MEN’S UNDERWEAR GIVEAWAY

MEN’S UNDERWEAR GIVEAWAY

...he's back........ with a vengeance! LOL!

... it's true, i am back at last - and starting with this post - will be writing at least 3 or 4 times a week! Yay!

“...it all starts with turtles... or, 4 ½ years of Logic in the making.”

It starts at Chinese New Years, Chinatown Los Angeles...end of January... Nine of us all together go to the parade, play with fire works, make fun of the new Mayor Antonio 'If there's a camera in sight I am there' Villaraigosa (after all, ex-Mayor Jimmy Hahn comes from San Pedro ya know...); and get in a fight with snooty people across the street; then on the way back to the car my sister says "Lets get Ashley a turtle!" (Apparently since her daughter Alice has a menagerie we must now also build a zoo here in San Pedro)... Mom frowns and agrees.... Hence, we get two. "Well, they do so much better in pairs ya know..."

Back home, we start with a miniscule turtle tank for two...... and it grows from there.

We decide we both want a new tank for fish again. I had a 150 gallon one way back in the day, and Rina got one during Asher’s 9 month 'sleepover' to help her relax..... so we find a 30 gallon tank in the recycler, comes with fish (of which we subsequently exchange all but two for our Africans, and if you look close in the image below - next to the heater - is the ONLY fish she named out of all of them... a Neon Tetra called Ballerina - which "disappeared" about three weeks after we got the Africans) and all the fixins' and Rina shrewdly bargains the extra 10 gallon tank and cover out of the guy's garage as part of the whole deal.

Now the turtles have room to expand and grow, we add a plecostamus to keep algae down, and she names them "Amanda and Julie" (irregardless that they are both boy turtles) based on the recent addition of her twin little sisters via her dads new romance... at least they weren't named Sam.

Another story another time for this...

Forward a couple weeks, and one turtle (eerily similar to its namesake) is not eating, and subsequently dies on us (but not the namesake at least)........ So - we add Goldfish to her tank - can't kill those, right? Pleco dies next during a water change, but the goldfish... when they came home, were dropped in their bag to acclimate... come back a couple minutes later and the bag is sitting outside the tank on the floor... Reason being? "The turtle will EAT them" she cries emphatically... and a small fight ensues as to what and what not the turtle with it’s oh so small mouth can actually fit inside it to eat or swallow...

all this because we had subsequently traded the fish that came with the big tank and started our collection of African Cichlids... which we explained will eat other fish in the tank if we get anything smaller. She crosses this information with the turtle eating potential gold fish and wants nothing added to her tank then... but we convinced her otherwise.

Now the Africans started out on just flake food to keep them non-aggressive and to allow them to grow to the size of the surroundings...

Three months later and we are current - the Africans are now on a diet of flakes and live guppies which constitutes about 60 of them every three days or so... we have added a few small guppies to Ashley's goldfish and turtle to try to do some breeding of our own food supply and yesterday we come down to the following conversation:

Food Chain Basics 101:

We needed to go get guppies and food for both tanks, so a trip after school was headed to the fish store. On the way, Ashley decided we needed to put all the guppies in her tank and not feed them anymore to the Africans... we explain that her tank isn't big enough to hold 60 additional, although very small guppies to her now crowded habitat and that in simple terms "this is just the laws of natural progression - big fish eat little fish which of course eat littler fish" and a simple glossing over of the mechanics of the food chain.

Here the aforementioned 4 and a half years of Logic enters the picture...

"I don’t want the fish to eat the small ones anymore."

"Well, they need them now since we have them on this diet", I answered and then suggested that "as People we eat hamburgers and steaks which come from cows."

Mom interjects that "Chickens come from where? “and gets back

"from eggs."

Mom again... "We eat chickens and eggs, and we eat hamburgers, right?"

Ashley comes back with:


"Hamburgers come from Burger King.
And milk comes from cows. "

Mom starts with "Where do thick, juicy steaks..." (her 4 and a half aged favorite way to describe them anyway) and I mutter under my breath she is gonna say the grocery store... and before I can finish, that is exactly what rolls off her tongue glibly ...understand that this is no regular 4 and a half year old but actually a very sarcastic small person merely pretending to be a child for hers' and our amusement who just so happens to fit in the booster chair in the back seat and can carry a conversation better than most adults I know.
So I try again to explain the food chain, momentarily stunned still by the Burger King comment and now trying to rid that god forsaken cartoon come to life in the commercials that scares me in my sleep out of my minds eye to keep focused on this conversation...
"Steaks and Hamburger come from cows, as well as milk... "
but I am cut short again by the commanding voice in the rear stating

"I am done playing THIS game, are we there yet?"


Score:

Ashley - 2
Mom and Dad - 0

Just remember: it all begins with turtles...

take heed now.

... a quick interim post to facilitate things!...

i am caught up in the middle of a seemingly

"thousand things at once" going on,

so here is a quick visual review of the vacation recently,

posting will resume later today when I get caught up some... LOL!

click on the Flickr Badge to the left to see them....

on "vocation!", which seems like it should be just that!

