So what have I been doing all these months you ask, (assuming someone is asking or even gives a rats ass lol) I have started playing an online game that I quit for some time. I suppose I play it to take my mind off of other things, yes unfortunately those other things include a certain woman. The time I am allotted to talk to her isn’t much, she is busy with work, her kids and of course being verbally abused by her dumbass husband. I think if I could visit her I would first punch him right in the face, just to watch him fall lol

She and I have come to an agreement of sorts… a decision about “our relationship” we have entered the stalemate phase.. its either move on and face the consequences (yes we have thought of every possible scenario) or move on from one another.  Both options will require a lot of work. It’s going to take a lot of patience to take “this” to the next level. Letting go is equally as difficult, I honestly do not think I will be able to let her go. She really is an amazing person. I always tell her that its such a waste that she is married to an ignorant barbarian lol

Lets see what else have I been doing…. well, I have tried to slowly integrate yoga into my daily(if it were daily lol) workout. Ok so I dont workout daily or nearly as much as I used to. Even though I do not look fat, I feel fat and I think I know the reason why.. I have lost some muscle mass. Its hard to believe that so many months have passed since that debilitating pinched nerve.. I would never want to experience that pain ever again.  I try to do yoga stretches, especially the hamstring pulls.. they seem to help relieve pressure off the spinal cord.

I used to think yoga was for women and hippy freaks lol But that was back when I was young and full of crap. I now realize the benefits and the strength it takes to do some of these yoga techniques. If anyone is interested here is a link to one of hulu.com’s yoga channels.

Yoga Zone

I hope eveyrone had a nice Halloween. Mine was fun, I scared the hell out of the neighborhood kids (as usual) and I stole my daughters candy (as usual) lol Not all her candy of course… just the good stuff haha

In other news the dreaded Giants won the world series ughhhh I was rooting for Texas, I like to root for the underdogs.. its probably from all those Bad News Bears movies I watched as a kid lol

I would say that I will try to write in here more often but every time I say that I end up writing less! So I shall blog when the mood hits me and try to stay away from things that waste time. I think I shall do something productive with myself today.. I may write tomorrow or later and let you know what it is.

Ciao

I have been intending on writing in here for some time now. Unfortunately, my intentions and my actions conflict at times, It must be the procrastinator in me. It’s been hot lately, really hot. Sure its summer and all but our average  weather this summer has been 76 degrees, so needless to say waking up to a 94 degree heat wave is miserable and shocking lol if the weather forecast is to believed, we are in for a nice week starting Monday (Crossing fingers). I will no longer complain about the chill in the air just give me back that 76 degrees!

I have this airbed that I bought; I had a camping one once that was around 8 inches thick and as uncomfortable as sleeping on the ground. I only used it once because my cat (RIP) used it to sharpen his nails on the second day of its existence lol I always intended on stuffing it back in the box and returning it as defected but I never got around to it. Hey for all I know it could have been defective, I mean had I used it more often it may have sprung a leak lol Anyway.. I bought a new one mainly because of the reviews and my mattress was giving me a backache. This new airbed is at least two feet off the ground, which is a very nice surprise but best of all its pretty damn comfortable. But that’s not why I mentioned it. I mentioned it because my daughter wants it.. I made the mistake of letting her sleep on it when I should have dumped her butt on the couch bed lol I guess it’s interesting to a kid, kind of like an indoors camping trip.

I haven’t seen “my son” in at least a month; he stopped by while I was gone the other day… I was miserable the entire day because I missed him. I feel him slipping away from me. As bad as it may sound, I try not to think of him at all because I know I won’t be able to see him much. For all I know he doesn’t even want to be around me anymore, I wonder if his asshole dad filled his head with lies about me. I always think that if I had a chance to choose my siblings I would have chose differently lol oh well, what can I do but hope that when he is old enough to visit me on his own, he will. I guess the hard part is always having my daughter around; they were always together so it doesn’t seem right. In a way a part of me is missing and it sucks. Wow, how thoughts of missing that kid can bring me down. I feel like I could either cry or fall into depression.

