chomps

OVERWHELMING to say the least. I was in a van with 7 of Lara’s family members, including her grandmother, not understanding a word they are saying. They were all so nice and understanding though. We drove through Guatemala City which is a shit hole. It is a dirty east LA. Mc Donalds, Ford, Nike and even a Waffle House was the sites. I was so glad once we were out of the city and on our way to Antigua, well a village a mile outside of Antigua. Antigua is all cobble stone and the buildings are brightly colored and stucko: It was like a stucko 9th ward. I was instantly in love. We left the walls of Antigua and entered a village of tin and stucko. People everywhere walking and happy.  Once we arrived at her grandmothers house I walked into a courtyard full of fruit trees such as Orange, lime, advocado, and fruits I have never had before. Family members from all around came to greet us. "Mucho Gusto" "Mucho Gusto" hugs kisses. Oooohs and Aaaahs, I was so overwhelmed. It was the most genuine people I have ever met. We were shown our rooms and went straight to the table where food was prepared. We had pan fried beef,salsa, homemade tortillas, rice and sopa de asperago. Our personal tour guide, Victorito (Lara’s 13 year old cousin) brought us through the village. People were walking around around dusk heading home with needed goods. Women carried huge piles of goods balanced on there heads. "Bueno Noches" from everyone we passed. No discrimination at all. I really can not put this experience into words. My eyes were filled and I had a lump in my throat. It was like being in a Grand Isle fishing camp a hundred years ago except these people are ancient. They are happy to be alive, nothing more. I took a short nap and went to her great grandmother old house which is being used for a recption hall for her Cousin Rigo’s wedding. About 15 people were there helping to prepare the room for a fiesta. Everything is handmade. Rigo’s dad is a tailor who prepared the cloth to be wrapped aroung the small strung lights. Rigo’s fiancee’s brother made small light shades to go over the hanging light bulbs. Young girls were oiling bannana leaves for decoration. I helped by string lights to reach across the room. More to come… Check out these pics .

Note: Nobody was drinking or smoking.

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Ahhhhhh. The internet. It seems like weeks since I have done any web surfing and I dont miss it. I am staying in a village and not like a tourist village I am talking about the real deal. Home cooking by Lara´s Aunt Paty and preparing for her cousin Rigo´s wedding. It is wonderful here. Spasticrobot would be in food heaven. I will list the meals later as I am still learning what they are called and what is in them. Here are a few Pics I cant post them all due to a slow connection. I will post later. Adios!

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I am ready to go. I started to pack, took care of my dog and cleaned up some more. Lara treated me to kickin duds for the wedding. I charged my DV camera and my sony camera. I actually slept last night too. I have to do the class later today and then pack and that is it. Gonna hang out with Lara tonight and plan our adventures. I cant wait. Did I say that it has been a long time since my last vacation?

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Damn, somebody out there is watching over me. I know it.
Anyway I am preparing to leave for Guatemala  on  wed  morning. Got my passport, someone to take care of Amby, bills paid, house kinda clean and now I have to pack. I have to go to a class tomorrow evening and then I will be going to bed early because we have to be at the airport at 4 am. I am also going to a new alcohol abuse meeting tomorrow morning. I hate to have to start it and then leave but watcha gonna do. Well I am going into a daze from lack of sleep. So till tomorrow… 

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Everyone knows what that means. Whether its the warmth of a Mothers
arms or a Fathers re-assuring words, everyone has had the feeling. I
write about this after reading a string of blogs today that discuss
parental feelings. rock star mommy
was the first place I read about it and as I traveled through the
blogosphere I read more and more. Maybe it is because of whose blogs I
choose to read that topics run together but whatever the reason it
still made me think.
I dont agree with everything that my parents
have done but I do think that they were the best parents they could be
and that they tried to do everything they could. Maybe my Dad could
have worked less and been home more or my Mom could have tolerated him
a little better but that would not have made them who they are. They
made their decisions on their own free will and they created their own
destiny. 
The same goes for the off spring of Walter Earl Averett
Jr and Jeannette Linda Guillot. My sibling and I have to choose what we
decide to utilize from our up-bringing and what we would prefer to
leave behind. Nobody is perfect and in all actuality I dont think that
perfection is the goal. I believe that being truly happy and honest
with a free conscious is more important than perfection.
I never pretended to be in another family like the Kennedys or anything like that. I would pretend that my
family was on the range with Roy Rogers. Through everything that we
went through I think that my parents did a wonderful job. They made us
fearless when it came to learning and they taught us to be
non-judgemental of other people. My parents made sure that we knew how
to laugh at our own mistakes and to be careful not to laugh others
(unless they were in our house because then they were fair game).
Here
are the mistakes of my parents that I want to change and that I know my
sibling wants to change with her children. I think that I want family
to come first. I have seen my Father fight with his brother/bestfriend.
I saw him quit talking to almost his whole family because of a trashy
ol whore. I saw my Mother fight with her sisters and stop talking to
them and even though she may have had reason to be angry, I dont think
there is a reason to decide that a part of your family is no longer
family.
I will return to this topic after I have sorted everything out that I want to say.

Oh yeah. Mom I know you read my blog but I am not writing anything here that I have not said before.

