Thursday, September 30, 2004

I also wanted to post something about more than a third of my buddy list (yes, I counted) playing drinking games during the Presidential debates. I'm not sure what to say exactly. Anything beyond this point will probably just make everyone angry at me, so maybe I should just shut up, but since when do I ever listen to my better judgement? I guess I just feel that if you're going to watch the debates, you should take them seriously, because they are serious business and in a little over a month, you need to go vote for the man (and hopefully someday the woman) you want to lead this country. Yes, Bush says dumb things, yes, Kerry has a stupid smile and makes wild hand gestures, but what they say is far more important, and I don't think it should be taken so lightly. Now, before I dig my grave any deeper, I'm shutting up and going to bed.

I don't really want to get into the Presidential debates tonight. If I do, I'll never go to bed and no one will really read my blatherign nonsense either, so what's the point? You all should know by now how I feel about Bush. And of course, living in Virginia, my vote for anyone other than a Republican is essentially a waste. But I'm going to vote anyway. I don't know for who yet, it's too early to tell. All I have to say though, is that Kerry did not impress me in the debate. Yes, he's a better public speaker than Bush. Duh. But for being branded such a liberal, his opinions are still far more conservative than my own. *sigh* November will be here soon enough and I'll have to make a decision of whether to vote for someone I want as President, or to vote for the guy who will get the guy I don't want to be President out of the White House. I wish they were the same guy, but right now Kerry is just the later and he's got a lot of ground to cover to become the former as well.

So baseball is coming back to DC... I for one think the Senators never should have left, not that I was around back then, but yeah. But as it stands now, DC gets the Expos. The team who couldn't sell tickets in either Montreal or San Juan. And they're going to be playing at craphole RFK until their new stadium in "please don't rape, kill, or mug me" Anacostia gets built. This whole thing just reeks of no foresight. Southeast is not going to magically be revitalized because a baseball team plays there... Baltimore's Inner Harbor was doing well before Camden Yards was built and before the Ravens moved there. This whole thing just seems like Mayor "crackhead" Barry's doing... Yes yes, I know Tony's the mayor now, but still. Plus, everyone here loves the Orioles. Good luck new team...

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Outside smells like a laundromat.

I hope I'm not getting sick, but I feel like I've been kicked in the head by a zebra...

My day was going great today until I left work. Then it's steadily gone downhill. Even when I have a good day at work, my evening afterwards should still be better by default (because it's not work), right? But no no, not tonight. Tonight just got worse and worse. The only bright spot was talking to Emily. Anyway, I'm going to bed in the hopes that maybe my day at work tomorrow will suck really bad so my evening will have to be better by comparison.

Tonight is the first time I have failed to find a parking space at my apartment. I was warned by apartmentratings.com, but I liked the apartment and the location, so I moved in anyway. And I've never had to park very far away for my apartment yet. Until tonight when not only could I not find a space near my apartment, but could not find a space at all anywhere in the complex. I'm sure some of the garages are vacant, but I don't know which ones, and I don't want to block someone in. So I parked in front of the dumpster, and since the truck came yesterday to pick up the dumpster, I think I'm pretty safe. I just hope my car isn't gone in the morning. Nothing would suck more than having to walk to work when I wasn't planning on it, probably in the rain, and then go to the impound lot and pay a ridiculous sum of money to get my car back. It's not like I'm in a hospital zone or even a fire lane. I have a parking permit for my complex, so I should be able to park here. I'll be it's some asshole who has a garage, but parks outside anyway. Grr... Screw it, I'm going to bed. Here's hoping my car is still in front of the dumpster when I wake up.

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Well nuts!

I forgot to mention the cool things I brought home from Greenville. I also forgot to bring my ID badge and cell phone to work this morning, and yet I remembered to find a tack to hang a picture of me and Emily picking blueberries in Michigan - go figure. Anyway, I brought back a box of 2 Krispy Kreme donuts, half a tin of Key Lime Coolers from Savannah's own Byrd Cookie Co., and possibly the best item of all: The 7th and final Dark Tower book by Stephen King. It's a slightly delayed (due to the publisher's release date) anniversary present from Emily, but she told me about it a month ago, so I've been excited ever since. I almost don't want to start it because then I'll finish it and then there will be no more Roland of Gilead, Jake Chambers, Oy of Midworld, or Eddie and Susannah Dean. Of course I will read it and of course I will love it, but finishing it will be very bittersweet. Especially since the foreshadowing in previous books indicates that it's likely that only Roland will reach the tower, which means Jake dies for the third time, and the rest of the Ka-tet of 19 and 99 will have to perish as well. *sigh* I guess I will find out soon enough what happens to the fictional characters that have been like my best friends for the past several years.

Monday, September 27, 2004

Here's my pictures from Greenville! =) Captions are underneath each picture and the arrows will scroll across the top to more pictures. Enjoy!

Christianity: I realized this weekend that I feel very uncomfortable in churches. It wasn't just that the wedding was in an old church or a very traditional church. I just don't feel like I belong in a church at all. This is not a new development for me of course. It's been several years since I attended church regularly and even at my old church, I no longer feel I fit in there. Churches are supposed to be a places of worship, so they should feel spiritual. And I'm just not sure that god's many earthly houses need an indoor basketball court and a running track. Or an air hockey table and video arcade machines. Don't get me wrong, I think having a strong youth program is very important, I just don't think you need those things to do it. Most of my close friends were made at St. Matthews, but it wasn't the spirituality that drew us together. We could have been just as good friends had we all been involved in some other youth program together. By contrast, I've always felt very comfortable and welcome in other places of worship: Synagogues, temples, mosques, etc. They have always felt more spiritual to me and less concerned with ritualistic perfection than with reverence in worship. I have always been welcomed with open arms elsewhere and if I neglect to bow or don't know a prayer, someone next to me has always been happy to help me, rather than mutter behind my back about how poor a Christian I must be (admitedly, this hasn't happened in a long time, to the best of my knowledge). Having grown up overseas, it's a miracle I was raised Christian at all. If you like, you can blame all this on the fact that I went to a Unitarian church for a year in Indonesia. Or the fact that I'm an ordained minister with the ULC. There is certainly a correlational (though probably not causal) relationship between the latter and my lack of religion. Not to be confused with my lack of faith. I maintain a spiritual side of myself which I feel very strongly about. I believe there is a higher power, whether it be God, Allah, Buddha, Shiva, Ra, aliens, blackholes, Gaea, math, science, a unified field theorem, whatever. I have no doubt in my mind that there was some higher force at work in the creation of the universe and that somewhere in this universe, there is a single unifying thread, common to everything that exists that ties us all back to some single point source. But whereas most people choose to (supposedly) examine this possibility in a church, I choose to pursue the line of thought on my own. If a church is supposed to bring you closer to God and help you along your spiritual journey, why did I always feel like I was backpedaling in my pew, more concerned with who was watching me and whether I was singing correctly than with my internal search for truth? Being spoon-fed the gospel and programmed to believe without question rather than to critically examine the "word of god" full of its contradictions and find out for myself what I believe. As such, I have begun to identify more with Buddhist teachings than Christian ones - the search for spiritual enlightenment must begin from within oneself. I prefer to look for god not in a building, but in the stars at night, the symmetry of nature, the non-symmetry of a human face, the beauty of a forest on a crisp winter morning, the perfection of natural patterns, the hearts of my friends, and the cool blue eyes of the girl I adore. If god is truly love, I have already found god.