Ok subject change…… I want to go back to school; I want to finish what I started. I don’t know about physically going back (back pain, family obligations) but I do want to take an online class or two. And I also want to take some writing courses. I really believe that the brain requires a constant balance between logic and artistic thinking. I need to be challenged mentally and I think a writing course will benefit me. Even though my curriculum has always revolved around math, it’s the writer in me that has helped me find perspective. I always wanted to be a psychologist but I knew that I couldn’t leave the job at work.  I knew deep down that I would be haunted by the problems people would share with me. I remember asking my psychology professor how he copes with what he hears; he said most if not all psychologists have a psychologist they talk to. I think that convinced me to stick with math. I would love to help people but I couldn’t stand to hear about some of the horrific things these people go through, it would turn me into a basket case.

I feel like there is so much to do yet so little time. I wish there was a way for me to stop procrastinating. I have papers to sort and math books to review before the fall semester. I want to organize my mom’s genealogy papers that she was working on. She found the ships her grandparents came over on and she reunited a cousin with the family she hadn’t seen in over 20 years. I guess I feel like I am wasting time. If I calculate my death by my parent’s lifespan, the average age of my death will be 59 years old. Twenty years is not a long time but one can do a lot in twenty years. I guess I don’t want to go without doing something worthwhile. Maybe I need to get my head out of my ass and just do it.. Like Nike, just do it damnit. I sure wouldn’t want my tombstone to read: shoulda, coulda, woulda but ran out of time lol

Time waits for no one, especially me.

I don’t consider myself a criminal, just someone overly skilled in self defense lol it was a bum rap that I got stuck serving 4 months. I suppose I was lucky because the judge was an asshole that wanted to throw the book at me. He tried to say I was a bully.. me a bully! That’s like saying a nun walks the street at night lol I never bother anyone and here I was labeled as a bully. I suppose I should share the entire story now that I mentioned it. It all started when I was picking up my nephew from his mother’s house, she for some reason was infatuated with me and it showed. To say the least, her boyfriend at the time did not like it.

He got all up in my face and tried to say I was hitting on her (like I’d want that crazy bitch, and yes, she really was) I said look; I don’t want any trouble I am just here to pick up the kid. I guess in his mind that meant I was scared of him so he shoved me very hard in the chest… I think I was shocked because I can hardly remember what happened next, well I kind of remember beating his face into the ground lol anyway.. it was an assault charge which I still to this day think is completely unfair… the guy attacked ME geez, its not my fault he didn’t know how to fight lol

Anyway… back to the gang members. In the joint (got it from the movies lol) there were plenty of gang members. Hell, I was a gang member when I went in. the first thing you do when being thrown in jail is decide where your loyalty lies, in other words, what gang are you from. Now since I am from los angeles I had to claim west side. Jail is extremely segregated.. whites with whites, blacks with blacks and Mexicans with Mexicans.. or the mixed ones like me lol I knew all about the Mexican mafia before going in, I have a few neighbors that spent twenty + years in jail. They are both now dental assistants…FYI most dental assistants are ex felons lol

The other choice is the Aryan Brotherhood now I would never even consider such a thing, even if I was a lily white albino I wouldn’t join them. Besides, they fall outside my demographic area lol it sounds incredible but it is a business… it’s a mini-society in there. You choose your side and prepare yourself to defend it to the death… yes they have prison riots in there that if you do not participate you will find yourself shanked in your sleep.

Anyway, the gang members I met were very well organized. They ran the town from the inside, It was like the godfather movie except 1,000 times scarier lol they did not approve of drive by shootings and if someone was caught killing an innocent when that person got to jail they would face the consequences. They also did not approve of child molesters of any kind… if anyone was even suspected of molestation he would find himself ball-less by morning. That’s why when molesters get convicted they are usually placed in either solitary confinement or put in with the rest of their sick kind.

I’ve met people that were lifers for petty theft.. the good old 3 strikes law that made no sense. Imagine doing life for petty theft when a pervert that preys upon little kids could roam around lollygagging with his demented brothers in crime.

Luckily I wasn’t around the hardcore murderers too long, I got sent to the kitchen and on the weekends I tutored the semi-violent offenders in math.  I hate to say our school system is to blame but these guys were dumb as rocks. I think if they had half an education they would have made different choices in life.. ones that didn’t include hurting others. I learned a valuable lesson from being in there.. one, don’t beat the snot out of someone in public and two don’t get caught lol

And for some reason I cannot find ANY pictures!! The article is the same but it looks like they removed the whities lol  oh well, you can check out the website and see how crazy it sounds for yourself.