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So here it is. I am not fasting right now but I am changing. So this is a personal ramble about who I am, what I can be and where I am going now.
I am cursed with having a chemical dependent geneology. Lets first start with my Dad. He was a great man in his own way but he was also an addict. He was burned from the waist down when I was born from trying to be a motorcycle mechanic and fix his Triumph. Now this guy could not even change oil in a car so I have no idea what compelled him to try and fix his motorbike but he did. Well he got gas all over his jeans and went into the wash-room to change. He didnt think about the fact that the wash-room also houses the hot water heater which caught him on fire. He had 3rd degree burns from the waist down. He had to have a skin graph. Well that was a beginning to a long drawn out 6 months on a morphine drip. He sobered up but it wasnt long till he got injured again. This time in a severe car accident in which that had to remove 2 vertabrae from his back. Well that was it and he was hooked. He died of a drug overdose in 1997. My mother side of the family has had 2 drug overdoses in the last decade. So where do I fit in to this? Well like my sister says "we are doomed." I have been a recreational drug user and drinker for as long as I can remember. So I have now seen myself go from being ok to being out of control. Now, I don’t need a drink, but I drink often and to the point of being smashed. It seems to be getting easier and easier for me to go past the point of tipsy. I have noticed that everything that has going bad in my life has been caused by drugs or drinking in some way or another. So what do I do about it? Well I can follow the path of my family and go down in a flaming dance or I can get some help and reach my potential. I don’t do bad for myself and I mantain (how I dont know) but I want to know what heights I can reach. I am 30 years old with a good job and wonderful girlfriend. I don’t feel that I deserve this being the kinda fuck up that I am. So this is my plan of action. I live in NOLA and drinking is the norm. I love this city and she loves me but I can’t keep going like this if I want to survive and reach my goals. So I am simply putting down the bar room lifestyle and going to go and get some help with my drinking.  Well I have done this before but not on my own free will. I am going to do this for myself. I have a really good life and loving people all around me and I am not going to choose a buzz over that. I am going to do this right. Lara is the most wonderful person I know. She is honest, caring and just genuinely a good person. She does not deserve a bar fly that just skids by. She deserves the best and that is what I want to give her, my best. So this is how it is and this is how it is going to be. I guess I was never ready to do this before or I didnt feel like I had a reason to.  I am nuts already so I have no problem partying down with an ice cold coca-cola. So have a drink for me because that is as close to me having a cocktail as I am going to get.

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I have this crazy idea of doing a cleansing fast this weekend. I want to spend fri. sat. and sun. without ciggs, beer, whiskey, coffee, soda or solid food. I want to live off of water  and Odwalla SuperFood. Here are the ingedients:

Ingredients: apple juice, peachs, mangos,
strawberries, bananas, spirulina (1700mg), soy lecithin, open cell
chlorella (335mg), royal jelly, wheat grass, barley grass, wheat
sprouts, jerusalem artichoke, lemon bioflavanoid, nova scotia dulse

Nutrition Facts: serving size 8 fl oz; servings
per container about 2; calories 140; fat 1g; sodium 50mg; potassium
440mg; total carb 32g; dietary fiber 2g; sugars 26g; protein 2g;
vitamin a 90%; vitamin c 60%; calcium 0%; iron 6%; 96% juice/puree

I think that I could survive fasting with a half gallon of this a day. I have not fasted since 1999 and I remember feeling crappy for three days but feeling great on the fouth. I will be fine by Monday. I can start my week so fresh and so clean clean. If any body knows a better way of fasting please let me know. I am going to have a glass of red wine each night to detox my blood and relax me so that I can sleep comfortably. I will see how I feel in the morning and if I feel it then I am going to go for it. Lara will be working each night so I can be grumpy and her not take the repercussion. I will post throughout  this weekend.

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I worked like a mad-man all week long and was still rollin when the weekend got here. I met up with Jonah on Saturday and we discussed our new project. I am really excited to get started. I came home and watched Spirited Away with Lara. I forgot how awesome that movie is. I redesigned Chomps on Saturday night and did a little more work with ThinkingParticles 2. I went and met Lara after she got off work and found out the news about ODB  being dead. I have to admit I am amazed that he made it this long. Me and Lara went and had a couple of beers at Harrys Corner and went and had a late dinner at Angelis. We must have been just chatting away because when we got home I noticed that it was 6 am. We went to sleep and woke up a big 4 hours later to get dressed and go meet a bunch of folks for the game. We had really good seats on the 50 yard line but left after half time to go sit with our friends and get crazy for a while in the nose-bleed section.  The Saints haven’t been kicken ass this year so I had to help and yell them to victory. My voice is scruffy now but it was worth it.

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Well I found out today that on November 30th there is a special one hour of overhaulin’ in which the prank is on Lance Armstrong. Sheryl Crow buys Lance a GTO for a present and then gets it stolen by the overhaulin team. This should be an interesting episode .

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I am now doing test renders to go on Turbo Squid when ThinkingParticles 2 is released. I am learning so much that I do not mind working o with the tool. The only problem is that I see myself getting obsessed with it. I mean you can do whatever you want with the tool it is not limited by presets/defaults or key frames. It does require more steps, better planning and a little more time but it is worth the control and lack of limitations.

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