Not going Brazilian BUT.....

 I am trimming and cleaning up the side woods on the right of the house and after finally taking 'my tree guy's', Thompson, advise, I took down the two Bradford Pear trees in the front yard. Any good arborist will tell you that the smaller 'crappy' trees that are growing around bigger ones, steal the water from the bigger, healthy, ones. I'm also taking two more trees that were pretty much randomly planted in areas of the yard by the previous owners.

 ATTENTION!!! 

 This was NOT just a 'weekend thing'!!! I have been working on this for years. The saying 'Rome was NOT built in a day' rings in my head every time I am out working outside. The picture below shows a car of my previous neighbor and he hasn't lived there for almost two years...

 I SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO wish I had these two little toys to show all the crappy trees around casa de McBride who is boss, ME DANG NABBIT but I don't. So I do a little bit at a time. I have been stung by fire ants, yellow jacket wasps, burned, destroyed a cell phone, damaged tools and basically been riddled with nagging pulled muscles while doing this. As you know, I have a SWEET chainsaw that I named Marvella BUT I am kinda nervous to use it with this CRAP that's going on with my brain BUT that doesn't mean that Boike can't use it!!! WOO HOO!!!! He uses that and I use my sawz all. Say hello to my little friend, NO it's not that big of a deal. it's just a sawz all with CHEAP pruning blades I get at one of those stores that sell really cheap stuff. There's a shocker huh? Cutting or chopping up trees is VERY therapeutic!!! I pretend the tree is a boss or someone that has pissed me off currently or in the past...

 As I have previously mentioned, Boike has come over a couple times and he and my big @$$ chain saw have also 'takin care of business' to some of the big trees that I can't do by myself... We also took out some of the 'CRAPPY' ones too!!! Words cannot express how much I loath holly trees that are on the property.
 

This is all that's left of that stupid maple tree. HA!!!! Being laid off ROCKS because I have all day to just add wood to the fire so it burns ALL DAY and NIGHT!!!

This is all that is left of the maple tree.

 I have created a system of cutting the crappy trees down,

• Cutting them in half with:
• one half I put in a pile to be split (FYI- one of these make splitting wood EASIER than a prom date) and given to my brother for their fireplace.

How the 'other' half live- casa de Mike and Liz

• the other half I just cut up and burn in DA ODE TO BOOB (my fire pit)
• The rest of the wood is donated to some guys that my neighbor 'suggested' I have come out to take some wood! They are a couple of boys from the 'back woods', the really far ones!!! They have a few teeth and really strong accents! They don't care what kind of wood it is because to quote one "it ALL burns".....

 This was just one side, the other side will get done, but not now.  Barb, my elderly neighbor, has 'HINTED' and kinda said that she likes the trees, no matter how crappy they are. She has said that she would 'HAUNT ME' if I took the holly trees down because she thinks they are so beautiful. Well I guess I am going to have a ghost because I am taking them down and I am very happy to. I DON'T have the heart to tell her that they are all on my property and I can do what the flip I want to do. So I will not work on that side for a while. I will act like she is my Grandma Cawley

And just smile and 'DEAL WITH IT' plus I am kinda sick of smelling like a fire...

 Being that I have cleared out crappy trees for the past couple of years, I have plenty of wood for 'DA ODE' AKA fire pit. So if you come over to chill, I will have a BITCHIN' fire for ya, it's how I roll!!!

Here it is:

 The picture on right was taken in the WINTER!!!! That is why everything looks brown!!! HELLO!!!


