Working diligently on the trainset,  working with my career and will be training and testing for certification renewals soon.  With he holidays in full swing I’m now running around Santa.  Did a new episode of NOW recently after a 6 month hiatus.  Still chugging along with the Scoop.  I am serving as District Cabinet  Secretary in Lionism under DG Jeff.   Will be kicking off a new show on the network dedicated to Mardi Gras soon.  Stay tuned.  lots to come!

As Labor Day comes to close,  I sit and enjoy may day off from laboring and look forward to my week on vacation.  I hope to get this and picklescoop.com updated,  work on some stuff for the podcast,  get some other random stuff updated like the lions website and the Lions newsletter and the Eye Foundation’s raffle page.  Also,  I hope to get all links working  on my websites since having to move most of the pictures and podcasts over to my media fire storage.

Over the weekend, I did take a trip out to Florida to celebrate Hayley and Cole’s wedding. Congrats! I wish you many years of love and happiness.

It was great to see all of the family, also.  I feel like a piece of crap for it being so long since I’ve seen them.  I hope that it won’t be such a lapse between my visiting them.  And y’all are more than welcome to come visit here as well.

But hell,  I hope it’s not another year and change before I post again on this site.  I need to keep it more up to date with some of my ramblings that I don’t want to put on my Facebook.  It’s shitty that in order for your thoughts to get out there,  it has to be on Facebook.  People are too lazy to get off of Facebook and see what else the internet has to offer.

But in other news,  I have successfully cut the cord.  Previously,  I had Cox phone, Cable and Internet.  I recently dropped the phone service with MagicJack being the replacement.  MagicJack is a service that you can use for like $30 a year (as opposed to $40 a month).  I also cut off the Cable service.  The primary things I watch ion TV are RAW and Smackdown.  While I am a subscriber for the WWE network,  WWE delays putting these on the network for about a month (I’m assuming due to contract obligations with Hulu and USA/SyFy themselves).  I fortunately haven’t had the cable TV part officially cut off physically by Cox,  but I’ll find someway to stream it,  even if I have to resort to Hulu,  which cuts off about 30 minutes from RAW each week and I’m sure a little from Smackdown as well.  One day the Cable companies will realize people would be willing to pay for a per channel subscription instead of forcing me to buy a package of channels where half the channels are things I will never watch,  like Lifetime or QVC.

So   in sum,  be on the lookout for these pages as plenty of updates will be coming.  And if you are actually reading this,  congrats!  You are one of the few that knows about this hidden away site.

So The Wrestlemania weekend has come and gone (I’ll be home watching the Post-Wrestlemania Raw tonight).  Wrestlemania was incredible.  To see the event of all events here in my hometown was definitely one for the bucket list.  We saw potentially what is the end of an era with the Undertaker’s streak coming to an end,  the little guy ended Mania as the champion, and Hulk Hogan’s slip-up calling the “Superdome” the “Silverdome” .  The HHH – Daniel Bryan match was great as was the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.  Watching Cesaro deadlift Big Show gave me a whole new respect for the Real Americans.  WE THE PEOPLE!! The Powerbomb-RKO thru a table that they gave Daniel Bryan had the feeling of an ECW match.  Can;t say I was really disappointed with anything from last night.

On Saturday,  I went out to Wrestlecon and got to meet several legends of the Wrestling business including RVD, Virgil, Sunny, Colt Cabana, and Hurricane Helms to name few.  I saw Mickie James jam out for the crowd, even though country music isn’t my forte,  she did a great job and she was beautiful as ever.

I came back home and watched the Hall of Fame ceremony where Jake the Smake, Scott Hall, Lita, Mr, T, Paul Bearer, Jake the Snake, Carlos Colon, and Paul Bearer were inducted.  To wrap that up quickly,  DDP’s introduction speech and Jake the Snake’s speeches stole the entire show in my opinion.  Jake the Snake spoke from the heart and, hot to mark out,  but I actually teared up during Jake’s speech. Congrats to all those folks on their induction and everything they did in their careers to leave their mark on the Wrestling world.

