The Stars That Usher Evening Rose

It always amuses me how when one kid gets into trouble their brother or sister always has a huge smile on their face. You know they are loving the fact that their brother or sister is the one getting into trouble not them. While I have two sisters I didn't actually grow up with them as they are much older than I am so I never got to experience this but if I had I am sure my reaction would have been no different. Short post but life been boring last few days. Though Andy and I need to hurry up and figure out if we are going to renew our lease or move elsewhere.

Work yesterday was very interesting to say the least. About 40 minutes after I started working my co-worker ran inside and told me to radio up to the front of the store and tell them to call the police because there is a women being chocked by a man in the parking lot and that he is also trying to kidnap her kid. At first i wasn't sure if he was being serious since it's not every day you hear someone tell you that sort of thing. But I looked outside in direction he was heading and noticed a crowd forming and realized he wasn't joking. So I immediately radioed up to the front and told them what was going on. That was followed by a long pause before I finally got a response from them asking me to repeat what I said, I later found out the pause was due to them making sure they heard me say what they thought I said. So apparently I wasn't only one caught off guard by it. So anyway they call the police and one of the managers comes running up to the front of the store asking me where they all were so I pointed and she ran out there. By then the guy had already fled the scene. Thankfully the women seemed to be fine except for a scratch on her neck and while the child seemed a little rattled he was ok as well. The police came and interviewed several people and took written statements from those who witnessed it. The cop then stayed with the women till she could get someone to come pick her up at which point they followed him to the court house so that she could press charges and put out a warrant for his arrest. 30 or so minutes passed before a customer who witnessed the assault came back out of the store. He told me that in his 48 years on this earth that he had never seen anything like that before and that when he came in the store he had to take some time to himself in order to recompose himself. Apparently this male who assaulted the women also threatened and cursed at one of our employees as well as this customer who saw it take place and made initial call to police. I don't know if they ever caught the guy but I do know they had a discription of him, his car and the license plate so chances are probably pretty high that they got him at some point. So yeah that's how my day at work started yesterday, not every day you get that kind of excitment.

Took me forever to sign in here as I couldn't remember my username or password despite the fact I just signed in here a couple days ago, is that bad? Anyway I have come to the conclusion that everyone is an idiot. Some are definitely worse than others though. You have people who can't read or refuse to read signs warning them or telling them they can't do something but then precede to do it anyway. For example at work we have signs all over the front entrance for telling people to park on other side of the street yet people will still park smack in front of the store and then bitch and wine when you tell them they have to move their car. Also you have those people who come to get their propane tanks refilled and total ignore the big sign on the front door that specifically tells them they can not bring their propane tanks inside the building yet decide to bring tank inside anyway. The few times I have worked gas station it has amazed me how many people do not know or understand how a gas pump works. As well as those who don't understand what they did wrong when they get charged the wrong price. Its not complicated people. Then you get those people who park behind other people and wait for them to finish pumping gas instead of using one of the other several empty gas pumps, I mean do they have superstitions that they will only use that one pump or are they too dumb to realise there is several other open pumps? It is amazing how so many people can turn the simplest things into the most complicated things and unfortunately we are all guilty of it from time to time, just some are a whole lot worse than others.

I haven't updated this thing in over two years. I got bored of it and didn't really feel like keeping up with it anymore so I quit posting. Now two years later I think I may give it a try again and hopefully keep up with it. I won't be posting everyday as I do not have that kind of time or patience but hopefully I will pop on at least once a week if not more often. Blog wont change much from what I posted on it before, just whatever is going on in my life and probably continue to post whatever dreams I can remember. I will also use this as my ranting post as I seem to have a lot to rant about anymore these days. Chances are no one reads this anymore and that is OK as I will mainly be writing just to get things off my mind, etc... That's it for now I should be back within a few days with my first real post.

Happy Birthday to me, haha. Anyway, I am now a quarter century old. Sounds old when you say it that way.

Thought I would post to correct something I posted about last night. I was wrong about the whole Jamie situation. Come to find out all it was is that she had gotten a new cell phone and phone number so she actually never got my texts. She gave me her new number so everything should be good now. We are having a b-day party for me on Saturday night at Jeralyn's place. Jamie did not know I knew about the party because she started to talk about it then stopped fearing she had just spilled the beans. I assured her that she was ok and that I already knew. It is not going to be that big of a party though mainly due lack of time and waiting to last minute to plan it. Mainly just going to be my sisters, their kids, Niki, Jamie and I at least that I know of who will be there. But that is ok, I don't need anything big. Sunday Niki is probably going to come down and watch the Super Bowl with William and I, don't know if Jamie will join us for that or not. But that should be fun, don't know what we are going to do, maybe get some snacks from the store and what not. Cathy said she is going to take me out to dinner for my birthday tomorrow as well. But, thats about all I got. I will probably post on the b-day party and everything early next week.

Looooooonnngg time no see. Life has been pretty crazy for me lately so for the most part I had totally forgotten about this blog. But, I am still here. A lot has happened since I last posted(some good and some bad), so this has the potential to be somewhat of a lengthy post but for the most part it should be more interesting than most of my other post.

First off I am no longer living at Jeralyn's as I moved to Cathy's house in early December and I have been here since. Though on the weekend of February 15th I will be moving into my own apartment, which for the most part I am really excited about. I left Jeralyn's as I had been there since May and was feeling like I was overstaying my welcome. But, once I get my apartment I will be back closer to her than Cathy's, in large part because its closer to a lot of my friends up there and its closer to my current job. Though hopefully it wont be my job to much longer. Its a one bedroom apartment about 850 square feet for $713 a month, but that includes cable tv and high speed internet. All I have to do is get renters insurance and set up the power as they do the water for me. Though for about the first three weeks or so my apartment will be sparsely populated with furniture basically having a table (with possibly no chairs), a computer desk, computer, tv (possibly a tv stand), PS3, and my blow-up mattress. But after a few weeks I will head down to Orlando to pick up my actual bed, dressers and any other furniture that I have there.

Second is my job search which has been up and down. I have gotten two job offers but declined both due to the fact they were both either strictly commission based or mostly commission based. One was a marketing position and the other was selling insurance. Another job that I have interviewed for is with a company called Trigon Engineering to be an Air Monitoring Technician. Basically I would travel around the Southeast to different industries testing their emissions to make sure they meet state, local as well as EPA standards. Job pays well too, $20 an hour or $800 a week which due to travel there are weeks I could get paid for more than 40 hours. So the potential to make money is definitely there. The interview was about three weeks ago and I have kept contact with them since continually expressing interest but they keep telling me they have yet to make a final decision. So basically it does not seem to be looking very good for me. But, who knows they have not actually told me no yet so I guess it is still possible. I have also been looking for a second part time job in order to bring in some more money since I am going to have the apartment, but so far have failed at finding anything to this point. So basically despite the fact I spend a chunk of time each day looking for work so far nothing has worked out for me, but hopefully that will change.

Third the Jamie situation has dramatically changed since I last posted. Literally a couple days after my last post her boyfriend broke up with her. It crushed her and she has had a really difficult time dealing with it. He was all she really had other than a few friends for a long time and when he broke up with her I am sure it felt like her world was going to end. That night she actually ended up sleeping on the floor next to my bed as once she fell asleep I did not want to wake her as she was finally at peace. Niki ended up falling asleep at the foot of the bed and they both slept there until about 6-6:30 that morning. After that though Jamie began ignoring me. Which I kind of understood it as it had only been a handful of days before that I had just told her how I felt about her and I am sure the timing of that with her break up made her uncomfortable to be around me. So I gave her space and only occasionally made contact with her (as in maybe once every two weeks) partially to try and cheer her up, though I do not know if it ever worked. None of the text where ever sent with the intent of trying to make a move on her. We did throw her a little birthday party at Jeralyn's place but even then (maybe a week after the break up) you could still tell she was really having a hard time. But after about a month and half she seemed to be doing much better as she seemed mostly like her old self and was really no longer ignoring me and things seemed to be getting close to back to normal (other than the fact we were not hanging out as much since I am so far away), this lasted about three weeks or up until about four days ago when she all of a sudden seemed to began to ignore me again. But, this time I have no idea why she is. I had thought based on the way she had been acting around me the previous couple weeks that she had realized that I was not going to make any moves on her or anything of that sort so I am not sure what is going on now. It is a little aggravating because I do not see what I have done to deserve it. I have been trying to just be her friend but she is making it quiet difficult. All I can think to do is if she continues to ignore me much longer is to go talk to her and maybe get to the bottom of this so hopefully we both can move on and get passed this.

