The Girl that almost was but the dog won me over

The girl that almost was but the dog won me over

Good evening friends.  OK, it looks like the story of one of my ex girlfriends and her dog won the votes.

So lets get right into it.  this was about 6 years ago. I was 40 years old and was doing the online dating thing like a full time job.  I was a different kind of online dater than most. Most people would have several dialogues over email, then get on the phone and chat for a few minutes and either set up a date or not.  You see I just wanted to go out. So my emails to women online were clear and to the point.

In my email to them I would say “Would you like to meet for drinks or dinner tonight?” 90 percent of people didn’t respond. Out of the 10 percent that did, some would say; “so tell me about yourself” — I would say “I will tell you about myself when we meet”  — Remember friends with online dating, they can read your profile, so its kind of a repetitive question from them.  Normally when i would say that it would end our dialogues and I would never hear from them again. Several people inside the 10 percent would say; ” I like a man who knows what he wants and directly asks for it” — So i would say “that’s great to hear”  But then some of them would say; “The problem is I already have plans tonight.” So I would say to them, OK reach out to me when you’re free and they never would.  But one or two gals out of the ten percent would say; “I can meet you at 6 pm tonight”  — And that’s all it takes folks, just one “Yes,’ and you get to meet a new person.

OK, I’m rambling.  On one particular night I met a woman out who grew up near the town I did and we had friends in common.  Now when I connect, I move very quickly, and I don’t mean in the hanky panky way.  I mean from “I want to see them a lot starting the next day.”  Within 3 weeks we were in a full fledged relationship.  We were talking moving in together, engagement, we were very into each other.  She had a dog, I won’t say his name, but she loved him like I love Sammy, Henry, Patrick, Jeffrey and Kelly.  And I absolutely loved her dog.   Anytime we saw each other I just wanted to play with her dog or take her out somewhere.  God forbid we just sat home and relaxed.

I wanted to be at the bars laughing with people and talking about light, dumb and breezy stuff, the dumber the better. This particular gal I was dating was a doctor.  After a while she said; “Listen, I really want to be together but I want to live  a slower and quieter life”  I knew what she meant, but I was not on the same page.  She was a really nice person too.

So she put it to me, she said “you have to choose us or this running around life that you have”  — And not running around with other ladies, but I just couldn’t sit still.  I didn’t like myself enough to want to sit with myself.  And living the quiet  life with her forced me to be with myself more than i was willing to be.

So we were at dinner and she asked me what i decided to do.  I told her I cannot slow down and live that kind of life. I really have strong feelings for you but I must maintain this pace in my life. I don’t know how to live any other way.  So she said, ” listen, I’m a doctor, this is not going to work out.  I think we have to call it off.

I felt badly because I knew she was right and I knew what a nice girl she was. Nonetheless, I said; “Listen, please don’t take this the wrong way, I have grown very attached to your dog, you work late hours and I have two dogs.  I think your dog would be happier with my two dogs and I, and would you be willing to give him up?”

Well friends, this is when things really went poorly.  She threw a drink in my face and said that was the worst question anyone has ever asked her in her life. She said  how dare you ?   Boy did I feel like a horses patoot.  I tell this story in gest looking back, but i do look back and feel bad about it.

In conclusion, when you and a nice person split for whatever reason, don’t ask them if you can keep their beloved pet they’ve had for 6 years.   #LearnedTheHardWay  #AnotherClassIsleptThrough

Guido Daniele the Hand Animal artist

Good morning friends.

