Mikes Blog

I found a picture of my Wife and I from our wedding day. I forgot this was on my work computer. So I thought I would share it for the world to see. Thanks for looking…Wow I have a hot wife. I love you sweetie…

My wife and I have been looking at building a home when we get back to Jefferson City next year. The building will probably follow a year or so after moving back but we have started to look at options now. Those of you that know us know that while we are not “Tree Huggers” we are concerned about the enviroment and the enviroment we live in. For several factors our health requires it, and with the birds we do have to be extremely concious about what products we use in our home.

So anyways I picked up a couple of “Green” Living Magazines the other day and I was ASTOUNDED by all the crap we have entering our bodies everday with out our knowledge. I mean there are gasses that we aren’t even aware of that your home emits everyday that you dont even realize are there. Like the paint and stains you use on walls, trim, and furniture are emmitting harmful VOC gasses all the time. The cloths that you wear, have chemicals and pesticides on them from the time of growing, to staining the color you want and such. It is any real wonder on why so many poeple are dying of Cancer and other medical ailments that are known to be caused by the products you buy everyday. It really is scary. Just do a bit homework and you will see. And what is truly amazing is that for EVERYTHING you use on a daily basis from fuel in your car to the handsoap you use there are “Green” alternatives that work just as good and in many cases better than what we use everday. Why are we still using these mainstream products? And why are not more poeple trying to bring these things to light?

I dont know but I can say one thing. The house we build will be a “Green” home. After doing all of my own research I just cant see any other way of building. It doesn’t make sence. Hmmm god am I on my way to being a hippy? I hope not. I hope just a concerned person that happens to live on this planet we keep destroying.

Sorry for my loyal readers out there. I haven’t updated in a week. I have been sick for the last week with some sort of flu or something. I dont know, I just want it gone. Still a bit groggy at times and have a bit of trouble breathing every now and then but otherwise I am okay. I really do need to quite smoking. Although being sick I have only had probably an average about 2-3 cigs a day. I should do what my buddy Ben Krech did to try to finish the job of quiting. Oh well.

Well nothing really new for this week. I have finally tried my hand at the stock market. I have bought two stocks, XM radio which if you dont know who they are you better get with the times. They are the new wave in radio. I LOVE my XM. The other Evergreen Solar I bought that one because my wife and I are planning on building a new home within the next few years and have been looking at “Green” type building products and “Off Grid” solutions. Evergreen seems to be one of the top Solar Panel Producers out there right now. I have talked to many poeple that invest in the markets and everybody has thier own “System” but I figure I want to invest in the companies that I use or would like to use. My theory on that is if they are good enough for me to use then they should be around for a while and hopefully raise in value. Maybe just maybe I one of them will turn out to be the next Walmart stock. HAH with my luck they will both stick around for a couple of years. Make some money and as conservative as I can be I will hang to both, then for some stupid reason they will both go bankrupt.

But anyways…If I dont get to post before Thanks Giving. To every one of my readers out there travel safe and have a great and wonderful Turkey Day. And dont forget to say thank you for all the reasons you are able to have that HUGE Belly stuffing, belt breaking, 10 pound gaining dinner.

So last night my wife told me I should put a link up to My Toos dot com. So I went there today to make sure I wanted it up there. And YES!!! That site is SOOOO correct in what it is saying. For anybody that is even considering a Cockatoo of any type go there and check out what you are REALLY going to be getting into. It truly tells how it is and what you can expect. Everything that Petco, Petsmart and any other Pet store that sells these birds WILL NOT tell you.

We are fortunate enough to have a Cockatoo and be able to spend atleast 4-6 hours a day with her. But on the same token nightly we still go through the same thing. The screams, showing off and constant need for attention. It is so bad I actually feel bad for our other bird because we cannot give her the attention we would like to. However we were smart enough when we got Dobby to get a species that does not require the attention that ‘Toos require. BUT you still cant ignore her. Dobby is content to sit on her stand watch us and gibber, gabber at us. As long as we give her atleast an hour or so of PERSONAL attention a night she is pretty happy with life. However we still need to carry her from room to room or wherever we are at so she feels like part of the flock.

Anyways I dont think I really intended this Blog to become a PETA type site for Birds. More so a general rants and raves section for me and to kindof show myself off to who ever wants to read about me. So I will try to lay off of the birds for a while and find other subjects to talk about.

Okay so today I got two things in the mail I have been looking forward to. My XM Radio(VERY excited over that one) and my new elliptical machine (very excited over that one too). My Xm because I love gadgets and Gizmos. I can entertain myself for hours just playing with little electronic devices. I mean really what man couldn’t honestly. We love them. If it has buttons or something to tap or push we have to push, twist, tap, knock, turn, and anything else we have to get it to do make cool little noises and beeps. Is it any real wonder why the womans body has three buttons on it? Its to keep our attention!! We can push on those buttons for hours and be completely amused even when the woman is not.

Then my elliptical I have been wanting one for a very long time. I worked out on one at the Gym when I was thin and working out all the time, and I really loved it. Now I have to start getting in shape agian. I have let myself go and I feel totally disgusting agian. I have always been a big guy. My friends can attest to that. And for the most part I have been pretty comfortable with the fact I come from a large family not only in members but in physical size. But I just feel bad now. And its time to do something about it. But anyways that is all I have tonight. No pictures or new links aside for XM Radio over there. Check them out and get one. I promise you wont be dissappointed.

