campfire anthems

you ready to go at this thing again? i am. lets start.

justin whatley asks:

who is the worst (popular) musicians/band? i don’t even know where to being on this question. there are so many categories of music and even more sub-categories within to make sucky things happen. for instanc, one might argue that nickelback is the worst - based solely upon the fact that every song they write could actually be the exact same song they wrote last time, just change the lyrics and guitar solo around a bit. others may say that blink 182 did a great job on capturing teenage angst in the punk/pop world, while i say they were whiny little girls. i think the important thing to remember is that music has changed so much over the last 20 years. today, all “rock” bands sound the same. they all write about the same stuff. i think a band like thrice, for example, is exactly what more bands need to do. they have just released their 6th album. now i have been a fan of them since their first album, where they were in their punk/thrash stage. if you listen to them with each new record you can really hear their progression and maturity grow as a band. i hate it when i buy a cd of a band i like and then they release their sophomore attempt and it is basically the same as the first. ok. i know i haven’t answered the question yet but i’m getting there. i think it is important to state that all the bands i have mentioned i have once liked. the same goes for the band that has made the number one spot in my mind as the worst (popular) band ever. creed. when they came onto the music scene back in the 90’s they were something really fresh. they had a great sound. there really wasn’t anything like them at the time and i commended them for being what they were. as time passed, scott stapp really showed what a tool he was. their 3rd cd sucked. stapp becamse a breathy, whiny, singer of a man. the best thing that happened to mark tremonti is alter bridge. now they are a good band. its funny to see basically the same exact band, only with a new singer, and see what these musicians are really capable of. i think creed could have been really good for a long time, and when you think about it now they are. only they aren’t creed anymore. oh well. justin, thanks for the great question.

mike d. asks:

why do birds suddenly appear? [hey] every time you are near. well mike, the birds don’t actually “suddenly appear.” in fact, they are there all the time. my awesomeness merely brings them to a level in which other people can see them. i’m basically a tibetan monk. sometimes, birds and squirrels even come and land on my shoulder and scamper across the lawn just to be closer to me. i bring peace to their existence. but don’t get me wrong. when i move into my new house and begin to grow my tomatoes and green peppers, and squirrels eat them, there will be no more peace. i will embody the wrath of “old testament god” and rain down pain on their little bodies. don’t mess with my garden.

tabbybottoms asks:

why is it that no matter what color bubble bath you use the bubbles are always white? tabby, based on my minutes of scientific research i have determined that the reason for this is because bubbles are satan’s minions. fact: bubbles pop. fact: bubble keep kids entertained for hours. fact: satan likes popping things (like hope and dreams). fact: satan likes taking the innocent youth and entering their lives during idle times. i know you think that your bubble bath makes you feel all clean and relaxed, but heed my warning child. don’t let yourself get sucked into the sin that is a bubble. plus, nothing that is iridescent can be completely wholesome. why are dandelions considered weeds when daisies are considered flowers? simple. dandelions are from the devil and daisies are from god. bet you didn’t know that spiritual warfare ventured into the realm of botany did you? what made you fall in love with emily? she is a musician. she is very loving (some may say she cares too much sometimes). she is a challenge. she is good for me. what are the top 5 things you’d like to accomplish in the near future? 1) successfully move in/paint/landscape/clean our new house 2) get my small business license and produce clientèle as a free lance graphic designer 3) become a popular enough website to start selling advertising space 4) consistently talk to 5 new people each week at church (i’m pretty bad about not talking to anyone. i need to be more intentional in the relationships i build) 5) go to europe

well gang. thanks again for the great questions. it looks like i’m all out of things to respond to, so unless you guys ask some more the series will be over, and then i’ll have to go back to actually thinking of things to write about. its been fun.

alright gang. here’s a further look into the void that is my mind. you asked questions. i provide answers. this is as real as it gets.  questions are in white, answers are in some shade of faded red.

kfj asks:

how does it feel to lose at rook to a couple of girls? alright kfj. we have to lose every now and then. if we dominated you every game then you would lose your spirits about it and never want to play again. just remember, though, when you beat your husband you end up going to bed with the loser. i hope you can live with that.

