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I went to the scottish festival today and they had Haggis!!!

So I eated it!!!!

It wasn't bad. It wasn't evil, but it wasn't yummy you know.  If you have ever had lamb chops, and beef liver and onions, imagine those two tastes mixed together with oatmeal, cause it's chock full of oats, and that is what Haggis tastes like.

The first thing that hits you is the greasy meaty lambness. Kind of a hint of deer meat and porkish/lambish deep meat. You know not the juicy meat part of lamb and pork, but the deep meat that is a little more savory. While you are noticing that, the oats become evident. It's a very bland greyness, of taste with a grainy texture that makes the meatyness feel like corned beef without the deep richness of beef.

Right after that you pick up a hint of liver that is the bad part of the liver 2 part taste, the metallic, pinching taste. And the Oats texture and greyness stays, and just floats on the liver taste. Thats what holds it back in my opinion, you don't have anything to cut the liver.  

Haggis isn't made with liver. It's made with Kidney and Lungs and Heart. It is also made with Suet, which is the fat found around the Kidneys.

So now you know that kidney is very much like Liver in flavor. I can't say that the heart and lungs tasted like anything other than meat. The dominant flavor is Liverish. And it's not entirely yucky once you have some Brown Sauce to go on it.

If you are not familiar, English Brown sauce is almost exactly like Heinze 57 steak sauce. Just a little more wistechery, if that's even a real word.

So there were tons of people in Kilts, and a ton of people who looked like they went to kindergarten with Jesus. You know like Crypt Keeper old, like hit em with a drop of water in the forehead and that drop of water finds a wrinkle slide that ends in one of their shoes. It's just one big wrinkle flume from the eye brows down.

There was much bagpiping. Which I love. I just can't ignore that sound. It strikes a chord in me deep in my being that makes me want to pay attention and sway back and forth with the haunting lilt of that breating note. It's the most alive sounding instrument in my opinion. It lives just like the breath comin out the guy playing the note you know. It is the sound of alive not unlike a trumpet and such.

There was also alot of celtic fiddle and guitar work happening on the stages. Thats I also loved. The fiddlers were OK. They weren't inspired to be sure. But they were pleasant to listen to.

My own violin playing has progressed to the point that I can get all the way through mary had a little lamb without hitting the wrong note and without skipping or missing a whole bar of the tune. But it still sounds like two cats fighting in a blender.

 So the title was Killing the Funk, and in part that is what going to the Scottish festival was for. I have been in a funk for about the last 3 weeks. I don't want to do anything. I have been skipping homework assignments and not doing the things I want and need to do other than paying bills.

Basicly I don't want to get up to go to work, and when I get home I just want to crawl into bed and not exist again till I have to get up for work. Like that, rinse repeat.

Kristina has been holding down the fort and she thinks that the funk is because I have lost interest in WoW and WoW was my social time since it so neatly fits into whatever time I have available to be social. And it makes sense. When ever I got an hour or so I could jump into WoW find one or more of my real life freinds in there and chat with them and joke with them and run around in a fake world with them for an hour or so. And it satisfied a need I have for social interaction without me having to leave the house and make bigger plans.

Well since I lost interest in Dungeon Farming in WoW for purple gear, I haven't been playing. So I haven't had any Me time where I get to sociallize and recharge my self image, so I have slid into a funk where I just want to crawl under a blanket and ifnore life.

And I think she is right. Mahjoy is very smart. And she cares about my mental state so we talked about it for the last couple days and I think she is right. We just don't know how to fix it without me getting back into WoW or another game like it. And I am not sure I want to do that. I don't thnk I want to get into a NEW MMO until something really awesome jumps up and honeslty nothing is going to be beating WoW for awhile. I have been looking over alot of the MMO's and I am not convinced half of the in developments are even going to see the light of day let alone be WoW killers, so......What now!!!

simple answer!  MASTURBATION!!!!!!!! I'm gonna try to set the world record for whackin the pud!

No not really! I masturbate enough to keep my proctologist happy with the size of my prostate and thats that!

