congratulations graduates of 2006

warren county has an alternative high school named the lighthouse academy. this school is for kids that for whatever reason have been expelled from one of the 3 warren county high schools.

it began with humble beginnings in 2002. that first class only had 6 kids graduate. the growth of the school continues each year. below is the graduating classes for each year.

2002 – 6
2003 – 32
2004 – 64
2005 – 70
2006 – 98

each one of these kids would not have a high school diploma if not for the lighthouse academy. they would be high school dropouts.

a factoid......of the 172 previous graduates 33 are now attending college, 10 are in the military and over 100 sumpin’ of them are gainfully employed now. the fact that stands out the most is that 19% are in college.

i am very thankful that there are people out there making a difference in our community like the educators that take on these challenging students and help them to a better life.

in december of 2002 my best friend of 22 died from a heart attack at 39 years of age. he had a son that was one year younger than dahbicito. i received an invitation to his graduation from the lighthouse academy.

i knew that after his dad died that he had taken it pretty hard as they were as close as me and ‘cito. i also knew he had been in trouble at school some because ‘cito always kept me up to date on him. i didn’t know he had been booted from his own school.

i went to the graduation and knew around 5 or 6 more kids that were graduating. these kids should be proud of their accomplishments. i asked my friend’s son what he was going to do now and he told me that he was going to technical college to become an x-ray tech like his dad was. i truly hope he does.

let me preface this next part by saying i am humble as hell in most aspects as i grew up pretty damn poor and feel i have been blessed by having such a good job. i truly check myself for looking down at folks as i feel that God loves them as much as he loves me....that is a fact.

but..........

i’m sorry, that gym was the biggest collection of rednecks that i’ve been around in quite some time. it felt like i had been swept up in a tornado and dropped into a skynyrd concert from hell.

some observations.

spandex......on folks that shouldn’t be wearin it.
a toddler....two-ish.....wearing camo pants and a camo tee......his momma let him run buck wild on the floor.
more than one tee-shirt with rebel flags on it.
at least 20 babies that cried the whole two hours.
true to form.....a family member or friend saw fit to pull a fire alarm.....my first thought was “yup, your ass will be graduating from lighthouse next year.” real class move.

of course the administrator asked everyone to hold their applause until a full row had received their diplomas. out of 10 in each row 7 groups of parents would respect this advice.

what about the other 3? son, they wuz red as hell with their bellowed out wooooo-hoooooieeee’s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i kept expectin’ one to holler out FREE BIRD!!!!

i kept thinking, can you spell recidivism? with families and friends who obviously have no self restraint, will i be seein’ you in an orange jumpsuit picking up trash on the side of the road?

i’m sorry, i hate to judge but red is red.

i truly hope this is the first step for the kids to become productive members of society. and from the past successes these kids are certainly better off with that diploma.

can you imagine filling out a job application and having to put down that you did not graduate high school?

go ahead, flay me for looking down my rather large proboscus at certain elements of last night’s crowd.

in warren county it’s easy to insulate yourself from red. b.g. does have some sophistication to it. it’s a college town. there are lots of good jobs here so there is money. but like i told my buddy that was there. “throw a rock in any direction and you’ll be able to find red, it’s out there whether you run in it or not”

your friend,

the elitist,

dahbeed.

ramblings.............what else does beed do?

man, da beedstah been doin' evahthin' but write on his blog and he also believes there will be an all points bulletin issued via h.h. investigating whether beed has been whisked away to the state mental hospital in hop angeles and is curled up on the floor in the fetal position babbling in ebonics and espanol.

no such luck kiddies. beed is alive and well......as well as a 46 year old man with a shaved head that has abused his body can be in. actually in bettah shape than some time. still workin' the barbells and growin' portabello mushroom sized biceps.

speakin' of portabello mushrooms. it's summer time and that means it's grillin' time and your grill is not just for ribeye steaks and burgers. here's the recipe. go to the store and buy some portabello mushrooms. you can get the big dogs or the baby bellas (beed's biceps ARE already bigger than the baby bellas).

get out your extra virgin olive oil and if you don't have some in your cabinet beed hereby dubs you as a hacker, a can't hang, a never was. anyone that enjoys fine dining damn sure bettah have some evoo in their kitchen.

pour some in your hand and start rubbing it into the mushroom cap. don't worry about it takin' so much to coat it. it sucks that oil in faster than a crack ho' hittin' the pipe for the first buzz of the day. flip it ovah and coat the stem also.

now use salt and GROUND PEPPER (if you didn't have the evoo, you ain't gonna have this so that's 2 strikes, don't make beed send your asses to the food network corner and stick your nose in it. speaking of that, and this is titled ramblings......beed can honest to God remember exactly what the cheap ass wallpaper in our houses growing up smelled like as lesser infractions that didn't deserve an ass-whippin, belt or switch style were dealt with by a sentance to go stand in the corner.....STICK YOUR DAMN NOSE IN IT BOY!!!)

