Wow two updates in one day. I must be on a roll. Today I went to Joe's to have lunch. I had to go there to make sure that it still works. It hasn't been open at all at night anymore. They are open from 8 in the morning(ugh) until 3 in the afternoon. Seems like a weird schedule to me. I asked and they said that they would be opening back up 24hrs when school starts. They have a lunch deal now that I hope doesn't go away when they increase their hours. You can get any of their hamburgers and a milkshake for 5 bucks. And they have some cool burgers. I got the Big E. It had chili, cheese, bacon, fried egg, and mojo sauce. Damn was it tasty. I'm not sure what mojo sauce is, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Austin Powers kind of mojo. Anyway it was incredibly satisfying. Why does unhealthy food have to taste so good? Fat people must have it really rough. I got some sketch work done on the website that I'm working on so it was a productive lunch. As I left I got the worst sense of deja vu. I saw a guy walk past me. He was an Arab guy(I gave up trying to guess where he was from), wearing a dark maroon shirt, khaki shorts, dark socks and sport sandals. OUCH! But as I kept walking toward Washington st. another Arab guy walked past me wearing the same exact outfit!!! It would have been funny if it hadn't been so ugly. It's like the Arab world woke up this morning going "Let's make Jeremy's eyes bleed a little". Must not hate ugly dressers, must not hate ugly dressers. Oh well if I keep repeating it it should work.

Speaking of dressing, it turns out that Kate wasn't online when I tried to call her last night she was on the phone with Vlad. I should have guessed. She was working things out for this weekend. Apparently now their plan is for me to drop of Kate with Vlad and leave. They'll go shopping and do the photoshoot etc. Then meet Sarah and I to go to a goth club. She says they want to surprise me with the outfit they pick out. Sounds like a good plan to me I guess. I hope it's the club where they actually have a lounge that you can talk in. Because what I really want to do is spend time with Kate. Hehe it should be interesting to see how much she gets hit on at the club. Should be a good time I hope, I'm going to bed early tonight I think. I need to get up and run tomorrow and get everything packed. Oh crap, I have to figure out what to wear the club. Hmm I'm tempted to go shopping for something new, but that's really not much fun by yourself. Oh well I'll figure something out from what I already have. Gotta run.

So the democratic convention is this week, and it's making me thankful that I don't watch tv, but it's all over the websites I read. I won't talk about it very much because it's really boring to most people. But there were a few funny things said in speeches that are worth laughing at.

John Edwards spent his speech talking about how many poor people are in America. And how some kids have to go to bed cold blah blah we're all going to die of starvation. He claimed there are two Americas: the ones who have lived the American Dream and those who haven't had the chance yet. The accuracy of this statement aside I noticed something democrats have been doing for ages. Pointing at something and going "look a problem, it should be fixed, vote for me not the other guy". He offered nothing that resembled a solution or plan to better the situation. Now John Edwards got the nomination for Vice President because of his good looks and charisma. He(along with Kerry) is a very very rich man. He is a trial lawyer worth over $50million. He specialized in OBGYN malpractice suits. (side note: he claims he lived the American Dream. I want to know whose dream it is to grow up and sue baby delivery doctors. If that really is someone's dream I want to know where they are so I can slap them) You'd think as a rich man he'd have some sort of plan......nope. Other than higher taxes which solves everything in democrats minds. I can just hear this conversation taking place.

Edwards(in overly pretentious political speech voice): There are poor people all over this country!!

Sensible person: Well you've made a lot of money can you help?

Edwards: We're going to tax you and give you the opportunity to help. I have witnessed this problem and I feel very passionate about it.

SP: So you're not going to do anything about it?

E:I'm NOTICING it.

Say that out loud it's even more hilarious. To Edwards and people like him it's hardly even about money. They just want the power to make sure everyone suffers equally. In truth the situation is not half as dire as he makes it out to be. After two and a half years of recession, (9/11 and a war on terror didn't help), we are in the biggest economic boom in 10 years. How and why did this happen? Someone did something! Someone took action, had a plan and carried it out. Our President pushed through record tax cuts in record time. He didn't back down in the face of political pressure. As a result more people in this country kept more of their money and are using THEIR money in ways that provide opportunities to other people. So instead of lowering everyone's gross pay with taxes, more people are having the chance to live the American dream. Sssh, don't tell the democrats, not everyone is miserable and going to bed cold in the middle of the summer.