For $65, tourists get peek at L.A. gangland..

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34894815

yes you read that correctly $65!!!  for $20.00 I’ll show you the spot where Rodney King got beat during the L.a Riots lol

Here’s the tour website in case anyone wants to book a tour lol

http://www.lagangtours.com/

Now I doubt anyone recognizes these lol the phone was popular at the time, its one of the first flip phones on the market. People were amazed at how small it was.. its actually very chunky. This is the analog version; the digital one didn’t come until a year later. I remember wanting the new digital all black one but I never got around to getting one, I’m not exactly sure why either. Maybe I wasn’t impressed with having a phone.. who knows lol

The other gadget in the picture is a super cool high tech email device!!! Wow! Lol you would pay a monthly fee to be able to send emails without a computer… kind of like the cell phones we use now lol except, this device didn’t send the emails. You could compose them but the only way to send them would be to call a number. The device had this ear piece thing that covered the mouth of the phone to send and receive signals. It sounded like a fax machine; I think it utilized the same fax technology. BTW why hasn’t someone come out with a better fax machine geez lol

Anyway, those were my two high tech items that I now have absolutely no use for and haven’t a clue what to do with them. I may give them to my 6 year old nephew to play with.. I.e. destroy lol  So my advice for you all… don’t buy it unless you absolutely need it!

I normally believe that once you make a commitment to someone you should try everything possible before throwing in the towel. The rules change when it comes to an abusive relationship. It’s funny because no matter how much these woman cannot stand their abusers they usually make excuses for them. There has been many times where I would tell the married chick to stop making excuses for her husband’s erratic and abusive behavior. I guess that she has been doing it for so long she no longer realizes she does it. I have a friend whose husband is a control freak, he flies off the handle and likes to make fun of people.. he does it with total disregard to others feelings. She always downplays his behavior by saying oh he’s just kidding, or that’s how he is towards everyone, he doesn’t mean anything by it.. blah blah blah.

I know from personal experience it’s not easy freeing yourself from the clutches of an abusive control freak and yes women can be just as much an asshole as men in that department.  Like I tell my friend, manipulation is learned from an early age. But it doesn’t have to all be negative… everyone does it even the smallest baby learns that hey if I cry they someone will come running.  However, not everyone abuses manipulation… and the ones that do are full of shit when they say they love you.

Here’s the list I sent the married chick. I told her to wake up, she is a victim of domestic violence and her children are going to grow up reaping what their parents sow.

What is Domestic Violence?

Controlling

• Name Calling, mind games
• Isolate partner from friends, loved ones

Domination

• Abuser decides
• Servant/Master

Intimidating

• Bullying
• Charming in public, menacing in private
• Destroying property or pets
• Making light of abuse: “You’re too sensitive”

Physical Abuse

• Hit, choke, kick, pinch, pull hair, poke, twist arms, trip, bite, restrain, use weapons

Emotion Manipulation

• Use jealousy, passion, stress and frustration to justify

Sexual Abuse

• Force partner to do things against their will

Economic Control

• Deny job freedom
• Withhold money

Are you in an Abusive Relationship?

Check list of examples of abuse. One or more of these behaviors could indicate that you are in an abusive relationship

Does the person you love . . .

• Track all your time?
• Discourage other friendships?
• Criticize you often for little things?
• Have Extreme mood changes?
• Anger easily when drinking or when doing drugs?
• Show extreme jealousy for no reason?

Has the person you love ever . . .

• Struck or kicked you or spit on you?
• Threatened you with an object/weapon
• Caused you to be afraid of them?
• Threatened to hurt a pet or destroy property?
• Blamed you for their abusiveness?
• Forced you to have sex?

