All Done

At long last I am through with school! I officially graduated with my BT in IAF! For those who do not understand that, I now have a Bachelor of Technology in Information Assurance and Forensics. Computer security for the rednecks out there!

Now it is time to get to work. My area of study was Network Systems. I have long been fascinated by how a network communicates within itself and with other networks. It is really quite simple. Too much of an explanation for here.

Next up will be working on the house, and my Karaoke business. I have been doing karaoke for free for so long now, I am not sure what to charge or expect for pay. With 10s of thousands of dollars wrapped up in music and equipment, it is time to play music and DJ/KJ for real money!

Look for me soon at a club near you! (But only if your near me!)

Life of a Cat

The ole Tom cat went to Muscatine,
He jumped up on the sewing machine,
The sewing machine went round and round,
Sewed 49 stitches in the Tom cat's tail,
And he RAAAAN SOME!

Special thanks to Leonard T Hudson.

Holiday time, Ca-rappp!

OK I know it sounds like I do not like holidays, that is almost true. I used to look forward to all holidays with anticipation. The older I get, the more I look forward to just getting hammered on booze and bypassing the holiday all together. Not sure what it is all about.

I married into SOAP, the old TV show. My in-laws all fit into that family just so well, just without the dummy, depending on how you look at it. Since my own family is down to my folks and my sister and her family, my extended family is it. trust me, you need to be drunk to enjoy time with these folks.

Fortunately for me, I didn't have to put up with them this year. I must be living right. Well here goes the next item of the season. My son who was in the all start football league, broke his arm at practice last week, just a week before their first game. Well shit! now what? We sold an ass load of sausage and bacon in our fundraiser for him and his three friends. Now we find out the team isn't going to play at all now. There is some new rulings in our state about kids playing in these leagues, so they decided not to go at all. We had a donation for the four boys from town to help them get to the games as well, that we had to give back.

Next up will be Christmas. More money spent on items the kids want and will break in 15 min the day they get them. Oh well. More booze will be needed in four weeks. At least my new job gives me a week off at Thanksgiving.

More soon!

The weekly crap!

It is time again for more weekly crap. This week is by far the worst yet in terms of Uncle P.
Saturday I will be running karaoke for the masses in Halloween costumes and under the influence of alcohol, which makes them think they are somebody. I pondered what I would wear myself but since I could not find a rubber mask of a few certain people, I decided going as a douchebag was out!
The worst part is that Saturday also marks 50 years of Uncle P. WTF? Yes I said 50. Holy shit! That is too old to be acting like this, isn't it? Well my douchebags are older, but they act like fuckin' imbeciles all the time, so I guess it is ok!
Happy Halloween, Douchebags!

A day in the life of Uncle P

The vampires are here today, sucking the blood from the living in the name of saving lives. The blood mobile is on campus and the nursing students are helping round up volunteers. I do not get to partake because of a lack of iron and higher than normal blood psi.! I even made a comment that it should fill the bag quicker that way. I was told to go back to my office.

Halloween is just around the corner, but first we have Fall Break! Two extra days off this week! I need a break after last week.
I am performing karaoke for the Elks Halloween party on Oct.27. If you are reading this, come out in costume and have some fun.
My son has a ball game this evening. Football has been a great thing. It keeps him in school and keeps him working on schoolwork. Hope he doesn't hurt anyone tonight. We have a broke nose and a broke leg to his credit this season. They were both fault on the other players part. The leg for example, the other kid face masked Justin and pulled him down on top, twisting and breaking the other kids leg. No, no flag was thrown for the face mask, but there were a lot for other goofy things.
Till next time!

September's Gone

With the end of another September we have a lot to look forward to. Welfare recipients clogging up the fucking checkout lanes at Wal-Mart! Halloween is just around the corner. What are you going to be? I am going to be a crotchety old man! Damn, I already am. Guess I'll have to choose something else. The good ones are all gone so I will have to be creative. I have a few weeks so I,ll let you know.

Now move or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll hoe your blouse down! Thanks to LTH!

The Dawn of a New Day!

Today is just like any other day. Things are broken and others are fine. Sometimes it gives me a sense of purpose when things are not going 100%. Other days I want to scream!

My security guys came out and screwed up two weeks worth of my work on the camera system in the new bldg. It was slow, but I could see it. I added RAM today and made it faster, but now I can't see the cameras. He still will not get paid for the job until they are online. Been a year now! Keep screwing them up guys! It will take that much longer!

