Archive for December, 2006
New Years plans
Meggie and I are going to the Beechwood Inn up in Clayton for a few days to celebrate the new year. We’ll get to relax in the mountains and drink some wine and eat some good food.
Have a happy new year! I’ll post when I get back.
It never got weird enough for me
Today as I was flipping channels in a fog, I came across a Hunter Thompson biography. I didn’t catch the name of it, but it had some really good interviews with folks after HST took his dirt nap. He sure had some interesting friends, not to mention how interesting he was himself.
His final wish was to have his remains shot out of a cannon that he designed himself. My final wish is to have my body cremated and for my cremains (this is a real word, ask Matt) to be mixed into a batch of concrete and cast into a statue. This statue should be a life sized equestrian statue of myself as a centuar, only my torso should be affixed so that I’m facing my own ass. There will be no saddle.
OK I’m kidding, but I could top HST any day.
It was….soap poisoning
We spend some time tonight at the Athens Homeless shelter. We brought a lot of food and spent a few hours serving a nice meal for the bums. It was Meghan’s idea. I was against it at first, because fuck others. But she talked me into it, and truthfully, it wasn’t so bad.
We opened all the gifts tonight. We got a nice espresso machine, so instead of giving all our money to starbucks and espresso royale cafe, we can make our own shit. So next time I spill a gay ass drink in my car, it’ll be home brewed.
Now it’s almost 2AM and we’re drinking and watching a Christmas Story. The mother just broke the sexy leg lamp.
“You were always jealous of this lamp!! Jealous because I won!….Not a finger!”
Word of the day
Today’s word is “chunder”. I’ve had this word stuck in my head for weeks. How do you even pronounce it?
The beginning of the vacation
I’m back at the house. Just to make sure I truly enjoyed my vacation, I got to drive through a 2 hour traffic jam in Atlanta on the way to the house. So right now I’m watching CSI, and I’m about to get into this bottle of Jack Daniel’s. By the time Christmas rolls around, I intend to have maximized my relaxation level.
Also, let me just say that after driving a shitty rental car all week in Palm Beach, it was nice to get back to the BMW.
I’m on a plane. I can’t complain
I’m sitting in the West Palm Beach airport. I’ve got about an hour to wait before my flight. The weather here is not so bad. Sunny with some clouds. I know that the weather in Atlanta is shite, so hopefully I’ll have a smooth flight anyway.
I’m looking forward to starting my Christmas vacation. I plan to drink, eat, and sleep, in that order.
Hope you have a good holiday. I’m a geek so I’ll be posting on my site and myspace throughout my vacation, so if you are bored or drunk, feel free to drop me a line.
Burning down the house
So after I got off the phone with Meggy last night, I was getting ready to go to sleep. I hear this heavy banging on a door down the hall.
“There’s a fire in the building, we need everyone OUT!”
I’m thinking false alarm until I open my door and smell the smoke. I got dressed and ran down the stairs (from the 5th floor) and out into the parking lot where most of the hotel residents were gathered. There were 6 fire trucks and about 50 firemen milling around. It was quite a scene.
I’m still not sure exactly what happened but something on the first floor burned up good. No one got hurt, but we stood around in the parking lot till 2AM. Needless to say, I’m pretty freaking tired today.
Terrible rumor…
What’s this I hear about Room 13/Engine Room changing ownership? Does anyone know about this? Just when I get a chance to start going to my favorite bar again, I have to start worrying whether some douchebag is going to turn it into a frat bar.
I hate the smell of mint
What’s a shitty way to start your day? I’ll tell you. Spilling a venti peppermint mocha on the passenger side floorboard of your new BMW. Is this God’s way of saying “fuck you and your nice car”? All I know is, I got the stain out, but the smell is lingering.
Another thing. Fuck BMW’s shitty cup holders. They should just take them out, that way idiots like me wouldn’t be tempted to use them.
Vacation time
After I get done with my test tomorrow, I’m off work for a couple days. I haven’t decided what to do with my vacation time. I’m thinking of just hanging out, maybe riding my bike a little. Anyone know of anything cool going on?
All I want for Christmas is an Athens-Atlanta commuter rail
They’re talking about an Athens-Atlanta commuter rail again. I would love this. I drive an hour and a half to and from work. I could use that time for so many other things. Gah. I hope they can make that happen in my lifetime.