... i just feel like it should be a 'vocation' to go on vacation always!

- sunrise over the financial district skyline -

we rolled into the City around 5:45

after driving all night from Los Angeles,

and since check in for our room wasn't until 2 pm

- drove out to the Marine Stadium

to start the day with a walk out on the curving pier

into the harbor where i shot this image of the City awakening at 6 am,

and feel it captures the moment exactly!

this location is just across the street from Ghiradelli Square which was the next stop

- to go to Boursins' for croissants and coffee

- a tradition of sorts to start a day in San Francisco as it were.

imagine our surprise to find them gone...

they have recently moved to a much larger facility now at Pier 39

where they have a ginormous building housing the bakery, a bistro, gift shop and cafe all rolled into one big fantasy of a shopping experience,

along with a nice patio with heaters and a fireplace outside

facing the crab shoppes, but alas

- it being Thanksgiving Day afterall - were not slated to open till 10:00 am.

- the harbour at Pier 39 -

so, off to a drive over the bridge and back

- anything to waste time and avoid napping in the car

till check in anyway hehehe!;

and then a leisurely tour of Cow Hollow till we could

go get a proper cup of coffee and a snack.

Cow Hollow walkabout

... best part so far? ( besides the sunrise of course...)

"free parking" anywhere in The City on Thanksgiving Day!

more tomorrow...

dallied the day away instead of writing

'and now have to get dinner on the stove for my girls!

bathroom graffitti SP in San Francisco, Jan 2004

bathroom graffitti SP in San Francisco, Jan 2004,
originally uploaded by just doug.

sorry i have been out of touch again Judy is unhappy with me heheheh! i am leaving in ten minutes to return to the locale imaged here, where i will endeavor in daylight hours tomorrow... to see if this is still scratched into the mirror there, and then spend two days in The City, then a trip down to Patterson to stay with my nephew and his wife (the one's who DIDN'T attend the wedding LOL!) for the Holiday weekend, and will return on monday to extoll in detail..... my virtuous trip! with pictures too! doug.

Friday @ Michele's ..... a weekend MUST do!

... hello all, thanks for stopping by "Meet and Greet" fridays from http://micheleagnew.com ,

if you haven't been or don't know it ... CHECK IT OUT!

wow, traffic builder, lots of great blogs to visit and community, community; community! did i say community yet? lol!

thanks in advance and post "posted" from all who stop by today and this weekend .....

meantimes, back to being the "Domestic God" today for me...... housework, laundry, lunches, grocery lists and all that...... weekend birthday party for my younger sis tomorrow so that means a cake to be made, presents to be bought, groceries to buy still; and of course - in and around all of it: "Meet and Greet!" to follow too...

does it never end?

ps: I visited or tried to visit chatty but was blocked since i am ao-hell based server LOL! and laymans site wouldn't let me post anon or not. but i was there!

This just in ... inquiring KENJUs' need to know!

.... so, i had my doctor review monday for my case, and after three hours there - i still don't know where i stand on my one good leg, or if i am gonna have that one good leg to stand on...

but - my story of the 3 hours there more than makes up for the still lacking information (well - more like 4 and a half hours including the before’s and after’s also!)

my appointment was at ten, the office is only an 8 minute drive down the freeway that flies as a crow would between my home and the doctor office, but nary a crow in sight come monday morning... see - the freeway is undergoing widening for inclusion of new "HOV" lanes (understandable since this 'freeway' is all of 11 miles across town as a jumper between two more MAJOR arteries in an already much too clogged orange county given over to asphalt and rubber), but i am already off course here...

so i know the freeway is gonna be an issue, and i know that the exchange i need to exit is closed while they build the new flyover at its crossing, and by knowing all this in advance - i add like twenty minutes surface time to my ride. i exit my humble abode at 9:10, already having been up and out of it once that morning at 5:45 to take my sister to work in order to use her car (and her job being off one of the "two more MAJOR arteries" not subject to delays save for rush hour), pull up to turn right out of my street and see a long line of traffic already slowing.

now i'm thinking - these people are ALL late for work - it's after 9 am already, but less than 100 feet around the corner on my right i see the slowing traffic doing the same crazy dance honey bee's do when they want to tell others where the new juice is at - that kinda lazy figure eight motion - and between gaps in the cars i see why... a two car head on in the middle of the street where there really is no reason to have one, but between the seventeen people running around with their cell phones all trying to call 911 or their mothers to relay the accident - there in the middle of the street is a kid in jeans and a tee shirt just sprawled out like he was trying to horizontally/prone "climb" the street as if it were a vertical surface instead.

i observe no blood - no extended bits of bone thru ragged skin, nothing really to show serious injury anyway, and i also observe that car one closest to me has fully deployed airbags...

aha! 1+1=5!

