Somethings are better seen when they are in your rear view mirror....

This will be my last entry for a while. I am going on a sabbatical until spring....... Don't worry! I'm not dying, I didn't just find out I'm some baby's daddy and I'm not going into rehab so don't get all concerned... I just have some stuff I need to get worked out...... It will all be groovy, I'm not the most religious guy in the world BUT I do know there's someone upstairs because they have gotten me out of a few jams in my life.

So set you phaser guns to FUN because it's time for a wild and wacky time with Andy......
Let me ask you, had enough of politicians "pissin' on your back tellin' you it's raining"?? Well you're in luck because Joe the plumber asked me to update my blog and try to help the country heal mentally.... So here we go!!!!

Things are starting to whine down here at casa de McBride. One of the last things I will do before I hibernate for the winter is cut the roses back because Grandma McBride told me to do it. She is the plant guru.....

I tell ya!!! I am becoming the master of blogs!!!!! I know I did this last entry but I have become a Jedi so from now on I will have all before and after shots in a slide show so you just have to hit the play button!!!! You can thank me by buying me a beer next time I see you.... P.B.RmeA.S.A.P!!!!


I went to Singer's wedding and had a BLAST! I saw some people I have not seen in years!!!!!! I could easily set up a montage of 'then and now' pictures but I believe in a little thing called karma. I have no problem making fun of myself so I put a picture of what I looked like back in 1987....

That's a sweet mullet isn't it?? Business in the front and PARTY in the back!!!!


So back to Singer, his house is like totally awesome! He lives right next to Mr. Burns..... Get this!?!? The nuclear plant pays for his garbage, water and cable!!!! Gotta love it!!! Heck!!! I'd live there too if they paid for all that stuff!!!

OH YEAH!!!!! Lookin' good!!!!

Sooo?? Let me ask you fine people out there, what woman DOESN'T look great on their wedding day???? OK maybe this one is the exception...

I also went to the redneck riviera, Gatlinburg, with my friend Renee...

Pretty hot huh!!!! I only hang out with girls that win beauty pageants!!! We went hiking and I fell and sprained my knee pretty bad but I was half way down the mountain and I had to put on my big boy britches and limp the rest of the way down..... It was a wake up call for me... I needed to start working out again and stretching. So I went and bought myself a Wii Fit and I highly recommend that anyone reading this to go out and get one!!!! So every morning I workout. I can now do yoga and I'm not a hack-e-sack kickin' hippie!!!! "Let's do a drum circle dude..".

Well that's all for me.... I will talk to you crazy kids in a few months.... I leave you with a quote from Casey Kasem, "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars."

And when I die..........

This is a bonus entry for ya if you can find it and you don't mind reading and not seeing any pictures..... I need to write this down so I will never forget the way I'm feeling right now..... I went and saw my grandpa at the nursing home and consider myself a man but I have been on the verge of crying ever since then...... I'm not sure he recognized me at all and could hardly talk...... I'm pretty upset that a man who was so strong mentally and physically up until now doesn't have much of a mind anymore and is very feeble looking.... More than likely this will be the last time I see him so I made it a point to tell him that I loved him....... I know I have said it before but the cycle of life sure can suck!!!!! OK!!! I promise the next entry I write will be funny and have pictures..... Have a good night...

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto....

Phase II has begun and been completed....... Give me a rake and shovel and I can accomplish anything!!! Of course it took me a while but I got it done...... Great Caesar's ghost!!! I returned the Bobcat almost a month ago and while I am out there spreading gravel I think about how I would of had all of it spread out in a freakin' day if I still had it. Oh well........ So thanks to Picasa I created a little movie for ya so sit back with your bag of popcorn and enjoy the show....

Pretty sweet huh?? Can you say Oscar????? OK so it isn't a full blown movie with actors, special effects or a scrip but like an oriental massage parlor it does have a happy ending!!!!!!! Almost everyday after work I would come home and spend an hour out there. It has taken me about a month to finally be able to move the boat on to it but if you ask me it was well worth it...

And now let's talk a little about the ditch....... Now don't get me wrong, I love when we get some rain but we had two days straight of the heavy kind. I think it was remnants of a hurricane. Anyways, look what it did.....