Weddings in General: It seems like everyone is getting married these days. Salvador's wedding was this past summer, I just got back from Laura's wedding, Meyer's wedding is in about 2 weeks. Kristin's getting married apparently, and my mom's youngest cousin Libby (who's really closer in age to me than my mom) is getting married sometime next year. It just has really gotten me thinking about my own future and how I want to spend the rest of my life. I look at myself in 10 years, and I see the quintessential "American dream." Wife, 2.5 kids, a dog, a house in the suburbs (not in Texas, Tim...), only replace the minivan/SUV/station wagon with my G35 Coupe and Emily's Saab. It is a foregone conclusion, of course, that in my mental perception of the future, Emily and I are married. I was thinking about that this weekend ('cause where better than another wedding to think about being married?). Traditionally, we men are supposed to be afraid of commitment and terrified of the M word. And yeah, a few years ago, I would have been really freaked out if it had come up in a relationship. But I think I'm at a point in my life where I'm prepared to commit the rest of my life to making one person truly happy for the rest of theirs. And yes, if Emily and I had started talking about marriage 8 months ago, I might have gone running for the hills. But it's been 13 months (today!), and things are going great, and I honestly can't picture myself growing old with anyone else.
So, with that in mind, we took a little time on Saturday night after the reception to talk about what kind of things we might want for our own wedding one day. With the most recent weddings, and Erin Leeth's surreal cave wedding, my cousin Jeremy's wedding to Sara a couple years ago, the Dempseys' backyard wedding, my uncle Tom's and Kaye's wedding, and Libby's older sister Missy getting hitched to Chris 'Biff' Wenzler all reasonably fresh in my mind (I don't remember my aunt Nancy's wedding to Phil when I was 3), I've put together my own idea of what kind of wedding I would want. Then add in all the stories from my parents' wedding and I've got a pretty clear picture. And of course, being a girl, Emily has had her own preconceived notions of her wedding ever since she knew what a wedding was. ;)
So we just threw around some ideas. And if marriage is about compromise, I think our wedding will reflect that. Emily's own Episcopal upbringing is in rather stark contrast to my own (rather lax) Methodist upbringing. In an upcoming post, you can see how I feel about churches... Fortunately for me, Emily has always had an outdoor wedding in mind, which I think would be awesome. So we talked about maybe having it in Savannah, which if you've never been to, you should go. It's a beautiful town with a rich history and tons to do. Just don't go in late July, it gets breath-stealingly hot down there. Neither of us want a really big wedding with tons of people or a traditional "by-the-book" sort of service. I'm not personally opposed to having a minister/priest marry us, but we discussed having a civil ceremony as an option too. I decided a long time ago that I would be writing my own vows. The biggest problem there will be keeping them under an hour long. I tend to get a wee bit palaverous sometimes when it comes to things like that. We decided it would have to be between late March and mid August so it didn't interfere with either Georgia Tech football or basketball. And I really loved what Jeremy and Sara did with making a CD to give everyone, and I know between the two of us, Emily and I would have no problem filling a CD. We talked about what else to give out as favors and what kind of cake we wanted (chocolate, duh). I dunno, I mean, I guess we're getting a little ahead of ourselves. We're not engaged yet, and maybe it's just residual wedding-energy from Laura's wedding, but I'm genuinely excited about the idea of marrying Emily and about planning our own wedding.
When Holly asked me a couple months ago if I thought Emily could be "the one" (not to be confused with Keanu "Neo" Ted Theodore Logan Reeves), I was sort of caught off-guard by it, and my mom was standing right there. To avoid any parental freaking out, I stuttered out something like "it's a definite possibility." I think if you asked me that anytime after I started working though, my answer has been a resounding "yes!" In my mind, it's no longer a question of if, but a matter of when and how. Of course, that's still up to me to propose, and for Emily to say yes. I'm not taking that experience away from either of us. I love Emily. I am in love with Emily. I can't imagine a future without Emily in it. And I plan to formally ask for her hand in marriage when the time is right.

Emily has suggested that this past weekend ranks as Second Best Weekend Ever, despite the fact that neither of us could remember what we decided the Best Weekend Ever was (it was MLK weekend 2004). There have just been so many great weekends since I met her. =) But since MLK day has an extra day, and is already Best 3-Day Weekend Ever and Best Long Weekend Ever, I think I'm going to place this weekend in a tie with it for Best Weekend Ever, at least for now. Upon further reflection, I might move it up or down accordingly.

Greenville: I was thoroughly impressed with the downtown area. Along Main Street are all these little shops and everything is well taken care of. The sidewalks are wide and there are lots of benches and plazas full of wrought iron tables and chairs to sit at. It's very pedestrian friendly, relatively flat, and there's some really nicely designed buildings. Laura's rehearsal dinner was in an old brick shell of a building (probably a warehouse or a mill) right down on the river. Just a little ways down from that was a bridge over a dam, and a little past that was a small but relaxingly beautiful waterfall. There was a suspension bridge built in a horseshoe that you could walk around to see the whole thing and right next to it was a nice park. Emily and I saw lots of people walking their dogs, or having picnic, or playing catch with their kids. And back on Main Street, as I mentioned before, a high school student put together this Mice on Main project, inspired by Goodnight Moon. So Emily and I found most of the mice. The weather was nice and the whole downtown of Greenville was so vibrant. I really applaud the chamber of commerce for creating such an inviting atmosphere. I'd love to go back and find the two missing mice and just spend some more time there. I had no idea such a charming little area was tucked away inside politically ass-backwards South Carolina. I give the town a 9/10 on the Places to Enjoy a Long Weekend scale. There's a lot of stuff going on there, plays, concerts, etc, lots of fountains, tons of fun architecture. Anyway, I'd go back to Greenville in a heartbeat. I'll post my pictures shortly.