YOU
Do not deserve to be abused
Have the right to live without violence
Have the right to make decisions
Are not alone with this problem
Can free your life from domestic violence

http://www.cadv-ohio.com/home/help/what/

I knew just by the way she described her relationship to me that she was in an abusive relationship; I guess it’s easier for someone on the outside looking in to see what you cannot. He still controls every drop of her money and continues to lavish himself with needless luxuries.  She was telling me how he went around throwing his kids things away that they left lying around yet all his stuff is everywhere. I told her that he most likely learned that behavior from his parents, that’s why he clings to material possessions.. he is afraid they will be taken away from him.

It’s like insecurity; they threw everything that meant something to him away when he didn’t do what they wanted so he surrounds himself with expensive crap to compensate. That’s just my theory but I’m usually pretty good at reading people, even the ones described to me. He is a selfish hoarder, a control freak, an abuser.. he was spoiled as a child and given anything he cried for yet at any moment it could be snatched away when he didn’t behave so he grew up without a sense of security.. hence the reason he surrounds himself with things.  The guy has problems that run very deep, he’s threatened to get his wife fired and somehow try to use me to do it lol

I talk to her on her lunch break, I call so there is no company expense. He is grasping at straws; he is losing control and he does not know how to handle it. it’s all empty threats, he threatens to shoot me lol he would have to shoot me as I sleep because 25 years of Shotokan karate would be unleashed on his ass before he could even point the barrel lol he threatens to fix the books and commit fraud so he won’t have to pay alimony or child support. Lol I have to laugh at that one because you cannot all of a sudden change an income without raising red flags. Either this man is an idiot or he thinks his wife is, either case If he ever reads this then I offer you my expertise as years as a forensic accountant….. here are some tips for you Mr.jackass…

What’s a Forensic accountant?

Forensic Auditing, also called forensic accounting, includes the steps needed to detect and deter fraud.

Forensic accountants work in two primary areas, investigative accounting and litigation support. Investigative accounting encompasses not just the numbers and documents of a company, but the business environment as well. Forensic accountants investigate the financial operations of an enterprise and prepare information that may be used in a criminal or civil court case. Forensic accountants provide investigative services or provide support for litigation.

So that’s all she would need to do, contact a FA and laugh all the way to the bank.. her husband of course will have to pay fee after fee and may even face jail time. BTW For anyone committing fraud or anyone that knows someone is committing fraud and wants to stick it to them… look up IRS form 3949A.

Kids need a loving stable home, no one should have to walk on eggshells. And you do not need two parents in the same house to raise healthy, functional children. I almost married my daughter’s mother way back when… I thought it was the right thing to do but getting married just because you share a child is one of the worst things you can do to the kid. We all get along great now and my daughter has two rooms and two different experiences she can share with her own children one day (when she’s at least 35 lol) I wouldn’t want her to see the time she spent with me as party land.. she’s a good kid and we usually see eye to eye so there’s not much conflict although her behavior at times is a little animated but I keep reminding myself to have patience… that’s what parenting is all about, making your kids feel like they are the most important people in the world to you.. and they should be.

Kids are great and they should always come first!

I still cook up creations from time to time. Just last night I made mandarin orange pork chops.  While I am confident there is a recipe for mandarin orange (MO) pork chop.. I did not use one, nor did I search for one. I had raw pork chops and a can of mandarin orange; something told me they would be great together. I steamed the chops in the MO juice until they were fully cooked, then I transferred them to another pan with some butter, brown sugar, garlic salt and the oranges. Even though this wasn’t an Asian dish, I wanted to emulate the way Asian food hits you with a sweet yet salty flavor. BTW Asian doesn’t necessarily mean Chinese food; Indian food also has that same double whammy of flavor. Anyway, I made some steam rice and dumped the concoction over it and viola.. It was pretty good.

Summer is almost here. The weather has been amazing; I know it’s still early so I can’t claim to live in the most comfortable state just yet, whether our weather stays wonderful remains to be seen.  Hmm I think that is the first time I used the double whether/weather together. It’s funny how some people cannot for the life of them spell either one. My younger sister always has trouble with them. I never had a problem with those two words but there is one word that I will go to my grave not knowing how to spell..  its in this blog so thank goodness for spell check lol  actually I spell it so poorly that half the time spell check cant even decipher what I am trying to spell!! Lol I shall copy and paste it below….

