All posts by richard

Life Journal

Gramma Jean Bushnell has passed away at 94

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My last remaining grandparent died shortly after midnight on Saturday. She was hospitalized several days prior with an infection that the doctors notified us she would not survive. They gave her a month at most but noted that she was too frail for surgery and could be taken any day. Saturday, June 23rd 2012 was that day. She was born in 1917 and died at 94 years old.

Her obituary has more of her begining:

Jean Margaret Bushnell, 94, was born in Fargo, North Dakota, August 14, 1917, and died in Sunnyvale, California after a brief illness. In 1927, Jean moved to Los Angeles with her parents Isabel and Harry Hansen and her siblings Dorothy and Neal. She attended St. Agnes High School, and while working on a high school play, met and later married Mart Petty Bushnell, an actor and movie extra on loan from the Pasadena Playhouse. While he pursued his life-long career with the Boy Scouts of America Health and Safety Division, Jean raised their ten children and began a long career as a porcelain artist and teacher, winning numerous prizes and accolades. Her career and her works were the cover story in a recent International Porcelain Painter’s Association magazine. The subjects of her paintings were flowers and portraits. She was preceded in death by Mart her beloved husband of forty-five years in 1981 and in the same year, her darling grandchild Matthew Cloonan Bushnell. She is survived by all of her ten children

I’m posting about this late because that’s just what felt right. My grieving a family members death wasn’t a secret or anything, but I didn’t feel like having to put my social-media contacts through the obligatory “i’m super super sorry” and all that. I just assume you’re all wonderful people and send your sympathies.

Life Journal

Southern California looks for and captures cars with late registration

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You’ll want to read the expanded version of this nonsense featured in a previous post, but the summary is my car was towed and impounded for not having current registration and I am unable to GET the registration because it’s not registered in my name (I have been in a drawn out waiting period for the previous owner to qualify the car for emissions certification before it could be transfered to me).

The explanation is worse than the Flyaway dropping a dime on me: Evidently this is just something that the city does, to make sure they can effectively compete with Chicago for being the most corrupt big-government stronghold with a lock on power used primarily for raping the tax payer at the expense of the decay to the actual jobs government is supposed to manage like infostructure, highways, crime and the other things these places fail miserably at, etc. Check out this tip I got in a comment:

It may not be the garage’s fault. My office sells the City vehicle stickers, which is basically a tax on anyone who has the audacity to own a car in the city of Chicago. A few years back, one of my former bosses wanted to send investigators into downtown parking garages to ticket cars that didn’t pay for and properly display the sticker. The garages didn’t like that idea, took it to court, and lost. Our investigators were allowed to go in. Even though the garages were privately owned, they were considered “public”.

After asking a family friend in Los Angeles law-enforcement: yup…that’s the case alright… The government just sends drones out to troll the streets and parking garages for suckers to squeeze money out of.
Good thing Los Angeles is so free of illegal aliens, drugs, crime and shitty roadways to allow the local government to spend their boredom on extracting more money out of legal U.S. citizens contributing to the economy and traveling via registered cars that may have skipped a beat in the bureaucratic process of government bullshit.
So since it’s totally legal to yank a car without current registration, I have to pay it to get it out of the lot. I can’t do that until the legal owner of it complies with the emission standards testing to allow the final step of the cars sale to take place and have it registered in my name.
This leaves me several options:
  1. Sue the current owner in Small Claims court for the cost of the impound which took place as a result of their negligence so I can complete the sale and thereby get the car out.
  2. Tell the towtruck place that they just got a free 12 year old Lexus and move on to just buy a new car. I have a change of clothes and emergency-pack stuff like towels, latex gloves,  rope and a blindfold (the essentials) in there that i’ll never get back, but that’s about it. Not worth the $600 it would take to get the car out.
  3. DO pay the insane fee’s to get the car out, avoid having to buy a new one or sue anybody and recoup my costs by using my position as CEO of my small business to cut off my salary and go on government Food Stamps for awhile until the State of California has reimbursed me for the cost of this debacle.

hmmmm……

Developing…

Life Journal

Love is not “in the air” with this Rosey Bromance, y’all

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Richard
Wyatt just wouldnt listen to me when i warned him about his lack of sunblock… always learnin shit the hard way, this one.

