always get the rest of the story

if your martial arts instructor tells you that he has a student that is training to do a cage fight in November, and wants to know if you will be a regular sparing partner for this guy, before you agree, you should probably find out that it is the 350lb former semi-pro football player, college wrestler guy that he wants you to work out with. these little bits of info can be important.

It finally happened!

Renae and i have been together for almost 17 years now. in all those years we have been through a lot. On many occasions, she has told me i was crazy. On a few occasions she has told me she didn't want me to do some thing. last night, for the first time ever, she put the two together and said, "that's crazy, i dint think you should do it." i was stunned. is it because I'm getting old and she doesn't think I'm capable of doing crazy stuff any more? who knows. will i take her advice? probably not.

!!Warning!! Graphic Photos

There are some pictures at the end of this. some of them are ugly. you may not want to look. O.K. So i dont know how many of you know this, but I just may be the luckiest man alive. there are numerous reasons I could give for this, like, I have a beautiful wife that I dont deserve. my dad is one of the coolest guys i know. i have the gospel in my life. i have 5 healthy, rockin cool kids. but none of those is the reason for this post. some of you may not know the story so i will tell it. last year i took a week off work to spend a weekend with renae for our anniversary and to do some work around the house. one of those jobs was to burn the burning pile. i started to fire with gasoline. i have done this many times. after starting the fire i went off to do some other things. i came back a goodly am out of time later to find out my fire had gone out. i checked it over carefully to make sure. it was out. no flame. no embers. no smoke. so i got the gas can and went to restart the fire. as i was liberally splashing gas onto the pile i found out my fire was not quite out. the fire ignited with enough force to bring the guy from across the street out of his house(i was in my fairly large back yard) to find out what had just shook his house. when it went up. i saw the fire ball go around and past me. i quickly did the STOP/DROP/and ROLL. i thought i was on fire. my friend that was with me told me "your OK, your OK!" i got up and looked at my left elbow. reached over and pulled a large hunk of skin off. to which he said "oh, your not OK." i found out that if you are a burn patient you go to the front of the line at the ER. i was in, checked, treated, and out in less than an hour. the hair on my head was singed. eyebrows shorter(i had glasses on). eye lashes curled. but my arm took the brunt of the blast. i was burned bad, and it hurt. the swelling hurt more than the burn though. the pressure made it throb when i stood up. but what hurt the worst was the wound care center. it takes a special person to work at the wound care center(evil). they started off with a pair of tweezers and a small set of scissors and then went to a scalpel. they did not cut with the scalpel, they used it as a scraping tool. i just knew i was scarred for life. well here are the pictures. turn your head if you have a weak stomach. i mean it. Im not joking.

DAY 1

i ended up with the bubbles growing and eventually connecting into one big one and then popping.

top view of day one

DAY 3

Day 4

Brown stuff is a protein layer that built up. it had to be scraped off.
i did most of the scraping my self. did not like the wound care center.
the people were great it just hurt. a lot!

DAY 4
reverse view
i did the scraping in the shower. there was often enough blood
that the entire floor of the shower was red even with the water running.

DAY 6

DAY 9
this is what the bandages looked like after my work day.
i did not use the arm during the day. the fluid in just natural oozing
of the wound and bleeding.

DAY 9
it took about 10-15 min to get the bandages off.
they were stuck. had to be ripped off.

Day 15
I figured this is the scar i would have for the rest of my life

1 YEAR
This is what my arm looks like now. you have to look to see a scar.
i think in a couple more years it will have faded completely.

Like i said lucky. Blessed. Watched over. all these are true.

is all in how you spin it.

big new story. "U.S. pull all remaining combat troops out of Iraq!"
the story i watched made a big deal that we are done with the war. The operation is over. then they spent about 5 seconds saying that there will still some support and training staff left behind. the story i watched left out that there would still be over 50,000 troops in Iraq for at least the next year if not more.
i, like a lot of other people, feel done(or at least that we should be) with Iraq. i feel good about some of the accomplishments that we made there. but we have been there for most of the last decade and its costing us an awful price. a price in more that just dollars. we did good, but at some point we have to leave. the people there need to take care of the country we handed them(and i would not mind them paying the bill for what we did there. we could use the money). but saying "see, we left, just like i said we would" and not really be out is not entirely honest. i know we will most likely have a presence in Iraq for many years. we still have troops in Germany and that has been over 60 years now. but to leave 50,000 seems like a lot to me. it seems like 50,000 GIs could cause quite a bit of trouble(for the bad guys). it seems we have not done much more than retitling these guys(and galls)and changing what we are saying they are there to do. one of the reasons i have said that we should get out is that we need to fight of not fight. dont talk about it. dont make it political. defeat the enemy, and go home. but if your going home(for what ever reason), go home. dont say "we are done" and not really be done.

