I used to be really into climbing until my brain tumor knocked out my sense of balance and all that relevant stuff. Honnold is my hero, and this is really cool:
Pussy. I kid, I kid. Heights, out in the open, freak me the fuck out. That video of the guy changing the light bulb at the top of the 1200ft radio tower? Nope.
One I would still consider getting was one my buddy's father had. His dad was like a father to me. He gave me my first job. He took me up to Alaska and gave me my first high paying job and set me on a path for a career when I was a teenager. He was also crusty as hell. A former Marine Di and angry as hell most of the time, but he was a good guy if you got to know him. I was lucky in that for whatever reason, he liked me. Anyways, we were both from Idaho and he had a tat of a dancing potato wearing a sash that said Idaho on his forearm. I'd probably put it elsewhere, but I could see that as something not horrible...at least compared to other things.
His stuff isn't horrible. I think a European tour might have been a bit ambitious though. I'm sure anyone that's played music has a similar story. One that I'll never forget was playing somewhere in Montana (Or Idaho)...whatever. We were in the middle of nowhere on a Tuesday or Wednesday night. The bar was empty except for one couple....we we're playing for a crowd of two. And they were arguing with each other. I was thinking "We got all dressed up and did our hair for this?" So there we were in all our heavy metal bar band glory and our audience of two could give a fuck. They were screaming at each other like banshees about who fucked who or whatever their fucking problem was. I finally screamed "Hey! Do you want us to turn it down?" Then they left and we had an audience of no one. At least we got free beer.
I have five tattoos. Both of my sons names and their birth dates, forming a band around my arm with a "Texas star" between them (does that count as one or two tatts? I'm counting it as two.) A clock symbolizing my brain surgery. That's on my shoulder. It took almost 6 hours, all in one sitting. The gears of the clock are showing. There's a whole long story behind it, but the short version is that I was in such critical condition that I had to pick between two surgeons of vastly different background and I chose the "mechanic" vs. the academic. So I have the mechanics of the clock for my surgeon who saved my life. My other option, the academic, ate a gun a year later because turns out he had a brain tumor himself. The inside of the clock is the size of my brain tumor; the clock hands point to the date that it happened. I have a chest piece, a version of the Gadsden Flag, for my step-father, my wife's late grandfather, my sons, and myself. The Gadsden Flag flew over the first Naval vessel, on the first military mission, in US history. Both my step-father and my wife's late grandfather served in the Navy. The original Gadsden Flag had a Timber Rattler as the snake (to fuck with evil, the settlers would put timber rattlers in the holds of the ships going back to Great Britain; when the king and queen complained, the settlers said "just don't tread on them and they'll be fine" -- it turned into a metaphor for the Colonies). Instead, I chose a diamond back rattlesnake, native to Texas, in order to symbolize where I am from. And finally, the "Don't Tread On Me" is something not only personal but also eventually for my kids: I don't care if you are gay or straight, atheist or religious, republican or democrat or whatever -- be proud of who you are, and don't let anyone give you shit for being you. My final tattoo is something personal for my wife and I.
Can we take a moment to chuckle at this whole “buying validation” thing for a second? Buying “likes”? Buying Twitter bots to follow you? ...could you imagine if you could have bought “rep” on the RMMB??? Supertramp would have put Max’s kids through college.
[QUOTE="Revengeofthenerds, post: 614809, member: 4076] My final tattoo is something personal for my wife and I.[/QUOTE] A whoopie cushion and fart spray? The issue with Threatin’ isn’t the music- it’s far from great but it isn’t horrible either. It’s that he pretended to have a band (he doesn’t and the videos show the same guy playing all the instruments). And he told the promoters that he sold hundreds of advance tickets when he sold exactly none. Many of the venues only agreed to let him play on the promise that they could automatically expect a certain number of paying customers.
And nom would have bought negative rep for everyone he thought he was smarter than (read: everyone). Where there is a want and money for that want, there is an industry to support it I guess.
I was just talking to my wife about the wildfires. "Oh yeah I heard about those because the kardashians had to move".... fuck my life
My sister who lives in LA sent me a picture of it last night. She wasn't in the path so she didn't have to leave, but if I was looking out the window at that shit I probably would have.
I’ve been in a guyed tower once. Luckily we didn’t have to go up to the antennae mast, just one third of the way up on the elevator. Which was still over thirty stories up. The one thing those GoPro videos don’t show you is how much the tower sways back and forth. The Chrysler Building sways back in forth at the top and it has a massive foundation of concrete and steel, think of just how much something like a guyed tower mast moves.
Tattoos from the old days should serve as a warning. Like THIS friendly-looking old chap: ...champion prize fighter, marine hand-to-hand combat instructor. Well, some young burglar decided to attack him and his wife one night, and he did THIS to him:
Sometimes age really is just a number. He might not be as fast, but those heavy hands and instincts are there. Golden rule: you don’t know anybody until you get to know them.
I had a weird dream last night that I was reading a post by RotN in the Gardening Thread about how he grew a patch of Enogen corn in his garden. It yielded just under a bushel and he was talking about how excited he was to take it to the local ethanol plant to cash it in. Yes, enjoy your three and a half dollars. Don't spend it all at once.
I still only have my one tattoo, and it was an amazing choice. I remember when I was in highschool, I was hanging out wit some friends, one of whom was a talented artist. He had his sketch pad out, and one of our other friends was leafing through it. Then all hell broke loose: he found a picture of a cartoon bear with its ass on fire, and he HAD to have it on his body RIGHT FUCKING NOW. We thought he was joking, but a couple of us went along with him. The first two tattoo shops flat out refused to do it. The third one did, and now that guy has a flammable bear on his left shoulder blade. Now that I think about it, I've known a lot of people with bad tattoos, and I'm not even counting the ones in prison; that's a whole other class of bad tattoos.