mrbradg

About

I'm Brad. This blog is almost entirely made up of iPhone photos of my life. The things I like get posted here. Enjoy.
Posted 12 months ago

2 things I have been reminded of today…

1. Going out and all the bar scene is overrated. 

2. Buying a bigger bottle of shampoo doesn’t always mean you’ll save money. You tend to use more.

1 note life
Posted 1 year ago

90% of ladies have this “jelly” Beyonce made famous. When did eating chili cheese fries with ranch dressing become attractive?

Maybe I should be more positive. But, seriously…taking care of your body is far more attractive in my book.

life
Posted 1 year ago

Long story short….

What a crazy week.

  • Issues with my “home” life….that’s nothing new.
  • Talked to “someone”. Disappointed there wasn’t a cool leather couch to lay down on. 
  • Car got broken into while at work….in the middle of the day….broke the passenger side glass and stole a GPS.
  • Has been interesting driving around with no window and plastic bags. I feel like I’m getting ready for a movie that requires me to be white-trash and do some method acting as-well. 
  • Cancelled Bonnaroo…never thought I would do that.
  • Going to spend my vacation with who I should have in the first place….my boy.
  • Six Flags and water parks….plans still pending depending on what he wants to do and the weather.
  • Continuing my hardcore eating good and gym time for Bonnaroo although I’m not going. Makes me feel good. 
  • Scored #1 in my district overall for the month of May….have no idea how that happened. Guess I’m more awesome than I thought I was. Godlike?
  • Cannot wait to spend some quality time with the little man these coming days. He needs it. 
  • Get to spend some quality time with my bff Wes on Sunday in Florence. 
  • Haven’t been there since I moved. Should be interesting. 
  • Excited about the iPhone 4 coming out. Yes, I work at Verizon and I don’t care. I love that damn thing. 
  • That is all….I think. 
  • Oh, yea and I talked with the brother today that lives in Germany for an entire hour while I took a lunch today. It had been 2 months since we have spoken. Good times. 
  • Wondering if I should share more on here…..maybe I have already shared to much….I wish I could say the other things I’m dying to scream out. You know who you’re.

