On Wednesday June 11th 2008 I began living a nightmare. I received a call that my only, and younger brother had drowned in a lake while on vacation in Utah. I had just spoken to him two days before and he was so excited to be coming home on the 12th. He told me he loved me and would see me on Thursday, he never made it back.

I’ve spent 20 of my 22 years on this earth with that boy who has been a mix of brother and son to me. I’ve held him, protected him, and loved him more than any person on this earth will ever understand. I have lost half my soul and I can never get it back again. We were a set, a salt and pepper shaker and now all that’s left is me - I hope the world likes pepper because that’s all that they’ll be getting from now on.

I can’t explain the hurt and I don’t ever expect anyone to fully understand what’s in my heart and my mind. Man has not created a word in any language to express the sheer pain and emptiness that has taken permanent residence in my body. I’ve almost lost Sebastien many times over the years and have always managed to find a way to save him. This time I failed and I know it’s not my fault but I still failed him for the final time. I will never be the same and it’s a hell that I will live with every hour of every day of the rest of my life. No one can help me and no one can make it better.

I ask now for prayers for my family and for the girls that were with him when he died. For the people who are wanting to come to the funeral it will be held on Thursday June 19th in Sierra Vista, AZ. If you would like to have all the information, need an address, or need a phone number please email me at sarah.chasse@hotmail.com and I will provide what you need. Do not email me at any other address you may have for me as I’m not home right now and cannot access them to respond.

In lieu of flowers we ask that a donation be made to a memorial account that has been set up for Sebastien, the funds in that account will be donated to the amazing volunteer search and rescue team that recovered my brothers body from the lake. We hope to help them help others that are put in the situation that we have been so violently thrown into. Again, email me at sarah.chasse@hotmail.com to get the information on how to make a contribution.

My brother was a great fisherman and being on the water was his love. I ask from the bottom of my heart that every person that reads this takes a basic water safety class and make sure if you have kids they take one as well. I can only pray that you would equip yourself and the ones you love with the tools to avoid a situation such as this. I would not wish what has happened to my family on my worst enemy and so if you can do nothing else for me just make yourself safe.

I pray for his soul, I know he has found peace and is fishing in the best lake that heaven has to offer. I hope his line stays baited, the water stays calm and the fish are biting.

With my heart and soul,
His Pepper Shaker

I’ve acquired two guests until the 22nd! They’ve each got four little paws, a cute little wet nose, and a tail that is always wagging In case you still haven’t guessed I’m dog setting and it’s just lovely to tell ya the truth! I came home today and found two little faces that were wicked happy to see me which did my heart good because this day…well week…has been hell on wheels. I’m going to try and get some pictures of them during their stay here at Casa de la Buggie and share them with the three people who still come around here *chuckle*

Happy Thursday!

So in a moment of insanity and after much hullabaloo by the store manager who loves me I agreed to take on a second job at Pappa John’s! I know, I know, I literally don’t have time to wipe my ass anymore so I shouldn’t really be flouncing into another paycheck but I figure what the heck?

The Hotness’s daughter works there and they love her, and they love me so it’s gonna be good. Management has agreed to work with my hectic schedule and even though I’m making only half of what my “real job” pays it’ll be nice to have a few extra dollars every couple weeks.

Mind you, I’ve had to totally re-think my schedule and it’s actually a good thing because now I can shift around projects and family to make all of this a little easier on me. Now, I have yet to fit school into this little clusterfuck I call a life so we’ll see how that turns out, but I think I can swing all of this shit…

I hope.

Anywhoot, enough about my retarded spur of the moment decisions…earn yourself some karma points and free shit by visiting TrueLemon and requesting a free sample of their crystallized lemon substitute. Why you ask? Well for every person that requests a free sample of their goods they send 10 packets of TrueLemon to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan!

