Lets Talk Books

All through high school, I never got too much into reading. I pretty much only read when it was required. After high school I completely stopped reading for about 3-4 years. It had no appeal to me whatsoever until someone told me I had to read "A Thousand Splendid Suns". Now when I was in school and did read I would usually read mostly nonfiction books mostly about drug recovery or teenage girl problem real story type books. 

I was quite weary of reading fiction when someone told me about "A Thousand Splendid Suns" but I decided to read it anyway. I fell in love completely. After that I read "The Kite Runner" and loved that one just as much and realized that I really enjoy reading. Not only reading but also enjoying reading fiction. Who would of thought. 

I have been reading pretty much ever since, minus my small hiatus I have spoken about here before. Following those two books is when I started to actually buy books and start my little collection. Usually I would go to the bookstore and always head to the young adult section. I was SHOCKED the first time I went after high school because it was nothing but all of these vampire books that to me looked absolutely ridiculous. It was a craze that was going on that I knew nothing about and I did not like it. I mean who wants to read all these books about vampires that I am guessing are pretty much the same just with different characters. (my opinion). After that I stayed out of the young adult section for a long time. 

Now is the time you get to call me a coward or what have you. (everyone has a guilty pleasure) I kept hearing about this Twilight series. I mean anyone and everyone was talking about these books. I heard vampire and strayed far away from these conversations until a good friend of mine said just read them. So I gave in. Surprisingly I read all four books in a matter of a couple of weeks. I was hooked. Judge me all you want, I don't mind. I will say this though, those will be the only vampire books I will have read and don't plan on sticking to this craze that finally seems to be dying out and being replaced with a new craze. 

Dystopian Fiction Novels. I'm not for sure if this will become as big of a craze as these vampire books did but I am seeing a trend. I read all of the Hunger Games books kind of by accident. I was in search for a book and one day on my lunch break was at Walmart looking for one. I have seen the Hunger Games book all over the shelves at numerous places, had no idea what they were about, the cover didn't look appealing and I kind of just didn't really pay attention until this day and I was desperate for a book and didn't have time to go to the book store so I said fuck it, let's give it a try. 

This trilogy was AMAZING! I had never read a dystopian novel before and I was completely intrigued. I don't think there was anything that I didn't like about any of the three books. I really enjoyed the movie as well. I was told that they are going to split the third book into two movies. Why?? I don't understand why movie people feel the need to prolong a series for as long as possible. We dealt with this through the Twilight series, which by the way I know I loved the books, but I HATED the movies. We went through 5 years of this shit. These movies winning every single award they were nominated for, never giving any of the other extremely better movies a chance. That urks me to the core. I'm sure I will like the other Hunger Games movies but it really isn't necessary to prolong the third movie. 

I have read plenty of books since the Hunger Games until now. I'll give you a little recap of the last three I have read. 

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden: This was actually the only book I have read after seeing the movie first and I am very glad that I did end up finally reading it. I had seen the movie a copious amount of times. Being one who has a lot of Japanese in my blood and loving the culture as much as I do and with the amount of detail the author goes into on the very private and provocative life of a Geisha before WW2 and the detail of the cities and surroundings of the main character, the book did not disappoint me in the least bit. A lot of people hear the word Geisha and automatically assume prostitute. After reading this you will know that a Geisha is far from that and that being a Geisha is like being a piece of art. If you are interested in what a Geisha really was back then I highly suggest you read this book!!

Lords of Salem by Rob Zombie: First off, I love all of Rob Zombies music and all of his movies except for Halloween 2. (fucking horrible, in my opinion). Devil's Rejects is actually one of my top 3 forever favorite movies. Anyways, this book took a little getting used to. This is his first novel and you can definitely tell. His writing is very elementary and you have to slow your brain down to read it. It's about a girl named Heidi who is a recovering addict and works in a radio station. She receives an anonymous record  from a band called The Lords. After playing it on her station weird and unexplained murders start happening and the town of Salem is going a little crazy. That's all I will say for now since the movie just came out (by the way I heard it is a joke and the worst of Rob Zombie's movies by far. So I will wait for it to come out on DVD). If you thought it was good, please tell me because I haven't heard one good thing about it yet. 