Independence Air: This is the new "budget" airline based out of Dulles. Their flights aren't substantially cheaper than anyone else as far as I found, but it's always nice to have an extra option. And they did have flights at convenient times to Greenville, unlike Delta, United, Airtran, or anyone else really. Their operation at Dulles is a little sketchy though. They have a huge check in counter, but the 4 or 5 times I've walked past it recently, there's never been anyone there, passenger or staff. And they have these really slick looking self check-in kiosks, but they're not at the ticket counter, they're at the gates. How does that help you when you need a boarding pass to get past security to the gate in the first place? And at Dulles they herd all the passengers into a holding area with 8-10 gates. But they'll have 4 flights leaving the same gate within 15 minutes of each other. There's no jetway and you just cross your fingers you boarded the right plane on the tarmac. This is not the case with Independence at other airports, only at Dulles apparently. Their 50 passenger iJets (at least the little i in this case is justified and not just there to sound hip and techy) are on the smallish side, so if you're planning to take anything bigger than a laptop bag on the plane, either check it before security to save yourself the hassle, or just expect to have it taken away from you planeside. You'll get it back planeside though, so that was nice. The seats are standard economy size seats, but they're leather and quite comfortable. And in the exit aisle, there was plenty of legroom. I experienced none of the usual back spasms or pins and needles in my lower legs as a result of constricting the blood flow when my knees get crushed into the seat in front of me. While taxiing, instead of the flight attendant doing the safety demo, they got James Carville and some congresswoman to do it, about the left and right side of the plane. It was amusing the first time, but I'll bet that gets old really really fast for people who fly a lot. In flight they have a good selection of drinks and snacks. You get full size bags of chips or pretzels, not those dinky little bags of snackmix on Delta, or your 3 pretzels on Northwest. They also have fresh brewed iced tea, which I thought was good, but anyone south of DC would probably complain that it wasn't sweet enough. They as you begin your descent, they come around with hot towelettes and mints. I have to say service aboard the plane was fantastic going both directions. Their operation at Dulles leaves a lot to be desired, but from the look of things, they're busy working on their terminal, so I expect that will get better. The prices were about the same as other airlines for all the flights I was interested in, but if you were flying someplace else, maybe it'd be better. The planes are nice too. I'd fly them again for sure. For a comparable price, you get better on-board service and fast loading/unloading at the gate than almost any other domestic airline.

Sunday, September 26, 2004

Laura's Wedding: I arrived on Friday afternoon and Emily met me at the airport. We hurried back to the hotel to change, said hello to her parents, the Shayda's parents, and then were off to the church for the wedding rehearsal. Emily was reading some scripture, so I tagged along and resisted bringing my Gameboy to keep me company while Emily was busy. But instead I talked to Jason (Laura's brother-in-law) and a couple other guys whose wives/girlfriends were in the wedding party and who were sitting all alone and bored in the pews. Turns out one of them works at CSC in Fort Belvoir, so we exchanged cards so I can call him and complain when the CSC cards in our system start sucking up again. Anyway, the church was quite historic and well apointed with some nice stained glass and a brand new (very loud) organ. It was an Episcopal church, which is about as close to Catholic as you can get while still being Protestant. It's how most of Emily's family was raised, so it made sense for the wedding. See more on this in my next posts.
Anyway, after that we made our way to the river front for the rehearsal dinner. It was a pig roast and man oh man was it tasty! I was introduced to roughly a million people and smiled I politely and spoke when I was spoken to. I was sooo drained after all the socialness. But after a few hours I began to be able to recognize faces and pick out who was from which side of the family. I also finally ran into Mark Shayda. He's Emily's second cousin I believe. Mark and I ran track at Woodson together back in the day, but he's 2 years older than me, and in high school, being friends with a senior as a sophomore is a huge faux pas. But it was nice to see him and say hello. He's working for Northrop Grumman in the DC area. As I keep telling people: I had no choice, DC and defense contracting is where the engineering jobs are. But Emily and I had fun at the rehearsal dinner. We danced one slow song together and called it a night.
Saturday morning we got up to go to brunch with the wedding party and parents/grandparents of the bride and groom. It is impossible to go hungry in that family. Even if you're full they'll keep giving you food! But the house hosting us was really nice and they had an immaculate garden with a little goldfish pond/fountin in the backyard. If I spent all my free time gardening, I still could never make that happen. I can't even keep my pair of palms from turning brown. :( After brunch we went back to the hotel and changed. We watched the end of the VT/NC State game (poor hokies) and part of the Clemson/FSU game, took a walk up Main St to Jersey Mike's, and took a brief nap.
The wedding went quite smoothly. Emily's reading was well-recieved. Laura looked beautiful in her dress. Greg looked great too, but then, what guy doesn't look great in a tux with coat tails? It's impossible. You could take a bum off the street, put him in a tux and send him to a White House dinner and he'd be the bell of the ball so to speak. Not that Greg looked like a bum before. I'm just saying, tuxes make men look fabulous. The wedding party itself was huge. 7 groomsmen plus Greg's dad as the Best Man. Both a Maid and Matron of Honor (Laura's best friend and older sister (Jason's wife), respectively) plus 6 other bridesmaids. Insanity. The service was very traditional, straight out of the Episcopal prayer manual, but it was very sweet anyway. Laura was grinning from the time the doors opened when she walked down the aisle until the tiem she left the church and it brought a tear to my eye seeing how happy both she and Greg were and having spent a little time with them, knowing how perfect they are for each other.
The reception was a couple blocks away at the Poinsett Club (named after the guy for whom Poinsettas are named - I was so informed by a statue near our hotel). We had two huge rooms, tons of great food (especially the peppered chicken tenders and the crab dip and the fruit and chocolate fondue table. mmmmm!), and boxes upon boxes of Krispy Kremes as favors. The band was pretty good, although the singer had a mullet and kept saying "ice ice baby" all the time. I think he was still stuck in 1988 somehow. But after the party got going, Emily even managed to get me to dance with her for a good long while. She suckered me in with a slow song which became a bunch of disco songs and some classic 80s songs. The common misconception is that I don't like dancing. I do in fact enjoy it when there are enough other people doing it so that no one really notices how stupid I look when I try to dance. I know I suck at it (I'm white, I can't help it). I have no external rhythm, lots of it inside my head (unlike my dad), but when it comes to my motor skills, no dice. Maybe that's what attracted me so much to hardcore dancing. It's very basic breakdowns are easy to windwill and floor punch to. Anyway, it was fun, and the fact that I didn't step on Emily's toes (much) I'm sure was much appreciated. It was also really cute to see all the grandparents dancing together. And when the bouquet was thrown, Emily almost caught it. She had her hands on it but it was a little too high and Pam ended up with it. Greg did a horrible job throwing the garter though and I never even had a chance. Which was probably just as well since Mr. Taylor was eyeing me quite intently the whole time, but he was smiling good-naturedly at me, so I think as long as I didn't start punching people to catch the garter he was just amused that I was trying to catch it at all.
Sunday morning we got up to see off Emily's parents and we said goodbye to Greg and Laura. Laura was still all smiles (of course, she has been every time I've seen her, but she seemed to be smiling even bigger than usual), and their Carribbean cruise is still on despite the hurricane, so I'm glad they still get to take their honeymoon. Emily and I went back to bed for a little while and then went for a walk downtown again. There were 9 mice hidden on Main St as part of a chamber of commerce project that a student did for hsi seniro project. So we went mouse hunting. We found 7 of them. We knew one was missing due to construction and the other was MIA at a bank. But we had a nice walk all over town and down to the river and teh water fall. I'll post pictures tomorrow or the next day. Then Emily took me to the airport and we had a nice lunch before she drove back to Atlanta and I jumped on my iJet to head back to Fairfax.
Now I'm home and getting things put away and so forth. I wanted to post more tonight, but I'm too tired. But in a way, that's good. It will enable me to relive this past weekend all week long as I post more things about it. I had such a fun time, even though I didn't really know anyone. Emily obviously, and I've spend a good bit of time with a lot of the Taylor/Beard clan, and the Shaydas, but there were 250 people at the wedding, so that was a small percentage of people I knew. But I'm really glad I went and I know Emily is too. We both had fun and being able to see her every couple weeks makes this long distance thing a million times easier. Until tomorrow then (like there isn't enough here to read already...)