Cheers

bonnaroo iphone thief six flags landan life blog
Posted 2 years ago
I cannot really explain how this picture and article make me feel. We all know Sudan & the hunger crisis across the world is real. Guess I needed a check. Jesus H I get angry, sad and everything in between when I see any hunger problems in this world. There is no damn reason this should exist in our world today….agh. I want to quit my job and move and help…somehow. And we have “issues”. Fuck no we don’t. I just warmed up a frozen Lean Q and was complaining in my head Subway was closed on my way home. I remember seeing some of the children while I was in Iraq…how thin and filthy they were. I remember coming back and how fresh that was in my head….how I thanked God for my hot shower I was taking…how amazing it was to have a 3 course meal at Outback within 30 mins…I’ve lost that a bit…I’m humbled.  AKOBO, Sudan — Three-day-old Odong Obong lay in the hospital bed, his pencil-thin arms almost motionless and his shriveled, gaunt face resembling that of an elderly man. Emaciated babies and young children throughout the ward bore the signs of hunger: exposed ribs and distended stomachs. Outside, old villagers reclined motionless in the shade, too frail to walk. The U.N. calls this the “hungriest place on Earth” after years of drought and conflict, with aid agencies already feeding 80,000 people here. A doctor says the worst is yet to come. Two years of failed rains and tribal clashes have laid the foundation for Africa’s newest humanitarian crisis. The World Food Program quadrupled its assistance levels from January to March in the Akobo region of southeastern Sudan. International aid agencies are bracing for the worst. Even if spring rains materialize this year, the harvest won’t come in until fall. “And if there is no rain, it will get worse,” said Dr. Galiek Galou, one of three doctors at the hospital in this town on the border with Ethiopia. “If you stay here for a week you’ll have problems, even if you have money,” he said. “There is nothing to buy.” Southern Sudan lies in a drought-prone belt of Africa, but the situation has been exacerbated by rising intertribal violence that claimed more than 2,000 lives in 2009. Because of the global financial meltdown, the government has fewer available resources. The food crisis is also a legacy of a devastating north-south civil war of more than 21 years that left 2 million people dead and many more displaced. That conflict is separate from the war in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, which began in 2003 and has killed 300,000. The aid groups Save the Children and Medair have canvassed the Akobo community for the past week, searching for the hungriest children. They found 253 who they classified as severely malnourished, meaning they will die without immediate intervention. The children are enrolled in a feeding program that relies primarily on fortified peanut butter. Another 200 severely malnourished children are being fed in a separate program, said the U.N.’s Dr. Natalie Lewin. At the hospital, one toddler who appears to be in the worst shape is 2-year-old Dhoah Thoan, whose skin hangs off his body in an alarming way. He has skinny arms and an oversize stomach but bright brown eyes. Two beds over is Nyagod Kuel, also 2. If he had not been brought in for treatment, he would have died, Galou said. Nearby, Odong lies on colorful blankets under mosquito netting with his triplet brothers Opiew and Ochan. Their mother hovers at the side of the bed. “The hunger situation is really bad,” said Goi Juoyul Yol, 37, the town’s top official, who graduated from the University of Kentucky. “You’ll have a cup of grain for a family of five for two days.” A recent survey by Save the Children and Medair found that almost 46 percent of children in the region are malnourished. Lise Grande, the top U.N. official in southern Sudan, labeled the Akobo region as the “hungriest place on Earth.” She noted that most humanitarian agencies regard a malnutrition rate of 15 percent to be an emergency threshold. “This year 4.3 million people in southern Sudan will need some sort of food assistance,” Grande said. “That could be as much as nearly half of the population in the south. When you have that many people who need food, you can see the dimensions of the crisis.” Sitting outside one of the hundreds of grass huts that have popped up in recent months as people flee violence and search for food was Kalang Nyot, 32. The mother of five said she walks for 12 hours three times a week to gather a small orange fruit called lalif. A grandmother stays behind and watches the children, but because she is so weak she can barely move. Mohamed Nuh, an emergency program manager with Save the Children, said aid agencies will need to shift food out of Akobo because families are moving into the town center and away from farmland where they could plant crops, a situation that could begin a cycle of unending need. “While they’re here they just sleep and wait for the food distribution,” he said. “The current strategy is not working.” But Akobo’s town center showed one of the dangers of moving food away from a central area of accountability. Among the wooden shops, one salesman had 60 bags of sorghum – a type of grain – for sale donated by the United States. The American flag and “USAID” are stamped on the bags, along with the words “Not to be sold or exchanged.” But Deng Bichiaki was indeed selling them – food aid that was likely stolen for the black market. “Our governments do not intend this to be sold. I must say I’ve never seen so many bags on one occasion,” said Morten Petersen, a technical assistant to the European Commission who was visiting Akobo to see how much aid was needed. Despite the apparent fraud, Petersen said he would report back that Akobo was suffering “a very severe problem that we will have to confront in coming weeks.” The town is part of an isolated region suffering from tribal warfare that has displaced almost 400,000 people. Sudan’s elections start April 13 and will include local as well as parliamentary and presidential polls in a three-day balloting. The vote is a crucial step in Sudan’s 2005 north-south peace deal that ended the civil war and paves the way for a referendum that will allow southerners to decide whether to secede from the Muslim-dominated north. ___ On the Net: Medair: http://www.medair.org/ Save The Children: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk Link the article: http://huff.to/cKLpb

I cannot really explain how this picture and article make me feel. We all know Sudan & the hunger crisis across the world is real. Guess I needed a check. Jesus H I get angry, sad and everything in between when I see any hunger problems in this world. There is no damn reason this should exist in our world today….agh. I want to quit my job and move and help…somehow. And we have “issues”. Fuck no we don’t. I just warmed up a frozen Lean Q and was complaining in my head Subway was closed on my way home. I remember seeing some of the children while I was in Iraq…how thin and filthy they were. I remember coming back and how fresh that was in my head….how I thanked God for my hot shower I was taking…how amazing it was to have a 3 course meal at Outback within 30 mins…I’ve lost that a bit…I’m humbled. 

AKOBO, Sudan — Three-day-old Odong Obong lay in the hospital bed, his pencil-thin arms almost motionless and his shriveled, gaunt face resembling that of an elderly man.

Emaciated babies and young children throughout the ward bore the signs of hunger: exposed ribs and distended stomachs. Outside, old villagers reclined motionless in the shade, too frail to walk.

The U.N. calls this the “hungriest place on Earth” after years of drought and conflict, with aid agencies already feeding 80,000 people here. A doctor says the worst is yet to come.

Two years of failed rains and tribal clashes have laid the foundation for Africa’s newest humanitarian crisis. The World Food Program quadrupled its assistance levels from January to March in the Akobo region of southeastern Sudan.

International aid agencies are bracing for the worst. Even if spring rains materialize this year, the harvest won’t come in until fall.