My son, Nephew P, LOL. starts new classes today. The school seems to screw him around every chance they get, so I am glad to see this is working better than they thought. The whole IEP team was against any changes. I want this to work so I can say "I told you so!" I want to show them they are failing us! He is in football and band this year and he likes them both. It gives him a reason to go to school each day. He is a good kid, just a little mis-guided. He is too big to be handled now. This is a 14 yr old that is 6' 3" and wears a size 15 shoe. He is a little tough to wrestle down and spank!

I am learning to hate typing on my iPad. I can't move the fucking cursor when I need to! Maybe I need to try the dictation setting.

That reminds me of a funny story. The Little Rascals were sitting in class one day. The teacher asks Darla  to use the word "love" in a sentence. She stands up and says, "I just LOVE Alfalfa!". That was good exclaimed the teacher. Ok Alfalfa, use the word despise. "I just DESPISE Spanky!" Ok, not quite what I was looking for but it will do, said the teacher. Ok, Buckwheat, your word is dictate.
Buckwheat stands up, looks around and says, "Say, Darla, Why don't you tell Falfa how my DICTATE!"

Otherwise, things are great. I will look hard this weekend to see what I can screw up!

What the...????

This is part 2!

I guess some people don't understand the concept of the word "FIRED". Since the last post, the band leader has fired the rest of the band and is starting over. I have received numerous texts from him wanting me to come back and re-start the band. I was nice about it and explained I did not have any free time right now. The truth, "I ain't goin' back"! Never have I returned to a band where I was let go, or left on my own. I will not start now! I miss playing, but that will change as soon as I get caught up on other things!

I have started my final semester at school, and I was hired as a full time employee by my internship. I'm still trying to get caught up money wise, but that should be done this month at pay time. I plan on retiring from here! I currently show a 3.84 GPA but when you remove the classes from 1984, it jumps to a 3.92. I just have to turn in "SOMETHING" in each class and I pass, still Phi Theta Kappa! I guess I could just make the 2.5 minimum and still pass the course at this point! I won't do that though!

Work is GREAT! It does gets more hectic here than I thought it would, mainly because I am a department of one!

I hope to be back to my old, jovial, Uncle P self very soon! One quick Uncle P comment though, and I had been waiting a long to to use this one. Last night at the lodge, we were all siting around after the meeting. I came in and took the empty chair at the table. One of my wife,s friends came back and, trying to be funny, said, " I believe I was sitting there first!" Ok, you see it coming, but anyway, I wiped my hand on my face and said , "let me clear off a place for you to sit!" I have never seen her turn so red as long as I have known her. She knew that I am Uncle P and that anything can be twisted into sophomoric sexual humor, but she played right into that comment without thinking! My dad even laughed hard at this one, as did everyone else within range!

More to come. I hope to not be away as long next time!

Catch-up!

OK, a lot has happened since I was last on here. A chance to start up to speed s-l-o-w-l-y.

My writing class ended and a new semester began. I have worked for two different locations on internship. My first was Okmulgee Public Schools. This was going to be a free internship. I was told to look for a paid one by an instructor but the other location I looked didn't have anything available. As it turns out, after a few weeks of "free" the other location lost their IT guy and voila! I now have a paid internship, Although it isn't much more than minimum wage, it has one thing no one else could offer, the promise of a full time job once the internship is complete. Woo Hoo! I just hope I don't screw it up too bad between now and then!!!

On another note, the band! This is enough to make me wonder what is going on with some people. At least I don't have to be the bad guy now, someone has already done that for me. More on that in a moment.

As most who know me know, Uncle P is the name I use when I do Karaoke. I have done Karaoke for 10 years now. Mostly for free and when I do it for pay it is at the Elks lodge, where I also volunteer for a lot of other things. The Elks have kept me overly busy for over 15 years now. I use Karaoke to put on a show with 20-30 of my closest Elk friends each February to raise money for Oklahoma Elks Major Projects. This group provides funding for several youth related activities in Oklahoma. That is what Uncle P is all about.

I have been balancing my Elk life, school and playing in a band for over two years now, which hasn't been an easy task. I like live music and always will. It is great to see people play and have fun. Karaoke, like DJ work has a place in the music business as well. It isn't always to take the place of a live band. I have found several really good singers through doing Karaoke. These people go on to play and sing in bands, sometimes once they have overcome their fear of being in front of a crowd while doing Karaoke. Karaoke is also forgiving, whereas these people have to sometimes get really "looped" before they sing. If they are not any good, it is usually blamed on the booze. No matter, part of the Karaoke entertainment value is the ones who CAN NOT sing, but try. I always tell everyone, "If you can't clap because they are good, clap because they are done!"

