My feet don’t touch the ground 🎵
Back in the day when I started hitting the local gay disco this tune was a staple. I couldn’t begin to fathom the amount of calories my tushy burned pulsing ’round the dance floor to this one. Fearsome was but a big-n-bushy Porn Star Mustache in those days. Â Whew!… the memories!
Why I get the vapors just thinking about it.
My knees shake🎶
My heart beats like a drum🎵
It feels like, it feels like I’m in love!🎶
Mom turns 85 this week. Mom is recovering well from the mild stroke she had back in early December. I’m flying out Tuesday to visit mom to celebrate her birthday this week. I got her a gift from my local Apple Store.
Apple Watch Sport and a Milanese loop magnetic band.
Mom lives alone. Mom occasionally falls. Mom wants to remain in the house she and dad purchased in 1957. Mom cherishes her independence. Mom needs some type of device to call for help just in case.
I’ve researched the Life Alert buttons, the call center monitors and the like. All of them scream you are old and you have to now wear this horrible looking button around your neck. Plus you must now have an ugly two way monitoring station connected to some call center in your home with a monthly fee. And, oh by the way, don’t venture out of range of this station unless someone is with you. Stay Put! Wear This House Arrest Button …FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY DAMMIT!
Enter Apple products. Mom already has an iPhone, an iPad and has WiFi in her house. If her phone is with her she is covered …such as when she leaves the house. However she doesn’t carry the iPhone with her in the house. Last summer Apple added an SOS feature to the Apple Watch OS. By giving her this new watch I will put a life alert system right on her wrist. One that she can even wear in the shower.
The Apple Watch features a new SOS alert that you can activate from the screen that will call 911 first and then start calling the contacts you have in your iPhone’s emergency contact list automatically. What if she falls and can’t activate the screen you ask? Apple’s SIRI has that covered as well. The Apple Watch responds to the “Hey Siri” command and will call 911, my brother, myself or whoever she chooses simply with her verbal command right from her wrist. Her phone doesn’t have to be with her as it will use the WiFi in her house. If she is out her phone is in her purse and she can still use the  Apple Watch as it will then call through the phone.
Was it inexpensive? No.
Was it reasonable for what it will do? Hell yes.
Was it a bargain in order to have mom wearing a stylish hip happening piece of technology on her wrist that doesn’t scream “I am old and my son makes me wear this help I’ve fallen and can’t get up button”? Big hell fucking yes!
Knowing this information, what do I want for Christmas next year? An Apple Watch. You don’t have to be 85 to fall and not be able to get up.
So I land in Dulles for a short layover on way to Ft. Lauderdale. When I turn my phone on it explodes with texts asking if I am ok. It seems that this happened…
5 dead and 8 injured at Delta baggage claim in Ft. Lauderdale airport.
I should have already boarded my plane to fly there. However the plane that I fly there on is sitting on the tarmac there, full of passengers coming here, waiting to take off. The FTL airport is still closed so who knows when it will take off and when I will get to board it to head there.
While I am having the minor inconvenience of travelous interrupertous (my how spell check hates me when I make up my own words) there are families and friends grieving the loss of the five Delta passengers who died at the hands of a crazy man and eight others injured in the hospital. I pray for them. Yes I do pray.
It seems that the gunman had just flown in on a Delta flight, picked up his bag from the luggage carousel, retrieved the gun from his checked bag and opened fire. Seriously. Crazy lives amoung us. Sorry folks but that is horrible. Innocent travelers possibly on their way to a vacation of their dreams, coming home, visiting friends & family, working on a business trip, returning from a deployment overseas or maybe even going on a honeymoon …dead at the luggage carousel because some crazy asshole fucker had a gun in his checked bag.
A fucking gun in a fucking checked bag on a fucking airplane.
Soapbox. Yep I stepped on it.
Now I’ll get back off of it.
So several hours late or maybe tomorrow morning I will finally arrive at my destination of Ft. Lauderdale Florida, my second home. I will stand at a luggage carousel waiting for my bag. I will shed tears. I will remember poor souls I never met. I’ll pray for the loved ones in mourning. I’ll feel gratitude that I was not there at that moment. I will be grateful I was spared and had the minor inconvenience of having to wait here at the United Club outside of Washington DC at the Dulles airport.
Tell your loved ones you love them. Tell them now, and tell them often. Stop smell the roses, take time, value the important things and never ever forget the blessing that is this very moment.
Heartwarming story about a determined creative and his awesome mother.
