It's Getting Away From You Again. While You're Chasing Ghosts...

When I was a teenager, I had a pretty weird fascination with all things creepy and haunted.  When you picture a teenager who is into that sort of thing, you are thinking of someone who dresses in black, has piercings, and listens to goth metal music.  Stereotype, that it is, I get that, but if we are being real about the topic, that is what most people think of.  I fit none of this when I was a teenager because I always wore khakis and polos in high school, always.  No jeans, rarely shorts, always khakis and polos.  To look at me, one would never think about my fascination.

When I was younger, I spent so much time going through abandoned buildings at night with flashlights and a few friends, hoping to find something other-worldly or get frightened by anything other than a wild animal.  Actually, my friend Josh threw me into a dark basement in an abandoned school once and locked the door behind me.  I should also mention that he was holding my flashlight at the time.  There was a moment of internal panic involved in that event, but my composure remained fairly intact.

My personal concept of and fascination with ghostly beings developed after I saw the movie The Sixth Sense for the first and only time shortly after it was released.  As a middle school kid, that movie scared the dog snot out of me and it took me months to shake the night terrors.  As I became older, my fears of all things dead developed into a more curious thought process.  Watching horror movies is something I never actually did;  if I am honest, I cannot think of a single one I have seen since The Sixth Sense.  The reason was because I wanted the reality of seeing something in front of my face, even if I was not entirely sure entities such as that existed in the first place.  Still, I continued looking and crawling around in "haunted" places with friends in order to figure it out.  Have you ever been in an old cemetery after midnight with a few other people just waiting for something interesting to happen?  I have.  Nothing happened.

Hunting around for spiritual beings is not something I do anymore at all.  Would you like to know why?  October 15th, 2005.

The night of October 15th, 2005 I went to the Roswell Mill just before midnight with a few friends and a few others I did not know.  This old mill predates the Civil War and the area was a point of interest for Sherman's troops when he marched south to burn down Atlanta.  Legends, facts, and all sorts of history speak of tragedies that happened at the mill, as well as the hundreds of wooded acres surrounding it.  

The people I met up with that night were Wiccan.  They carried crystals with them, vials of various substances, wore pentagrams, and had memorized chants.  I went on a venture into the woods with these people for nearly four hours and spectated everything they did, but being a Christian myself, did not participate.  Anyone is correct in assuming that your mind can play tricks on you and in the dark, anything can be imagined into reality if you think it over enough and want to believe it exists;  I agree.  That is not what happened to me.  On that night, I saw what I had been searching for in abandoned buildings among broken glass and decaying concrete.  Not only did I see what I had been after, but what I saw gave me a stern warning to go back from where I came and all but chased me and three others out of those woods that night.  

As if anyone who reads these blogs would not think I was partially insane for my previous content, I will not go into anymore detail about what happened unless you ask me privately.  When four people are alone in the woods and silent until they all react to something simultaneously and have the same story after running like a frightened rabbit, there is truth in that story somewhere.

The thing that bothered me the most about that night was a man who's nickname was Raven.  He was a line cook at the steakhouse where I worked, and one of the Wiccan folks who went to the woods with us that night.  I was in one group of people and he was leading the other group.  After that night, he seemed really depressed for a few days and I asked him why.

Raven:  When I was out there, I saw the spirit of a little girl crying and she ran up to me, wrapped her arms around my waist and wouldn't let go.  She was so sad that I couldn't tell her to leave.

Me:  So, what happened to her?

*his eyes pooled up at this point*

Raven:  She's still with me.

With that, Raven turned away from me and went back to his work on the prep-line.  That was the last time I spoke to him because he did not show up for work the next day, or any day following.  He was always a really happy guy and always showed up for work, so the managers were concerned so much that one of them actually found the house that he had listed on payroll as his address after his cell phone number became disconnected.  He was gone, the house was empty, and nobody knows what happened to him.    

The long and drawn out sequence of events leading up to the conclusion you just read made me realize a few things.  The first thing I realized is that most people will hear my story and will not believe me.  I know everything I have made mention of is exactly as I lived it, however.  The second thing is that I believe some things are better off left undiscovered and should at least be given that much respect.  The final thing is that my fears were fairly conquered after that point.  When I was rooting around in old buildings as a teenager, I wanted to find something that would scare me, but when the very thing I had spent so long searching for decided to confront me on it's own, the game changed for me completely and I have not pursued it since.  