Fourth about three weeks ago I found out that my mother has cancer. Its on her liver and in most cases when cancer is on your liver it has come from somewhere else. They did a bunch of test on her but could never find where else it was located and after several more test have determined that she seems to be one of the lucky ones who has the cancer confined to the liver. Only problem is because of some of the medication she has been on over the years her liver is in bad shape and they are not positive to how well it will handle the surgery needed to remove the cancer. So it is possible that even if they do get rid of the cancer that she may end up needing a liver transplant. But, until they actually do the surgery they wont know. The surgery will hopefully take place within the next week. So we are all keeping our fingers crossed that it all turns out ok.

Fifth tomorrow is my birthday. Hard to believe it is here again. Niki has been asking me what I am doing for it and I had not really thought about it but once Niki asked if we do something could it be on Saturday that seemed to be the little boost needed to get something going. I talked to my manager about changing my shift Saturday which I was able to do so it seems we are going to have a small party Saturday night at Jeralyn's for me and if I get out of work early enough we are going to go get something for dinner. Then on Sunday Niki wants to do something again for my b-day (assuming I do not have to work) and mix it with the Super Bowl. So either I might go up there or she may come down her on Sunday night. Do not know if Jamie will be involved in any of it or not, obviously she is welcome and invited but depending on what has caused her to start ignoring me this time around it would not surprise me if I don't see her. I am half curious to see if she even wishes me happy birthday. Anyway, I am hoping this birthday will begin to turn things around for me because as you can see between, job hunting, girls, my mom, and so on things have not been going all that well for me lately. Not to mention BJ's had severally cut my hours back until this past week making paying the bills nearly a nightmare. But, I figure I am overdue for something to start going right for me and Niki seems to agree, though only time will tell.

I guess I shall update on the whole Jamie situation. On Thursday evening I went to the mall to where she works and told her how I felt about her. Her initial reaction was that of surprise as she had the text book dropped jawed look on her face. I basically just told her how I felt and why I had not said anything to her sooner, so on and so forth. After her initial surprised reaction she really gave me nothing to work with as she said nothing nor gave me any signs in one direction or the other. Basically once she felt like I was finished she went on acting like I had not said anything to her. The days since she has not said anything either so I basically have no idea what she is thinking. She came over Thursday night and spent the night so she obviously wasn't that uncomfortable with what I told her. Though for some reason she did not tell Niki I had said anything to her, though Niki did red it out herself. As at one point Jamie went to the restroom and Niki turned to me and said "You told her didn't you?" and I said "She told you huh?" and Niki said "No, I can just tell" she also said it was because I was acting weird and I later asked her about it and said that not only was I acting strange but so was Jamie. Which I noticed a little too as she was more talkative than normal and quite often talked in a higher pitched girly voice especially towards me. I have been trying to get a read of Jamie in the times I have been around her since Thursday but she has been pretty silent about everything. Niki and Jamie spent half of Friday together so I was hoping that they would talk about it at some point but when I asked Niki Saturday morning if Jamie had said anything Niki said "not really". Whatever "not really" means, does that mean she did say something or not, but I didn't think to ask Niki that until after she had left to go to her sister's cheerleading competition. I half wonder if she has stuck it in the back of her mind and has not really thought about it which could be for a couple different reasons. One reason could be that she may not be interested and therefore just stuck it in the back of her mind and is trying to move past it but it also could be because she is afraid that if she does think about it that of what the answer might be because if she is interested and does like me then it would definitely put her in a difficult situation. So, basically I am just sitting here in limbo. Hopefully I will find something out in the near future, if I do I will post about it.

Now on to the post about the trip to Atlanta.

Once off work I filled our cooler with Ice and the cokes we had previously bought and then made my way over to the mall where Niki and Jamie work. Once they finished closing up their respective stores they changed into their pajamas and we headed out. Before getting on the interstate we decided to get something to eat and Jamie wanted Taco Bell so that is where we went. At which point we preceded to sit in line for what felt like at least 30 minutes before finally getting our food. Finally we get on the interstate and officially begin the trip at roughly 10:30-10:40pm. We were not on the road maybe 10 or 15 minutes and Niki preceded to drop part of her food on her pants. For some reason the food was sloppier and greasier than normal. She had Jamie get her the tide-to-go pen so that way she could hopefully stop it from staining her pajama bottoms. She kept getting aggravated with me because I kept putting my elbow on the arm rest thingy in the middle console which is were she put the tide-to-pen after finishing with it and it is where she had her hand sanitiser, both of which she used several times and just about every time I had put my elbow back up there. We then drove about a 1/3rd of the way into South Carolina were we finally stopped for gas at which point I moved to the back seat and Jamie took over the drivers seat. She ended up driving the rest of the way into Atlanta as we made only one more stop for me to use the restroom at which point Niki moved to the back seat and I moved to the passenger seat. Which ended up working well as it allowed me to give Jamie instructions easier of how to get from the interstate to the hotel.

We were staying at the Embassy Suites hotel right next to Centennial Olympic Park which is normally about $220 a night but we got it for free since we used my brother-in-laws hotel points. So anyway we get there we pulled up to the valet attendant who then helped us unload the car onto a cart and then took the car and parked it for us while we made our way to the front desk to check in. We checked in and made our way up the elevator to the 6th floor where our room was located. We entered the room, which I have to admit was fairly nice as it had a living room with a coach, chair, tv and a desk in it. It also had a fairly decent bathroom, at least for a hotel, a refrigerator, microwave, a safe and a decent size closet. Then of course there was the bedroom which had two double beds both of which were very comfortable, a table, a couple chairs and a tv. After we finished looking around I changed into my pajamas and we basically just lounged around and watched tv for a little bit before heading to bed.

Sunday morning we all got up within about a half hour to 40 minutes of each other. I called Matt, a friend of mine who was meeting us in order to go with us to the coke museum, to make sure he was up and going to be there on time. I then went and took my shower real quick so that way Niki and Jamie could have the bathroom to get their showers and get ready since they take longer than I do. At around 1pm Matt arrived and I had him meet me outside the elevators on the sixth floor since Niki and Jamie were not quite ready yet. Though not but maybe ten minutes later they were so we headed out and made our way across the street to the food court located in the CNN building so we could get something to eat before going to the museum. After we finished eating we made our way across Centennial Olympic park and over to the Coke Museum entrance at just a few minutes past 2pm. Once they had let us in we made our way into the lobby and waited for the next entrance time to begin which was only about two minutes. We first entered a room that had a ton of coke memorabilia in it from over the years. There were two women in there who gave us a brief run through of the history of coke and where some of the memorabilia in the room came from. From that point they had us all go into this theater to see a video called the "Happiness Factory" about the journey of a coke bottle from the time someone puts a quarter in a machine to the time it comes out the other end. Once the film ended and we made our way out of the theater we were then allowed to tour the rest of the museum at our own pace. We first went into the bottle works station which showed you the process of making coke and putting it into a bottle. From there we went into the Milestones section of the museum which was basically a lot like the first room we came in except bigger with much more memorabilia and interesting facts about each one. When we finished there we made our way up to the second floor and checked out some large cool artistic coke bottles and then made our way into the 4-D movie. Which in waiting to go into the 4-D movie you watch another shorter and partially uninteresting film about your taste buds and how and why they love coke. Once that was over we got to go in and watch the 4-D film. The film was about finding out the secret formula to coke. Overall it was pretty cool as the seats moved, air and water would come out at you, stuff would hit your feet and you also get poked in the back. The film it self was ok and at the end you find out it is you, the drinker, who is the secret formula to coke. So anyway from there we headed out of the theater and went into the Pop Culture section. Which basically just had some computers where you could design your own coke bottle as well as some places to sit down and look at some of the unusual coke items they had in the room. Including coke ceiling fans. Next to that was another little theater that was about the history of advertising for coke. But, we decided to skip that part and move on to our favorite part, the room where you get to taste all the different kinds of coke products from around the world. Niki, Jamie and I had decided before hand to go in and try every single drink they had in there. Matt didn't want to because he didn't want to get grossed out which Niki and I both agreed that getting grossed out was half the fun. So we preceded to go from station to station trying every drink we could. Some of them were actually half way decent and others were quite disgusting. Finally we got to the station for the coke we know and love and after all the other drinks it didn't even taste the same. I guess our taste buds had been shot. From there we made our way out and grabbed our free coke that we got for going through the museum. As in just about all museums you exit into their gift shop and this one was no different. The gift shop was actually fairly large and we spent about 40-45 minutes wondering around looking at different things. All I bought was this little weird looking coke figurine thing for Niki since she asked me to for her birthday since it passed a little while ago. Niki on the other hand bought another one of those little weird looking coke figurines for herself as well as some Barq's flavored chap stick for Jillian and a coke can ornament for Jeralyn. Jamie bought herself some cherry coke chap stick, and something else too but for the life of me I can't remember what. Jamie also bought a pair of coke boxers for her boyfriend, Chris. I don't remember Matt buying anything. Once we checked out we then left and made our way back to our hotel where we separated from Matt as he had to head home.