i assume that the 'climber' is said driver of car one and has been knocked into some sort of “clint eastwood/eiger sanction” mindset by the impact of the airbags and fell to the ground upon a rapid exit from his now useless car, while driver number two is on his cell calling his mother to call his lawyer to whatever - his car still operable (well of course it was - it was twice the size of car one!) so i weave my way into and thru all of this, cursing under my breath as to why i don't really drive anymore in orange county for just this reason: airbags+cellphones+idiots in a hurry to get nowhere later and continue on my way.

down the boulevard, then up and over the "new" crossover bypass where i should have been driving on twenty minutes before if the freeway was indeed "actually" free... and proceed to make a right to head to the building where this fancy state approved review doctor has his office. up ahead: yellow flashing lights - lots and lots of them. pointing "left". and road cones. and barriers. WTF!... the "governator' isn't due in town till tomorrow for election day (orange county+citizens=REPUBLICAN last bastion stronghold), but it is just more road work - the road being the one of course i need to turn on to get to the damned building of said state doctor - now rapidly approaching t-minus ten...

down around the block, back up and across, into the back way thru the shortcut i just invented – yeah, what’s a 14 inch drop off a curb do to a 1994 cougar anyway?

ahhh, finally,

parked.

now? really weird deja vu time... i have been here before somehow, no - this doctor doesn’t hold court in my personal medical rolodex of a cell phone that holds more doctors than friends and family on my international share plan, ... F*CK! ... this building holds the office of my ex-lawyer who fumbled my case for the first year!

oh my, this does not bode well now.......

into the elevator, push floor four - one below the famed lawyers office - and exit into a maze like i have never seen in an office tower and i live in the mother of most office towers concentrated on the west coast - even spent a few years in the line of work designing them!

at last suite 400 comes into view - last door possible of course with a name plaque anyway announcing it as such - and sign in to begin. 7 pages of forms to fill out - "please sign here. and here. and here. oh, and twice here please if you will and we can start on them while you complete “Moby Dick” over there. have a seat - we will be right with you."

off to an office to give a history "you remember dates and instances well?" yep! i do.

40 minutes later, off to another office, “please take off all your clothes except undies and put on this luxurious mass marketed for its beneficial fashion statement paper robe - gap to the back if you will please...” waitaminnitt... i am here for a back review, and not that far back exam i say half jokingly, and she gives me that look

" yeah. that would be funny if it was the first time i heard it" look....

15 minutes of very cool air later on parts that don't need chilling, the doctor enters, charts in hand and begins to ask me to “walk this way, tip toes back, heels now, bend twist turn” – “ OW OW OW” – “oh, hurts to do that?” um yeah.

“can i take this off?” referring to the robe/gown/whatever, it is not really staying on my not so broad shoulders and slips continually down like a moomoo on me, but with the cooled air keeping my nipples erect to the point that the rings in them are keeping the gown from falling to the floor only, i am now less encumbered to just stand there in boxer briefs and complete my review/exam.

"gonna need xrays..." he mumbles, "sure, whatever it takes" i reply, and a flash later, a quick knock on an already opening door and this petite little PYT pops in "whooo hey whups! you are nearly nekkid!"

yep.

"...'kay - can you gown up and follow me?" sure.

down the hall again to an ice box of a room/morgue? and climb up on the morticians slab of cold stainless steel to attempt to lay flat for an xray...... now it gets fun!

the steel table is cold against my back, so i am arching upwards slightly to get away from contact... this puts my not so little "friend" at a much more prominent position than i would care to be in unless it is my girlfriend doing the next parts - i am continually patted and smoothed down on top of my gown to keep it flat and conformed to my steller physique... and she really seems to be intent on making sure a certain square foot of area is flat... but that just isn't gonna happen THERE anyway.... IT just doesn't have any where to go, understand? IT always sits out front of the porch so to speak.... and she seems too, again - really, REALLY be enjoying continuing trying to flatten me out some....... anyways..

35 mins of time elapse between 5 series of xray shots because I keep getting a "cloudy area" in one or two that just doesn't read (apparently a slight scoliosis), so; more adjusting, and more re-adjusting, which leads to more smoothing of course (go figure!) and finally i am done.

okay, i have been in "negotiations" for the last week about an impending ovulation cycle up coming and we have picked out names already, and all i am thinking is.... "i just went thru 35 minutes of highly concentrated gamma bombardments the likes that Flash Gordon would never imagined and highly concentrated at a SPECIFIC portion of an important part of said "negotiations" anatomy... do i actually have anything left now to give a name to?"

....i mean, when my dentist xrays my teeth, i get a lead blanket that immobolizes me in my chair till three interns come in and lift it back off me, and here i am in very form fitting 95 percent nylon/5 percent lycra skin tight boxer briefs and a damned PAPER shield of a gown!

"well HOnee? it's like this.... they all just kinda got vaporized last week at the doctors. you remember... that monday from hell i experienced?"

....oh yeah... that "horizontal" climber? turns out the car he escaped from was stolen, and he was a passenger/co-jacker/something bad - and the driver bailed at the moment of impact headed south for parts unknown and left him there to "climb" away on his own.... fitting i suppose.

whose insurance is gonna cover this one? I’m still waiting to find out what mine covers….