I woke up Wrestlemania Sunday and went back out there  with Cheese and we met Kevin Nash, Mickie James and a few other stars. We stopped for luck at Ugly Dog then headed to Champions Square where we met up with the res tot the NOW show cast and saw the energy of Wrestlmania.  Incredible weekend.  Thanks to everyone who enjoyed it with me.  It’s one of those weekends that I’ll remember and tell stories of so long as I live.

So far my Wrestlemania adventures have been awesome.
Last night, I went with Dusty Bottoms and Mark Bagnetto to see An Evening with Jim Ross. He did 2 hours of talking about his coming up in the Wrestling business then did some Q&A with the audience. Stone Cold Steve Austin joined him on stage for a good part of it. Getting to hear them talk about wild stories in the wrestling territory days and the old days was hilarious. JR told an interesting story about a double date with Nature Boy where they are in a limo with their dates and Flair went direct and to the point and whipped his member out This in turn, frightened off their dates. Another one was about JR having to keep washing the backs of the Guiness Record fat twin guys…
At the beginning of the show, Mark called out a camera guy in the crowd that looked like Booker T which got a good crowd laugh and soon we became good friends with Booker T. After the JR show, we helped “Booker T” find his car. We even paid bike cabbie guys to join the search at one point. He was parked in front of a gallery that was located at 618 something. Turned out it was 618 Conti.
After finding Booker T’s wheels, we headed to Bourbon St for a quick stroll. We spotted a couple of Wrestling stars out and about including RKO, some NXT guys, Mick Foley’s daughter, and Maggio saw his new favorite wrestler, Jinder Mahal. Bagnetto took a picture with RKO’s girlfriend which was priceless.
“Everyone wants to talk to your boyfriend. You need attention too. Smile!”
We somehow lost Booker T at a fried chicken place on Bourbon. But, we had a blast. If you’re reading this “Booker T”, you can dig that, sucka!
Earlier today, Maggio and I went to Axxess. Well, the WWE Superstore. Got some cool posters, a WWE trivia game, a Wrestlemania hat, a Hulk shirt and a WWE history book. We also saw Primetime Sam Roberts, Rosenberg, and the Masked Man.
Had a kick ass lunch at Magazine St Po Boys.
Went back later tonight for the actual Axxess event with Silicon Dave. We got autographs and pictures with Brodus Clay – WWE, Zack Ryder, Tyson Kidd, Hornswoggle – WWE Universe , and David Otunga – WWE Universe. We saw the Hall of Fame memorabilia, the Undertaker’s graveyard, and other random sights. Took a few pictures of random picture spot things.
Tomorrow I’ll be hitting Wrestlecon and probably Axxess again. If you check out some of the recent post pictures on NOW – New Orleans Wrestling, one of my other podcasts, you can see some of the pics I’ve been getting. And probably hitting some random after party things. Then of course, Sunday is Wrestlemania.
If you’re down there for the festivities, message me. Stay tuned for more tales.

How to unlock locked doors on command.  Sigh.  Yes,  I locked myself out of the house yesterday.  I tried to tell PSnoop to open the door,  but he just looked at me confusedly.  I eventually got in by calling out a trusty locksmith  (for a seventy-something dollar charge).  Anyone know a good dog trainer that could help me teach him that trick for the future?  Or should  I just not lock my f*****g keys inside anymore? 🙂

I was hoping this day would actually come sooner rather than later. The Podcast has enough of a following to where I kinda felt bad posting my ramblings on that site and making listeners of the show have to scroll through to get to the last show. So what all has happened since the last posting? I’m in my “new house” (of over a year and a half now). The train set is coming along,  but we’ve been kinda at a standstill for the past few months.  We need to get back onto it,  but we have a carnival,  a whole Saints train,  hundreds of misc cars, Streetcars,  Stonehenge (yeah, you read that right), and lots more.   I have a few other buildings still to build and paint,  including a Waffle House, because what town is complete without a Waffle House?!?  You can check out our progress on the train set page up top.