Niki, Jamie and I then headed up to the hotel room to grab our jackets as it was starting to get a little cool outside. We left again this time our destination being Underground Atlanta. We could have driven there but instead we took Marta so that way they could get the full Atlanta experience, even though we only went one stop away. We got off Marta and made our way into Underground Atlanta. It definitely is not what I remember it being in the past, first off I remember it being bigger than it is now and definitely it used to have more going on than it seems to now. We walked up and down it making only a couple stops to look at shoes and some bracelets, but no one bought anything. We left underground and walked around outside a little bit before we finally were approached by our first homeless person looking for hand outs. I told him I did not have any money what so ever not even change, which was actually the truth. The guy then asked me if it was ok to ask the two girls if they had any change to spare and I told him it would be pointless as I was almost positive they did not have any money either. He asked if I was sure and I told him that I was pretty positive because I had known that one of them had $3 dollars earlier but that I was pretty sure she had used it to buy her Marta ticket. Which I really had thought she did. With that he sped up to catch up to the two of them and asked Niki if she had some money telling them I had said it was ok for him to ask them (which was not true though Niki still doesn't seem to believe me) at which point to my surprise Niki pulled out the $3 and gave it to him and he took off. At this point we were getting hungry so we decided to catch Marta and take it back to the station near out hotel. After we got back off Marta and up one of the worlds longest escalators to street level we made our way across the street to the Hard Rock Cafe where Niki and Jamie wanted to eat. Off and on through most of the meal Jamie and Niki talked about how cute the waiter was and about the watch he was wearing (they work with watches). After we ate Niki ordered a piece of Chocolate Cake which she shared with Jamie and I and I told Niki she was evil for offering me some of the cake (I am trying to lose weight and had being doing a good job until the trip). We left Hard Rock and walked back to the Hotel.

We hung out at the Hotel for a little while trying to figure out what we wanted to do next. They kept asking me what there was to do since I lived in Atlanta for 15 years but since I only really started using Atlanta for entertainment purposes about the last 4 or 5 years I lived there I didn't really know a whole lot of places to go. Partly because many of the places open that late the two of them can not get into as they are both under 21 (they are 19, well Jamie is close enough to 19) and all the other places were either closed or to far away. So I decided to call Cathy as she knows Atlanta better than I do. Most of the stuff she came up with was in Buckhead so the three of us decided we would ride up to Buckhead. We got part of the way there when I remembered that highway 400 was a toll road and we had no change on us what so ever. I was pretty sure I know a way to go to avoid the tolls but I was not a 100% sure so we turned around and started to head back. On the way back we decided to stop at Wal-mart to get a game or something we could play in the room since it was already 10pm. The Wal-Mart was definitely unusual as for starters it had a quite large parking garage attached to it which I have to admit I had not seen before. Plus the Wal-Mart was all backwards compared to all the other ones I had been in which made it hard to find things. We finally found the games and Niki and I decided to split the cost of an electronic Deal or No Deal game. Jamie then decided she wanted to get crayons and a coloring book to color in. So we looked around for a while looking for a coloring book as we could not find any. Finally I stumbled upon them and brought them over to them. Jamie picked one out and we went up to the front to check out. The lady that checked us out had a story too, she had these teeth that stuck out in the front and upon further inspection we noticed they were gold teeth with dollar signs engraved in them. From there Niki handed the keys to her Jeep over to me and I drove us back to the Hotel. We got up to our room and then I left to go downstairs to try and catch the valet before they parked our car so that way I could get another six pack of cokes to put in our cooler. I got back to the room and Niki and Jamie were gone, so started to take the game out of the box but then it dawned on me that this game is electronic which means it probably needs batteries. So I looked around the box looking for something about batteries when I noticed it said "4 AA batteries required, not included". Well we did not exactly have any batteries. So once Niki and Jamie got back to the room I informed them of the situation and then called the front desk to ask where the closest place was to get batteries. The man at the desk gave me directions to get to a 24 hour Walgreens. Well I can honestly say the guy sucks at giving directions as we drove around in circles for at least 15 minutes before we finally decided to ask for directions. We noticed a cop walking down the street and so we asked him. He told us how to get there so we followed his directions but again could not find this supposed 24 hour Walgreens. Luckily though we did stumble upon a CVS that was open till midnight (it was just before 11:30pm at this time). So we ran in and bought AA batteries. Upon leaving the store we were approached by our second and thankfully final homeless person of the trip. This time we just half ignored the guy, kept walking, and said no we had no money (or at least I did, I don't remember what Niki or Jamie said to him). We got back to the car and I drove us back to the hotel. We get back up to the room take the batteries out of the package go to put them in the game and there is a damn screw that has the cover for the batteries screwed down. Well we don't have a screw driver. So again I call down to the front desk and ask them if they happen to have a small phillips head screw driver and somewhat to my surprise they did. So I took the game and went downstairs so I could put the batteries in. I returned to the room and we played the game for about 30 minutes, though the last round of the game Jamie didn't play as she wanted to color in her new coloring book, so just Niki and I played the last game. After that we watched America's Funniest Home Videos and then went to sleep.

Monday morning we woke up at 9:30am to the chiming of Niki's alarm clock on her watch. We all got up and again I jumped in the shower first. Once I was finished Niki got hers followed by Jamie getting hers. Once everyone was finished getting ready we had them bring us up a cart from downstairs. We loaded it up and headed down to check out. After checking out and loading our stuff in the car we headed back over to the food Court in the CNN building to grab something to eat. From there we made our way across Centennial Olympic Park and over to the George Aquarium. We walked up to the entrance and gave them our tickets. They then had us take a picture before actually going in. Once in we went over to the Georgia Explorer section of the aquarium which had areas where you could touch, shrimp, starfish and some type of hard shelled creature. They also had a area were you could pet sting rays and small sharks. We wondered around there looking at everything along with a big turtle named Dylan. From there we headed over to the River Scout section and walked around it. This part reminded me most of the Tennessee Aquarium as that aquarium dealt more with river species of fish than the Georgia Aquarium does. But they had things like River Otters and large Catfish among other things in that exhibit. From there we went to the Cold Water Quest (I think it was called) and this is where all the cold water fish and crabs, etc... were located. Including the Beluga Whales. Which the Beluga whales had a story all to their own. We start watching them (there were four of them) and it wasn't long before we realised that two of them were trying to mate. It was one of those things you really didn't want to watch yet could not take your eye's off it. Even the little kids knew what was going on as you could tell by their reactions and even the lady who was telling us all about the Beluga whales admittedly got distracted by their actions. All I can say is Nico (the male Beluga whale) has got some really bad aim. So anyway from there we walked through the rest of the Cold Water Quest exhibit looking at the seals, penguins and sea otters. We exited the Cold Water Quest exhibit and crossed to the other side of the aquarium and entered the Tropical Diver exhibit. In here we found things such as sea horses, sea urchins, jellyfish, octopus, and some of the more unusual creatures of the ocean. Once we left the Tropical Diver exhibit we sat down for a minute and I took this time to call Matt as he wanted to meet up with us again before we left. Basically I told him we were almost done with the Aquarium so if he was going to come up he better get moving, which he did. So, at this point we got up and made our way to the final and by far the largest exhibit in the Aquarium, the Ocean Voyager exhibit. This is the exhibit that houses the Whale Sharks, hammerhead Sharks, saw fish, basically all the larger fish. We started by entering the underwater tunnel that traverses across the length of the six million gallon tank. We walked through the tunnel and made our way into another room which had other smaller viewing areas into the tank as well as a touch wall where you could walk up to the wall and touch the images of fish as they went by and it would tell you the name of the fish and something about it. After that we followed the passage around and it led us to the main viewing room with a huge class wall that was something like 65ft by something like 25 feet tall that allowed you to look inside the tank. They have standing and seating areas in there so you can sit and enjoy the views for as long as you like. We sat there for probably 15 or so minutes, enough time to hear the lady talk about the different fish and for Niki and Jamie to get up and take pictures with their phones of some of the fish swimming by. We finally got up and made our way to the aquarium gift shop where we wondered around looking at a bunch of different things but Jamie was the only one who bought anything as she bought a shot glass for Chris as he collects them.

