2022

Selfish

What happens if you don't take care of yourself first? What happens when you don't put your health, both mental and physical, first? You become a bystander to whoever you are putting first. This is your only shot. This is your show. You either start taking care of yourself, and working to be the best version of yourself that you can be, or you simply watch everyone else live their life.

Failure IS an Option

It's been beat in my head for as long as I can remember. "Don't fail." "You can't fail." "Don't fuck this up." "Be careful you don't embarrass yourself." "Don't be a quitter." "Failure is NOT an option." ... bullshit. It's all fucking bullshit. Life is failure. Failing is inevitable. It is going to happen. You're not ever going to go out and just have a perfect win streak through life. Ever spent time with a toddler? They constantly fuck shit up. A never ending wrecking ball of failure. They don't know how to do much of anything but fuck they are curious. Everything is new and exciting yet they have next to no skills. Doesn't stop them from trying, and fucking up horribly. Want to know the difference between toddlers and adults? #1 toddlers aren't scared of trying shit. Period. If it's new and exciting they are all in. Balls to the fucking wall until, oftentimes, they quite literally smash their fucking face into the ground. Adults on the other hand are so fucking scared of the what ifs that they never even lift a finger, let alone have the opportunity to gloriously smash their fucking face in the ground. #2 After smashing their face into the ground, the toddler will get up and repeat the process another 10000 times. They may or may not get it right but they will destroy their face trying. Adults on the other hand rarely ever get to the part of starting so they never fuck up, and never get the opportunity to do it over. #3 This one is 50/50 toddlers are kind of shit at this one too but sometimes, toddlers will learn from their mistakes. Again, if the adult gets to the point of making a mistake, oftentimes they will spend their life justifying it away. "Well the conditions weren't right, so and so..." Shut the fuck up. You failed, own it, learn from it, move on. That's the whole point here. If you never fail, you can never learn, and if you never learn you never grow.

motivation

If you can't figure out how to motivate yourself you've already lost. The end. I could end this thought right there, but I'll ramble on. For me it's easy. I see shit I want, I figure out what it takes to get it, then I go do that thing until I get what it is I set out to get. Sometimes it happens easy. Sometimes you put in some work for a few weeks and you're instantly rewarded. Other times you put in work for a few years, get kicked in the fucking teeth, start over, put in work for a few more years, get kicked in the teeth again, start over, then finally you get there. That's the thing though? Where is "there?" It doesn't exist. There's always another goal, another dream to chase. The idea should be to put in the work to become the best version of yourself, the rest will fall into place. We have this fucking idea that we have to make every one else happy. That's just not true. Your goal is to make you happy. You need to be the best version of you that you can be every single day. Whatever it takes to make sure that happens is, and should always be, the number one goal. After that everything else will fall into place.

right here, all alone

That's kind of life right? You come into this world and you know nothing. You're in this body, fucking screaming. Then you slowly figure it out. How to use your fingers and your toes, your arms and your legs, you're running then you learn your shapes and colors and shit. Then you slog along for however fucking long doing what society deems appropria.... fuck that. You do really cool awesome shit and change the fucking world. Then it's over. The whole time though, it's just you inside your mind. You meet some cool motherfuckers along the way but none of them will ever truly understand who you are or where you came from, the shit you went through, because it's all a fabrication of your mind. What I'm trying to say is, get fucking comfortable being alone. Everybody thinks they need to be constantly available with their cell phones and their computers and bullshit. Constantly connected, constantly surrounded by people. Then you forget who the fuck you are, you get so wrapped up in this web of people pleasing that you forget why the fuck you're here. Fuck that. Do you, and do it hard, the people who resonate with that will show up, the people who don't will fall away, and your life will be beautiful.

Choices

Life's all about choices. You make thousands of decisions every single day, most of which you barely even realize. What shoes to wear, what shirt to wear, how much toothpaste to use... the list goes on and on. A lot of them seem inconsequential, then again maybe all of them have consequences. You have to walk between 2700 and 3200 steps, that's over a mile, to burn 100 calories, which is 30 calories less than one of these candies pictured has in it. A pound of fat is 3500 calories. Which means if you eat 27 of these bars, then do nothing, you will gain a pound. If you eat 27 of these and walk 27 miles, you will still gain 1/4 pound. Get it? Probably not, you're thinking, "who the fuck eats 27 of these?" You're right. You're probably not going to sit down and eat 27 of these, but what if you eat 3 per day, every day? Suddenly you're putting on a pound every 9 days, that's 40 pounds a year. I guess I got sidetracked. That's not really the point of this. Here's the fucking point, it's a lot easier to eat 27 of these and gain a pound than it is to go burn 3500 calories and burn it off. It's not just that you're eating 3 tiny candies a day, you're also eating a "healthy" salad that has more fucking calories than a 12 ounce steak (I'm looking at you Texas Roadhouse), it's not just Texas Roadhouse by the way, look at the fucking calories in a salad next time you're at a restaurant, here's a tip, it's the fucking dressing and the bacon and the cheese. Whatever, you ate your 3 candies, had a fucking latte with 500 calories in it, a 1200 calorie salad, an omelet and toast for dinner and all of the sudden you're packing down 3500+ calories a day while doing the least amount of physical activity possible to survive. Life is about the small choices. Life is about saying no. Life happens when you start living for you and telling any and everything that doesn't fit that to fuck off.