Okay I didn’t have any pictures yestarday to show of my Birds. So I thought I would post a couple today. So here they are. The white one is a Mollucan Cockatoo named Molly and the Black and Grey one is a Timneh African Grey named Dobby. We called her Dobby after the obvious Charecter in Harry Potter, and for the Grey’s natural ability to Speak. Over in the links section is a Link to Alex the most famous African Grey in the world right now. He is truly amazing. He truly has the mental capacity of a 4 year old. Read about him and you will look at Birds in a whole new light. He is a big reason on why we got a African Grey. Let me tell you, when you have one you will fall absolutly in love with them. Just the pure enjoyment of listening to our Grey Dobby is reason enough. She is only two years old now, and with all what she can say and do I cant wait till she is 10 or even 20 years old.

Dobby is really a smart ass. Almost daily when I try to get her out of her cage she nips at me then she will say “OUCH!!-I’m Sorry” then a short little chuckle. And when I leave the house she can see me from where her cage is at. So she will let out a little Sad R2-D2 Whistle that I taught her. She is SOOO cute. I love her. However she likes my wife much more than me. But I still get a kick out of her.

Okay I am sitting here at work bored out of my mind. Dont get me wrong I like my job, the only bad thing about being a Finance Manager at a Motorcycle dealership in fall is the lack of customers. Sure the hunting season is about to begin so poeple will start filling the store for Quads, and with the Christmas season looming we will start selling Christmas Bikes, but the between time when nobody is buying is absolutly mind numbing. So I have been passing the time reading other blogs and trying to decide what to do with this Blog. I could do many things with it.

My wife and I are animal lovers I could dedicate the site to one of the MANY animals that currently co-habitate with us. Which something that we are passionate about are exotic Birds. More specifically the uneducated purchase of these birds. I really didn’t know a thing about Birds until I met my wife, which at the time had just aquired a Mollucan Cockatoo. As sweet of a bird as she is, she is a absolute nitemare. I can safely say a ‘too is not for somebody that requires a peaceful home. For that fact any bird is not good for that unless you are looking at a finch or something of that nature. But still prepared for the mess. Birds are incredebly messy. Constant care is required just to keep your house half way presentable. Plus they are truly life long commitments. Often times your bird will outlive you. Many of them have a life span somewhere between 40-80 years!! So what happens to them after you pass? Well you hope in a cockatoos case that you have somebody that is willing to take on the responsibility. But if not they will go into some sort of Rescue organization and HOPEFULLY they will find a good home. If not typically they will jump from home to home slowly becomming senile or developing bad habits that prohibit placement even in experienced homes. Many times they end up in homes that are ill-equiped to take care of them and worse yet uninformed and unexperienced to take care of a bird of this calibur. Ussually ending up in an abusive situation of the new caretaker just trying to get the bird to shut up. If you have never heard a Cockatoo scream, whale, and throw a fit believe me it is something that you only want to hear once. To put into perspective on how loud they are on a Daily basis set a blow horn off next to your ear, then just so you can get a better idea amplify that by five and do it agian. That will give you an idea on how loud they actually are. Not so much that pretty White Angel that sat at the bottom of the cage at Petsmart all sweet and quit anymore. That only lasts for their first year of life.

Okay so that is my rant for today. If you are reading this and are thinking about purchasing a bird please email me. I will try to talk you out of it. Not but there are some things you need to know before you spend your money. That the petshop owner will not tell you about your new little baby.

Well here are a couple more links. The Pro Photo Fix is my Best Friends Website. Possibly and arguably one of the Top Photographers in the country right now, as well as probably the BEST photo shop guy on the planet. If you doubt me just check his site out. He is a helluva photographer and touch up artist. While your there check out my wedding pic!! I am the fat guy standing behind the Angel. God I have a beautiful wife. She is definatly well above me in looks. How I was able to keep her I will never know.

The second is another buddy of mine I went to highschool with. His office is in the same building as Chris’s(The photographer dude) If you need any kind of custom jewelry from low end to high end he is the man to do it. I swear we will be seeing his work on Celebs some day. I am not kidding. He is that good. I am blessed to know so many poeple with so many great skills and so successful at what they do. In fact sometimes I feel downright stupid compared to them. I dont have a special skill, job or career that I am the “Best” at. Someday I will find my skill and world watch out!!

When I get home I will post more pictures and stuff. I am at work right now working on this. But I promise there will be more. So for you faithful readers out there. (Heh this is my first day, so I am sure I have a TON of fans out there already) Keep reading…

Okay so I have never even attempted to build a web page before so this is new. But I successfully changed the HTML code to display a couple of links.

The first one is my buddy Ben Krech. A great and wonderful guy. I have known Ben since sixth grade. My earliest memory of Ben was playing basketball on the play ground. I was really getting into playing and Ben was on the opposite team. The game was getting a bit ruff on both sides and I guess I finally pushed Ben a bit to far. As he was going for a layup, I pushed into him making him miss his basket and shoving him into the goal post. He came back and pushed me. I was sure a fight was about to unsue and prepared myself for hit. But all he said or rather yelled at me “Dammit this isn’t Football!! This is Basketball!!!” He turned around and stomped off. From then on we were friends. That summer he asked to borrow my Radio Controlled Car from me. He wanted to make some sort of robot or something but promised me I would have my car back in one piece when he was done with it. I never saw my car agian. Sorry Ben had to put that in there.

The next link is an Isuzu Automobile enthusiast site. One of my favorite cars ever produced was the Isuzu Impulse. Isuzu produced the car from 1984-1993. In my mind it was one of the contributing factors to todays Import Car Scene. Many of you would recognize its little brother the Geo Storm. While they shared a few common parts such as Motor, Tranny, Interior, and Frame the rest of the car was differant.

Okay so here is my first Blog. I have been reading alot of Blogs lately from alot of friends and I decided to post my own. So here goes…