Churchill's Secret Agent by Max and Linda Ciampoli: If you love reading about the Holocaust this is a book for you. It is a non-fiction autobiographical novel that depicts Max Ciampoli's life as Winston's Churchill's Secret Agent during the Holocaust. He goes on numerous missions behind enemy lines from 1940-1945  all for the main goal of freeing his home country of France from the Nazi's. Some other Holocaust related books I recommend are Jacob's Courage a Holocaust Love Story, Sarah's Key, and Not Me.  Do you have any Holocaust related books to recommend? 

Let's get back to the Dystopian Novels. I just finished the first two books of the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. These books are very similar to the Hunger Games books. There is a lot of talk about the Divergent series vs. the Hunger Games series. I'm kind of stuck in between. I loved both series for different reasons. I'm not going to pick a side. I have a feeling that once the Divergent series gets a little more known there will probably be a lot of hate talk going on. I see people saying that she probably ripped off the story line or what not. But If you loved the Hunger Games I think you will also love the Divergent series. If you don't compare the two, you can enjoy both of them. When I finished the second book I was upset. There is no way she can just end the series like that. I was thinking no, there has to be a third book, there just has to be. So I did some research and found out that she is coming out with the third book BUT NOT UNTIL OCTOBER. Ugh that frustrates me. I don't want to wait that long to get to the conclusion. I guess I have no choice. I also came across some info about a movie in the works. That will cause a lot of ruckus among readers/viewers and fighting for awards and all that good stuff. 

I notice a lot of people go to the library for books, or buy those nook/kindle things. I am not one of those people. I am one who likes to keep all of my books. One day I will own a house and I will have my study and have my library that I've been dreaming of. I don't even like to let people borrow them because I will most likely never see it again. I could never have a nook/kindle because I need to have the real thing in my hands, turning the pages, highlighting words and sentences and the smell of them. The smell of books especially really old books is one of my favorite smells in the world. Walking into a used book store and getting that whiff of old dusty pages. It's so calming. 

Enough of my ramblings about books. I realize this post is kind of all over the place. Actually I realize that most of my posts that have a lot of writing are all over the place. I'm not good with structuring my thoughts I guess. Sorry for that.

Anyways I'm always up for book recommendations. Shoot some over if you have any!!

Life Update

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. I haven't had much motivation to write. Life has been pretty mundane lately. Not in a bad way, just nothing really exciting has been going on. Here are some things that have been going on recently.

Wedding invitations have officially been sent out. Now that, that is out of the way I really need to get focused and start getting shit done for this wedding. I have never been the girl who has planned her wedding since she was 5. This really isn't my thing at all. It's very overwhelming and stressful. There is so much to be done still. We are getting married in Preston's Best Man's parents house in the backyard. Hopefully things will start falling into place soon. The main things that need to get done still are getting everyone in the party there outfits, finding and purchasing wedding rings, center pieces, bouquets all that mumbo jumbo that I wish I could just pay someone to take care of all of it but we just don't have the money and are having to do all of this stuff on our own. Thankfully I have girls who are crafty and can help me with the DIY stuff. Here are a couple of photos from our Save the Date photo shoot. Photo credit goes to my very good friend Allyson Boyd.

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I'm still practicing on the drums every once in a while. Surprisingly I didn't loose it and am able to jump right into the beat. I also got down the double on the kick drum. That was a good feeling. Now to try to learn how to do a triplet. As of right now, that seems impossible but that's also what I thought before I had the single down on the kick drum. Practice makes perfect I guess! Preston tried teaching me the first part of the Violent Femmes song "Blister in the Sun". Supposedly it's one of the easiest songs to learn how to play. Pssh, I call bull shit. I tried to get down the first 5 notes but it is extremely hard and you can't even tell I'm playing a real song cuz I'm playing it slower than slow. But it's still kind of fun. 

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My work gets involved in this thing called Corporate Challenge. It's a 2 month long sports event kind of thing where companies from all over the valley participate. Every sport you can think of is most likely to be an event. From Flag Football, Track and Field, Archery, 3D Dodge ball,  Shooting, Cart Racing, Kick Ball, Tug a War and many many more. We used to participate every year but when the economy took a shit we stopped for 3 years in a row due to lack of funds. This is the first year we got back into. I participated in Tug a War and Flag Football. Flag Football is usually the only event I like to do because back when we were doing this every year we won the Gold Medal 3 years in a row. This year we ended up only getting a Silver Medal so we were a little bummed but we all had a good time. We played 3 games in a row. Now it's coed so we have to have 4 girls on the field at all times and we only had 4 girls total so we were playing offense and defense back to back with only 10 minute breaks in between games. Now I do not exercise in the least bit and am a heavy smoker so by the third game my body was giving up on me. The next two days was hell. I was the sorest I think I have ever been. I really need to figure out someway of exercising. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures from football but here is a couple from Tug a War. We placed third. 

