Guess who just got a new T8????

That's right folks...yours truly suddenly, out of nowhere, was given an excellent deal...an offer I couldn't refuse I guess you could say. Mike knows I've been wanting to get a T8, and it just so happens a guy, this guy as a matter of fact, contacted him about getting an ekit to put on his T8, which he bought and had trouble riding. Somehow during the conversation, however it came about, they ended up making a deal where the guy would instead buy Mike's T12 already hooked up with an ekit, for a reduced amount by giving Mike his T8 as partial payment. So...he was thinking of me also when he made this deal, thinking it would be cool for me to get a chance to get a T8 for a low price. To work out this deal, he would have me drive the T12 to Georgia to meet the guy (Kenneth) and bring back the T8.

We weren't sure what to expect from the T8, but had a feeling this was a good guy and the Trikke would be as he said it would be...and it was! It was awesome!

It is a little bit of an older style Trikke, which we haven't seen in person before, so we weren't sure what we would think. Mike and I both ended up loving this Trikke...moreso than the newer models! The most notable being the older chrome, dip-style handlebars. Which I really love! Secondly, if you know enough about Trikkes you'll notice that the foot pads have the sandpaper type grip surface instead of the new plastic/rubber type. I prefer this as well! Well, I want to upgrade it to some cool new rougher new sandpaper type grip tape, but that's awesome! I wanted to do that! And I don't care for the plasticky/rubbery footpads on the new Trikkes...and even on my 78. My feet slip off those and slide around all the time. I don't like that...it's very unnerving...and dangerous. Apparently I'm the only one who has a problem with this. But...since I'm riding, I'm the only one who counts, no?








Well, this is my new Trikke...isn't it a beauty?? I have no name picked out yet...I have to see what kind of personality this Trikke has first. LOL!

posted by Chris at 10:25 AM | (0) Comments links to this post

 

Go Mike!!

So...in my usual fashion of finding inspiration for weird or funny cartoons and various other types of animations or whatever...I have found inspiration from this single line in a post of admonishment from an admin who took issue with something I posted. I intend to use this as my new signature on the same forum (can you guess what forum?), and I especially won't forget when I'm posting somewhere he is posting also....and certainly whenever I'm replying to him for some reason. Maybe you had to be involved to see the fullness of the humor here...but it was certainly the funniest thing in my universe at 3am when I was working on it! Don't get me wrong...there's been too much misunderstanding going on lately as it is!...I'm not mad at anyone...not even this guy...but this line...it simply required a response just such as this.

Inspiration:

"As a point of information, you have been a cheerleader for your local dealer in a number of posts that no one in forum administration has said a word to you about."

Result:

posted by Chris at 1:16 PM | (0) Comments links to this post

 

Mom's Big Fall

So...I completely left out the other most important story that happened recently. While working on Thanksgiving dinner, she had a bad accident. She decided to steam this ham, so later she needed to dump the water out of the pan. She took it out to the back porch and was going to dump it out over the railing, into the yard. This railing was not put up well by the dude that came over and put it up, and she wasn't thinking about it, after all, when you see a railing, you tend to get a false sense of security about it, and just assume you can lean on it and that it will be fine. Well, it wasn't fine. She had this big pot full of water that she needed to dump out, so she had to hold it with both hands, and she leaned on the railing to be sure and throw the stuff far enough out in the yard so that it wouldn't be right by the house. Anyway, the railing totally gave way and she and the railing both went tumbling down to the ground! She really got hurt...she hit her head, possibly on the concrete area that is down there...and she hurt both arms and her leg.

I could barely hear her, but she was screaming...I couldn't tell what I was hearing because it was so faint, but something didn't feel right, so I went to find her. I found her out there crying, holding her head and her arm, and I saw the railing down, the pot in the yard...I thought she had gotten burned! She did not get burned...the water wasn't hot. But I had to help her back in the house, and she didn't even make it all the way in the house, we had to stop and let her sit for a minute on the porch. I mean, she really conked her head...and hurt her neck...and she was feeling nauseous. Now, everyone knows nausea after a head injury means you need to take your @$$ to the nearest hospital. Well, medical people are the most stubborn ones to try to get medical attention...and, in typical fashion, she insisted she didn't want to go to the hospital.

She was unable to have dinner with us, and was hardly able to move for several days after. She's slowly but surely been recovering...but man oh man...it was some serious high drama! It was so scary seeing her out there in the aftermath when I first went out on that porch! I can't describe it. She should've told me she needed to dump that and I could've done it.

Too late now. That seems to be the theme of my life lately...can't look back.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the aftermath...don't fail to notice the ominous-looking nails protruding everywhere. So many more things could've gone wrong that day, as far as injuries!