We are thrilled to have Guido Daniele featured on “The Good News Channel” this morning.  As many of you know I spent my whole life in New York City where you think you’ve seen everything.  I was telling Mr. Daniele I never knew this category of art existed.  When I saw his animals paintings and what they were being painted on, I almost fell off my chair.  I said myself; “This has to be an illusion, I must be seeing things”

Guido Daniele the hand animal artist

 Elephant

But this was no illusion.  Gudio Daneile is a hand artist.  He uses people’s actual hands to paint majestic and exotic animals that look as life like as the real thing.  Each time I see a new image he painted, I literally cannot believe its someone’s hand.

hand gorilla

 Gorilla

While doing my research on Mr. Daniele, what I loved most was his passion for animals.  Not his astonishing hand are of animals, but his compassion for real animals.  He has felt a kinship since he was 4 years old.  He speaks of a time when him and his brother found a dead wasp and they made her a gave with flower on it.  Through Guido’s hand paintings he brings major attention to endangered and their shrinking habitats.  But it goes its much broader then that, Guido wants attention brought to all the homeless in need of a better life, and the horrible conditions of farm animals giving their lives for our feed and are treated like they are in a Nazi Concentration camps.  Mr. Daniele has been public about the horrors taking place with dogs and cats in meat eating festivals throughout China.

Cheetah

 Cheetah

Guido Daniele is a true animal lover in every sense of the word.  That is what attracted me even more so then his hand animals art work.  We all in the “Everybody Loves Sammy” from around the world as animal loving people can complete relate to how he feels.

Guido 4

Guido Daniele and two Lemurs just hanging like a bunch of buddies

After I feature Guido’s story,  I am going to share 3 of my many video and audio messages with him messages about animal equality, kindness, rescue and welfare.  Most of you already know the video I did called “Where is the Geneva Convention for Animals?”  and another video called; ” The Second Amendment from the Perspective of an Animal” — I think Mr. Daniele will really appreciate them. Lastly I will share with the piece I did on “The Dog and Cat Meat trade throughout Asia” —  But enough on me, this is his feature.

Bald Eagle Two Hands

Bald Eagle using two hands

So below is is straight from Mr. Daniele’s website about his background.  He artistic talents, techniques and knowledge goes centuries back.  It goes so far back, I am not even going to attempt to paraphrase it. I’m just going to use his words from his website to make sure its said correctly.

Hand Raccoon

Raccoon

From 1964 to 1968 he attended Brera artistic High School. He graduated from Brera School of Arts (major in sculpturing) in 1972. He lived in India since 1972 to 1974 where he attended the Tankas school in Dharamsala. Since 1968 he has been painting and participating to personal and group art exhibitions. In 1972 he started working as hyper-realistic illustrator, in co-operation with major editing and advertising companies, using and testing different painting techniques.

Hand Dolphin

Dolphin

The Tibetan painting technique is a technique of miniature with high precision that even in Europe grew from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance with great skill throughout Europe. The miniatures were painted on paper, canvas, ceramics, miniatures were made with mosaics, with jewels, with sculptures and there was an artistic exchange between west and east, the King of European countries ordered beautiful works to give to the kings of India, Nepal, China , Thailand, Korea, Laos and Japan.

Guido 3

Guido Daniele and his son Michael James Daniele on Nosi Iranja island in Madagascar

Since 1986 he has been working and improving his personal usage of airbrush: he paints back-stages in different sizes (the biggest ones can be 400 square meters) for artistic and advertising pictures, TV commercials and programs.  He also creates trompe l’oeil, which is an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted …both in private houses and public buildings.

ATT HANDS- 046

ELK

In 1990 he added a new artistic experience to his previous ones: using the body painting technique he creates and paints models bodies for different situations such as advertising pictures and commercials, fashion events and exhibitions.

Hand Iguana

Iguana

Its search started in 2000 about “Handimals” maked with the method of body painting on hands has a great international interest. The Process is as such; I try first a hand who suits the animal I want to paint, I make some pictures of the hand in the correct position before beginning to paint, then I paint the hand even if it is relaxed and when I finished I try to find the initial position for shoot a final photograph.

Hand Le--mur Catta mail

Lemur

Guido Daneie has painted over 80 Hand Animals.  They take him anywhere from 6 to 1o hours to paint.  He mentions that the most difficult Hand Animal Paintings he’s done, has been snakes and a peacock.