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 What's new with your folks?!?

A Wonderful Weekend Indeed

I had a fantastic weekend. I haven't been able to say that in a long time. It was the first weekend since the move that went perfect. We simply enjoyed each other's company with no fighting, bickering, nothing. It was bliss!! This PMA is actually working and it feels so good.

We usually hang out at the apartment on Friday nights because we have Lulu. Preston bought her some musical instruments to play. Preston is always jammin on his guitar or drum set and she loves to be a part of it. She got two tambourines, some maracas, a train whistle and this wooden fish thing. She loved all of it.

Preston finally got me on the drum set. He always tries to get me involved with his music. I always decline because I have no musical talent and I have never played an instrument before. It's embarrassing for me and the competitive side of me hates it when I can't be super good at something. It took him literally forcing me on the chair. We had watched a drum teaching video and started teaching me the 1+2+3+4. After a while I finally started to get it. Getting the kick drum, snare and high hat together was hard, specially since we don't have a high hat so I am using the rim of the snare instead.  I mean it's the simplest drum beat ever but I learned it. I actually was playing an instrument the right way. It felt so good once I had it down. Now I still play at a very slow pace. I didn't think that I was playing that slow until he started playing his guitar to my beat and realized that it was super fucking slow. Even when I was playing as fast as I could without getting off beat, it was still way slower than it needs to be, but hey I just learned. It was way funner then I ever thought it would be. I'd like to keep trying and maybe learn some more as long as Preston has the patience to teach me and play slow with me.

On Saturday the three of us went to the Wetlands Nature Park. It's like a natural spring preserve that we have here in Vegas. I took a bunch of pictures. I'll make a post about it later. We had a good time. The weather was cloudy, hot and humid. We did a lot of walking and Lulu had a blast running around.

After dropping Lulu off to her other parents we went home and relaxed a little. We had a short jam sesh and then Preston dyed my hair. A while back I had bleached the under half of my hair and dyed it teal. Since then the under half has been really damaged. The first time I dyed it red a month ago, I didn't notice any more serious damage. Well this time after I got out of the shower, chunks of my hair was coming out. I don't know what caused this to happen this time and why it didn't happen the last time. Thankfully, it's all under my healthy hair so it's not that noticeable. I'm debating if I should just cut the under half off or just let it keep breaking off. But I am in love with my red hair and don't want to have to stop dying it.

Anyways after that, we had another jam sesh. I'm really enjoying being able to play music with Preston. It's something that I can relate to him now. I think he enjoys it just as much. We were supposed to drive out to Rhyolite, NV which is an abandoned town about an hour in a half out of Vegas. But after our long day of walking and jammin out, Preston was pretty exhausted. Weirdly I was full of energy and it's usually the other way around. I didn't want to go on our little adventure unless we were both up for it and had the energy to be out all night, so we decided to save it for another weekend and veg out on Mexican food and netflix. I was totally ok with that, as it was starting to get late and I was slowly growing more and more tired.

On Sunday Preston took his usual trip to the swap meet. I decided I was going to have a super lazy day. While he was gone I watched more of this show that I am loving at the moment called "The Killing". Preston got back and with him he had a cup of Mexican corn for me. Then we relaxed together for a little bit before another jam sesh took place.

Preston had band practice scheduled for the night so that's what he did , while I continued to watch my show and have a ridiculous solo munchy sesh. Talk about being a lazy fat ass. I ate all of it except for a half a bag of the corn nuts. Ya my belly wasn't feeling so good this morning.

What did you guys do over the weekend? Anything interesting you want to share, or uninteresting?!?!

PMA Starts Now / Life Update

This year has been a pretty big emotional roller coaster for me. It seems like anytime everything is going as it should be, something ends up happening to fuck it all up. I've been trying really hard to be a positive person. It's definitely been a struggle. Numerous break downs, emotionally unstable at times.

But you know what? Fuck all of that. Life is way to short to be dwelling about things, trying to control things that cannot be controlled, being sad, sleeping too much, being insecure, being jealous when I have no reason to be,listening to music that brings me down. I'm putting my foot down. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. 

