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Just another day…..

Soooooo about a week ago or so, someone pointed out that my back tail light was out and like any man I put it off until the following weekend. Then I put it off till the following weekend after that and this weekend I finally went and got me a set of bulbs. Just a little man note here: If you replace one bulb go ahead and replace the other one; A) Buying two bulbs is cheaper than buying one at a time and B) The other one is most likely about to go out…..trust me it has happened.

I broke out the handy dandy tool bag and went to work, replacing bulbs on KIA’s really is not that hard but it is a pain in the ass. The front headlight do require small nibble fingers, much like that of a child or a small women, you know like the people who probably built these! Ha, I joke my car was built in Georgia!

I pop off the tail light with bulb in hand and right away I see something wrong……..

Can you guess which bulb is the new one? I have replaced many bulbs in numerous types of cars and I have never seen a bulb turn black! So now my WTF hat is on, I replace the bulb and test it…..nothing. I take off the housing again but this time look closer, and see that the actual bulb housing is also burnt!

After some Google searching I find that I am going to have to replace the whole thing….great! But luckily there are all kinds of places to get KIA parts, or what they are calling KIA ‘LIKE’ parts. I am one to go cheap on my bread, no named peanut butter and even get the Kirkland brand from Costco. Which by the way is damn good but here is not the place to go cheap. So, off to the actual KIA web site I went and bought my part. The only real down side to this was if I wanted the part NOW I was going to have to pay! Pay like $300 extra for speedy delivery, or I could pay $17 and wait a week…..well I have made it this far without the damn thing I guess I could save some cash and just wait.

Take the good with the bad I guess; the part is on order, I am not going to have to pay the dealership their marked up part plus labor, I bought two bulbs that I did not need but I now have two bulbs for future use.

After everything was said and down I did celebrate with some Guinness, I have wanted one since St. Patty’s day! I went to three/four stores on Saint Patrick’s day and they were sold out of Guinness! I must say as I have gotten older this has slowly become one of my favorite beers, I swear my genes are slowly dictating my drink of choice….I was a Johnny Walker man but now I am slowly singing the love of Jameson. Ha!

I have found myself pondering what I want out of this site and for the time all I want is a place to blog and bitch. I keep seeing different post on how to boost your web page traffic and how to make money with your page, and for the time I am not really all that concerned with that. Maybe after I have been doing this for about a year or so and I have some real content I will look to taking this to the next level. I am here to just have fun and finally have my own internet page.

I love the fact I actually have a place to call my own and can come in and infect anyone that happens to come across my page. That idea tickles me pink, and maybe someday it will become more than the pathetic ramblings of another want to be writer. But till then: Journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything. 

PS…..my wife pointed out that my ending line is redundant and I am fine with that, it is supposed to be. I want to reinforce the idea we all need to journal more, it helps on so many levels. Just getting our thoughts out of our heads has wondrous therapeutic properties!

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What is the meaning of life?

Good friends, good food, good conversation and good drink. This past weekend we had a party at a friends house, kind of a combo birthday party for multiple people. It was a family affair, and we are part of this family…we are honorary Mexicans! Not really, but that is the running joke after about 15 beers and 4 shots!

These are the family(s) that took in some strange white guy from the east coast and treated him like family from day one. We are beyond grateful, there are no words to express our gratitude to the Mendoza’s, Vera’s and the Gonzales’s. No matter what the occasion these families have come through for us. It was their idea to throw the one and only surprise party for Lilian a few years back that actually worked! She had no idea, it was awesome.

We have had our share of ups and downs, but in the end we have always come together to celebrate as a family. I will someday post about the one person I can honestly say was more inappropriate than myself and is, and always will be, the topic of much discussion around a table made up of beer cans and shot glasses. But till then, lets just say he is the reason we all can say ‘We are all family here’

Good times were had by all, as much food as one could handle, more drinks than you should ever have in one sitting and laughs that never seemed to end. I would like to share some of the pictures that were taken that day, they are in no real order. Chaos is always the order of the day in my world, enjoy:

It all fun and games until someone……well you know
I want you Gringo…..
There is always one casualty of kids playing….at least there was no blood
She is toooo cutie!
Fist of Fury…or hand cheese!
If I have to tell you what is going on here I cannot be friends with you
Not much to tell here, I just loved these colors

To wrap this life in pictures up I want to just say one last time: Thank you for taking us in and making us part of your world. There will be more post like this to come, the summer is coming and I hope to go out fishing, and since I have no clue on how that works they will be my guides to my next chip in my manhood merit badge!

So till next post; journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything. 

