from High School.

Well I never fell down, but I sure couldn't walk straight. Thank you Angie for getting me home safely, and thank you Shannon for not being mad at me for coming home drunk. Lastly, thanks to the man who invented the toilet and for making its porcelain surface so cool and soothing.

p.s. I went with the Survival Kilt.
p.p.s. One of the other reasons I like Shannon to go is for her beautiful photo documentation. IE: no pictures without her.

Here comes the crawl

These photos were taken a couple of weeks ago at Steve's house. We had another crab boil for his birthday. No crayfish this time, as they to much work and not enough meat. We had a ton of crab, shrimp, clams, and 1 lobster. delicious.

This is Peter, Steve's brother-in-law, I had him try on one of my kilts and he wore it all night. He said "I thought it would be comfortable, but it's more comfortable than I thought it would be". Steve's brother Philip tried it on later, and his girlfriend looked at him with pure lust in her eyes. I've actually never seen anything like it. Peter's wife Jen said he would be getting one for his birthday or Christmas. I'm not exaggerating about the lust thing, she almost needed a drool cup.

Well, the crawl is next week, and I am looking forward to it. I will drink to Becky's memory, and finish someone elses drink in her honor. Shannon might not be able to come because of work. But she said she might try to trade days or shifts with someone. I hope she can because I like to have her around. Sometimes she says she feels like an outsider because she doesn't get to hang out with the group (because of work), and I understand this (I used to work crappy shifts too). But when she's not there, I think of her constantly (maybe not constantly , I sound like a total PW sap, but a lot). Hope to see you at the crawl next year Kelly.