Daytona

This is  a picture from this morning!

Rattlesnake Roundup Pics

Horrorpalooza

This post is from last week.  Thought I posted it and turns out I saved it in drafts.

I got way too excited tonight at the possibility that their may be a fourth installment of the Scream movie series.  You heard me right.  Scream 4!  It's not a for sure thing right now, but if it comes out next year like the internet says, then I will finally have another Scream after 10 long years!  

I know, it's ridiculous!  But I think I may be addicted to horror movies.  I always fall asleep with the tv on at night.  The tv in my room has no sleep timer so I always watch a video or dvd because they will play through and shut themselves off.  No big deal.  However, I watched the first half of Scream 3 monday and the second half tuesday, the first half of Scream Wednesday and the other half when I woke up at three this morning.  Is that normal? Falling asleep to horror movies I mean, not the waking up at 3 a.m. I know that's not normal!  And as soon as I finish watching Grey's Anatomy I am going to fall asleep to Copycat.  Have you seen that one? An oldie, but a goodie!  Speaking of sequels, a Copycat sequel would be awesome!!!  

Since the beginning of the year I have seen My Bloody Valentine in 3-D, The Unborn and The Haunting of Molly Hartley, not to mention countless horror movies on dvd.  I still want to see The Uninvited and The Last House on the Left, but we'll have to wait and see.!

Is anyone else addicted to horror movies too?

Rattlesnake Roundup

I took off early this Saturday morning with my friend Adria and headed south to attend the 51st annual Sweetwater Jaycee's Rattlesnake Roundup.  We got to Sweetwater before 11, which was lucky because when we left at 2 the line to get in the parking lot was miles long!  Anyway, it was awesome! I have never seen so many snakes in one place in my life!!  They had a snake handling pit, a milking pit, a skinning pit and the weigh in pit which contained the most snakes.  You could not even see the floor of the pit at the weigh in. 

We watched and learned how to properly handle a snake.  Now when I encounter a snake in the wild I can put it on a table, taunt it with a red balloon and watch it strike and pop that balloon.  But seriously, the wrangler did just that!  He was taunting the snake with a red balloon and when the snake struck and popped the balloon, the big piece of balloon snapped back and smacked a kid in the face.  He jumped out of his seat when it happened, but the whole audience did too!

Then we watched as the milkers milked the venom from the snakes.  It was amazing to me how many people asked how the venom was used.  Anti-venom anyone?  Not much else going on there.  

The skinning was pretty neat.  It was just basic skinning, but it was neat to watch if you like that kind of thing.  

The weigh in pit was the coolest just because it had the most snakes!  They totally covered the floor.  The had caught thousands of pounds of snakes and here they were, hissing, rattling and striking.  Each tank had a couple of  windows in them.  The tanks came up to chest level, but the windows were about 3 foot by 3 foot, plenty of room to squat down and get a face to face with a snake!  And we did!

Their was also a peddler's show, tons of fair food and the gun, knife and coin show.  This truly was Redneck central!  If you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend it!

The Story of the Picture or How I Made Aretha Feel Like a Natural Woman

The new picture I posted was taken almost a year ago at our last annual meeting in Orlando.  It was the last night of the meeting and all 600 of us boarded buses for The House of Blues.   It was fantastic!  Great food and music, followed by lots of games and goofy stuff for us to do.  You could have your fortune read, although I opted out for that one.  I like surprises! Their was a Pop-Noggin booth which uses a green screen to put your head onto another body that is dancing and you sing along to the music.  Several of us were singing I Love Rock 'n Roll and got a great novelty dvd out of it.  But that's not really the story.