after you've salted and peppered them they are ready for the grill. cook them on a medium heat for about ten minutes. if your grill has an upper shelf, cook them on that. just plop them on their cap. watch the underside of the cap. some of the oil will work it's way through the cap and when it does, they are done. that or the ten minute rule, either one works.

they are mother-f'in dee-licious. beed's two boys, who THOUGHT they hated mushrooms absolutely love papi's grilled portabellos.

beed spent two days in louieeee-ville this week for a big district meeting. they have these a couple times a year and beed has been to many of them. most of the presentations are as fun as having the family jewels put into a vise and having your most sadistic enemy in charge of crankin' it in. it was no different this time.

you do get a chance to network (italics for you know who) with the big muckety-mucks. beed got face time with the two biggest execs in our district and since they are both womans (vulnerable to beed's charisma and charm......oh, it's very real folks.....don't scoff and shake your doubting heads) beed left them with very favorable impressions of that man down in bowling green. at least that is what they told beed's plant manager.

we stayed at the brown hotel. beed tries to keep humble but like he told a friend, that damn hotel isn't made to help keep your ego in check. it may very well have been the best bed that beed has evah slept on. huge room. very old but very well done.

more ramblings. listening to some public radio this afternoon beed heard two performers whose voices he rates at the very top of the chart. first was patsy cline doing "sweet dreams of you". God beed loves patsy's voice. if beed had to pick one word to describe patsy cline's voice the word he would pick would be "sultry", you may disagree but beed don't give a shit cuz this is his blog and he gets to pick and choose the palabras he wants to use and you don't get to edit it out. one more time so there is no question "sultry".

the next song was "dream baby" by roy orbison. if beed had to pick one word to describe roy's voice it would be "soulful" beed remembers hearing one time that elvis presley said that roy had the greatest voice he had ever heard and he was the king's favorite singer. 'nuff said!

that's enough rambling for one blog. a recipe, a story on beed sucking up to powerful womans and some music knowledge you should file away and take to heart.

your friend,

still alive and kicking,

tha' motherf'in beedstah (beed tole ya'll a long time ago he likes to cuss, he warned ya')

p.s. beed forgot to add this first time around. he wuz surfin' the cable this morning and stopped on E! no, beed didn't stop for another whitney houston interview. there was a beautiful young blond on there doing stand up. she was flat out funny as hell!!!!!! her stand up was great but her skits were absolutely hilarious also.

few folks get beed to laugh out loud but this little hottie did it. beautiful and funny, who gives a shit if she can cook? beed don't. he fell in love for the 9 millionth time. if you get a chance to see her show on saturday mornings don't miss it. her name is chelsea handler and spare beed any criticism for not knowing who she was.....beed's a letterman man, not a leno man. beed did find out through googling her that she has worked on leno. enjoy!

ahhhh......music to my ears

as many dark evil things that man is capable of.......and we are capable of plenty from child molestation to strapping dynamite to ones chest and killing innocents, i am always reminded of the good we are capable of by the arts.

i love athletics. i loved playing them growing up, and still love to shoot a little hoop now and then. i love attending athletic events. but one of my truest of true loves has always been music.

i can’t play it for shit. i do own a very nice guitar that i bought around 27 years ago and learned how to play several different chords and learned to finger pick pretty good but i have no f’in rhythm. i believe people are born with different gifts. some folks have the gift of music.......i don’t.

i pretty much love all genres of music. the reason i bring up music is that miguelito, my 7th grader of a son is in the chorus at his middle school. tuesday night the drakes creek middle school music department put on their spring concert.

dahbicito, my college age son played snare drum when he was in middle school so i had been to a couple of these things before. the band teacher, mrs. smalling does a great job with her charges. the 7th grade band was a little rough but the 8th grade band was outstanding.

i love watching someone do something they love. i don’t give a shit if it’s someone digging a hole, if they love it, i enjoy watching. mrs. smalling LOVES her job. and it’s a better world for it.

i enjoyed how serious she was while conducting and the smile she kept the whole time. you could really see how proud she was of her kids. and i enjoy the thought of how hard these kids worked on their newfound craft and got to show it off for their parents and grandparents.

the place was packed too. parent involvement has never been a problem whether it was when we were at alvaton, cumberland trace or briarwood elementary schools nor at d.c.m.s. or greenwood high school.

onto miguelito’s part. he tried snare drum in the 5th grade but wouldn’t stick with it. but he loves to sing. and the music teacher at briarwood is simply outstanding. i was amazed at what she accomplished with children that young.