Anyway, enough of what sounds like I am defending Karaoke. It is just a balance. I like to play music. I have played the drums for 41 years now. I am trying to learn a few different instruments now to be able to do other things. Both of my kids are in band and learning how to read music and play. My youngest plays Sax and was in the beginning honors band last year. My boy plays baritone, but also has a trumpet, bass guitar, dulcimer, plus my old drums. Me, with the discovery of Apple's Garage Band app, can lay just about anything now. (on the computer!)

So, where does that leave the band, hmmm, leave the band, what an interesting concept. This was one of those bands that HAD potential, providing one, we could find a market to perform, and two, providing we had some direction and professionalism about us. The original concept was great. Bob Dylan. Yes I know he is still alive, but casinos everywhere have tribute bands to different real groups. Some of these bands stay at one casino as their "draw" while others travel between a group of casinos as a tour. All was great in the beginning, We played a few shows to "get tight" then we recorded a demo to include in our press pack, an item required by most casinos to hire a band. $1,200 a night to start sounds great, but after two years, it still never materialized. The band changed lineups several times. Recently we added an old friend of mine and a guy who I had played in a band with years ago, and started doing more main-stream music so we could get jobs in regular bars. OK, all good and fine except now we are just spinning our wheels. We learned some new, Non-Bob songs and started playing in a bar. The things that did not change are the goofing off between songs and the lack of professionalism when it comes to being an act you want to see in a casino. I can tell you, we may be able to GET the job at the casino, but we could not KEEP the job if we got it. The sheer lack of professionalism between the songs and how the songs seem to drone on and on forever would have us fired at the end of the first set.

Fast forward to this past weekend. We played Thursday for a retirement center here in town. We did it w/o our main guitarist and with a fill in keyboardist. An hour and a half set went very well. Friday we played our regular gig at the bar. The club owner has been trying to get me to do Karaoke for him, and I have been trying to put him off. Mainly because I do not want to do it there. He cornered me on a break and asked me to do Karaoke the following Friday, He has 4 bands outside on Saturday and wanted something different for the Friday crowd. I told him I could not because of a prior engagement. His statement was that he had to do something because he already had advertised Karaoke. I told him to give me his number and when I got home I could contact him with info on others who did Karaoke and may be available. The band leader overheard a small portion of the conversation and sent me a text msg at 2am telling me I was out and I was not a team player.

As I said, "Out of the Band" let me see for just a second, how do I feel about something that I was going to do anyway? At least I'm not the bad guy who quits just as things start to come around. The part that bothers me is how I'm "not a team player".

After all I have done for them, I'm not a team player? OK what ever you think is fine with me. At least it helps me to get out. I didn't know how much more I was going to be able to take.

More on this later. Look for part 2.

The Mighty Columbus

As sung by Leonard Thomas Hudson;

In fourteen-hundred and ninety-two,
A Dago from Eye-tally!
Walked up and down the streets of Spain,
And pissed in every alley!


He thought the world was round-o
His tally-whacker hung to the ground-o
That masterbatin' navigatin',
Son-of-a-bitch, Columbo!


Said Isabelle to Ferdinand,
"I think he's sort-of hazy"
Said Ferdinand to Isabelle
"That Dago Bastard's crazy!"


He thought the world was round-o
His tally-whacker hung to the ground-o
That masterbatin' navigatin',
Son-of-a-bitch, Columbo!

Almost There!

Well, yesterday was my "unofficial" my last day of on-campus classes. The semester ends Friday, April 20. Next semester will be the toughest yet. I am doing my internship with Okmulgee Public Schools. Yes it is a free, non-paid job. Wow, that really bites! Student loans only go so far, so I have to work a full time job besides, in order to make ends meet. Then, as if that wasn't enough, I have Script Programming as an on-line class. There goes my 4.0 grade point average!
After 15 weeks of this, I'll be ready for a break, but that won't happen. It will be back on my head for Capstone and some Gen-Ed online nightmare. Seems I still lack one Gen-Ed to get my Bachelor's Degree.
At least the end is in sight. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just hope it isn't a train coming at me!

Paul Revere's Ride

As told by Leonard Thomas Hudson;

Come listen my children and you shall hear
of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
Twas out of the bed, and onto the floor
for a 50 yard dash to the outhouse door;
.
.
and it was locked!

Honest Words to Live By

Here is another saying taught to me by Leonard Thomas Hudson;

Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies,
If you ever get hit, with a bucket of shit,
be sure and shut your eyes!