Hand Dappled Horse

Horse

Daniele is committed to wildlife protection and has become increasingly involved with charities such as WWF, the Jane Goodall Institute, Dolphin Aid, Innocence in Danger, PLAN, APNEEF and Liliane Fonds.

Hand Pilgrim Hawk mail

Pilgrim Hawk

Sammy & Family obviously read many things on this impressive gentleman with a heart of gold.  What I really loved reading was how it talked about passion is the driving force that keeps him going.  He loves what he does.  He said that the effect of being passionate brings the ideas to him naturally and then he goes and executes them.  That was not the exact quote, but it was something along those similar lines.

In my last correspondence with him, he mentioned he is 64 years old and the next 20 years will be his best work ever. Sammy & Family has no doubt about that.  Guido Daniele is a once in a lifetime artist with a message of compassion and the actions of a humanitarian.

Guido 1

Guido Daniele with two Lemurs in Madagascar

Daniele is committed to wildlife protection and has become increasingly involved with charities such as WWF, the Jane Goodall Institute, Dolphin Aid, Innocence in Danger, PLAN, APNEEF and Liliane Fonds.

Website;  http://www.guidodaniele.com/

On Facebook;  https://www.facebook.com/GuidoDanielepagina?fref=ts

LinkedIn;  https://www.linkedin.com/pub/guido-daniele/5/936/579

Vimeo;   https://vimeo.com/guidodanielebodypainter

Two Super Hero’s making sure the World is OK

SuperSammy & SuperScott making sure the world is A OK

Good morning friends.

It’s great to be alive July 8th, 2015.  Super Sammy and I just wanted everyone to know we circled the globe a few times last night and even did a fly by through New York City and everything was copacetic.  I gotta tell you, despite Sammy being just a 10 pound Pomeranian, the winds in the sky did not push this little superhero around.  No sir buddy.

Friends if you are wondering why I was squinting while flying was because the winds were hitting me pretty hard at the those altitudes.  I probably should’ve worn ski googles or sometime.  You know what they say though, “You live and you learn” —  In this case i would revise that slogan to; “You fly and you learn”

OK friends Two positive notions to kick this Saturday off on the right foot;

1. Thank you God for this gift of  life today.  Whether this day is good, bad or indifferent, everyday above ground is a gift.  Why ?  The reason is its another opportunity to turn it all around.

2. My life is not comprised of memories, my life is comprised of living it.  And the only place to live it is in today and right now.  If anyone doesn’t believe me, try to get yesterday back and let me know how that goes.

Signing off for the day, Dr. Harp Seal for Sammy & Family on day 209 In Puerto Rico.

Sammy & Family is forever Grateful to Vanessa Martinez

A toast to greatest wife in the world

Good evening friends.

Thanks for stopping by. We hope everyone had a nice week. Sammy & Family had our ups and downs this week, but such is life.

I want to give a big shout out to my lovely wife Vanessa Martinez. I can feel all of your eyes rolling back in your heads for all the mushiness that’s about to be said. Nonetheless, Lets roll; What Vanessa has done for Sammy & Family and me as her husband, my family and I are forever indebted to this woman for the love and loyalty she has given us through some very tough times.

Vanessa is my soul mate. the only one that loves my dogs more then me, is her. I am madly in love with her as my wife, my best friend, and I am in love with her kindness towards animals all over the world.

She is my wife and my life. Out of 3.5 billion females in the world, God could not have sent me a more heavenly angel. I shared all my ups and downs publicly for you all to see, I hid nothing. And today, thanks to my wife, my father in law, my family, my 3 dogs and Vanessa’s two dogs, I am surrounded by an over abundance of love and a personal life beyond my wildest dreams.

When Vanessa and I have our 5 year anniversary, we want to invite everyone to Puerto Rico from around the world to celebrate with us. It may not be a fancy party, but with all the love we’ll have from each other from all over the world, plus my story telling, we will have the time of our lives.

Lets make a toast to the most beautiful and sweet angel of a wife a man could ever ask for. Here’s to you Vanessa, thank you for saving my life and making my life. There is no me without you. I love you to death.