so miguelito joined chorus this year. i had already seen them perform when they performed at van meter auditorium at western. they were awesome in that setting. now a middle school gym doesn’t quite have the acoustics that van meter has but it was still great.

it does my heart good to see all those good looking young men and ladies in their fine looking black and red robes. if you follow the news all you hear about is how bad kids are cuz bad news sells. but there a ton of really good kids out there.

a unique thing about the d.c.m.s. choir is that their accompaniests are all students. mrs. lanham said they were probably the only middle school in kentucky where they don’t use adults on the piano.

the first boy has music in his genes as his father is the music director for one of the largest churches in b.g.

here’s some insight into how twisted dahbicito is (he gets it naturally, fo’ shizzle). after the first pianist finished a young asian boy sat down at the piano. dahbicito leans over to me and whispers “whyyyyyy does it have to be an asian?” not mean at all, just laughing at stereotypes.

to make it even better, when he got finished i leaned over to ‘cito and whispered “look who is replacing him” it was a pretty young asian girl. i love it when things line up like that. it means there is some order in this chaotic world. some.....things are as they should be.

to whomever reads this. there is not a racist or xenophobic bone in my body. i truly mean that from the depths of my heart. but i am damn sure not blind enough to not recognize that there is some basis for stereotypes. i know that is not the politcally correct thing to say but who gives a shit. there are only a few that read my blog and they all know my heart pretty well by now.

on the casa front. the dreaded gum maples are down. they’ve been cut and hauled off. i have leveled out the ground. i have sown grass seed. i have put down straw. i have started pressure washing every inch of my concrete. i drained the pool last night. i have ordered a new diving board for the pool. i have turned into a f’in home improvement machine. tim taylor can’t touch my f’in jockstrap. i mean business. and i ain’t kiddin’ neither (a line from tombstone for any tombstone afficianado).

your buddy,

the arts lover,

dahbeed.

a southern man to the bones.....beed

beed was born and spent his first five years in flarda.....that's how people down there used to say it.

so beed has always considered himself a southerner at heart. much more so than these kain-tuckians he's surrounded by. not that kain-tuckians are a bad thing. but in beed's humble o-pin-eeeon they are not truly southerners.

kain-tuckians are more moderate by nature. hell, we couldn't even make up our mind at all during the war of northern aggression.....hehe, that's what southerners called the civil war anyhoo.

beed's great grandma told him he had family members fight on both sides. she said some of our families had brothers fighting for different sides.

can you imagine that? you join one army and your brother is fighting for the other side. what the hell happens if by some strange twist of fate you both end up at the same battle? do you shoot at your brother? beed cannot imagine doing that no matter how impassioned he felt on an issue.

anyhoo, beed digresses. beed can cook the hell out of some southern food. growing up pretty po' means that we ate freakin' beans every single night. pinto beans....the poor man's meat. oh yeah, we ate the hell out of some yardwalker too. that's southern for chicken in case ya' didn't know.

yesterday beed fixed a large pot of pinto beans to which he added two packages of ham pieces. son, if beed hadn't fixed anything else that in itself was a meal. beed also taught miguelito how to cook mashed potatoes.

miguelito wanted to help peel the potatoes so beed tried to show him how. since beed cannot turn off his competitiveness he can turn potato peeling into bloodsport. miguel only peeled dos (2) taters to beed's diez (10) taters.

it was total annihilation. of course beed only has about 38 years of peelin' experience on miguel so the results should have been expected. then beed grilled out some center cut pork tenderloin.

you could almost cut that swine with a fork. let's see, ham pieces in the beans, pork tenderloin as the main course.....the honorable elijah mohammed would have been very disappointed in dahbeed yesterday.

the last thing beed cooked and it was because it cooks the fastest was a big old head of cabbage. and since beed fixed enough of everything to feed an army, we are set for supper again tonight.

man beed loves homemade mashed potaters. get those f'in flakes away from him. they can do in a pinch but there is no comparison. the only thing missin' was a big ole glass of sweet tea.

one of beed's litmus tests on bein' southern or not is on how you eat your grits. if you put cream and sugar on them like they are cream of wheat or oatmeal then in beed's book you are yankee by nature.

if you slather them with butter, salt and pepper and pour them over the top of your over easy eggs and chop them all up into one big mess, then by the power vested in beed you are a southerner.

beed ate that combination every morning of his childhood. and still loves to fix it that way on some saturday mornings. that shit will stick to your ribs all morning long.

on the casa front, the tree cuttin' down folks are supposed to come out to the casa today and cut down those 3 gum maples that beed hates. no more spikey little balls will be dropped on the beed front lawn. beed will be sowing some grass where those muthas used to be as soon as the stump grinder downer guy gets out to get rid of the stumps.

beed already sowed some seed in some bald spots of the lawn and covered it with straw so beed has been gussyin' up the joint. next major project to be done at the end of this mez (month) is to drain the pool, repaint it and get it ready for the summer season.

