Bazooka-Joe
Reno, NV, United States

My Space Site
See my Blogger profile

iTunes I'm Diggin On Today:

• "Photograph" by Weezer
• "Dani California" by Red Hot Chili Peppers
• "Seven Spanish Angels" by Ray Charles
• "Always Love" by Nada Surf
• "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab For Cutie
• "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers

My Links:

• My Monthly Songwriter's Column
• My Myspace Site
• My Bass Gear
• The Official Shotgun Rules
• Coming Soon - Some Christian Music Reviews I Do
• So funny they shouldn't even be allowed to update it weekly

My Friends:

• Go Off the Main Road with Dan
• Come Ride the C-Train
• You Drank What? - Pecadillo's Brainchild
• Michael Sorensen, A Watercolor Genius
• Challies Blog
• The Doulogos, for some real "deep thoughts" and Biblical Perspective

I wrote that first chapter in 1999 as part of a college assignment for a Tech school English class. English classes in Tech schools are funny things. They’re necessary for official accreditation however, it’s not exactly their prize-winning roses, either. It’s a bit like grabbing the steamed carrots in the buffet line to make your selection look well-rounded; even though you and I both know the cafeteria ladies are going to get a kick out of disposing of our untouched bowl of steamed carrots along with the cheesecake and fried chicken remains. This English was particularly a funny thing. The teacher broke her ankle in a “skiing accident” within the first three weeks of class and insisted on wearing shorts to class and then sitting in a rather inappropriate matter (long story and a rabbit trail not worth expanding upon). Anyway, shortly after she began taking a collection for some sort of charity fund. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention at the time so I couldn’t tell you what the fund exactly was. She raised quite a bit of money I understand. One student was so touched she gave $300.00 to the fund. One morning a student accidentally left her purse in this teacher’s class. The teacher took the money, the purse and fled to Canada in a Hertz rental car. I guess the point I’m trying to make is maybe we should all pay a little more attention to those steamed carrots….or not bother putting them on our tray in the first place.

My perspective on life has changed some since that first chapter (which I fully intended to be the last without losing a wink of sleep). Despite her minor character flaws (dishonesty, theft, indecency among what I hope is not too many others) this “teacher” may have been on to something with requiring the class to start their auto-biography. So, with some minor reluctance, I’m going to expand a little bit on this thesis and see where it goes.

My fiancé and I both agreed that October was entirely too long to wait. So we got married on July 20th, 1999. It was a Saturday and the nearest to glitch-free I’d ever seen a wedding accomplish. Aside from the stage nearly catching fire by an over zealous candelabra, it went relatively smoothly (sounds worse that it was). The reception was great. I think. I honestly don’t remember as much as I thought I would about the whole day. The reception was held in the acre backyard of an elderly woman from the church. My dad played bass in the wedding band and enthusiastically led the party in “Don’t Gimme No Lines and Keep Your Hands to Yourself”. Cute. The cake was overkill and the ice cream was a huge hit, typifying the July wedding.
When we returned from the honeymoon I began looking for a job. I had an internship in college with a local government agency working on their computer networks. And although they had offered me a permanent full time position, I turned it down and took a job running the computer network of a small, 10-branch, local credit union. My boss, as I came to discover, was a smug, formal, homosexual, spineless guy trying to talk himself out of his receding hairline. He made promises he did not keep. He made commitments and committed others to more than he/we were capable of fulfilling. He never once stood up for those under him and always caved and took the side of those providing the pressure. He took credit for our work and lied to upper management about our progress. I was there one year before I accepted a position at the local hospital running the computer network systems there. I like it there. My boss is great and I think I’ll stay and work my way up the ranks, despite the fact that one of my cow-orkers is a pimple on the face of progress and refuses to get out of her chair and do anything. But that’s for another chapter. I’ve been very happy with my marriage thus far. We’ve had our fair share of disputes, arguments and yes, even fights. But so did Ricky and Lucy, Ronald and Nancy, Papa and Mrs. Smurf, and on and on and on.

Bazooka-Joe made it so at 8:28 PM