Teddy Kennedy made a speech on Tuesday. It was full of the typical bs and democratic vitriol. But one thing that he said stands out to me. Quote "There is nothing to fear but four more years of Bush". That being of course a play on the "There is nothing to fear but fear itself" quote. This is just restating the assertion of liberals in this country(I say liberals because not even all the democrats are this whacked out) 9/11 was perpetrated by Bush as an elaborate scheme to get more oil, give Chaney's buddies contracts(Halliburton), and get to fire missiles at the guy who tried to assassinate his Dad. Fine. They can believe that, it just makes them look ridiculous. But I have a question. If the only thing to fear is Bush then why the uber max security at the convention. That place is locked down tighter than Fort Knox. There is razor wire fence everywhere, as well as snipers on ALL the roofs, and the police are randomly searching peoples bags. What are they afraid of? Administration officials bullying their way in to deliver tax refund checks?

Ok, thus endeth the political thoughts of the day.

I,Robot was a surprisingly good movie! I was very pleasantly surprised that my expectations weren't met. I was expecting it to be a Will Smith power trip testosterone ride. What I got was an actual acting performance from Big Will and some great action that pushed along a decent plot. I'm not going to go into the plot very much, if only becuase it was so generic. Asimov this is not! Inspired by Asimov maybe....almost, but who cares. If you want plot go read the book. There's lots of Will Smith doing old school detective type stuff in a Minority Report looking world. And there's lots of cool robot action, robot-fu could be the newest action movie craze. Also look for some great one-liners from Smith. The movie's scale is sometimes a detriment, our heros end up saving the whole world from being taken over by robots, however we only see one city. And some of the plot devices seem recycled and obvious. But I was to busy having fun with the movie to care. I def recomend seeing this movie before seeing say...King Arther or Fictitious 9/11.

Well only one more day until I see Kate. It's been three weeks since I saw her last, and that is just way to long. We're going up to Maryland so that she can do a photoshoot with Vlad. He's taking her shopping and letting her keep what they get after he shoots her. I want to go with them and then to the photoshoot because it means I'll get to spend more time with Kate which is what I miss the most. However Vlad I don't think wants me around, I don't know why but he has expressed this to Kate. On one hand she is my gf and he should respect that. On the other hand this is his game and he is spending money on it. So we'll just see what happens. I still need to call her and figure out the details. I'm trying to call right now but her phone is busy.

I am really really happy right now. There is a chocolate store in Blacksburg now. It just opened up, and is run by the owner. And they have Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans!!!!!!! I am a happy person. I intend to tell everyone to go buy something there so that it stays in business. They also have a website you can visit. I'm here at work trying to call Kate but her phone is busy, I'm also chatting with Julie and Dante. On TV is Mad TV on the Comedy Channel. I'm really surprised they are actually really funny. Their skits are edgy and witty unlike Saturday Night Bore. I'll have to watch some more of it.

Aaaaand once again I haven't posted all weekend. I should do an update but I really don't feel like it. I'll give a basic rundown. The whole family was out of town so the house was really quiet. I got used to the quiet. Brianna came in to town for Friday and Saturday. We went and watched I,Robot. I was surprised at how good it was, I'll discuss that later. On Saturday I had lunch with Ludwig and we discussed the prospect of my moving over to the VNOC. He's optimistic but it's hard for me to be. If I do get the job I will be moving into an apartment. Which would be wonderful, I'm looking to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-350. Which would be a lot easier if I had a roommate but really there isn't anyone. At least nobody who wouldn't freak my parents out(read male). Then on Sunday I went to fighter practice, learned nothing fought just a little bit, wish for someone new to fight. Sunday night I talked to Kate again on the phone, she has a new cordless she wanted to try out. I would have liked to talk longer but the battery on her phone went dead. It was nice to talk to her though, only four more days until I get to see her. Then I went over to JJA to watch Come Blow Your Horn. It's still funny after all these years. It made me sit there going oooh now I know what that meant. I was understanding more of Dee's lines because I've lived them. And I was looking at my performance and going "I should have done this, like this". I wish I could do it again, I would make it so much better....at least I think it would be better. I promise I'll post tomorrow. I'll review I,Robot and actually talk and give my opinion about something interesting(to me). Goodnight