 In other news, I, and the rest of my department, got laid off last month..... Before you ask "WHAT are you going to do now?" I need to say that I have been planning/ expecting this to happen for a few years now, so I have saved some money AND THEY have to pay me (14 years of service) until DEC!!! GOD BLESS those silly bean counters in San Francisco or where ever the bank has them... So I will be okie dokie!!!!! Just to make sure I had my friend Carb look it over and advise me if there is something missing. The only thing that kinda upset me that day was seeing some people with the  'WHAT DO I DO NOW?' look on their face... POOR FOLKS! I just don't know what to do with all my spare time! I need to learn the word 'pace' so I don't do everything I want in a few days....  Basically I get paid to not come to work and just do projects on MY HOUSE!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!! I'm on VACATION until December BEEEEEOOOOTTTCHES!!!! I have quite a few reasons that you should NOT do business with ANY MONSTER MEGA BANK but being a 'Fortune 500' company, I know they have just a department solely full of attorneys whose only job is to sue people for slander, so I will save all of the fun stuff for a future blog post... I will only give you this link. Oh and it's not IF a monster mega bank screws ya, it's WHEN!! I DO have one story that happened there BUT it doesn't involve my former employer, BUT about a WHACKY couple that WELL, JUST READ IT!

 This is the way it went down and ‘others’ might have different versions and that’s OK. There will be NO NAMES because I do not feel like getting sued so I will refer to them as ‘person A’ and ‘B’.

 I’m pretty sure this happened in 2010, it was a Saturday morning and I was doing something around the house and I get a text from person A. Now I NEVER got messages from her because she was ABOVE me! She didn’t like other people knowing I had her # because she felt she was better then me. You see, we exchanged phone #s when we started working together so we all could stay in contact if one of us was out or something like that. ANYWAYS, the text was something to the fact of ‘if person B tries to contact you DO NOT reply’. I looked at it and said to myself OK but I had NEVER met person B before so he didn't even have my #..... So I went back to what I was doing. Well Monday came and person A came to my desk and started telling me stuff that went on with person B and how the cops got involved too. She also started showing me some bruises…. I was like, “WHOW WHOW WHOW!!!! Don’t show me anymore!” I was kinda freaked out. I have NEVER seen bruises caused by domestic abuse…. So she stopped but ‘emphasized’ to me again NOT to have any contact with person B. She is CUCKOO for CO CO Puffs so I really didn’t want to rile her up….. So a few weeks go by and I know there is ALWAYS two sides to the story and she is WHACKED and her version might be a little 'construed', also I feel sorta bad for person B because NO ONE will talk to him. So I decide to reach out to him because I’m a guy too and we all need to stick together…… I proceed to email him and tell him that when he is in a heated argument with a lady that he needs to just walk away and say, “we will talk about this later when we are both calmer” And other stuff, basically what an older guy would say to a young one…… He emails me back and says THANKS and he wants to show his appreciation by buying me a beer, WOO HOO!!!! As a red blooded American man, I could NOT say no to that. We met at a local ‘watering hole’ and he just starts from the beginning. He stated that 95% of the time things were great between them but there were times that ‘in his words’ “it was like a light switch” she would be fine but the next second she would start yelling and getting violent. She would claw him and grab him by the ears and get into his face and yell. He stated that he was sick of having to try to explain/lie to his parents where the scratch marks on his face came from. He would usually say they came from a construction project he was on. The night in question started out with a fight but QUICKLY went out of control. Like a forest fire started by a camp fire and quickly engulfing a couple 1000 acres. He is not sure how it started but it involved her slamming a door shut and him following her to the next room to confront her on why she just slammed a door. They start yelling at each other and she hit him or something that was physical. He looked me straight in the eye and said he “had enough of being a punching bag” and so he hit her back. Now if you saw him, he’s short BUT built…. Like Rocky… So I’m sure with one hit he knocked her down pretty good. She wouldn’t give it up, she kept on putting fuel on the fire. This lasted for a few hours and he finally had to call the cops to get HER out of his house. HA! When she was trying to tell me about what happened, she made it out that SHE had to call the cops on him. He told me that this is a ‘trend’ with her and that an older boyfriend that she had when she lived in CT. actually got so pissed that he cold cocked her and broke her nose. He then told me that her mom is whacked and has been married at least 4 times and her latest husband is a REAL ‘push over’ and does EVERYTHING she says. Kripes! He even said that person ‘A’ lived with her aunt and uncle for awhile because her mom and her did not get along too well, so looking at the situation, Person ‘A’ has some family issues. He begged that I don’t tell her that we met. I said “TRUST ME! I really don’t want to feel the wrath of her either so I WON’T say anything." He stated that he goes to see a therapist so he can manage his anger. I say to him “DUDE!!! I would have punched her too! There have been plenty of times where I wanted to ‘knock her into next Tuesday.” ANYWAYS, Steven (I use to work with him) will remember this; He decided to send her flowers at work!! He told me a week before that he was going to do it and asked what I thought. I told him to give it up and just 'WALK ON’ but NO!!!! He still sent them…..She proceeded to give them out to all the ladies on the floor. Steven and I saw the whole thing and then person B texted me asking how it went. I said NOT TOO WELL!!!! She gave them out to all the ladies on the floor. IDIOT!!! I made the HUGE mistake and mentioned that I talked to person ‘B’ and told him what a bonehead move the flower thing was. She didn’t say anything about it BUT 5 minutes later she comes to my desk and proceeds to REEM me out saying that she told me NOT to have any contact with him…. “Oh darlin’ the last thing I am worried about is you and your issues with an old ex.” CRAZY CHICK!!!" I think he was, and still is, hung up on her. Whenever we would talk he would ALWAYS ask about her. It got old quick! I would say MOVE ON MAN but there was something about her that he will ALWAYS be attracted too. After dealing with those two, I can see why they were together. CRAZY loves CRAZY! I knew right away that he was only using me because I talked to her daily and he wanted to know what she was up to. So I decided to use him by showing me how to tile my floor. You will see how that turned out later on in the story.

