T-Shirt(s) of the Day

OK...since I didn't post one yesterday I promised to post two today and here they are.

First up is a shirt from one of my favorite beer companies, Flying Dog Brewery. I bought this T-Shirt last year at Brewgrass Beer Festival in Asheville, NC. All of the Flying Dog beers have labels designed by longtime Hunter S. Thompson collaborator Ralph Steadman. I've been a longtime fan of both HST and of Steadman's artwork, and the mixture of good beer and good art is very appealing to me. Gonzo Imperial Porter is a 9% ABV beer and it's one of the better high gravity beers I've tried. When I saw this shirt I had to get it. You get three pictures on this one so you can see the detail a little better. And you can tell I've worn it quite a bit in the past year as the screen print is already cracking. Definitely one of my favorite shirts!






Next up is a T-Shirt recently purchased for me by my very good friend The Chick. She bought it during a recent trip she made to Wilmington, NC and I have no idea of what store it came from. I do however really like this shirt since it pretty much sums up the way I feel about our current Commander in Chief. She knows me very well and I am forever grateful for her friendship and for the awesome T-Shirt. Thanks!

T-Shirt of the Day

Today's
T-shirt is from a local band. Not only do they rock, but they're good
friends as well. I hear they may have broken up, or at least taken a
break...whatever the case they're missed already. I'm sure all four
guys will show up in other bands soon (or will hopefully regroup). The
band is Space Age Polymers Company (orSAPCo ). I'm
including a video that I took of them on my camera a couple of years
ago at the World Famous Milestone for your
viewing/listening pleasure...



Gotta love the feedback!

You Tube

I post a lot of videos from You Tube, but there's plenty more good stuff out there. I actually have two You Tube profiles filled with favorites. I started the second because I had reached my limit of 500 favorites on the first. Apparently many of them have been deleted though and I now have more free space on the original (which I've been adding to again as well). Check them both out and you'll find plenty of randomness, oddities, music, and a lot of stuff you might remember from your childhood. Also be sure to check out some of my "subscriptions" for even more goodies...I especially recommend knobbynah, as his taste in the good , the bad and the ugly is very similar to mine (plus Isaac's a good friend I've never met).

Vacation is over.

This past weekend I went to the North Myrtle Beach with my buddies Lee and Richard. A good time was had by all, even if the trip was too short. The good thing about where we live in NC is that we're only a few hours away from the beach, which makes a short weekend trip possible. The bad part of that is that short weekend trips just leave you ready to make a week of it. But still, it's nice to get out of town for a few days, drink and get sunburned with good friends and lots of laughs.

We arrived around 3 in the afternoon Friday and immediately set out to drinking. We had stopped at Southern Spirits on the way down and loaded up on plenty of good brews. Little did we know that what we bought that day would barely last us through the night. Our livers are still recovering. After a few beers and a dip in the pool, we took the golf cart out and got more beers, and food before setting out to the beach for a very drunken walk. Races occurred, a shoulder was injured...even though Lee hurt it trying to knock us over when we raced down the beach, Rich and I got to hear about it all weekend long.

I admit, I passed out around 9 Friday night about 20 minutes into Dazed and Confused. I was tired and drunk. I was also the one who got up at 3:30 am and stayed awake most of the rest of the next day (save for a "planned" two hour nap that turned into a four hour one). We spent lots of time on the beach Saturday morning, ate lunch then hit the pool for a while (all while enjoying fine beverages) before the naps occurred. After nappy time, we went out to eat but I guess we were all spent because we didn't hit up any bars afterwards. I did stay up until 2 in the morning drinking on the balcony and stealing internet from the hotel across the street.

There's really not much else to report. We didn't get into any trouble (though it was flirted with) and we didn't make too much noise or party too hard. Basically just a relaxing/drunken weekend of fun. I will leave you with a few random pictures...

I can't wait until the next time!

Briarman

This is my friend Roger, sort of playing a character. There's a lot of the real Roger mixed in with "Briarman" though...

I said I was setting up this blog so I could get away from blogging (I still kind of hate those words, but have grown to begrudgingly accept them) at Myspace so much. Or at least keep certain things over here different from my persona on that site. However I find that the two worlds often do bleed together and that many of my real life friends keep up with me more through the internet than they do in real life...which is fine by me. I'm not fan of the telephone that's for sure.

So I realize today that while my Myspace "friends" weren't left with a cliffhanger, any readers I have here (besides the one I know I have), don't have any resolution. Well, neither do I, but here...you can at least catch up:

Originally posted on Myspace, May 5 2008

What once looked like it was going to be a good thing turned out to be not all it seemed. And believe it or not, I'm happy with the outcome. I get a much needed break and a chance to start fresh, doing something I enjoy...hopefully.

I have been meaning to write this blog for a while, but between being super busy getting things ready to move out for the old company, and the emotional rollercoaster it put me through, I just waited until today...my first day of freedom.

When the new company came in to "save the day" we were all pretty optimistic about it, but when they gave us our "employment packages", none of us were very happy with what they had to offer. They raised our pay slightly...basically enough to cover the difference in their more expensive, yet not nearly as good, insurance. Bad thing was, they wanted to make us all salaried and they already had built in overtime which made our pay significantly less in the big picture. Plus they wanted us to sign a no-compete contract. Now whether or not I would want to stay in the gutter industry (more likely not), I did want that option to remain open. That no-compete contract would prevent that (even though I've been told that they don't always hold up...it was the principle of it all). I even told the guy who was handling all this that I had a feeling that they were going to use us to get the place running, to keep our customers and then replace us down the road with people they could pay less since he had already told us that we made more than they typically paid. He said they weren't that kind of company and wouldn't do that, but I told him he could say that all day, but in the end they could do whatever they wanted and we'd be stuck. This was especially a big deal to Bull (older guy I worked with) since he'd been doing this for over 20 years, his main options are in the gutter industry right now. There were a couple of other things we had issues with and in the end they weren't willing to budge, so we told them, "Thanks, but no thanks". The good thing is the company we did work for was behind us 100% and said they'd support whatever decision we made and wouldn't penalize us for not taking the jobs, severance-wise or unemployment benefits-wise.

I really do have a positive outlook on all of this. I think in the end I'll be much happier and hopefully be doing something I enjoy. Time will tell though, but for now I plan on taking a few weeks off to get some things done I've been planning on but have never gotten around to. Plus mentally I need a break. I won't wait too long to get serious about looking for a job (especially with the job market the way it is) and if something comes my way in the meantime that I just can't refuse I'll definitely jump all over it.

So...what to do now? I think I'll go take a nap! Thank you unemployment!