Long-Ass post of the week

Wow it has been a weird weird week. I had to do cross training with people from the bridge. So I worked 8-7 with an hour lunch break. Well it goes without saying that I do not like getting to work at 8am. The two people I had to train were Larry in the morning and John in the afternoon. Nobody in the department likes these guys. I can't say that I do, but everyone was warning me about them and all I could think about was "you should warn them about me in the mornings." It went ok I guess, but they seemed to be more overly friendly and talkative more than anything. And honestly I didn't want to hear about %90 of what they had to say. And in the evenings I was helping out with with VBS at church. I found out that I would be able to help with vbs last weekend. And as soon as I told people that I would be there they all told me that I HAD to be the skit guy at the end. So once again I am making lots of kids and adults laugh by making a fool out of myself. And I love it. The only problem is that by the time the skit time rolls around I'm pretty tired from working and have been up for to long to do much good. And the skits this year are kinda lame so I'm not getting as many laughs. Oh well.
On Tuesday I found out that I'm not getting the job downstairs. One guy had more multimedia experience than me and the other guy had more tv production know-how. So I was screwed either way. And then I got turned down for a job that I had applied for in DC. This coupled with the fact that I spent 8 hours around two guys who were bona fide losers and had been working for the university for longer than I had been alive put me in a really bad mood. And talking to Troy didn't help. He was talking about how he was trying to decide if he wanted to try and get another job that was coming open. He said that he'd think about it but they'd have to offer him close to 80k to quit his current job. So I was kinda depressed. I went over to Jen and Julie's after VBS was over. When I got there Jen and Julie were pissed/stress/depressed about the funeral they had just been to. And the hard parts of the trip that included getting the keys locking in the car. It made me feel horrible and selfish for worrying about my little problems. So I kinda cheered myself up by trying to cheer them up. I don't know if it worked but I at least felt a little bit useful and less like a loser.
Last night I got to talk to Kate for almost an hour. It was wonderful to hear her voice again, to laugh with her again, to tease her again, to tell her I love her again. It was very refreshing to say the least. I can't wait to see her again. It looks like it will be next weekend for sure. I emailed Troy and he said it would be alright to stay at their place. Scott won't be there for much of the time becuase he's going to a con or something. Troy also said that he might put us to work helping to get ready for pennsic. I don't mind and I'm sure that Kate won't either. I can't wait! This morning was really really creepy. Last night I was tired at about 10pm. But I forced myself to stay up and watch a movie on principle, there is no way I should be in bed that early. Also I didn't have to get up very early this morning. And I hadn't been sleeping well at all so I wanted to be as tired as possible. Well it worked, I didn't wake up until 11:30. The creepy thing was it was quiet. I thought that my family was going to leave for the family reunion at 4 this afternoon. Turns out they were leaving at 4 in the morning. So there was no noise to wake me up by 10. And when I did wake up there wasn't any noise anywhere. I was totally confused for about half an hour laying in my bed. But I got up and enjoyed the quiet and having the house to myself. For some reason Mom felt the need to leave me a bunch of food to eat this weekend. She left me soup and hot pockets and pizza. I'm not going to complain obviously, but I eat so very little at the house now that it was very surprising. I think I want to have a bunch of people over to watch movies or something. And I wish Kate were here so we could make out in my house somewhere. That would just be so weird. It's gotten me thinking about how much of a different person I am around my family than not. Maybe someday that will change, but not while I'm still living at home. That's all for now I will relate any and all experiences that this weekend brings. It's shaping up to be interesting.