“And if there is no rain, it will get worse,” said Dr. Galiek Galou, one of three doctors at the hospital in this town on the border with Ethiopia.

“If you stay here for a week you’ll have problems, even if you have money,” he said. “There is nothing to buy.”

Southern Sudan lies in a drought-prone belt of Africa, but the situation has been exacerbated by rising intertribal violence that claimed more than 2,000 lives in 2009. Because of the global financial meltdown, the government has fewer available resources.

The food crisis is also a legacy of a devastating north-south civil war of more than 21 years that left 2 million people dead and many more displaced. That conflict is separate from the war in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, which began in 2003 and has killed 300,000.

The aid groups Save the Children and Medair have canvassed the Akobo community for the past week, searching for the hungriest children. They found 253 who they classified as severely malnourished, meaning they will die without immediate intervention. The children are enrolled in a feeding program that relies primarily on fortified peanut butter.

Another 200 severely malnourished children are being fed in a separate program, said the U.N.’s Dr. Natalie Lewin.

At the hospital, one toddler who appears to be in the worst shape is 2-year-old Dhoah Thoan, whose skin hangs off his body in an alarming way. He has skinny arms and an oversize stomach but bright brown eyes. Two beds over is Nyagod Kuel, also 2. If he had not been brought in for treatment, he would have died, Galou said.

Nearby, Odong lies on colorful blankets under mosquito netting with his triplet brothers Opiew and Ochan. Their mother hovers at the side of the bed.

“The hunger situation is really bad,” said Goi Juoyul Yol, 37, the town’s top official, who graduated from the University of Kentucky. “You’ll have a cup of grain for a family of five for two days.”

A recent survey by Save the Children and Medair found that almost 46 percent of children in the region are malnourished. Lise Grande, the top U.N. official in southern Sudan, labeled the Akobo region as the “hungriest place on Earth.” She noted that most humanitarian agencies regard a malnutrition rate of 15 percent to be an emergency threshold.

“This year 4.3 million people in southern Sudan will need some sort of food assistance,” Grande said. “That could be as much as nearly half of the population in the south. When you have that many people who need food, you can see the dimensions of the crisis.”

Sitting outside one of the hundreds of grass huts that have popped up in recent months as people flee violence and search for food was Kalang Nyot, 32. The mother of five said she walks for 12 hours three times a week to gather a small orange fruit called lalif. A grandmother stays behind and watches the children, but because she is so weak she can barely move.

Mohamed Nuh, an emergency program manager with Save the Children, said aid agencies will need to shift food out of Akobo because families are moving into the town center and away from farmland where they could plant crops, a situation that could begin a cycle of unending need.

“While they’re here they just sleep and wait for the food distribution,” he said. “The current strategy is not working.”

But Akobo’s town center showed one of the dangers of moving food away from a central area of accountability.

Among the wooden shops, one salesman had 60 bags of sorghum – a type of grain – for sale donated by the United States. The American flag and “USAID” are stamped on the bags, along with the words “Not to be sold or exchanged.” But Deng Bichiaki was indeed selling them – food aid that was likely stolen for the black market.

“Our governments do not intend this to be sold. I must say I’ve never seen so many bags on one occasion,” said Morten Petersen, a technical assistant to the European Commission who was visiting Akobo to see how much aid was needed.

Despite the apparent fraud, Petersen said he would report back that Akobo was suffering “a very severe problem that we will have to confront in coming weeks.”

The town is part of an isolated region suffering from tribal warfare that has displaced almost 400,000 people.

Sudan’s elections start April 13 and will include local as well as parliamentary and presidential polls in a three-day balloting. The vote is a crucial step in Sudan’s 2005 north-south peace deal that ended the civil war and paves the way for a referendum that will allow southerners to decide whether to secede from the Muslim-dominated north.

___

On the Net:

Medair: http://www.medair.org/

Save The Children: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk

Link the article:

http://huff.to/cKLpb

hunger life pissed
Posted 2 years ago

Dave Matthews Band - Funny the Way It Is


[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Dave Matthews Band 

Funny The Way It Is

Life has been funny lately and as I was driving home from work this evening I randomly played one of my Dave jams. Well, here it is and for you people who can’t hear every word he blasts from his pipes…here’s the words:
Lying in the park on a beautiful day 
Sunshine in the grass, and the children play 
Siren’s passing, fire engine red 
Someone’s house is burning down on a day like this 

The evening comes and we’re hanging out 
On the front step and a car rolls by with the windows rolled down 
And that war song is playing, “why can’t we be friends?” 
Someone is screaming and crying in the apartment upstairs 

