Orlando bound

Gotta go to Orlando today for work again, we're expected to be there till the end of the month. I won't be around again much...so wish I had a laptop!

Good news...my second consult with new clients for faux finishing went very well yesterday. I really like these people, they are very nice, and they have a very large home and many paint ideas. Already I've met the kids and they are pleading with their parents to get murals done in addition to their fauxed bathrooms.

There are 6 bathrooms I'm doing. SIX. There are 4 people who live there. Yesterday we accomplished getting the types of finishes they want. I left them all the color swatches so they can finalize that. We did discuss colors a bit, but as husbands and wives go, they did disagree on much of that.

When I get back we'll finalize the colors, I'll work up final samples and hopefully start working and getting paid.

Evolution Theory Holes Filled!

Creationists complain that there are too many holes in Evolution theory, so therefore they need to fill them up with angels, devils, leprochauns and woodsprites. Not so, I say. See below my latest illustration that seeks to fill in at least some of said offending holes.



Notice I left out the nuclear bomb stage and the last stage with the huge "Mankind RIP" tombstone. I ran out of paper.

Buh-Bye, Dubai

DP World has decided to give up the ghost on the fight to win a coveted contract to operate 6 major US ports and turn it over to a US entity.

It SHOULD have been and always should be a US entity operating and guarding our ports and borders.

This is another major blow to Bush, who was dying to finally use his veto power in defiance towards almost an entire Congress and Senate who were stirred into an unbelievable uproar over the controversial deal. The majority of Republicans finally remembered what common sense felt like as they defiantly parted ways with Bush and his insistence to not only give operations to another country, but an Arab country.

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What could we do to regain our former greatness?
1. Dump Bush.
2. Pull out of Iraq gradually. Murtha is right, much as we don't want to admit it. Don't stop military action against Bin Laden. Justice must be served.
3. Bring troops home to SECURE OUR COUNTRY AND OUR BORDERS.
4. Create an ID system for border crossers (perhaps the only thing I agree with Bush on)to let crossers work legally and safely and to identify them and possible terrorists.
5. Become a leading world vanguard on cutting edge green technology to wean us off the oil teet and create a new economical industry boon.
6. Stop protecting US "interests" abroad....our interests are here at home.
7. RENEW ORLEANS. What a disgrace to see that city in the condition it is.

Agree? Disagree? You tell me.

New Addiction

I'm hooked! After work (at home) yesterday, we went down to the Oleta river park area in North Miami to rent kayaks. I LOVE kayaking. We are buying some used ones from the park hopefully at the end of this month.







SEPARATED AT BIRTH???? Mr. Kibbles, the now famous kitty who found his way back home through 15 miles of Everglades jungle after a pissed-off neighbor kitty-napped him and dumped him there and Jennifer Wilbanks, otherwise known as the Runaway Bride, who found her way home after ditching her wedding and then calling her fiance to falsely claim she was kidnapped and sexually abused. Did Conan already do a spoof on this yet?? I seem to recall something similar.


IN MEMORIAM: It's considered noble to live and die for what you love and believe in. Dana Reeve was one such person. This truly beautiful human being was not only a talented actress and singer in her own right but stayed by her late husband (actor Christoper Reeve) throughout his paralysis and vigil to raise awareness for stem cell research.



Reeve, a nonsmoker, died of lung cancer at the age of 44. Christoper Reeve passed on October 10, 2004.

Christopher Reeve Foundation

DKM & SOIA Show (and a nasty unrelated rant at the end...)

Matt and I saw the Dropkick Murphys (again!) with Sick of it All opening last night at Sound Advice Ampitheater in West Palm, FL.





God, I love SOIA. These veterans of good old-fashioned hardcore have been kicking ass since the 80's. THIS is how it's done, all you stupid cookie monster bands (go back to death-metal, Cookie!) These pushing-40 "grumpy old men", as they refer to themselves, were running around stage, lean and muscular, bristling with energy and sounding as good if not better than their recordings. Pete Koller, the grinning hunk with the spikey blond hair, was all over the place, a tattooed, hyperkinetic jumping blur.





The crowd was a writhing mass of limbs and crowd-surfing hotties in tank tops. (...and flip-flops. WTF? What is up with the kiddies wearing flip-flops to punk shows? Now I know these shows are pretty tame these days, but still! Ouch!)

The Dropkicks put on their usual high-energy show. They still sound great. "Sunshine Highway" is not the road I want to follow them down on, but I still love these guys and what they stand for. Some Bostonians associate their home with the sounds of Aerosmith. Not me. No matter how many Warped Tours or Conan shows these guys do they will always be a bunch of proud working-class stiffs from Boston. They were pulling kids in wheelchairs and on crutches up on stage to watch the show alongside tons of kids in Red Sox gear. The crowd was insane and filled with guys in Celtics shirts and Irish stuff. You cannot have a bad time at a DKM show, no matter who you are, no matter what your age, no matter what music you really like. It just cannot be done. (er, except for the big 400 lb. kid who passed out in front of us and had to be ambulanced off before they even came on...)