So to fight all the dang erosion I dumped a bunch of mulch on both sides and don't tell Boike but I planted some ivy too.... He thinks I have a problem with my love of the stuff...

Oh and look what happened to my truck..... Dale, that's the guy at the dump that loaded the truck up with mulch, dinged it with the loader.... Did I get all worked up??? Nope. Maybe if I was a little younger but hey let's put it in perspective. It's an old truck!!! Wait!?!? Let me make that statement again. IT'S AN OLD TRUCK!!!! Stuff like that happens to a vehicle you use to haul stuff..... Maybe I am too laid back but I really didn't care much.


HECK...... I'm the same guy that still has not fixed my other car and this happened 2 years ago.....

So gas prices gotcha down!?!?!?! No prob! Mr. MPG, miles per gallon, is here to help..... Buy my product now and I'll include this set of Ginsu knifes....

There isn't a special product that you can buy to get better MPG. Remember this: The fastest you can go is 60 mph before your MPGs go into the crapper..... Trust me.... I went online and researched it.

Well I hope y'all have a good one. I'm off to Mark and Melissa's wedding up in OH...

Remember them? He bought her a pink snowmobile!!!!!


It should be a blast!!! I'll be seeing people from my hometown that I have not seen in years..... And then i'll be heading over to see my grandparents...... I'll talk more about that later.... All I can say is the cycle of life sure can suck.....

"Houston... That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

All this time I thought the ditch would be the end of me but with help from Boike, a rented Bobcat, a couple cases of the nectar of the Gods, PBR, and a good back bone I choke slammed the ditch into submission! This is not the first time the dynamic duel got together to fight the evil forces of the world!!! This was like 15 years ago at the love shack baby love shack, I mean the lake house. You show me someone that graduated from CCHS in 1992 and I will show you a person that took part in 'extra curriculum activities' down there..... Anyways, a big tree fell on it and we were commissioned by Mr and Mrs. Boike to tear it down and boy did we!!!!!

That's my truck at the time being used to knock a wall down. MMMMM To be young and care free again!!!!!

OK...... The first thing I had to do was have all the utility lines marked so we didn't accidentally rupture the gas line while digging!!! KABOOM!!!! Get this..... I went to this web site in the morning and filled in my info... I was thinking it would take them at least a week to come out and mark them all but to my amazement, when I came home from work that afternoon they were all marked!!!! SWEET!!!!


Next up.... Getting the Bobcat..... I made it very clear to the guys at the place I rented it that I had never operated one before. The guy said with a little chuckle "That's no problem... It will take me about five minutes to show you how to use it and I guarantee you'll be driving it like a pro in the first half an hour." Sure enough he was 100% right!!!!

I unloaded it and I was off faster than a prom dress..... I started working on the side of the house where I keep the boat. Remember this?

Well that is what happens when your tires are sitting on the ground. The soil sucks all the moisture out of them... I leveled it and I will be having a load of gravel dumped in there.


The next night Boike came and we took part in drinkin' some PBR...... I love sitting in the rocking chairs out on my huge front porch and talking about the same stuff we talked about the last time we saw each other. GOOD GOD we are old men! He was telling me about how much fun Mese, his wife and him had at the Poison show. If I recall he told me that she was wearing a tub top that said 'spring break 86'. And this is me giving my approval!!

We started out bright and early the next morning by taking out all the RR ties I put in there last year...

Don't let the looks fool ya. I took this picture when I first put them in and you're right, I had a pretty good lookin' start to it but trust me. It was a downward spiral after that.... Anyways, we took them all and threw them in the back yard for the time being.


Then the digging and leveling off began....


OH YEAH!!!!!!! It's 10am!!!! You know what that means!?!?!?!?! It's time to take our Teamster break with a couple of cold ones....


We learned to take a 'real' break from our good friend Gary who was a Teamster for like 30 some years. You want some good entertainment!?!?!?! Watch those two yahoos 'discuss' unions after each of them has had a few alcoholic beverages... Boike's anti and Gary is pro union... It's better than watching any presidential debate you have ever seen.