Men are Dogs

This is a saying we have all heard for as long as I can remember. I was reminded of this recently after a family dinner. My wife made meatloaf, which is usually very good. This time, however, it really was not. After dinner, my 14 year old son and I were in the yard working. He made a negative comment about mom's meatloaf. I explained to him not to say that to her, instead, he should act like it was the best he had ever ate. (Typical male fight or flight response, especially if you ever want to have sex again in your lifetime.)  His response was, "you're only saying that because you're married to her."
 He has not become interested in girls yet, so the explanation was more difficult than it should be. I tried to explain to him how important it is for men to be able to manipulate their spouse's or significant other's feelings in a good way, just because you may want to sleep or have a moments peace at some point. Saying bad things about her cooking is just one way to loose a good night's sleep, or be interrupted while watching the ball game. No reason to start something when you don't have to.
Since he has not really discovered girls yet, or figured out that his tally-whacker can be used for more than just peeing, he still does not understand. He is a little behind maturity wise, but he will get there, eventually,
I was a boy once, GOD HELP US ALL when he does!

The Ballad of "Joe Baker"

As originally told to me by Leonard Thomas Hudson;

Joe Baker, Joe Baker, The Candlestick maker,
He was wiping his butt with a piece of brown paper.
The paper was thin, and his finger slipped in,
and oh what a mess poor Joe Baker was in.

Uncle P's Serious Side

This past weekend was one of the serious weekends for us. As I said in the opening, I run Karaoke. Each year we produce a Karaoke themed variety show. The intent of this performance is to raise money for Oklahoma Elks Major Projects. This group finds several summer camps in our state for children with various diseases. It also helps to fund our state's Special Olympics, as well as a Cadet Lawman Academy for High School students between their Junior and Senior year.

We typically raise a nice piece of change for them. This year was a little down, but we still managed to raise nearly $4,000 in one evening.

This "show" contains our group, The 1822 Players, performing songs and dressing the part. We put together some type of humorous skit to accompany the song. An example, This year we had a man sing Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire. The action in the background was a patient at "Dr. Harry Buttz, Proctologist"  He was behind a screen, back-lit so the audience could only see their shadows. The doctor pulled various "items" from the patient's rear end.

In another skit, I sang Sam and the Pharaoh's Lil' Red Riding Hood. My wife was Red Riding Hood, carrying a brief case, I was dressed in a full Bill Clinton mask. (Yes, it is very hard to sing a song in a full rubber mask).  We have done various other similar skits over the years, some of which have made it to you-tube.

All that said, another successful year in Karaoke and fundraising for my charity.

NOW BACK TO THE SILLINESS!

Writing Influences.

Today in our writing class, we spoke about what influences writers to come up with some of their work. The topic revolved around external influences, such as dreams, nightmares, or just events in the writer's life. Some people induce sleep deprivation in order to intensify their dreams. When they wake, they quickly jot down, or vocally record what they were dreaming of, before they forget.

Music is a lot like writing books. The difference, I pointed out, was the use of drugs. I guess I'm from a different time in history as no one else seemed to understand.

 I wonder if Timothy Leary, (OK, go ahead and Google him, I'll wait,) should have received a percentage of royalties for songs that he indirectly helped to create!

World Observations

This is an older observation, but it deserves to be brought back every so often.

Tulsa, OK. like a lot of other cities has a beautification program, which has been going on for some time, called "Up With Trees". This is a program where trees are planted in the grassy areas around highway interchanges, and in the median strips of some roadways. The insurance adjuster in me looks at this as more items for the motoring public to run into, but that isn't the point of this ramble.

These "patches" of trees are sponsored by corporations, civic groups, or individuals in memory of family members, and so on. Each of these locations is marked by a sign denoting such. These signs appear to be a section of split rail fencing or maybe a section of stock panel from a corral, depending on how you look at it. In any instance, two vertical posts with three connecting cross members, made of wood. Yes I said MADE OF WOOD!

I had to wonder, "hmmmmm" promoting trees with wooden signs, isn't that odd? It is like building an "Up With People" sign out of cadavers!

The World according to Uncle P!

Of course, Uncle P isn't my real name, but it is the name of my Karaoke business. It just carries over to a lot of things in life. I have a unique way of looking at things. I may put a slight sophomoric twist to some things. Other times it may be straight forward logic or the lack thereof.
I hope this finds you, the reader, on a great day all of the time. If not, I hope maybe a look into my dark and totally messed up life and way of thinking, may at least bring a smile to your face!

OK lesson 1. I do not know where this comes from, or who originally wrote this, but it has become Uncle P's motto. " If you can't eat it, or screw it, piss on it!" My dog lives very well by this motto too!

That's all for now. Back in a day or two!