My official "I hate pigs" website

Since I don't really keep this site updated, this will become my hate on pigs site.  So we've been in Phoenix for about a week now with no incident.  Phoenix has pretty much sucked.  There's the rich part (Scottsdale) and the homeless section (Tempe) and average America (everywhere else).

Two nights ago we found a scared pit bull.  He was growling and barking and I slowly approached him and won him over.  After that, Kyle came over and won over the dog as well.  We spent a couple hours with the dog and put him on a leash and walked around with him.  We introduced him to our three dogs.  Piggy was like an excited school girl when she met the big black pit bull.  She tap danced and spun in circles for him.  Anyway, when we decided to bring him to the car, he pulled out of the collar and ran off.  It was sad.  We felt really bad for him.  He was the most skittish tough guy we've ever encountered.

The last two days it has really bothered me and I posted him as missing on craigslist and I checked all the websites for lost dogs.  It made me realize again how many dogs get kiled every day.  I've gotten really into dogs and it really bothers me.

Anyway, so today we checked out the neighborhood behind the McDonalds that we found the dog at.  We talked to neighbors and were told that a big black dog lived at a particular house.  We found a dog on the shelter's website that looked exactly like the dog we had found, but when we went in to claim it, it didn't end up being the same dog.  Later on, we went to the house of the people who owned the "big black dog".  We found out it wasn't their dog.

We went back to McDonalds to work and use the internet and see if the dog came back.  After like half an hour, cops came.  We were told that the lady called the cops on us.  They treated us like dirt.  The one pig said "I would think you were tweekers."  They asked Kyle for ID and checked his clean record.  They came back and said nothing because the clean record proved their asses wrong.  I hate pigs so much.  They do nothing to improve the community.  They just try and get money out of the less fortunate.

Being a pig is all about breaking the law yourself, but punishing those that don't have a pig in their families or don't know a pig.  What have cops done for me?  They haven't done shit.

I lost my laptop 2 years ago.  You know what happened?  Nothing.  I walked them through the motions.  They found the thief.  And I didn't get anything.  Useless group of people...

Man's best friend

People say dogs are a man's best friend and that strays are the best dogs.  Well, if that's the case I have a new best friend named Koala.  She's a baby Rottweiler.  Adorable and tiny at 9 weeks, but soon to be a jacked little intimidating dog.

I oftentimes get frustrated with my dogs when they don't do what I want.  A little over a week ago, Kyle and I took Piggy and Mongrel out to the Black Canyon.  We were there for not even 5 minutes and they were gone.  Some best friend, right?  They spent the whole night out in the cold because we couldn't find them.  I guess they learned their lesson...

I always compare my dogs to really well behaving dogs and get frustrated.  I think there's a lot to learn from that.  One is being content with where I'm at in life or where my dogs are at.  Another is being patient.  I've only had dogs for about 11 months.  We found Mongrel last December right before Christmas.  Mongrel went from being a dog that cowered every time someone looked at her to a dog that cowers every time someone looks at her.. no...she's come a long way.  She's came from being a completely undomesticated dog that ran from people to being a sweetheart that sits by my side as I write my post in Starbucks.  She takes off my socks, picks things up for me, and protects me from impending danger or danger as she sees it.

Raising dogs teaches me a lot about people.  Dogs are often a crutch for shy people.  I can't count how many times people have come up to me and talking baby talk to my dogs.  They never address me.   They just pet my dog like I'm not there. Hello!  over here...what makes that socially acceptable?  Why don't you go pet someone's kid?  

Another thing that having dogs teaches you is that everyone knows more than you about dogs.  Everyone.  I get so much freakin advice about how to raise my dogs.  Whether it's that I'm choking my dog or my dog is thirsty.  If my dog wants to choke herself, let her.  If my dog is thirsty, she'll drink, but if she's focused on something, drinking is not what's on her mind.