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Wisdom in my Food

The other day I went out to lunch with my coworker at the Golden Chopsticks in Pleasanton, Ca. Good place, two thumbs up and even a four star place according to Yelp! This is our go to place for lunch when we are craving Chinese, decent prices and its a short walk from the office.

And just like any good Chinese food restaurant they end the meal with fortune cookies. Most of the time I do not bother with them, they taste like sweetened cardboard and the little love notes are usually just vague words of nothing. But today I opened it and the note I found has had me pondering its meaning:

‘Be Definite Now, Worry About Precision Later’

My first passing thought was no, this is bad. That this would lead to double the work in the very near future, and anyone following this logic was doomed for making more work for themselves. I left the note on the table and walked away, leaving the fortune and its misguided wisdom. But something in me would not let this be; the restaurant had served me a writ and I could not let it go. My co-work had brushed it off much the same as I did, but I was still grinding it over.

I started to think about many of the decisions I have made in life and how this very phrase has actually been with me all this time. I have pulled the trigger on many things in my life and worried about the HOW later. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not, but what I did not have was that longing that I had wished I had of done that very thing. And to follow up on this very though I saw a quote posted on FaceBook:

‘I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done’ (That little tidbit of wisdom was brought to us by Lucille Ball )

And just like that, the little bit of thoughtfulness and poise found in cookie has come racing back into my mind. I was glad I took a picture of it before I left, I am not 100% sure as to why I took that picture but I am glad I did.

What this little note started in my head was a whirl wind, no it was a storm! I wanted to get it into words before it left me but between work, work and holy shit I want to go to sleep I have been putting it off. But in doing that it has given me time to ponder this post. Not actually work it out in way that would flow logically or grammatically, that is boring, but work it out to the point I had to sit down and make it real.

The very notion of the cookie’s words is why I now have this web site, I have been over thinking my blog for so long that just logging in gave me writers block. I was going to say anxiety but that would be going a bit too far, it was a stress and it did prevent me from doing it.

It was this stress that kept me from not being definite, it was worrying about the smaller parts that kept me from doing this sooner. I like blogging, I like telling stories, I like writing. It makes me feel accomplished. It is my art, I would love to be able to draw an awesome picture, paint a picture on canvas or even make a webtoon but my skills with these devices is blunt and unflattering. My writing is not much better but this is my art and I like it. After years of saying I wanted my own web page I finally did it, and here I am; working out the smaller parts.

What do I want from this page, where am I going to take it, how am I going to get there, when should I post, and why should I bother? These where some of the questions that kept running through my mind, but finally I just said Fuck IT and went to YouTube. I had no idea how this thing worked but thanks to YouTube I was able to navigate through some of the smaller details of the HOW. It was just up to me to figure out the rest. I am here for the therapy, the relief and for the fun of it. If it is not fun, why bother with it at all.

In the end I agree with the cookie, and yes there are times you need to have all your ducks in a row before you do something but do not let the ducks be the reason you never just said Fuck IT!
So till next post; journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything.

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The Struggle is Real!

It has taken me somewhere about 10 years to gain about 45 lbs, give or take. Once upon a time I was immune to weight gain and could drop weight just by thinking about it. But as time has gone on it has gotten increasingly harder to maintain and keep the weight off.

It really started when it I pull college into full time mode. I had been going part time while I was working but my job decided that it was time for a change. I got laid off from a job I had been at for 12 years. The bullshit excuse left a real bad taste in my mouth, they said I was ready for management but without a college degree I was not ‘qualified’ for the promotion. At the time I was working for Guardsmark, the company has since joined forces with three other companies to form on super company. I cannot speak to this new conglomerate but the old company was a glorified flashlight mall cop security service provider. Antiquated to the point of being comical, uniforms just as laughable and policies that remind me of a time that used carbon copy pink, yellow and white forms…..and yes they still used these back in 2010.

Now that I was now ‘free’ I put my school above all, and it paid off. Graduated with honors and all that jazz. Put all my skills, school, and past onto an awesome resume and set out west looking for a job. Long story short I found the job, several actually but finally found the one that was to be my current bread winner. And while all of this was going on I was not taking care of myself. I tried for a job as a cop so I was actually running for a while and lost a bunch of weight. But that fell through (story for another time) so the running became a distant memory. (Ps, I loath running)

The weight creeped up slowly, and in ten years I was having back problems, zero in the world of cardio, I no longer needed to wear a belt to keep my pants up and I could not breath when I bent over to tie my shoes. I was once a huge gym rat, even got a job at a gym so I could get paid to workout! So I am no stranger to the gym, hell I was a damn personal trainer once upon a time!