Funny the way it is, if you think about it 
Somebody’s going hungry and someone else is eating out 
Funny the way it is, not right or wrong 
Somebody’s heart is broken and it becomes your favorite song 

The way your mouth feels in your lovers kiss 
Like a pretty bird on a breeze or water to a fish 
A bomb blast brings a building crashing to the floor 
You hear the laughter while the children play war 

Funny the way it is, if you think about it 
One kid walks 10 miles to school, another’s dropping out 
Funny the way it is, not right or wrong 
On a soldier’s last breath his baby’s being born 

Standing on a bridge, watch the water passing under me 
It must’ve been much harder when there was no bridge just water 
Now the world is small, remember how it used to be 
With mountains and oceans and winters and rivers and stars 

Watch the sky, the jet planes, so far out of my reach 
Is there someone up there looking down on me? 
Boy chase a bird, so close but every time 
He’ll never catch her, but he can’t stop trying 

Funny the way it is, if you think about it 
One kid walks 10 miles to school, another’s dropping out 
Funny the way it is, not right or wrong 
On a soldier’s last breath his baby’s being born 
Funny the way it is, not right or wrong 
Somebody’s broken heart becomes your favorite song 
Funny the way it is, if you think about it 
A kid walks 10 miles to school, another’s dropping out 

Standing on a bridge, watch the water passing under me 
It must’ve been much harder when there was no bridge just water 
Now the world is small, remember how it used to be 
With mountains and oceans and winters and rivers and stars

dmb life music
Posted 2 years ago

Well, it’s my last week in training for my new job. I’m sad to see everyone go a little. I’ve meet some really awesome people. I have laughed till I’ve cried more than a few times. And hopefully I will stay in touch with the ones that kick the most ass.

I’m nervous about the new job and me fitting in and learning the ropes so I can just get through a day without having to ask a million questions. I know it will come with time.

Also, I’m frightened about the new things to come. A new city with new people and new friends. This is what I’ve wanted and now that I have it I’m standoffish. But, I’m optimistic and a bit of a realist. It will workout and I cannot wait for the things that are coming. All while trying to enjoy everyday for what it is. I read a quote that is perfectly suited for the time period I am in….and for the rest of my life for that matter.

“Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.” ~Proverb

And I just found another one:

Happiness depends upon ourselves. - Aristotle

Those two quotes are 2 of my fav and couldn’t have come at a better time.

Rock.

work huntsville life quote
Posted 2 years ago

Times are changing…
As you know I’m moving to the Huntsville region in about 2 weeks. I’m relocating because of my new job. I remember thinking, “When I get this job I can focus on the things that are important and not stress so much about the small things.” Wrong. If you leave it up to me I will always worry about something. And it’s not something the average person can tell….I imagine a lot of people and their “quirks” are the small way.

There is the move…there is my relationship and how to pursue it further…her job…if the apartment is nice…can I afford it comfortably…will my 30 min. commute be bad…will I be off when my son is out of school on the weekends so we can spend time together..will I hate the job….I can go on and on.

This is coming from the guy that wears the “Just Keep Livin” wrist band. (Google it, awesome thing) The Mr. Live in the Moment. But, I try…and then I do so well. Then it’s not to long until my thoughts run wild with worry. I can’t sleep at night…I stay quick to anger all the time…etc. It makes having a close relationship with me impossible. Not o say I suck at it, I’m just unfair and down and just downright not myself. Myself is someone who is upbeat, funny, healthy, living in moment, everyone likes and nobody hates.

I keep telling myself if I have this or that I will beable to control this insanity…but can I?

To he honest I know I can and maybe writing this will help me be more in control.

I have thought a lot about this lately but writing this was a different story until tonight. The reason was a friend of mine on Twitter. I have meet her once through a “real life” friend but really only know her through the tweets. Today marks the anniversary her husband died in Iraq leaving her 8 months pregnant and all alone. From what I read and hear she is a very strong woman with a beautiful daughter and lots to live for with a bright future for both of them. Yes, she is strong but you can just tell by her words that she is weak at times. But, does she give up? Nope. She does her best to raise a daughter that she adores.

Isn’t that what life is all about. Family, friends, good times and love? Why should I worry?? Look at the horrific thing she had to endure!

Life is short but sweet for certain. I must and will pursue to live it one day at a time. Not worrying about my future but enjoying today…this day that could be our last. We only have one roll at this…let’s make it awesome.

Well…that’s my little pep talk anyways. :)

1 note life moving love
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