Another Friday.

Pooped today. Was draggin' my ass and down in the dumps this mornin' after a long night of fun and early morning with no sleep. Ok, it was a good tired, well earned, and the day has been much better since then. Got wrapped around the axle early on, thinking about good friends and amazing adventures that I'll never get to have. I pissed my youth away being a fool, or a coward, and now I'm paying the price, but that's cool. Hell, I put a buck in the coke machine this afternoon and the stupid thing gave me two Dr Peppers! probably should go buy a lottery ticket.

Takin' dad to eat Chinese later, and then I'll be back here with friends, and the squeeze, and her family of wild-assed Brits, watching our friends play pool and maybe later, working a few more things out. While you're here, be sure and check out this Friday tradition. It's a great set today. Maybe post somethin' later. More pictures of the old man or somethin'. Have a great Friday, and a great weekend. Cheers.

Spent Friday night doin' the usual, and then watching friends play in a pool tournament, and playin' with my camera phone.

Some of the folks I work with are big into playing pool in a league. We started playing together years ago, but my night classes keep me from being able to play in this official capacity...

OK, I SUCK AT POOL, but so do they, so that's NOT why I can't play in the league. I used to play a lot in college, but got away from it, and now all my angles are off. If I played more regularly I'd get better, but who wants to hang out in a smoke filled pool hall after a long sweaty day dispensing wisdom to the masses? And if I put a pool table in the house, which I don't really have room for, it'd just end up like the stair machine; covered in magazines and crap and cat scratched.

Anyway, I enjoy going out and playing on occasion and watching these folks try to be serious. They're in a tournament now that could conceivably end up with their team going to play in Vegas. Normally they play at an American Legion post in Killeen, and Thursday night I went over after work, with the razor, and took a few shots of the crew at practice.



This is Gina. She's a cute little number. An ex-student of mine (most of them are), she lives with one of the other team members, loves to get loaded while she plays, and loves to flash her boobs to her other teammates when ever they win... as a reward. SEE why I go, and why I had the camera phone ready? I'm not a team member, so I've never been privileged to experience the full monty, but seeing that I was taking pictures, she flashed the PG version to me between shots on the table, and shots of some horrendous Korean booze she's always swilling.



Those are some famous tatas around here, I wanna tell ya.



Every once and I while my buddy Dave slides in to get a squeeze (that's her boyfriend shooting)...



and to provide his professional advise on a shot here and there. Great fun was had by all, even though the musical accompaniment was being provided by drunk Korean karaoke singers at the other end of the bar. I wanted to toss a cue ball over there and bean that bastard after a while. I think we got out of there at about midnight, and like a good boy, I went strait home and to bed.

After class on Friday, and taking dad to our regular dinner/boys-night-out that evening, I took dad back to the house and headed out to the big tournament that was being held in Temple at the local American Legion hall.



Walked in and was hit in the head by a wall of 2nd hand smoke. Haven't experienced one like that in a while. To add to the issue, apparently the AC and ventilators were down. Hot as hell in there, but the music was MUCH better than before. Hard rock classics by folks like Sabbath and Skynnrd, mixed with the newer metal that the younger vets are into. Nothin' like it to calm the nerves and clear the head.



Happiness! My friends weren't supposed to be playing, but Dave ended up having to jump in and go a few rounds. He lost most of his games, but the other players in his team played better, and they ended up winning the match anyway. As a novice, I particularly enjoyed watching the heavy hitters.



The guy in the center with the hat was on Dave's team. He's really good, but he has a reputation for choking in the big games. This time though, he was screwed over by what I would call and Act of God.

First of all, these guys are REALLY good. If one guy misses a shot, the other guy is likely to just run the table and that's it. So the hat guy won his first game against this opponent, pretty handily. I was impressed. In the second game, he dropped a few balls in the brake, but then he missed one by a hair. The guy on the left started to make a run, but then he missed one by a hair. Mr. hat guy took over and started clearing the table, and had a short, easy shot to make in the process. Side pocket, direct shot with the cue ball only inches away. As he's lining it up, a grasshopper lands directly in the path of the cue ball.

To try to get a breeze going in the place someone had propped the doors open, letting the critters in. He shews it away, and it jumps into the side pocket. He goes to make the shot and as he is hitting the cue ball, the grasshopper jumps out of the side pocket and flits overhead, breaking his concentration, making him screw up the shot. I could have made that friggin' shot! Hilarious, but nothing they could do. The other guy took over and ran the table. That was it. Mr. hat guy lost the rest of his games and it was left to his wife to win hers, which she did, to give the team it's win. She was up against a young girl who played while listening to her Ipod, which was strapped to her arm. Must not have liked Sabbath.

Meanwhile, several other folks (including Gina) were over at the bar, getting loaded to the gills while the other team members played. When all the games ended and the place shut down, we went to get them, and we all made a trip to I-Hop for an early breakfast. Nothin' like midnight feeds with a bunch of drunks to put the right end to a day. Left there and got home finally at about 2am. I brought half my club sandwich home and had it for brunch when I rolled out of the sack at about noon. Tasted damn good after bein' nuked for a minute or so.

They're playin' again tonight, and I'll probably head over there when the sun goes down and it starts to cool off. Maybe they will have fixed the AC by then. Plan to head to Dallas tomorrow with friends to run through a gun show at Market Hall. Should be a full day. Hope your weekend is as much fun. Cheers.

I'm finally off from school for a few days, gettin' ready for a new semester to start on Tuesday.