Not really. That too was an exageration intended to elicit an EEEWWWWWW response from Pie Pie and Nichole and my sister mostly, if you guys are reading. But the Scottish festival did go aways toward making me feel better.

I got to see Kent Weeks there and meet his momma. Oh how adorable she is. Classic, Classic Classic. You could barely hear her when she spoke and when you finally understood her it was just incredibly witty and cleverly delivered humor, or commentary. A lovely woman all around. Of course its always pleasant to run into Kent and Jill and they seemed to be amused as much as we were just being out there and seeing the people and hearing the music and such.

So I still have to plan out killing this funk. If you have any ideas, let me know ok. I don't like it and I want to beat it into submission as soon as I can.

As always, just because I haven't talked to you doesn't mean I don't love you.

I love all you guys and I miss you all terribly.

Later!

I hate getting sick. I have a cold now. Probably gonna die of death! I GOT THE DEATH!!!!

 Anyway. School: Uhg! I am not learning anything. Honestly. I know all this stuff. All I am learning is how to show up and follow the instructions and color inside the lines. And I could do all that already. I am applying myself. I am. It's just that this degree program is still loosely defined so the stuff they are covering is 5 years old and just the most generic principles.

These kids taking these classes with me, are not going to know anything when they come out of this school. They can barely model now. And the first 3-d modeling animation class is being taught by someone who doesn't do alot of modeling. She is considering herself more of a design principles guru/mentor than anything else. That's not good.

Oh well. If I drop out then the loan repayments start and I would rather have my car paid off before that happens lol. I'm staying in school cause it is cheaper to do so. Awesome!!!

 The boys are doing ok. They are having new issues with cleaning up after themselves and for some reason it has become a ritual for them to pull every article of clothing they have, out of the drawers and closets on a daily basis and then tromp around on them for a week and then throw them all into the hamper on saturday.

And they locked themselves out of the house today. That was fun. I have to get an electric pencil sharpener. The crappy #2 pencils are dulling all my art pencil sharpeners. It's not a big deal but art pencils, at least the ones I buy, are a more dense wood, and they are pressed better so they don't splinter like mad when you try to sharpen them. You just barely have to spin them to keep them sharp.

The kids #2's however you have to grind away at like you are the operator of a saw mill. But that is the reality of a refined special use item and a general purpose item I guess.

Kristina is going ok. She will have to take statistics again. Flunked it by one point. Talk about suckin! Sheesh. And I tried to look over the whole statistics thing. Yeah right. Looking at the formulas nearly killed me. TO DEATH!!!!

Oh well. Ignorance is bliss and I am drowning in mathless joy. At least until my next math class.

More later.

Love you guys.

~K~

Yeah I was avoiding writing this post.

We lost the nubbins. It was only about 2 weeks after I wrote about the nubbins. We dealt with it and I just haven't wanted to talk about it more. And so I won't. It happened and I know how to deal with it now. This was the first time it ever happened to me, so it was kind of weired. Thanks for all the love, and the respect of not making me talk about it when I didn't want to.

And in other news. I am back on classes again. The boys have had a round of report cards and are not doing so well, but we have a plan and we are working on it.  It's baby steps, but it seems to be working.

I started writing a game .doc, and it sucked, but the story got stuck in my head so I am writing it out as a full novel.

It's easier than you think. I have one document where I just write everything that pops into my head, and in the other document I refine it and organize it and expand on it, and add all the regular stuff. You know, transitional information, the stuff that happened between event A and event B. Things that give you a sense of who the characters are and what their lives are like, blah blah blah. I know, another big project I have taken on to go along with all my other crap, but you guys know me. I can talk all day and night and never get tired of listening to myself! lol Writing isn't any different. I get on a roll and turn around and 4-5 hours have blown by and I have thousands of words staring back at me. It's alot of fun.

Kristina is as lovely as ever. She is Mahjoy. She's hatin on her job though and wants to find something else, and I am not filled with joy every morning walkin in to my joint, but such is life right.  Soldier on says I.