 Let's move ahead a few month shall we, NOW person ‘B’ is/ was a contractor and I was doing some stuff to my kitchen. He always told me that if I needed any help that he would help me out. Well I took him up on that offer when I was going to tile the floor of my kitchen. I never did that and I needed him to help/show me how to do it. During this time we had a very bad hail storm and it DESTROYED my roof. Well he came over to lay tile and said that he really needed the money from the roofing job, I SOOOOOOO have the email where he said that too, and wanted me to give it to him. So being the nice guy I am, I told him to send me a quote and he could start on it. WELL!!!!! The @$$ CLOWN ripped my whole roof off on a Thursday and DIDN’T install a new one until Monday! As you know, it’s ALWAYS a pretty good chance that we will get a thunderstorm in the afternoon during the summer. SO!!!! I was kinda freakin out and watching Doppler radar EVERY minute! He did a very half @$$ed job in ‘tarping’ the thing until a new roof was installed. Kripes! I had to go up there to adjust tarps that he didn’t secure enough and had moved. One time I freakin fell off my roof!!!! Just a lot of bruises! I was getting PISSED and he knew it because I was very short with him….. He acted surprised that I was upset. I said, “HELL YEAH I’M UPSET!!!! I don’t have an EFFing roof!!!!” I was sooooooo upset that I couldn’t eat until it was all done. FINALLY, the Tuesday it was FINALLY done. I paid him with the insurance $ I had and I think it’s the end of him. I pretty much decided to NEVER have any contact with the idiot again BUT. The jerk doesn’t PAY the roofing company so they put a freakin’ lien on my house! I email him and he says he will take care of it…. Let me tell ya, him’ taking care of it’ was simply him filing for bankruptcy! CLOWN!!! I KNEW he was thinking about moving to CA. because some of his ‘friends’ told him about growing medicinal dope. It’s legal out there. Very SHADY but legal. I think the whole roofing job was his way to declare BK and then move out there. Sure hope ya don’t get shot out there buddy (rolling my eyes). SO YOU KNOW, There is NOT any lien on my title!!! THANK GOD!!!!

 I have learned that through all of this, person ‘A’ and ‘B’ are all ABOUT their image! KRIPES!!! Person 'B' made sure that I saw him in a Mercedes rag top one time when we went out for beers...They are VERY concerned about how other look at them and are VERY materialistic.

 Oh and if you are wondering, Wells Fargo made $23 billion last year, AND FINALLY, somethings in your life are better when they are in your rear view mirror!