piece for City Magazine Nov 2010

If you give Bill Boone a piece of wood, he can turn it into a treasure. Mr Boone is not King Midas, this treasure is not gold. Within each piece of art that he has created lies a story. Each piece of wood, although similar in appearance, are all unique after his hands have had time to whittle away the excess. It is an analogy for life, the more you dig , the more you carve, the more changes that you make, overtime an image of who we are will begin to appear. Over time you can see that each scrape of the blade, small yet precise, makes a permanent change. Each stroke helps to create something completely original, something worth having, each help create a treasure that is our lives.

“Yucca” Bill Boone is President of the Golden Spread Woodcarvers. The group was founded in 1999, it boasts 48 members who all share a passion for wood work. The group meets every 1st and 3rd Saturday of each month to discuss projects and “have an awful lot of fun”according to Bill. Although time consuming(each piece can take around 20 hours to complete) they find joy in the process. “if we had to charge by the hour, nobody could ever afford the price, we do it because we love it” said Yucca Bill when he was asked what he considered a fair price on his items.

The Golden Spread Woodcarvers are hosting Artistry in Wood November 21-22 2010. Hours are from 10AM-6PM on Saturday and 10AM-5PM on Sunday. Admission is free. This is a great chance for those in the community interested in the art of woodcarving to meet the experts. You can also browse and buy hand carved gifts for the upcoming holidays. While attending the show you also get a chance to sit and talk with the carvers, and if you are not careful, you might learn something.

We are all here to help each other out, to teach one another, and to share our passions with the world. We all have gifts granted to us, rather it be a knack for woodcarving, or something completely different, it is our duty as people to share these gifts and pass down the tools to the next generation. There is nothing in the world more important than knowledge and the strong desire to share what you know with others. This is what I learned while talking with Yucca Bill, although we grew up in completely different generations, the human condition never changes. We will all fail at something at some point in our life. Its just a matter of getting back up time and time again that determines the outcome. With each decision we make, we carve out another slice of our lives story. Each road traveled and every experience that we have all chip away the incomplete and unnecessary parts, until we are left with our legacy, our own individual carving.

Artistry in Wood will be hosted at the Amarillo Civic Center in the Regency Room.

i'm pregnant

I knew today was going to blow as soon as I woke up. I could hear the wind screaming outside my apartment window just as the sun came up and it didn't stop for the rest of the day

As some of you know, I am currently unemployed, I was fired from gayT&T last month and I was notified today that they were not going to pay unemployment benefits that I felt I deserved. I had not really planned on them not paying, I found this out five minutes after getting out of bed, and it really set the day up for failure. Then shoes starting dropping everywhere. Long story short …. I havent found a job, even a shitty one....and its fucking terrifying.

Insert “no one plans to fail, fail to plan quote here”

Here's the thing, I'm kinda getting tired of asking....when is it gonna get easier? It seems like every two weeks something else comes smashing down the bad news turnpike and straight into my world. I know I should be grateful for what I have, and I am, but at some point you have to throw your hands up question your life's purpose. And right now I don't really have one. OTHER than raising my Zara. If she wasn't around God only knows where would be.

I know the answer to my question, I know its never gonna get any easier. Life is always gonna throw shit my direction I just have to get used to the smell and find a bigger place to shovel it. I just have to keep getting back up like Tony Romo does after the gets throttled..oh wait ...what..really? FML

I don't think I have ever been this uncertain about my next move, honestly i've been avoiding dealing with this for a few weeks now. I have always rolled with the punches pretty well, I handle change better than I should but this one...this one right here...this situation I have got myself into is going to change the rest of my life. I'm basically pregnant but instead of having a child inside of my uterus(what) I have a restart button based on a rather BOLD decision that I made days after my dismissal. I can do what ever I want. It is just a matter of how bad I really want something, and also a matter of being cool with not having as much as I did and still be happy. Notice I said “something” I still have no idea what I want to do or who I want to be when I grow up. And I don't think a lot of people really do.. we all just wind up doing something until we retire, like my dad did, or your get fired like his son did pretty cut and dry.