She got me the Orange box, and I have been utterly underwhelmed by it for the most part. Though portal is an AWESOME game. And short. I think it is an awesome example of what games can and many should be at the moment and into the future. But noone asks my opinion. TF2 is cute. 5 years ago it would have been more than that but as it is now. Fmeh! It exists, and I don't hate it. That's the closest I can get to expressin the love for TF2.

OK enough from me.

Have fun, love ya!

~K~

I haven't posted in forever.

Cause there was alot of terrible spam that was lcogging everything up. Of course Q-ball the master of all things "Internets", has fixed that for me so I can get back on track.

First news! The boys are good. They had a good summer, they are back in school and things are running pretty smoothly.

Second news! Kristina is pregnant and I couldn't be happier! I am sooooo excited. We are going to have a baby. Nubbins abound! I can't stop grinning. The idea is wonderful and I am very very happy. Kristina is excited and the boys are beside themselves with jumping and joy.

If it is a boy, I am shooting for the name "Banjo Mathais Byrd".

If it's a girl, "Blue Irredesences Byrd".

I think Mahjoy is gonna fight me on these! We shall see my dear! We shall see!

But for now, that is the joy I am dishin out. School is bein a bee-atch and so is work so I shall post again soon. Promise.

Love ya'll.

OK there is a guy I work with who is a grade A top of the line Psycho. I like to call him Dave! Dave is a good guy. Talented, kind of a goof, likes to play the shit outa some video games. Gotta like a guy who can get down on his video games.

Anyway, Dave is also a motorhead. He likes messin with cars and RC airplanes and all that kinda stuff. He has a big boat and a big truck and all that. Old corvette he's workin on, apparently he had a thing for motorcycles at some point. So now, Dave is into Flying. I am into flying. I have always wanted to fly.

Ever since I was little I wanted to get up in the sky and just GO. But Dave can't afford his own airplane. He works with me, so he aint rich. So how is Dave flying? Well Dave is flying a parachute wing with a motor strapped to his back. No it's not a joke. No it's not a fake thing. It's called Power Paragliding. You use a Parawing, which is a parachute that has a glide slope design. And then you strap a 30 horse power engine with a hand throttle and a propeller and a safety cage onto your back. You hook up the wing and turn on the motor and then run into the wind as hard as you can while accelerating the motor. If you are lucky and pay attention, you get lifted off the ground and after a minute or so you are 500 feet in the air flying at 25 miles per hour for as long as 3 hours if you want.  You can go HIGH too boy. I would say too high in some cases. But you can fly about 40 miles.

And Dave has been teaching me how to do this. He is letting me use his gear and maybe twice a week I go with him after work to an open field on base and I "kite" his wing. So that I can learn all the things I need to know about a parawing and how it handles and what happens when the wind does this and that.  It's tough man! That thing can get hit by a gust of wind and it's like trying to stop a truck in low gear from moving when the gas is on. It's not a WHAM kinda hit, but it is a constent and steady torque that you just can't overcome. It almost WON'T stop.  You yank the brakes, and you run forward, and you pray that it doesn't drag your ass across the face of the earth for as long as it so chooses to stay windy! lol.

So I have been kiting the wing and I have worn the motor and run it and throttled it up and felt it nearly knock me down. I felt the torque twist and I heard the noise. Last week I tried to kite it in 25 mile per hours winds. Dave wasn't sure it was a good idea. After trying it, I will agree with him on that one in the future. It could have torn me and him up if we had kept pressing our luck lol. Kited Friday and had an AWESOME experience. I got under the wing, kept it level and started generating lift. The harnes got all up in my biscuits and nearly pulled me free of the green earth.

And I wanted it to. Truly I wanted to be lifted. I wanted to be carried up off my feet and out into the clouds.

And hopefully I will still get to.                                 

That's a picture of me looking very comic book. With the motor strapped on my back.

Things are goin.

I withdrew from my math class.  Yeah Yeah Yeah! Look it was affecting my quality of life. I was too stressed over it and this is my first year.