Niki and Jamie wanted to go back to the Coke store so we walked next store and went back into the coke gift shop. Jamie found another shot glass for Chris so she bought it. She also bought some more chap stick for herself but this time it was Dasani flavored chap stick and she also bought two coca-cola pencils. Niki bought another one of those little weird looking coke figurines but this time she bought one for Jillian. She also bought a coke glass for her friend, Phillip, who also works at the mall. I again bought nothing as I never really could find anything that jumped out enough to me to make me spend money on it. Matt arrived while we were in the store and staying true to himself he talked the entire time and even talked me into playing a game of bowling on the Wii that was set up in the store. Niki even said that he talks more than any girl she has ever known. We finally checked out and made our way out of the store. We walked back over to Centennial Olympic Park and looked at a bunch of the bricks, making fun of what some of them said or the names that were on them. From there we headed back to the Hotel where Jamie and I hit the restrooms while Matt and Niki waited out in the Hotel Atrium. Once the four of us were back together we sat there trying to figure out what to do next as Niki, Jamie nor I were ready to leave. But neither Matt nor I could really think of anything to do in the short amount of time we had. Though Niki and Jamie did want to stop at the Tanger Outlet mall on our way home. After a while of getting no where Matt chimed in and said "Well you all seem to have your mind set on the Tanger Outlet Mall so why do you just go there", except he said it really sarcastically. Not a minute after he said that his phone rang so he answered it and walked off a little ways and Jamie said "I almost snapped on your friend there for a second" which I was not surprised as I knew at some point he would probably aggravate one of them because thats just how Matt is. So anyway that all passed and we headed outside to figure out what to do next. At this time it was 4:00pm and I knew traffic would really begin to pick up around 4:30 so I just went ahead a suggested if they wanted to avoid the worst part of the traffic we should probably get going. They both agreed so we got the valet to pull our car around. So matt left and headed to meet some other friends while other the three of us pilled in the Jeep with myself driving, Niki in the passenger seat and Jamie in the back seat behind me.

We finally hit the road for home. Traffic wasn't that bad but I drove in the HOV lane for as long as I could which allowed us to move faster than the rest of the traffic around us. An hour or so and the occasoinal head poke from Jamie later we reached exit 149 on I-85 in Georgia where the Tanger Outlet Mall was located. We got off and pulled into the mall. I parked the car and we got out and walked into some store that had a ton of sun glasses in the front which Niki and Jamie spent some time looking through. After a little bit they gave up their sun glasses search and we exited the store. We then walked around for a little bit before deciding not to go any further because the store they wanted to go to (Coach Outlet) was not located here and the majority of the stores that were located there are also located at the mall they work at here in Concord. So we left this time with Jamie driving, Niki still in passengers seat and myself this time in the backseat. From about this point until we finally arrived in Charlotte the two of them blamed every single smell that creeped into the car on me, no matter what it was. So anyway Jamie drove until we got into the Anderson/Clemson, SC area where we stopped and ate dinner at Cracker Barrel. After eating and wondering through the Cracker Barrel store we hit the road again though this time Niki was behind the wheel. From that point we drove the rest of the way in without stopping with nothing really eventful happening. We arrived back here at the house in Charlotte around 9:15pm or so. From there we all came in used the restroom and then helped Jamie pack her car so that she could head home. At which point she headed home which marked the end of the trip.

Like I have already said overall we all had a great time and Niki and Jamie are already trying to plan our next trip but this time they want to go to Washington D.C. I found that it only takes six to seven hours to drive there from here which makes it a decent possibility for a future trip. Though if we go it will have to be after the first of the year since it is going to be near impossible for any of us to get any time off work before then with the holiday season coming up. So if we decide to do that trip I will leave the actual scheduling of the dates to Niki and Jamie as come January Niki will be back in school and Jamie will be starting school so it will be harder for them to find the proper amount of time to go than it will be for me. So bascially if they can find five or six days to take off and plan the trip for that time then I will adjust my schedule accordingly since it will be easier for me to do that than for them. But, this is all in the very earily planning stages and far from anything being set in stone, more just decent ideas floating about at this time. We shall see though.

I am a little overdue posting on here I think. Niki, Jamie and I got back from Atlanta on Monday. We had a great time and are already trying to plan another trip but this time to D.C. I will go more in depth about that in my next post. But for this post I guess I will use it as they were most likely originally intended to be used for, an outlet for some ramblings of my mind.



I find myself in an interesting predicament though I am far from the first person to have this as a problem. I have mentioned Jamie on this blog several times but never really expressed anything about her other than I became friends with her through Niki. But the predicament that I find myself in is one that pretains to Jamie and that Niki already knows about, though I don't think she quiet knows the extent of it. My brother-in-law (Niki's dad) also knows a little about it as well as my friend Michael, who probably knows the most about it. My problem mainly is that I have come to like Jamie a lot, as in having feelings for her. In my opinion She is absolutely beautiful, she has an amazing personality, she is an incredibly strong individual as she has had to be in order to make it through some of the crap she has gone through, just over all she is an amazing person. Plus she is a whole of a lot of fun to hang out with, I mean shoot I can't lie I look forward to every time she comes over, hell she was even part the reason I looked forward to going on the Atlanta trip because it meant I got to spend two days with her. The only negative thing about her that I had was the age difference factor as she is five almost six years younger than I am. Which I will admit when I first started becoming interested in her that part made me pretty apprehensive about the whole thing. But, in the end it did not take me long to look past it, partly because she does carry herself as someone older than she is. But, the problem I have is that she has a boyfriend, named Chris, who she has been dating for over two years now and even though they have had some rough patches of late I still have a really hard time believing that she would be interested in me especially to the point that she would even consider me in that way. Therefore I know my chances of anything happening with her are fairly slim and that there probably is not a whole lot I can do about it. At least not that I am aware of. Plus I am hesitant to do anything because I don't want to come across as a jerk or some obsessed weirdo (which I can promise I am not) and I don't want to chance messing up our friendship. Plus I also know that Niki is not overly keen on the idea as she has said that it would make things really weird for her. Which I totally understand why that is as I probably would feel the same way if I was her. So I am overall at a loss of what to do. Basically all I know to do is just basically tell her how I feel, and not because I think it will change anything but mostly just so this whole thing will stop eating at me. You know just kind of get the monkey off my back per say so that way my brain can somewhat get back to normal. I wouldn't be making a move on her, as I wouldn't do that, but just letting her know how I feel and leave it at that. Basically at that point if anything did happen between us it would be because she made a move and decided to get me a shot(whether it be based off what I told her or not). So there you have it the ramblings of my mind at least for now. Suggestions are welcome if anyone who reads this has any ideas. Anyway I will probably post about the Atlanta trip tomorrow before I go to work.

Niki and Jamie bought me a house or in my eventual cause apartment warming gift. They bought me a 4 or 4 and half foot tall knight made out of metal. He is really sweet looking, his helmet can even open and close. There is a little bit of a story behind it all.

My sister as well as Niki and Jamie went to Atlanta Friday morning (left here at 3am) to go to the Vera Bradley sale there. Well I woke up at exactly 11:40am that morning and three minutes later at 11:43am my phone beeps as if I have gotten a voice or text message. It ended up being a text message that was from Jamie. It said "Do you like knights?" I obviously found this to be quite the random question so I verified the question by asking if they were talking about a knight as in a medievil night. Jamie replied with a "yep" and I replied back saying "Yeah, why?" and all she said was "Just wondering :)" So at this point I was totally confused but let it go. About an hour later my phones beeps again and again it was a text from Jamie. This time asking me "What names do you like?" Once again I found it to be a very odd question so I asked "Names for what?" and she replied back "nothing never mind, don't worry about it" at this point I had a feeling they were up to something but Jamie swore they weren't. So that night when I got back from work I immediately asked the two of them (Niki and Jamie) what the whole knights and name thing was all about. Neither of them would tell me. Finally Niki turned to Jamie and said "Should we?" That immediately tipped me off that I was right that they were up to something. So anyway Jamie was like "You want to?" and Niki was like "Yeah lets go get it." So the two of them head out the door to the car. At this point I was just hoping they were not getting something Vera Bradley out of the car since Vera Bradley is not exactly guy stuff. They come back to the door and Jamie peeks her head in and tells me to close my eyes. So I close my eyes and I here the two of them come the rest of the way in and walk into the living room. About three seconds later they tell me I can look so I open my eyes and here is this Knight that is almost is tall as they are standing in the middle of the room. They said "His name is Sir Clancy" which supposedly my dad told them to name it and most people should be able to guess where the name came from, unless you don't know me.

On the Atlanta trip front we have settled on November 4th and 5th for the days. We did think about October 21st and 22nd but Jamie is playing the piano at a wedding the following weekend (October 28th) and she didn't want to lose those two days to practice. So that's why we went with the 4th and 5th. Instead of staying at Matt's we are going to get a hotel downtown somewhere hopefully within walking distance of the Coke Museum and Aquarium. My brother-in-law (Niki's dad) said he would book the hotel for us if we just told him where it was. We will come in the night of the 3rd and leave the afternoon of the 5th. We have talked about doing Underground Atlanta too since Niki has never been there. I have talked to Matt and he said he would meet us up there and go to some if not all of the places with us. Andrew may join too but haven't heard from him yet. So it should be fun.