I think the most important thing having dogs teaches you is that no one is perfect, but that doesn't mean you should lower your standards based on people's general opinion.  Lowering your standards is a huge reason for divorce.  People get into a relationship because they don't want to be alone and slowly the other person's flaws really drive them up the wall until they can't stand it anymore.  If you keep your low standards, you're either dumb or you have very little self-confidence.  This is how people think of their dogs.  People have very low standards for how a dog should behave.  This is why dogs alleviate depression and improve the general happiness of people.  People have a different standard for dogs.  They think of them as little humans.  I've heard someone say, "my dog doesn't talk back to me like you do."  The dogs barks.  What do you think he's doing?

Over time, my dogs have really learned a lot.  They are all pretty well-behaved most of the time.  Well behaved enough, that I get lots of compliments which is awesome!  Training is really important.  Just like people, dogs need to mature to reach their full potential.

a moment in the past... wondering in the present

As I set foot on new areas of the country, I meet up with people from my past.  People that I may have never even talked to like people I met in Indy, but people that I immediately bond with because of life experiences.  Life experiences that include being watched 24/7 never even having the privilege/ability to shower in peace, to shave with a razor, to talk to the male gender, to wear anything but an ankle length skirt and a shirt that covered your collarbone.  Many had the privilege to experience the quiet room.  A room with a bed and pillow with no sheets, a container of water, and a Bible.  The room had a toilet, a shower with no curtain and a broken mirror.  A mirror just invited those of the self-mutilation tendency to slash up their entire body given the circumstances.  Something really draws me to these people.  Is it my tumultuous past?  Is it my wandering present?  My desire to help those who are struggling as I struggle myself.

It's really mind-boggling to me.  Several months ago I visited an acquaintance from ITC, someone who I even lived with.  She was a pot-smoking dancer/prostitute with no aspirations and seemingly not a care in the world.  I spent the evening with her and her best friend, a previous jail bird for robbing and shooting people.  They jumped from house to house smoking up with their friends.  We ended the night at the house of my acquaintance's boyfriend who she seemingly hated.  This was an interesting evening that ended at about 6 AM with a game of dice.  I didn't really think much of this evening except that I spent the night in the ghetto with people that never would have given a whitey the time of day had I not known someone that was in their clique.  I had fun, but nothing drew me to make this girl's life any better.

About two weeks ago, I met up with another person from ITC.  I had never even talked to her while at the training center.  I had briefly spoken to her years back and we decided that we should meet up one day, but those words are always exchanged with others and generally a person will not follow through with this.  I had gotten in contact with her on the day that I happen to be in her town.  After some texting and such, I didn't think I would get to meet up with her, but she invited me to a party that was going to be put on by her bf and his friends.  I talked to her some at the party and really saw a girl that had been through a lot that was putting on her plastic face like the majority of us trying to make everyone believe that she was happy.  I talked to her superficially at the party and some at her bf's house after the party.  For some reason, something really drew me to her.  I really wanted to help her.  I talked to her a little over text and she opened up to me a little and then she completely shut me down.  She just dropped off and never texted me again.  This bothered me for several days.  I understand why a person would want to just shut out someone that was willing to help them.  Naturally, if you don't want to be vulnerable to your 'friends'  you aren't going to want to be open with someone you barely know.  It's easier to just keep on that plastic face.  This experience taught me two lessons.  I learned some about being comfortable in your own skin as I so often am not.  I get critical of other people over the things they have fun doing, the way they dress or whatever else I happen to be thinking at the current time.  I still have a lot to learn about being completely real.  I view myself as one of the most straight forward, honest people I know, but we all have our secrets.  We all have our insecurities, our questions that we are too afraid to ask.  The other lesson I learned is about why I want to help people.  In general, I want people to be happy.  I don't want anyone to be sad, but it's not selfless because whether I like it or not, I pick and choose the people I talk to, the people that I try to make happy.  This girl I met up with was a white attractive girl in her 20s.  She seemed like a typical college student, but she wasn't.  She was headed down a pretty bad road with no end in sight.  If I had the same mentality about everyone, I'd be giving money to every crack head that begged from me.  Instead, I get my dogs and I lock my doors politely giving this beggar the finger under the guise of saying I don't carry any money on me.  Some may say I don't want to help these people because I feel threatened, but what if the terror factor didn't exist?  Maybe the next thought would be..well it's their own fault that they are in this situation and I manage to work for my own money; why can't they work for theirs?  Maybe they just need a kind word.  They have plenty of people telling them to screw themselves or telling them to get a job.  What would it take for me to want to help these people?  A pretty face.  Someone I can relate with.  I didn't come from trash.  I have a hard time relating to trash.  I live on the fringes, but I definitely have my limits.  My motives aren't completely selfless to help a friend from Indy.  Maybe it comes down to attractiveness.  Maybe it comes down to genetics.  I'm obviously closer related to a white person than a Black, Asian, or Spanish person.  In practice, I don't really think about this, but I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I wanted to help this girl so much and at the same time not giving a second thought to the other girl that I had met up with from Indy.  Was it her impending jail sentence that inspired me to help her?  Was it the relate-ability of our past?  It certainly wasn't the relate-ability of our current situation.  When you break things down, you really have to question your motives.  Selfless or selfish?

