Self-cleaning Kitchens

The kid could never keep anything clean. If you had seen his car, his room, the garage, crap is… everywhere. Sounds in the middle of the night of fridge door slamming (eating the leftovers that I would never eat) door from kitchen to office slam cabinet doors slam slam slam, those loud steps made me think that I was waken up by Bigfoot himself a huge-gantic giant, consistently loud while getting done whatever he needed to do within the house. Usually came down middle of night to find out that entire racket was a side platter to his diving studies. Who’d thunk. Anyways the parents were away for a weekend and they have these strict rules of no girls staying over night especially not in the same bed… ahem ROOM I mean. It is okay if you fall asleep together, but you must then get your ass out of bed, out of comfort and go to the next room. Mom, Dad “EARMUFFS”. I have always thought this was the most ridiculous rule ever invented, so of coarse I fought it. Girl stayed over umm Correy indulged : P
That there was all a lead up into nothing, the thing that got me was a few days in, of the Rents being gone, girl I was seeing at the time and myself decided we would make up some food. Pot stickers and Mac n cheese.. great thought when you are starving, bad idea in general. So we go into the kitchen and I grab out a pot and pan for the stickers and she grabs stuff for the noodles and what do you know every pot and pan is covered in some kind of red sauce and these were placed back in the “clean” cabinet, as I look around more all I see is a full sink of red sauce.. FORKS! SPOONS!! A SPATULA? Mixed in with every utensil you could possibly think of. What a (Mom, Dad “EARMUFFS”) Fuckin mess I say out loud, not pissed more amused cause MAN you are an eFFin slob. We clean the pots and the pans continue to cook and then eat our food which was about as smart as going to Costco shopping for food on an empty stomach, everything is a bad idea in that situation. Correy finally breaks away from his “Disney, girlie, tearjerker, romance movies” for a bit and I say Dood what is up with all of the mess. Correy responds what mess?. I go to point at the kitchen counter that I had already cleaned it up. So I told him you know you made a huge fricken mess and need to clean up after yourself and his response was why should I have to do it if you already got my back on it.

Touché’

20 minutes later the kitchen was filled up again Correy and Rach Rach’s first round of food was evidently horrible, so they tried again I suppose this time I had nothing to do with the clean-up.

"Hi Cindy. This is Bob. Is my mom there?"

Story by Cindy Liardon

This is what I'd hear when I'd answer the phone and it was Correy calling for Vanessa.

In my family, Correy wasn't Correy... he was Bob. In fact, when I shared with my kids the sad news of his passing, they had no idea who I was talking about when I said "Correy". I had to say "Bob".

I don't know exactly how or why it started, but Bob got this nickname when he worked as a childcare employee at Family Community Church. The kids all LOVED Bob and if he was scheduled for childcare, my kids were more than willing to go.

I loved the fact that he'd refer to himself as Bob whenever I talked to him. It just confirms to me that he enjoyed the kids as much as they enjoyed him.

You're definitely missed BOB!

Dive Suit PROWLER

By Correy's Dad
Correy has quite a few full length dive suits, he always maintains & cleans ALL of his dive gear to the best of his ability. Last year at Any Water Sports, where he worked he bought a new hanger/electric dryer for his full diving suits after using them. As much as Correy dove even a few days having a dive suit wet was too much, nothing like putting on a wet, clammy suit! He used to wash them in the driveway out front,then hang them in the garage until they were dry, the new electric dryer cut the drying time in half. The wet suit dryer is a rigid clothes hanger with an electric drying motor, you zip up your suit on it, hang it up so it's off the ground & it would literally inflate the entire dive suit with warm air, almost looked like someone was in it when inflated, minus the head. I do a lot of yard work out back, so earlier this year I installed an outside waterproof outlet, just beside the patio door. I guess Correy seen it one night after diving & thought I had installed it for him. He washed his full dive suit on the patio & hung it from a bracket with the suit hanger dryer plugged in & drying & inflating his suit. Well, I'm an early riser, so at about 4:30 am, I'm walking from the living room into the kitchen, it's still pretty dark outside, but we did have almost a full moon still lighting the backyard. Through the partially opened window blinds I see what appears to be a tall, muscular person by my patio door,I ducked down crawled back into the living room & grabbed my loaded .44 magnum, just like the one Dirty Harry used! I sneak cautiously under the window in the kitchen, keeping my eye on the subject, I slowly make my way to the locked patio door, like the guy in Mission Impossible, I ever so gently unlock the lock on the patio door, I swiftly slide the glass door open & point at the subject, I pull the hammer back on the gun & take aim & yelling, FREEZE DIRTBAG!!! I hear a wrrrrrrrrring noise & noticed it's only Correy's dive suit hanging with the dive suit dryer inside inflating it. I told Correy the story when he woke up, he said he was verrrry glad I didn't shoot a bunch of holes in his $2000 diving suit!

NSA

Correy and I grew up together, so I have a TON of stories, but I'll just try to think of some that stick out more than others, and wouldn't embarass him :)
I remember every day after school we would play "spy." We had our own company name and home base- NSA (National Spy Association), in his garage. We never knew what we were looking for, but we would walk down the street and pick things up saying they were "evidence" and put them in our briefcases. Correy had such a great imagination. One specific time that sticks out to me is when we had our cap guns out in the front yard of his house. We had a piece of ply wood standing up against the tree and the bumper of his mom's imfamous van, and we were laying down, "staking out the suspect", guns pointed and ready. Next thing we know, the neighbor across the street in on his roof, with his rifle cap gun. He had seen us and decided to play along. This was a grown man, mind you. We thought it was so cool that he came out and played with us, so of course we played along, and eventually "took him down". I'll never forget that. We had some very good times together. I miss him a lot.