And they played "Skinhead." I didn't think they would...oh me of little faith. But as we walked towards the truck past the truly faithful in scally caps pumping fists in the air calling for the song...they ripped into it. We could hear the chorus growing louder and louder as we rolled down the windows. He may be lost forever in the streets of Boston...but the skinhead returns for every DKM show and I hope he always will.

Nasty Unrelated Rant:

So they finally made abortion illegal in South Dakota. I think they did it for the publicity. I mean, who gives a flying crap about South Dakota anyway?

What we need to do is get the hard-working immigrants who these right-wing facists hate so much to build a 50' high wall that starts from Orlando and extends all the way up to Canada, leaving out New England, NY, NOLA, WA, OR, and CA. We'll call it the National Federation of Nascar-Loving-Gun-Toting-Jesus-Freaks. We'll paint a huge target (or a huge crop circle?) in the middle with the words "Aim Here" in Arabic. Abortion won't cure overpopulation but maybe that will.

Or we can just bomb the Walmarts. Not that I have anything against the big-box bohemoth, but have you seen the majority of Walmart shoppers? Mouth-breathers, all of them. If you go there for a bargain, fine, but if you view Walmart as a pleasant recreation spot to visit with the entire family, you should have been aborted a long time ago.

How awful! That wasn't Politically Correct at all!!! (Isn't it odd that the concept of PC was created by the lefties in the 80's, now it is a sacred cow of the righties today?)

Attribute my surly behavior to my unhealthy breakfast this morning of 2 Ibuprofens and a liter of coffee, the crowning glory following last night's after-show meal of Guinness, Sam Adams, Jaeger and pizza. Or the fact that this country is F-CKED!

Hunk of the Month

I'm a little spotty at keeping up this blog due to my strange schedule and all, so I think I missed last month's Hunk. I don't know if it's in me to really try and be all that punctual about a blog! So I might make it 2 hunks. I don't know. I don't care! How Moose does it so well with kids and a hubby is beyond me!!

Today's Hunk of the Month goes to Mike Rowe of the Dirty Jobs hit show on Discovery Channel. I love a lot of strange shows when I get the chance to watch, CSI Vegas is one of them. The daily news is probably the strangest and most disturbing show ever, even more than CSI. Dirty Jobs is a close 2nd in disturbing factor, as we watch hunky and hilarious Mike Rowe wallow in poo, slime, grime and premordial ooze, all with a bright (yet slightly strained) smile.

Mike is the host and one of the producers of the unlikely hit show. He bravely goes where most men and women would never go...into the roach-raining, rat-slithering, reeking bowels of San Fran as a Sewer Inspector, sqeezing green crap out of baby chickens as a Chicken Sexer, or nearly being killed by angry ostriches (probably the funniest episode ever) as an Ostrich Farmer. He and his team find people who actually do these jobs for a living, and they roll up their sleeves and get in there right with them. It's horrifying. It's fascinating. And with Mike as host, it's funny as hell.

Quote from Mike on the Discovery Channel website:
"We wanted to do a show that pays tribute to the men and women who earn a living doing things that you and I would never want to do. Whether it's a sewer inspector or a roadkill-removal specialist, we wanted to honor real people by rolling up our sleeves, literally, taking an honest look into their world and ultimately magnifying the importance of what they do to earn a buck. Essentially, that's what the show does."

Another Mike quote:
"The dirtiest job so far? "Bat biologist has got to be near the top. Bracken Cave is home to 40 million Mexican free-tail bats. The bats are hanging overhead, urinating constantly, defecating deliberately and giving birth randomly. All of the aforementioned substances are falling upon us. The guano that we're standing in is filled with billions of flesh-eating beetles, which survive on dead bats that periodically plummet from the ceiling.

Bracken Cave is like no other place on Earth, and quite possibly the dirtiest hole on the planet."

Mr. Rowe apparently has quite a female following. Go to the website's forum and there are many an adoring treatise to the man. Can you imagine hundreds of women sitting down promptly at whatever-o'-clock to watch a show about bat poop and exploding toilets? Well, with Mike and his baby blues, charming grin, runner's physique and self-deprecating wit, they're all over it. Like flies on...well, you know.

Morning Coffee Babble (personal update)

Finally finished my website makeover! Go see at www.currierartandmural.com.

