Cannonball

Single Barrel...and...single barrel

One Finger at a Time

Learning to take advice, that requires trust. This is scary ground.

Going about my Life

I tie so much importance into my interactions, over concerning myself with the affect of my processes on everyone else's liberties. I cherish my personal freedom above all my possessions, and work to honor others rights in such respects. Though I find ,under closer examination, that worries of this nature only succeed in confining me to my conscience. A weight I can no longer bare. So here, I propose this to myself, if no one else. That it shall, from this day on, be my goal to fill my worried mind with only that which concerns me. For if my heart is true I can do no harm. Wish me well dear friends, for you are the benefactor!

D.S. Haney

Wierdo

As if life didn't already have tendency enough toward complication, I like to sweeten the pot by making up little rules by which to abide. As I was preparing my bed for a warm afternoon nap by dressing it with fresh clean linen I notice the need for new pillows. The thought excited me. Which led to thoughts of a new bed. Which then led to thoughts of women. Then to thoughts of sex, to dirty sheets....back to stained worn out pillows.
The next thought was a rule, or challenge/game. I had to find an actual girlfriend before I bought new anything for my bed. Then I realized how silly and useless the whole lot of it was.
So here I reconsider my thoughts: think less, smile more, take that nap, and for god's sake buy some damn pillows....good ones.

Five Year Plan

Coming from a poor southern white trash family the future was a dark desolate place that you feared to tread. Hope cared not to shine in our direction. So it was best to keep our heads down and stay in our place, out of sight and out of mind. Though at age ten hope crashed the pity party and shipped our down trodden family off to a middle class living on an airbase in Georgia. As would be expected we all fought the change tooth and nail. Though it did afford us the first view of the well lit future that did not shine on the poor. Who would work the shit jobs if they knew they didn't have to? It was from that lofty perch that I found a skateboard, and a dream. I set my sights on a better life and never again looked back. Over a decade later I stopped to take a breath and realized I had reached my destination. Where to now? Best to make a plan...
Fearing the world would snatch my dream away at any time as the punchline to some cruel joke for which it had been building anticipation over the past fifteen years. I stashed away every cent I could scrap together. Depriving myself of all pleasures aside from the skateboard which had carried me to this pinnacle. All work and no play had built quite a nest egg, but what to do with the contents? Plan my retirement, with a five year ticking clock. I had already buried my nose in real estate as a frying pan for my omelette. So that was to be the start: Year One - buy a house with my savings, Year Two - harvest the equity and buy an apartment building, Year Three -repeat step two three more times while finding a wife with which to build a family, Step Four - retire with the woman of my dreams and build said family.
Year one went well. Found a lovely two story house on a bike path three miles from the ocean in Los Angeles. Year two was a bit of a set back due to having to refinance instead of harvest but year three found me right back on track buying a four unit building only two miles from the house in a blooming residential development. Real estate, that was the easy part. Women are far more tricky. After the first heart breaking potential wife disappointment and a good nose for the bubble about to burst in the market. I sold the house for more money than i could have imagined and restructured the plan a bit. Travel for a year and buy a bar on the beach and retire in Costa Rica. Wife is sure to follow.
Got close again with some slight adjustments. Bought beach front property and built a hotel, only in Nicaragua, not Costa. Found a beautiful woman and was set for retirement after a year of globe trotting with the soon to be Mrs Haney. Once again, however, a woman's inability to be honest and my unrealistic expectations got in the way.
This time I had not interest in restructuring any plan. It was party time! I buried my head in a bottle and almost five years later am just sleeping off the hangover. What to do now?...
Another five year plan is tempting, though I suspect retirement is a good long way off regardless of financial positioning. I do want kids and a wife, an open minded one would be nice. Though if there is one thing I know for certain, the world will do with you what it wishes. We are just along for the ride. So I will not plan, but I will pray, to the powers that provide each day. Pray for peace and pray for smiles. Pray for happiness as I pass the miles. Pray for dreams that may or may not come true but know that it is those dreams that carry me through.

Somewhere Along the Way

My ability to keep up with expensive electronics is less than awesome. So in an effort to maintain my track record of costly forgetfulness I lost the electronic key to our rental car on our first evening out in Ybor City. This forced me to abandon the car and catch a ride back to the hotel in a uhaul cargo van full of drunk skateboarders, wild times!
The next morning....mmm, afternoon, I caught a cab back down to deal with the mess I had left. This meant getting the car towed to the closest dealership to purchase a new key and have it programmed, two hundred bucks. Not sure what the tow cost yet but the experience was surely more valuable than the burn marks on the card.
Steve was the driver who picked the car and I up. He was a bit slow to warm up, though once he got going it was non stop amazement that came out if his mouth. Steve had been a military man who parachuted, hungover, into Grenada on some mission or another. During this little fiasco one of his band of brothers got hit by a sniper. Being the man he is Steve hopped into action, springing in to save his comrade. He took three shots in doing so. One grazed his left shoulder and two blasted into his lower abdomen, almost "blowing off his pecker" as he put it. In the end Steve saved his buddy and lived to fight another day himself. Though with those injuries the government no longer wanted him fighting for them. Seems a close call to the pecker makes you a combat risk. So it was back to the states for this hero. Where he found gainful employment in a factory, what perks! It was in that factory that his trail of bad luck sent him into the path of a run away one ton bundle of cardboard that pretty much crushed him. Broke his collar bone, crushed his sternum, broke off his lowest right rib, broke his arm, and crushed his right leg. If that doesn't put him in the misery hall of fame then having his wife bowled over by a car a year later surely should. That accident didn't kill her either but it did leave her with enough brain damage to get her a permanent spot on the short bus.
Now Steve spends his days rescuing retards like myself who were actually born with good sense though never figured out how to use it.
I try not to complain about my mental handicap. A tart ass lemon can be made into one hell of a sweet refreshment with a little work. With that being said Steve should be starting up a lemonade juice bar franchise. He sure as shit straightened out my sour situation, both physically and mentally. Twice retired and still saving people. Good to know that sort of sweet strength, bravery, and positivity still live on such a cynical Lemon.

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Night night

Thenjoylife!