Tiffany Parker

BIGGEST Dam Sap Pocket

BY CORREYS DAD
Correy & I were up camping one Opening Day, we gather all of our firewood the first day usually, we like have raging campfires & also like blowing stuff up! Yes, I was a Forest Fire Fighter for many, many years, but what the heck, you have to do some testing every now & then so you see how things work! Each campground has a campground host, most are nice so are "A" HOLES, notice my discretion used here. We were in a upper camp called Baker, this particular host is the "A" hole. We had our fire burning pretty good, our camp was situated way in the corner, about as far from the host as you can get. He usually drove his pickup whenever he came in our area because of the distance. Once it got dark, our area of the camp had no one else camping so we decided to do some burn/explosion testing, 1st a can of soda sealed, it popped, expanded, make funny noises then a low thud, spraying hot soda all over, partially putting out our fire. On a scale of 1-10, a "2"! Next we tried a can of spray paint, we put in the hot ashes & moved away quickly, the can swelled really quickly, even the concave bottom was now rounded, the can was turning a dark purple, then....BOOM, a pretty 3 foot long explosion all in a cool green color, about a "6" on the scale. I told Correy we can do better, I heard if you empty a spray can, the fumes give a much larger explosion. So we had a can of hair spray from home, we took from Vanessa, SHHHHHHHH, she doesn't know!!! We emptied the contents, placed the can in the hot coals, it took forever to even get the can to react, when it did, KAA_BOOOOM!!!!! Not only did the can go off like a sonic boom, it literally shot most of the burning wood from the fire pit with burning embers everywhere. YES KIDS DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME CORREY & I ARE PROFESSIONALS! We couldn't find any part of the hair spray can anywhere, just burning embers! Within a minute the camp host came racing over to our camp in his truck, furious with us because he thinks we were shooting A VERY LARGE gun! Correy & I are standing there like deer in headlights as he jumps from his truck & screams at us and says, "NO SHOOTING IN THE CAMPGROUND! "Thinking fast,I told him we were burning pine wood & it was a sap pocket, which can happen...I GUESS. He bought the story & said "It WAS THE BIGGEST DAM SAP POCKET HE HAS EVER HEARD! Thinking we were in the clear, right behind & next to the host I noticed the shrapnel metal left of the hair spray can, just sitting there in plain view on the bush! It was torn wide open, burned a blackish/gray color still glowing, without skipping a beat I motioned with my head to Correy about the can, Correy quickly walks behind the guy, kicks his heel backwards to send the can flying into the bushes. The host turns around just then & Correy just smiles & said, "BIGGEST DAM SAP POCKET I EVER HEARD TOO!!!! ON A SCALE OF 1-10, THIS WAS DEFINITELY A "10"!
SMOKEY SAYS ONLY YOU CAN BLOW THINGS UP!

Deer Correy

By Correy’s Dad

Fall of 2008, Correy & I were up camping at Baker Campground in the Stanislaus National Forest. We had just gotten up there about 8am, fall was in the air, and it was cold & breezy. We had just unloaded our gear from the van & were preparing to set up our tent. Standing behind Correy was a fawn deer, I told Correy the deer is behind him & he just said, “Oh right Dad!”, as he slowly turned around less than 3 feet behind him the fawn just stood there looking at him. We know you are not supposed to feed the animals, but, heck, we feed the boys!
Correy took an apple & handed it to the deer, he looked at Correy like, is that all you got & dropped it on the ground.
We took out a chocolate covered granola bar, healthy too & gave it to the deer; he took it then threw it on the ground & gave us that I want something more look!
Correy opened a loaf of bread, as fast as he could get a piece of bread out; the deer snatched it from his hand, gobbling it up. Correy went to give him another one, before he could grab a slice from the bag, the deer tried to grab the whole loaf. We gave him 1 more slice & resumed setting up camp. The entire time we were setting up camp the deer followed us closely about 3 feet behind us at any given time.
After setting up camp, we set out to find firewood, when we left the deer was still standing there watching us leave, he was probably thinking of ripping off our food once we left!
We returned in about an hour with a van full of wood, only to now find 2 fawn deer waiting in camp for us. He went & got his buddy. We didn’t feed them anymore; we unloaded the wood & went fishing. When we returned the deer were gone & so was the apple & granola bar that was left on the ground. We never saw them again. We slept at night with one eye open waiting to be mugged by the deer!

Correy’s first rock climbing experience

By Correy’s Dad

I’ve been camping on the Stanislaus National Forest on Hwy 108 since 1962. Once the boys were old enough we started taking them up camping & fishing.

On the way to camping we get off Hwy 205 after Tracy & take the Hwy 120 exit through Manteca, as soon as you get off of Hwy 99 you take the 1^st Manteca/Hwy 120 exit, on your right is a Wendy’s Restaurant and a Union 76 gas station. We still stop there, even today as it’s our first bathroom break. The gas station has stucco stone on the building right up to the roof on the side by the bathrooms. It used to be natural color, now they painted it a puky brown color.

Whenever we stopped there the boys use to free climb the walls outside the bathroom, usually getting up pretty high, then jumping down, Correy, even at age 4 was climbing up over the 6 foot mark. It’s funny, as the boys got older they’d climb higher & faster then it kind of faded out as something to do there. We were always on our way to camping, fishing or the snow, so over time they were more anxious to get up camping or in the snow! I’m going up this weekend so I’ll stop & get a picture of the wall to post here.

Love you Correy!!

Dad