It's time to be happy. It's time to make changes. It's time to be the best fiancee I can be. It's time to be the best Mom I can be. It's time to smile all the time. It's time to let loose and live my life. It's time to explore the unknown, take it all in.

 I am going to stop taking things for granted and start taking advantage of all of the good things in my life. Like this beautiful little girl to whom I get to be a part time Mom to. Being a Mom is still so new to me but she is perfect, she's artistic, she's funny, she's always happy, and the best part she is always telling me how much she loves me. She's my little ballerina princess who loves to dance, play music and is always wanting tattoos. How can you not fall in love with that face?

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 Then there is this guy who is my best friend, my soul mate, who I get to marry in July and spend the rest of my life with. He deserves the best and I need to give him that. We have been through a lot but we have always survived. We love each other to the moon and back. He is so positive, always trying to see the best in any situation, someone who has more confidence in me then I do with myself, he pushes me to be a better person and I strive to be more like him. I love you Preston Scott Ozell Leigh.

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I know that was kind of gushy mushy, but sometimes I gotta get personal with ya'll. Let's lighten it up a little bit. 

Currently I am reading Lords of Salem by the masterful Mr. Rob Zombie. I am a little more than half way through. It's really good so far. The only thing I don't like is his writing is pretty elementary. It takes some time to get used to. But it's his first book, so can't judge him too bad. Super excited for the movie to come out. I love that he always puts his wife Sheri Moon Zombie in his movies cuz she is one super fine gal. They make the sexiest couple ever don't you think?

Found on Tumblr

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Work is still as slow as ever for me. It seems like the engineers are getting a lot more work these days. We have hired a couple new guys, so that is a good sign. But I don't see my job getting busier anytime soon. So just been working on my years worth of scanning in correspondence and unstapling for hours on end. Thank goodness for music right. Lately I have been listening to a lot of Atmosphere and Sage Francis. Preston hates hip hop so I only get to listen to my underground artists while at work. I do switch it up though. Lately it's been Rob Zombie, a lot of Garage Rock. If you haven't listened to any Garage Rock and you love upbeat super positive, little surfy sounding with a bit of a punk sound you should try listening to some of these bands.  I'll link you to one song from each band.. Nobunny, The Black Lips, Reigning Sound, FIDLAR, King Tuff.

If you check them out and you like what you hear and would like some more recommendations, give me a shout!! Preston got me into Garage Rock. I had never listened to it before. Anytime I am in a downer mood and throw some of this on, it never fails to put me in a fantastic mood.

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I have been obsessed with eating fruit parfaits. The ones from Fresh and Easy are the tits. Yummy yogurt with strawberries, blueberries and granola. Mmmm So good. When I have a sweet tooth they are always my go to food and it's healthy. 

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. I have some fun stuff planned. What's going on with you guys? Any new things you want to share, music I should be listening too? Send me a line. I'd like to get to know some of you, I don't bite!! 

A Trifecta of Deliciousness

Ever since I watched the scene in Pineapple Express about the cross joint and how he explains it as the smoke converges creating a trifecta, I have been obsessed with the word. It's like the coolest fucking word ever. Say it in your head with meaning. Waiting...  Now tell me you don't agree with me. Super rad word right.. I try to use it as much as possible cuz I'm a dork like that and get hooked on certain words.. ha ok maybe I'm the weirdo, I don't know but watch the clip it's hilarious.

Now let's talk about what a perfect Trifecta could be. 

COFFEE, CHOCOLATE BAR DONUT and a CIGARETTE. 

A Trifecta of deliciousness. 

The three just go hand in hand. Breakfast of champions? I don't know if I would take it that far but it really is a perfect mix to get me started in the morning. Usually I do not like to take bites of food and take a drink of something when I am still chewing. It leaves your food soggy in your mouth and changes the taste of it but that's just not the case with coffee and donuts. I love taking a bite out of my chocolate bar and taking a big swig of my coffee. Talk about mouth orgasm. It's soo good. Then to complete the Trifecta, after eating my donut and drinking my coffee I inhale the best cigarette of the morning.   Do you guys have any weird Trifecta type things you would like to share?


Why does blogger not recognize Trifecta as a word?