Since my last post I have been making a bigger push to get the things done I need to in order for me to become a substitute teacher here in Charlotte. I have filled out the entire application and had the physical part done yesterday all I have left to do is to go back in tomorrow and have my TB test checked and then to turn the application in. Everyone I have talked to has said I should have no problem getting the job especially since I have a science background as they are supposedly really short on science teachers around here. So hopefully I will get that set up and started by the start of next month. We shall see though.

I have also began looking for apartments. Prices seem to be all over the place. One apartment was nearly $800 a month for a one bedroom but it did include free cable TV and free high speed Internet. Which having those two free is definitely nice its still not worth $800 a month. I contacted another that was $675 a month but they have no one bedrooms available next month so that killed them. I also found one that is $595 a month which yesterday I actually went and checked this out and talked to the people in the front office. They gave me a tour of one of the apartments which I have to admit was fairly nice. Has a living room, kitchen, bathroom, two halfway decent size closets, bedroom and a laundry room. So I am definitely going to have to keep that one in mind. Though I will continue my search and see if I can find anything just as nice that's in a decent area for less.

That's pretty much it for me lately other than working. Though Niki, Jamie and I have plans for a road trip in the works all we really have left to do is figure out exactly which day(s) we will go. We want to go to Atlanta to go to the new Coke museum and the Georgia Aquarium. I have been to the Aquarium already but that was almost two years ago so I want to go back. They can't seem to make up their mind if they want to do it all in one day or two days. If we decide on two days then we will probably invade in on Matt for the night. We shall see.

Lets see what has happened since I last posted. I went and had lunch with my friend Josh and his nephew before he left for school last month. Being hanging out lot with Niki and Jamie. Also been stepping it up when looking for real work, hopefully it will pay off.

I decided about mid-August that I did not want to go to Florida for several reasons. One being that I am enjoying myself up here as I do at least have some friends here, Josh (when he comes home on weekends), Niki and her friends (mainly Jamie), and of course Tim and Scott. Where as in Florida I have a grand total of zero friends. All I have there are my parents, Clancy and golf. Speaking of Clancy I have news on him I will post in a second. The other reason I don't want to go down there is because my parents(mainly my father) are going to be one my back 24/7 about the job stuff no matter what I do. My dad, though he always means well and truly wants to help, he only knows how to do it by making you feel like your a worthless piece of shit. Again I don't think he does it on purpose or even realizes he is doing it, but he does. So if I went down there mentally I do not think I could handle it. I think I would curl up in a little ball and do nothing. Cathy seems to think I would turn suicidal, which I highly doubt that but none the less it would be quite rough. So overall going down there I truly believe I would be totally miserable so I am trying to find a way to stay up here, which means stepping up the job search, hopefully landing a second job (looking into substituting) so I can afford and apartment.

Now on to the Clancy news. Unfortunately it is not good news. It seems over the last two months he has really gone down hill. He is now totally blind which causes him to have panic attacks at times. He almost never plays anymore (which anyone who knows Clancy will know that is totally unlike him). He has little control over his Bowel movements as my mom said he poops in the house two or three times a day now. He doesn't pee in the house as he still can hold that one. He can't jump up into any of the furniture at all anymore and they know believe his kidneys may actually be shutting down on him. They figure he has a month left before they are going to have to put him down. Which puts me between a rock and a hard place. As I definitely want to see him again but at the same time if I am there when they put him down it will be a lot harder for me than if I just came home to a house without him there. So basically I want to see him again but at the same time I don't want to be there when they take him to get him put down. It is definitely sad but was also something I knew was going to come a lot sooner than later. Therefore even if I did find a way to stay up here past this month I probably would still go down to Orlando for about a week or so to see him before they had to put him down.

On the Niki and Jamie front I have to admit we have had some fun and amusing times of late. We tend to hang out a couple times a week now whether it be just bugging someone at their work or hanging out here at the house. A week ago they called me up from their work(they work at the same place) and asked me if I would pick them up something to eat and bring it up to them because they couldn't go get anything themselves. Since I was bored I said sure. Jamie wanted Japanese food so they told me they were going to order from the Jap. restaurant near the mall and have me go pick it up. About ten minutes later Jamie calls back informs me that she has ordered and that Niki decided she didn't want anything. So I head over and get Jamie's food and take it over to the mall. Since it was already 8:30 and they closed in an hour I decided to sit there and hang out with them. Jamie had her iPod hooked up to the stereo and they were playing it over the speakers. Well all of a sudden the song "Crazy Bitch" starts to play. You should have seen the looks on their faces as they both realized it and took off running to change it. What made it even funnier is the two of them ran flat into each other as they ran to change it. So anyway 9:30 arrives and they close up the store and I head out with them. Well they ask me to carry the trash so I do and we make our way out and over to the dumpster. Well I thought it was one of those dumpsters with and open top and you throw the trash over the side and in. So I proceeded to throw the trash bag (not realizing the dumpster had a door that you opened on the side) but when I throw the trash bag I actually threw it a little to hard without realising it so the trash bag went flying all the way over the dumpster and landed on the other side next to an 18 wheeler. Well Niki and Jamie thought that was the funniest thing they had ever seen as they laughed so hard they said their stomachs were hurting. I thought it was funny too though not quiet as funny as they did.

Story two and probably the most humorous of the three I am going to tell happened this past Saturday. Let me give you the build up first. Niki and Jamie came over to the house from work as Jamie wanted to show Niki all the stuff she had bought at the Vera Bradley (sp?) sale. Throughout all this Niki kept trying to convince Jamie to stay the night (it was already 10:30pm) Jamie said she wanted to but was worried her dad would get upset if she stayed. Eventually Niki talked her into staying but Jamie needed to go home to get some clothes for church and work the following day. Well Jamie lives about 40 minutes away so the whole thing is basically like a mini road trip. So they ask me if I wanted to tag along and I said sure. So we get about half way there and Jamie changes her mind and decides she doesn't want to go all the way home but instead wanted to just go to Wal-Mart and buy new clothes instead. at this point its already 11:45 at night. So we get off and go to the Wal-Mart. Now Jamie is small, about 5'1" maybe 5'2" and skinny. So its difficult to find stuff that fits her as she wears a size 0. We looked all over including in juniors and smallest size we could find was a size 2. She did not like anything in that size but found a size 3 denim skirt she liked as well as a red shirt. She wanted to try them on so we went over to the fitting rooms. Now this is where the funny part begins. We get there only to find all the doors are looked, I look on the desk and happen to find the key and tell Jamie if she wants I can just unlock one for her but she was afraid we would get in trouble so I didn't. Not 30 seconds later an older lady who works for wal-mart walks around the corner. Now what happens next is one of those things you swear only happens in movies, but I'll be damned if I didn't happen then. The lady walks over to the phone and hits the page button and without missing a beat says "Customer needs assistance in lingerie with strapless bras" I swear to you the three of us about feel over laughing. Niki especially as she thought the lady was talking about Jamie even though Jamie was standing next to the desk no where near the strapless bras.