The mainstage at the HOB is sunken so that you stand and look up at the main act on stage.   The curtains opened and that beautiful woman in the picture came out on stage. She was an Aretha Franklin impersonator and she was great! She sang all the classics!  I made eye contact with her during Chain of Fools.  I gave her the thumbs up for her performance and she gave it right back letting me know she saw me.  Instant connection!  She brought a barstool out on stage and said she was going to need "a little help from the audience." Of course she looked right at me and said, "Come on up here, sugar!"   She asked me my name and I told her.  She said "Do ya'll know Cole?"  They all cheered, but it was pretty loud so they probably would not have noticed if she had yelled "Who want's a cold?"  Anyway, the music started as I sat on the barstool not knowing what might happen.  She put her arm around my shoulders and started singing.  She would look at my eyes and then roll out to the audience and then back to me.  She was singing You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.  And then came the chorus!  Just as she was starting she grabbed the back of my head and thrust it forward into her chest.  I was shocked! Not unhappy, but shocked!  The crowd roared with laughter and to tell you the truth I was laughing so hard she probably thought I was trying to give her the old motorboat!  Anyway, long story short, cause we all know how long winded I can be, Aretha put my face in her chest every time she sang the chorus to You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.  But to tell you the truth, Aretha made me feel like a natural man and quite honestly provided me with the best networking tool I may ever have.  I met more new people with Barnes & Noble that same night than I have in the last year!  Right after she finished singing she said, "This is Cole, my new husband!"  That really was the cherry on the top of my night.  Can it get much better than that? Thanks to our home office camera crew and my friend Bettina, I have the whole thing on dvd.  I also have that great picture and an even better story. 

This year's meeting will most likely not top last year's for me, unless of course they have a Dolly Parton impersonator.  If that happens, all bets are off! 

Colonoscopy Sweepstakes

So I was just watching The New Adventures of Old Christine and saw one of the funniest commercials I think I have ever seen.  It happened in a flash, and I thought maybe it was a joke, but it wasn't!  CBS is having a Colonoscopy Sweepstakes! This is a real contest!  If you win, you and a guest will be flown first class to New York and receive free colonoscopies.  Seriously?  I read up on the details of the sweepstakes.  It includes three nights in a very nice hotel and that special laxative you have to drink the night before the procedure.  WOW!  I think it's nice that in these harsh economic times our sweepstakes become more practical.  Do I want a million from Ed McMahon? No thanks.  Should I buy a couple of extra lottery tickets? Unnecessary! Sign me up for the free colonoscopy!  

One of the funniest parts of this whole commercial was that they had Patti Lupone in a hospital gown on a table holding her dog.  Okay, I know who Patti Lupone is, but does the general public know that Corky's mom is on the table peddling free colonoscopies?  She was fantastic in the commercial, but it was amusing that they included her name in the bottom corner of the screen.

Food Network

Does everyone like the Food Network like I do?  It made me laugh this morning.  I am sitting in bed in my old room in Panhandle and woke up really early thanks to migrating across the time zone.  I was watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives last night so of course the Food Network was on when I turned on the tv.  Jamie at Home was on and I sat and watched him cook some pretty interesting things.  He made fish (normal) with flowers (abnormal) and fried vegetables (normal) with fried lettuce (abnormal). I get it!  This is why you are on the air at 6:30!  Although who am I to judge?  I would probably try (and like) all of it!  Obviously people are watching.  It had  me "glued" to the tv at 6:30 on a Saturday morning. In my defense, at this time of the morning on a Saturday my choices are pretty slim.  Between this and Dora the Explorer, I think I made the right choice.  Although, Dora may have been visiting some exciting land that I'll never know about.  I guess that is a chance I will have to take!

Next up, Nigella Feasts. This one I like. Although I probably would not make much of the stuff she makes, but let's face it, do I really make that much of anyone's stuff on here?  The first time I ever saw her show it made me laugh.  She came into her kitchen looking like she just got out of bed.  Come to find out, she just did!  It was a Saturday morning show she taped and she was making a breakfast to cure a "Friday Night Hangover."  She went on to say that this is the perfect, quick hangover cure for a Friday night out with the gals.  The even funnier part was how the breakfast made her feel better and she made plans to go out Saturday night.  

This is a bit of a side note, but do any of you watch At Home With the Neeley's?  If you don't, you should! They have more cooking in that kitchen than food and it is hilarious to watch!