Whooo. I am never doing that again!! On Wednesday I was supposed to give a drama workshop for the homeschoolers. Well I got a late start because my alarm was set wrong, actually my clock was set wrong so my alarm would have gone off in the evening instead of the morning. I got up and out the door about 5 mintues late. And so of course there was a slow as molasses tractor on the road. He was going about 10mph on a 55mph road. Nothing wrong with that I guess, you've gotta get there somehow....but this guy had a line of cars behind him two miles long. He finally pulled over and let us pass, but by this time I was really late. So in case anyone doesn't understand, I was sleepy, late and in a bad mood because of it. This is not a good state to perform any kind of public presentation, let alone a lecture/demonstration on theatre. So since I was late already I decided that I should at least make an attempt to get myself up for this. I stopped by the 7-11 for an energy drink. I could use a cold beverage and the kick in the pants from the cafeine. Well lo and behold there was a new energy drink on the shelves. It was called Boo Koos energy. It was in a larger taller can, it held about 24oz of drink. I looked at the back and it had the same amount of cafeine and taurine that a Red Bull or Amp had. And it was cheaper than those as well, so I grabbed it and ran out. I was about 20minutes late getting there and just chugged the energy drink. It tasted ok, stronger than I thought it would, I thought it would be a little watered down considering it was the same amount of kick as an 8oz RB in a 24oz can. Boy was I wrong. By the time I got there they had already started their Bible lesson. So instead of having two smaller groups I would have one big group to deal with. Which wasn't to bad but wasn't good either. I just lowered my expectations and decided to play some games instead of lecturing to much. I would have liked to do more with the older kids but it wouldn't work that way. So we played some warmup games and then we played Help Desk. The kids really got into it and were having a lot of fun. Some of the kids actually got it and were doing really well, the others were just goofing off. Which is fine because they were having fun. And the ever-present Moms at homeschool events were just rolling on the floor. The kids only got to go to the 'help desk' twice before it was time to go. And I was ready to go I was feeling really weird. When I got out to my car I took a look at the energy drink can that I had chugged. It turns out that the information on the back was 'per serving'. Uh oh I thought, I looked around on the can again and sure enough a 'serving' acording to them is about 8oz!!!! So I had just slammed about 600mg of caffeine, and about 3000mg of taurine ON AN EMPTY STOMACH!!! And I was starting to feel it. I went over to the Easy Chair coffee shop so I could get a bagel and some coffee and read my book. I ordered my bagel and while I was waiting for it Kate called. Well it was really nice to talk to her, but I was talking really really fast. And my hand was shaking too. She was laughing at me, with good reason. Finally my bagel came and I was happy, although I wanted to talk to her and eat at the same time. But I was a wreck by that time, I probably could have phase shifted through walls. I didn't drink any more caffeine all day and I was kinda messed up going to sleep that night.

Thursday I had my interview for the mulitmedia job downstairs. I thought it was going to be a casual and informal type of thing. They were calling everyone else but because I work there they just told me to come in. And it may have just been casual to them, but it turned out to be really harrowing for me. There were lots of times where I just had to say "no I don't know how to use that program", or "I don't have any experience at all in that area". I was bending over backwards to relate things that I had done to the qualities that they were looking for. I'm not sure how successful I was at that at all. Jeff came to me afterwards and said that I did good. And that at the very least they know more about me, and I had some experience interviewing. That was nice of him to say, but it sounded an awful lot to me like "don't call us, we'll call you". Oh well it was worth a shot. I was kinda wiped and depressed all day after the interview. I tried to buck up and be in a good mood when I went over to Jen and Julie's, but they noticed I was down. They refuse to believe that I won't get the job though. Which is really sweet, however innacurate they turn out to be. One funny thing that happend was when I got to the apartment Julie was taking a nap. We were going to watch Come Blow Your Horn finally. So I just talked with Jen for a while and we decided to turn out the light in Julie's room. Well that's all it took to wake her up. She stumbled around in her room for a while making thumping noises. We were afraid she was running into stuff. And then she stumbled out of her room and started putting away groceries like it was the most normal thing in the world. It was quite humorus to say the least. The night ended the way most nights do over there. Jen going to bed early and Julie and I talking for a couple hours.