Weird Voice Mail I Received at Work Today

Part of my job is to answer the phones since we no longer have a receptionist. (The worst part of my job, I despise answering phones) Another part of my job is that I am in charge of all of the printers/copiers maintenance, toner, etc. Numerous times a day I get sales calls trying to get me to go with their company for printer supplies and such. The perk of answering phones is that I get to screen these calls and send them straight to my voice mail. Just a couple minutes ago I got one of those calls and they did leave me a very unusual message that kind of creeped me out but also I found to be pretty fucking hilarious. Usually I would just delete it before even listening to it, but I got distracted before being able to delete it and it started to play. It was a 10 second message of this guy singing "Roxanne". 

Do you remember my post a while back about people singing that song to me? What was funny is that when I initially answered the call his voice was really deep, but while serenading me via voice mail he put on this very high pitch voice. "Roxaaaaannnee, you don't have to turn on the red light" and then just hung up. No real message whatsoever. Like what the fuck. People are sooo fucking weird. 

*I recorded a voice memo from my phone of it and wanted to turn it in to a video so you guys could here it, but ya I have no idea how that works.*

Appreciation: The Small, The Big and Everything In Between

This year hasn't been the best for us. We are still in the house hunting process which started back in August. Its a never ending shitty cycle of submitting offers and getting denied because of cash buyers. January hit 6 months until our wedding. We went through a big rough move in February. Our lives haven't been exactly how we would have wanted it and we haven't been the happiest couple because of all these changes. Things were a bit awry for a while. 

Now Spring has officially sprung and things are starting to look up again. The wedding planning is well on it's way. I've been meaning to make a wedding post. That will come soon. 

This blog has helped me a lot. Being able to write about things whether they are important things or not has been keeping me in good spirits. Preston and I are reconnecting more and more every day. So that being said, I wanted to make an appreciation post about everything little to big that I have appreciated lately. 

- The weather turning nice earlier than usual

- Drinking beer and smoking cigarettes on our patio with Preston having small talk. 

- On my commute to work I get a whiff of pine trees in the same spot. 

- When day turns into twilight. The sky is the color of clear deep ocean. 

- Desert sunsets

- Our neighborhood bar and walking to and from. 

- When Preston calls me Darlin.

- Cooking dinner again. 

- Taking pictures

- Having a job that somewhat allows me to blog, tumble and print my wedding invites. 

- Preston, Preston, Preston

- Cuddles

- Birds chirping in the morning.

- My birthday is this Saturday and we get to beach it up and camp!

- Getting comments on my blog posts. Thanks 

- The rain we got a few weeks back. It's very seldom here in the desert. 

- Netflix. Before we moved we had no internet or cable so this has been a blessing. 

- Thanks to the IRS for giving me back a little more money than I was expecting. Tattoo Shop I will see you soon. 

- My mom for helping out with house hunting and paying for some of our wedding. 

- My group of girls that are trying their hardest to make this wedding planning as easy as possible for me cuz this just aint my thang. 

- Matching bracelets I got for Preston and I. 

- Letting go of things 

- Getting hugs from behind while in the kitchen. 

- Getting away from the dark cloud. 

- Being able to walk around in my underwear. 

- Getting back to reading on a regular basis. 

- This blog. 

What are you guys appreciating these days??

Writing

I am going to warn you now. This post is going to be very long but I just feel the need to write right now.

When I started this blog I started it with the intention of mainly posting only photos of mine with some text posts here and there as I stated in my first post. Almost every post I have written so far I had only intended on writing maybe a paragraph. Looking at them now, they became much more than that. One paragraph turned into 3, 4 and 5 paragraphs. I think I have found my love for writing just by creating this blog.

I have always kept a journal but for the most part I only wrote in it when I was upset. Since the beginning of time I was never able to write about anything positive. Even when I have been upset I still found it hard to get all of my thoughts down on paper. I think I have now come to realize why. I cannot write as fast as my thoughts are flowing through my head. My thoughts run rapid and when I am trying to get it all down I tend to forget something I really wanted to write while I was still writing about something else. I would write words on the margins just to not forget I wanted to write about that certain thought. This can be very frustrating when all you want to do is GET YOUR THOUGHTS OUT!!

Now that I have started this blog I am realizing it much easier to write. I type about 65 words per minute  (not bragging though I take pride in my typing skills)  so that in itself helps tremendously. I can type almost as fast as I am thinking. Like I said, my thoughts run rapid and now I find myself having all these ideas in my head and can't wait to get to a computer to write them down. Now that I have this blog, I have a place to put these thoughts and it's not a burden to me anymore. Also I just discovered the blogger app, so if needed I can blog on the go. Hip Hip Hooray!