As of this last month I started the Keto Diet; I have read the good, the bad and the ugly of this diet. I was familiar with the Atkins Diet from years ago and always felt that this was the way to go, but I never put much stock into it. But as of today, I have lost a total of 10 lbs. This diet has shown me just how much bread, pasta, sugar and rice I have been eating. We went from buying four loaves of bread a month, to one! For the most part I was the one eating all the damn bread in the house!

I will say the first 2 weeks were difficult and I am not done with what I need to lose. I am at 235 and want to get to about 200. I have gotten the diet in check and now I am starting week three back into the gym, week one was all about being so sore I hurt to breath but since then things are just a little tight.

I know the Keto Diet is not perfect and it is not for everyone but for me it has shown me that I have been eating way too many carbs for the lifestyle I have grown into. I have made changes in that life and once I get this gut in check I will tapper off from this diet. I am not sure if this is a long term way of eating but I know that eating pizza, tacos, pasta, rice and loaves and loaves of bread is what got into my husky pants Ha Ha!

Find what works and stick with it, the one thing I have learned about a life time of yo-yo diets and exercise is that if you want to see real results consistency is the key!
So till next post; journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything.

Comical note here, this guy spent more time on his phone that he did with his weights. I cannt help but watch people, its what I do. Its like going to the zoo but way more entertaining!
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Jnco Jeans

I recently came across an old picture of me and my oldest son, Devon. The year was somewhere around 1999, the place was my mom’s old house in Linden New Jersey and the jeans where….JNCO’s!

Now, I will admit that I am stuck in the 90’s, that was my youth so it is hard to let that go! But I have let go of the hair styles, my beeper, the VCR, the Ford Station Wagon and even many of the styles, but the one thing I wish I had kept were my JNCO jeans. I love wearing jeans, they are my favorite thing to wear and JNCO’s have to be the most comfortable! .

Stock Photo I borrowed from a news article about the company going out of business last year JNCO 2018

The style is super dated but I would still rock the shit out of pair of JNCO jeans. I still have a pair of cargo pants made by Caffeine from those times but the JNCO’s were retired some time ago. You see, they were super baggy and super long so they dragged on the ground and they would get that cool frayed look. But they would also get that not so cool rip that would travel all the way up your leg look.

So I went on a search to see if someone was selling these, and the internet did not let me down! Prices ranged from about $80-$300, yeah…..I like the jeans but not that much ha! But if anyone is looking to be my very best friend here is what I am looking for:

JNCO on eBay

And I know I would totally look like ‘That Guy’ but as I have gotten older I finally understand ‘That Guy’. This was from a time when nothing hurt, life was hard but I had tons of energy, no grey hair and my waist was a 35…..but in all honesty I do not want to ever be that skinny again! Becoming ‘That Guy/Gal does not happen to everyone, I think it happens to guys more than girls, and I know there have probably been psychological studies on this but lets just say I see more That Guy than That Girl ha! And just to be clear I am not a lost cause to the 90’s, I have moved on with tech, fashion and to some degree music. We all know what we like and we all know what we love, wear it if it makes you happy and blast those tunes that have been now classified as ‘Classic Rock/Rap/Pop’at high volumes in local neighborhood!

So till next post; journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything.

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My Personal Journals

I have had numerous journals that I list as ‘Personal’. These are the ones that I write….well personal stuff! The large black one was started in October 2009, yes almost ten years ago! And I am still not done with it, I am not as consistent as I would like to be.

The other one I bough at a renaissance festival on September 1, 2012. I could not help it, I have an addiction and it had to be fed! This is my travel easy personal journal. I tend to keep this one with me at work or on trips. The journal itself is completely hand made, had sewn and bounded! So, yes I HAD to have it even though my other journal was still being written in!

Each one of these have my life stories, worries, thoughts and life events. They even have actual artifacts from some of these said events. I will be adding some of these as time goes on, they will be out of order and pop up in random post. Because that is kind of how my brain works….

I am going to share one of those stories along with a life artifact:

One night back in 2011 Doug (My brother-in-law) and I decided we were going to walk to a local watering hole, it was one of those places we always said that we were going to visit but never did. Well this was to be the night we took that adventure. The name of the bar is Nugent’s Tavern, it is in Elizabeth New Jersey and if you are a fan of beers, bar food and pool please visit. It is a small local bar located right off the sidewalk in your friendly neighborhood of Elizabeth. *wink wink*

So, the walk over was pretty uneventful. We get there and there is a pretty good crowd, so we mossy on in and plop ourselves down. There was nothing in the atmosphere that put us on our guard, hell I was pretty sure we were the only people in here that were not off duty cops! I currently did not have any warrants, all of Doug’s were from other states and we had not done anything yet!