On Friday I slept in, and it was really really nice. When I finally got up(I probably would have stayed in bed longer but I really had to pee) I horsed around for a while before going over to Barnes and Noble to read some magazines and have a latte. Then I when over to the movie theater to see what was playing so I could call Ludwig and see if he wanted to hit a movie. He was busy so I decided to just go to Blacksburg and return my movies. On a whim I phoned Gwen to see if her phone had been turned back on. 'Becca picked up the phone and said hello, so aparently those two were friends again. They were at 'More than coffee" having pizza and yelled at me to meet them there. It has been a long time since I have seen either one of those two. Turns out lots has been happening in their lives. Becca now has her own apartment right above the Lyric. She can actually reach the sign and is planning on changing the letters when something funny can be done with them. She is also having sex now. She has hooked up with a married man named Dave. He's one of the 'dinner group' crowd and his wife is fully aware of what's going on. That being said I can't really bring myself to respect someone who will have sex with an underage girl when he is married. I didn't freak out on her or yell at her. But I did let her know that I was concerned and told her that she had 'better be safe about it' in the best big brotherly voice I could muster. Which is quite overbearing when I really get going with it. It's hard for me not to worry about her, she is playing with fire and could get really really burned. Gwen is doing great and is very happy. She quit her job at the DB because it was too monotonous, which I can understand. She is ADD, ADHD and bi-polar so I think she needs a little variety in her life and work. She is all set to go to New River in the fall and study ASL. Which will be great for her, and the school. She wants to create theater and visual performances geared toward the deaf and hard of hearing. It's great to see her with a goal and excited about school. She has a boyfriend now, his name is Chris but she calls him Crispit. I have met him once and he seemed like a redneck trailor trash type. But I could be wrong, I didn't see him for very long at all. They have thought about having sex but haven't yet. Gwen it turns out has starteed doing the "Pants stay on! Pants stay on!" dance when the subject arises. So Lil Kate can be happy that she is influencing young people in a positive way. We went to see King Aurther(sp?) which was an OK movie. Nothing really spectacular but not bad at all. Except when they yelled. They did this warcry type thing that I guess they thought would be sorta primal and scary in that male bonding type of way. But it just came across as lame. Oh well, when it comes out it will be fun to do commentary on with a group.

Well that's all for now, I have to get some rest. Next week I have to be at work at 8 so I can cross-train Larry and Heckert. I'm not looking forward to that at all, I'm sure as hell not taking any shit from them, and the really don't want to mess with me that early in the morning. I hope nothing bad happens. On a good note, I will be able to get off early enough to help with VBS, which is always fun. No skits this year though, I didn't find this out until this past week and just tonight volunteered. I'll write again Monday.

Yesterday was a good day at work. I did room checks in the early part of the day. Then after the setups I started brushing up on my photoshop skills in the Element K tutorials. But the cool thing that happend yesterday was the All-Star game. It was one of the better ones I've watched. However I do have a bone to pick with whoever was in charge. Everythin it seemed like was over dramatic. The players were introduced over a silly techno music loop. And they actually came out of the crowd over the dugouts to line up at home plate. During the pregame Fox had this little bimbo E! announcer wannabe. She was really annoying, she sounded like those people who narrate the parades on Thanksgiving and New Years. And then came the National Anthem. OMG I was pissed. First of all I think in general reality shows are stupid. The exception being I like to watch all the silly people that show up for American Idol. And I love the way Simon just ruins their shit. That being said, this latest winner Fantasia must have been rigged by someone somewhere. She sang the National Anthem and tried to do a Aretha Franklin impression complete with squinting and visible virbretto. The only problems was that her voice was horrible!!! It was the kind of whiny and screechy that gives karaoke a bad name. When she did her vibretto it sounded like she was dying. Seriously I couldn't decide if I wanted to call an ambulance or hit her with a bat. I decided that putting her out of her misery was the best idea, but before I could find a blunt object to attack the TV with she finished the song. It was truly disgraceful. However American Idol did redeem itself a little as Ruben Studdard sang God Bless America at the seventh inning stretch. His voice was wonderful, and he did a great job of letting the song speak for itself and not feeling the need to jazz it up. He truly is a talent. The game was a good one, Roger Clemens got roughed up in the first inning by a couple of homers from the American League. Including one by Manny Ramirez that was just a hell of a shot. It was a frozen rope line drive over the left field fence. An awesome shot. Baseball is wonderful this year with every league being close and many teams doing very well despite low budgets and expectations. It should make for some great playoffs this fall.

