Man, I have gotten so worked up about this summers terrible drought here in the hollow. It's rained big time all around our area but hardly anything here. The trees are wilted and browning and I think we may have lost a couple of trees completely.

Then, this afternoon, there was this loud crack of thunder with no smaller booms to let us know anything was on the way and I went outside and it was sprinkling, as usual.... I figured it was yet another tease, but then the angry sky opened up and the biggest shower we have had in months poured down! I grabbed a lawnchair and sat in the cover of the carport and watched the heavy downpour as it mixed with the steam boiling up off the road and driveway... The air cooled and I could just feel the relief of the earth around me. Oh, it was glorious! It rained hard enough so that the yard would flood normally, but there was almost no runoff at all, every drop was being drank up by the thirsty hill that our home sits against.

It was like a brief dream..... The whole thing was over in 25 minutes or so and now the sun has returned to baking the forest.... the steam fills the air. It's the most oppressive tropical soup outside.

But it was the most wonderfully wet 25 minutes of the whole summer, this afternoon.

Hiya.

So, I am alone today and have been doing some odd jobs and this and thats around the house. I was doing the dishes and our sink faces out a window to the back with a clear view of the going's on. I had noticed that those damned squirrels had once again chewed through the line of a feeder and it had dropped to the ground because our squirrels are too damn lazy to even work for what they steal. Going back to the sink I saw 5 of the huge blackbirds pecking around on the ground by where the feeder was now sitting on the ground. I guess they ran out of baby birds and eggs and their usual fare and were just settling for feed this afternoon, and they were gathered in a sorry looking group just doing their thing. I sneered and went back to the dishes and then suddenly, out of the woods a squirrel comes running out at full speed into the pack of blackbirds! The birds all jumped into the air and moved back about 6 feet from where this aggressive squirrel was guarding what he was stealing fair and square! He jumped up on a little stump and fluttered his tail, obviously in quite a snit. Then he scampered back into the brush. In a perfect cartoon world, the blackbirds would have just looked at eachother and said "Are we gonna let this persnickity tree rat make us look more like lazy fools than we already do?", but I KNOW that's what they were thinking. So, they eased back in on the squirrel who shot back out of the bushes and was wildly gesticulating (That's right. My squirrels can wildly gesticulate!) at the blackbirds who were a little more unnerved at this point as they eased back even further and one of them even flew off in embarrassment. This squirrel stood out proudly in front of the feeder this time and shook his tail in a very similar fashion to the "Quick Booty Shake" like the chicks in the Rap videos. I mean, he was worked up and REPRESENTIN'!!!

I kind of felt proud of the squirrel to stand up to these predatory birds, and 5 of them at that.

Then I remembered that the squirrel is the Yard Czar's nemesis and I just grew tired of the whole thing..... I knocked at the window, which sent the blackbirds and the squirrel quickly on their way and was happy to see the supposedly brave squirrel exposed for the charlatan tree rat that he really is. "Oh, so ya don't have the nuts (pun intended) to stand up to the ALL POWERFUL, big bad, Full of fury, YARD CZAR, doing his "honey-do's" do ya, ya little devil?" I said as I moved on to folding clothes.

*shrug*

NOW, I get to go out and fix that feeder again, but I WILL watch out for this squirrel with big kahunas, so he doesn't jump on my head from a tree and my neighbors are rewarded to see me spinning around wildly looking like Daniel Boone on crack, but with a LIVE coonskincap.

Well, I was out in real life for a while but now I am back in the safety of Cyburbia.*** (Has that been used before or did I just coin that? "Cyburbia"...Hmmmmmm.)

Yes, I was out running errands all morning, running kids around and getting car repairs done, etc..

WHEW!!! THAT was scary!



I guess my thought from the hollow today is that I have been spending too much time on the computer and maybe not enough time living that very real and very hectic thing we all know as LIFE.

I visit alot of different sites during computer time. I have a social site where I visit with friends. I have my blog here. I am a weather geek, so I always check out my favorite weather stations around the country.I do alot of "spiritual surfing". The amount of Christian material out there on the internet is staggering. I gobble through it but it is a meal that will never be finished.