The school has a policy of not "front loading" as they call it. I cry bullshit on this one cause the student advisor said she scheduled me for this other math class just one session after my last math class. The Art institute only has ONE math class required. So I was getting my run up math class that I had to have cause my math grade was so bad, then full blown college math 6 weeks later. She said she thought it would help me more since the other math would still be fresh.

Uhm no. Actually what it did was make me flip out. I barely got through that first math class. Passed it by the skin of my teeth. C ok I eeked out a C. I figured I had time to knock out some other classes and no worry about math since I have 3 more years and I don't have to have math done in the first year. I appreciate the idea but I wasn't ready for it. And I acknowledge that. I know some people are gonna be disappointed. I was a little disappointed. I am still worried Kristina is disappointed and just doesn't want to say it so I won't feel bad, but I just couldn't do this class right now. I needed a break a real break. The school thing is stressfull enough without getting pinned between two math classes that make me frantic.

I need some time to enjoy some of this school so I don't get burned out. Since this bachelors program is something I love it should be easy. But I didn't get any chance to appreciate the classes I have before they hit me with one that I had told them I was very very worried about.

SO there. I withdrew. I'll have to take it again and pay for it again. And I am ok with that.

The monkies are doing great. There was a serious grounding recently over "destroying" things, but that is working itself out.  Aaron is eating dinner right along with everyone else. No matter what we have. He dodged out on salad a week ago but he has been eating Split pea soup and 15 bean soup, and fish and vegetables. It's good. He is having better night time experiences and bedtimes issues are becoming less frequent.

Christian is using methodology in his drawing. There were several weeks of arguing over that. He just wanted to draw and I wanted him to start learning the techniques. It was interesting. He had one of his art class paintings submitted by his art teacher for the Bay Arts Alliance kids of bay county exhibit. His painting of a shark eating a salmon was sbumitted as one of the 3 3'rd graders for his whole school. He wasn't as impressed by that as he should have been. He had the idea that there would be some more sort of recognition at the event we went to other than just people walking around seeing his work along with everyone elses.

Things are going great in all aspects. Kristina is awesome, and we are having just as much fun and talking just as much. We have been playing Lord of the Rings Online together and I find that VERY exciting. OK IT'S HOT! She plays games with me! ROCK OUT!  I love her. She is insane. Just as insane as I am. Still with the funny noises and the sillyness. I feel very lucky.

Hope you guys are having fun. It's just your life.

Oh yeah, the school thing and politics and all that.

Honestly I don't want to know about those kids in virginia. It's too much. I can't deal with it right now. It's just one of those things that I acknowledge but I don't want to know the details. I don't want to know who they were. I don't want to know who the killer was. He isn't important!

Let me say that again. THAT GUY ISN'T IMPORTANT! OK! He went nuts. Maybe mommy didn't hug him enough maybe daddy smacked him too much. I DON'T CARE! He did something noone should even think about doing and he doesn't deserve to be named. His picture doesn't need to be plastered all over the world. He doesn't need to be trash can admired.  You wanna talk about it. Talk about the kids that died. I won't listen to it either, but at least your not giving in to what he wanted. Your not justifiying what he did in the way he wanted it justified.

He wanted to be all over the news. He wanted to be a household name. DON'T GIVE IT TO HIM! PLEASE! Speak of him as though you would speak of a lightning bolt. It was a THING it was an EVENT it had no soul it had no reason, it just happened as it happened. Achnowledge the tragedy not the man who did it. Because all you will achieve is inspriring the next talking lightning bolt and showing them that through horrible unspeakable deeds they may yet achieve something of "meaning " even if they are the only ones who see it.

Politics?

WOW. Uhm a guy like me couldn't dream of a political environment worse than what is actually happening in my worst nightmares. I am dumbfounded at the current white house administration and equally appalled by both houses of congress and how they are handling things. It's like watching a grade school split in half on the playground and watching little kids have at each other with a war of words. But instead of words we are having a war of subtle inuendo and hearings. Noone is asking a straight question ANYWHERE. Noone is filing charges ANYWHERE. But everyone knows what is being said and why. Revenge is revenge. People voted to change the status quoe because it was headed in a direction noone really wanted to keep going.