Sometimes life (or death) does not make any sense, but sometimes we are better off leaving things unexplained anyway...

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers

YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/drewcoustic

Email:  drewcoustic@gmail.com

Summer Breeze Makes Me Feel Fine...

 When I was a kid I spent every single summer trying to entertain myself.  Alpharetta, Georgia was a small town when I was a kid, with wooded areas all over, just a few subdivisions, two small grocery stores, and many gravel driveways.  Now it is an extension of Atlanta and has become more and more of a city since the Olympics came here in 1996.  I mentioned all of this to paint a picture that growing up on an old farm and living a few miles from the nearest classmate meant that I spent quite a bit of time by myself.  The thing about where my family lives is that I grew up surrounded by all sorts of machinery most city kids were never exposed to.

Such as:

This is a cider press my uncle and dad have owned jointly since I was a little kid.  

Can you taste it?  

I also spent hours upon hours in the summer playing on this:

1948 FarmAll Super-A

It looked exactly like that and sat in the same barn when I was a kid.  

These are two examples of the vast amount of machinery I was exposed to as a kid and was left to explore just how they work on my own.  When you have acres of land to play on, loads of time to yourself, many mechanical objects, and the imagination of a child, your curiosity runs fairly crazy.  This is where my love of taking things apart and fixing them came about, but when I was a youth I did more taking apart than repairing...

Being exposed to all of this stuff and taking apart everything from radios, electric motors, engines, and anything else that was bolted or screwed together is what has made me take such a practical approach to fixing anything I own today instead of replacing it when it breaks.  I certainly would not pay someone else to fix anything I own.  Case in point?  My iPhone.

I knew nothing, I repeat, nothing about the inner workings of iPhones or taking them apart when I first took the plunge and decided to tear into mine to replace the dock connector a few years ago.  This was not a bolt together situation either, as replacing this piece required some very careful soldering.  I had never soldered anything but wires together before I did this.  Since then, I have replaced the battery twice (most recently yesterday), which requires a complete dis-assembly of the phone.  I can do it with my eyes closed now, so I figured I would show you what my iPhone looks like taken apart...

 I bought a special screwdriver with a slew of interchangeable bits for this very reason the first time I took it apart.

Taking out the first two screws and prying the screen off without breaking the glass is always the most iffy part.  I have not broken it yet though.

After taking off seven ribbon cables and the camera, the motherboard comes out after you take nine screws out of it.  That silver and gold rectangle in the middle is the battery if you didn't know and they are literally just stuck to the back case of the iPhone with tape.  

That is the new battery on the right, still in its sealed bag.  Pry the old one out, peel the paper off the tape on the new battery, and stick it right where the old one was.

Reassemble it all and boot it back up.  Boom.  There is nothing to it.

Oh, then jailbreak it ;)

How much did this cost me?  $5.39, shipped from New York.  How long did the install take?  Ten minutes, maximum.  

Never doubt what you can do and never be afraid to learn something, even if it is as simple as iPhone surgery (for the record, I am not much of a computer person).  If you go into a situation thinking you cannot be successful or doubting yourself in any way, thus will be your result.  Most things are complicated because we make them out that way in our own minds.  

Learning how to fix things keeps your mind working in a good way and saves you all sorts of money over the span of your lifetime.  It also makes you feel pretty accomplished. Now, if you are the type with a temper problem who throws things out of anger, pay someone to fix whatever it is;  for the love of all that is holy, and then tackle your demons...  If you are not entirely wack-a-doodle, why not learn something new and share your knowledge with other people?

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers

YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/drewcoustic

Email:  drewcoustic@gmail.com

Nice Guys Finish Last, So I'm Winning Every Race That I Enter...

Random Tiffany picture for today.

My blog titles all have something in common if you have not taken the time to notice by now:  they are all song lyrics.  For me the writing process generally begins with a randomly sparked thought going through my head at some point during the day.  After this, I type other triggers into my phone as the topic expansions come to me.  The lyrics I want to use as a title come to me after I have finished writing the blog in nearly every case. 

This one is different.  The lyrics stuck out to me before any other thoughts.  And here we begin...

I have touched on this before on my Facebook, but I hope to not repeat myself.  We are influenced negatively far too much by the things that surround us instead of thinking for ourselves.  This holds true for every action we take in life and every reaction we convey to others.  As a man, I understand this because I see terrible examples of my gender roaming around on a daily basis.  