Countdown until Emily arrives for Fall Break: 20 days, 30 minutes. It's only been 5 hours and I already miss that girl like crazy.

I'm back from Greenville (pronounced Greenvul). I had a blast! Updates to come in the near future: Laura's wedding, Independence Air, downtown Greenville, Christianity, weddings in general. Right now however, I'm angry that the NFL ran long (I'm so shocked!) and I didn't get to see the Simpsons tonight, even though it was an old episode anyway. So I'm going to trim my hair and take a shower, then try and post some of the things above, and maybe some pictures before I crash.

Friday, September 24, 2004

I am going bonkers here at work. I'm planning to leave at noon, but every time I glance at my watch, I swear it's moving backwards! Anyway, when I do get out of here, I'll be off to Dulles and then down to Greenville for Laura and Greg's wedding. Yay! I'll be back on Sunday evening and if you need me you can try my cell. I'm not sure I belong at the hotel we're staying at, I think I fall short on the class-o-meter, but it should be fun anyway (since I'm not paying for my room). =)



Thursday, September 23, 2004

In honor of Laura and Greg's wedding on Saturday (and to kill the time until bed), I'm watching The Wedding Singer. I've posted about it before, so I'll spare you, but it's still a good movie.

Oh how I wish I lived in California sometimes:

I played poker with some guys from work last night. We were just playing Hold 'Em with $5 or $10 buy-ins, so there wasn't a lot of pressure. I won the first $5 round and then lost the next 4. In total I spent $35, but I won $30 on the first round, and including the fries and Coke that Dave bought me at *shudder* McDonald's, I figure I came pretty close to breaking even. Not bad for 4 hours of entertainment.

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

I'm surprised they let me fly! Since I own some of Cat Stevens's old LPs, I must be on the terrorist watch list too. And you really had to divert to Bangor? That seems a tad unnecessary... There really wasn't a closer airport with an open slot to land? Why didn't you just scramble the F18s to escort the flight to Andrew's AFB and then have him shot on site? "We're pretty sure he was hiding WMDs in his beard. Also, I never liked his music."

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

It's impossible to listen to Hatebreed and be tired simultaneously. They're not called bro-core because they lack catchy sing-a-long hooks and huge breakdowns and gang-vocal choruses.

Exhibit A: Perseverance
Your world is coming apart
Remain steadfast
Perseverance
Against all opposition
Crushing all limitations
Pure strength through solitude
Discipline and determination


Exhibit B: Before Dishonor
What makes you think everything is this world that you have can be taken
away?
In a world this day, it's kill or be killed.
I live each day like it might be my last.
In this lifetime few things are worth fighting for.
My Blood.
Your Honor.
Everyone has a destiny.
I'll choose my own.
I will not be a victim.

I've taken up the bad habit of chewing on pens when I sit at my desk, especially if I'm reading papers. I know that sooner or later, I'll accidentally gnaw through a pen and get ink all over myself, but in the meantime, it's having an unintended positive side effect. Aside from looking like I'm intently focused, I find myself breathing through my mouth instead of my nose. Usually, this is bad. It makes my lips chapped, my tongue dry, and my throat sore. However, since I have a coffee mug full of water at my desk at all times, I've found that I drink a lot more water during the day. This not only curbs my hunger, but keeps me more alert, and prevents early evening headaches caused by dehydration. So, I think I'll just stick to chewing on my pens thank you very much. I'm sure Dr. Brown, DDS would be furious with me.

Monday, September 20, 2004

Bill Murray is a genius. But, What About Bob? This movie always cracks me up. Now I want to watch Stripes and Caddyshack. Harold Ramis is also a genius, if I've never mentioned that before, though I'm sure I have, in relation to As Good as it Gets (thanks Emily!!). But instead of watching any of those, I'm going to bed. Working for 9.5 hours makes you really tired. Who knew?

It's time once again for everyne's favorite game show, Good News/Bad News!
First the bad news - it looks like Emily won't be graduating in August 2004. It looks like it will probably be December 2005 instead. :(
Now the good news - as a result, she will probably be doing an internship in the DC area next summer, so we'll have a couple months together up here before she goes back to Tech to finish off her degree. In a lot of ways, this actually works out very well. I mean, it's a bummer to have graduation delayed, no doubt. But if it truly works out like we both are hoping, it means that I really only have to make it until May without having her constantly nearby instead of August. Then of course another couple months apart, but it's the same total amount of time apart, and hopefully this way it'll be split up a little bit, and that should be great for us. :)

If I've changed in only one fundamental way since high school, it's to always look for the positive in a negative. Yes, I am still a cynic at heart. But thanks to bands like H2O, Stretch Arm Strong, Snapcase, Throwdown, Bane, Hatebreed, Earth Crisis, Minor Threat, Sick of it All, Shutdown, Most Precious Blood, and Avail, and more recently, as everyone seems to have noticed, thanks to Emily's positive influence on my life, I now look at the world with brighter eyes. :)

Observation as I was leaving work today: It smells like fall. =)

God damn it all to hell!!! So I was checking out ESPN for this week's college football rankings, when who should appear at the top of my screen? AJ Fucking Suggs. That's right. *deep breath* AJ "most worthless QB ever, can't run for shit, can't throw more than 10 yards with any accuracy, more INTs than TDs, why didn't he transfer back to Tennesee - oh right - Casey Clausen, wish he'd never stepped foot on my precious Grant Field, upstaged by a true freshman, wish I'd punched him in the face when I had the chance after the Auburn win, why won't Gailey put in Bilbo for more than one series?" Suggs. *phew* Apparently, Russel Athletic (yes, I know they provide GT's uniforms) decided he would make a good graphic for their tie-in with ESPN's Road to the BCS stuff. Why god why? Isn't there enough injustice in the world already? In case the flash header is different when you click on the ESPN link, here's a link directly to the flash file. I reccomend tying yourself to an immovable object at least 10 feet away from your computer before having someone else click on the link in order to minimize damage to yourself, your computer, and any innocent bystanders. I nearly kicked my monitor here at work off my desk. Also, I advise wearing a welder's mask to protect your eyes from the blinding sucktitude of Number 17. I hate you AJ "you can burn in hell" Suggs.