Then last night (Sunday night) Jamie comes over after she got off work at 6:30 pm. Well I had come up with the genius idea to have Bison burgers for dinner. We did not want to tell Jamie what it was as we thought she wouldn't eat it if she knew what it was before hand. So we start eating and the burgers still had a little pink in the middle and Niki makes the comment "I am surprised mine still isn't mooing, oh wait these don't moo." she turns to me and ask "What sound do they make" I thought about it but wasn't sure. Well at this point Jamie has caught onto the conversation and realises it isn't beef she is eating. She gives the burger a weird look and as she sets it down "this isn't a cow, then what am I eating". I then inform her it is a Bison/Buffalo meat and describe not only how it taste better than beef but also why its better for you. Fortunately this news did not stop her from eating it and by the time she was full she even said "I like Bison its good, I definitely like it better than cow." So, I have now gotten another person liking Bison. So anyway on to the amusing parts of the night. This was supposed to be a movie night. So we had decided we wanted to watch the movie "Fracture" first. Jeralyn wanted to watch it with us but had to get Jillian set up to watch her own movie first. So Niki, Jamie and I came into my room and sat around in here. I was laying on the bed with the dog Freckles and Niki and Jamie were sitting in the computer chairs. Not two minutes had pasted and the Freckles lets one rip right next to my head. Well this makes me jump back and cover up my nose undoubtedly with me letting out a few curse words. Well this sends Niki into hysterics making her fall out of her chair and bang her head against the legos bin, this interns sends Jamie into a laughing fit her self. While this takes place Freckles keeps banging into me. I am already on the edge of the bed so I am fighting to push her back to stop from falling off. Next thing I know I get rammed from behind and off the bed I go banging against the shelves and falling to the floor. At that exact moment the room went completely silent as the three of us were laughing so hard we couldn't breathe or even make a sound. We finally settle down and Jeralyn comes in saying she is ready. So we head into the living room. Niki changes into her flamboyant (only way I know how to describe them) pajama bottoms. Jamie then decides to do the same. Once she comes back she wasn't on the couch five minutes and realises that if she is going to stay another night that she needs clothes again for work the next day. Again not wanting to drive all the way back home she decides she wants to go to Target to get new clothes. Niki does want to go because she doesn't want to get dressed. Jamie tells her just to wear her pajama bottoms to the store again (she had worn them to wal-mart the night before) and Niki tells her fine but only if she( being Jamie) wears her pajama bottoms too. Jamie thinks for a second then agrees. They then ask me if me not only to go with them but if I will drive. So next thing I know we are on our way to target. Thankfully we found clothes much quicker this time. By the time we return Jillian's movie is almost over (had about 30 minutes left) and Jeralyn wanted to finish watching it before we started our movie. So we went in the other room and started watching TV. Well Niki all of a sudden decides she wants to make a smoothie and Jamie liked the idea. So they came into the room and started looking up smoothie recipes. Jeralyn at this point gave up on our movie as it was after 10pm. So next thing I know we are on our way to Wal-Mart to get some fruit to make smoothies. We buy our ingredients and head back. We then make the smoothies as the directions tell us too but upon tasting it we all agreed it was missing something. So we just added more of the fruit we wanted to have a stronger flavor of. Well in doing so it made the smoothie bland. So Niki gets up and goes and looks in the refreg. and freezer for other stuff to add. She finds coconut which both Jamie and I liked the idea of. So we threw like two hand fulls of coconut into it. Again though it was too bland, wasn't sweet enough. So Niki decides to add sugar. Which made it sweeter but because the sugar wouldn't dissolve it also made it grainier. Then Niki gets the brainy idea to add a cup of vanilla pudding to it. I figure why not as it wasn't like it was going to make it any worse. To our totally surprise it actually made it 10 times better if not actually really good. All toll we spent about an hour making our strange smoothie which Jamie wrote down the ingredients of calling it the "Niki, Jamie and Kenneth Smoothie" original I know, haha. So finally at like 12:40am we start the movie. We get about half way through it around 1:30ish and all three of us found ourselves hardly being able to stay awake so we decided to stop the movie and head to bed. Poor Niki and Jamie had to get up at 7:30am to get ready for work. Speaking of which I have to get up tomorrow morning at 8:30am myself so I should probably get going.

So until my crazy adventures continue I bed you farewell and I am off to bed.

Well it seems that I did not do a very good job of holding to my word about updating this thing more often. Though unlike before its not because I am tired of it anymore its more of I keep forgetting about it because I keep getting side tracked.

Anyway in this post I thought I would talk about the Projekt Revolution Concert that I went to on Wednesday. I sat around expecting Niki and Jamie to get to the house around 2pm when they got off work (which is when they told me they would get there) instead it was closer to 3:30pm. Another girl, who is a friend of Niki and Jamie, named Amy(though Niki and Jamie call her "The Yeti" because she is tall) got here around 3:45. Then the three of them preceded to take 45 minutes to get ready, I asked them what was the point because all the work they were doing was going to be completely undone within 10 minutes of being out in the 100+ degree temps. All I got was the evil eye from them. So I sat at my computer and waited for them to finish. Finally around 4:30ish Niki walks into the room and tells me they are ready. So I grab my hat, the four of us pile in to Jamie's car and head off to Wendy's were they decided they wanted to get something to eat really quick before heading to the concert. After eating we left and Niki and I had to give Jamie directions to the concert as she had no idea how to get there. Once there she (being Jamie) started freaking out because she didn't know where to park. She finally figured it out and we parked and walked across the street to the venue.

Once inside we made our way up to the lawn and found a good spot to sit, laid down some towels and took a seat just as Placebo finished their set. Niki saw a sign that said we could upgrade our lawn seats for $10 so she and Jamie walked over to check it out. On their way back to us they got lost and walked right past us so I had to get up and go after them. They decided they wanted to upgrade our seats but Niki said we should wait until Daniel (a guy who was going to met us there) arrives. Daniel is the assistant manager at a store that Niki and Jamie work at, just in case you were wondering how he fit into the equation. So at this point it was time for HIM to take the stage. Besides Linkin Park they were probably the band I was most wanting to see. Unfortunately I was quite disappointed in them. I mean I like some of their music but their live show was quite dull and boring.

Towards the end of HIM's set we decided we wanted to get some water as we were already become dehydrated. So we all walked over to the concession stand and got some water. One the way back to our seats I could have sworn I heard someone yell my name, even Niki heard it as she said "did someone just yell your name?" But, I couldn't see were it came from so I figured it wasn't directed towards me. At this same time a big fight between like three or four people broke out not far from us. From my perspective it looked more like some drunks having fun than people who were mad at each other as none of them looked pissed off to me. We got back to our towel at which point HIM played their last song and left the stage. Almost at that exact moment Daniel showed up.

So we got up and headed over to the upgrading lawn seats tent and got new tickets up in the actual seating section. Since it was still going to be a while before Taking Back Sunday took the stage we got up and wondered around the whole venue for while. We made it back to our seats just as Taking Back Sunday was starting. TBS really isn't my style of music so I wasn't really into them but their stage show was alittle better than HIM's was. TBS finished and this time we just stayed in our seats, talking until My Chemical Romance took the stage.

Like TBS, My Chemical Romance really isn't my style of music, though I do like them better than TBS. So music wise they were just ok, but I have to admit out of all the bands we saw that night they had the best live show, partially because they used a lot of pyro which is always a plus. Only thing I couldn't understand is why the lead singer laid down on the stage through the last 2 or 3 songs. MCR was the main band that Amy and Jamie had come to see, as a matter of fact Jamie even had an MCR shirt on. MCR finished and left the stage and this time Amy, Jamie and I got up and headed to the concessions to get some soda's as we were all getting thirsty again but were not in the mood for water. We then headed back to our seats and like before sat, talked and waited except this time for Linkin Park.

Linkin Park was the band that Daniel had come to see and was also one that I had come to see as well. Overall they put on a really good show but I am sure a lot of that was due to the fact I knew almost all the songs that they played, plus it's more my style of music. Now when My Chemical Romance was on the stage, Niki and Jamie stood on the chairs so they could see the stage (they are both fairly short, Niki is 4'11'' and Jamie is probably about 5'1" or 5'2"). Therefore when Linkin Park took the stage they again stood on the chairs. They were not the only ones doing this as there were some people behind and in front of us doing the same thing. But, about two songs into Linkin Park's set someone who works at the venue came by and made everyone get down from the chairs. Which ment neither Niki nor Jamie could see now. I felt sorry for them but there wasn't anything any of us could do about it. So Jamie ended up just sitting in her chair watching the video screens and Niki moved up a row to a spot were she could see better. So anyway, Linkin Park played for about an hour and a half before leaving the stage. They came back for an encore but we decided to go ahead and leave anyway. The five of us then made our way out and back to our cars.

We were all hungry so we decided to go get something to eat at Steak N' Shake. Niki and I went and washed our hands while the others got a table. After giving our orders we preceded to play hangman until Niki came up with "Macho Man" and Jamie then sang it about every 30 seconds causing Amy to lose her appetite because the whole story behind "Macho Man" is because her father was caught doing pelvic thrusts to the song. Now, all Jamie ordered was a milk shake while the rest of us actually ordered food. So while the rest of us ate our food (or in Amy's case attempted to eat food), Jamie got the brilliant idea of making a smiley face out of our food. It started out fairly simple but eventually everyone else started pitching in and next thing you knew she had a entire face made of food. It consisted of two tomatoes with round grapes with a dot of ranch dressing for the eyes. Another much smaller grape for the nose an apple which Jamie cut out to look like a smiley face a thing of lettuce for the hair (which looked like a mohawk) and she put salt and pepper on the lettuce to make it look like the hair had multi colors to it, she used a long french fry to give it a unibrow and also used pepper to give it a mustache that reminded me of the type of mustache that Charlie Chaplin had. She then cut out two tomatoes for the ears and then got two small yellowish colored peppers (they reminded me of maggots)and used one as a earring and the other as a tooth. She then circled the head, called it Theodore and took a picture (which we have but its on a cell phone and we do not have the cords to hook it up to this computer or otherwise I would have posted it up here for you to see). Finally once everyone was done eating and once Jamie's masterpiece was finished we paid our bills and made our way out.

