Great finds.

Yesterday, Katrina and I started to head out for fun in the seattle area when less than a block away from my house, I spotted a bar.

This bar, actually.

Oh the excitement I had finding this bad boy. I mean, look at it. It's... wet. and has rips in the bar, and the foot rest looks like shit... But hey, it was free! I knew this bad boy was going in my basement. I could finally have a place to mix properly, and feel like how I feel when I actually get to work behind the bar. 

There was even enough space in that thing to put a keg tap in. I knew I was going to have some fun with this. A little sanding, redo the bar wrap, maybe seal the foot rest? this job is right in my wheelhouse for building. 

Well... It doesn't fit. I have big holes in my ceiling now to prove that it doesn't fit. Oh, and it gets better. 

I thought to myself, that's alright, I can keep it in my garage. I'll get it looking great, and then I'll either sell it, or maybe one day, when I move out of my house, I'll put it in my new house. Perfect! Yea--no. 

See, my neighbor has been bothering me that he needed a place to store one of his 4 cars. I told him that if he bought my parents vw bug, he could store it in my garage, AND to sweeten the deal, he could even store one of his other cars at no charge. 

All he heard was "store your other car in my garage. No charge." Now I'm stuck with two cars that aren't mine in my garage, and no space to fix up my bar. 

This is what I get for being a good neighbor. 

Brandon's old fashioned.

Something I really enjoy is taking some well known thing and making it my own. I tend to think I'm not as creative as I wish I was. Usually, anything I come up with is just a bastard child of seven other ideas. 

With that said, I present to you, my bastard child old fashioned.

Pretty, isn't it? Here's what you'll need.

Ingredients: 

1 oz whiskey. In this one I used Forty Creek. 

1 oz brown sugar simple syrup. 

2 dashes Aromatic bitters.

2 dashes Orange bitters.

1 drop saline.

Splash of club soda.

1/4 an orange. Here I used Navel, but Blood is also good.

1 maraschino cherry. 

Ice. Big chunky ice cubes.

Tools: 

Shaker.

Muddler.

Knife.

Lighter.

Start by cutting the eating bit out of the orange. Feel free to be quick, this isn't meant to look pretty. Set the rind aside, we'll be using that later. Drop that orange into your shaker and smash the pulp out of it. You want this to be chunky.

Next take that rind and burn it using your lighter. You want a good burn on the orange. That is going to open the scent of that orange oil, and make it easy to spread. And you're going to spread that on the inside rim of the glass. Once that glass is as greasy as... a greasy thing, set the rind aside.

Drop a load of ice into the tin on top of that orange massacre. Now pour the whiskey, simple syrup, bitters, and saline into the tin. 

Normally, an old fashioned is just built in a glass, but because of the thickness of the simple syrup (brown sugar is much thicker than granulated sugar) it just sinks to the bottom, and you want this to look pretty, and not taste like whiskey then diabetes, right?

Cap that shaker, and treat it like a newborn child. No more child support for you! 

[please direct all hate to the comment section.]

Here is where it can get tricky. You want a real chunky flow out of that shaker. Depending on how you pour, you may need to get your dirty fingers into that tin and take out the cubes. I find a split tin pour works best, but that can be a bit on the advanced side of pouring. 

If you get it right, you'll have bits of your orange mixed in with your drink. If not, who cares? it is still delicious, and you won't have to chew. Now take that orange rind and that cherry. Stab them through the heart with a spear, and spread their corpse across the top of that drink.

Most people would think they're done. NOPE. I want you... To pour that splash of club soda over the garnish and THAT is how you finish that drink. 

I realize that about 35% of that is show, but what a show. If you saw your bartender do even half that stuff, you'd be handing an extra $5 for that drink. Which he would appreciate, as therapy is expensive, and someone needs to figure out why he thought "cap that shaker, and treat it like a newborn child" was funny. 

Ginger bite mocktail.

I recently made some improvements to my home bar. It made my creative juices flow ever so slightly. So I came up with this.

1 lime, all the juice squeezed
1 lemon, all the juice squeezed
1 oz brown sugar simple syrup
2 oz ginger beer.

Shake the lemon, lime, and simple syrup and pour into a glass with waiting ginger beer.

Now if you make it right, the first sip will be almost too tart, but then the ginger's heat cuts that and finishes smooth and satisfying. Drink it too fast and you'll get a burn in your belly.

Loser life.