It was still dark when I woke up this morning. Though the air was refreshingly cool and crisp. And at least I slept well, which made getting up a lot easier. But I gotta say, going to work so early sucks, it powerful sucks, just like white-washing. But it's all for a good cause (no, not my paycheck) and this weekend is going to be so much fun.

How fun is this?


UPDATE (6:07 pm): Stupid GD Intranet won't allow you to view it outside the building. I just mirrored the image though. I would kill for that on a t-shirt. *crosses fingers*

Sunday, September 19, 2004

A minute ago there were two beautiful cardinals sitting in the tree just outside my window. I like having nature to look at while I'm sitting at my computer. Unfortunately, I scared them away when I tried to grab my camera to take a picture. Hopefully they'll be back though. Maybe I should stick a birdfeeder out there. If I took the screens off, I could easily lean out the window far enough to put it on a big branch without much risk of me falling. Hmm. I'll have to give that some more thought next time I'm at the store.

Turning Torso is a new skyscraper going up in Sweden and it is amazingly cool. I'm not a civil engineer by any means, but their methods of construction are fascinating. God bless the Discovery Channel.

Happy birthday to Batman and the Mayor of Quahog, RI! I mean, um, Adam West. I didn't realize he was pushing 80...

Can we just wipe the last 24 hours from the record? Nothing seemed to go right for me yesterday, and after *yawn* playing Metroid until 5 am, I slept horribly. I had bad dreams all night and finally just decided it would be easier to get up at 10 and go lay on the couch *yawn* and watch TV instead. Here's hoping today turns out better. *crosses fingers* Especially since I have to work earlier and later than usual this week to make up for the hours *yawn* I'm taking off on Friday for Laura's wedding, and I need a good night's sleep tonight to get me started, and I *yawn* need to be well-rested so I can enjoy the wedding and my weekend with Emily and not be totally drained the whole time. *yawn* Maybe I can go back to bed for a couple hours right now.

After rousing spins of a few posi favorites(Rituals of Life, Haymaker, Progression Through Unlearning, and F.T.T.W.), I've given up on going to bed since I'm playing old-school Metroid instead. I might very well be up playing still when the sun comes up. I forgot how kick-ass this game it.

Saturday, September 18, 2004

It has just not been a good day for me. I should have never gotten out of bed this morning. After mangling my ear, failing miserably to even find a parking space at Walmart, watching all my college football picks lose (or fail to beat the spread), hearing (on and off, thanks to the crappiness of WREK until Brian found a better audio stream) GT lose to ACC-whipping boy UNC, nearly knifing myself in the gut while trying to make cheese and crackers, over-watering my plants and soaking my carpet, slipping in the bathroom nearly cracking my head on the sink, and stepping on a bunch of my Legos, I've sort of given up the day as a lost cause. The only bright spots were the nice weather outside (although it was too windy to open my windows), my lunch/dinner from Wendy's, and the only thing that can always cheer me up: a phone call from Emily. I think I'm just going to listen to some posi-core and go to bed.

To hell with the following:
WREK, 790 The Zone, Yahoo, ESPN, Collegesports.com, and, as always, Georgia.
All I wanted to do today was listen to the GT/UNC game on the radio. Of course, no radio signals from Chapel Hill will reach up here, but the game was being broadcast on WREK and 790 in Atlanta, and you can stream the audio off their websites. Only 790's servers all crashed after being swamped. WREK's servers couldn't handle the load either, so that even on their 24kbps stream, I kept dropping the broadcast and it is taking forever to resync it. So I'm trying to just keep up with the plays on various GameTrackers, but they are all soooo far behind and sometimes just don't update at all. If I hadn't gotten Wendy's today, nothing would have got right so far and today would be a total wash. Grrrr... Why is it so damned difficult to keep up with my favorite sports team? I'd even pay for ESPN's GamePlan if any of our games were on it... But I will not pay for something that should be free in the first place, like a radio broadcast. Suck. :-\

Why oh why did I try to go to Walmart on a Saturday afternoon? I really should know better by now.

In an effort to be productive this weekend since my ear piercing project turned into a fiasco, I've replaced my windshield wipers and I'm off to Walmart at half-time of this OSU/NC State game to pick up a new air filter and some tasty tasty Wendy's.

So I finally got the 0g taper in, but the plug is apparently just slightly bigger than the end of the taper, because I can't seem to follow the taper through with the plug. I've tried several times. But now my ear is raw, bloody, swollen, and in an excrutiating amount of pain. So I'm giving up for the weekend. I know I can get the taper all the way through now, so next time I try, I'll be more patient and perhaps have more luck. If I left the taper in my ear until tomorrow I could probably get the plug through without much trouble, but then I'd have two mismatched earrings, which doesn't really bother me too much, but I wouldn't have a chance to replace the other one until the first weekend in October. And since I'm sure I'm going to be involved in pictures at Laura's wedding, I've decided to stay balanced for now and try again later. I guess after Emily's fall break is the first time I have 2 consecutive free weekends again. Oh well.

Friday, September 17, 2004

Stupid tornados touching down all over the place caused the news to be on intsead of The Simpsons... I don't care if there's a tornado 5 miles from here... I can see it coming in plenty of time to take cover if need be. Besides, if I'm gonna die, I might as well go watching The Simpsons, right?

Ow ow ow! My ears, as Emily can attest to, are too brittle. :(

Adam's goal for the weekend: Replacing my 2g obsidian plugs with blacklight-sensitive 0g blue plugs in preparation for eventually getting those sweet 00g turquoise ones put in.

I've developed the best way to keep myself from falling asleep when I get drowsy in the mid afternoons after lunch, especially on dark, rainy Fridays. I do laps around the building. When I worked at Coke, I'm certain that's all Gary Paisley, our division VP, ever did. He would just wander around the floor and peek in at what you were doing so it looked like he was just keeping tabs on everyone. In fact, I don't think he cared at all what we were doing, he just did it to keep up appearances and because when your boss's boss's boss comes to see what you're doing, it's intimidating. Needless to say, I'm nobody important at GD (yet), and therefore not intimidating (though maybe scary ;) ). So instead of making laps where people see me, I'm doing them up and down the stairs. I figure it's better exercise than staying on a single floor, and I'm not disturbing anyone either. My office is on the 7th floor. So I'll walk down to the 1st floor past the cafe, head outside through the smoking area for a breath of "fresh" air and a nice view of the lake, and then go back in the other door. Then I walk back up to the 7th floor. It's remarkably invigorating. Gets the blood flowing again to combat the drop in glucose levels. So rather than snacking on sugar-heavy things, I'm going to start mastering 6 flights of stairs (each way) for a 10 minute exercise detour every afternoon around 3 pm. It's healthier and I suspect more effective, though substantially less tasty, than candy.