After our break we started building a retaining wall around my water line. We decided that digging directly on top of it would not be in my best interest. How nice would it have been if none of my neighbors on the street had running water for the day because it had to be shut off so the water company could fix the line I ruptured!?!?!? They all would have loved me!!!! Neighborly hospitality!!!!


After that we leveled out the ditch so the slope was not that drastic. So it was this...

And now it's this...

Up next was a trip to the local feed & seed store Elgin's for a few bales of hay and some seed, rye and brown top millet, that would start right a way. Let me tell ya folks, go and support your local feed & seed store because they know a lot more than any of those lawn and garden BIG BOX stores..... You might save a little bit of money if you go to Lowes, Home Depot or Walmart but you'll be lucky to get someone that knows what the sam hell they are talkin' about......

So up next was spreading some seed then hay. We got rye and top millet because the stuff grows fast and helps fight erosion. We also used a few of the bails and steaked them where the water runs so they slow the flow down which also helps with erosion. Don't worry, they are not permanent. I'll keep them in there until there is a good cover of grass and the dirt is compacted enough.

That was enough work for one day..... We got cleaned up and my parents came down and we cooked out with some steaks. All catered by Kate McBride catering service!!! HE HE HE HE HE HE!!! Her and pops brought everything down for a feast fit for a king!!!! WOO HOO!!!! I didn't have to do anything!!!! I told Boike that he was lucky they came down and served up dinner because if they didn't he would have been lucky if I threw in a frozen pizza in the oven for him.... We spent the rest of the evening chilling out on the front porch. I was soooooo tired that I fell out of my rocking chair...... That's my story and I am stickin' to it!!!!

The next morning we focused on the side yard. We touched it up a little bit and then placed some RR ties as a border and laid some weed barrier down. I'm getting a dump truck load of gravel on Friday. It will look real puuuuuurty then.


Then came the area where we built the retaining wall..... I moved the bush you see on the left of the picture and centered it and also planted some ivy to spread.... That stuff rules!!!!! It's fast growing and covers up all of the imperfections..... It's the Toupee of landscaping... HMMMMMMM!?!?! I might go over to my brother's house and take some of the ivy growing up the retaining wall?????? That sounds like a plan to me!!!!! MORE IVY!!!! I'm a ivy-holic!!!!

Now your going to get my two cents on this whole experience..... I highly recommend you go and rent a Bobcat if you are doing some landscaping!!! Trust me! Your back will thank you!!! I stacked all those RR ties in the back yard in less than a half an hour...

When you realize all the stuff you can get accomplished when you rent one it's a no brainer..... It's money well spent.....

Look what I found on You Tube!!! See those trees in the background? I live on the other side of them. You can hear the cars if you were outside but if your just sitting inside watching TV then you can hardly hear them...

I started out by telling you that Boike and I tore down the old lake house years ago... Well Boike's younger brother and his family just built a house out there..... The original built by Sanford and Son.



And the new one!!! I'd say it's a little bit better then the shack that use to be out there.

And look who made a magazine cover!?!? None other than my wacky sister in law Princess Leia.... You want my opinion? Well I don't care, you're going to get it anyway.... The best picture is on page 4!!! It's an action shot of her singing karaoke!!! I think she is singing an old Milli Vanilli song......

And before I sign off I just wanted to mention that no you are not tripping on anything, I changed the background to blue..... That's right!! I added some spice to my blog!!!!! OH YEAH BABY!!!! I also want to apologize that it took me so long to post a new entry but I have had computer issues.... The dang thing died and I am having it looked at. Plus all of my pictures and stuff are on the that computer and I had to scramble to find or take other pictures and there are other 'issues' that caused a delay too...... Anyways, enough of my whinning. Have a good one and I will talk to y'all later.......

HULLABALOO!!!!!!!

My aunt and God mother, although she had forgotten that part until I reminded her of it like 5 years ago, Nancy informed me that she enjoys the pictures on my blog but she is not too sure about all the hullabaloo I write about. That silly lady had me confused. I didn't know what that word meant. So my aunt Kathy informed me of what that word meant as well as told me that there was a show with that name back in the 60's. LIKE GROOVY MAN!!!!!

