Clearwater 2010

I was going to post a long detailed account of my vacation last week, but Kitten did a fantastic job over at her blog. Her memory is much better than mine and she didn't miss much. The above picture is my favorite.

Except. After the plane had landed, we grabbed our bags and waited for the shuttle back to my car. The driver helped her on and off the bus because I was on the phone with my sister. (I know, it sounds lame, but my mom has been ill and I was trying to help my sister with some details.) We started walking toward my car, me carrying my bag, Kitten pulling hers. I hang up with my sister and Kitten is laughing her ass off. "What?" as I picked up her bag and noticed that one whole side of it was shaking. "Oh. How long has your vibrator been running?" She says "I don't know." I'm telling you, those were some damn strong batteries.

HNT

Five years ago I had been blogging for a short time, mostly because I had a bad case of insomnia, but partly because it help my confused mind to write. Shortly after I began doing this, I stumbled across something called "Half-Nekkid Thursday". On Thursdays, bloggers would post a picture, usually creative, showing a bit of skin. Some were mundane, but a lot of them were artistic and fun. I decided to join in and posted my first HNT picture on June 30. The above picture was of me messing around and deciding that at first glance, somebody might mistake my picture for something more titillating. I got quite a few comments and people seemed to enjoy it, thus a new hobby was born. I met a lot of new people online due to HNT and some in real life. I liked the interaction and the challenge of trying to come up with something new.

Fast forward to April of 2006. I had been dating the infamous "Ex" since December. I had told her about my blog and she pretty much labeled all of my HNT friends perverts and "creepy". She eventually nagged me so much that in the interest of keeping the peace, I shut down my blog.

Lo and behold, what did she do? Started a blog. She posted pictures every bit as revealing as anything I ever did and even took the opportunity, I learned later, to privately send half nekkid pictures to other people. Nothing like hypocrisy, huh? I started a new blog, but I've never been able to recapture the sense of creativity and fun that originally attracted me to blogging. Just something else she took from me for no good reason other than she could.

Five years after HNT started, Osbasso tells me I'm one of the pioneers of HNT and asks me to post my very first entry as well as a present day recreation. Since I lack a decent camera, there is no recreation, but above is my original entry. Enjoy.

P.S. I had a wonderful vacation with Kitten. I promise I will write about it soon.

P.P.S. After the "Ex" dumped me, I combined my old blog with this one. If you look in my archives, you can find a lot of my old HNT pictures. If that kinda thing interests you.

A Ginger Midget Is Pounding On My Skull

My apologies to the pigment challenged, the vertically deficient, and those with inadequate dentition. Since I watched the Sherlock Holmes movie, I've been fascinated with ginger midgets. I'm just strange.

So, it's Sunday and I'm a smidgen hung over. I got a phone call Saturday night from a girl I used to work with a couple of years back. She was doing travel work now and was working at my old job site in Jackson, but was in Nashville for Mother's Day.

Wait, I'm leaving out part of the story. Originally, I found out that she was in Jackson and sent her a text message daring her to walk into a work area where the guys hang out and say "Big Ass Titties" then walk out. I promised I'd buy her a beer if she did it. Well, she did it and wanted to collect her beer last night.

So I met her for a beer. I stress the "A BEER" part. Four beers later, she had me laughing my ass off. I wish I could have gotten to know her better when we worked together, but the jealousy and irrationality of the ex-girlfriend would never have allowed that to be a possibility.

I had never talked to her about the ex, but they knew each other and apparently the ex told her about our break up. After the fifth beer, she looked at me and told me she was sorry about what had happened, it was fucked up. I tried to act like I didn't know what she was talking about, discussing it would be a serious buzz kill, but the alcohol set my tongue in action. I didn't tell her anything she didn't know, I guess she was just interested in hearing it from me. She just kept saying "that's so fucked up." There were a couple of positives that came out of my beer night with her. The first was that my low opinion of the ex was affirmed. She is a complete idiot. The second was that I realized how lucky I am.

Lucky? I'm so lucky that I no longer have to worry about who I talk to or see. Kitten trusts me completely. No games. No backwards redneck thinking. I get to be me. I left the bar at two in the morning and immediately called Kitten to tell her thanks. At least, I tried to tell her. I think she understood. I'm still a long way from normal. You don't go through four years of being mind fucked and then just flip a switch and expect everything to be like it was. I'm getting there.

Margaritaville and the Great Nashville Flood of 2010

This past weekend, Kitten came to town for the Jimmy Buffet concert. It started raining on Saturday afternoon, but that didn't put a damper on our enthusiasm. We stopped off at Urban Flats for a glass of wine and a snack and then went to the concert. Before the show started, Nashville's mayor and police chief came on stage and told people to stay downtown after the show, the rain was starting to make travel difficult to the south. I don't think anybody paid attention to them. In particular there was one loud mouth behind us that was already drunk and screaming "I don't care, I'm gonna have a fucking good time! Whoooo!" It was classic. Kitten and I were determined to ignore him, we were gonna just let him have a good time. A lady in front of us had a different idea.
I'd never been to a Buffet concert before, but beach balls are a big part of the show before it starts. There were at least fifty flying around before everything got started. One bounced up to a lady about three rows in front of us. Drunk guy jumps up and immediately starts screaming "Throw it to me! Fucking throw it to me! Whoooo!" This middle aged lady turns around, takes a look at drunk guy, lifts the beach ball over her head and throws it hard right at his crotch! Drunk guy makes the "OOOF" sound as it bounces off of his junk. Chickie got a standing ovation.

The show was great. Lots of sing along songs. I wish I had a job like Jimmy Buffet. Show up to work in a t-shirt and shorts and goof around in your bare feet for a couple of hours. A dream job for sure.

We made our way home through the rain fine. I took a look in my basement and there was a couple of inches of standing water. No big deal. I picked up the stuff that was in danger of getting ruined and we went to bed.

The next morning the rain was still going full force. There was six inches of water or so in the basement now and it was pouring in every crack and crevice. I looked out the window and the entire backyard was flooded. My moron land lord had blown all of the leaves from the last fall into the drainage ditch and of course now it had formed a primitive dam against the fence. I shot him an email and he said he would have somebody bring over a sump pump for the basement.
By the time the pump got there, the water was up over the first step of the staircase and rising. Kitten and I got out in the rain and she helped me set up the pump. Even after the pump was running the water continued to rise. I easily had eighteen inches in there before the rain let up and the basement started to drain. The washer and dryer were a quarter submerged and the HVAC system was about two inches away from going under. Out back, the force of the water had pushed the leaves against the fence until the fence collapsed.

We were starting to get reports of interstates being flooded so Kitten left fairly early hoping to be able to get home. She called later and said that 65 North was fine, but a lot of the exits were closed due to flooding. She was able to get home fine. I managed to get most of the water pumped out by midnight.


The Cumberland River in downtown Nashville continued to rise, eventually flooding the floor of the arena where Buffet had played two nights before. Even today, 60 or so hour after the rain stopped, there are areas under water and downtown is a mess. The land lord sent somebody out to repair the fence and I'm gonna sort through everything in the basement today to figure out what got ruined. I think I got lucky as far as the flooding goes, but others, not so much.