The Book

You're out here, doing the hard shit and the only person who notices is that asshat from yesterday that was too lazy to untie his shoes before taking them off. That guy wants you to fail. That guy wants you to stay the same, to be like him. Eat the sugar, have some fucking French fries, don't untie your shoes, don't wipe down the equipment, don't re-rack your weights. I mean fuck, it's 1130pm. You can do it all tomorrow. You worked out, that's good enough, now treat yourself with a fucking snickers. Those weights on the floor aren't hurting anybody. Nobody else is going to use this stuff between now and the next time you use it so why bother?

Fuckin Shoes

This is simple right? Don't be the guy who takes his shoes off without untying them for the next guy. Maybe it's not a big deal, the next guy has a shoe horn, whatever. If the dude doesn't have a shoe horn, he's going to be fucking pissed when he first has to untie the shoes before putting them on, just to tie them again. Don't be a lazy fucker. Untie your shoes, THEN take them off.

Neck Deep

I was taking this salad down when I realized it was a particularly interesting salad. This salad came from Chick-Fil-A. What an interesting establishment by the way. Anyways, I was plowing through this fucking thing when I decided to take a photo. Wait back up, it wasn't that simple. I had to hunt down the fucking Canon, do a couple of lens changes, THEN I took the photo. With the lens that was already on the camera. (50mm 1.4 for people who want to replicate this beauty) This salad has a little bit of everything, some chicken, a little corn, some crunchy roasted fucking peppers, an egg. Kind of went full circle on the whole chicken thing. Anyways I was plowing through this salad reading a book and I took this picture. Probably you're not going to want this thing 20x30, metal, hanging in your entryway but this is more about capturing the feeling of the moment. The idea of plowing through a salad, in a disposable container, with a disposable fork, alone, while reading philosophy, at 1130 pm, on a Monday.

Someday

In February I ordered a brand new, 2002, Ford F-250. Gas because it would be here sooner than a diesel. Pictured here is a 2002 GMC 2500HD. This beauty has a massive 8 liter engine and costs $100+ every two days to fill up. I purchased this beauty back in April and have loved every minute of owning it. It will tow anything I stick behind it. Did I mention the gas gauge isn't exactly accurate? I keep saying "this is going to be a great story some day." Point is, it's a great story today. I'm not going to tell the story today but the idea that it's going to be a great story some day and it isn't currently a great story is flawed logic. It comes from the mindset that "someday" the story will be over. That "someday" there will be a happy ending that will justify the story. The story will surely end, they all do, but what if it doesn't have a happy ending? Does that somehow negate the story? Does it somehow make the lessons learned along the way irrelevant? Talking about things while they are happening is uncomfortable. It's outside of the normal narrative. People only like to paint this shiny picture that everything is great and struggles are only warranted if there's a big happy ending. I guess the point is, if you're going to do something, just do it. Stop waiting for shit to be perfect. It will never be perfect. If you want to do it, do it. If you fail, learn from your mistakes and try again. We only get one crack at this life, seems stupid not to go after what you want. If you're still with me here's a story, it's not "the" story, but it is a story. We're driving back from the job site after dark. The truck cuts out, I pull over, make a phone call and am told to put mixed gas in it. I drained most of what was in my dinky 2.5 gallon tank into the truck and we were off to the races. The gas station is in sight! The truck cut out again. I pulled into the median and squeezed a few more drops out of that can into the tank. We putted into the station and filled it up. That was the first time we ran out of gas. The first time the truck needed gas the gas light came on, as expected, and we had no issues. There was no such warning this time. I learned my lesson and mostly had been cautious. A couple of weeks later. I rolled into the gas station for break. We were below a quarter tank and I knew I needed to fill up. The station had bags on all the pumps. No big deal we had enough to get to the next town on the way home. We worked, packed up and headed home. We got to talking and I forgot to stop. I looked down at the gauge and thought "shit we're going to run out of gas." I pushed it as hard as I could and a mile or two away from the next station I ran out of gas. This is rural Indiana, despite being on a busy road gas stations are few and far between. I coasted. There is a blinking light for a four way stop. Through some stroke of luck there were no cars there. I coasted through the light and into the station. I'm not sure how I coasted as far as I did, or how we went through the intersection without there being any cars but we made it. The breaks were limited and the power steering was gone, no engine means no power. I pulled into the station and next to a pump. It was on the wrong side. I ran my card and tried to stretch the hose across. It didn't reach. I had my wife get out and hold the pump. I had 1/2 gallon of gas in a tiny can in the back of the truck. I put it in the tank and turned around. We filled up and made it home.

