The Jody Update

Well I figured that I'd update a few things that have since happened with me lately. I'll start with my fathers passing. My dad passed away on 4/30/09 to natural causes. We saw this coming a mile away due to his failing health since his stroke a while back. The funeral was nice we even had a bag piper which was awesome. As a family we came up with the idea of creamation because my father didn't want a huge funeral and this was truly the cheapest way to handle the situation. Instead of purchasing a $200-$300 urn we decided to put the ashes in a custom tool box that we found more appropriate for my father. I had the blessing of painting the tool box. We decided to paint flames on it so here's the finished product and a few pictures of my father, Paul Daniel Livingston.



Even in the hospital he was filled with vinegar and hot piss!



This is just a good picture of my dad "Digger".



My Dad served in the Army but this is a picture of him in his American Legion outfit.



Just my brothers, sister, Dad and me.



The infamous tool box urn. Not bad for my first time airbrushing flames.

I recently entered a contest through the deviant art website sponsored by Adidas. The contest was the Adidas Finger Paint contest. Don't let the name fool you it wasn't about finger painting Adidas just wanted artists to take their name and logo and somehow incorporate it into their artwork via any medium you decided to use. There were over 7200 entry's and I was recently selected to one of the 50 semi-finalists. This gives me a free month subscription to the website, which I already pay for so thats just a little added plus. There will be 1st-3rd place prizes given that are very nice prize packages including a $3000 giftcard and a lot more depending on the place you take. I've included my picture that I submitted entitled " Adidas Down With the King". I got the idea due to the fact that Adidas sponsored the rap group Run DMC back in the late 70's early 80's, they even made a song called "My Adidas". Rund DMC is were known as the Kings of Rock (although they rapped) so the title "Down With the King" fits nicely. Also included is a link to the actual competition if you'd like to see the other entries (believe me their great!)

http://news.deviantart.com/article/81160/




Well this is just a quick update for now. Many of you may have heard about my two hero incodents in the past few weeks so I'll quickly recap. On Friday May 14th or early Saturday May 15th I was coming home from work at 3 am ( I work swing shift). On my way home on I-15 I came upon a car accident (I was about 10 seconds behind it). Upon pulling over as one of the first people on scene I noticed that a hispanic lady was on top of a rolled SUV (Suburban). It was setting on its side and glass was all over the freeway, there was fire coming out of the engine from what would have been the bottom of the vehicle if it wasn't setting on its side. I could see that a lady was inside screaming and bleeding all over. The hispanic lady on top of the car was holding a door open and helping the people inside. Apparently she had already helped two guys out. The lady in the car was bleeding to bad to try to pull her out the top (side facing up) so a couple of guys and I started kicking in the windshield. We told the lady to cover up cause she was laying in the front of the car. We spider webbed the windshield but it wouldn't break so I grabbed my skateboard from my car and beat the hell out of the window making some actual holes to work with. I even used my board as a pick ripping these holes the length of the window and completely shredding the nose of my board. I threw my board back in my van and grabbed a towel and another guy brought a blanked. We them pulled the rest of the windshield off of the vehicle. I could see that the ladies foot and about 4 inches of her shin had been completely severed from the rest of her leg in the wreck (when the vehicle rolled). We (the two guys and the hispanic lady and I) then proceeded to pull her out through the windshield. Because I was tall enough to be able to look down into the vehicle I could see the severity of the situation and reached in and grabbed her calf with one hand and her back with the other hand. The other three people helped me by grabbing various limbs and pulling her to saftey. Although she was in complete shock she did manage to yell "someone grab my leg, someone grab my foot!"


About that time a young lady who was a nurse appeared on the scene and asked to use my belt to make a turnicate for her leg. Once the turnicate was made another young man who was obviously medically trained appeared and helped access the situation. He had his medical supplies and started preping the ladies leg, he then asked a few of us who were helping, if anyone would go get him something? Of course we all knew what that something was so I volunteered to go back into the still burning SUV and try to get the ladies foot and shin. Anothe volunteer followed me with a flashlight so that I could see where it was. Obviously car was filled with blood but I managed to find it quite easily. The problem was that the foot was sticking out but the shin was still trapped beneath the vehicle. I tried a few times to pull it out but to no avail. About that time the paramedics showed up and took over. They did allow the young man, young lady and me to stay on scene for a few minutes just to get some info from us. They actually used their flashlights to help me see on the last attempt to get her foot but like I said it didn't work. The next day on KSL.com while surfing the message board in regards to this accident I came across her sister in laws comments. She said that the lady had to be life flighted to the hospital and that her leg had to be amputated from the knee down. I guess one of the guys that the hispanic lady helped get out had broken his neck and might be paralized from the neck down for life but they still weren't sure. The last guy escaped with minor injuries and of course alcohol was involved. I know that its frustrating that idiots drink and drive but after seeing that I wouldn't wish it upon anyone, it took days just to get the scene out of my head so that I could sleep regularly.


A few days later during a family reunion in Arizona I was watching my kids play in a family members swimming pool. My wifes aunt and her children were in there as well. There were a handful of other kids swimming as well. One little girl said pointing to another, "she can't swim she's drowding!" Luckily my wifes aunt was within feet of her and was able to pull her to saftey. Her mother then came in to the pool area all frantic. After a minute or so of everyone rushing to the shallow end of the pool to make sure she was ok the mother noticed her son (who looked about 7-8 years old) in the deep part of the pool drowding too. She yelled, " he can't swim either, someone grab him!". I wasn't swimming and was standing on the edge of the pool and noticed the kid floating face up looking at me. He wasn't frantic but he was still in shock and trying to keep his head above water. I jumped in (fully clothed of course) and pushed the kid out of the water. His mother rushed over and luckily he was ok as well. Thank the Lord that my wifes aunt and I happened to be close by and quick on our feet. I was very suprised that the mother of those children let her kids in the pool area unsupervised. They were still in their street clothes in the pool so I don't think she knew they were in the pool but that was still very poor parenting. I'm sure her heart about colapsed because mine did. After that I just wanted to get my kids out of the pool. Thankfully they wanted out too.


Its funny though now my daughter loves to tell eveybody my hero stories. I think I will start wearing a cape and some whity tighties on the outside of my pants just to reaffirm my newly found superhero status. I'll have to ask my boys for a good superhero name.