You're Pulling On Me Like The Moon...

This is going to sound stupid;  I am well aware of that fact at this very moment.  Growing up I did not always have the cognitive ability I have now (meaning that currently. my mind never shuts down).  I remember the first time I actually took the initiative of thinking for myself and for me, it was in my parents' yard, at twelve years old, on the riding lawn mower for the first time...  No kidding.

I have always had an imagination and as a kid, was always doing something instead of staying in the house.  At that age, I was jumping my Honda ATC125M over anything I could find on my family's property until I ruined the transmission (whoops) and had to move to the Suzuki ATV.  Riding an off-road vehicle takes concentration in a way because you have to shift gears, brake, lean, and pay attention to what you are doing.  Then one day my mom asked if I wanted to try the riding lawn mower and I quickly figured out using that was nothing like the ATC/ATV.  Lawn mowers are simple contraptions and they take little concentration.  You pick a gear, let go of the clutch pedal and steer it at speeds below ten miles per hour;  it is boring.  

Growing up in the 1990's, I did not have an iPod with noise-cancelling earbuds to listen to.  I did have a portable CD player, but back then they all skipped if you so much as looked at them sneeringly from a distance, much less hold it while on a mower.  Walkmans had radios, but the antennas were junk if you were moving around, not to mention the headband style headphones had the audio clarity of boiled cabbage.  Nope, when I was a kid and mowed the lawn, I had nothing to do but think.  Being able to think without distraction opened up my head a little bit more and I started paying more attention to myself.  Then nearly fifteen years went by and somewhere along the way came better portable music I could surround myself with during mundane tasks; along with college, jobs, and everything else, I eventually stopped thinking for myself.
 Until about nine months ago, when I showed up here:

 The Greenway, right above my house.  The fact that I was very much overweight at the time helped push me to run, but that is not what this blog is about.  No, the real thing I realized is how running, jogging, or even walking by yourself can put you in a much more peaceful and thought-provoking mindset for the better.  Of course, when I began this whole process (walk before you run, right?) I had my nice earbuds and my iPod going and I would hit the path with some good music blaring the entire time.  This went on for a few weeks until something snapped and I started paying a little more attention to the simple things.
I saw this:

Yes, that is a harvested hay field that runs adjacent to one of the boardwalks on the greenway.  That is the only hay field on the entire greenway.  I passed it by over a dozen times when it was growing, but only noticed the peaceful nature of my surroundings after it had been cleared.  It was in that moment that I took out my earbuds and decided to turn off my music for a while.  Sure, I did (and still do) listen to music when I run, but on that day, I decided it was necessary for me to take a mile or so out of each run to turn off the distractions in my ears and pay attention to the thoughts in my head.

During this time, I was on Facebook constantly.  Daily status update, random trolling, sarcastic commenting, and I would always "check in" at whatever trail-head I started my run for that day.  I liked the encouragement, I enjoyed when my Facebook friends would give me the support and click the "like" button, until I realized that is not what the running was about.  Sure, I wanted to lose weight and be healthier and all of that was happening very quickly, but somewhere inside, I knew that what had to be in my best interest during that time was myself.  What Facebook had to say no longer mattered to me and I was doing this for nobody else;  if not for the health reasons, for my own sanity.

Sometimes I go for a run in the early mornings, when the fog is still rising from the valleys and the sun has just started to rise.  I ran to the top of a hill a few months ago to take the picture above so that I could send it to my friend who lives in the city now.  That was a thought I would have only experienced had I made the choice to think for myself and turn off the distractions.

I would have missed this event at a later date, after my run, if I had not made the decision of getting away for myself a priority.

Some people think that I have stopped running because I do not check in on Facebook anymore.  Others assume I have stopped because I no longer bring it up.  The truth is, I still run, but I figured out that I need to do what is best for me for the right reasons instead of looking for someone to boost my ego about it as I had been doing.  My runs have become more about allowing myself to think and expand on what is happening in my life or could happen in the future than any health goals I had before.  This time alone and with moments of relative silence has allowed me to reflect on those I really care about and those who I know will stick with me.  I have also figured out many people I needed to write out of life as a result of those instances.  

What was my point?  I stepped back and wanted to do better.  I wanted to escape and allow myself to think without other distractions.  I never want to be "good enough" for myself or others I care about because I would rather try to be better, try to do better, and try to be more positive.  

I am still not doing a good enough job, and I know that.  There are still people I want to do more for and keep falling out of line when I should be pushing to help them.  

The people in my life who I hold in high regard are small in number, but large in purpose.

I want them to know I care and I want to show it.