This should probably be a weekend update. But I'll just do a weekend summary. Went to Assessment, and camped out. I still don't like camping but Kate was there and made it better. I swear, she gets sexier every time I see her. We had a good time together. She did water bearing and was really happy to actually be doing something at an sca event. I was thinking about it, and I love it when she watches me fight. But at the same time it's not fair for her to sit around waiting for hours for a bout that might take less than five minutes. So she seemed happy. Camping was camping. I won the baronial rapier tourney, but Costanca got picked as the rapier champion. Which she deserves, she does a lot for the Barony in this area, she has pretty garb and will look good standing in court. Anyway, it was blazing hot on Saturday and I think I made myself sick by pushing myself to hard. I tried to fight through it and be functional but people kept telling me to go sit down. Lorna was there too, she is a trip and a half. She brought her toys, and told many stories and had a great time from what I could tell. On Sunday I said goodbye to Kate. I almost teared up because I won't see her again for about three weeks. But soon after that she'll be coming back down here and it will all be better. I do want to try and do something for her though, take her somewhere that she will enjoy. After all she took me to a baseball game, and there's no way she enjoyed it as much as I did. Maybe we could spend some time up at Mountain Lake. I'll figure something out. Sunday afternoon I got home and just completely crashed. I slept for about three hours straight with no interruptions. I don't think I realized how tired I was. Thinking back on it I probably wasn't in a very good mood, and I feel pretty bad about it. I'm going to appologize to Kate as soon as I talk to her next.
Yesterday something happend that just made me feel awful. A report came out over the Atlantian rapier listserv talking about the people who helped at Assessment. It gave full credit for autocrating to Mark Bush. That made me mad and so I decided to send an email to Alejandro to tell him that Julie was the autocrat and that Jen and Mark were co-deputy autocrats. But I accidentally sent that message to the listserv instead of Alejandro's personal account. I then got a nastygram from Mark, saying that now he looks bad and how can he thank people for helping on the event. I had to send an appology to him, the listserv and Alejandro. So instead of sticking up for Jen and Julie I looked like and ass and Mark came out looking like an angel. I felt horrible for the rest of the day. That'll teach me to open my big mouth I guess. I should just keep quiet and let other people take care of the important stuff.
Anyway I went over to drop some stuff off and ended up talking with those two for a while. Apperently Peggy screwed up a financial report of some kind and Black Diamond has been suspended. Which means that the buisness meeting tomorrow is going to be crazy. I'm blad I won't be there. Jen went to bed early because she had grading to do. Julie and I were sitting on the couch talking. And she nagged at me for a while for feeling bad about the email gaffe. I think she just likes to nag. After a while we stopped talking and I looked down to see her asleep on my chest. I thought about waking her up but decided to let her sleep for a while. I woke her up and made her go to bed when I started to drift off. I didn't want to accidentally fall asleep and then deal with the parents when I didn't come home. But as I was thinking about it I realized that she probably misses having a shoulder or chest to fall asleep on. I asked her about it and she said that yes she did and that's what she misses most about being single. Obviously I can't be her shoulder to fall asleep on, but it was cool to be able to help her relax. That's all for now, I have a drama workshop to do tomorrow so I'll write that when it's over.

Well I don't have much to do today. I only have one really low maintence class to take care of at 6:30. But until then I have nothing much to do at all. That's ok, I'll read some in my Flash book and some articles I found on the internet. Oh yeah, one thing I observed while I was flipping through a magazine today at Kroger. It had this girl, I can't remember who, but she was in langerie and in all of these fun poses. Well I was thinking, I've seen Kate in those same positions while she's been asleep, or just laying around. And Kate looks just as good. Better sometimes! And while Kate didn't have the airbrushed perfect skin of the model she was still just as attractive. I always thought that Kate had a unique body type, but maybe she has the body type of a model. I haven't been around enough models to know for sure but hey it could be true. Of course nothing I've seen a model wear can match the sexiness of Kates black slinky boyshorts and rugged sports bra combination. Love ya sweetheart. ;)