But frankly, I have perturbed alot of folks I have various relations with by the amount of time I spend in the cyber world.

I have a VERY addictive personality and this is one of my addictions. Now, in my defense I have actually cut way back on cyber time but maybe it is still something I can use better time management on.

I have a fairly average house with two teenagers (and all that THAT entails. YIKES!!!) and a very precocious 6 year old and we have family over pretty much everyday and I just get overwhelmed with all that stimuli....my shivering newborn gerbil psyche again. 5 bucks says my Mom shows up here and comments for me to get thicker skin....and she's right. I'm too fragile sometimes.

So, I retreat into my "office" which is our master bedroom where my much of my library and music equipment is or I sit in here and meander through Cyburbia.....

There is ongoing debate as to whether these are just my necessary times for myself or am I hiding from typical family chaos?

Just like all things in life, the answer certainly lies in the balance and weight of things going on in my life at any given time.

I've been "out" for several months from surgery and then preparing to launch my real estate career again, and all this free time is about to vanish so I suspect this problem will solve itself to some degree.

The question I pose is thus.... How much time do you spend on the computer everyday and is it a positive and healthy thing for you or is it something you hide behind, perhaps?

Any other "hobbies" you have that might be considered as interfering with a healthy social interaction with the real world?

Thanks for sharing!

Hi Mom.

Um.....ya know when I first started this blog I really had no idea whatsoever where it was going to go.

So, it started off as a kind of down home "let's share funny stories from the country life" sort of blog.

So, my mom has always got a big kick out of me, the city boy moving to Appalachia and acting like it's Disneyworld or something.

Which, it is, in some ways...

But anyhoos..

She signed on and would read my stuff and leave nice comments, beaming at her son's writing and I bet she was just so happy to sit down with her morning cup of coffee and hit up the Hollowblog and read about all the fun...

....and then one day....

I can can just picture the coffee shooting from her mouth and nostrils onto the screen as she read about....

...GOD KNOWS WHAT kind of zany perversion or just waaaaay out there illogical bullmalarky on everything from napalming squirrels to Nazi birds to rain dances in speedos and then on to chalk monsters baring my warped soul to the final indignity of my mighty blood cannon.

Poor Mom.

I bet she is going to sell her computer!!

Now, Y'all can all just rubberneck at this trainwreck of a blog and pass on by, but my poor sainted mother has to remember that I, Randy420, came from her very own genetic material and cells so she has at least SOME part in this blog's content!

and God bless the woman. She STILL comes back for more!!!!

So, here's a toast to my all time favorite blog visitor, My Mother.

.

*clink clink clink* (those are champagne glasses clinking, not my restraining device)

God bless her sense of humor, her patience and the callblocking feature on her phoneline.

I think she is DISTANCING at this point!

Cant says I blame her neither!

I love ya, mom.

You're the greatest mother a warped deranged blogger could ask for.

.

.

.

What?

My cyber name has been Randy420 for the last 6 years. Never used anything else, unless FORCED to by the 100,000 other Randy420's out there.

BUT this may be a shock to those who know me but I don't visit THAT many sites! *ducks flying tomato*

I won't divulge what Randy420 means to me because the Bolivian Government is after me, well them and the Mexican Mafia! *wink*

Anyhoos....

The whole 420 thing is that April 20th is national pot smoking day or something and if you smoke weed then you should always spark a doob at 4:30 in the afternoon in honor of being high or in honor of the earth's fun fun bounty or something. I dunno. Google it.

4/20 is also Hitler's birthday.

great.

and of course "randy" means sexually promiscuous in English slang.

So, what I'm trying to say is that I am seen by the "enlightened" as a............

*drumroll*

.

.

.

Horny Nazi Potsmoker!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOOOOOOOOT!!

Now, I'll admit to being two of those things in my crazy crazy life.

I havent smoked pot in a long time but I will still git horny on occasion.

woot!

Where's my Barry White CD???

and my assless chaps!

and my slinky!!

What?

I'm just saying!!

But Nazi's are a total beating. i.e. Nazis are UNCOOL!

So, does this clear anything up?

Anymore questions about "Randy420"?