Cold snap
I’m downtown studying again. It’s fucking freezing outside. It was a long walk from the car to ERC. Very reminiscent of Erie, minus the snow. Just windy and balls cold.
When I was growing up, we didn’t have central heating and air. Every day when I got home from school, I had to go out to the shed and drag a big ass metal drum of kerosene into the house and proceed to siphon it into our kerosene heater. The smell of kerosene is one of those smells that trigger a flood of memories.
The hardwood floors in our house were always ice cold. I’d get out the siphon, which was this long plastic rod with a weird orange bulb at the end and a flexible hose. You’d put the rod in the can of kerosene, the hose in the heater tank, screw on the top of the siphon and start squeezing. Once you got it flowing, it’d take a couple minutes to fill. When you turned the heater on, it would take forever to heat up. And even when it did, you’d have to sit right in front of it to stay warm. Venture more than 5 feet away, and you’d freeze your balls off again.
At night we’d go to bed and fire up the electric heater in our room, sitting conveniently on our carpet. I’m surprised we didn’t burn our shit down. But those heaters worked really well. Nothing like trying to sleep with a bright orange glow in your face, humming like a power transformer.
So tonight when I go home to my toasty house, I’ll be thankful that I don’t have to drag a big fucking can of kerosene in from the garage.
Friday night
I’m studying tomorrow night, but Friday I’ve set aside to go downtown and get loose. I’ve got 2 12 hour labs saturday and sunday, so my weekend is totally fucked. So Friday night it’s going to be time for one last fling before I buckle down for the home stretch.
If you live in Athens and you are reading this, expect a call from me on Friday, so that we can all meet up and bend our elbows.
Wash away us all…
I spent most of today thinking it was Thursday. It’s not. It’s Wednesday. I’m downtown studying and drinking coffee. my test is less than a week away. I’m anxious about it, of course, but it’s a completely different experience this time. My anxiety is more focused. Last time I had a lot of unknowns to worry about. Now I’m just worried specifically about the content of the exam.
I’ve been doing some studying, but nothing like before. Before I was learning a lot of shit. Now, I’ve learned it. Any given scenario, and in theory I should be able to either remember how to do it, or know where to look it up. The trick will be in the execution.
I’m sick of thinking about this test. I’ve been living with it so long in my mind that I don’t have a clue what I’m going to do when it’s over. That will be a big void that will need to be filled.
Next week is the test. it’s actually a week from today. I’m driving up to Raleigh on Tuesday, taking the test Wednesday morning, and driving back after the test. I’m off the rest of the week on vacation. I don’t know what I’ll do on vacation. I guess it depends on if I pass or not. I may just stay in bed for the rest of the week.
Addiction
Sudoku Gridmaster for the Nintendo DS. It took me 49 minutes to complete the first practice puzzle. Meghan took the DS from me and completed it in less than 10 minutes. She’s amazing at those puzzles.
A taste of fatness
It’s been a while since I wrote a fat janet story. Here’s one I like to call “The mashed potato incident”.
This happened after I’d moved out of Dad’s place. Matt had moved in for a short while, and then he also moved out. So with both of us out of there, we’d come by on occasion and have dinner with Dad so he wouldn’t get nutzo. Also we liked to let him know we were still keeping our eye on him so he wouldn’t drink. Because I was expecting a relapse. I know that if I had to live with fat janet, I’d be in the bottle every fucking second.
Anyway, dinner with dad was always the same. Steak, with a can of LeSuer (sp) peas seasoned with worcestershire sauce, butter, salt and pepper, and of course, mashed potatoes. It’s a good meal, but funny…I haven’t eaten it since he died. I digress…Usually a meal at Dad’s was a three person affair. Dad, Fat Janet, and either myself or Matt. Today it was all four of us, so the seating arrangment was a little cramped. Fat Janet was at the end of the table. Matt and I were seated across from each other, and Dad was to matt’s immediate left. Dinner was served.
Watching Fat Janet eat was interesting. She lived to eat. She was a little off, as I’ve previously discussed, and the only thing she could even talk about was food, without repeating everything everyone else said like the world’s fattest parrot. So when it was mealtime, she dug in with mucho gusto. She ate with a purpose…she didn’t just wolf the food down haphazardly. She methodically destroyed it. If you wanted to eat with her, you had to learn to block it out and just go about your business.