emily asks:

why do you always copy me? its merely a matter of you having a good idea and me wanting to make it a great idea. why recreate the wheel when you can just improve its design? what’s your fascination with interior decorating? emily, there is no fascination. i just don’t want to live in a house for 4-6 years in which i feel the walls are a hideous color. i have to look at them too. where do babies come from? good question. you know that thing we do late at night after puma goes to sleep? that’s where babies come from. why do you love me? i love you because you balance me out and you are wicked hot. there is much much more to this answer but i don’t want to waste space on my page. how do you feel about our dog? puma is pretty much the best dog ever. she needs a hair cut. her breath smells like her butt (i can only assume this since i have not stuck my nose in that area). how do you feel about sextuplets? i think if that were to ever happen to us i’d become very wealthy. keep one and sell the other five on the baby black market. are you super excited about moving to a new city? no. not really. i am glad to have a new house though. i will have to learn where everything is in this new town. when is the last time you did something for yourself? i went fishing last friday. it was nice. what’s your favorite thing that i cook? i’m a pretty big fan of the beef burgundy. you can eat and get drunk all in one meal! when are you going to shave your beard? my beard is awesome. i went clean shaven for a while upon your request. i think its time to let the mountain man back out. can we sell the bowflex? i will answer this question by asking one in return. can we sell puma? do you have any secret talents? i only know about the talents that aren’t a secret. if i do, these talents sure know how to keep their mouths shut. can you tell what show i was watching when i asked you these questions? john and kate plus 8.

jenna asks:

how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? 8,319. on a good day. am i making that number up or did i really count? you tell me. when are we going to see some little monts de ocas? whenever god decides to unleash his sense of humor upon us. have you ever had hemorrhoids? first of all, jenna, i fixed the spelling for you. secondly, no…no i haven’t. i try to let things come out naturally without straining. thus far it has kept me hemorrhoid free. in 6th grade you did you really like better - matt or ryan? ok jenna. that question doesn’t even make grammatical sense. there are too many pronouns in there. i don’t like boys. whatever happened to ivy? assuming you mean ivy the dog, she still lives at the whatley residence. no offence whatleys - ivy is old and will probably die soon. have you been to dairy queen lately? no but i have been to burger king. do they still make pogs? unfortunately pogs are no longer being manufactured. their timely demise has become a gold mine for collectors and hobbyists alike. there are a number of collectible stores, as well as internet merchandisers that can help you onto the fast tract to pog world.

well guys, thanks for you awesome questions. as of now there will be a part two coming tomorrow. hopefully i’ll have some more questions and we can extend it to a longer series. this is fun.

once again i’m going to do some blog sniping.  emily had a good idea yesterday on her website.  she asked her readers to ask her questions and she would respond to them.  i think i want to do the same.  so ask away.  anything you want.  i’ll let you know what i think. do it.

when i walked out of my bank this afternoon i found this car parked next to me.  if you watch the office then you will know why i found this very amusing.

i’m alive. that is the most important sentence of this whole post. now to the story. i had a pretty fun adventure with travis and jack on friday night down in the englewood area. we left my apartment at 6:00 pm, right after work. travis said that we had to go some bass ackwards way through brandon to get to i-75, apparently there is only one bait shop to purchase live shrimp between home and our destination. i don’t buy it. after some shuffled tunes from the ipod, a quick bite from chic-fil-a, and a stop in gibsonton to get our live bait, we headed toward port charlotte and our sporting adventure.

jack and i told travis that we wouldn’t be on the water by sun down. travis informed us that we would be on the water by 8:30 pm, just as the sun tucked behind the horizon. * note: remember 8:30 * we got off one exit too early. not a big deal, we could still get to the public boat ramp from here. we made a detour and finally hit river road, where we initially wanted to be. take a left on indiana and a right by the checkers and we can almost smell the fish we were going to catch. the boat is finally in the water and we set off at 9:30 pm.

we maneuvered between the markers, under the bridge, and to the old, worn down, deteriorating bridge. while holding the boat in place, the current was very strong, travis lit the propane lantern and hung it from a rope. it was then jack’s job to jump from the boat onto a submerged platform, protruding roughly 5 feet above the water’s surface. he navigated the top of the broken bridge until he finally lowered the lantern and tied it off just above the water. once we had jack secured back in the boat, we pulled back around and dropped anchor. time to fish.