About Monday

Monday I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep. Kate was out like a light, I think. It's hard to tell with her sometimes. It was really hot in the room, we literally couldn't touch each other for any period of time without it being uncomfortable. When I walked out of the room it was like walking into a fridgerator! I didn't realize how hot it was in that room until I stepped out. Everyone was sitting around the living room talking and basically goofing off. We were waiting for everyone to get ready to go to IHOP. Angie called, she had taken Troy's jeep and had gone to wal-mart with Jon. When she called Troy gave the phone to me and I did my best to imitate him. As soon as I said anything she launched into a lecture and was trying to figure out what was happening. I laughed and gave the phone back to Troy who then gave it to Mel. At which point Angie hung up. She was pissed at him and wanted him to call her back. But he didn't, she got home right as we were leaving and was uber-pissed at him. We had a good time at IHOP, and Mel actually paid for my half of the table. Briana is really in to him, and he's a lot like most of the people in the group. But he's been an introvert for a long while. Anyway, while we were walking to Circut City after breakfast troy explained why Angie was mad at him. I just said that I hoped he enjoyed the ride home. Well most of the day they had drama towards each other. Maybe Angie will actually be 'done' with Troy this time. But then again maybe not. I just talked to her and she said that on the trip home he had sincerly appologized to her, who knows. ANyway Kate and I left around 4 to go to the baseball game. It was awesome, we got to sit in the box seats, really close to home plate. And we go to eat food from Dave's barbecue. The game was pretty cool, I was having fun explaining things to Kate. She seemed genuinely interested so it was cool. The braves had a really good pitcher, at least I thought he was good. But in the sixth inning he kinda fell apart and the other team started to rock him. When they were warming up the reliever it started to pour rain. So they went to rain delay mode and covered the field. We left after about a half an hour. Because Kate was tired and had to get up super early the next morning. I was getting pretty tired too. We found out later that they restarted the game after about an hour and started scoring runs like crazy. I hope we get to do it again, it was a blast. I slept in the spare bedroom at Kate's. I gave her a psudo backrub/hug thing that I hoped would relax her before she went to bed. And apparently it worked because she said she passed out until her alarm went off. When she woke up she came in the room and said goodbye. It was kinda startling to wake up to someone staring at me. But it was nice because it was my girlfriend. I'm now back on 2-10 schedule which I think I like better. Of course I would like it better if I were working an 8-5 and getting a salary but hey, beggers can't be choosers. I'll post again tomorrow.