I do not care if anything I do is appreciated.

They need to know their importance.

This is what I think about.

This is why I run.

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

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

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

Email:  drewcoustic@gmail.com

The title of this blog came from the lyrics in this song:

I Just Say I Wrote It For Your Girlfriends, Kelsey Grammar...

I find myself stuck in this stupid corner that only I will ever understand.  Part of me is all about writing my blogs with the formal prose of not using contractions simply because that is how I was taught, yet another part of me is saying I should probably get real and write in a way that is similar to how I speak.  Doing this would be a tough habit to break;  not unlike saying "Drew, you must write an entire blog without using a single comma...".  No.  Are you trying to kill me?  Taking away my punctuation privileges would do the trick.

   I am the first to admit that I do make errors concerning grammar (if you look hard enough, you may find some in this very post), but there is a big difference between an oversight and posting something for the world to see that is riddled with errors simply because proof reading seemed unnecessary.  When we make online comments on the posts of other people or make posts of our own, we are giving access of this information to everyone on our friends list and more creepy people on Google than we are probably aware.  The prose and vernacular we use can be visible to nearly anyone if we are looked up in one form or another.  Case in point...

We are either talking about an Arab Women's Fashion magazine or an underground rapper named "Pashion".  If you are not particularly proficient at spelling, that is fine;  the person above simply needed to proof read.  Just like:

Proof...read.  I jumped in on this one because it was just too good/funny to stay away.  This person is on my friends list.  I blacked out your name.  Fair?

And most of them hail from Hispanic countries.  Yes sir...

YouTube taught me this:

I just...No.  NO.

This popped up on my Newsfeed one day...

Because I "Liked"  Drake's page, I get all sorts of random, incoherent blasts such as this on my Newsfeed now.  I know this person is attempting to quote lyrics from a song, but understanding where your punctuation should go is part of any eighth-grade education.

This entire shirt is wrong:

If wine is a hug in a glass, that would make it a verb.

Considering all of this, the shirt actually makes no sense as either part of speech.

I know, I know.  "It's supposed to be funny, Drew! Gah!"  

I understand the message, and I really like wine; I just do not drink it anymore and the shirt is still wrong.

Straying a bit, but still within the same realm, we cannot forget those who enjoy over-sharing:

Until the day I read this, I had not ever considered the fact that a baby's bellybutton falls off.  I understand why, and it makes perfect sense, but reading that on Facebook, first thing in the morning?

Nasty.  Ew.  When your kid is a teenager, I am sure he will appreciate this.

Back to YouTube:

This is the chorus to the song in question:  

"Don't listen to a word I say.  The screams all sound the same.  Though the truth my  vary, this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore."

Nothing makes me happier than hearing about what will become of my dead body.  Just because the song has a snappy trumpet and fast-paced chorus, does not mean it cannot be morbid.

I did all of this to be funny.  Actually, all of these screencaps have been collected by me over the span of nearly two years and I was not sure of what to do with them, so I put them in a blog.  I have more, many more.  You must realize (and you can ask my family and friends as proof) that I am the guy who always uses punctuation and capitalization in my text messages.  I even proof read my text messages before I send them, and am therefore slightly insane and find this sort of thing funny.  Maybe you did as well.

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

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

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

Email:  drewcoustic@gmail.com

The title of this blog came from the lyrics in this song:

Never Meet A Girl On Craigslist...

My most girly project so far has been refinishing this guitar to pink.

It took about twenty hours and it is the most feminine picture I had to post on today's blog.

Anyone who has been a subscriber, reader of my blog, or knows me in real life (yes, I exist physically) has probably figured out how I feel about chivalry and how women should be treated overall, without condition or expectation.  I explain that here if you are so inclined to read about not only my philosophy of the subject, but how I actually carry out the process.  

If you are of the type who would rather not read my previous blog, here is a bit of a breakdown:

-There are hoards of scummy men out there.

-Chivalry is easy for a man in the dating phase, but most do not practice it daily.

-I know VERY few men who are nice to women without a motive.

-Men should always hold doors for women.

-Men should always let women walk before them.

-Men should always open and close a woman's car door.

-Chivalry is not about being dominant, nor a selfish motive.

-Being chivalrous should be practiced only out of respect.

-All women deserve the highest respect if they have not given you a reason to think otherwise.

-Real men do not play games with the emotions of women.

-Nice guys do finish last, but sometimes it must be accepted.