fat slow fat

it is a humbling/humiliating thing to not just get beat by you 62 old dad in a race but to consistently get beat by your 62 old dad. i swear, I'm going to run him down with my truck. we went running the other day and he had to stop and look back for me. he said "sorry, i forgot and started to take off." sorry? sorry? he forgot what? that i was slow, fat, or that i was there. i mean come on. he is 62 freaking years old. OLD. Old should trump fat. its not fare. i was sired by a freak of nature. i have got to get up off my lazy but and get into shape.

WOW!! thats great news

News flash! scientists have now developed a car that can be fueled by water.
the only problem they are having so far is that they can only use water from the gulf of Mexico.

am i the only person having trouble with the story that is being given to us about the oil spill thing? my BS meter has been going off for a few weeks now.

never had any douts

Ross's team(the one i'm coaching), just had their first game. a 10 to 0 victory.

the bat

my two older boys decided that they wanted to play base ball this year. we have already talked about that i know, but, some of the stuff that goes with playing a sport is equipment. sense they had never played before, they did not have any thing they would need. so i made a trip to the store and got a glove for each of them, a bucket of balls to practice with, a bat to practice with and some tennis balls(tennis balls don't hurt as bad if you miss a pop up and it doesn't miss you). well stuff cost money and a lot of stuff costs, well, a lot of money. so all that in addition to paying for them to be in the league was really adding up. then one day i came home with another bat. but, this was not an ordinary bat. this is a game day bat. its a limited edition, double wall titanium, demarini(brand name). renae asked me how much i had spent on this used bad and was horrified when i told her $50. more than the new bad i got at w-mart. i tried to ease her mind. that i had indeed had got an excellent deal. the original price on this bat(meant for little leaguers to use) was $325. she was still horrified. partly i think that we had spent so much on base ball this year and that a child's bat could cost so much. on the good side, if we take care of this bat it should last us through all 4 boys base ball needs. so really I'm saving money right.

OK! some people tick me off

There are some people in our country that are starting to get on my nerves. the other day, cinco di myo, i am sure i spelled that wrong, there where some kids that got sent home from school and suspended for having a USA flag on their clothes. i think it was for(the excuse used) harassment. so now we cant even be proud of our country on a supposed Mexican holiday. i thought the 5th of may was their Independence day, but it turns out that it celebrates a battle won against the French some 50 years after Mexico declared their independence from Spain. i heard a quote from some kid that was there that was of Mexican decent (he had no accent which i assume means he was raised here and might be a citizen) "the Americans where wearing and flaunting THEIR flags on OUR holiday." as it turns out the day is hardly remembered in Mexico. they don't get off school or work for it. it seems like the beer companies have propped it up so they can have another good drinking holiday. so just remember before you have some thing on that has the flag on it(at least our flag), to be proud of your country (at least if its our country) is not patriotism, its actually racism and hatred.

better than last year

so last years deer season was not good. if you'll remember, i shot my friends truck by accident. not cool. this years result was much better. i shot 3 deer from the same stand in 3 consecutive hunts. first a doe with a shotgun at about 15 yards the next a small buck at about 25 yards with a pistol and the last a doe with a shot gun at about 10 yards. the 3rd one i was asleep in my stand waiting for a guy to come pick me up for breakfast on his way to the house and a slight rustling noise woke me. i looked up and there where 3 deer standing about 15 yards off. as i got into position to shoot one of them came closer and made the shot even easier. i have gotten to where i can field dress a deer in about 5 minuets. after break fast i packed up and was getting ready to go home and asked if i could have one of the kittens i had seen running around the house. a cute little calico. i loaded her up and now we have a new cat. you have probably seen some pics of her on Renae's blog. all in all a very productive season. the one bad spot was that i took to long in butchering all the deer and some of the meat spoiled and i had to throw some away. that is very much breaking one of my own hard core hunting rules. you make shore the mead you kill gets used. i repented and said i was sorry for wasting the blessing given to my family. i hope its not taken back on me next season.