Changing that didn't mean cart blanche to be backbiters. It wasn't anymore a blank check to annoy and ridicule the other side than the original votes were a blank check to be become a caucasian Ghengis Kahn.

I'm worried for my children in the same way that Mel Gibsons character in "The Patriot" was worried for his children. I'm afraid before I grow old an die there may be another great conflict in the United States that won't have anything to do with terrorism or foreign governments or Islam. Instead of the Grey and Blue, it'll be the Blue and the Red. And I don't want them to have to live in that time. Unless they are prepared to stand up for whats right and fair and just. But trying to teach them that hurt their adult lives. And I would rather not have to try to teach them things I don't believe just so I know they can get along and "pass".

I don't know maybe I am looking too far down the rabbit hole, but it's starting to creep into my dreams.

Another dream I keep having is very very disturbing. I'll go ahead and say it since it is just a dream. In my dream I am living life and the dream is spanning months. They are flying by like a montage. Not a Peter Jackson montage, cause I don't have 28 hours a day to sleep. But these months are going by and I am seeing sign after sign after sign that it is my responsibility to buy a sniper rifle and kill Bill O'reilly and Sean Hannity. It's something I have to do to help America be safe. I know it's creepy. I think it's creepy. But in my dream those two guys just start getting scarier and scarier and they start advocating that "liberals" and "homos" and "illegals" should be seperated from the rest of the "great americans" who work hard and live right and blah blah blah. They are all but advocating concentration camps and the hands are clapping across america. Even people who don't know that they are on the lists to go to the camps are sitting in front of the tv clapping and smiling. Clapping themselves right into the camps.

I know it's freaky. I told you it was.

Anyway, I'll keep thinkin on that one and try to figure out how to make it stop.

Love you guys!

I just finished Color Theory with an A and English Composition with a B. I would have had a better grade in comp but I kept forgetting to submit critiques to the other students writings. I don't know why. It happened to me twice, once in the last week when I was the final essay and my color theory painting.

FEH! It's still an A and a B.  My next two classes are Digital Image Manipulation and College Mathematics.  OH SO SCREWED in college mathematics. I know it. I'm fuggered on that one man. No ifs ands or buts yo! Just straight up screwed. It' the last math class I will have for the entire time I am in this college and I am going to fail it.

I don't think I am being defeatist about it really I don't. I just know that I barely pulled through the intermediate class and without Mahjoys help I would have failed that too, and now I have to do the hard stuff. SCREWED!

 OH well. Such is the life uh hoh hoh hoh.

Love you guys. Have fun.

So we got to see 300 tonight. AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME! FREAKIN AWESOME!

I am a Spartan! I am so totally a Spartan.  All my alluminum foil hat buzzing and my over developed sense of justice! It's all because I am really a spartan. The only part of the spartan that is missing from me is the whole physical fitness part. Apparently I don't need that part. lol!

I do not and will not support Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate.  Since I am registered as an Independant it doesn't really matter since I can't vote in primaries, WHICH IS ABSOLUTE RUBBISH by the way.

But that's another rant.

My lack of support for Hillary has nothing to do with her overies. It has mainly to do with her as a figure. I am confident you have all heard me say this before, Bill Clinton was a good president. Bill Clinton appeared on all fronts to be a rather crappy person. He was skeevy and lied to his family and lied to the country and I would say in general he is not someone I would trust in my life. Done.

I feel the same way about Hillary. I don't have any evidence that she is a liar, but I remember the whole white water thing and I remember that their business manager ended up dead just when he was being looked for to answer some questions. That's enough for me. There is something about her that just makes me flinch, and I can't believe I am about to say this, but I can get behind something Sean Hannity said on his radio show which I listen to everyday on my way home from work. (Hey it's the ONLY talk radio station in town. No NPR no anything other than Hannity and O'Reilly and Savage) He says that she has some kind of massive temper. Some kind of insane enraged fury lurking just beneath the surface. And I can see that I think. She has, "the crazy eye". She has a look of a woman who is convinced she is composed and prepared. I think if you happened to throw her one solid curve ball that her facade would explode and she would just go crazy on yer ass right then and there.