Halloween is a night for boys to dress up as their heroes: firefighters, police officers, military personnel, baseball players and superheroes. My nine-year-old son C.J. is no different from most boys. He’ll dress up as his hero for Halloween. His hero is Bob The Drag Queen.
Bob The Drag Queen is the winner of the most recent season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Bob, RuPaul and all the queens are brave, strong heroes for my rainbow son. They’ve taught him to celebrate his uniqueness, cultivate his own style and let criticisms roll off his back. They’ve taught him the importance and power of loving himself. They’ve also taught him a few words and phrases that I’ve told him he can’t use until he’s 18.
C.J. has watched Bob The Drag Queen’s “Purse First” music video more times than I can count (his second favorite video to watch is Alaska’s “Your…
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Thoughtful Beard
Nine weeks out of surgery. For most part I have done well.
I have one thing to say this morning. Fuck! This fucking shoulder surgery recovery can hurt. Good god it can hurt. I just experienced the worst night since the first week of surgery. I don’t mean to bitch but I am because I need to. Fuck!
Off to physical therapy this morning, I hope it’s ok.
No Fearsome didn’t run into them last year but wished he had. This gives a feel of the fabulousness that is The Con.
Nor did I see him this year, however if you watch closely a handsome Beard of the Day from just a couple days ago walks right past him, very near the end.
Woo Hoo!
Fearsome’s 4 day plus preview night pass, the Golden Ticket of all Comic Con passes!
…by the time this post hits we are out the door to get in line with the masses…WooHoo!
It’s a beautiful day on Ft. Lauderdale Beach.
I’m coming upon two years since I started yoga. Here is a pic from one of my very first classes that I featured here on this here blog thingy as one of me very first posts:
Fearsome does Yoga May 2014
I’ve come a long way since this photo but don’t worry as I’m no where near the Beard of the Day from earlier today. Fearsome has come along way as well. At one point last spring when I would go upside down into a headstand or handstand he would fall down over my eyes. Back in October he had that huge hedge trimming and slimmed down to his streamlined business look. Fearsome being the go getter he is, is growing back at a respectable pace.
As I lay here preparing for a nights slumber I contemplate what yoga does for me, what it means to me. I find yoga incredibly relaxing. Even though I often break a nice sweat, I’m relaxed. The breathing, the stretching, the focus, the challenge all work together to bring clarity. Â Yoga takes strength, yet it builds strenght through the practice of it without my realizing just how much strength it is building. My abdomen is stronger that it has ever been and I’ve always been into some form of excercise. My flexibility is beyond my expectations and without feeling like I’m pushing myself to achieve it.
I will continue yoga. I will commit to adding to the number of classes I take as I believe it is doing me good. I feel great. I’m stronger yet more flexible. I relax, concentrate, focus, let go and control all at once. Sometimes I leave class feeling like I’ve had a massage, but yet I’m sweating from all the activity.
As most of you know when I contemplate I take the definition of what I’m contemplating and mull it over…
Fearsome Bakes!
It’s been too long since since we posted a cake recipe. It’s time, just in time to save your ass with your sweetheart! So as Valentine’s Day approaches did you forget to stop and get chocolates and roses? This quick and easy chocolate cake will make your sweetheart melt like a Hershey bar on your fingers.
Fearsome’s easy Sweetheart catching yummy chocolate chip cake featuring creme cheese chocolate frosting!
AKA ….The Valentine Catcher Cake
Preparing to ice, you can see the indentations of the baked in chocolate chips!
Start with a box, yes a box…this is easy so it’s not from scratch, of Betty Crocker Super Moist Devils Food cake mix. Mix the cake as directed but substitute one stick of melted butter in place of the oil. Split batter into two layer pans and then drop 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips onto each layer’s batter (1/2 cup each). Don’t mix the chips in, just scatter on the batter. Bake as directed. Cool for 15 minutes in the pans and flip out of pans onto a towel to cool completely.
The icing is the key and we do make that from scratch as it’s so freakin’ easy. In a medium mixing bowl start with 1 – 8 ounce package of room temperature creme cheese and place in bowl. Add 1 – 1 pound package of confectioners powdered sugar (this is about 4 cups). Add 3/4 cup of Hershey’s baking cocoa. Then add 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 cup of milk. Start to blend on slow speed, as it starts to moisten slowly increase speed of mixer and have extra milk handy to add just a few drops at a time ….keep mixing and adding extra drops of milk on a higher mixer speed until icing is creamy and just spreadable. –Careful to not add too much milk thus making it too runny to hold on cake…add the extra milk just drops at a time to just get creamy and spreadable.–
Ice the cool cake layers then refrigerate for about an hour uncovered to set icing.
