Happy New Years

I can't believe the "0X's" are almost gone and we're already starting on the "1X's". I still haven't cleaned out my Y2K bunker. That SPAM is still good right? I was thinking on reflecting back on New Years Eves of the past but, for some reason I'm having some trouble remembering some of the details. Like where I spent them and what I did. A sliver of remembrance pokes through the fog here and there but surely that's some fantasy that my subconscious mind fabricated just to shock me. That couldn't have really happened, could it? New Years Eve falls on a Thursday this year. That's great. It gives me Friday to recoup and Saturday and Sunday to have a normal weekend before the first Monday of 2010. As usual, there are more festivities going on than I can could, or should, possibly attend. The crew here at work wants to kick things off Wednesday evening with Wings and Beers, then later that night an old friend is having her annual Night before New Years Eve Birthday Bash at a club she manages, Then on New Years Eve Night there is a New Years Eve Jam with some picking buddies. That should be a Hoot. My phone just rang a few minutes ago. It was another old friend that has a construction yard out in the country. He was inviting me to a New Years Eve party out there. He says the festivities there will be fairly unlimited. I was told you could bring guns  or bombs or whatever struck your fancy. Sounds interesting to say the least. I think I'm going to try and round up a half dozen or so suicide bombers. At midnight we can light those guys off. They seem to like that kind of thing. I don't know if I'll make all of these events. Next year I probably won't remember if I attended all of these or not.

Many people make New Years resolutions. They're going to lose weight, stop smoking, stop drinking, get a job, get married, get divorced, lower their cholesterol, raise their awareness, write a book, read a book, I've heard it all. Me, I'm not going to promise any of those things. Not even to myself. I'll be lucky to be able to keep doing what I'm doing. Which, I guess, ain't much.

I lost a lot of good friends in 2009 and not in the usual way. These died. As a matter of fact in the middle of the last paragraph I got a phone call alerting me to the passing of another old friend. Over my lifetime I've amassed a great number of people that I consider friends. The reality of that is that as we all get older, the number of them that are lost every year tends to increase as the years go by. A balding old man once told me that as he gets older he spends much more time at doctors offices and funeral homes and much less time at the barber shop. I guess that's true.

As I look back on 2009 it seems fairly uneventful. At least for me personally. Could this be true or do all the eventful things just lose their shine after a while, like tarnish on a new piece of brass. Of course there were a lot of powerful and meaningful things that happened, in general, in 2009. I won't get into that, we'll hear enough of that in the days and weeks to come until the media settles into 2010 or something else happens for the talking heads to cackle about.

This will be my last blog for 2009, unless something happens and I find something else to cackle about. So everyone, be safe, be happy and be careful out there and I hope to see you all back in 2010.

Happy New Year

From

Snappybob!

Christmas Time

Sorry about my post slacking lately but work has picked up, finally, and with the holidays and all the blog kind of got shoved to the side. It's not that I haven't thought about it but with everything on my mind and Christmas too I just haven't had time to think about what to write about. So let's blame it on Christmas and as long as Christmas gets the blame I'll also have to give it the spotlight. So for today's blog I give you the very talented, the always beautiful, the one and only Christmas. Christmas runs the emotional gamut from person to person from totally meaningless to completely taking control of ones life from Thanksgiving to the last bowl of Black eyed Peas on New Years Day.

 From a practical standpoint Christmas is very important, so I'm told, to the economy. I'm no economist but I think it must be very important to a capitalist based economy to get an occasional shot in the arm. A mechanism to keep the cash flow going. A means to keep the poor folks poor and the rich folks rich. It's for our own good I suppose.

For many folks it's a time for religious services. A time to remember and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. There will be services on Christmas Eve, on Christmas Morning and on Christmas evening as well. There will be Christmas Pageants where children will get there first taste of trotting the boards and being the star of the show on stage. My first remembrance of being in a Christmas Pageant was in elementary school where they dressed us up like Angels in a choir and put red lipstick on everybody so the audience could see our lips move. Yes, everybody got lipsticked. There will nativity scenes with farm animals, some real, some not. Homes, lawns and businesses will be decorated with lights and inflatable snowmen.

