Top That!

What could possibly top a day of riding to Oceanside in gale force winds?  Well let me tell you....taking a nice hot shower to warm up after fixing the shower one more time.  Then having the power go out.  That would have been the best as a kid!  You know "Sorry Mom, but I can't see".  So now that the power has been out for 2 hours and all the batteries in the electronic devices are dying.....

Now my amazing girl gets home and we light some more candles, as she jumps in the shower the lights come back on!!  Yeah!  So I'm sticking with the story that Southern California Edison has gender preferencing.....lol. Then of course I was tasked with blowing out all of the candles just in time to get my girl a towel and help dry off her beautiful body. Once again, proof that there is a God!  Just thought I would share.....

Merry Christmas 2015 recap.......

Let me just say WOW!  As most of you know I am an only child which makes for an interesting birth order....  So when my wonderfully amazing girlfriend tells me that she is 1 of 7, I try to understand that dynamic....I did watch a little of that with my own three children, so I wasn't completely oblivious.  My first introduction to the family was not really overwhelming but quite complex I'd say.  You see the oldest of the 7 children hosted a Thanksgiving Day dinner.  The oldest is married to a very nice man that is 1 of 5 children in his family.  Now you have to understand that they all have known each other for years and brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins have all grown up together.  It's like all of the households from the original 12 children of 2 families, come together under one roof for a holiday, just like they were all raised in just one house.  It's like any "family" get together is like the party of the decade!  Most only children would be overwhelmed I think.  As for me though, I always wanted a big family because from the outside in, it looked fun.  Maybe it was that grass is greener thing......  Turns out though, other than me still learning names a month later, it was fantastic!  This family is just as I imagined a big family would always be.  Grandma and Grandpa, enjoying their adult children, grandchildren and all of the laughter and joy of the stories of events that everyone remembers.  The "open arms" hospitality that can only come from a family that loves each and every member and extended member.  

Christmas was just as wonderful to experience.  My name to faces ratio was a little better at this event.  Lol. We did the Christmas Eve event at the same sister's house as Thanksgiving, I was happy to see one of my girl's Aunt and Uncle and Cousin.  They are amazing people that I just love how they are.  I'm really looking to have more one on one time with them tomorrow when the come for a more intimate visit with us and the beach.  So after our evening of family and food, lots and lots of food, we went home and got all rested for our own Christmas morning. 

We awoke around 8am, I wanted to get an early start in the kitchen so I got up right away.  The plan was to cook breakfast for the girls that were coming at 10am to open presents.  We had a strict timeline to keep on Christmas Day.  A timeline that I agreed to keep with the family the night before...Uh oh.  So around 8:30, we get a call from one of the girls in a panic that says she is running late and not going to make it by 10am.  We said no problem, we still had one girl MIA.  So I started cooking with an expected eat time of 10:30ish. Mistake!  10:30 ish actually turned out to be 12:00pm ish.  It was all good though, at times a bit stressful and others just laughing  and enjoying it all.  Everyone showed up and we had a great time, good food and wonderful company!  We finished eating about 6min, before we were suppose to leave for Grandma and Grandpa's house....that's the "uh oh" part.  You see, we still had to open all of those presents.....so it was Christmas and that's one of the joys of the day.  Seeing the ones you love open the gifts that you acquired for them because you know they would love them.  The 7 hours of wrapping that my girl did, got destroyed in a matter of 1 hour.  The couch was full of 4 people, their gifts and a sea of torn paper and ribbon on the floor.  With absolutely no time to clean anything we all grabbed what we needed for our next stop and hit the road to Grandma's House!

Surprisingly, no one said a word when we arrived 1 hour late.  Again we had a house full of people but several from the night before didn't make this visit.  So my name to faces ratio got even better!  It was a wonderful time, we did the presents thing again and had some food.  It was nice to see the "kids", all adult kids, hanging together and having their time just like they had never grown up.  The laughter, love and happiness that can be seen in a family of this size is wonderful. Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa for all of these people that I was able to enjoy for my holiday!  The missed timelines and pitfalls are just part of the joy in a family this size and enjoyed just the same as everything else!  In fact when someone that has struggled to get there finally arrives it seems as though you actually enjoy seeing them all the more!

Zombie Apocalypse is real!

Now you all think I'm crazy, right?   Well think about this...... how many homeless do you see wandering the streets?  Now that isn't the zombie portion.  Kind of like the standard infommercial "wait there's more! ".  So as you see these people,  sitting in the shopping centers, hanging outside of the gas stations and fast food joints saying things like "hey we're out of gas" or "I'm just hungry", know that it's probably the line of bs they chose for the day. Not all but more than half of these people are dealing with some type of addiction problem that you about to finance. In my neighborhood alone there is 20-30 of these types within a four block radius. Sure they move around a bit, but they are everywhere. The ghetto isn't the only place you see them. They hang out in a lot of places, business areas, residential, churches, stop lights and any place that there might be people with money. 

Now the zombie part is where you see them in their drug or alcohol induced stuper repeatedly looking like the zombies from all the bad movies of the 70's. Like in the movies,  they may not be eating us working folk yet,  but they are stealing from us. Items taken from our homes, money panhandled in person under the guise of hungry or homeless.   How many of you would give money if the sign or the "sales track" went like this "hey I just need another fix to get me by" or "looking for a 40 for the night"?  Then the they steal from the businesses they hit. Those losses will be passed onto the consumer.  The meth addicts steal liquor or food to trade for meth, they all steal somewhere, somehow.  If the society ever crumbles to the point that food is scarce, they will start to eat people for survival.

The social programs do not have enough funding to get them off of the street. We worry about immigration and the weight on the tax roll, what about the problem born and raised right here. Most of the illegals get jobs and become productive. I see caucasians asking for money not hispanics. I see caucasians not being productive, even for their own wellness.  Then using excuses like my childhood was bad, my dad is an ass, my mom doesn't care about me and the list goes on and on.  Guess what?  None of us had a perfect childhood.  My dad was an ass, which I apparently got some of and left my own mom's house at sixteen.  That wasn't easy, but I had some family that helped me until I finished highschool. Then I put myself through vocational school and became a productive member of society.  So it can be done without being stuck in your own baggage, violating the law and destroying yourself and those that care the most about you. 

These are the people on the street more than not. The addicts that only live and steal to feed their addiction. You can't believe a word they say, any act of kindness is temporary and only to gain a step towards the next high, trip or drunk. If you want to help them anyway, buy them something that can be eaten, not resold or returned for money, traded for drugs, etc.  I'm sure you get the picture......my position is not to forget about these people, but also not to enable the cycle to perpetuate itself.