Embarking for the West

After being home for a few days short of 7 weeks, we embarked upon a new journey to the West at 1:30 in the morning in typical fashion.  We only drove about 30 minutes before Kyle was passing out behind the wheel.  We ended the night in Central Jersey.  We slept in the back of our vehicle without moving any of our bags to the front.  For anyone that hasn't seen the car with all the stuff in the back, to give some perspective, our dogs can barely lay in the back comfortable with all the stuff.  Piggy decided that she wanted to sleep on top of me and since we weren't sleeping under the covers, I let her stay.  Mongrel was smart.  She slept in the front all by herself not bothered by anyone.  After sleeping for about 4 hours, I woke up all allergied up, covered in hair at 6 AM and we began our journey to the Road Kill Cook-off in Pocahontas County, WV.  We drove and drove tired as hell and finally arrived at around 3 PM.  When we arrived, a lot of the food was gone, but we still got to try ground hog stew, and some meatloaf that had bear, oppossum and like 3 other random animals.  It all tasted pretty good.

After a short while, Kyle and I took off for Jolo, WV.  In Jolo, WV, there are several churches that believe in handling poisonous snakes.  A couple months ago, on the day that Kyle and I planned on going to the church, the pastor was bit by a snake and died a pretty tragic death.  Unfortunately, due to procrastination, Kyle and I weren't able to make it to this service.  This taught Kyle that procrastination makes you miss out on...awesome opportunities... pretty sick and twisted.

Anyway, this time we weren't going to miss it.  We drove to Jolo which is so far the most backwards place that we have been on our year long travels.  These people don't even know that slavery was abolished.  So we drove and drove around the non-existent town looking for the church.  We found a church that was having a service at 8:30 on a Saturday so we figured we were at the right place.  Upon arrival, my first observation aside from the lack of snakes was that the pastor was wearing a blue leisure suit and jet black combed over hair.  I felt like I had returned to the 1970s.

Kyle and I quietly sat in the back discussing if this could be the snake handling church.  We were greeted by the few people that attended the service.  We asked if this was the snake handling church.  Someone pointed to a man sitting not too far from us and told us that this was the pastor of the snake handling church.  Really?  Why is he at this service?  We were encouraged to speak with him.  He told us that he was in fact the pastor and that his church wasn't having a service.  This was extremely hard to understand as these people barely speak English... and they complain about the Mexicans...

Anyway, over the course of about an hour, the pastor told us that another church was having a snake handling service the following day and that we could sleep in the parking lot of the church overnight.  He also offered his own church and said that we could sleep in the church since it had heat and a bathroom.  For fear of loose snakes in his church, we opted to sleep in our car.

The following morning, we attended the snake handling church.  The service began with the most hick bluegrass dancing and singing that you could ever imagine.  There was probably a total of ten teeth in the whole congregation.  About twenty minutes into the service, Kyle began feeling sick...what a buzz kill...  He left the church and began vomiting on the church steps.  He came back in a told me that he didn't feel well.  After a while of him being outside, I determined that this wasn't just a passing sickness so I came out to see what I could do.

In between throwing up all over the church parking lot, the pastor's wife walked over from her house and saw us sitting outside.  She said that I should bring Kyle into the church and everyone would pray over him.  I respectfully told her that I didn't think that would be a good idea.  She insisted, but I told her that I was going to bring him to the hospital instead.