I brought all of this up again because a really close friend of mine read another blog and realized it aligned with my thoughts.  She sent it to me and I wanted to share his side of things:

Why Men Aren't Really Men Anymore

*Warning*  This blog is a little more straightforward than mine as far as being blunt about certain things of a sexual nature and throwing around some profanity.  Though it is humorously true of so many.  You have been warned.

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

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

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

Email:  drewcoustic@gmail.com

The lyrics in the title of this blog came from this song:

Let's Do Something That We Shouldn't Do...

Here is a warning for everyone...

I make no apologies, as these are my opinions and if you disagree with them, practice them, or actively support any of the following I do not judge you.  However, at this point I am fully admitting that I also do not understand you or the things you may or may not do.  

Take humor, not offense, as these are things I personally do not understand.

People who drive in the rain with their hazard lights flashing:

I was driving down the highway last week, yes, the highway, GA400, just outside of Buckhead, specifically in the middle of a downpour.  The sky was dark, traffic that is usually traveling at least 60mph had slowed down to about 40mph.  Lo and behold, the car driven by a person hunched over the steering wheel, squinting, nervous, driving about 25mph, without their headlights on, but the hazard lights flashing, and in the left lane...

Where do people learn this concept?  Do flashing lights make you more visible?  In dry conditions, yes.  In a downpour, clear liquid falls from the sky and flashing light refracts through it.  My vision is stronger than average and I can see much better than most people I know, but the glare of flashing lights in the rain hurts my eyes and draws focus from the road.  Flashing lights divert attention.  If you are incapable of driving in the rain, the simple solution is not to do so.  

Use your hazard lights when broken down on the side of the road, or when part of a funeral procession in broad daylight.  Period.

Floor Mats To Protect Your Floor Mats:

Let me give you a little history lesson.  Up until the 1960's most cars of the same model were fairly identical in every aspect other than color.  Carpets were reserved for upscale cars like Cadillacs and Lincolns, while the Fords and Chevrolets came with a big, vinyl mat in the floor.  Most "base" trim levels on American cars actually had the same vinyl floor covering until the later part of the 1970's.  The Mustang was really the first, optioned, "Build It As You Want It" car when it came out in 1964 and set the grounds for options as a standard practice across the board.  The people who bought Cadillacs and Lincolns had money and their cars had lush carpets in the floor.  The more standard vehicles had a vinyl-loop type carpet with a heel pad sewn into it just below the brake and accelerator pedals to minimize wear.  

See?  My 1966 Mustang has it:

The people who bought average cars in this era were concerned about resale value and wanted to protect their carpets from unnecessary wear, so dealerships heard this news and created floor mats you could buy at a premium price.  This caught on across the industry and soon floor mats were available from every car manufacturer, even the luxury brands.  Then people started restoring cars...

You see, when carpeted floor mats and rubber weather mats first hit the scene, people used them as a way to protect their carpets for the purpose of resale value.  When you were ready to sell the car, you took out the ratty mats and still had nice carpet underneath.  In the 1980's, people started restoring the cars of the 1960's era and created a new market for "original" used parts.  Since floor mats were a disposable item, finding them in good shape was rare, and therefore fetched a high price on the used parts market.  Somewhere along the lines, this translated into people not wanting to use their current floor mats for the purpose they were designed...

You can now buy carpet floor mats or rubber weather mats for your car, as a dealer option.  That makes sense, because protecting your carpet is a good idea, right?  But now there are companies who make floor mats for the sole purpose of (wait for it) protecting your floor mats...

Let us go backward a bit:  You have a floor mat to protect your weather mat, which protects your other floor mat, which then protects your heel mat, which protects your carpet.  Right.

Like I said, carpet floor mats make sense, and so do weather mats, but putting three levels of dirt protection on the floor of your Kia Optima will not improve the resale value one bit.

Use your floor mats as intended, please.

Designer Batteries

There are regular batteries...

These are for gaming...

These are for hillbillies...

Why?  A pack of cheap batteries is a pack of cheap batteries.  I guarantee no hunter has ever had his flashlight die in the woods and then open it up to say "If I had bought the camouflage batteries, this never would have happened!"

Buying Flat-Pack Furniture:

Simply put, if you buy a piece of furniture and it comes with it's own "tools" for assembly, do not wonder why it broke when the movers picked it up two years later.

If you see this on display:

And the package it comes in looks like this:

You had better be a college student or someone on a short-term work visa in a different country, because these "pieces" were not designed for longevity.  I get asked about fixing cheap "flat-pack" furniture constantly.  When it breaks, it is not worth fixing.  If you are investing in some furniture for your first home and cannot afford brand new, real wood furniture, do not go to IKEA, go to a few yard sales, flea markets, or swap meets.  With a little cleaning, painting, or stain, you can do a very nice restoration on good furniture that will last longer than your lifetime and cost about the same as the flat-pack junk.