Looks like I got to work just in time today. No sooner than after I walk in the door and push the up button on the elevator, the sky goes pitch black and opens up like the maw of hell unleashing its poisonous saliva. Okay, so maybe I'm hyperbolizing, but it actually was pretty cool how it went from overcast to torrential downpour in about a minute flat. Good thing I grabbed a donut instead of having cereal this morning. Fortunately, it looks like most of the remnants of Ivan are going to pass west of here, so might not be as crummy a weekend as initially predicted.

Take that, Republican logic! Not that I think Kerry's all that stupendous either, but a Democrat in the White House would at least balance out the Republican majority in Congress.

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Can anyone in the DC area suggest a good tattoo parlor? I know there's a couple in Manassas and Arlington, and Comes A Time in Fairfax City. Any thoughts?

More good works news today: I got my authorization cleared to go to Lockheed now. So probably some time next week I'll be out there and will get a new ID badge to add to my collection. Yay!

I love my job! My supervisor just came by my office to see how I was doing and drop off an assignment for me. His boss left about the time I started, so he's been doing double duty and has been rather absent in my daily comings and goings at the office. But he keeps saying that he wants to spend more time working with me and get me some fun stuff to do. So today he came by to do just that. He brought a whole stack of reading material for me to go through. I know, ew, yuck, thousands of pages of reading, right? Oh no, my friends, it's all books and articles on acoustics and audio processing theory! I tried to contain my excitement when he started talking about how he wants me to read through them all and become our resident expert on audio basebanding, narrowband processing, and OTO summation. =) He didn't say it, but I know from some other things I've been working on that he wants to redo all the signal processing in our system next year, so I expect I'll be responsible for a significant portion of that, generating all the baseline data, and calculating all the theoretical values for our testing procedures. Hopefully my knowledge and coding skills will be up to par by then. It's days like today that I really feel like I picked the right specialty in the right major at the right school and have definitely picked the right job. Yay for work!

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Addendum to teams I root against, from a few posts down:
I root against any team who spells the name of their school or their team name as any part of their cheer(s). For example: C-L-E-M-S-O-....................-N or F-L-O-R-I-D-A....S-T-A-T-E, Florida State, Florida State, Florida State, Uhh! Though I guess if I went to Backwoods State or Clown College U, I'd want to prove to people that I was litterate too. ;)

I also saw my uncle Bobby this morning. I was driving to work and there he was in the car next to me! So we waved hello and went on our merry (as merry as I get at 9 am) ways. I'll have to give him a call later tonight.

BitTorrent is my new best friend. I'm getting the Clemson game at a monstrous 400+ kB/s. At this rate, it'll be done in time for me to watch after work tonight! =)

Monday, September 13, 2004

Donut + Fresca = Happiness

And while I'm thinking about it:

NCAA Div. I-A Men's Basketball
Teams I root for, in order of precedence:
Georgia Tech
Any other ACC team (except Duke)
Xavier
Kentucky
Kansas
Anyone who's ever beaten Duke, in Durham
Pittsburgh
UConn (now that media-darling Emeka "my name is fun for announcers to say" Okafor is gone)
Georgetown
Marquette

Teams I root against out of sheer hatred:
Duke (I hate you Coach K, how do you make all your starters so damned good but have no bench? Still, the worst Duke player could carry the entire VT team...)
Georgia (I hate someone more then UGA? Huh, how 'bout that...)
Texas Tech (Bobby Knight - good coach, all around jackass)
Notre Dame (oh, now you want to be in a conference...)
North Carolina (is it just me, or was Roy Williams less pretentious when he was kicking ass at Kansas?)
IUPUI (I know it's petty, but get a real name already. I always confuse this school with Clemson's damned IPTAY.)
Stanford (pluralize Cardinal for pete's sake, or call yourself the Trees)

Within the ACC:
Georgia Tech
Virginia
Wake Forest
FSU (solely because of what Tim Pickett did last year)
Maryland
NC State
Clemson
Miami
Virginia Tech
North Carolina
Duke

Since many people have been confused over why I've been rooting for certain teams in college football, hopefully this will clear up my allegiances:

NCAA Div. I-A Football
Teams I root for, in order of precedence:
Georgia Tech
Any other ACC team (except FSU)
Michigan (half my family went there, I'm brainwashed)
Iowa (the perpetual Big "10" darkhorse – they do so much with so little)
Florida (tough in-state recruiting to begin with coupled with the loss of Spurrier and fireronzook.com still hasn't stopped the Gators from being a good team, and any team that consistently clobbers UGA is A-OK in my book)
Marshall (one of the most consistently good mid-major teams, plus - Thundering Herd, I mean, come on!)
Washington State (A cougar could beat a dawg anyday, and I dunno, I just like their logo I guess)
Oklahoma (Bob Stoops, 'nuff said)
Pittsburgh (they're so ready to dominate the Big East now, and panthers are just cool)
West Virginia (see above, except substitute dirty mountain men for panthers and smelly for cool)
USC (Are you Southern Cal, Men of Troy, USC, SC? Make up your minds, but in the mean time, keep winning)

Teams I root against out of sheer hatred:
Georgia (how 'bout them dawgs? Piss on 'em!)
Fresno State (they're over-rated, once again, and they're bulldogs too)
FSU (all the Rixmobile-incidents, the dirty play, and also, I hate the Bowdens)
Ohio State (a little luck now and then is a good thing. But OSU has won every game in the last 5 years, except their national title, based solely on luck)
Notre Dame (You're not special, just join the flailing Big East as a full member already. Or tell the Big East to go to hell and join the geographically more logical Big Te(leve)n, making them rename their conference finally.)
Auburn (pulling out of our schedule because they're a bunch of cry-babies, forcing us to settle for Samford)

Teams I want to root for, but they make it hard to like them:
Kansas State (they continuously let me down, and they're purple, but they won the Big XII last year despite inconsistent play - they're good, I swear)
Penn State (why do they suck so bad with such a good coach in JoePa?)
Texas (I know I know, I hate the state, but I like the team, and they're due, if only they could get past the Red River Shootout with a W)

Within the ACC:
Georgia Tech
Virginia
Wake Forest
Virginia Tech
Maryland
Miami
NC State
North Carolina
Duke
Clemson
FSU

Thanks to the magic of Extreme-DM's website tracker and Geobyte'sIP Address Locator, I discovered that I got a hit from Kuala Lumpur today! How exciting! =) I'm keeping my eyes peeled now for hits from Israel as well. Also, more people need to visit my blog between 3 and 7 AM, those poor early morning hours are feeling very lonely. Also, Saturday is feeling rather unloved.