I am just glad that I have found this new love for something. I never thought I would enjoy writing as much as I do now.
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On to the next... In the last couple of weeks I have been doing some major soul searching. I have been in this negative space for far too long and I am willing to do whatever it takes to switch all of that negativity into something positive.

There was something that I had been persistently pushing in the back of my head that kept creeping it's way to my frontal lobe. There is this girl that I do not know very well but she is Preston's best friend's girlfriend. Long story short, I had heard a lot of bad things about her before meeting her. When finally meeting her I tried to put all of that aside and get my own impression. I found out quick that I did not like this girl. My animosity towards her was impelling more and more. I still have not an inkling as to why I hated her so much. I had certain things I knew I didn't like but nothing important enough to make just the mere sight of her throw me into a shit mood.

After I started my soul searching and trying to figure out where all of this negativity was coming from I realized I needed to do something about my feelings towards her. Now keep in mind it is very hard for me to do what I ended up doing. I'm not one to admit my faults easily, especially to someone that I didn't like. But I sucked it up, grew some balls and said fuck it. DO THE RIGHT THING ROXANNE.  I wrote her an email explaining everything I needed to get off my chest that was about her and apologized for all of my unkindness towards her. I told her I wasn't expecting anything from her and was not trying to be her friend and that I just needed to get this out of me. Her response was very nice and she also apologized for the things she had done. I know we will never be real friends but I guess I can say we can now be around each other with no hard feelings and be acquaintances. It was like the world had lifted off of my shoulders. It felt so good to get all of that out and I already feel so much better mentally and emotionally.

This post has been extremely long and probably extremely boring to read so I will stop now and save you from further punishment. 

Put On the Red Light

Those of you who don't know, my name is Roxanne. My whole life when I meet people and introduce myself, a lot of the time that person breaks into song "Roxaaaaaaannnnneee, You don't have to turn on the red light". When I was in my teen years this would aggravate me more that it probably should have. Now I am just used to it and it doesn't bother me at all.

But today at Pizza Hut for the gazillionth time in my life and still cannot wrap my head around is when people here my name and say "Hey, have you ever heard that song by the Police?" Are you fucking kidding me? I am 25 about to be 26 in a couple weeks and you really think I have never heard that song? Depending on my mood, I'll play it off and be nice, but sometimes I'm just not in the mood and kind of just give them the "You're a fucking idiot if you really think I haven't heard that song" look.

I have always hated my name, not because of the song but I just don't find it as an appealing name. I had always wondered why my Mom decided to name me after a hooker in a song. I never got around to asking her why, but one day about two years ago I finally did. She immediately started laughing. After seeing my some what confused look on my face she told me the story.

Back in her day they did not get the opportunity to find out the sex of the baby until the baby was here. (Wow technology is the shit right?) So like my Brother, my name was picked after I was born. She heard the Police song on the radio at the hospital and decided to name me Roxanne. After the birth certificate was named and I was brought home my Mom had heard the song again and actually listened to it this time. So she turns to my dad and says "We just named our daughter after a HOOKER". But by that time my name was set in stone and nothing could be done about it. I just replied with that disappointed teenager look "Reallyyyyy Mooomm" There you have it, the history of where my name came from.

Good Deeds

I have seen a lot of things on the internet lately about restoring faith in humanity. These pictures have really inspired me to throw out random acts of kindness whenever possible. Just knowing that there are still good people out there doing good things no matter how small for random strangers off the street is really amazing.

Yesterday I was driving home from work and I saw an old man posted up in a chair on the corner of the street with a sign that read "Veteran, anything helps". Now this wasn't your typical bum posted up with the same signs you see all the time, looking really dirty and you can tell he is just trying to get his next drink or his next fix. This poor old man was not very dirty at all and did not look like any type of junky that you are used to seeing these days. I immediately felt very sad for this old man. I honked my horn to get his attention and he got up from his chair, grabbed his cane and very slowly limped his way through cars to get to me so I could give him a dollar that I had hanging out the window. A couple of the other cars around me also had dollars hanging out of their window. 