(stand by for pictures)

posted by Chris at 1:20 PM | (0) Comments links to this post

 

Mark Ruffalo

One of my favorite people is Mark Ruffalo. I love that dude! I was so sad to hear about his brother being shot, and was hoping that he wouldn't die, but sadly, that's just what has happened.

This was the other death I was referring to in my 'Update to end all updates' post, but I didn't end up putting it in with the other stories!

I don't know if they were close, but I'm sure he is devastated...and now the latest news is that they think this came about during a game of Russian Roulette!!! WTF????? Dude!! Are you freakin' kidding me??? At first they had this chick as a suspect, and we all assumed she killed him. Now this is the story.

Poor Mark. How ridiculous! What a waste! This guy was like 30-something. Russian Roulette...I mean, what do you even say to that??

((sigh))

posted by Chris at 1:25 PM | (0) Comments links to this post

 

The Update To End All Updates!

WOW! OK...so I've done CRAP for blogging lately. Even the Obama blog was just a tiny note. Every time I return to the blog I am reminded at how it is still 'the death blog'. I don't want it to be the death blog any longer, altho I do have to note deaths when they occur. I just need to be sure to put something in between to offset the thing somehow! Sheesh!! In fact, I have a couple of deaths to note before this is over.

I'm going to have to try to just cover all the important things that have been going on since I last really wrote something. It's difficult to do that & give them all equal attention. When this happens, what usually occurs is that things that were quite important at the time, are relegated to a sentence or two while things that have happened since get more attention. This is why it's important to keep up with the dadgum thing to begin with.

That being said, I can't think of much in-between stuff right now that, no doubt while they were happening would've been HUGE had I actually taken the time to write about them, so I'll have to just hit the highlights, just to catch you all up a little.

So, the main news items would be: Mike & the Trikke, the job, Miss J, and the TrikkeTalk incident. I don't know how to begin...so I guess the most logical thing to do would be to back track and end with the newest news.

Trikke Stuff

That means I need to start with the Trikke. The post I left off with (before the election!) at least touched on the subject. I must tell you, dear readers (all ONE of you! Hey LL!), that the Trikke has become quite significant to my life these past few months. I actually thought I'd had it and been Trikking longer than is the real case. According to the blog post from Sept 10, I was still waiting for the (first) Trikke to arrive! I thought I'd been Trikking since July, or at least August! Dang! Well, anyway, so I got the Trikke in September. I ordered the T67, which is the smallest model that still claims a small adult can ride it. And they can, but really...it in the end turned out to be the wrong model, but I'm still glad I had it first. I enjoyed "Tiny", and it prepared me for the next models. So it's all good.

Mike

Because I have to catch up on other issues, I'm going to have to leave a lot of things out, which pains me because everyone knows how much I can and will ramble on forever about everything...giving as many details as possible...but I just can't do it, and no one is that interested. So...I'll try to skip to what's important. From getting this Trikke, I found some other important things. 1) TrikkeTalk, the forum for people to discuss all things related to Trikkes and Trikking. It's been a blast, and I've had a lot of fun, learned a lot, and made some friends.

This brings me to number 2) Mike (left). Thru TrikkeTalk I found out about Mike. I initially bought my Trikke online because I didn't know we had a dealer here...HERE! Can you believe it??? In Trussville! (PROFITNESS, by the way. Go visit him! Hwy 11.) I'm still kind of glad tho because I did get "Tiny" at a great price because of the infomercial, which I wouldn't have gotten from him. I'm just sayin'. So anyway, in some discussion on the board someone pointed out to me that there was a dealer here and I practically ran to the car that very moment & drove around Trussville trying to find them! Well, the cool thing is, I did find him, and he turned out to be a very, very sweet & cool dude that has become my best friend. Thru him I ended up getting a NEW Trikke, the next model up from "Tiny", the T-78, which I call "Blue". It's blue, you see, and, well, I'm just creative like that.

So, I've been hanging out, visiting, and riding with Mike ever since. I told him about TrikkeTalk and got him to sign up & practically dragged him on there. Well, I talk about him a lot on there, and we interact there some as well, and this is about to bring me to the update that involves the aforementioned "TrikkeTalk incident". (Because Miss J is more important than any of this, I'm not going to minimize her to a couple of sentences, so I'll go out of order and save her for last.)

Adam, Nick, & 'the TrikkeTalk Incident'

OK...so TrikkeTalk is run by two brothers, Adam ("Adam Bomb") & Nick ("Nickus Maximus"). I love, love, LOVE these guys! They are 2 little cutie pies, and they are freakin' hilarious! They also have a store in SLC, Utah called Parkway Sports. The reason I know they are so hilarious and lovable is that they make videos, like their own little tv show about Trikkes and I defy anyone to watch all their videos and not like them. They are funny on the site too, but so are a lot of people, and they don't post quite as much as a lot of other folks do, so I might not have noticed too very much. But the videos...omg...so funny! I stayed up soooooo late, if not ALL NIGHT, on many a night just watching those videos because I couldn't put them away!