For many it is a time to gather friends and family together. It's that one time of year that you will see certain people. For some it will be the only time, for some it will be the first time to see the new friends or newborns. For some it will be the last time to see old friends. You just never know. Just think how many people were here last Christmas that are no longer with us. As we depart we will say "We must get together more often" but we won't in most cases. It's the just the Christmas spirit talking. The Christmas spirit is magic but fleeting.

So Christmas is special, I would think, to everyone. Whether you especially despise it, especially endear it, your especially, financially, enriched by it or especially financially crippled by it, it is special non the less.

On that note, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you, my dear readers, a very special Merry Christmas and a very Snappy New Year. I hope to see you all back, ratcheting up my new hit counter in 2010. Comments are always appreciated. Happy Holidays Everyone!

Rattlesnake Tequila

A few years ago my step brother Jerry told me that he was going to make something called Rattlesnake Tequila that he had heard about. If you've never met Brother Jerry or just haven't seen him for a while, here's a pic.

Brother Jerry

As you can see from the photo he is about 9 1/2 feet tall. He's the only guy I know who buys elevator shoes and has to have them specially set to basement just to keep his hat from wrecking the ceiling fans. He's sixty something years young, has most of his hair, all of his teeth and then some and jogs to work and back. He claims he owes it all to Rattlesnake Tequila. I don't think you can buy bottled Rattlesnake Tequila. You have to buy it by the shot or make it yourself. Are you intrigued yet? Here's a recipe I found on this website.

http://www.gumbopages.com/food/beverages/vibora.html

1 gallon (or so) of cheap white tequila

1 small rattlesnake (red diamondback preferred)

Catch the rattlesnake with a "special stick". Place the rattlesnake into a gallon jar, then fill with the cheap white tequila. As the snake drowns, it (allegedly) emits "minute amounts of compounds with certain medicinal properties." When the snake is dead, remove from jar, gut snake, then put back in jar. Put the jar in the sun for three months, then in the shade for three months. Serve as shots. "

The first thing Jerry needed was a rattlesnake. Well this IS Texas and we have plenty of people with access to them but all he was being offered was dead ones. I've often heard the phrase "The only good snake is a dead snake" but for Rattlesnake Tequila you need a live snake and only a live snake will do. Jerry finally found a snake handler some where out in the boonies that had snakes for sale. Jerry went to see him and convinced him that he wanted to raise the snake as a pet. He purchased the snake from the snake handler and brought him home with some, justified, trepidation. It seems the snake handlers hand was severely swollen from a previous snake bite and had several scars from other bites. Jerry and his buddy Tom get the snake home and begin preparations for getting the snake into the jar that will be eventually filled with Tequila. Jerry never forgets the details and had the presence of mind to put this part of it on video. Check it out, click SEE THE VIDEO under the picture of Jerry's Rattlesnake in a jar on this site. Rattlesnake in a jar.

I must admit that I never tasted Jerry's Rattlesnake Tequila and I think the brew has been disposed of by now but the story will live on. Jerry and his brother (my other step brother) Jim are good friends with Texas singer and songwriter Brian Burns Brian Burns website. Jim lives in Amarillo and sees Brian from time to time since Brian's home base is in the Dallas / Fort Worth area. One night Jim was shooting the breeze with Brian and started telling him the story about Jerry's Rattlesnake Tequila. Being the excellent song writer that Brian is he immediately saw the opportunity to turn this into a song that would fit onto his newest album that he was working on at the time, American Junkyard

Well the song has been written, the album has gone to press and the story of Jerry's Rattlesnake Tequila has been told. Of course Jerry is not the first one to make Rattlesnake Tequila and probably won't be the last but he did it and lived to tell the tale. And had the tale told by others. I know a lot of people will recoil (sorry couldn't help it) at the notion of killing a poor snake for the sake of making tequila and Jerry is not the type of person to go around killing things for the fun of it. It was just something he had to do.

Click here for words to song and audio clip in upper right corner.

Right now I think Jerry's on a train headed to Nacona Texas to be in the audience of the Brian Burns Christmas show there on December 4th. I wonder what stories he will bring back from this trip?

Here's some pictures of other jars of Rattlesnake Tequila sitting on bars around Mexico.

Adios Amigos!