Anne
Wyatt needs to stop losing weight. Not a good look.

Wyatt
This man is hideous

Richard
I’d say you were just saying that cuz he’s not on your level and thus you find a comparison more repulsive but Anne says he’s gross too so. I guess. Poor guy. I thought he was average

Wyatt
Embarrassingly I got a little toasted today going thru the mountains in my tanktop. :/

Richard
Haha so THATs it… Hit too close to home…

Richard
[name of a skin-showing facebook group we both are members of] will expect your recreation of this pic soon in that case

Wyatt
Thankfully i’m not as violent of a tomato as this. Just a little blush around the shoulders

Richard
[link to following image]:

Richard
That took too long to find and send but it symbolizes how I’m at home between your red traps. *(I’m overly pleased with myself on that one)

Wyatt
home is where the heart is. or where rich is. therefore rich is an important, fleshy, pumping organ

Benjamin
LOL! Now thats a good one. lol

Benjamin
I actually should ask some of our outside lawn and garden associates for pictures. 😛 they look like that

Wyatt
where the hell do you live that gingers are used for manual labor?

Richard
heaven?

Anne
The bromance blossoms! Love is in the air.

Richard
um. dont be weird, anne. love is not in the air…
it was in the air like a million years ago; has since transmitted spores to both parties, infected the lungs and spread to the rest of the blood stream, resulting in the growth of inoperable tumors in both victims hearts.
unfortunately the condition can be terminal but patients can put sickness symptoms into remission through the only known treatment available which is regular doses of the other infectee (dont be gross with your thoughts of meat injections… there are lots of ways to medicate. a simple response to a “watchya thinkin bout??” text at 4am can act as a full 24 hour allotment, even. it all just depends). so :p

Life Journal

Rowan is a madman with a purpose…

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Don’t tell my other nephews, but Rowan is my favorite. Okay, not really (I just remembered they’re starting to learn to read), but he *is* the biggest performer of the 3 little monsters.

This little psychopath with the skull & crossbones necktie is gonna be something someday. and it’s gonna be hilarious. The picture below of him “smiling” with his grandma (my half-brothers mom) was taken tonight as the family was out at dinner.

Since that one was a little silly, here’s a re-take to get a “nice pictures with Grandma”. Nailed it…

^That’s his older brother Riley behind him and my brother with the Amish mutton chops on his face. Of course Rowans the star of the show. Such an angel, right?? I mean look at that adorable saintly look of innocence.

Rowan is an Artist and his brothers are his canvas.

Before they went out… Rowan got ahold of a permanent marker and drew thick eyebrows on Riley (cleaned off with a clarifying shampoo before the camera was brought into this) and tagged monster faces on his younger brother Brody. GENIUS!

 

His poor mother, who is about to pop with their soon to be younger sister/my first niece, had to scrub them down as best she could before they left but as far as I’m concerned – he totally won extra ice cream points with uncle Rich. Here she is with Brody who is looking sweet as sugar and innocent as a freakin baby lamb resting on a bed of ducklings and tulips:

Rowan is always the most hyperactive and the one who crashes the hardest so of course he konked out on the couch as soon as they got home. While he was vulnerable and their mom left the room to shut off the tv, Riley got his revenge for the Sharpie eyebrows Rowan gave him earlier:

Their mom reports “Rowan is in for a surprise in the morning.. oh these boys..I have a feeling this just the beginning”.