If you are a college student living in a dorm or sharing an apartment, buy the cheap stuff and throw it in the dumpster after four years.  Purpose served.

Why People Still Eat Chicken Nuggets:

You may not eat them after you read this.  I am not going to post a picture because I do not eat them and we all know what they actually look like.  They all contain similar ingredients, but this is what a Chicken McNugget from McDonalds is composed of:

Chicken, water, salt, sodium phosphates. Battered and breaded with bleached wheat flour, water, wheat flour, modified food starch, salt, spices, wheat gluten, paprika, dextrose (sugar), yeast, garlic powder, rosemary, partially hydrogenated soybean oil and cottonseed oil with mono- and diglycerides, leavening (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, ammonium bicarbonate, monocalcium phosphate), natural flavor (plant source) with extractives of paprika. Fried in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid). Dimethylpolysiloxane is added as an antifoaming agent.

Thirty-seven ingredients.  No.  Just, no.  That cannot be food.

White Guys Who Wear Flat-Bill Hats

Some things work when you cross them into different culture groups, and some do not.  From what I have figured out, the flat-bill hat look started in Oakland during the crack cocaine epidemic as a form of identification for drug dealers.  This could be wrong, but I am going with it because I read it in a magazine article from that period.  For some reason, twenty years later, hoards of suburban white guys are now adopting this style, and it does not work.  White guys with an excuse to wear a hat like this only include those under the age of fifteen, because they still have some brain development left to go.  Any of those above that age?  

You look like this:

Photo Source

Women wear lipstick.  Women can look very nice when they wear lipstick.  I am physically capable of wearing lipstick as well, but I do not because doing so would look very, very wrong.

Think it over.

Grace and Peace,

    -Drew

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

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

Email:  drewcoustic@gmail.com

The lyrics from the title of this blog are from this song:

Please Don't Mind What I'm Trying To Say 'Cause I'm Being Honest...

Here we go:  "Dreeeeew, pictuuuuuuures!  Ehrmagherd, where are the pictures??".  I know, I know.  Regardless of how in shape we are or how intelligent we claim to be, most people are lazy these days and do not like reading anything that lacks the presence of a few photos.  I understand this, and I try, but there is nothing relevant I can put into this blog as far as images are concerned.  Psychology?  I studied it for years and I know how attention spans work, so I will try to make the following to the point and relevant.  Stay with me for a moment?  Please?

There is this pride thing we tend to get very stuck on a little bit too often.  Unfortunately, disagreements are bound to happen in anything we do because such is part of being human.  Sticking with that thought, some people exist who thrive on being difficult to the point of causing a problem for no other reason than to do so.  Take a moment to digest that one and think about how many times you get into a petty altercation each day.  Finished?  Now, if you have realized part of your character thrives on being a pain in neck, you are really going to hate me very shortly.  

Over the span of however long people have been around ("We were monkeys!"  "We were created!" "Aliens birthed us!"  Shut up, that isn't the point I'm making.) we have been equipped to communicate with one another which also created differing opinions.  With the differing opinions also comes a differentiation of what we each believe to be true and correct about anything, yes, anything.  The problem is that we thrive on not being told we are wrong.  Take me for example...I like learning and I like to form my own opinions based upon what I have read or experienced.  As a method of avoiding drama or causing someone's demonic horns to sprout, I try to stay away from talking about subjects I have not spent enough time learning about.  Why?  Nobody likes to be wrong.  

People get in this mode of defensive stupidity (I have more than once) when they are told they are wrong, whether indirectly or through proven fact by someone else.  I went out of my way to approach an older man trying to change a flat tire once and asked if I could help.  He had that corner of the car jacked into the air and said (irritated) "You won't be able to get the lug nuts off.  The tire spins around and you can't get the leverage to unscrew them!"  To which I said "If you let me lower the car back on the ground, the tire will be stationary from the weight of the car so I can break the lugs loose for you."  Then the guy turned red from a cocktail-mixture of embarrassment and rage followed by:  "You don't know what you're talking about and I already called AAA.  They'll know what to do.".  Yes, that happened about a year ago, right in front of my parents' driveway at about nine o'clock in the morning. Awesome.

For me, this all comes down to honesty. I say it all the time, but honesty is a huge factor in who I am and who I surround myself with.  We all make mistakes and we all have opinions that can be proven false by someone else, yet sometimes admitting that fault, no matter how petty, is difficult for us to do.  We seek out arguments and will beat our point to death even if we have been proven incorrect, without a doubt.  I like the idea of humility in the form of being truthful and I do not just mean in the form of an apology.  Sometimes when we get into a little rift with someone else, we really should ask for forgiveness instead of saying how sorry we are.  