I recently told a friend of mine that I should have been born in a different era for the simple fact of having a respect for women in a way I more often than not see only in those who are from two generations before me.  Fifty years ago, men were taught to honor women in ways that most are simply not shown to practice anymore.  Sure, there are exceptions to every situation and there have always been rude men in the world, but we are losing much more of the chivalry which I find to be simply appropriate behavior at an increasing rate as time continues. 

Do I find women as the inferior or frail gender?  Absolutely not, but that will not stop me from holding a door for a woman, stopping on the side of the road if I see one having car trouble, or allowing them to walk before me in any situation.  This has nothing to do with how good looking she is, her age, what she is wearing, if I know her personally, or anything of the sort.  This has to do with the simple fact that without them, none of us would exist.  Women, all women, deserve to be held in very high regard by every man.  Period.  I say that in complete sincerity and honesty, as with anything I put on this blog.  If you are a man, any woman who has done you no wrong or caused you no harm deserves your respect and deserves you to pay a little more attention to her, and make a little more of an effort in her favor, because women are unique and important to the lives of everyone.  Not just whomever you happen to be dating.  

Am I perfect?  No, and I never will be.  I cannot hold every door or show appreciation in every situation, but I try extremely hard to acknowledge the importance of women in any way I can, as often as possible.  Saying I see disrespectful male teenagers on a regular basis is easy and common to anyone, but the sad fact of the matter is that I see just as many young and middle-aged men ignoring chivalry altogether and calling women derogatory names for no reason than to be hateful.  I will not be that person.  I cannot and I really do not care how common it has become, nor how many women manage to block out such things when they hear them.

It has nothing to do with religion, it has nothing to do with an ulterior motive, it has nothing to do with any sort of  personal accolade or ego.  I want women to know that no matter how thin the line of gender equality is becoming, they still deserve more appreciation and respect than what is expected of us as men.  Why?  Because you are all wonderful in your own way.

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers

YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/drewcoustic

Email:  drewcoustic@gmail.com

Through Failure I'll Proceed And She'll See How Far I've Come...

This blog is a little bit different because I am going to talk about music.  Gee, you would think with a blog name like "DrewCoustic" there would be music mentioned beyond a mandolin restoration by now.  Well, guess what?  You will now get what the name implies.  Allow me to give you a little background on where the name of my blog came from.  

I have been playing guitar for about thirteen years now and have had my ups and down with trying to do something with it professionally, which ended up with me declining a pretty tasty offer quite a few years ago.  When I was learning to play, I sort of grew into it on an exposed level and played in front of a crowd for the first time less than a year after starting.  The largest crowd I have played in front of was on a trip to Jamaica in 2005, which could have been anywhere from 750-1000 people, but I have no idea what the exact number was (it could have been more?).  The only lesson I have ever had with the guitar was when my dad wrote down five chords on a piece of paper the day I told him I wanted to learn.  Anything beyond that day I just figured out on my own, though I have taught others a few things here and there along the way and love being able to share that with people wanting to learn.  Everyday I am thankful that this is something I enjoy doing and continually learning about, even though I do not think I am all that great at it, playing eases my mind and makes me very happy in ways nothing else can.  

I currently own seven guitars, two mandolins, and a banjo.  Three of those guitars are electric and the rest are acoustic, which is where my blog name comes from because my preference is for acoustic instruments overall.  Now you know...

Out of my whole collection, this is my baby.  A 2006 Gibson Songwriter Deluxe.  I would let you break three of my toes with a ball-peen hammer before I would ever let this guitar go:

I bought it brand new and I play it every single day.

I have been trying to learn a new style of playing for about two weeks now and decided to change from my usual D'addario EXP Lights to something more Bluegrass-sounding.  Why?  That is the style I want to learn.  After talking it over with the guy at my local music shop, I decided to give these a go:

I have seen these on the string rack for years, but never looked at them because I thought they were classical nylons, but apparently not.

They do have somewhat of a nylon core, but they contain trace amounts of silver, steel, and copper as well.  I was pretty skeptical, but after doing a string change and setup, I recorded a song I wrote for a friend of mine and here is what they sound like through the pickup in my Gibson:

I was impressed with the sound as it is MUCH more metallic than I was expecting and actually sounds great on my full-size guitar, even though they are intended to be used on a smaller folk-body guitar.  

