HNT #40 - Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend! (AND Good Insurance)

Isn't this a beautiful ring and lady's hand on top of an obviously hairy-male forearm? Well, it IS HNT-copacetic -- it's MY dark-blond hairy forearm. And the diamond is brand new, presented after years of anticipation from her fiance to the sweetest WingHouse Mom I know! She was kind enuf to pose with me & allow me to post this pic anonymously on my Blog, and she's the best friend of my Top Doggie/ #1 WH-Bartender I may have mentioned a few thousand times in the past!

This sweet young mom has been committed to the relationship with her baby's Daddy, and very patiently has been waiting him out while she works WH, goes to school to become a Registered Nurse (smart & doing very well there), partying only occasionally with her close friends, and giving great care to her little girl & her fiance!

I am very happy for this nice couple, and it's good to see their relationship come to fruition. She just got her engagement ring (a full carat!) on Sunday and I'd love to show you her pic with ear-to-ear beautiful happy-smile! I promised her anonymity though but, rest assured, her pretty, smiling face IS inspiring and infectiously makes one instantly happy at HER happiness!

I love this pic! It does two things with opposite ends of my life! It reminds me of the first diamond ring I ever gave a girl I loved, and it reminds me of the LAST diamond ring I ever gave another girl I loved as she finally becomes truly independent from a serious ex-bf relationship!

HNT #39 - Legally Blonde, the Musical

Just went out to see this great comedy, "Legally Blonde, the Musical" today at Ruth Eckerd Hall for the Performing Arts in Clearwater, FL. If you have seen either of the Legally Blonde movies, you have the basic gist of the story but this has relevant songs to tell the story. The "road show" has younger performers (20-somethings) which is perfectly suited to this musical about Elle Woods who's graduating college and leaving her Delta Nu ("valley girl") sorority sisters for Harvard Law to reclaim her ex-bf.

This was my first time out in a long time -- last one was Ruth Eckerd Hall for ZZ Top a year ago. (I gotta get out more!) The crowd was predominantly (predictably) teeners & 20-somethings (& parents, in many cases.) So the audience was receptive from the get-go and enjoyed the performance and showed it with applause throughout. More teeners wore pink (Elle's "signature color") than anyone, and I was the only guy I saw in a pink shirt (C'mon, I HAD to wear it!) But the storyline explained that the only men who wear pink are GAY! Oops, MY bad! The storyline continued to say, "OR are EUROPEAN!" So that became my joke, "I'm not gay, I'm European!" when anyone seemed to notice my pink shirt.

I was disappointed when I got to the souvenir kiosk! They haven't produced DVD's of this Broadway show yet altho they had thousands of the original Reese Witherspoon movie in DVD. I think they misjudged the MOVIE sales cuz surely everyone who was interested in paying $40 - $70 for a seat already had seen the same DVD at home. But the kiosks DID have classy T-shirts and a CD for $20 of the original Broadway cast recording of Legally Blonde, the Musical! It has all the songs & gives an accompanying libretto with all the words -- I am going to sit down and read each word as I listen to the songs so that I can finally catch some of the lines I missed during the stage action! I should mention that the stage action especially kept MY attention! Very shapely bodies in slightly revealing costuming that was tres college-sorority-girl chic. The props & scenery were excellent in appearance and ingeniously movable! And the singing voices were all very good! The whole show was highly entertaining and especially enjoyable if you let yourself get swept into the "Elle Woods mindset!"

Of course, this matinee let out at suppertime and I had to pass by the Palm Harbor WingHouse on the way home. Naturally, I stopped for supper and traded hugs with all the 20-something Easter Bunnies working the WingHouse, one way or another. But that is another story for another time.... Hope you had a Happy Easter, too! Hop-Hop-Hop!!! Daddy Rabbit's outta here!

HNT #38 -- My eBay Win!

So FUCK the Russians!!

I had been all hot to trot to get a Russian sidecar having a military history from WW2 and I laid a $1500 deposit down on a Ural with the FL sales rep in Miami (a friendly Cuban-American cop selling motos on the side), and the HQ in Redmond/Seattle headed by a couple of Russians.

Apparently the Russian mindset is just the same as during the cold war -- even those living in America seem to have the totalitarian mindlessness which will keep them from thriving in a free enterprise economy. They stopped importing & producing Urals as their solution to the world economic slowdown: keep their last-year-model motorcycles in their showrooms until sold without any current year's!

