Hmmmm, let's see if I can recall all of the more popular monikers frequented by mi Madre towards my person:


1) Hellion

2) Rapscallion

3) Imp

4) Brat (I still get this!)

5) Pain in the @$$

6) Trouble-maker

7) Sneak (I love cookies. What can I say?  Guilty)

8) $h!T-For-Brains (Dad)

9) Complete and utter Angel (Me)  ; )


     So there.  Who better to accurately assess my childhood than me 'ole Mum and Da?  What's scarier is, I have children...


Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaww!!!!

Erik

     OK.  So you really wanna know?  Just be warned then, 'cause up ahead; Spoilers Galore! 
     I get my ideas from a number of places and situations and experiences.  I could be Zen about the answer as per my usual response on these dealys, and just say Mind.  It's correct.  Absolutely.  Booooooorrrrrrrriiiiiinnnngggg!  So knowing this already, I will play around the parameters a bit.

1)  My kids (They're full of it ahem...., them)

2)  Radio (I'm a talk-radio junkie.  I will dearly miss Art Bell.  Again!)

3)  (no kidding here) I have experienced some of the most mind-bogglingly Earth shattering ideas while ahem, sitting in the Master's Chamber of the Executive Thrown Room for daily meditation (potty).  Yeah.  Weird.  But hey, when muse comes, it comes!

4)  When I do common house chores or yard work.  Many's the time I have bolted from the lawn mower with it still running to go jot something down, record a quick refrain (or yell at the kids to stop annoying their mother), or scribble out a quick sketch for a piece of digital art or acrylic painting.  I think it occurs then, just so's I can quit mowing under the guise of "higher purpose".

5)  At work sitting at a desk in a mostly empty lobby of a Government Building with nothing going on can be conducive to lots of meditation (No!  Not that kind! *sheeesh!*), book reading, nail trimming, and outright creative catharsis.  Going completely numb with boredom yields a wealth of creativity like no other catalyst I know.  I have played paper football with myself for hours on end numbing the time away just to keep from eating my socks or wearing the Ficus as a hat!

6)  Zaadz!  Like this is a stretch.  Lot's of wonderful inspo here!  Nothing like a virtual butt-kicking to get the 'ole creative juices flowing.  At least until they start shorting out the keyboard!

7)  Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep...... Uh Oh!  Flatlined.  I must be outta ideas!  I'll see you on the next inspiration train of muse and weirdness!

Erik

     Again, I could do a very predictable, short-and-sweet, Zen answer here as is my M/O as of late, but my fingers are itchy and screaming to type!  I'd better appease them or they will throttle me in my sleep.

     My father was a California State Parks employee as well as a troop in the Air Force Reserves so you can imagine that we moved around quite a bit.  He also did a tour in the U.S. Navy before joining the Air Force and so my timeline begins.

1)  I was born in Long Beach, California an unknowing Navy Brat.  During this small three year period my father was hired into the lethargic system a.k.a. the California Department of Parks and Recreation. 

2)  Of course my father's obligation to Uncle Sam as a Swab Jockey was done and as a newly hired Maintenance Worker, we moved to Clovis, California from which my dad commuted to Millerton Lake State Park for the next three years.  My father, never a one to promote in the same location took a promotion at:

3)  Turlock Lake State Recreation Area.  The year is now 1976 and I am in the third grade.  We spent another wonderful but brief three years here in between the two small towns of Waterford, California and La Grange, California up near Don Pedro Resevoir.  We took alot of trips to nearby Yosemite for picnics on the banks of the Merced River.  I also started my endless fascination with fishing in this park as we not only had the close proximity of the lake which was full of Crappie and Largemouth Bass, but the Tuloumne River flowed 200 yards below our residential bluff which lured me in with it's abundance of Brookies and German Browns.  Dynamite action there.  Alas promotion time came again and onto probably the most influential area of my upraising as I still rant about it in great length.

4)  Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area.  My dad is now a Park Maintenance Worker II and in the Air Force Reserves stationed out of Edwards Air Force Base.  I am 12 years old and to my delight, I finish my growing up in the beautiful Mojave Desert.  At least the legal, physical growing up stage, my wife will argue that I still haven't aged past a 13 year old brat with no sense!  By the time I was thirteen here I had two under-the-table Summer Jobs bucking alfalfa bales for dirt bike money.  I bought my first bike, a Yamaha YZ-80 at this time.  I bent the forks on that awesome bike more times than I could count.  I live still, hallelujah!  At fourteen years, I acquired what was to me and still is in my memory, the best job of my life for the next four years.  I hired on as a Dock Hand at Silverwood Lake Marina where I scrubbed rental fishing boats and the docks and humped 25 hp Mercs and Evinrudes up and down the entry ramp.  Summertime at Silverwood brought lots of pretty, bronze-skinned girlies to the fertive, watchful eyes of my lustful youth.  Oh yeah.  Tanned teen, muscular working man checkin' the ladies with a knowing smile and the occasional show-offy flex of my work-hardened body.  I was unstoppable.  And my boss always took care of his good Dock Hands by giving them ample supplies of cheep beer not to drink, but to trade with the Jet Boat drivers as they came in near the end of my shift for gas in exchange for time being dragged behind their boats for water-skiing which I was very good at.  Oh man, tanned, muscular, great boating and skiing skills; I had an insatiable appetite for the beauties and shamelessly had my fair share.  When I look back on that time in my life, it seems I was living in a movie.  Homelife wasn't all that great, but I always had the Lake and the Babes.  I made a friend named Kham Slater when I was fourteen and by the time we could both drive we were taking trips to the "stacks" at Huntington Beach where I learned to surf on a 9' 6" O'Neill board.  We would shoot the break adjacent to the pier and although I wasn't as successful with the ladies there, I still had a great time in the endless white sand and surf.   This occured over and over until I joined the U.S. Army in June of 1985 as a 95B Combat Military Policeman. Ah, to do it all again.  In a heartbeat...

Bathe in Light,

Erik

     Do I believe in destiny?  Maybe insomuch as I listen to my talents and the directions created by the requests of others.  Other than that and including that, it's still of my own making.  I feel we all choose paths that feel comfortable based on the conditions we were raised in, successful previous experiences in a personal interest and the type of personality we have created for the vehicle we reside in.  The word "destiny" to me suggests a plateau when all there is, is the journey.  If you lived forever, how could there be a destiny?  Guess what?  You live forever.  The vehicle is rented.  The Spirit is bought and paid for.  Upgrade anyone?

Bathe in Light,

Erik

     Well this date really resonates with me.  Why?  Because on this date I will turn 46 years old.  Yup...That's what I believe.  Beyond that, I believe I'm gonna concentrate on focusing a little more attention on the here and now.  I don't need to be another idjit leakin' emotional energy into make believe dates that have either a) Done passed on and can no longer affect my dumb ass or  b)  Haven't happened yet, so I best not be worryin' about it while the present is doing just fine affecting my dumb ass.  I think that about narrows it down pretty good for me.  I'll stay here.  There's plenty of folk that are worryin' enough about tomorrow for me already.  I do need somebody to worry about what I did yesterday though.  Any takers?

Ride easy.  Keep the sun in yer face.  Love all critters.

Erik

     Well this is an easy one!  I would get myself into a nice, yummy inwardly still place and then let it spill out everywhere.  It would rub off on people so forcefully, they would get BLISS'ters!

Ha!

Bathe in Light, Ride Easy, Love All Critters,

Erik