Now that we are straight with the meaning of hullabaloo it's time for another entry on the best BLOG on the net!!!!!

Now for like 15 years, give or take a few years when I was in WI. or the Boikes were in Co., we would spend July 4th on Lake Wylie at the Boike Lakeland, MMMMMMMMMMMM!!!! Great times, I went up to the Boike farm up in Va.. Sure it was weird not being down at the lake but hey things change, HELLO THAT'S LIFE! In all it was a good time and I realized that no matter where we are for the 4th there will be someone that can't handle their alcohol and yells obscenities to people then passes out... No this is not the person. I forget her name. This was from a couple of years ago when she yelled at Mr. Williamson and I because we told her that she was too drunk to waterski. She cussed us out then promptly passed out..... AHHH Good times!!!!! Anyways! It was a male this time and he carried on the tradition of, someway or another, upsetting almost everyone there.... It would not be a July 4th without one!!!!! I want to apologize that I have no pictures of my trip up there because being the idiot I can be sometimes I forgot to charge the battery in my camera before I went up there. So you'll have to take my word that I had fun... We even went to the Shenandoah river and floated down it...... That was a blast!!! Chilling out in an inner tube and drinking a beer is the best cure that ails ya EVER! I gave some old beer signs and NASCAR stuff I had accumulated over the years and I thought they would be perfect to give to Hatcher as my contribution to the 'Man Room'. Being that Boike was the only person who actually responded to my request for what the heck I should do with the side yard, he won the magnet/'to do' list.... I do not have a picture of him accepting his award, HECK I even forgot to bring it up with me when I was up there. I guess I will mail it to him. His suggestion was to lay stone down... The other side of the house has 'issues' too with not growing grass and looking nasty so Mom got me some ivy to plant... I figure it will cover this whole area in a few years.... As you can see the rose garden has a problem with the soil staying in one place. I don't know about your neck of the woods but we have had some pretty fierce thunderstorms around here and it has rained so hard that the my gutters overflow and spill over onto the ground.... But besides that everything is growing pretty good. The Wii has been great to play!!!!! It comes with a boxing game that kicks your butt!!!! The workout you get playing it is better than any membership to a gym.... I also got a WWII game that is sweet too.... I ask you? How can you go wrong killing Nazis?????? Exactly!!! You can't!!!! Next month's entry will be all about the eye sore I mean ditch in the front. I have big plans that include A Bobcat, Boike, some RR ties and a case or two of PBR. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and liberate a French town and kick some Nazi butt!!!!! ACHTUNG BABY!!!!

MULCH-A-PALOOZA

Gas is $4 a gallon now but I still love having my truck!!!!! BEHOLD!!!!! A 1997 F-150 with a 5.8 V8!!!! It drinks gas faster than an alcoholic who has not had a drink in two days!!!! But I wouldn't change a thing!!! When it's time for mulch all I do is go the the dump and pick up a load and start spreading it!!!!



Pretty sweet deal!!!!! Sure does beat going to Lowes or Home Depot and buying a 2 Cu. Ft. of the stuff for $5.00!!!! Can you say "rip off"!?!?! If I say so myself, I think the old F-150 still looks great for all the stuff it's been through like going through a WI. winter and then being loaded down and towing a Mustang for a 15 hour trip when I moved back here in 2001, pucked in, slept in, plus hauling a boat around and going to and from Talladega, MMMMMMMM dega, towing a Scotty.


HE HE HE HE!!!! I found a picture of the day I got it back in 12/98..... WOW!!!! That was almost 10 years ago!!!! Where does the time go???????


OK! Back to the subject of mulch..... I finished the front of the house as well as around the trees.


I know, I know....... The bushes need to be trimmed..... I'll do that next weekend.... Patients young Jedis..... I have a couple more areas to cover like the side of the driveway and another area and that will be next weekends project.... Here's the deal with the mulch.... I put it in areas that grass doesn't grow.....

SOOOOOOOOOO As most of you know I was pretty sick in May and didn't get a chance to go up to the Boike farm in VA. but rest assure!!! I'll be heading up there for July 4th weekend for some fun!!!!! Have a great Independence Day weekend....