They look pretty nice all strung up as well since most other acoustic strings are brass-colored when you take them out of the pack:

What sort of Bluegrass style am I learning though?  I want to learn the hammer-on and pull-off lead licks that you hear in most Bluegrass music.  The reason I want to do this is not to get into playing primarily that style of music, but it has always interested me and sounded like a really fun way to play improvisation with other people or when recording.  

Take this for an example:

 

This is Sierra Hull and Justin Moses doing a promo for a company that makes acoustic instrument pickups (check both of them out, they are very versatile musicians).  What they are both playing is improvised on the spot.  They choose a key, one leads, the other follows with rhythm, and they trade that method back and forth.  They are both playing in the style I am trying very hard to learn.  Hearing that and being able to play in such a way seems like so much fun to me and I would just love to do it.  Once I get to that point, I will make a video of me playing with someone and post it up.  

I also need to brush up on my mandolin playing since I finished restoring this guy:

I think learning the Bluegrass style of playing leads is the best way to go about it because mandolin is much more fun to play scales on than rhythm.  

I also have this 1948 Harmony Master I restored that I am really excited about playing in this style as well:

So, since the past two days have been rainy and gross here in Georgia, my nights and portions of my weekend days have been spent trying to be furhter constructive and learn something new musically.  You know, when I haven't been repairing every gasoline-powered apparatus I own...

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers

YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/drewcoustic

Email:  drewcoustic@gmail.com

I Know That You Want Something More In Life And I Do Too...

Three weekends ago, I had a great time with a close friend of mine and loved every minute of it.  The past two weekends have taken quite a different turn for me and I cannot seem to escape the stupid little instances of inconvenience that will not dissipate.  Once one little problem ends and is resolved, something else has popped up.  Sure I can throw down some serious irritation to myself to vent and then try to resolve things, but I do manage to stay positive about things...I think.  I will explain.

The Thunderbird has had an issue that I could not track down for the life of me and it has been happening for well over a year.  At random intervals the engine would act like it was trying to pull too much air in through the intake, the idle speed would momentarily spike and it would sound as if you had a commercial-grade vacuum cleaner under the hood.  Now, I figured out that a little throttle blip would make this problem stop. Doing this was good enough for me because the problem happened very intermittently and I had driven myself bat-shit crazy trying to analyze the problem (pardon my French)...Until about three hours ago when I started the car and the problem would not subside.  Watch the video and I assure you that the noise is incredibly loud in person:

The noise would go away if you were driving down the road and the tachometer was reading above 1500rpm, but the second you dropped below that threshold, you were back in the vortex zone.  At idle, it fluctuated between 750-2100rpm just sitting there and would eventually say "Forget you, jerk." and snuff itself out.  After replacing both PCV valves, going over every vacuum hose, and performing a leak down test to no avail, I called my dad to vent, even though he knows nothing about modern engines;  I just needed to walk away from it for a bit.  I had convinced myself that the car had a major intake leak and needed a new gasket, which is many hours of tear down coupled to many hours of reassembly and if you get one torque spec wrong, the process must be repeated again.  I was not happy.

Then, as I sat there, staring at the car, I thought to myself "IAC, Drew.  You didn't think about the IAC, you idiot."

See that little, shiny cylinder on the right-center of the picture?  That is the IAC.  IAC stands for "Idle Air Control" and it is a little solenoid that limits the amount of air the engine can suck into the intake in whatever way the computer deems necessary to make the car run.  You see, when everything is electronic in a car, you need little bits like this to control how the car runs.  Emissions control legislation requires all of this because the old, mechanical way is apparently evil.  I learned all of this through my years of taking auto classes in high school, and my continued learning over the years for the simple fact that I will not let anyone else touch my cars if something goes wrong.

Meanwhile, Emily was sitting on her perch behind me saying "I have a carburetor and if you would just go ahead and finish putting me back together, you wouldn't have to deal with this modern engine crap."  Then I told her to shut up...

The IAC is held onto the throttle body housing with two 8mm bolts, one hose from the PCV valve, and a wiring harness.  After taking out the bolts, the IAC unit was free and looked shiny as new.  This engine only has about 25,000miles on it and I am assuming this was replaced with it, because the date stamped into it is newer than the car itself.  Random interjection.