This is were we separated from Daniel as he left and went home. The rest of us piled into Jamie's car. Amy had wanted to drive but, Niki is deathly afraid of Amy's driving and did not want her to drive. But, Niki felt bad and told Amy she could drive but that this was her last chance. While by this time Jamie was already in the drivers seat and was not willing to give it up. Despite the fact Niki kept telling her to pull over and let Amy drive. So in protest Jamie nailed the gas not once but twice out of intersections scaring both Niki and Amy half to death while I laughed my head off as I thought the whole thing was quite funny.

We finally arrived back at the house at 12:30am. Amy and Jamie were spending the night since they both live 30+ minutes away from here. So the three of them (including Niki) got ready for bed and headed off to their room and closed the door. So me, thinking they were done for the night began my normal night time, before bed, ritual of checking my e-mail, fantasy leagues, etc... as I had to get up at 7am for a final in my Diffy Eq. class. Next thing I know Niki calls me over and and asked me if I knew about the game were you can supposedly connect any actor or actress to Kevin Bacon in six movies or less. I said that I had and she told me they were trying to connect Reese Witherspoon to him but couldn't figure out how to do it. I couldn't think of how to do it either so I came back into the room and tried looking up the game online. I found it on the University of Virginia webpage. I put in Reese Witherspoon and it connected her to Kevin Bacon in only two movies. At this point all three of them had piled into the room and began reeling off names of different actors and actresses determined to find one who did not connect to Kevin Bacon. We tried people from the very first movie ever made to even people on current Disney channel shows figuring they would not have done enough to connect to him. To our surprise every single one of them connected in four movies or less. For about half of this whole thing Jamie pretended to be Stitch from "Lilo & Stitch". Finally about 2:30am Niki made the comment about me having to get up early in the morning so the three of them headed out and back to their room letting me get to bed, only to get up four and half hours later at 7am. Overall, It was really fun night. Amazingly I never really got tired the whole next day and actually even had to half force myself to go to bed at 2:30am the next night.

Hello, I am still alive I promise. Been several months since I have graced this site. Mostly because I was getting tired of the blog and really had nothing to blog about. But now that I have had a few months away I am ready to make a come back, I hope. A few days ago would have marked the 3rd birthday of this blog but do to my little hiatus it now is almost like a rebirth. Hopefully I will start updating more often (atleast once a week) again.

This marks the start of my last week in Asheville. Hard to believe it is coming to an end. I have enjoyed my time here and if it wasn't for the administartion at UNCA I would have really enjoyed my time here. But thats a long story some of which I have talked about in the past.

Graduation is this comming Saturday and I am torn. I can not wait in some aspects (no more homework, not having to deal with this administration anymore, etc...), but in some ways I am dreading it (going to miss college in general, going to miss being lazy, etc...). Though I guess you could say college life is not completely over for me as I am going to take one more class at UNCC over the summer before starting work. But this is the end for UNCA and Asheville. Don't know when or if I will ever return and if I do return it will not be for anything related to UNCA.

This post is short as it is late and I am tired, but hopefully this is just the beginning of getting this blog up and running again.

Wow, I guess I should post since its been nearly a month since my last one. I wonder if thats the longest I have ever gone. That is what having a break from school does to me I get totally distracted and this blog gets neglected because I half forget about it. So first things first Happy New Year to whoever reads this if anyone since I haven't posted in a while so I am sure some people think I have killed it(it being the blog). Also a heads up as I can't get spell check to work on my dads computer and there is probably a billion spelling and grammer mistakes since between the fact I can't spell and my trying to type fast I have probably messed up a throughout this whole thing. So I am saying sorry now in case it bugs anyone.

Anyway on Saturday, December 9th I spent half the day at Ergent Care and at the Emergency Room. I had been playing basketball with my half nephew and literally in about the snap of a finger I got a weird feeling in my chest and I released my heart and started to excelerate at a much higher than normal rate. It literally felt like my heart was trying to jump out of my chest. I bet my blood pressure at the time was probably 160 to 170 over 110 to 120 which is very high. I don't know if thats what it was but that would probably be my guess. I talked to some other family members on the phone which insisted that I got to Ergent Care. So my sister took me. By the time I had gotten there my pulse was still up at 182 (normal is around 80) despite a good 30 minutes had passed. At that point my pulse had felt like it had dropped from what it was at first so I probably was over 200 when it first started it. They showed me some tricks to help try and bring it down, which includes acting like you are straining to take a dump. This help dropping my pulse to 169 and then to 118. My pulse then stalled around 115ish which the doctor, though pleased it had dropped, was still not satisfied and sent me to the Emergency room. I then spent 2 and half hours there while they ran a bunch of test on me and hooked me up to a bunch of wires and such. One of the things they tried to do was literally stop my heart for a second. When the nurse first explained it she said "Ok, I am going to give you some medication that is going to make you feel like you are falling backwards in an elevator and your vision will start to go blurry around the edges. You might even lose conciousness for a second, but if you do you probably wont even realise it because you will come back so quick." So I asked exactly what the medicine did then to give me a feeling like that and she said that it slowed the heart rate way down. I then asked how much is way down and she said "Probably all the way down to zero". Well that wasn't what I wanted to hear. Course when they rolled the machine with the pads out and hooked me up to it that didnt exactly calm me down or anything either. So anyway she told me that the medicine took about 20 seconds from the time injected to finish its work. So with hesitantion I let her give me the injection of the medication. Well within the matter of seconds I got a feeling of my body weighing about 4 times it normal weight then my body went completely numb, but my heart didnt slow it actually excellerated up to 155-160 and my blood pressure went back up to 155 over 110. After a couple minutes my pulse dropped back to 110-115 and blood pressure went back to normal. So the nurse tells me we are going to try it again. So with even more hesitation than the first time I let her inject the medication and again I got the same feelings as before and again my heart rate jumped, instead of going down, to 155-160 with same blood pressure as before. So at this point the nurse leaves to go talk to the doctor since the medication wasn't working the way it was supposed to. After a couple minutes after my pulse and such had gone back to what they were before the nurse walks back in saying that the doctor wanted her to do it a third time. This time I put up alittle bit more of a fight but eventually gave in and again had the same exact result as the first two times. They then finally gave up on it. Thank God too because that is the worst feeling I have felt in my life. So anyway after about 2 and a half hours of them trying stuff they got my heart rate to hoover around 100 which was still high but they figured they could let me go home anyway. They gave me some medication to take for 48 hours to get my heart running smoothly again and released me. By that evening my heart rate was normal again.

That following Tuesday I went to the cardiologist and they told me that what happened to me was harmless and that it shouldn't really worry about it unless it was accompined by pain or labored breathing or if it started happing to me once a week or something like that. They also told me that if I does ever happen to me in the future that I don't need to go to the hospitial and to use the techiniques they showed me in order to try and slow it myself, but if it last for more than 30 or so minutes then call the doctor. On January 19th, I have to go have an echocardogram done on my heart so they can just make sure nothing is wrong. But other than that I should be fine so I am not that worried.

In other news, I am currently in Orlando and will be probably for another week and a half before returning to Asheville for my final semester of College. Also just found out today that I might be going on to Rome, Italy (a city i have always wanted to go to) in April of 2008. My parents are going, my Aunt Jessie, her boyfriend, possibly my sister Cathy and possibly my self would be going. We would fly out of Orlando to New York and from New York to Rome, Italy. From there we would board a cuirse ship and it would take us to Genoa, Italy then to Barcelona,Spain followed by Palma De Mallorca, Spain then to Tunis, Tunisia after that we go to Valletta, Malta then Palermo, Sicily and finallky back to Rome. Then we would fly back home. The whole trip probably would take about 10 days.

Anyway this is probably long enough and other than Christmas and New Year's there isnt much to post about. Neither of those days did really anything interesting happen other than the usual holiday type stuff. Oh and I went to Disney World on the 19th but again nothing really to post there.

December is here, Christmas is 20 days away, so what does that all mean? It means it is that dreaded time of the year known as exam time. Finals are upon us here at school and thankfully I only have three this semester. Though two of them are going to be near torture and they are on the same day(Thursday). I finish Friday morning with my German final and then winter break will be upon me. I will be at Cathys for a couple days before leaving for Florida. Normally I would leave the next day but I am going to stick around to see William's basketball game and also to see Scott's concert both of which are on Saturday. But, the next couple days will be spent studying. Anyone want to trade?

Sunday my sister, Jeralyn, and her husband were in town for some friends wedding thing. So they came and visited with me for a little while and we also went and hung out at the mall because Jeralyn wanted to look for some stuffed animal thingy. After the mall they left and went back home.

How about them Florida Gators (12-1) on making it to the National Championship game. Even though most of my readers could careless about this stuff, its still a big deal for me as the Gators have a chance to do something no other college in history has done and that's win a Basketball and Football National Championships in the same year. Florida has already won the Basketball National Championship and now they are one win away from winning the Football National Championship. Though the game isn't until January 8th so I have just over a month to wait. Oh well, hopefully it will be worth it.