I can feel a nap coming on already. Too bad I'm at work. I was in bed and asleep before midnight, didn't even finish my crossword. But then at 1 am sharp, I snapped awake and couldn't fall asleep again until nearly 3. Then I woke up at 7 this morning and just tossed and turned until my alarm went off. I don't get it. I was really tired when I went to bed. I was plenty relaxed and didn't have anything pressing on my mind (besides the fact that I have no food and need to go grocery shopping). I think maybe Good Night's Sleep and I are not meant to be friends.

Sunday, September 12, 2004

Caryn's camera took better pictures than mine did. Go here and here.

Playboy interviewed Buzz!

I hate Cox more and more all the time. Instead of the GT@Clemson game that their programming guide said was on tonight, instead they showed BC/Penn State on ABC. So even through I recorded 4 hours of football, I won't get to watch my Jackets fight back from certain defeat and then luck out at the end to win the game. Cox blows goats. Oh well. At least we won the game, and I got to see the highlights on SC.

College football:
Yay Tech! As SportsCenter put it: Clemson managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. True. But you know what? A W is a W. And scoring that much so close to the end fo the game is a very Joe Hamilton thing to do. As I said before, Reggie Ball plays so much like Joe it's scary, and I for one am ecstatic that our offense is even capable of something like that again. Also, yay for getting a helmet sticker from Reece Davis!
UVA - yay!
South Carolina - Boo! Why'd you have to let UGAg get away with that one?
Michigan - what the hell? losing to Notre Dame??
K-State - what the hell? I'm officially done rooting for you. You let me down way too much and I owe you no allegiance like I do with GT.
Iowa - Yay!
Florida - Yay!
Marshall - boo! The Herd had OSU on the ropes, but as usual, the luckiest damn team in college football managed to squeak out a win. Buckeye bastards.

Caryn and I had a fun time at the opera. The visually presentation was sort of befuddling in a couple scenes, but the story was good, and the lead vocalist had a great voice. I disgree with the ending - no one was gassed in the french revolution, they were guillotined, but that's creative license I suppose. In any case, it was the first live opera I've watched and it was a lot of fun, I'd definitely go again, but maybe next time we can skip the gaudy, Vegas-esque, cabaret/burlesque scene. That was just plain weird.that's a table, not a finger

Saturday, September 11, 2004

It's 2:30, I'm still in my pajamas, the apartment smells like cinnamon rolls, and the TV is blaring. It must be college football season. =)

Friday, September 10, 2004

Oh my god, Miami's new uniforms are so hideously ugly.

UPDATE (12:19 am): But at least that didn't keep them from winning. Go 'Canes! Boo F$U! The ACC title race is going to be so awesme this year. Miami, VT, FSU, and Virginia all have a definite shot. Maryland is a strong contender as well. Wake, N.C. State, Clemson, and GT will all be bunched up in the second tier. And then I predict Duke wins 3 this year, and UNC is the new ACC whipping boy, winning no conference games and 1 OOC game. Suckers.

My hair is now longer than it has been in over four years. Ever since I cut off my mohawk in August of 2000, I've been shaving my head closer than 1/4" every 1-3 weeks so my hair never got longer than 1/2" before I removed it. But after waiting almost a month to cut it last time, I only trimmed my hair using the 3/4" guard, and that was almost 2 weeks ago. And by the end of next week, my hair should easily be an inch long. I kinda like it this way too. As long as I comb it when I get out of bed every morning, it's stayed more or less under control all day. And now that I can run my fingers through it, all I want to do is let it grow another inch or two, dye it blue, and let it run wild. Or dye it bright red and spike it up everywhere. *sigh* Why is it that everything I want to do to my physical appearance directly conflicts with keeping my job? And I even work someplace with a pretty lax dress code, but I'm pretty borderline already, and somehow I just don't see blue hair and DEFIANCE tattooed on my knuckles going over very well here. Sometimes I think I should have taken that Hot Topic cashier job after all... On the other hand, I like being able to afford food, clothing and shelter. Some things are necessities, and then some things just aren't. Also, I hate Hot Topic more than Old Navy, Gap, and Abercrombie put together.

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Yay! More people are already coming to my "box social" in October than the one I wanted to have next weekend, and not even everyone's replied yet! I wish it was Emily's fall break already. But I guess for now I'll stick with hoping tomorrow was Sept 24 instead of 10 so I could be off to Laura's wedding instead. But it's all good because the opera with Caryn is this weekend, and that's going to be a blast! =)

Ah, my favorite part about linux and my rapidly (but not rapidly enough apparently) improving programming skills: Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Yes yes, nothing like trying to allocate more memory that your computer has faster than your dual processors can handle the swap space. I'd like to make an array of 6200 records, each containing an array of 14 chars, 48 chars, and 61508 chars. By my calculations, that comes to 381734000 bytes, not counting the random integers thrown in here and there. Huh. I wonder why my linux box can't handle allocating about 373MB of memory...

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

I need to go visit Emily more often (well, duh...). Friday morning before breakfast I weighed 180.5. Tonight after dinner I weigh 176. Must have been all that exercise walking around campus, at the game, and walking around the botanical gardens. Oh, and the um, other exercises I'm sure helped too. Also, Emily typically feeds me much healthier foods than I normally buy for myself. I guess "eat your vegetables" was the better answer afterall. ;)

I am the biggest dork ever. Fortunately, my new license plates comply with the Dennis Miller ratio, so that only other huge dorks will understand, and therefore appreciate, how nerdy, and therefore cool, my car is now.
e^(j*π) = -1

Yay for flowers from Emily!
Twix (and Emily) rules!!