They did a great skit on SNL where Hillary was doing an interview with Chris Mathews and she just goes Apeshit on him. It was very very funny but I feel like it carries with it the same sense that I have of the woman. She's a cracked nut just waiting for the shell to come off.

So while I would LOVE to have a woman president I don't think it should be Hillary. Add to that the dynasty element, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Clinton. No way. Too much an order of kings to me. Some really great people fought off the english and won so we didn't have to deal with crap like that and I for one think we should try to keep following that example. FDR nearly stole it from us once, but after him we set the unspoken rules in stone and I don't want to see that dynasty system simply passed from generation to generation. That would be unamerican.

Barack Obama?  I like him. He is a little more liberal than I would like. He is a little too much of a swinging door back and forth, kind of, "I'm black enough and I am white enough". Though his race means little to me it's how he deals with it that is an issue for me. It's like he looks at you and shrugs his shoulders and says "You label me, I'm ok with what you pick". And that makes me uncomfortable. It makes me think he is too inexperienced and that if he did win he doesn't have the legs to stand under the weight that will be put on his shoulders.

Kennedy had more time under his belt than Obama and he was ultimately confident and just a freakin steamroller when he wanted to be. I don't get any sense of steamroller from Obama. I think his push is not nearly as strong as it would need to be if he wanted to be an effective president.

So I don't know who to look into now. Edwards seems ok. I like him too but he is a trial attourney who got rich filing claims on malpractice and so on and that's just skeevy. I really do have issues with personal injury attornies. They are just all covered in a type of psychic slime that I can't stomach. Standing close to them makes me feel dirty and it doesn't really matter how thin the veneer of slime is, it's still there. Even when I had to deal with the whole car accident issue, the guy that was representing me from the insurance agency who IS NOT a personal injury attorney, yup, fine coating of slime.

Nice guy, he just had some slime on him is all.

 Al Gore? Please.  Just Please.  I appreciate what the man is trying to do and the way that some people are attacking him over his electric bill is just rediculous but please. Enough of that. Let it go.

So who is left? The other guys are pretty much nameless and most of the guys on the Republican ticket definately feel creepy minus Rudy. I'd more likely vote for Rudy today cause at least he doesn't like discriminating against gay people. There are so many fags in new york there is no way that guy can still be a phobe. Even if he personally dislikes homosexuals THATS FINE! As long as he is concerned with their personal rights and their human rights then I can get behind him. Not literally! That was a totally heterosexual euphamism! I DIG CHICKS!

Anyway. I keep listening and watching and reading and I am just tired. Tired all over. My soul is starting to yawn at me and say, please...buddy....just take a break. You can't keep up on this stuff all the time or it is going to kill you and make an empty shell.

So now my next question? What would you guys say if I told you that I had a chance to move to Ireland? For a few years?? In Dublin???

Eh just throwin it out there.

Love ya!

I wasn't trying to be mean or disprove anything or destroy Christianity. I promise.

It's not my goal to kill anyones god. I just don't have the time or the interest in killing gods. Plus there is no money in it. :-)

I just think that in the two thousand plus years since Jesus was alive we have learned to do just about everything except be open minded about Jesus. Which is something I think Jesus himself would have wanted actually.

That and the whole Harry Potter aspect of it all. That has and always will bother me. Sorry. I just can't put my faith in magic. "it's not magic it's god" right?

Right.

Sorry.

Magic.

Especially since most hard line Christians say that science can never explain the aspects of god. I am dismayed and saddened by that even more. Because I still hold to the idea that since we are made in gods image, all these things we discover and attempt are in fact paths that god is hopeful we will find and use to good effect like he did.

That just seems like the most logical thing to me.