so much work to do and only one beed to do it. ouch!

your buddy,

the gussy upper,

dahbeed.

let the mexicans do it!

if you know beed at all you know he ain't no xenophobe. beed is a world traveller and has seen how blessed he is to live in the united states. as poor as central america is.....and it is. it can't hold a candle to the poverty beed saw in egypt and kenya.

beed has often wondered why he was LUCKY enough to be born in this country. beed grew up very poor but not to the level of poor that he has witnessed. beed had a good brain housing group and was able to use the marine corps to receive electronics training that led to a great, well paid job.

how many kids all over the world have a good brain housing group but don't have the opportunities to improve their lot in life due to the corruption of their government or the lack of opportunity to climb out of their poverty?

anyhoo, yesterday, beed took a half day off and went home to work in the yard. there is a 10' by 12' area that used to be the boy's sandbox. there was a tower with a slide but that stuff is long gone.

beed loves homegrown tomatoes but has never grown any himself. he has always relied on his neighbors to keep him in fresh tomatoes. so beed says he's gonna grow some this year in that former sandbox.

the problem is that is was overgrown with grasses and weeds. beed has no tiller so he got his hoe, his mattock (pick-axe to some), his rake and shovel and went to work. choppin' and diggin' and pullin' by hand.

now beed has been working out lately and is in the best shape he has been in, in years. it still kicked his pansy ass. that is why beed titled this "let the mexicans do it!" beed thought about all the mexicans and central americans his age using a damn hoe all day.

all these people posturing and saying the immigrants are taking jobs that we would do are full of SHIT. they ain't taking a job that beed would want to do. would beed do it if that is what it took to feed his family? yes, but that is the only way.

beed ain't no puss, but given the choice to do what he does for a living or working in a field all day......it's a no brainer.

back on task. beed got about 70% done yesterday and will finish up today or tomorrow. and those freakin' tomatoes better turn out damn good. beed plans on planting some plants in weekly intervals for the next 3 weeks so they don't all come in at the same time.

miguelito is wanting one row for him to grow some watermelons. that's cool. we'll see how beed's first garden turns out.

later,

your friend the farmer,

dahbeed appleseed.

things you can do....at 2:10 a.m.

clean out your freezer. i mean reeeeaaaaalllllyyyyyy clean it out.

the eyeballs popped open zombie style at 2:00 this morning. i tried to go back to sleep but after 10 minutes of flopping gave up the ghost and got the hell up.

went downstairs, opened the freezer to get some ice for a glass of coke and realized there were not any cubes. just a frozen mass in the bottom of the icemaker. this has happened before and i am always the one that cleans it.

so i get a big knife and start chopping. i finally broke enough out to be able to pull the whole assembly out and run hot water over it.

i look at the rest of the freezer and it looks like a post nuclear war frozen tundra. it's a nice kenmore side by side. so i proceed to pull everything out and clean it up.

down at the bottom there is a frozen mass under a drawer. i finally break the drawer loose and get it out. the big knife does wonders. i start running hot water over the frozen mass that i have put into the sink.

there were all kinds of goodies in there. it was kind of a food version of encino man but there was no brendan fraser shaped bag of nuts at the bottom. after melting every bit of ice i found i used a towel to dry everything off and re-inserted 90% of the items back in the freezer.

the other 10% went into the shitcan.

i wrote a really long blog on friday and was ready to post it and then i stupidly thought, i'll add a picture to the post. and dumbass me did not copy and paste the post to word before i went down that suicidal lane of add photo. bad idea.....f'in lockup time. i really gave it forever to right the ship but blogger was having no part of it.

had a pretty good weekend and got much done around the house.

left for work this morning right before 5:00 and it was literally raining hell outside. mi gato, smokey had wanted out a little earlier and when i left, his ass was wet as hell and he wanted back into the casa. i unlocked the door and laughed at him and let him back in as a wet cat is fo' damn sho' a funny sight.

there was actually some very small hail hitting the ground whilst i drove to work. thank god for the new rubber on my whip. the new kumhos were scoffing at the rain piled across cemetery road. they made short work of it and i arrived safely at my place of employ.

i know this is boring as shit, who gives a shit what dahbeed does at 2:10 in the a.m. i just thought i'd drop a line and say hola.

talked to a honduran friend the other night and he might be hookin' me and my bud that wanted to go to buenos aires up with a cheap flight to the island of roatan. it would be the end of this month.

the water off roatan is second to none in the world. the folks are laid back and you can eat lobster very cheaply every single night as they have a ton of lobster boats there. i'm 50/50 on it right now. if i go, i will have some good stories as i always have a good time in central america.

your buddy,

the defroster,

dahbeed.