So the night wore on, we slugged back the amber nectar of the gods, we joked with a few people around us, made our one night moment friends and all was good. But then I felt someone tap me on my shoulder, and I turn to my right. Nothing. I turn left thinking it was Doug, but what was before me confirmed it was not Doug. He was in handcuffs! I was rather drunk at this point so it really took about 30 seconds for me to register what was going on. And also the fact he was alone wearing handcuffs was messing with me. I mean, it would have made more sense if there were a group of cops holding him against the bar in handcuffs, but this was just….odd.

In my slow-mo state I do not think I even batted an eye, and then the owner of the cuffs came over laughed and unlocked him. Doug then thought it would be a good idea to challenge this joker. He wanted to see if he could unlock the handcuffs while locked in them. So he snapped the prong off one of the forks and then proceeded to fail at getting out of the handcuffs.

He was eventually let out of them and we all got a good laugh, drank some more and I swear I saw the same joker pinch Doug’s ass. But that might have been me making shit up, I have a horrible time with my memory and alcohol almost always makes things…fuzzy. Even to the point I might have a few detail mixed up, but it did happen and here is the souvenir of that night:

Good times were had by all, I have been back to this bar a few more times. But sadly that was the only real story from this place. There will be more stories to come and more post about my journals,

So till next post; journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything.

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My Journals

I have been wondering how I came up with the name to my site, I tried various other names but they were taken. But in the end I came to Journaled Times, and it got me thinking…..I have been journaling my whole life!

I got my first journal when I was about 9, and I had that journal well into my teens. I did not write in it very much so that is probably how it lasted so long. It seems I tend to write the most when under stress, you should see the one I had during my first marriage!

Sadly I do not have my first journal, during one of my many moves it was lost. But that is where my love of the written word began, There is just something about hand written notes, letters and journals that fascinate me. Maybe its the idea of how much effort one has to put into the creation of these items or the old lure from a time long since past when anything that was published was done by hand..

I have always admired people that have beautiful penmanship, my chicken scratch is legible but nothing worth bragging about. My writing is OK at best, but I like doing it so if you are a grammar Nazi you can go eat crow. I do not mind actual constructive criticism but if you are going to sit there and tell me my post is crap without helping me out, well….fuck you.

My writing style could best be described as free roaming I guess, and my ability would be best categorized and unorganized gobbley gook. But as I was pondering this post I thought I would gather all the journals I have and post a picture. I have journals for work (on the right hand side) and my personal journals (the other side..duh). My work journals consist of ‘How To’ manuals, my day to day work, projects, guidelines and doodles. And the funny thing about those journals, they are almost completely filled! Where as my personal ones have huge gaps, half filled and very neglected. In my personal ones I have my life journal (which is my third one since I was 19), my ‘How To’ cook notes, jokes, stories that I have been working on since I do not know when, my driving journal, and even one for job interviews. I will be posting more about each one of these, come to think of it I think that is how I follow up this post! I am glad I thought of that, thank you for coming up with that idea….I am welcomed!

I am still learning and feeling my way around the working of this web site thing. It is a little confusing but thanks to my friend YouTube I am making head way. I still need to clean up my site and figure out plugins, commenting, and other media stuff. But this is a working process and I feel the biggest hurdle has been past…..getting started.

So please stay tuned, my plan is to post multiple times a week. Everyone loves story time and I am full of stories, most of which begin and end with ‘Hold My Beer!’ In the coming post I am going to chat about my personal journals, because the work ones are pretty boring but I will get to them as well.

So till next post; journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything.
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Day one of many,

Family road trip: Me, the wife, motherinlaw, Seth (missing: Lucas and Devon)
This is my first post, and it has been an adventure getting just here! I have had a blog for almost 12 years but it has been collecting internet dust for probably about 2 years and the idea of going back and trying to re-blog and clean up 12 years of my stupid gave/gives me heartburn!
My first blog, which is still active FeelingStoopid , started off with a bang. I made actual friends on here that I am in still in contact with to this day. And in all honesty BlogSpot was the easiest web page to use. But it has it limitations and I want to try and take on more of the internet world.
I am the forever journaling boob, I love journals….I am currently trying to finish one that I started in 2009. It is one of the nice leather bound journals you find at Barnes and Noble. I blame my lazy and lack of focus but whatever the reason I am still writing in it. I also have various other journals I have started. Joke journals, book idea journals, my struggles with work journal and my most recent one my adventures as a Lyft driver journal.
So I am a bit of hack when it comes to writing, I am not very good at it but I like doing it. So this is my first test run with WordPress….lets see what happens!