The old one was made a few years back right after I finished a class in Dreamweaver and Fireworks. I have a graphic design education and am familiar with some Photoshop, Illustrator and that kind of thing so it wasn't too hard to learn, even though I don't know crap about HTML. The old one was nice but after a few years it started to really sprawl, got loaded with links, text and weird colors. It looked way too amateur.

So hopefully the new one is easier on the eyes and more professional.

It's a gorgeous day out of course!! Yesterday I was able to do a pretty good weight workout at the gym and then a 6 mile walk on the broadwalk at our beach. The last quarter of the walk I was finally able to RUN! I hate running, but since I've had this sciatica I haven't been able to do that OR use weights much, so any improvement in my abilities is a good thing.

I credit pilates mat work (this book!) and chiropractic. The sciatica was so painful I couldn't even do crunches to keep up my basic ab/back strength. I was able to do basic mat work and now am stronger than I was when doing hundreds of crunches, leg raises and god-knows-what-else 2-3 times a week. Pilates is easier (though not easy!!!) and my tummy, while still sporting a layer of flub, is strong and flat.

I workout for a few reasons. #1: Things hurt more in my troubled neck and back if I don't. I'm afraid if I don't keep up some level of fitness I will have more physical problems. #2: I HAVE to for my job! All my jobs...except for 2 desk jobs I've had...required good physical conditioning. Right now in my day-job I am the only woman and I can't afford to slow anyone down because I can't do the same kind of work the men do. #3: I don't want to be fat, and I don't want to be old.

If I look at it emotionally, reason #3 is really reason #1. It's partly for reasons of looks, but really it's more for reasons that I want to be able to do whatever I want, whenever I want. I want to someday be the old lady who goes hanggliding.

Matt has been sick with walking pneumonia we think. He's finally getting over it, but it's been hard on him because he can't lie down w/o coughing. So he barely sleeps. It's 8:40 a.m. here and he's finally snoring on the couch after staying up late last night, he won't sleep with me because he's afraid of keeping me awake with his hacking.

Howie just got back from the vet yesterday after having his choppers cleaned and an infection treated in his back leg that developed from a cut. He's 13 now and getting closer to that age when cats start declining. He's been my loving and faithful friend since I plucked him out of a Hanover Mall pet store 13 years ago after I saw him hanging upside down from a cat condo while pretending to attack some old laughing ladies on the other side of the window. He's fine now, curled up and warm on his spot in our bed.

Today I go for another long walk...maybe a run...and put together a quote for a huge faux finish job. Matt might have a photo shoot today with a model downtown. By next week, we might be in Orlando for the day job.

And THE DROPKICKS ARE COMING! With SICK OF IT ALL!!!! (Moose, if you're reading this far, you might like these guys if you like metal or harder rock) We haven't bought tix yet since we never know if we're certainly going to be here, so if by Mon. we aren't flying out it's a fine show we'll see that night. Matt has seen SOIA a bunch of times, being the old-timer he is, and I've seen DM tons of times all over the country(I'm on their website...see this page, scroll up 16 photos from the bottom)....looking forward to seeing SOIA. They are definitely one of my top favorite bands.

Anyway, that's enough babble for now. Life is good, I'm a happy gal.

...just don't read the newspapers...

Who Knew? We All Did.

As Katrina was raging towards its target in the Gulf Coast, Matt and I sat staring at the newscast slackjawed. We live in major hurricane territory, and coming from the Boston area as we both did, we are not strangers to devestating storms. Almost my entire neighborhood was wiped out by the Blizzard of '78 when I was a kid.

Bryan Norcross, our venerated meterologist who is credited for saving many lives during Hurricane Andrew and whose words Floridians regard trustingly during each hurricane, told us flat out...Katrina was due to hit New Orleans or around its vicinity very soon and the devestation would be catastrophic. If Brian Norcross says it folks, it's no joke.

Matt, who lived in NOLA for 2 years, was more acutely aware of the consequences of a direct hurricane hit. He knew that if the levees failed New Orleans would be flooded. In fact, everyone in New Orleans knew what could happen if a major hurricane hit. It was no secret. Scientific studies were conducted on it. Not only did the residents know, but the state and federal government knew. "In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City."

That's why it's so ridiculous that all of the sudden it's being reported that the White House knew all along, that the president was personally briefed about the possible consequences the day before Katrina hit. Did anyone ever take him seriously when he got up in front of national TV and claimed he didn't know how bad it was going to be? That no one knew?

Something should have been done a long time ago to correct New Orlean's vunlnerabilities. The blame for that goes much farther than Bush. He also can't take full blame that the planet is going through a climate change...be it greenhouse gases or natural phenomena...that make conditions ripe for more frequent and violent hurricanes for the rest of the decade.

But to be surprised that he did know the worst case scenario if Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and in particular New Orleans is foolish. How he acted after is no surprise at all. It's just more of the same.