And it's Friday again, and I've got to go get a haircut and take dad to our regular big Friday feed. The kids I've been teaching down in Florence graduate tonight from High School, and I guess I'll try to be there. They've taken my classes for two years, half their high school life. Amazing to me that it's been that long since I started down there. Time flies.

I've been stayin' up late recently, scannin' old pictures from old times. It's been fun to go through these old shots and find stuff I haven't seen in a while. Here's a shot of me, happy as a clam, Christmas morning, Wichita Falls, Texas, about 1966, covered in pug puppies from our dogs second litter. They used to have a hell of a time keepin' me away from these babies.



Mom and Dad sold all of them eventually to people in the neighborhood, and that always made me mad. Some people didn't treat dogs the way we did, as if they were part of our family. One guy down the block bought one we named Brutus, and used to tie him up in the front yard. I'd ride my bike around and play with him when I could, but the folks there didn't like it. I have a vivid memory of riding by on the street and seeing Brutus just inside their screened-in front door. When he saw me he jumped up and started scratching at the door, trying to get to me.

We soon moved away again, to England, and mom and dad decided not to let Missy have any more pups till they were ready to keep them. When we went to England, Missy had to do a few months in the slammer, fulfilling their rules about quarantine. We'd drive over and visit her every weekend till we could finally bring her home. Here's a shot of Mom and I visiting.



You can sure see the love in my eyes. We kept her last litter , and when Missy died, in about 1971, Prissy and Wrinkles became my best friends. Here's my buddy Wrinkles, sitting on my bed in Kansas City, Missouri, where we moved to after leaving England in 1970.



They were both born in this house, in a cardboard box in the basement. Those were always wonderful times. Magical to me. Wrinkles and I used to tromp through the woods together, running through the creek that ran behind our house. He was my best buddy, at a time when I didn't have many others. There's NOTHING like the bond between a boy and his dog, even if the dog isn't a breed that people would associate with movies like Lassy or Old Yeller.

I'll never forget one day in Missouri, towards afternoon, we were standing out on the porch overlooking our back yard. The yard was huge, with about twelve trees on it, the grass stretching down to the creek and the woods beyond. Missy and her to pups were there, when all of a sudden a pack of dogs came running out of the woods and into our yard. At least a few of them were German Sheppards and there were a few other big dogs. Before we could stop them, the three of these little dogs took out after this pack of bug bruisers, and to our amazement and amusement, they ran those mutts out of the yard and down the creek, before trotting back, a look of happy satisfaction on all their little faces.

Both Wrinkles and Prissy died in the early 1980s, and it was ten years before the grief would allow us to think seriously about going out and getting another Pug. Finally, around 1990, dad and I took a trip to the east side of Arlington, to check out a huge flea market called Traders Village. I'd been there many times with friends, and had always seen lots of people selling golf clubs. I told dad he needed to check them out (he was a huge golfer back then). Never had I seen one pug there for sale. To my amazement we got there and found several people selling Pug puppies. It was like the stars had aligned there just for us.

We looked through several litters in several places, and dad picked one out while I went to the ATM to get the money. By the time I returned he'd put that first one down and picked out another, who we eventually named Rascal. Here's an early shot of Dad and Rascal in out back yard in Ft. Worth.



That's a golf ball he's playin' with. Our cat, Charley, can be seen surveying the situation, in the garden right in front of the Bike tire. Eventually these two became fast friends, and would lay around the house or yard chewing on one another playfully.



Most of this relationship developed while I was a way on ships. I'd come home and Rascal would have grown bigger, and the play time between he and Charley would have grown more hilarious.

Rascal was really dad's dog while I was away, and we think that their relationship, and the daily walks with both the dog and cat, helped my dad get over a jolt of open heart surgery that he'd had just before we got the dog. That's right, the cat would go on walks with them. People in the neighborhood were always amazed to see this old man, his dog on a leash, and a yellow cat following along. We've got it on video. One of these days I'll have it converted to digital and post it.

Eventually I stoped going out on the ships, and Raz became more my dog, as I spent more and more time playing with him. He was a great friend. Here's a shot ow us playing with his squeaky toy. He's trying to get it from me and I'm trying not to lose an eye as he comes at me with those paws. Fun times.



Anyway, inevitably, Rascal got older as time went by, and his health declined. We eventually realized that he was going deaf, and was slowly loosing the use of his back legs. I resisted the inevitable, wanting to try to get him some of those wheels that you see dogs using, but mom and dad made the call. It was time.

I knew from the memories of handing Wrinkles off to a vet, and the look on his face, watching me as he was walked away, that this time I'd hold Raz myself while these strangers gave him the shot. He was old and arthritic by then, but as he slipped away, all the tension in his body was lifted from him and he was the same old boy that he'd been years before. I stood there for a while, talking to him and petting him, and then mom and I walked away. I didn't erupt into tears till we were driving back in the car. I can't imagine a greater grief, probably because I still have both my parents with me.

I've got a house full of cats now, picked up while I lived in the cliff dwellings (apartments) before buying this house. I wake up on a bed full of pooties every day.



Love them to death, but there's nothing like the love of a dog. I'll have one again some day, and it'll be another pug. Part of me wants a big dog, but I think you need a big yard to really give a dog like that the life it deserves. Maybe one day I'll build a place out on my property, seventeen acres, and turn into one of those old guys with a huge pack of critters. Can't imagine a better way to go.