I wear a green lantern ring. I have a collection of my little pony ties. My house is littered with action figures. I have a hand knitted Tom Baker doctor scarf. Hell, my gorham url you got to me from was brandonkleonard.ninja I think it is fairly easy to say I am a proud nerd. But I don't like that term.

Shortly after I graduated high school I noticed something. There were people, normal people, calling themselves nerds. They read the Harry Potter books, or they bought a video game console.  Suddenly they were calling each other that word like it was another term for friend or bro. Those ass holes didn't get dirty swirlies, or accused of making threats to the school because the school sold their prize darkroom equipment for sports gear, or pushed into the girls locker room. So fuck those people. They want to be nerds, fine, they can have it. I'll take ownership of another name I was called.

I am a loser.

Dreaming of a different life.

Over the last two years I have experanced a strange series of dreams. They started when a question was first asked of me. Would I be willing to relocate back to Michigan?

I was born in Plainwell, Michigan, most of my family still lives in Michigan, and I have done my very best to stay the hell out of Michigan. But my grandparents are getting older as people tend to do. So my parents asked one day if I would consider moving back to take care of them.

My grandparents are by no means helpless. My grandfather still works, not because he has to, but because he wants to. He loves what he does. He is where I got my passion from. I'm determined to get a job I love because I want to be happy working again.

My grandmother... Well, she is... My grandmother us a giant pain in the ass. Think of a disease, I'll wait. Seriously, any disease, got one? Yeah, she's had it. Or someone she was very close to died of it.

She is allergic to the following things:
1. Everything.
2. Even that.

She claims to be allergic to all but one brand of water. This isn't some high end Fiji brand, no it is some off brand stuff that is only found in her local grocery store.  She is allergic to milk and chocolate, but not chocolate milk.

The last time I visited she told me the story about someone gifting them a bottle of scotch that I found out retails at about $150 a bottle. My grandparents don't drink, but instead of giving it to someone that does, she poured it down the drain. She is very proud of that.

I love my grandmother to the legal minimum.  I tolerate her beyond that.

Knowing that about 85% of my time would be tending to my grandmother's whims, I turned down the offer. But then the dreams started.

They aren't exactly recurring, more like a continuing story. They take place in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I live in a shitty apartment, and don't have a job. Or friends. Or money. But I have my grandparents demanding I come every day. By the way, that is like a 45 min drive.
As my life started to rock out here, life in my dreams started to suck even more. In one dream, I was robed. The next night, dream me still had nothing, but part of the dream was filling out paperwork for the police.

Here is where it gets weird for me. Over Christmas I went back to Michigan. I flew to Michigan and then drove my grandfather to my cousin's college graduation in Tennessee. During the trip my entire family started pushing me to move back. It got to the point that I finally asked why me?

Turns out that my family thinks I'm a loser. My careers are ones that can be done anywhere, so they aren't important. I'm not interested in marriage, so I can't commit to anything. And I took the steps nessary to ensure I will never breed, so there is nothing keeping me to this state. All these things mean I can drop everything and start my careers over... Again. But this time putting even that on the back burner for other people.

It sure was nice of my family to remind me why I live 3000 miles away from them. If only it could somehow be further...

When I came home, things got rough in the real world. I already wrote about the loss of the job, but also the weight of knowing that no matter what I do, it won't mean shit to my family takes some time to adjust my mindset.

And dream Brandon is doing great. He has this job in a hotel bar, and just got both a new apartment, but a big raw space for some kind of business. He even has a cat. It is no Tommy, but it is something. So his life is on the upswing and it makes me not want to wake up, and when I eventually do, it takes everything in me to not cry.

If I repeat to myself "I am not a loser" enough times, will I eventually believe it? Or is this like science and extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof?

the best damn whiskey sour

So occasionally I will post drinks that I've made that I think you should make. This one is for a whiskey sour that just might surprise you. 

You will need:

Ingredients:

1/2 oz lemon juice (fresh squeezed is best)

2 oz whiskey. In the photo Is Smoke and Cask, a whiskey from Holland, Michigan, but you can also use any quality whiskey.

1/2 oz simple syrup. For this I recommend a brown sugar simple syrup, but in the photo I used a teaspoon of brown sugar. 

A drop of saline. You can also use a pinch of salt.

1 egg. 

Maraschino cherry 

Tools:

Two shakers

Egg separator

Start by pouring the lemon juice, whiskey, simple syrup, and saline over ice in one shaker and set that to the side. 