This is what Matt and I were trying to do. We were eating our meal and chit chatting with Dad (Fat Janet didn’t talk at the table. She was too busy). We were trying to ignore the sights, and especially the sounds, that she was producing, but it wasn’t working very well. Finally it came to a head….Fat Janet, in mid fork-load, let out this disgusting belch. I swear chunks of food flew out of her mouth onto her plate. I froze…Matt had a mouthful of mashed potatoes. At this moment, time stood still.
I thought to myself, clear as day, that if I made eye contact with my brother, that we would bust out laughing. I knew that he had a mouthful of food. But I couldn’t help it. I looked up. He must have been thinking the same thing. As soon as we looked at each other, here’s what happened:
Matt lost it. He didn’t want to spray the table with mashed potatoes so he turned his head. Unfortunately, he turned to face Dad, and spewed potatoes all over Dad’s face. Dad said “God Damnit!” and almost before the potatoes hit his face, Matt was up out of his chair. He took his napkin and was trying to clean dad’s face and glasses, the whole time saying “this is funny! this is funny! you have to see the humor here!” to keep dad from exploding. I can’t remember if I was laughing or holding my breath to see what dad would do (when we were little, laughter at the dinner table would get us in huge trouble).
When it was over and Dad was cleaned up (it was a lot of mashed potatoes), we resumed the meal, but once again, Fat Janet in all her weirdness, had left a mark on us.
Meandering
I’m going through one of those periods where I am writing a lot on my site (and Myspace as well). It could dry up at a moments notice, but for now I have a lot to say…even if it’s just rambling bullshit.
I live in Athens GA. But for the past year pretty much, I’ve been out of touch with the scene. I’ve been too busy with work. It’s been a trade off, and I wouldn’t change my method because it’s meant a lot to our family situation. It’s been important for me to work really hard. But it’s getting to the point where I can restore a little of the balance. I’m only 28. I’ve got a few year to go before I turn into “the old guy at the club”. I am going to try to make the most of that time by seeing some shows! I will probably ease back into it after New Year’s.
I admit that I miss going out, having a few drinks and enjoying myself. Sometimes I go a little stir crazy from working all the time. I know, it is a little pathetic because I work hard, but not that hard. But still. All work and no play make Chrissy something something…and it also doesn’t help that Meggie doesn’t much care for seeing shows or having drinks. Actually that’s not entirely true. She likes doing those things but just not where I do. Her style of bar doesn’t have a pool table, for example. And the bartender’s know how to make cosmopolitans. And she likes to drink during happy hour. I prefer a hole in the wall place, late at night, with a pool table, loud rock music, and jack and coke that is mostly jack. And it must be named the Engine Room, formerly.
What’s with the trend of people walking around town wearing plaid pajama pants? Is there some sort of slumber party style going on that I don’t know about?
There are two guys sitting at the table next to me having an in-depth discussion on the relevance of Jesus Christ to their lives. those types of conversations make me cringe usually, because any religious discussion is very personal (or it should be). It’s an interesting conversation though, since these two guys have obviously made JC a close personal friend, and they are truly discussing him as if he were a bitchin bud. It’s unusual to hear things like that around here, since Athens is such a liberal anti-christianity place. Sure you can discuss buddhism, taoism, and paganism, and no one will bat an eye.
This reminds me…I found my Opiate cd in my shit tonight. Maynard is a guy who really has issues with organized religion. I wonder how long he’ll ride that dead horse. It’s good music but the topic gets old.
the two guys just got up and left. One was wearing one of those mexican ponchos that were popular 15 years ago. Relevance? dunno.
Studying again
I’m downtown studying. This time I’m at Starbuck’s. I know, that’s unusual for me. I usually limit my Starbuck’s intake to during the week when I’m in Atlanta. But there’s some sort of hippy art fair going on at ERC and 283 Bar, so I’m forced to go here. At least it’s quiet upstairs, where there are about 10 other people studying.
I’m really not in the mood for this. My head hurts and I’d rather be doing a million other things, but it’s important so I’m going to fucking do this shit.
I’m also skipping the company Christmas party tonight, so that I can study some more. I’m not too thrilled with that, but if it helps me pass my CCIE, then it’s something I should do.
Ever have the feeling like you need something, but you just don’t know what?