I'm choosing to be happy, and it turns out that not quite as easy as I thought it was gonna be, at least in the beginning. But nothing worth having comes easy, I think John Wayne said that or maybe it was Patton either way its true. I made the decision to get fired from my job because I was miserable doing what I was doing. I had extra money, but I still found a way to be broke by payday, so endgame philosophy is why not be happy and broke? Sounds like a halfway decent plan amirite? (swidt)

Wish me luck cause here I go, showing once more that my tattooed mantra isn't just for show. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

i really didn't intend for that to rhyme

poet. knowit

No one needs 387 friends

The parting of ways was bitter sweet between 100 or so friends and I on facebook tonight. As I scrolled through my friend list I was totally impressed thinking holy shit I know 387 people? I'm really not winning any popularity contest, my phone rang a total of 3 times today and I srsly said to myself “WTF am I Pizza Hut?”

No one needs 387 friends, it kind of puts a strain on the word, almost making it meaningless. (deep huh?) theinternet.com has made us totally accessible to everyone and we really don't have a problem with that as long as SOMEONE likes a comment that you made, or one of your post went FUCKING EPIC. I know I am a facebook addict, a constant lurker. The only problem with lurking all the time is when you run into someone you haven't seen in years you have absolutely NOTHING to fucking talk about. You have seen all the posts, checked out all the pics, and made judgments about people who PRAY TO GOD via facebook. Jesus I really hope this isn't what the FUTURE is going to be like. A ton of people posting everything they do and even pinpointing the location to every asshole DUMB enough to care. I want my flying cars, I WANT MY SKY CITY.

The people that I removed tonight are not my enemy, but that is how they will be perceived. It feels shitty when you get unfriended, ive been on the other side of this thing as well. You feel like you did something wrong and you as a person has FAILed in maintaining the friendship. It feels bad man....that is one of the most retarded statements I have ever made, but its true. I am emotionally attached to a web page that shares my info with others to the point feel SHITTY when someone cuts me off. It sounds twice as INSANE when you say it aloud, huh? Its a bizarre and scary place we live in, and theinternet.com is only getting worse everyday. I have shared pics of my daughter on a place where PEDOphiles secretly lurk and share pics.......and so have you, be careful of what you put up on your WALL. We srsly don't need bathtub pics of the kiddos, I get it, you think your kid is AWESOME, I know mine is, but bathtime is family time, put up your FUCKING phone and pay attn to your kids.

The point I am so desperately trying to get at is, calm the fuck down with the facebook shit. Prune your friend list, and don't get BUTTHURT when you find you aren't pretend friends with someone anymore. Out of my remaining 100 or so friends of facebook five may click this link and read these words, and those are truly my FRIENDS, because they took more that nine seconds to READ words before clicking F5 to see what ELSE was going on. So thanks I treasure what we have..srsly. Eyeheartewe

Why the LAkers cannot win the world championship

I'm not that guy. I'm not that guy that sits around and listens to sport radio day in and day out, listening to the experts cover each and every facet of the game, I enjoy it from time to time, but I digress.

There are 3 things that I hate in the world, and one of them is the Los Angeles Lakers. They represent all that is wrong with humanity and if they win the championship it is all but certain that we will all meet our doom, soon.

And I'm not that doom and gloom type of guy but when we put a rapist on a pedestal cause hes good at a sport, we as Americans, as people in general should be ashamed of ourselves. I echo the thoughts of Bill Hicks and his Learn to Swim mentality. I have never been to California, but an enormous amount of assholes live there, rich assholes, I'm not hating I promise and I could do without them. As “2010” as I can put it.....I'm just sayin

we put mike vick in prison for killing dogs. I don't agree that what he did was anything short of torture but srsly? Its sad, but what does that say? Basically what it boils down to is the dogs couldn't be bought off like that poor girl in the mountain state, god bless her, I hope she got paid.

Fuck Kobe Bryant and Fuck the Lakers

I say good day sir