Pretty nice of them eh? I know for a fact those folks drink a LOT of water over there and eventually they’ve got to be sick to death of it’s taste. So go get it here and then pat yourself on the back for brining some lemony goodness to our brave men and women

Below is a reprint of a post I’d written in the VirtualDJ help forum. I figured Google will index this post someday and maybe the next poor shmoe having VirtualDJ/Live365 issues can use this
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Hi ya’ll I’m new to the forum However, I figured I’d post this as I was quite frustrated earlier about not being able to find a working solution to my problem anywhere online. I work at an online radio station that used Live365 and was using Winamp to broadcast my show. Last week my brother bought me a copy of VirtualDJ as a surprise gift and I finally sat down today to start playing with it!

Much to my chagrin I found that when I entered my IP/Port info from the Live365 site into VirtualDJ’s Broadcast config it would say that it was connected and broadcasting but when I’d try to stream the station Live365 would say that there was no broadcast. *grrr* I tried everything, blocking ports, unblocking ports, telling the ports their mother was a wilder beast and their father smelled of elderberries, etc etc. NOTHING was making it work.

I sat down and had a good long think about it and decided to try ONE last thing before I wrote it off as useless and went slinking back to crappy Winamp. I logged into Live365 and went to My Profile (little grey tabs in the main window). In that window in the third box down was my Live365 Broadcast Format (”Your Broadcast’s Format”).

The format on mine was set at 64kbps/44kHz/stereo mp3PRO. So, I go back to my VirtualDJ and change my bitrate which was set at 96kbps per everyones advice to 64kbps and tried for the last time to broadcast using my shiny new toy…

TOTALLY FREAKIN’ WORKED!! So if you’re having the same problem just check what format your Live365 broadcast is set at then adjust your VirtualDJ bitrate accordingly and give it another try I hope this helps someone - good luck!

Hey hey hey! So before last night I had never been to an actual concert. I know, I’m a dork. BUT I picked a pretty interesting concert-cherry popper! The Grassroots and Herman’s Hermits were coming to Tucson so I figured what the heck?

Good concert, Pete Noon is the only Hermit left apparently but they all put on a pretty good show. His new band members are MUCH hotter than the last ones I must say

The crowd that turned out for the show was….well…a shit ton of old people. I felt like I was in some sort of a nursing home, then again what should I expect from a band that’s been around since dirt was new?

You can view more fun concert photos on muh flickr by clicking here!

Happy Mother’s Day to all you folks out there with kids of your own or kids that you’ve taken on as your own! I hope you’re spoiled rotten today

My mom is coming over here for a nice surprise day, I’ll post pictures later…it’s gonna be cute!

“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.”

– Agatha Christie (1890-1976), English novelist and playwright.

***Update***
So it went great The stuff I had up my sleeve for mom included:

The Gift: Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant CD - This was a special gift, I remember as a kid that mom would play this on her record player and I would just giggle listening to his song “Alice’s Restaurant”. Mom LOVED it…and I’m wicked happy about that If you’ve never heard of this guy ya may wanna check him out, he’s awesome

The Meal: My good buddy Zeb at Papa John’s Pizza hooked me up with this super cute heart shaped pepperoni pizza! Mom didn’t realize it was a heart shape for a bit, so I had to laugh when we sat down and she went “Ohmygawd! It’s heart shaped!” Too funny…

The Dessert: I had received a tasty sounding recipe at work for a Brownie Martini and decided that Mother’s Day would be the best time to try it out. Our stupid ghetto Walmart had other plans though as they didn’t have everything I needed for it so I just improvised and made a nice little turtle brownie ice cream concoction. Of course mom loved that too Below is the recipe if you’d like to give it a shot, it’s yummy

The Brownie Martini
-Martini Glass
-Chocolate Syrup
-Brownie
-French Vanilla Ice Cream
-Kahlua
-Caramel Sauce
-Raspberries
-Whipped Cream

Using the chocolate syrup drizzle it around the inside of a chilled Martini Glass. Set a small square of brownie in the bottom of the glass, and top with a scoop of ice cream. Add a splash or two of Kahlua and some more syrup over the top of the ice cream. Then drizzle a little caramel sauce over and top with raspberries and a dollop of whipped cream. YUMMY!

I hope all the mom’s got spoiled rotten today

I hope all of you have a great one, we had an all-day potluck at work and I’ve just about eaten myself sick today! I’m a little better tonight, I still need to get some more sleep but my headspace is a little better. Thanks for the emails and the comments