Unforeseen

The weed, the lack of turf grass, the cracks in the soil. These are signs of an unkept lawn. The story I'm going to tell isn't about this lawn, it's about someone else's lawn. We're in the process of building a large outdoor living space for a couple. We're coming to the end of the project, just a few things left to take care of. This week our little boy didn't have school. He was going to hang out with grandma. Grandma lives closer to the job than we do. We drove out there Tuesday and came home Friday. I wasn't planning to stay. I took one pair of work clothes. Fortunately my mother washed them each night for me. While going through the process of moving things on the job we hit a snag. The fellow who installed their irrigation didn't do things in a way that was conductive for trouble shooting. Two broken valves and one too many wire shorts later, I decided to cut it out and redo what I could. This process took 2 full days, and slowed us completely to a halt on our progress. I cut the valves out, spliced the pipe, backfilled it, and every one is happy. The project continues, the lawn gets watered, it's a win win. I'll have to go back later and tidy up the mess I made but for now we have a wonderful, working, bandaid. There's a few things in this story. It doesn't really matter how well you plan, how prepared you are, what skills you have, how much money you have in the bank, life, always has a way of throwing a massive, unexpected curveball at you. It's how you deal with those unexpected curveballs that will define you.

Blue Spruce

There's a fucking globe blue spruce under there, I promise. Now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about Christmas. What the fuck even is Christmas? Jesus Christ's birthday? A long passed down tradition of celebrating the winter solstice? Who the fuck knows. I recently read some intriguing documents that Jesus, the disciples, the birth of Jesus, the whole fucking kit and caboodle is just a metaphor for the sun and the zodiac signs. Interesting to be sure. For me, what is Christmas? It's this weird fucked up thing where everybody gets all stressed out for a few weeks. You go spend an absurd amount of money on mountains of shit that people don't really want, so you can give it to people you don't really want to see, or spend money on, to save face in some sort of absolutely fucked up tradition, that nobody seems to enjoy. In preparation of this godforsaken event you go to a jammed packed grocery store, that's out of half of the shit you want, then rush home and slave over the stove to put this fucking dish together that most people aren't going to eat, which means it's going into the fucking garbage can 12 hours later and for what? What in the fuck is all of this for? Family? Some sense of accomplishment? To feel good about giving? Fuck that. Giving to unsuspecting strangers feels fucking amazing, you should give it a try. Not just in late December but all year long, whenever the fuck you feel like it. It shouldn't be this fucking stress filled bullshit because we feel obligated to. Lay down a hundo next time you buy a latte and tell the barista to keep the change, or tell the barista to buy the next however many drinks a hundo will buy. That is the kind of shit that feels good. That's the kind of shit that makes the world a brighter place. Ever been at a fucking bar and go to pay, then the bar tender tells you that some random stranger paid your tab and left? I have, it was fucking life altering. It was unforgettable. It is a feeling that I absolutely want to share with as many people as I possible can. On the flip side of that, have you ever been sitting at a fucking Christmas party you didn't want to be at, talking to people you don't want to talk to and have to smile and pretend to be grateful after you open a box of shit you know is either getting returned, taken to goodwill or thrown in the garbage? I've been that guy too and that feels like absolute shit. Or worse yet, getting the opportunity to watch one of those ungrateful fucking assholes open the thing you spent your hard earned cash on and watching that wave of emotion I just described run through them as they forcefully smile and say thank you. A solid portion of the shit that was purchased and gifted to me is already on its way to its next owner at an unnamed donation center. I don't need, or want, anything. For me I'd rather take all that fucking money that was spent, take all the time that was wasted and go with my tiny little family on a badass vacation. That's what life is about. It's not about hoards of fucking plastic garbage, and hanging out with people who suck the fucking life out of you. It's about experiences. Now you could argue that sitting at an awkward shitty party for 7 fucking hours while you watch everyones soul leave their body an experience. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about hiking somewhere majestic. Watching the sun set on the beach. Standing in a snowstorm in the middle of nowhere. Looking up at the stars in the middle of the desert. Those are fucking experiences. The season does bring some cool shit though, namely, lights. Holy fucking shit I love lights. We went all out this year and it is absolutely glorious. Little colored light emitting diodes all over the goddamned place. I don't remember the exact count of bulbs we put out. I'm thinking it's in the 3-5000 range. It's a lot of fucking lights. We were hammered with a freak snowstorm and bitter bitter fucking cold temps for a few days this year. The snow is gone now, but before it left us I went out and snapped some photos of our award winning display. (no really, we won best of color for our neighborhood. Fucking hilarious) This shot is one of my favorites, look at this little beauty. It has a little bit of everything. Some reds, some greens, a little orange, a dab of blue here and there, snow flakes and perhaps most importantly that little hint that you're looking at a shrub. You can absolutely get lost in this photo if you let your imagination wonder but I fucked that all up for you and told you exactly what you're looking at. Back to the solstice. The shortest day of the year here in the northern hemisphere. Such a cool fucking thing. the days will now progressively get longer until the summer solstice, that will be the longest day, from there we flow back to the shortest day over and over again. When you look at it like that all of that rambling up top seems completely unnecessary because it helps you to realize that we are literal specks of dust.