Next, take the egg separator and place it over the second shaker and get only the egg white in the shaker. Cap that shaker and shake the ever living snot out of it. No ice, just egg.  You won't get a very good seal, so hold it tight. 

Pour that now beaten egg white into the first shaker (the one you set aside) and shake again. When you pour, try to avoid letting too much ice through.

Drop a cherry into that drink and enjoy. 

What I do.

I have done hair for the past 11 years. 11 very long, hard working years. 11 years of children screaming and hitting, 11 years of people telling me that they don't know what they want or even what they do want. 11 years of people thinking I am some kind of idiot because hair is the field you go into if you are too stupid to do anything else.

Don't get me wrong, it's been great... No wait, typo, I meant to say "please no more! I can't take it!"

After the little girl kicked me in the crotch and her mother demanded that I finish the cut, I've been kinda burnt out on the entire thing. So I've been trying to make a go at bartending. And here is what I've learned:

1. People can't realize that doing hair is all customer service and retail.
     -When you get your hair done you will tell your stylist the most vaguest of details and they have to make that into something you love, all while keeping you happy and trying to sell you on overpriced goop. Seriously, the markup on most product is insane. I can get a bottle of Paul Mitchell Awapuhi shampoo for $7, and sell it to you for $18.

2. Tacoma's bar and restaurant scene is way too tight knit.
     -It doesn't matter how good I am, there is always someone that the owner or bar manager knows that gets the leg up in the hiring process. This is just the one I have to fight though.

3. No one wants the guy who went to bartending school.
     -Because I don't drink, and have no prior serving experience, I thought school would be the way to go. But it appears that most people look down on people that go to bartending school.

Don't care, I had the best time at my school.

Every day I pound pavement looking for something. I hate looking for work...

Not a great start.

On 02 January 2015 I walked in to my job at great clips in tacoma wa. The past few weeks had been rather bad but with the new year I was determined to make the best of it. I could always spend my free time looking for something new. I had my second job with The Party Staff, and those people loved me.

Walking in, I noticed the area manager trying to fix the POS POS machine. The problem with the system was always the same, the person who built them was running out of obsolete parts, and time kept moving forward. These things ran Windows ME, aka Windows Fuckit, or the great Microsoft experiment to see just how poorly an os could be made.

I had told everyone up the chain of command that the ram and most likely the hard drives were almost dead. But hey, what do I know. I only cut hair, it isn't like I've built several computers, or spend my free time on the Internet... And it looked like I was correct. The hard drive was fried. I smiled at Zhan and asked "did it finally give out?"

I recieved a glare and the reply "I need to see you in the office."

I knew what was coming. The week previous, I got in trouble for asking questions. Kinda... A week ago I found out, by way of her telling me, that my coworker got a massive raise and I got upset by it. When I asked my manager why after almost two years of service I was not eligible for a raise, but my coworker was after two months, I was told that it wasn't any of my business, and if I was unhappy 

that maybe I should just quit.

The next day I was handed a formal write up for performing services that the company does not provide, except they do provide them. Let me explain. I will sometimes clean a person's neck line with a device called a nape razor. It is very similar to a feather razor except it made with a much tighter guard to allow for easy shaving. What this does is makes the neckline nice and smooth, it also 

gives about a day or so extra between cuts.

The state board says I can use it with my licence, and no where in the company policy manual does it say I can't. Considering the amount of military that comes into the shop, it just made sense to use that, especially on darker hair. No one ever said that I could not use it. I used it plenty of times in front of management, so they knew I was using it.

So when I was handed this write up, I knew exactly what it was, it was retaliation by management for me asking questions and demanding answers. In fact, I took the step to write just that on the form. I then asked for a copy for my records.

But anyway back to 02 January... Zhan walked me to the office, handed me a termination form and said "unless you eat me, you are fired." just that straight forward about it. I was gobsmacked.  I said no once I realized she said what she said, and she tore up the paperwork and said "then you just quit."

I very angrily gathered my things and walked out the door of the tacoma central great clips for the last time.

That was over a month ago. They kept my final two paycheque claiming that I owed them. The Party Staff has been working me, which I am grateful for. But I miss getting up and going to a job everyday. I miss having a regular, steady income. I worry that maybe at 33 I actually am a loser and a failure.

I don't know what I want anymore, but I know I don't want this.