Pre Christmas Festivities

Well it's almost that special time of year. Everyone is busy getting their last minute Christmas gifts, Santa is loading all His stuff on His sleigh, Mom and Dad are getting all the stuff ready for that big Holiday meal, and the children are squealing in anticipation of Old Saint Nick coming down that chimney.

Here at the State Of Les, we've started a new Holiday tradition as well. You see, this year I put in a wood stove to keep us cozy and warm on those cold winter nights. And with Christmas just a short time away, I thought it would be kinda special to ring in the season and commemorate our new source of heat.

So each year just before Christmas, the wife, kids, and dog will gather around the wood stove. Meanwhile, Daddy will pull down His pants and stand by the fire and we'll all sing together in glorious harmony .....


Les's nuts roasting on an open fire ....
Jack Daniels nipping at His nose.
Yuletide carols being sung by My choir,
While Les's little member starts to grow.....

COME ON .. EVERYBODY SING!!!!!!!
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Tomorrow - The Nutcracker !!!

It's these special times that you never forget for as long as you live. May they be cherished in our hearts forever. Amen.

fire .. Fire .. FIRE !!!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls ... the picture you are looking at is not a fake. It has not been altered in any way. NO photo-shop program was used in manipulating this photo. It is a genuine photo of Me, blowing on my hot ashes and creating fire from nothing but pieces of wood (and a piece of paper towel I substituted for dry grass).

That's right, it took all damn day, my hands are raw, my back is killing me from being hunched over, the house stinks, I burnt the counter, even my wife ruptured a blood vessel in her hand .... but God Dammit .. WE MADE FIRE !!!!

It wasn't until 8 o'clock last night and we ended up in the warmth of the kitchen but we got it done. I say "we" because after what seemed like a 1000 attempts, my hands we so cramped I couldn't hold the wood anymore so I needed to get the wife involved. She was reluctant at first, but was quite helpful near the end. This was either due to the fact that She felt sorry for me, or She was truly interested, or She was sick of hearing me bitch about it. Plus the fact that I promised myself that before the day ended I WOULD have created fire and DAMMIT I did !!!!!!

Of course now that I've done it, I also realize what I was doing wrong that would have saved a few painful hours of mistakes. What were they you ask??? OH NO ........ I'm not telling!! YOU were the ones laughing at Me about this in the first place. Now when all hell breaks loose and there is no power, no heat, no matches, no NOTHING ... in the middle of NO WHERE, I will have a fire going and you will be freezing you ass off!!! But in retrospect, none of that will ever happen so your probably safe.

At any rate, life can now continue as this hurdle has been passed. Without being able to create fire from sticks, I don't think anything else on my "to do" list would be able to get done. Not to mention, I am now ONE step closer to God!! Or one step closer to "being" God .... I forget which one.

Oh yeah, one last thing. Give that man who invented matches a nice pay raise ... He deserves it.





Todays RBV: Luke 16:18 Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.


Soooooo, anyone who gets divorced and remarries has committed adultery. AND, anyone who marries someone who was divorced has committed adultery. Hmmmm, I wonder how many people in church every Sunday fit this description??? And yet their better than Me (married 17 years to the same woman), because THEY are Christians!

FIRE !!

Fire! One of the most simple fundamentals of life. An yet, I can't get one started.

Just how the hell am I going to turn back the hands of time and live a more simple life if I can't even take two sticks and make a fire.

In the past week, I have spent about 1 hour about every other day trying to get a fire going with just the bare necessities of life. I've taken a stick and a flat piece of wood and rubbed the stick back and forth frantically on the flat piece. I've built a bow with rope and a branch and had a wooden spindle inserted to twist the wood at high speed to cause heat buildup. I've spun a branch between my hands to twist it to make heat. AND I FAILED ... each and every time! The best results I got was a little smoke one time, but far from enough to start a fire.

Why am I doing this? Let's just say it's a small part of my life that is incomplete. I feel IF I can start a fire with two sticks, then I can progress to bigger and better things. Things like, getting free water, creating electricity from the sun, growing food, etc ......!!

So each day I will head out and spend time trying to create a fire with nothing more than some branches, and one day I WILL SUCCEED DAMMIT! Maybe if I was stuck out in the middle of nowhere and my toes were about to fall off I would get a fire going a little quicker, but that doesn't mean I'm NOT trying!

And for those of you who are wondering .... YES, I do know that there are things called matches. In fact, you can get 250 of them for only 99 cents at Menards! How cheap is that?? But your also missing the point. To CREATE fire is a whole new ball game. So for all you people shaking your head and laughing at what appears to be my stupidity, I encourage you to give it a shot yourself. I think you'll find it a wee bit harder than it looks. And as a added benefit, when you do create your very own fire out of 2 sticks, you will then be one step closer to God.



Todays RBV: Leviticus 20:14 And if a man take a wife and her mother, it is wickedness: they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they; that there be no wickedness among you.


Well I guess that's one way to get fire. But I think I'll "stick" to my "sticks". (Pun intended)

Operation Free Heat

Would you look at this, I haven't even had a couple days since I've announced my upcoming retirement and I've already figured out how to make a fire for heat.

HEY SHUT UP! You gotta start somewhere!

So I built a pot belly furnace stove out of an old 55 gallon barrel and some heating pipe. Now I can get some animals and keep them nice and toasty are winter long. In fact, with the furnace in a central location, I can build 4 different cages (corrals, whatever) around the heater and really get some food going. (hence the term: central heating)

I think I'll start out with hens. They sound easy enough. Go out and get some fresh eggs everyday. Free food. Hell yeah, why not? Throw in some roosters now and then for some babies, let them grow up. Free chicken! Repeat process for continual flow of free meat and eggs. Soon I will be supplying KFC with ALL their chickens!!

So we normally eat a couple dozen eggs a week as a family, at a buck and a half a dozen. Take that times 52 weeks, plus a couple of dozen extra for Easter (we really go thru them then). Let's see that's a savings of $159/year just in eggs! And I'm sure that poultry feed for a year is only like 1 or 2 bucks so I'm still saving tons of money! NOT!

Ok, ok. So I have a few bumps to work out, but I still have a plan to keep live animals this winter without them becoming animal-cicles so get off my back! And need I remind you that I did this while STILL working full time for "the man". Just think what stupid ideas I can get when I have all the free time in the world!

I know, your all laughing now but you wait and see! At least I won't be getting up and going to work like SOME people I know out there! In fact, I think I'm going to burn my alarm clock for MORE FREE HEAT! Ha ha ha ha ha! (yeah, I'm losing it!)








Todays RBV:

Jonah 2:10 And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

And once again, sometimes the Bible verse is so absurd, it needs no comment at all