Necessarily — yep, that’s the word. It’s like my brain rejected any ability to spell that word, it’s terrible but almost comical lol

Lets see.. what else is new with me… well, like I mentioned, its almost summer so that means I’ll have my daughter around 24/7 while her mother teaches. I figured that since she has the kid most of the time the least I could do was offer to keep her over the summer. I usually end up with her anyway but I thought it would make more sense to discuss it, I know her mother has been wanting to teach full time and having a 10 year old around that requires a ton of attention doesn’t make it easy. I always tell myself I am going to plan out a bunch of activities to do over the summer but I never do. We just play it by ear. She plays softball sat morning. I try to attend every game but when I was in that crazy pain there was no moving. I couldn’t even enjoy her b-day party. It was very frustrating and eye opening at the same time.

This is the third time my body has been through a debilitating state.  After each previous one I promised myself I will get out there and do something, physical activity or something positive for myself or towards others. That was the main reason I went to Miami last year, I could have easily went to school 20 minutes away but where is the excitement in that? Where is the sense of adventure, the unknown. We as human beings need to challenge ourselves or we fall into a rut and sometimes it’s not so easy to climb out of it. I told my daughter that we could do anything she wants over the summer.. within reason that is, I mean I would have to say no to bungee jumping lol I’m not 100% yet so there is a little worry in the back of my mind.. I sometimes wonder if I’ll get hit with that pain again, but for the most part I try not to think about it. I do not want to get sunburn ever again so if we end up at the beach I’ll be sitting under the umbrella with the rest of the old folks lol

Time to hit the beach!

I went online for a recipe. When it comes to dishes like this I don’t really follow a recipe but I do like to know what goes in it. I checked a few and they all seemed to contain my favorite ingredients.. bell peppers, onions, garlic.. actually I don’t remember if I was supposed to put garlic in it or not but I figured it would taste like a giant meatball so no harm there lol

I chopped all the ingredients… green onions, a few cloves of garlic, a few slices of onion, a half of bell pepper.. in other words, things that I had left over in my fridge oh and a can of tomato sauce.  I dumped in around a cup and a half of bread crumbs as well as two eggs, I sprinkled in salt, turmeric (just because lol) pepper, garlic powder and mashed it all together with a wooden spoon.

It looked like mashed meat lol

Meaty

yes I know that is not a meatloaf pan but I do not own a meatloaf pan nor do I necessarily know what one looks like lol

I set the oven to 350 and left it in an hour… I had the lid on it up until the last 20 minutes. It smelled delicious but looked like crap lol

Ugly as sin lol

As you can see I cut a corner out of it to try it.. it tasted ok but I was never a fan of meatloaf, I figured granny would like it. I think I may have used too much salt but old people don’t care lol

Ok I think I am done blogging for tonight, I’ll continue playing catch up tomorrow.

Ciao

The meringue

I used a hand mixer for this so it took a little longer than I anticipated and I had to use a larger bowl and make sure to move the beaters around the entire bowl in order to get air in there.

The pie (crust & filling) had been cooling in the fridge for around 2 hours before I started on the meringue.

I was kind of nervous about this because I didn’t think it was stiff enough, I thought for sure the meringue would run off the pie and onto the floor.

Piling it on

I was surprise that it was actually staying in a pile lol  BTW sorry about the picture quality, as I mentioned its a camera phone and not a very good one.

Smooth

ok so not too smooth. I wanted it to look like those pies you buy at the store, they have swirls and peaks but the more I tried to make it look better the uglier it got so I figured I should stop while I was ahead lol

Perfection

I was impressed at how great this looked. I had it in the oven maybe 8 minutes.. I forgot to keep track of the time but I kept checking on it.

And tasty too!

Another blurry pic but you get the idea.

The pie looked perfect but being the biggest pig in the world, I cut it before it was fully cooled so it turned out slightly runny. The meringue was a little too sweet for my liking but I still give the pie a thumbs up. It was fairly easier to make than I originally thought, probably the most difficult part of making this pie was grating lemons.

The recipe called for lemon zest, well I don’t know about anyone else but the only grater I have is the upright cheese grater so the zest was extra large and there is a good chance part of my knuckle was in that pie lol the cleanup wasn’t too bad, especially since I licked most of the bowl and spoons.. Yes I am that much of a pig.. hey if it tastes delicious I am going to eat it lol

This concludes the story of the pie.. til next time

I haven’t blogged in a bit so I shall spend an hour or so catching up. I’ll break it into a few posts so you stalkers won’t have to scroll to read it.