Life Journal

There has been a death…

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My grandmother is 94 and recently had surgery. my cousin was recently found unconscious and has been in the hospital for bacterial meningitis. my mom just instant messages me saying “someone died… Better catch up!”. I briefly flip out but save face seconds later when I realize she was continuing our conversation from several hours ago about Desperate Housewives. :l

I’m 2 episodes behind. obviously this is the worst option imaginable. either they wrote out Tom instead of fixing the marital problem story arc or they ran out of reasons to keep Carlos or Mike around and one of them either got murdered or Carlos had an accident right after getting sober. idk how im gonna get through the rest of this day now…

FML

Life Journal

Sometimes medical professionals suck at finding things

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My 94 year old Grandma Bushnell fell the first day I got up here to stay with her for a few days in her Sunnyvale California home and has been nursing a bruised leg ever since. I know it was bothering her at night but today she says she was just fine, admitting to the tiny bit that wasnt fine (the pain in her leg) only in the context of noting that its those little pains that you have to expect as a part of life and not make a fuss over. People of all ages should be so wise.

I just came back down when she was on her way to the first doctors visit where they said there was no fracture. Pain persisted and – Surprise! – there’s a fracture. So now she’s going in for surgery cuz it needs a plate and screws or something (UPDATE: surgery went well. doctor pleased with it. Gma will spend 4 days in the hosp and then a few with a care professional).

I went to the dentist a couple years ago because of a hurting molar and they didnt find anything wrong…with THAT tooth. They charged me for fillings in teeth that werent bothering me – sure – but nothing on the one that I came in to complain about. Guess it was all in my head, right? WRONG. The culprit was a crack in a filling and got worse to where I had to go in again – this time to a different dentist where I was informed of the problem and the fact that the crack was a Goatse in my skull, inviting all kinds of bacteria into a direct pipeline to the root of my tooth and – CONGRATULATIONS! – I need a $2,000 root canal.

All cuz they didnt spot the crack in the first place. that sucked and its just a tooth in some 20something that, after the cost, doesn’t matter. I cant imagine the suckitude of that happening in a bone fracture in a 94 year old. completely obnoxious.

Look harder for stuff!

Life Journal

“Reeeechurds not even spose-teh BE here…”

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The line from the title above has been in a couple videos over the past 2 years and every few weeks I get asked what it means. This blog is a reminder to myself to tell the story on camera some time when I see my brother next, but the quick summary is that it was about 13 years ago, involved alcohol and has been a running gag in the family ever since.

Until the story gets told properly, i’ll leave you with this…

Life Journal

Footsteps…

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From left to right: It starts with an appropriate level of joy expression for the venue, then as we move over to Brody we tick it up a notch to extra “look at me, i’m posing for a picture” style of smiling and then… RowRow bringin in the “sticking my face out of a car window on the highway” posture that forces a smile so big that any more of it and his face would melt off.
Taken at a “Dinner with Santa” event.

Life Journal

Thanksgiving Food and Internet

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The only downside to playing pretend with the nephews is that Aidan Bushnell and i constantly have to fight over which one of us gets to be Justin Bieber. luckily im still a couple inches bigger so I win, but maybe i’ll hook him up with some Biebs action “One Time”. Never Say Never motherfkkerrzzzz.

Even though it will be turned back on tomorrow – I couldn’t handle the lack of internetz here at my brothers house in Florida so I drove Aidan up to the town square where they have free Wifi, I guess to lure patrons to the local shops. Their marketing strategy worked, cuz Aidan went to Starbucks and as we sipped on the stadium seating with our lappytoppies, I snapped this pic and uploaded it to his Facebook with the following caption:

I thought it was about time i took a photo of you where you WERENT sleeping for once. thanks for the mocha latte carmelotto grande with whipped cream, Bestie!!!1
#chillaxin @ the park

Now it’s time to go eat the same amount of food I would at any other meal at any other time of the year but pretend like it’s a big deal cuz evidently everyone else is going balls out with their portions or something.

But before I go: quit being such a Hipster dick, Canada…