Now I am usually very particular on the kind of bums I give money too. As soon as I saw him walking (limping) over I just had a really good feeling about it. I had a strong inkling that he wasn't going to go straight across the street to 7/11 and grab himself the cheapest beer he could find. Which right away reminded me of the incident that happened the day before at Roberto's Taco Shop where Preston and I had been eating. We had just finished our food and this guy walked in from the street and asked us something along the lines of "Could either of you spare a couple of dollars? I have two kids that I am trying to feed". Now this was the sort of bum I usually don't give my money too. When he brought up the two kids I started to feel bad but not bad enough to give him any money. Does that make me heartless? I don't think so.. Maybe I have a good eye for this kind of thing or maybe sometimes I just don't feel like giving my well earned money to bums. I'm not sure exactly why I didn't give this guy any money. After we said no, he asked some of the other people in the restaurant and I did see one family give him a couple bucks. 

We then walked across the parking lot to purchase some water for our walk to the swap meet. As soon as we walked out, this same bum that just asked us for money FOR HIS TWO KIDS walked into the store and walked straight back to where the beer was sold. Did he use that couple of bucks for any type of food for his two kids?? Nope he sure as hell didn't. Did he not realize he just walked past two people that he just told he needed money for his kids and still went straight to the beer section? I guess not, cuz he was walking with no shame. All he wanted was his next drink. 

It is shitty people like that, that makes me never want to give out my money to people who say they really need it. Honestly, when i see a bum with a sign that speaks the complete truth on what it is that he "needs" I am actually more willing to throw out some change or a buck. I mean right on dude. Thanks for being honest at least. 

Now I'm not really sure where I was going with this but I can't get that old man from yesterday out of my head. But I felt really good after giving him that buck. Sometimes I think a very small random act of kindness can do just as much for the person receiving it as the person giving it. 

So if anyone is reading this and you want to see some of those pictures I was talking about that may restore your faith in humanity, here are a couple links. 

http://www.godvine.com/read/faith-in-humanity-114.html

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/moments-that-restored-our-faith-in-humanity-this-y

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/15/this-random-act-of-kindness-will-restore-your-faith-in-humanity-at-least-a-little-bit/

Swap Meet Adventure

Preston and I went on a swap meet adventure yesterday. We moved to North Las Vegas and the swap meet just so happens to be right across the street. This is our only outdoor swap meet in town. It is ridiculously huge. You can pretty much find anything there. It is one ginormous garage sale. You can find anything from used tv remotes, to furniture, to clothes, tools, car parts, etc.

One thing we were trying to look for was an old dial phone so Preston can take the mic out of it and use it to make a beer can mic. We thought for sure that we would find one. I mean everything you can think of gets sold here but we did not find one chord phone. Not even one. Can you believe that? But boy did they have a shit ton of phone chargers, cordless phones and cell phones. We were rather shocked by this.

The food that they sell there is rather ethnic. I kept asking Preston, what is that? and what is that? wow doesn't that look good? Preston has talked about the Mexican corn carts that go around neighborhoods and sell their delicious corn that is supposed to be served with mayo, cheese, butter and chili pepper. I had never had one before and thought this would be a good chance to try it. So I finally saw a couple of people eating them at the swap meet. Now I have always been against eating corn on the cob because i have a built in retainer and can't handle it when food gets stuck in it, but I was willing to make an exception to try this corn that everyone talks about. After a couple hours of walking I was getting hungry and was destined to find where the corn was being sold. We finally found it (right at the entrance) how we missed it, I'm not sure. Anyway we were at the counter and I realized they were selling the corn not only on the stick but also already cut up and put in a cup. How perfect for me right? So I got mine in a cup and Preston got his on a stick. They put everything in the cup that they do on a stick. IT WAS ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS.  Ok enough rambling, here are some pictures from our day!

Take 2

I have been contemplating starting a blog again. I had one about a year ago but deleted it. I can't even remember why. Then I started a tumblr which I still have. I just feel it's not exactly for me. Seeing awesome pictures on my dash and reblogging them is fun but it only does so much for me. I have a "my photography" page on there that I do update pretty frequently, but I for some reason am very picky about what I put on there. If it's not an amazing picture I will not post it. So this brings me back to wanting another personal blog where I only post my pictures that I have taken and maybe a text post now and again about what's going on in my pretty boring life. I am hoping that this blog will also motivate me to take pictures on a more daily basis. I have been slacking pretty bad in this department.

So here goes Take 2 on the life of me. Hope you enjoy the random pictures and whatever else ends up on this blog! For my first picture, have my  face!!