My sweetheart’s gonna love me for this, yours will too!
I’ve posted about 3 different movies on the last 30 or so days. I should say “we’ve” as Fearsome saw them as well. Â We all know he has an opinion of his own on everything. It’s good we agree …most of the time.
We always post a disclaimer that we are not movie critics. We do not claim not want to be. The question arises as to how many movies is one allowed to post opinions about before one actually becomes a critic? Are we flirting with the limits?
We watched three movies on our cross country flight a couple days back. The new iPad Pro makes for better viewing with its double the iPad size screen. The Bose noise cancelling headphones are a must for air travel viewing as well.
Cross country flight movie selection #1: Ex Machina
Blog buddy RayBeard was spot on. Really good movie. The suspense mixed with a twisted sense of humor, sexuality and possible reality makes for a good flick. The setting, camera, acting and directing are all, in this beard’s opinion, well done. We highly recommend Ex Machina.
Cross country flight movie selection #2: The Dahmer Files
As disturbing as this subject matter is to me, this was a good film. It is a documentary. One well done. Dahmer was caught and made national news just as I was getting out of a nightmare relationship of abuse with a very unstable person. Look at it this way, I could easily visualize my ex’s photo in a similar news story. I felt as though I narrowly escaped. This film could have brought back nightmares for me. It didn’t. It gives a glimpse into the world of those around him as well as the killer himself in a way that isn’t alarmist or disturbing.
Cross country flight movie #3: Minions
We really wanted to like or at least enjoy this film. We loved Dispicable Me 1&2. We didn’t love Minions at all. Minion mayhem with minimal story line and stupid lame jokes. Not even mildly enjoyed by the pubescent mind of a testosterone filled beard. We are being harsh. We feel this one deserves a harsh reality check.
So there you have it. Our absolutely not movie critic, critical movie reviews.
Happy viewing!
I remember how that statement stood out to me the first time I saw it on Project Runway. Jake Wall wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the words. It’s available online HERE.
Being cheap has its drawbacks.
I learned today that a past client sold his condo to his tenant. He never called me to ask what his place was worth. I know him and he didn’t because he wanted to sell it without paying a commission. Little did he know that I would have happily given him advice without charging him, even if he sold it to his tenant without using my services. My advice is free, especially to friends and past clients.
I learned that the condo sold for at least $100,000 less than its current value. His past tenant, who now owns the place, is going around bragging about the deal he got. So much so I heard about it all through his boasting.
Due to my past client’s fear of not asking, in order to save himself a commision of $25,000 by listing the property on the open market, his net loss is at least $75,000 after paying the commission if it were marketed. If he had just asked my opinion, he could have sold it to the tenant for $75,000 more, the tenant would have gotten it for under market and the past client wouldn’t have paid a commission as my advice is free.
Cheap, it has it’s drawbacks.
As mentioned a couple of days ago there was some concern about the left side of the mouth and a particular monster filling. Well after a few more days of intermittent pain and lots of hot/cold sensitivity I went back into see my dentist this morning. I’ve been referred to an endodontist because it’s looking more like a root canal may be necessary before any further dentistry.
WooHoo! Just what I wanted to hear. So at 2pm pacific time today the endodontist gets to tangle with Fearsome and asses if number 14 is getting a root canal. I actually hope so, get this over and done with. Wish us luck. I sure hope the endodontist doesn’t have pogonophobia.
I shared this trip with one of my dearest friends. We have been there for each other through thick, thin, fun and not so fun. I know that if I need Clayton he will be there for me and I for him. Sharing is the blessing of the love that is friendship.
I am blessed to have many many dear friends. Without their love, my life would not be the rich life it is. I am grateful. Period.
My plane is landing right now in New Orleans. Unscheduled stop this is. I should be in Houston boarding my plane to San Diego this very moment. Due to weather, I make an unscheduled stop to get fuel as Houston airport is closed at present. So the adventure continues. Where, when and how I am to get home is part of the journey. Sometimes it goes as planned and sometimes not.
I just finished watching the movie If I Stay on my iPad. Turns out this 99 cent rental is a good one. A message that I needed for this journey home. Yeah it’s a mushy movie with young love, tragedy and emotion. It’s what some would call a chick flick. Fearsome likes for me to cry a little. He likes the tears running through his strands. He chuckles when they drop off of him onto my shirt.