Now, gasoline does not come into contact directly with this part, because all it does is limits the amount of airflow allowed to the engine when the car is sitting still at idle, but I assumed whatever junk made it past the air filter could become stuck within it and possibly cause an error in what the engine management computer tells it to do.  So, I grabbed some cotton swabs and dumped some high-octane gasoline into a little GladWare lid to test my theory.

Check that out.  Sure enough there was a ton of carbon inside the IAC.  And sure enough, I managed to dump some of that gasoline on myself.  I would rather wear it than ingest it, so that is a fair trade.

Throw that sucker back on the car and pray that my theory worked.

Sure enough, once the computer figured out the parameters had changed for the Idle Air Control circuit, everything leveled out like it should be and the car runs perfectly now.  I took it for a jaunt down the road a few miles and called my dad back.  The first thing he said when he picked up was "I knew you would get it figured out because you don't give up on anything."  It only took a year, but, yes, everything is now well-sorted.  

I even had time to get my lawn mower back up to snuff after the pull-start assembly disintegrated last weekend.  My uncle Cecil told me to just take the unit off my engine and bring it to him so he and my uncle Jerry could tinker with it while I was working instead of me taking time to mess with it (I think they get bored in their retired age and look forward to little projects like that).

This is where the assembly goes:

Here is my pull-start assembly after my uncles spent a few hours arguing over it and rebuilt it for me:

I swear, it is the absolute worst design and I can see why Briggs & Stratton abandoned it after just a few years.  I mean, look at it...You have a nylon gear that runs up a spiraled, nylon shaft until it catches the flywheel when you pull the rope.  This is a horrible idea as opposed to just putting a rope on a pulley bolted to the crankshaft and calling it a day.

I put it back on and it seems to work, but I had no business starting a lawnmower at 9:30PM, during a rain storm.  I will give it a go tomorrow.  But, hey!  I fixed two problems today.  Awesome...

I will leave you with this for today:  Never give up.  Everything in life is frustrating at times.  Life as a whole, machinery, yourself, your family, and your friends can all give you a run for your patience.  Vent these out in any way you can that is healthy for you personally, then step back, breathe a bit and tell yourself everything will work out in it's own time.  

Hopefully you will not end up like this poor gummy bear who is sealed in a bag of evil worms all by himself...

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/drewcoustic

Email: drewcoustic@gmail.com

You're Gonna Push Your Luck, Tell Me You've Had Enough...

Sometimes I wonder why I bother listening to the radio in the mornings, at least the talk shows. I stopped watching the news ages ago because of how terribly every single agency conveys any bit of "news" that happens to slide across the desk. This morning I was listening to "The Bert Show" as I usually do and human decency came into question once again.

One of the hosts on this show wanted advice from the listeners about how to tell a friend of his that she is terrible at cooking meals. Apparently this woman has dinner parties fairly often that many people attend, but everyone at the event is well aware of how awful her food is, yet will not say anything. This party host has no idea of her food failures. The host of the show began fielding advice from listeners which included everything from: "Just keep playing along instead of hurting her feelings." or "Suggest doing a potluck under the pretense of her not having to stress over cooking for everyone." The host eventually came to his own conclusion that he should tell her husband (who is also aware of how bad the food is) to buy her cooking lessons as a gift so she can learn more about her hobby.

I was very disconcerted about this horrible "advice" because here we have a woman who is putting a huge effort into cooking for multiple, regular events but does not have the culinary skills as she has been told. Those who supposedly care about her would rather she embarrass herself and talk about her to each other instead of telling the truth? This is so awful. Even her husband who is with her for the sake of being one in the same with her for life and should always be truthful has allowed this to go on for years now. Is this what we have become?

We wonder why the world is so deceitful and underhanded currently, but it all starts at the bottom with ridiculous happenings like this. Being honest has become the exception instead of the rule in so many things we do that I find it disgusting. In full disclosure, if you want to tell me I am a hypocrite or that I continually do something inferior, please tell me. I can take it as long as it is done when you first notice the issue instead of allowing me to look like a pillock for months or years at a time.

We do life with each other and we feed off of each other, but we cannot seem to be truthful for the sake of each other. With situations we create like this, there is no wonder the age demographic of committed relationships has been on a steady rise and marriages are failing in ever increasing numbers. We fake too much.