I got a dog. I’ve had him for a little over a month now, and I love it. His name is E.R.I.C. according to the adoption papers, but he prefers to go by his alter ego, Picklesnoop. I got him from the Westbank SPCA. He’s 8 years old and he’s half lab, half chihuahua. No, I’m not sure which was the mom and which was the dad. The first night I had him, he got loose and took me for a 7 or 8 block chase. That “escape” reminded me of the Ron White bit about when his dog ran away. When it came back, he took it for a walk. Since then, he got loose one other time on Mardi Gras day, but he only got around the corner before I caught up with him and coaxed him back to the house.  He’s accustomed to his new home now and even sleeps in my bed every night.  He gets along with Hennessey pretty well when she comes to visit.

We’ve obviously been doing the Podcast show for quite a while. Mayday left for a hiatus and came back with a ferocity (which we love and appreciate). MArk is of course a regular host, which I love having him on as we’re like a ying and yang. H1N1 has joined the crew helping with Video, additional opinions, and some producer type tasks.  Thanks to ya’ll for helping make the show as successful as it has become.  We’ve grown so big,  we’re in the planning stages for an awards show in the upcoming months.  Should be interesting.

I’ve been doing a podcast dedicated to Wrestling (the NOW Show), with the Dirtiest Players and a few other random local wrestling fans for about a year now.  We don’t have a huge following on it just yet,  but it’s a ton of fun making our own stories up about the wrestling world and give our predictions on things.

I’ve been at My IT for just shy of 5 years and I love it there. My clients are awesome people. I’ve gotten my MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional and I’m about to start using technologies like VMWare and SAN.

I’m still pretty active with my Lions club and Scouts.  I’m currently Secretary for my Lions Club and I serve the district as the Technology Committee chair.  I gave a presentation a few months ago on getting Lions clubs online, and I’ll be giving it again in two weeks and again in April at State convention.  I’ll be doing a live podcast from Convention as well.  Keeps me busy,  but it helps out some great causes.

I’m still a committee member for my troop.  I send letters off to dignitaries requesting congratulatory letters for our troop’s Eagle Scouts.  I’m still a registered counselor for a few merit badges (as far as I know), but I don;t get to give as much time to Scouting as I once had time for.  But every little bit I can give,  I do.

Anyways,  I hope to update this more often with thoughts and ramblings as time goes on.  Till my next post,  as we say on the podcast,  go hug yourself.

For those of you not in the know, This weekend, one of my best friends, Pounders is getting married. I’m standing in the wedding as one of the best men. As this speech was posted I’ll be standing there watching him get married. Below is my best man speech.
Continue reading →

In a few days, Congress will be voting on two critical bills to Internet freedom. Show them you think these bills are stupid and voice your opinion. Here’s one petition that Google has out there against these bills.

Sign it and/or others to show your solidarity against these laws.

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

So For those of you not in the know, I’ve dressed as Santa for the past several years of NOLAPARTY’s XMas Toy Benefit and helped deliver the toys. This year, besides the “modeling gig” listed below, I also did the role of Santa in Mandeville at the Farmer’s market and in the Mandeville Craft Festival Parade (which was awesome) and ended at the water front, where I also posed for pictures with tons of children and families. That also means I am now a proud participant in more crying baby pics than I can shake two sticks at. If anyone that actually reads the site and was one of the parents of said crying babies, please send me a pic and I’ll add it to this post! But on a serious note, it’s awesome to see the smiles on these kids faces when they see me (Santa), especially with Tony & NolaParty @ Children’s Hospital where we deliver the toys to the kids (again with me as Santa). Today was no different. There was one little boy that saw me and had his mouth dropped in agape for the entire time i was near. You’d have thought I brought him the bike, that he insisted he was a good boy to earn, right then and there.