The pastor's wife walked into the church and Kyle proceeded to vomit and rocket yoo-hoo crawling zombie style.  It was not a pretty site.  Kyle wanted to go into a bathroom so he could get a hold of himself and wash his hands and all.  He went into the bathroom and he could hear voices screaming and the pastor shouting, "The Holy Spirit is your armor!!!"  I guess this was the snakes part...
He came out and told me absolutely nothing except that the bathroom was poison.  He wasn't exactly talking at this point, he was so sick.  He later told me that the water was polluted with coal.  These people are washing their hands with poison on a regular basis.  I got Kyle in the car and started driving towards civilization with my map in hand, periodically stopping for Kyle to throw up.  After driving for what seemed like forever, I crossed the state border into Virginia.  I kept driving cuz I still had no reception.  I finally arrived at a town with reception and learned that the hospital was actually right next door to where I had parked.  I brought Kyle into the hospital.  They made me fill out some information.  Every second that I was delayed from seeing Kyle, I was terrified that someone bad was happening because Kyle was incoherent and this place was still pretty backwards.  Finally, I was allowed into the back after pushing the buzzer for like 5 minutes.  The doctor was talking to Kyle.  They decided to take blood and pump him with fluids.  They took 7 viles of blood.  For anyone that hasn't gotten blood drawn for something simple like a stomach flu, seven viles is way too much!!  This place is definitely selling his plasma.  After a couple hours of being pumped with fluids, we left the hospital.  This concluded day 3 of our travels.

Scum pigs

I'm always ready to start a new post and then realize I'm totally bombarded with emails from mystery shopping companies that I need to respond to in typical hateful fashion...

Today, we finally ventured into Rocky Mtn National Park.  After learning that 2/3rds of the park is closed for the season, we were ready to head out of the park when we see the red and blues behind us.  What a surprise!  Red, white, and blue symbol of freedom or symbol of control.  I left Jersey in the hopes of freedom from these scum pigs.   So we get pulled over and the scum ranger pig comes to the window and bitches at Kyle saying he was going 20 over the speed limit.   He asks for license and registration...keep in mind that he's just a wannabe pig with no jurisdiction.  I couldn't find Kyle's license so we gave him a passport.  He comes back repeating over and over that he was going over the speed limit trying to be a cool bro while at the same time trying to exert the power of a scum pig.  He asks if Kyle has been drinking or smoking marijuana.  Kyle says no...cuz he's freakin sober... The dirt bag insists on sobriety testing him "just in case, man, it's not a big deal if you smoke, I just have to eye test you"  again Kyle says.."I don't smoke, man."  After a freakin sobriety test, the scum says, "you know, it's cool man if you smoke.  I'm just getting a sweet smell from the car maybe it's the dogs or something."  No man, it's the weed in your car now, fuck off!

I'm so tired of these people.  They are not even people.  They forget what it's like to be normal citizens. They think it's cool for them to drive drunk, but god forbid someone that doesn't have pig connections drinks and drives.  What kind of protection is that?

The last time I was home I got harassed for being parked in a handicapped parking spot with my handicapped placard hanging off my rear-view.  The cop wouldn't let up until I mentioned the ADA regulations enough times that he realized he better back off.  But seriously, who do these assholes think they are.  Who are they protecting when they hassle me for parking in a handicapped spot?  Not the senior citizens or fat asses that have handicapped placards.  I get enough dirty looks from people for parking in a handicapped spot.  The least the system could do is leave me the hell alone!  I'm not receiving any social security or government help.  I earn my own way.  Give me my freedom.

People say America is so free, but where is our freedom.  I was talking to my grandfather a few months back and he was saying how it was better in Italy.  He said he had more freedom.  What does that say? People are complacently living in the triangle--work, consume, or be in your freakin house.