I have plenty of pictures to share.. Mostly of various food creations I have concocted as well as the weather around my house.. and the abnormalities in the sky.

Some of the weather pictures are of the storm we had.. what storm you say? Well, that’s how long since I last blogged. It’s been perfect spring weather lately but around a month or so ago it was raining so I took pictures with my crappy camera phone. I suppose I should break down and buy myself a camera.. I’ve always had an interest in photography.

Which brings me to the question.. are our traits, habits and interests learned or genetically chosen? I’m thinking it’s probably a little of both, take for instance my shyness..while some may say that is an inherited trait, I think it had more to do with my upbringing. Maybe I had middle child syndrome, who the hell knows lol And how can you be a middle child when you shared a womb with a jackass lol

I think my shyness stemmed from being around so many loud people.. family gatherings were LOUD and busy, while the rest of my siblings joined in I kind of shied away on my own. I wanted to be away from the busy hustle and bustle that holidays brought. I felt like a tiny pea floating in the ocean. It’s funny because now days I am all for holiday gatherings but our group is a little more intimate, it no longer consists of great aunts and uncles that we’d only see on the holidays. Maybe I just didn’t feel comfortable around people I wasn’t too close to.

As for photography, I may have gotten that from my “dad” he wasn’t around much so I didn’t know too much about him, other than the negative behavior he exhibited when he was around. I do recall him having a crate.. more like an upright chest with photography equipment in it, like the solutions and paper, negatives…etc. I remember wanting to know about that stuff but always put off taking a course.. it was always too expensive or I never had enough time and also since it wasn’t part of my major i didn’t need it.

I figured I picked up the interest from him.. even though I do not remember him taking pictures. Come to think of it, it is strange that I do not remember him ever taking pictures when he had pictures of me and my siblings standing on the sidewalk in front of our house. I remember snooping through his stuff as a teenager, I used to house-sit for him sometimes when he went out of town. He had a lot of pictures of everything, I wonder what ever happened to his stuff… if his greedy wife threw the things he liked away or still has them… who knows.

I guess another thing I inherited from him was an interest in protesting lol Like I said, I have no idea what went through his head but I remember my mom telling me that “I get that shit from him” meaning protesting lol She told me he was shot at a protest once, I do recall seeing a sheriffs helmet in our basement haha I dont think he and I protested for the same reasons. He sounded more like he was anarchic where I am disgusted with our government’s blatant disregard for life.

Our government doesn’t care about the people in Iraq or Afghanistan nor our Troops; they are now in control of the biggest opium operation in the world as well as the ministry of oil in Iraq. So anyone that says we went in to liberate these people is a damn fool. We invaded those countries for their resources… the end. Oh and don’t get me started on Obama’s peace prize LMAO how can someone that is sending more Americans to war be awarded a peace prize?  Who voted on this crap geeez

Anyway, speaking about things that irritate me… I’ve had a pinched nerve in my lower back for over a month now. When it first occurred I could not stand, walk or sit without being in excruciating pain.. it was unbearable. The pain was so bad at times I would shake. I assume it was from falling off that ladder so many months ago. Maybe I loosened something lol I don’t know, all I know is one day I got out of bed like I always do but when I turned to walk I fell to my knees in terrible pain. The strange thing is the pain is 90% gone now.. I say it’s strange because there are times throughout the day when I have numbness on my entire left side of my body. Yesterday was so bad I thought I had permanent nerve damage but I feel pretty good today, which you can obviously tell by me sitting here typing to you (the stalkers)

Anyway, that’s just a quick update on the reason why I have not blogged so now on to the main course… I’ll be back in a new post 

http://www.cookscountrytv.com/recipes/detail.asp?docid=7646

Mile-High Lemon Meringue Pie

Step-by-Step

Making a Meringue Mountain These tricks guarantee meringue that looks as good as it tastes.

Step-by-Step

Weep No More For our meringue, you don’t need a thermometer, but you do need a timer.