The thing is, we cannot change anyone and who they are. I have run into this too many times in my own life experience. Seeing someone chase after and cling to another person under the hopeful thoughts of that person changing really breaks me down. We do not seem to realize that we cannot force someone to like us in a friendship or romantically but we keep up the initial lies about ourselves that we should not be telling in the first place. This is a flaw in relationships and connections I absolutely hate and the very reason I do not purposely make a personal effort to impress anyone for any reason. I did in the past, but realized doing so creates broken friendships and horrible, dishonest relationships.

There is such a huge problem in the identification process of people. We cling to past notions of the days when these people were trying to make a false impression to us of who they really are and believe that as fact. We would rather believe what we want people to be instead of seeing the reality of who is standing in front of us. Unfortunately, the majority of the world is not real; the majority of the world will lie for their own benefit or to make themselves look better to others. The woman with the dinner parties has an entire group of dishonest and destructive friends but has no idea. Even worse, she married someone who is dishonest to her, which further proves my point about why even those we think we know on a deep level are probably not who we think they are.

If I know you, I will be honest with you and also if I do not. My circle is small because with so may fake people in the world, I have to be sure that my relationships matter long-term. The more people we surround ourselves with who we have false impressions of, the more we are setting ourselves up for trouble. Always stay guarded and be careful of who you let in. If any doubt persists, walk away and do not allow anyone to butter you up untruthfully. Better still, do not act like a pretentious jerk and break the mold in your own, honest way.

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/drewcoustic

Email: drewcoustic@gmail.com

Demons Out, But You're Better Off Dead...

Bad days are something we all have to deal with from time to time and for your own sake, I really hope your better days outnumber those that are not so favorable.  Sometimes people think I must live in some sort of drug-induced happy place after reading some of my blog posts, but I have days that can be just as horrible as the next guy.  Sometimes I handle them well, and sometimes I do not, but the trick is to not take it out on whomever happens to be standing in front of you at the moment, which is something I believe entirely.  

We all seem to let the small, petty instances of life bother us for extended periods of time.  I have seen so many instances of people letting their entire day be ruined by insignificant events that it makes me sick.  We live in a time littered with first world problems that we allow to control us to no end in far too great of a frequency.  Handle things however you wish, but taking your own problems out on someone else without justification is never a good idea, and you should hope and pray you do not do that in my direction because I will take extra steps to ruin your day that much more.  I enjoy being ironic and clandestinely pointing out stupidity sometimes, what can I say?  Life is too short to get into drama, so provoking thought to prove a point without directly calling out someone's irrational reactions is a better option.

Now, I have been in a bit of a funk the past few days and have been fairly disconnected in certain ways, but that is just a thought process for me and I am physically and emotionally tired.  Thinking and working more than usual will do that to a person.  But, just for fun, lets take a look at some things that have happened to me lately but did not phase my day's outlook.

I like rain, but this one was just ironic.  I did want to mow my lawn on Sunday, but this prevented it.  I spent the day listening to the rain, thinking, and coming up with blog topics for you people instead.

Oh yeah, on Saturday afternoon, the lawn mower I just finished restoring broke when I wanted to mow the lawn after work.  That's the pull-start assembly in my hand.  So, I didn't get to mow on Saturday or Sunday.  Some would love that, but my grass is looking shaggy. Oh well.  Crap happens.

After waking up on Sunday, I walked outside to find my garage door opener was sitting on my car all night from when I had the mower out on Saturday.  During the rain storm.  Luckily I managed to get it working again.  Wet happens.

This seemed to be a good idea until I tasted it and was reminded of fruity cough drops.  This flavor is seriously awful.  Bad flavor happens.

To add to the joys of my chronic nose bleeds that have developed lately, I had some finishing work to do this week with lacquer, which is REALLY rough on your sinuses.  Luckily my new respirator helped a little bit.  Vapor happens, so does blood.

Check out that chunk of grass stuck in my tailpipe.

Close up.  Yes, that happened.  No, I do not feel like explaining it.  Dirt happens...

Laughing is healthier than anger. 

But, at the end of the day, I always had a moment of happiness that easily trumped whatever things did not happen to go my way, because I try hard to keep the small things from getting under my skin.  

My massive pile of finishing came out great:

I have a dog that loves me unconditionally, for whatever reason:

And all of the trees, flowers, and other plants are in bloom at my parents' house and next door at Jerry's:

Oh yeah, the plants are blooming at my house too:

I guess all that I was looking to say with this post is:

Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

Wait...

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers

YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/drewcoustic

Email:  drewcoustic@gmail.com