The message that I choose to take from the movie comes from an exchange between mother and daughter while they are doing the dishes. In the emotional exchange of motherly advice when her daughter is faced with two good choices in life, the mom tells her daughter it doesn’t really matter the choice you make, it’s that you make the choice. Either path will have good and bad. Either path will take you somewhere you wish to go. Neither choice is wrong. Make your choice and make the best of the choice you make.
She then states that life is messy, and that is the beauty of it. It’s an adventure, a journey. I believe that the happiness is in the journey, the fun is in the adventure. I believe if we stay stagnant and shy away from making choices then life becomes dull and unfulfilling. I needed this message today.
Being a contemplative beard I’m looking back at choices I have made in the past few years. I’ve made some good ones and some that I probably shouldn’t have. I’ve gained experience from all of the choices that I would have never had, had I not gone there. I’ve grown and would not be the man I am today without them. I’ve had good times, pain, blessings, stress and love. I am grateful for making the choices and the experiences I’ve had from making them.
I look forward to the choices coming in the future that will write the next chapters in this blessing I like to call my life.
Either I do, or I don’t. Neither answer is wrong as long as I make the best of what I choose.
Manly Beard
Music.
Humanity communicates in many different forms. We have an intellectual form of communication we consider ‘normal’. Often that ‘normal’ way of communication cannot not be fully comprehended or expressed by all of us. Some of us are different.
Those of us who are different aren’t necessarily less intelligent. A society of care, of good character, understands the need for an appreciation of differences in order to include everyone.
This video struck me out of nowhere today. I stumbled upon it by accident and it moved my soul. It’s a classic from the 1970s. The banjo player is one of the different ones, who is one of us. Through music he can express his intelligence, joy and deep desire to communicate and be a part of.
Today I comtemplate languages and communication in various forms.
Fearsome is a green beard.
Edison was a wise man.
We installed a full solar power system on the roof of our home in November of 2013. With more than a year of usage we can report that we produce more electricity than our home uses. We currently have a credit with our power company that is being used to offset our small gas bill. We are fortunate to live in a sunny place and have a good southern exposure.
Many will argue that my small solar system doesn’t make a dent in the overall scheme. I don’t buy that argument. I’m not using, I’m contributing. I no longer flip on the gas furnace to break the chill on the house but use a couple electric space heaters. I charge my electric plug in hybrid car. When the house gets too warm I don’t worry about what it will do to the bill to flip on the AC. We still produce more than we use. There is no use in consuming more resources than one needs to…that practiced in every possible way by everyone…does make a dent in the scheme of things. The dent has to start somewhere.
Yep, I’m one of those. A green left leaning liberal beard.
My next meditation series starts next week. I posted about it here:Â https://fearsomebeard.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/meditation-lets-do-it-again-folks/
(By the way…if anyone knows how to post a link with just one word instead of the whole long address, as I often see on other blogs, please share that with me in the comments or refer me to where I can find instructions. It would be most appreciated as I haven’t a clue how bloggers do that.)
In the past when I do these meditation series I not only enjoy them but feel better overall. I focus better, feel more at ease and feel better physically so I don’t doubt the benefits, but I let other things in life get in the way and have yet to make it a habit.
I’ve been contemplating our daily lives and how we live in today’s society. I find that most of us never stop even when there is an opportunity right in front of us. A long line at the store, a wait for an appointment, someone late to a lunch or any situation were we find ourselves waiting…we immediately pull out our smartphones and check e mail, Facebook, tweet or read the news. Why not have a mini meditation?
I’m going to try mini meditations. Whenever I find myself waiting, instead of immediately grabbing the iPhone I’m going to go inward. It’s Possible to do this in public. Meditation does not mean chanting and sitting on a pillow, it means creating stillness in yourself. I can breathe and go inward. I can feel my fingertips and toes, send energy to my internal organs, focus on my posture or close my eyes and breathe deeply. I can pause the day for a few minutes and let stress go.
I think it will be a better perspective to see an unexpected wait as a welcomed mini-vacation instead of a stress inducing experience. Instead of thinking “Damnit I have things to do.” I can feel gratitude for a moment to let stress go and quiet my mind.
It is a proven fact that those who meditate or intentionally still their minds are more focused, have more energy, are less stressed and have less illness/injuries.
As Dorothy showed us in the Wizard of Oz, we have all we need within ourselves. All we have to do is stop running around with strangers through poppy fields and instead stop to close our eyes, take a deep breath and realize home is within us. We can find all we need and the beauty within ourselves through quiet moments of contemplation.