honestly, the whole night was pretty slow. we were on the hunt for snook and red fish. i was mainly looking for reds, because snook are out of season and i really wanted to fire up my grill. my grill will stay unlit. after about half an hour, i pulled in the first fish of the night. it was a pretty small snook, maybe 20 inches. after the release, i put another shrimp on my hook and cast again. almost immediately i hooked another snook. this one ended up being closer to the mid 20 inch range. jack also caught 2 snook here, while travis caught 4. not only did travis catch 4 snook in this spot, he caught the off consecutive casts. how impressive.

when we decided to move on, jack had to climb back up and get the lantern. it was my job to hold onto the platform and keep the boat in place while travis did whatever it was he was doing. once again with jack on board, we set off to fish the bridge. there was another boat there when we arrived and it seemed as though they were catching catfish. passing under the bridge we saw our spot. we idled and cut the engine. the snook were popping all over the place. travis got a hold of the trolling motor, only to find it didn’t work…turns out neither did anything else on the boat. it wouldn’t restart, and we we drifting. once again i held on, this time to a concrete wall we almost slammed into at the base of the bridge. somehow, 10 minutes later we were motoring along again. we decided to check out some of the residential docks since we missed our chance with the snook at the bridge. we debated for quite some time whether or not to actually stop at the docks and fish, since we had no way of knowing if the boat would start again or not and then we saw it.

there it was. this glorious light on the tip of one of the docks. in the light you could see fish swarming at the shrimp fluttering at the surface. there was maybe 50 snook in all. we cut the motor. i swear, no matter what we did or tried, or where we cast, these snook were not interested one bit. we spent roughly an hour here and didn’t catch one snook between us. jack caught 2 trout, as did myself, and travis had lost his previous luck. it was time to head home.

after we packed up the boat we got back on the highway. we went the back way so we could hit hwy 17 through arcadia and head back in through bartow. it would be an understated if i said we hit some fog on the way home. it was about 2:30 am, pitch black, and only about 10 feet of visibility ahead of the truck. it was bad. the windshied wipers and defrost in no way made the situation better. the wipers merely spread the water to the edge of the windshield on their first pass and right back into its original spot on the return pass. brilliant. at this point i feared for my life - travis slammed on his breaks at nearly every intersecting road, i don’t know why. things cleared up in arcadia, and when we hit wachula jack took over driving duties so travis (not a hanger-outer) could sleep in the back seat.

i got back to my place at 4:30 am and hit the shower. it felt nice to have the hot water pour over me. i had a great adventure with 2 pretty awesome guys friday night. i can’t wait until i can risk my life again in search for snook and red fish. maybe next time we will have more luck.

hooray! i’m going fishing tonight with travis and jack jarret. it should be pretty sweet. men being as men. just 3 guys, a boat, open water and lots of red fish and snook. pray for me though, travis is apparently dangerous when he gets around his boat. i don’t want to die. check back monday for my life status and fishing report.  if all goes well, hopefully i won’t be seeing this tonight.

for the longest time i have been putting up a fight against the office (us) but have recently sent up the white flag.  i think i am at the point where i am completely invested in this television show, frantically trying to catch up on the first 3 seasons while staying up to date on the currently running season 4.  i think the reason this show is so fantastic is because the majority of us have at one point worked with people sharing similar personality traits as the characters on the show.

i’m now starting season 3, which is looking pretty promising.  even though i know what happens between jim and pam (the major sole plot line of the entire show) i still like seeing how the things i know happened happened.  did that sentence make sense?  it did in my head, hopefully you can decipher its meaning.

sometimes i wish i worked at the dunder mifflin scranton office.  it seems like there is never a dull moment, and to work with people like dwight and jim would be pretty hysterical.  maybe i could pull some office pranks of my own, like following jim’s lead and putting someone’s stapler in jello.  amazing.

lastly, contrary to popular opinion, karen is way hotter than pam!

no.  apparently my wife isn’t very politically correct.  just now, maybe 126.245 seconds ago, she referred to is as “shaky person’s disease.”  that is all.

i stumbled across this article on the local news station’s website.  i don’t really know what to say other than this guy’s funeral would probably turn out to be one heck of a party.  i took a screen capture of the article so you could read it for yourself.

so how do you want to go out when it’s your time?

it has recently been brought to my attention that i have not disclosed my twitter user name in case you want to keep up with me.  here is a link to my twitter page.