I've made other friends on the site as well, and all was going so well. Until...

You see, Mike and I got to be good enough friends that he trusted me to run the store for him one weekend when he had to go out of town. So, since I'm a big fan of posting pictures, the funnier the better, so for me it was huge fun to act like I was going to go crazy in the store while Mike was gone. So of course, I had to take pictures showing how crazy I was! I took some really funny pictures, and I even animated a couple of them together for extra fun. Everyone loved it! It was great fun to show that I was hootin' it up while he was gone! I got a lot of comments as well...especially the animated one. Everyone was impressed.

Well...not everyone it seems. Apparently, I got carried away and didn't bother noticing or caring about the name of the store showing in the pictures, and I got a PM (that's private message, for those of you not familiar with forum speak) about it from an admin. I took the message to mean that I was getting in trouble, and basically inferred that I needed to take the pictures down. This sent me out of my right mind. I mean, it really did. I became so angry over this I just stomped around, emailing and PM'ing people left and right, and instead of just fixing the image (covering the name of the store or something...which I absolutely refused to do), I took ALL my pictures down from all of my albums. I mean, I just yanked everything. HA! A silly action, really. Nevertheless, this is what I did. And the more I thought about it, the madder I got. I was on the verge of replying to the admin dude about the message...as well as the brothers themselves over this thing, but I just kept stopping myself. In retrospect, I'm very glad I did NOT respond back when I was going to, and very glad I didn't say some of the things I was tempted to say along the way. Very glad. Because I was ready to do some serious dogging...on my way OUT of course, because I knew after that I would not be allowed to return to TT.

Anyway, so for all that time I held out...but I did continue to dog them to a degree off TT, like on Facebook and MySpace. I was just too mad to be contained, but I really pointed it in the wrong direction. Anyway, to continue to the big incident...what ended up happening is that today someone posted something about some new cool hoodies they have at Parkway. Well, post after post went on about how great Parkway was, and everyone should buy stuff from there, and, as if they're celebrities, maybe the brothers could autograph the hoodies when TT people order them...etc. Then, to my horror (in that moment), Nick came on and joked about the free publicity and blah blah...and then in giant letters someone posted PARKWAY ROCKS...and it was all too much for me. Because I'd been fuming all this time, and holding this stuff back, this put me over the edge and I got in that reply box so quick I'm sure it was a blur! I mean, I was smokin' the hell outta that keyboard! I went to TOWN!

"HMPH!!!" I said. By God, I am gonna have my say, even if I get booted from this site. "My friends know how to find me" I said. And you can bet I saved that thing every way that could be saved...took screen shots and everything, just in case. I mean, I was certain it would get deleted, at the very least. I was emailing my buds to tell them all to check it out quickly before it got taken down.

Well, then the replies trickled in. First was one of the Trikker ladies...and she was in agreement with me, so that was cool, because I was still fuming, but nervous at this point. Then came the admin dude that originally sent me that 'warning' message. His reply was pretty good, I have to say, but I still disagreed with some of what he said.

Then...Nick replied. My heart was beating really fast when I saw his name there. I had to take a deep breath before reading it because I was expecting the worst. Actually, he was awesome. So, I had 3 replies, all together - and having a little time between each one - I really began to see things differently. I also re-read my post a few times and thought maybe I acted a bit rashly. I decided to reply to the repliers. I thanked them for their replies and apologized for being snippier than I really meant to...and because the overall feel and impression left from the post made it seem as tho I didn't like the brothers, and as you know by my previous statements about them, that is certainly not the case. I was just frustrated and angry at the situation, and felt that some unfairness was going on and they were all about promoting their own store but other people had to be so careful about mentioning other dealers or whatever.

Well, by this time Adam had a chance to respond, and his post made me feel bad, in that it made me feel that I had hurt his feelings and they all thought I should've PM'd them about it instead of making this big public scene.

I guess I still have mixed feelings about that. I could have done that, yes. But...I also know that other people were feeling this way too and it needed to be brought out in the public. I don't know how it would've turned out if I'd PM'd. And it doesn't matter anyway, because what's done is done. I did what I did. Although I do still feel at least somewhat justified, mostly I just feel foolish.

Well, so, I replied to Adam, and apologized to the brothers for going on an attack against them, and as the admin dude pointed out, they weren't the ones who sent me the message, it was him. I just know that he is one of their admins on their site, so I assumed they were all involved. Plus, in his message, the dude said that there was some discussion about my photos...meaning there were several people discussing it...and who else would that be?