Dishonesty is a relationship killer for me in any capacity.  Have you ever had someone lead you into believing something was not true as a way to spare your feelings?  Have you done this to someone yourself?  

"Well, I never said I WASN'T going to do that.  If that's how he/she read into it, that isn't my fault." 

Yet, in your mind and the way you cleverly worded your side of the discussion, you were well aware of what the other person was thinking.  No matter how you look at something like that, leading someone to believe anything that is not true is still a lie.  This is the same way we justify petty arguments to ourselves internally as well.  The problem is, when people say things like that to me and think I believe them, I can generally see through their intent.  When we are battling the idea inside of our own head, things become a bit more difficult to process.  Everyone believes themselves, so telling yourself a lie is very easy to believe and sets up a really horrid circle of confusion internally.

So, what am I trying to say?

We should have some humility and stop being a pain in the ass to people and ourselves...

Grace and Peace,
    -Drew

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/drewcoustic
Email: drewcoustic@gmail.com

The lyrics in the title of this blog are from this song: 

I'll Give It To You, No Interruption...

I sat there, and sat there, and sat there, just trying to think.  Sometimes we get that whole "writer's block" thing going on in our heads and jumping the hurdle seems impossible.  The sitting thing is in relation to where I was tonight.   A certain place I go when I just need to figure out what I need to write for the day;  if nothing else, it is a form of self-therapy.  Generally, this works for me and my mind starts racing around.  Heck, I took my fair share of notes, look:

I actually came up with some solid stuff and you may say "You don't have writer's block.  Look at all of that."  Yet, when one of the few things that tends to keep you in check is writing - notes, ideas and topics are just that and they hang around until you are ready to do something of substance with them.  An idea can readily spark, but the execution of expanding that thought can mean taking a fairly a rough road.  

Can I be real with you?  We are friends, right?  Regardless of what anyone may think, I do not sit here and pull these things out of my butt (besides that iPhone Obituary I wrote yesterday, but that was obvious). I put at least half a day's worth of thought into everything before I even begin my somewhat formal blog writing on the topic.  Today, I did not get that, and I am fine with it.  I told myself months ago that I would write something of relative substance Monday through Friday at the least, but today the synapses are not exactly firing in that direction.  At least I have my notebook ready for next week, maybe tomorrow, quite possibly Sunday.  Just go with it.  Right, Tiffany?

Grace and Peace,
    -Drew

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/drewcoustic
Email: drewcoustic@gmail.com

The lyrics in the title of this blog are from this song:

Here's My Number...So Call Me Maybe?

Dearest, iPhone 3GS,

    You were my second iPhone after my original 3G passed its prime.  My mother owned you for a while and then your dock connector blew out.  Remember when I soldered the new one in?

    Yes, all of those little soldering points were done by me so you could live again, and you did!  Four years, one dock connector replacement, three battery replacements. Guess what?  That means I have seen you naked more than once:

    Remember that one time I dropped you and cracked your back case at the bottom, right in the middle?

    That was the only time I ever dropped you.  Unlike most iPhone owners, I take care of you little boogers.  And besides a little sawdust that somehow creeped under your glass, you lived a pretty protected and scratch-free life.  Consider yourself as one of the lucky ones!  But then, today, you did this:

    After running like a champ with no hiccups for over four years, and even working just fine all day today, you heated yourself up a little bit too much and slipped away into the eternal iPhone slumber.

    I plugged you into your favorite cable and you tried to live again, really you did, but you just kept blinking your little apple at me, like you were waving goodbye for the last time.  

    After one final surgery to check you out and make sure I was not missing anything crucial to your survival, I put you back together and made the decision that it was time for me to bring a new iPhone into my life. 

    Do not worry, old iPhone, I hate her.  She is too new and actually fairly ugly.  You had more curves about you, so she cannot wear your old clothes.  I would not dream of doing such a thing anyway.  

    I owe it to you, old iPhone to make this blog post in remembrance of who you are and the time we were able to spend together.  I wanted to take one last picture of you all lit up, even though all you could do was blink your apple at me, so I plugged you back in one final time...

Wait...

 What??

SON OF A &^#$*!!!!!

Grace and Peace,
    -Drew

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/drew.silvers
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/drewcoustic
Email: drewcoustic@gmail.com

The lyrics in the title of this blog are from this song (duh):