July 4th Weekend

It's time for the weekend update. This will be the third weekend I've spent away from home, and I'll actually be camping overnight saturday night this coming weekend so that will make four in a row that I've been away. Not that I mind, there's really nothing to do here, and the thrill of seeing Kate each weekend after looking forward to seeing her all week is wonderful. Anyway back to the weekend past. I got up to Ox's on Friday evening about 6:30. And just basically hung out. We watched Dragonheart which is a guilty pleasure of mine. It's a movie that has some glaring inconsistencies and is sometimes melodramatic but I like it anyway. David was there though and I absolutely hate watching movies I like with him around. With movies that are silly and over the top I don't mind his silly chatter, and if the movie is a bad one I will join in. But in a movie that I actually enjoy and get into I sometimes just want to hit him and tell him to shut the hell up. I didn't though, and he got tired of talking about halfway through so it was ok. Kate crashed really early that night, and she was just plain GONE. It's ok though she was a good pillow, and it wasn't to hot in there like usual. Saturday everyone went to see Spiderman 2 except Kate and I. Everyone is saying that it's the best comic book movie ever made. I still like X2 and Hulk better. And besides there aren't enough comic book movies to make that a bragging point. It is only slightly better than claiming to be the best video game movie ever made. Kate and I watched The Man Who Knew To Little while they were gone. That movie is still hilarious no matter how many times I watch it. It hurt Kate's head though, in the good way I think. Troy and Angie got there that evening and we cooked out by the pool. We all did some fencing to, even though it was to hot for real armor. But nobody there did anything stupid. I finally got to fight Troy again. He said he wasn't in teaching mode but he was. I was just kinda goofing off and fighting. But after we stopped he gave me a big lecture. I guess he thought it would help but it basically was "do what you're doing, only do it better". Didn't really help me that much but oh well. After we were all done fencing, a few people got in the hottub, others went in side and played cards, and the rest of sat around the pool talking about any and everything. Kate crashed again early, but it was ok we had fun. On Sunday everyone was kinda lazy, which was ok except I couldn't find a place to take a nap. Kate and I left to go meet her friends and then eat dinner at her house. We had sausages and potato salad, then apple pie and ice cream. How american is that? It was really really tasty. Then we went to fireworks at Kate's library. They had bluegrass bands, and booths. Lot's of churches there, it made me happy. Kate met a bunch of her old friends, one of them made a pass at her. It's nice not to have to worry about my girl running off with someone. I love her a lot and she loves me, we could do practically anything and we would just kiss and it would be good again. That's probably not true, but it sounds good, and I'm sure as hell not going to put it to the test. Oh yeah we had to pay to get into the fireworks. I have to remember to pay her back for that. Anyway the rest of the Herd showed up right as the fireworks were starting. They were some of the best fireworks I've seen. The reason was that there was a thunderstorm brewing behind the fireworks. Lightning was streaking across the sky behind the fireworks. It was awesome looking!!! We made a bunch of jokes about God wanting to get into the act. After that we went home and watched Shaolin Soccer. I've been wanting to see that movie for a while. It's just goofy as crap!!! I'll write about Monday tomorrow, I have to leave work now. I'll also talk about some of the social things going on this past weekend. Lots of pseudo drama going on. I love my friends.

Oh yeah, it's really time to update. Several times I have sat down to write an entry here this week and just never finished it. Last weekend was a very cool weekend. Kate and I were going to go to Kings Dominion to watch the Kings Fest concerts. But the timing didn't work out and the tickets were expensive. So we just decided to hang out with Dante and Djinn. They have a smaller place on the south side of Richmond. I didn't get to spend as much time with Kate as I wanted, because we went and did some fencing at Cam and Aloshondra's place. And then we grilled burgers which was just damn tasty. But Saturday night and Sunday made up for not seeing her as much. This past week has just blown by really really fast. I was sick on Monday but still played softball and went to Big Kate's going away party. I paid for it Tuesday when I was really really sick. It was ok though, Nancy said that I didn't have to come in if I was feeling poorly. So I just called her and said that I was sick and took some more nyQuil and went back to bed. On Wednesday we went to see Spiderman 2. I went with Jay, Julie, and Jen, ok wow to many J names in the theater that night. The movie was pretty good, some wonderful fight scenes between Dock Ock and Spidey. But I think Spiderman is my least favorite super hero. The movie was a lot about Peter Parker's real life angst. And the director is just brutal to him in this movie, his life really is shit. I think the biggest problem with the movie was all of the sub-plots. Dock Ock was the bad guy but there were about three other sub-plots being given a lot of attention. And they weren't pulled together very well by the main plot. It seemed to drag on forever at each of the "emotional momenents" of each sub plot. But in the end it was a good movie, even if it did kinda remind me of a romantic comedy. Hey at least it bumped Fictitious 9/11 out of first place at the box office. I get so tired of hearing all this liberal hate rhetoric against me as a conservative and my President that I just want to kick something. But if I do that then I let them bother me which is what they want. So this weekend I'm going to concentrate on patriotism and my friends. Oh yeah about this weekend. It's going to absolutely RULE!!!! First and foremost I get to see Kate. And on Saturday we will be partying at Ox's. Sunday is Fireworks and Monday Kate and I are going to a baseball game!! Her dad has gotten us tickets for the box seats. It'll be so cool I can hardly wait. Kate is just going for the free food, but hey to each their own right? Hehe I love you sweetheart. I'm working until about 4 today and then I'm driving up to Richmond. I'll probably call her on the way there because it will be a long drive. Everyone and their mother will be on the road today. Oh well that will just make it even more sweet when I get there. That's all for now, I'll try to post once over the weekend but I can't be sure that I'll actually post before Tuesday. Ciao!