Anyway. How it ended was this: Adam & Nick and I have kissed and made up (well, made up anyway) and PM's have been exchanged, and we're now on each other's friends lists. It was high drama...but brought down very easily and quickly to an understanding. And newfound friendships! What's funny about that (not funny haha, as I said to Nick, but the other kind of funny) is that I always wanted to be friends with both of them, but was too shy to ask them before. Now I feel that it probably sounds like a lie for me to say that after all this. If only they knew.

Anyway, it's all good! And, for a while anyway, I was Mike's hero. ;O)

OK...so that was the TrikkeTalk incident. It really shouldn't have turned into such an incident, but again, it's too late to look back. It's already been said and done. I think everything will be cool from now on.

Job Stuff

So, another thing I skipped over to follow the flow of the conversation, was the job news. Well, as I mentioned before, I was doing the life insurance thing. But, the thing with that job is that it was commission only. So...I guess a combination of bad clients, bad economy, and maybe that I suck, it just wasn't working out. It seemed at first like it would be good...there was about a month were I was making over $1000 a week! I kept imagining it being that way forever, and heck yeah...that would've been awesome!! Even if now and then that didn't happen...or I made nothing now and then...it would've been ok. But what happened instead was...I got down to making zero EVERY week...for like another month...and then it continued!

Well, I could go into more detail with that too, like some of the sucky clients I ended up with, but I'm not going to go there. I'm simply going to say that I started looking for something else, and wasn't having too much luck, but then I got a break, and guess where I'm about to start...back at Southern Company! I worked there for a while and this is going to be the same place...out on Inverness Parkway, but just in the next building over from my old building. I should still be able to see some of my old coworkers! I sent a couple of them emails a while back, but didn't get replies from either of them, so I hope they're still there...and still cool. I guess I'll find out.

Anyway...so that's that.

Miss J

The biggest news to blog about right now is not happy news. My beloved "Miss J", Rebecca Jennings, our magnificent drama & speech teacher from Banks, died on Thanksgiving Day. So sad to see such a grand lady leave us, but really, not sad in the way some sort of unexpected, senseless, tragic death would be; she was 85 years old after all. But someone like Miss J...it just seems as though people like her can never die. She was just so...larger than life! She was a big deal in Birmingham itself, let alone to her students at BHS! She was famous in the theater world. Her history with London Bridges...the whole shebang. Everyone, it seems, knew of her. She was much admired by many...for such a long time. She had a great run on this earth, that much is certain.

I don't care how old she was...it was a sad day for me and for a TON of other people...really, for anyone who knew her. She will be greatly, greatly missed. I am so glad I was able to attend her memorial service, and especially happy to be able to meet the lovely Judy Jones, her partner of the past 18 years. (I never actually met London. I must be the only one!)

I'll never forget the way Miss J looked at me and smiled proudly at me and met me at the edge of the walk in the gym the day we had the homecoming leadout when I accompanied Walter. She came up to me and said how very proud she was of me..and she said 'for more than one reason' or something similar...because we had been getting the evil eye from everyone else. For those of you reading this who don't understand this reference, it is because Walter was black, and he was our band's drum major & people did NOT like that we were together in that ceremony. Not Miss J. She was standing boldly waiting for me at the edge, and it was almost like the sea of people parted for her as she spoke to me...tho I concede that that was probably just my way of glorifying the memory. ;O) The memories I have of her, while not as many as others have, are pure gold. Participating in "The Wizard of Oz" was the most magical time of my high school life! I was also in M*A*S*H, which was also fun, but not like 'Oz'. Those were the days of Derek Chandler (the Cowardly Lion). Ahh yes, the 'Derek phase'. LOL!!

In any case, I loved that woman...and ironically had been intending to try to go and see her, knowing her time had to be running out by now. I've actually had this thought so very many times over the years, I was just revisiting the thought recently. I sure could've tried harder to make it happen. Another regret. I will always regret not going to see her. What on earth is wrong with me that I didn't???

Again I have to say...it's too late to argue about it now...what's done is done. I only hope she knew...or knows now. I bet she is directing glorious plays in Heaven right now!

Goodbye, my lovely Miss J. You were a peach.

posted by Chris at 12:40 AM | (1) Comments links to this post

 

YES! PRESIDENT OBAMA!

posted by Chris at 11:01 PM | (0) Comments links to this post

 

Wow...not much blogging going on.

So...ever since I became more active with myspace, I have been really neglecting my regular blog. I must think of some key things I want to add in update.

The main update will have to be about Trikking!! I'm already on my 2nd Trikke and haven't even written a blog here yet. I have talked about it on my myspace blog tho, so it's out there.

posted by Chris at 7:12 PM | (0) Comments links to this post

 

September 11

Today is September 11. It's been 7 years since that day. I'll never forget the events that morning as they unfolded and confusion gave way to reality and understanding. Well...understanding to a degree, of course.

Remember the day today.

Never forget!

posted by Chris at 2:12 PM | (0) Comments links to this post