Good enough for Russian Ivans in Siberia maybe, but not for this half-Dutchman middle-named "Ivan" in sunny Florida! When they couldn't even guarantee a delivery date 6 weeks ahead, I got my deposit back. The Cuban-American in Miami kept his word and sent it ALL back -- but the Russians are screwing his business outlooks with their medieval understanding of American economics and consumers!
I had to resort to eBay Motor Sales! My eBay win is a USA product, a good ol' Harley-Davidson with Velorex sidecar kit added on! It cost me just 1/2 of what the Russian Ural would have! Granted, it's a reworked '86 Sportster, but it has an upgraded engine from 800 to 1200 cc as well as a bright but impossible color for the Russians to consider: GOLD! Go Figure! The Russians offer Americans each of their models in only 1 or 2 colors, mostly dark & unsafe. Not consumer-oriented enough for the American proletariat, I assure you, Ivan!

Furthermore, Urals have piddlin' after-sales support and repair contractors -- one I called tried to talk me into buying an American bike instead of the Russian one, and the guy was a contracted repair service rep for the Ural company in Florida!! Harley-Davidson is probably TOO consumer-oriented with their trendy Harley franchise shops which are overly expensive except for parts and repairs. BUT they are smart about Americans cuz they ARE Americans.... since 1903!!! [I am obligated to start spouting a little of the Harley jingoism now, aren't I? Even tho I didn't buy my bike AT the Harley shop. ;-) ]

Above, I show you a mostly clothed, windswept ME by my Harley sidecar up near Savannah, GA where my younger son & I drove to pick up the bike & custom trailer that the owner also sold me. Too bad Daytona bike week had just ended before I had something to pull the bike there! But I need some time to learn how to master the sidecar driving which is very different from the regular lean-and-turn driving of a solo motorcycle! As soon as I replace the gear shift rubber cover by my left foot, I'm gonna start driving it around our MH Park to master the turning. Won't my neighbors LOVE me? I won't go nuts though -- besides, our speed limit is 15 mph in the park! You'd better believe there ARE also speed bumps everyfuckingwhere!

My latest tats, now, but see HNT below this one. Like my WingHouse #1-favorite said, "You're getting all tatted up!" (I think she likes them, too.) A week ago, I got the best tattoo artist I've ever seen to add my two combat flying medals below my AF Academy Falcon class-crest tat. In the middle, he wrote the names of the four countries in which I have had my ass shot at for the good old U.S.A.! (I only got to shoot back in 2 of those countries, BTW!)

Actually, they WERE LITERALLY shooting at my ass because we were overhead in the air and they were on the ground shooting UPwards. Well, shooting at my ass or my GONADS! Difficult to tell the diff from 3000-6000 feet below my sidefiring gunship! The medal with a propeller-cross is the Distinguished Flying Cross and the other with the diving, screaming eagle is the Air Medal. Repeat awards are signified by little bronze oak leaf clusters superimposed on the ribbons, but I left them off to avoid confusion and cluttering the tattoos. I have other medals including a Meritorious Service Medal but I wanted to show the specific combat-flying decorations and keep the larger tattoo aesthetically pleasing.

Inking the little details that Mike Sizemore of "Wicked Ink" in Clearwater, FL did so well reflects his 15 years' tattoo artist experience. Even HE said these were "challenging," but I've received numerous compliments on them in only the one week I've had them! See what YOU think! Check the detail in such a small, compact tattoo-space.

I'll try to find the first ink outline that Mike laid out before he started the heavy work. Some of you have liked seeing intermediate steps visually sort of like I like seeing some of YOU visually (heheheh)!

If I can find it, I'll add it as a PS below the finished pieces here. When you click-enlarge these you should be able to appreciate the superb detail & shading Mike gave them. He's well worth the $150/hour he charges! (There are good artists who charge less ($90-100/hr) if ya shop around--Just not THIS good!)
PS: I DID find the earlier tat pic where Mike had first inked in the outlines on the stencil of his drawing which was placed on the arm here. He is the first I've seen use this technique and I think it adds to his higher quality tats. It helps him get those straight lines perfectly straight using guidelines during the main tattooing. I didn't get a chance to look over the drawing for the stencil tho' before he applied it & you should always do that to see if the stencil looks exactly like what you want (things often get misdrawn from your expectations & it's a pain to correct things in an adjustment session 2 weeks later -- you HAVE to wait for it to heal before "touching up.")
Notice this pic shows a chart of Chinese characters on the wall with translations below--if you want one tattooed, they can do it from this or from online sources.