I figured I should probably post about Thanksgiving break. I left here Tuesday at 3:30pm and what should have been just over a two hour drive turned into a four hour drive thanks to rain and traffic. That Wednesday was my relax and do absolutely nothing because its break day. All I remember from Wednesday is going to my sister's neighbors house and playing Taboo for a few hours. On Thursday I got up and Cathy and Jacqueline (William was at his dad's place in Atlanta) were watching the parade. They were watching it on CBS and thier coverage was terrible. So finally with only about an hour left of the parade I told Cathy to check NBC (station we normally watch the parade on which she wasn't this year because she thought only CBS was showing it this year) and when she did there was the parade. Cathy was upset because that meant she had wasted most of the parade watching CBS's coverage instead of NBC. About an hour and half after the parade we had our Thanksgiving Dinner or Thanksgiving Lunch as I called it since we were eating at 1:30pm. Surprisingly she didn't ruin the dinner which was something all of us were half expecting. We had a turkey, rolls, candied yams, Waldorf salad, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce and one other thing that I am forgetting. The rest of Thanksgiving Day was fairly uneventful. Friday Cathy , Jacqueline and I went and picked out a Christmas tree. That night Tim wanted me to meet him and some of his friends down town at a bar but I wasn't able to go so he invited me over for Saturday. So on Saturday I pretty much relaxed watching the FSU-UF game and then around 6:45pm I headed for Tim's place. I got there a little before 7:30pm and finished watching Nacho Libre with them. From there we made a beer run and came back and set things up waiting for other people to get here. Over this time I drank two beers, normal beers too (Bud Lights) which anyone who knows me knows I don't like those kinds of beers. But I hadn't had anything in a little while so I drank them anyway. At that point still no one had come so me, Tim and his friend Brian went outside and put Christmas lights on three of his trees outside. By this time it was almost 9:30pm and Tim and Brian were getting impatient so we went into the garage where they had a beer pong table set up and I watched them play beer pong while waiting on the others. Brain, I guess was bothered by me just sitting there watching them, went over to the cooler and got me a third beer. I drank it but towards the end I was forcing it down as I had finally lost complete taste for it. No, I didn't play beer pong for two reasons, one I had to drive home and two because I knew I couldn't have forced down another beer if I tried and that's all they had. By 10pm other people finally started arriving and so they started playing 10 cup team beer pong. I must say not many of them were very good at the game. From then on (at least until I left) people kept arriving. For the rest of the night I just watched them play beer pong and talked with a couple of the other people there most of whom I didn't know. Finally around 1:00am I decided I better get going since I had to leave for school the next day. Overall I had a good time, it would have been better if there had been better stuff to drink than regular beer and I wouldn't have minded being able to try and kick their ass at beer pong. Oh well though, there is always next time.

I arrived back on Campus Sunday just in time to make it to work. Then Monday marked the start of the final week of classes. Its been a somewhat hectic week for me this week as I have had to do a take home synoptic test and I also have a presentation to do in Thermo tomorrow. Then its time for Exams, which will probably suck but at least its the end of the semester. Only one more left.

The Asheville snow curse continues. At this point its become predictable. Yesterday and last night they were calling for snow and even this morning when I got up they were calling for 1 to 2 inches of snow here. But as usually we got a big whole nothing. I saw a couple of flurries this morning but that was about it. I think we actually had even more in the way of snow flurries back at the end of October than we did today. Every time it supposed to snow here we either get nothing or well below what is predicted. There are factors that play into this of course but you think that National Weather Service would have caught on by now. With my self soon to be a Meteorologist I understand why they always forecast the snow as they would rather be wrong in forecasting to much snow than be wrong by forecasting to little snow. But in doing so you get tons of peoples hopes up that end up just getting dashed. Though for once I was actually hoping it wouldn't snow as I have leave here tomorrow for Thanksgiving and didn't want to have to deal with any possibility of road troubles. So I can't really complain to much but I know there have been some bummed people wondering around campus today. I have even talked to one guy who skipped his classes today in protest of the no snow.

As I said there are factors that play into this occurrence. The case with the past storm is that the moisture just wasn't there like they thought it was going to be. Being located in the mountains causes issues too. Some of the more common ones are that the mountains block the moisture from getting in here and in some cases the mountains will actually divert the precip around us instead of over us. Asheville being in a valley and therefore at a lower elevation than other places near by means we tend to run a little warmer so there are several occasions were the rain doesn't change to snow as quickly as predicted. There are other factors as well but those would probably just confuse most people so I wont mention them. Unfortunately for us snow lovers this will probably always be an issue. We will just have to sit back and wait for the perfect storm to come along. Who knows maybe it will come this year. I hope so anyway.

As for me I am heading to Charlotte for Thanksgiving. My parents are going to be in PA so this year it will just be me and my sisters celebrating Thanksgiving. William is going to his dad's place for Thanksgiving so he won't be there either. After break I only have two weeks of school left before I am finish. The semester went by fast though I can't complain I am ready for Winter Break. Then begins my final semester of college and it's about time.

Last weekend I went to my sisters. Got to see my nephew's basketball practice as he has started playing basketball. He needs some work as he is not the most graceful person on the court but he does have some potential. On Sunday night I had planned to go to Scott's(a friend of mine) band's concert. The show was to start at 7pm so William and I left the House around 6:45pm thinking we knew exactly where to go. We quickly get to the place we thought the show was at and realize it is just a bunch of old people there listening to some speaker. So we knew that it wasn't the right place. From there we left and started driving down the road we though it was on and couldn't find it. So finally we called Cathy and she gave us directions which we followed but got us no where. I then decided to stop and ask for directions and the people working the gas station had never even heard of the road I was looking for. So I decided to go back to the House and look it up myself. Finally understanding where the road I was looking for was we headed back out the door. We reached the road and drove down it about 7-8 miles and still could not find the place. So I stopped for directions again and they seemed like they knew where this place was and sent me back in the direction I had just come from. So I drove about 10 miles in that direction still not being able to find the place so finally I called Cathy back and asked for the places address. With the address we were finally able to find the place after over an hour and half of searching (it was 8:30pm). As soon as we pull in William made the comment "People are pulling out". Hoping this was just coincidence, but knowing otherwise, we still parked and walked up to the counter out front and asked the guy working there if the show was over. He said it was and I explained that I knew one of the band members and he let us in since the band members were still there packing up. So after waiting for them to finish packing, Scott walked over to us and apologized for putting the wrong address on their myspace page. He also said they had started at 6pm so even if we had found it right away we wouldn't have seen the whole show. He said that they were setting up another show in December at either Avondale or Tremont(which I have since found out it will be held here). So other than getting to talk to him for a few minutes hour and a half search for the place was basically pointless.

School continues to just flow along and a fairly quick pace. Just signed up for classes for next semester. Weird to think that it was the last time I will sign up for classes. Thanksgiving break is coming up in two weeks and I will be going to Charlotte and having Thanksgiving with my sisters since my parents are going to be in Pennsylvania. Then about two weeks after that the semester is over.

The elections are now over and the democrats have taken over power of the House for the first time in 12 years and it seems they are going to gain power in the Senate as well. Though this is definitely not good news for Bush it does seem from what I am hearing this will actually help him push through his immigration reform of which I am not a big fan of. But, oh well. Also today they announced that Donald Rumsfeld had resigned and was to be replaced by Robert Gates. I doubt many people minded hearing that news, including myself. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out over the next two years.

I am debating about going to Charlotte either this weekend or the following weekend. My friends band is playing shows in Charlotte both those weekends. I have never seen his band live and keep telling myself I need too so I am finally going to. I just don't know which weekend yet. If I went this weekend I wouldn't be able to get their till later than normal on Friday because I have to go to the local elementary school here to give a presentation to some local elementary students and I would have to be back here on Sunday. But, the show is Saturday night so my nephew, William, could go with me since something tells me he is going to want to go. If I went the following weekend I could get there at my normal time on Friday and wouldn't have to leave till Monday. But, the concert is on a Sunday night so William would not be able to go. So I need to talk to him and then make a decision as to what I am going to do.

I had something happen in one of my dreams that I do not think has ever happened to me before. I have had dreams in the past were I was not myself but each of those times I wasn't in that dream at all. But, the dream I had last night I was in the dream and actually watched myself in the dream. I remember very little of the dream and the only part I actually remember is watching myself walk my dog, Clancy, outside of a restaurant while my dad was moving some stuff around in the car trunk. It was weird watching myself as I remember thinking that I thought I looked like a dork.

Other than that not a whole lot going on with me. School has pretty much ruled my life since my last post. That's part of being a college student I guess.