Labor Day Weekend: A Synopsis
Friday: I was the 2nd to last one to leave the office, which I did at 4 pm. Went home, changed, and headed to the airport. I wanted to park in the economy parking lots because they were cheaper, but with the potentially approaching hurricane, I didn't want to have to deal with a lot of wind and rain when I got home, so I parked in the daily garage instead. My Gameboy kept me entertained while I sat in the airport and when I was allowed to use it on the plane. Coming up the last escalator at Hartsfield (sorry, Hartsfield-Jackson. It's just like me getting used to National being Reagan National Airport now, it's just not going to happen) I thought I was going to explode I was so excited. Emily met me at the airport with a bouquet of flowers (Twix bars with pictures of sunflowers taped on them - it was really cute) and I don't think I've ever been so happy to see anyone in my life. By the time we escaped the disaster area of Hartsfield's parking deck construction it was getting rather late so we stayed up for a little while talking and went to bed.
Saturday: We waited and waited for Emily's parents to call to meet us. But 10 turned into 11 before they showed up. Brian was in town for the opening game as well, and the plan was to go do some tailgating with him, but his grill wasn't working (that's what you get for using gas instead of tasty tasty charcoal) so we sort of scrapped that idea. We did meet up with him inside the stadium though and watched the game from our usual spot in the student section. The team looks good, but I don't really know how much of a test Samford was. Final score was 28-7, though I think it probably should have been 35-7, but Gailey doesn't like to run up the score when it's not necessary (except against Tulsa in the smurf-field bowl apparently). After the game we came home and vegged out for a little while. We watched the Clemson/Wake game hoping Wake would win, which they nearly did on several occasions, but in double overtime, at Clemson, the Tigers pulled it out instead. But Wake looks good again, and Clemson isn't living up to the hype (Surprise, surprise - there's a reason they weren't on my top 25. On a related side note, I'm currently tied for the lead in the Hive's college football pick 'em game.), so next week's GT@Clemson game ought to be really good. I'll miss it however since I'm going to opening night of the opera with Caryn. Then Emily and I got all dressed up to go celebrate our 1 year anniversary. On Brian's suggestion (from Valentine's Day) we went to Cafe Lily. It was soooo good, and really good sized portions as well. We each took home about half our meal and maybe a third of our monstrous tiramisu. We were supposed to go to a party that one of Emily's friends from Brussels was putting on, but we were both so stuffed we just came home and zoned out.
Sunday: Slept in until noon and then decided we wanted to go see the Atlanta Botanical Gardens featuring blown glass from Dale Chihuly. I'd never been, but was thoroughly impressed with the whole garden. And the glass was amazing. Some of the sculptures were just freestanding exhibits stuck in fountains, or globes floating in a pond full of lily pads, which were pretty cool all by themselves. But the really cool part was the pieces intermixed with other plants. And even though there were giant purple rods or crazy colored abstract flowers stuck in the middle of a field of green, half the time we missed them completely the first time we looked. I highly recommend checking this out, it's there until October I think. Afterwards we went back to the apartment. Emily started making Brunswick stew (mmmmmm) and her roommates started their BBQ outside. One full stomach later, we played Imagine Iff... which is a fun game, but I was at a distinct disadvantage, what with not knowing all of Emily's friends as well as they all know each other. But I didn't come in last, and we all had fun, and that's what really counts. After walking around all day in the sun at the ABG, we were exhausted, so one tickle-war later, we went to sleep.
Monday: Waking up next to Emily was great, but getting out of bed was really hard knowing it would be the last day for a while. It was really windy and overcast as the remnants of Frances worked their way north. But we went to the mall in search of new sunglasses for me and a watch for Emily. We succeeded on both counts, but the glasses I really liked were $45 (and made by Tommy Hilfiger - I know, I'm as surprised as you are) instead of the $20 pair I just liked. So of course I got the $20 pair. But any pair of sunglasses is better than my broken ones. Then we got all dressed up again because we forgot to take a picture the night we went out to dinner. After I packed up, we had the leftovers from our anniversary dinner before Emily took me back to the airport. It was much less crowded and everything was going great until the flight crew showed up late, so we left late, so I got home late. And the flight was really bumpy almost the whole way home. My mom had set my thermostat above 80 when she left, so my apartment was rather sweltering (you'd think I'd be used to it after spending the weekend with Emily and their broken air conditioner, but no). I took a shower, put on the CD Emily made me, and crawled into bed.
Tuesday: As I mentioned below, waking up this morning (even with Emily's CD still playing) was really hard. Rolling over to punch the alarm clock instead of rolling over to put my arm around Emily is really depressing. And getting out of bed alone, getting dressed, and getting in the car go to work just made me want to keep on driving (and tropical depression be damned) until I got to Atlanta. I made a mental note to ask some of the younger married guys at work if that crushing emptiness subsides after you've been married for a while, or if you always feel horribly depressed when the girl you love is no longer in your arms after hardly leaving them at all for a couple days straight. Especially since, as I think most of you know by now, Emily and I are planning to get married someday (no, we're not engaged, yet - keyword here is someday). =)

All in all, it was an awesome weekend, I just wish the day(s) afterwards was/were less lonely. But I have a brand new CD to keep me company and some great memories to roll around in my head and one of my favorite movies to watch and remind me of Emily. And Laura's wedding is coming up pretty soon though, and that will be a lot of fun, and I'll be pretty busy until then, so the days will pass quickly. And then only 19 days after that, Emily will be up here for her fall break. And with any luck, we'll see each around Thanksgiving, and then she's got a month off for winter break (I get the 24th and the 31st off, plus any of my 3 leave days I have left if I haven't used them up getting sick yet). And so by the time she starts school for Spring semester (which doesn't have nearly enough built-in vacation time), it's only a little over a month until Valentine's Day, and then another month until Emily's spring break. Then my birthday at the end of April is close to the week off between spring and summer. And then there's Memorial Day, July 4th, and before we know it, it'll be August 5th and Emily will be a college graduate with a great job lined up in the DC area and a great apartment to share with a great guy (well, okay, with me). ;) And when I look at it that way, either today or for the next 11 months, it really isn't so bad. And if we plan it right, I don't think we'll ever have to go much more than a month without seeing each other between now and her graduation. And that my friends is a very comforting thought.

On the plus side, it's only 19 days until Laura's wedding and 18 until I get to see Emily in Greenville, SC for the above named occasion.

I know I've said it before, but it's as true today as it was over Thanksgiving. After spending the whole weekend together, not being with Emily makes me feel empty inside. :(

Back home, tired, going to bed, better update coming tomorrow.

Friday, September 03, 2004

I'm off to Atlanta for the weekend, barring any hurricane-related delays. I'll be back late monday night, also barring and hurricane-related delays. Call my cell if you need me.

Thursday, September 02, 2004

I would just like to say that my new GameBoy is incredibly bad ass and it's taken every ounce of willpower I have to resist the urge to play it (it fits quite comfortably in a front pocket, even in my snug cords) during my booooooring meeting this morning. A meeting that lasted from 8-1 and is actually still going on, but we covered all the GD stuff before lunchtime so now it's just up to Lockheed to explain to the EB people why all the documentation they submitted is wrong. So after falling asleep around 3:30 am, and then getting up at 7, it's a miracle I made it through the meeting at all. I did fall asleep twice, but after I saw someone else nod off, I didn't feel too bad anymore. So, now, on with the rest of my day. I'm hoping to make it til 5 today so I can bill the extra time and then leave early tomorrow to get a head start on traffic as I make my way to the airport to go to Atlanta! Yay! I get to see Emily for a whole 72 hours!! And there's a football game and Brian will be in town as well after fleeing the wrath of Frances. Labor Day weekend officially rocks and it hasn't even started yet. =)

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Hooray! According to the email I just got, my EB order just shipped. It's not updated on EB's site yet, but I'm going to trust the email for now and raise hell later if they're lying to me. With a little luck, my new GBA should be here in time to accompany me on the plane to ATL this weekend. =)

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  • I'm Rev. Adam
  • From Oakton, Virginia, United States
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