Love always, Scott Smith and Dr. Harp Seal.

Boat Ride of our lives. The year was 1986

The boat ride of our lives in 1986

Good evening friends.

Tonight we take it back to 1986 and a day my friends and I will never forget. Looking back its an entertaining story. When it happened it was anything but funny.

My 5 best guys friends and I, and my girlfriend at the time all decided to blow off high school one day and go one my friends speedboat.  Actually my friends dad’s speedboat.  But the dad was at work.  And you know what they say” while the Cats are away the Mice will play”

Now I should mention my girlfriend was a very sweet and innocent girl.  She was like Sandra Dee from the Movie Grease. She was so sweet, we all her called her Sweetie.  She was part of our crew and the only girl, my girl of course.

I think I told you all I grew up in Long Island, NY.  So I am assuming we were boating in “The Long Island Sound”  — I’m not great with geography as you all know.  Now we were not just boating, we were going so fast that when wakes from other boats hit our boat we went airborne several times.

After one of the airborne incidences we saw a lot of dark smoke coming from the engine. So the son of the owner of the boat, opened the two hatches towards the back of the boat and a blaze of fire came flying out of the hatch.  The fire starting slowly inching its way towards the front of the boat.  We were screaming to him get the life rafts, we have to get off this boat right now.  He was screaming back to us, the fire spread in front of the small cabin area where the life preservers were.  So next thing you know he runs to the front of the boat where all six of us, now seven with him were literally standing at the tip of the boat which was a thin as a corner of the letter “V” — The front of the boat looked like the bottom part of the Letter “V”

Now if anyone could see us they would see the whites in our eyes. We were in the middle of the Long Island Sound, the entire boat was blazing on fire originating from the engine where all the gas was. We had no life preservers and there were no boats around.   My girlfriends was shaking and so was I. Her shaking was different then mine, her’s was about that we were going to burn to death or drown to death.  My shaking was because if we didn’t die her father was going to kill me. Her dad was a dentist and very involved with her daughter’s life.  Her father was a really nice guy. She was an honor student and didn’t do one thing wrong in her entire life. Now she is about to die because her moron boyfriend convinces her to take a day off from school and come with him and his 5 friends for a relaxing day on one of Scott’s friend’s boat.

We were trapped at the tip of the boat, and we knew this boat was about to blow up. The flames were 20 feet high surrounding the gas tank.  Next think you know, another boat passes from about 40 feet away but would not come closer because of how bad the fire was.  The people on the other boat starting throwing life rafts and tubes into the water.

But the tubes and life rafts were like 30 feet away and my girlfriend and one my friends could not swim.  So we kept hesitating.  The people on the other boat were looking at us like “What the hell are doing, you have to get off the boat”

We still hesitated.  The next think you know, the captain from the other boat picked up one of those PA speaker type things when people are talking to large crowds.  And i will never forget what he yelled to us.  He screamed “JUMP, THE BOAT IS GOING TO BLOW UP ANY SECOND”  —  With in a millisecond of him finishing that sentence, the 7 of us were in the air jumping off the boat like right out of a James Bond movie.

I told my girlfriend and the other friend to tread water, we will go get the tubes and life rafts for them.  And so we did. Eventually all 7 of us were on the other boat that threw us the life rafts and screamed to jump now.

My girlfriend was shaking like a leaf and was looking at me like we probably wont be seeing each other anymore. And I was looking at her like i knew her father was going to kill me.  And now my friend had to call his father to tell him we took his $100,000  boat out for a ride and its on fire like “The Towering Inferno” starring Paul Newman and Steve Maqueen.

So my friends, whats the point of this story ? The point is, if you’re going to blow off school which you should Not, don’t get on a boat speed racing through the Long Island Sound when you are 16.

In the next few days, I will tell you guys the story of when i got my first car and the trouble that caused.  Then I will tell you all the story of how go into The Stern School of Business at New York University when i did so poorly in high school.

Signing off from Puerto Rico on day 205.  Scott Smith for Sammy & Family.