Mountainous Montana

Been traveling through Montana for a couple weeks now... Montana is huge...The West is so much different than the East.  I like the East because you can drive through a couple states in a few hours.  In the West, you end up in the same boring state for days...well... not that long.  Montana is beautiful, but I would never want to live here.  I like my overpopulated state.  In Montana, we visited the white trash areas of the state like Billings and Butte.  We drove to Bozeman and Helena...and we drove to Lincoln...the town of Lincoln has a bleak past... Years ago, not too long ago in fact, a man lived alone in a cabin that he had built for himself with no water and no electricity.  He wanted to live off the grid, but industry didn't allow it.  This caused this intelligent man to...bomb 16 different universities and airlines..killing 3 people and injuring 23 people.  This man was the unabomber... known as a crazy man, but overlooked as a genius attending Harvard University at 16 and teaching at Cal Berkeley at the age of 25 after getting his PhD in mathematics at the University of Michigan.  You gotta watch out for those smart ones...

Raw foods..

So as usual..  I haven't updated for a month and a half.  We've been super busy doing shops and preparing foods and visiting random places.  Since my last post, we set out for Arkansas again to go to Wakarusa, a lower key music festival.  It was pretty awesome.  We staying in the handicapped section and met a guy with a fake heart and a girl that had fallen off of a cliff in a car accident and lived.  The people we met were really genuine and nice.  We also met a girl who was a little crazy and had left her house and gone off all her psych meds and was like a little lost puppy..  Hopefully she found her way after the festival.  Her parents were so worried for her that they bought her VIP passes for the two festivals she was going to and yet she was in the handicapped section because she had no idea what was going on.  The next week we went to Bonnaroo which was pretty fun though nothing extremely notable.  We saw Kyle's cousin play at the festival which was cool.  After that we headed north cuz it was super super hot and sleeping in a car is torture in weather like that.  We took a nice drive up the Mississippi river all the way to the very tip.  Lake Itasca is at the very tip.  We walked across the Mississippi when we got there... The picture is a little dark.

We kept driving north all the way to International Falls, MN where we stayed in a hotel for a mystery shop and dehydrated all the food we had bought for the raw foods diet which we've been doing for about 2 1/2 weeks.  We walked into Canada the next day to the town of Fort Frances which was really boring even though it was July 1st also known as Canada day.

Here's some of our awesome dehydrated foods:

We dehydrated a bunch of fruits and vegetables which I concluded just make you feel ripped off because you end up with less food, but we also made pizza for Kyle and bison jerky which was awesome!!

The raw foods diet has really opened my eyes to some awesome healthy dessert options. 

Things I've learned from the raw foods diet:

1.    Judge everyone that eats at McDonalds

2.    Judge everyone that eats at every other god awful fast food restaurant

3.    All fast food restaurants put MSG in the food

4.    On the raw foods diet, I can eat dessert all day and it's good for me. =) or so I think

I have made awesome brownies and coconut macaroons on this diet.  I made mint chocolate chip ice cream and vanilla ice cream.  All this came as a surprise to me when I discovered all this.

Kyle was happy to learn that we could eat pizza on the raw foods diet. 

We've also made some nice raw meals like zucchini pasta and avocado and sprouts (which we grow ourselves.

The diets been pretty cool so far, but also pretty time consuming.  It's been a good experience, but not something that I would do forever cuz thus far it doesn't seem to have helped my health at all.  Something will...

So now we're in the middle of nowhere North Dakota..were actually in a big city for ND.. Bismarck.  Nothing to do here except for Museums and a zoo...boring..

While traveling up the Mississippi we stopped in Minneapolis for a while which is near the Mall of America.  Consumerism at its best.  With all the mystery shopping that we do, I don't think I could ever go back to consumerism.  I go to the mall to make 50 bucks not to spend more money than I've made in the past month.  

The Amusement Park in Mall of America

Marcy's playground in Minneapolis

 

Along the way, we stopped in Duluth where we went to a place called Whole Foods Co-op which has nothing to do with the Wholefoods chain.  We met a girl that had travelled with her boyfriend on bikes all the way to Alaska.  Which seems really far being from Jersey, but is substantially closer when you live in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 mosquitoes... 

Graffiti graveyard in Duluth

Now off to watch Fargo in Bismarck...because we had no time to watch Fargo...in Fargo..