Anybody Got a Light?

This is my dad at church on Christmas Eve. Thankfully he waited till after the service to put these on. Tiffany isn’t the only one that has weird family. Though I think she probably won with her parents running around the dinning room like horses.

Why It Gotta Be A BLACK-Out!?!

Today at work; not so great. It started out pretty well. There wasn’t too much traffic on the way. I did get beeped at twice while waiting to get out of the Eckerd parking lot. Someone didn’t want me to wait for the pedestrian crossing in front of me. A little after I got to work Darrell got a call from Sarah that she is going to be at the bus stop at Ikea soon and she needs picked up. I think she missed her normal bus. It wasn’t clear when she would be there because she left a message. When he tried to call her back she wouldn’t answer. Of course everyone wanted to be the one to go get her. We should have taken a bigger group it would have been even more fun. It was Darrell and I that went to get her. We pulled up to her and she totally didn’t know it was us. She just kept standing there while Darrell was banging on the window. She got it after a few seconds and climbed in. So we went back to work. Darrell and Sarah make me laugh a lot at work; it was a fun car ride. That was the fun break of the day. When I got back a few of us went to give blood. That was the not fun break. No big deal till I was done and they let me up from the chair. I walked over to the cookie table and as I sat down I was feeling hotter and hotter and rather light headed. I said to Mary Anne that I wasn’t feeling well and put my head down on the table. The next thing I know I hear Kim, the head nurse, calling my name asking if I can hear her. I heard her call my name about 5 or 6 times before I could answer and even then it was really hard to open my eyes. It was a new experience for me; I’ve never passed out before. It would’ve been cool if it ended there but it was another hour before I left. I was back in the reclining chair for quite awhile. Every time they put my feet down I kept getting really hot, nauseous, and dizzy again. Finally, on the third time, I was well enough to go sit in a normal chair. I sat for a while at the cookie table drinking as much juice as I could. I felt well enough to go back down stairs after a few minuets. I went down and sat at my desk going through waves of cold and hot, dizzy and dizzier. After sitting there for about 40 minuets and everybody asking, a lot, if I’m okay I called home for my parents to come and get me. I could barely stay in the chair let alone get any work done. I’m feeling a little better now. I’m still a little dizzy but I was able to eat dinner and of course write all about my exciting day. I’m just sorry that I didn’t get the chance to say “goodbye” as I blacked out. My brother did that once and that made the nurses pretty upset. I told everybody that story before we went up. I was going to do it but I thought I was just going to vomit not loose consciousness. Too bad too, I don’t plan to get the chance to do it again.

Indian Fall

I’ve had some interesting “Indian” experiences the last few weekends. It’s not as packed full of Indian fun like my friend Greg’s weeks are. He was just sent to India by his company. He wasn’t as excited about it as I would have been. He got really sick on the trip home from his last excursion to India. He ended up in the hospital for 3 days when he got back. He thought that would be a good enough excuse to not have to go back. But a few days after he got back from China the CEO of the company thanked him for being willing to go back to India, and so soon too. So, I’m sorry Greg that you missed our safer Indian experiences.

Two weekends ago I had my chance to experience Jaljeera. How exciting after the review it got from my friend Lori. I went to the apartment of a friend, Ratna. She is a co-worker of a friend of mine that likes to play Scrabble. She had a scrabble night and I was invited. My friend, jokingly, demanded that she make Jaljeera. Extra crispy at that! Of course she made it. It reminded me of a drink that I had tried in India. I was given a glass of sugar cane juice in a social situation that I couldn’t refuse it without really insulting the guy. The juice is squeezed from the sugar cane with an old, rusty, oily press with water that was clearly not going to get along well with the bacteria in my stomach. But it was too late to refuse so I just prayed that it wouldn’t kill me (this is a good example of learning to pray without ceasing). I know what those of you that have tried Jaljeera are thinking. A glass of seawater is almost as salty as Jaljeera, wouldn’t sugar cane be sweet? The sugar cane juice was sweet with pockets of extreme saltyness. The same flavor spice as in Jaljeera. I didn’t make it through the glass, of the Jaljeera or the Sugar Cane juice. Paul was able to drink his whole glass. Way to go on that Paul. After that I was so shaken that the best I could do in scrabble was to loose with less than 1/3 the amount of points as Paul whom also lost to Ratna. I did much better during the rounds of Uno. I should mention that the Chai, Gulab Jaman, and the other things that they served were really good and made me think fondly of India.

Then this past weekend I found out that the latest Aishwarya Rai movie Umrao Jaan was playing in a theater in Pittsburgh. Actually I found that out at Ratna’s apartment. So I asked my friend Chansonette if she wanted to go see it, knowing her love of Indian things. So we got a small group together to see it Saturday night. When I was a few blocks from her apartment I got a frantic call from her that she and her friend were looking online and the movie wasn’t showing. Crapski! When I got to her place it had been confirmed. So we rented another Ash movie from an Indian grocery store. On the way there her Indian friend found out about my time in India and asked if I learned Hindi. Then informed me after I started to speak in Hindi to her that she speaks Telagu. Which was just as well because the 2 sentences that I got out were about as much as I remember from 2 years ago. Anyway the movie was Mohabbatein. It was a lot of fun, had Big B, Ash and Arukh Khan. It was much better to watch at home (Jeanette’s home actually) because we talked and commented on and laughed all the way through the Love story. I can’t wait till we can do it again!

AWW TAGIT!!

I know that you posted this a long time ago, Tiffany, but here are some of my answers. There were a lot of questions. So I decided to cut out some of them and do the more interesting ones.

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE:
1. Lab Tech at Univ of Pittsburgh
2. Building Manager at my Church
3. EMT
4. Lab Consultant for a Hospital in India

FOUR JOBS YOU WISH YOU'D HAD:
1. CIA Field Agent
2. Green Beret/Navy SEAL
3. Doctor (surgeon)
4. CEO/President of a HUGE company. They don’t have to do any real work.

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN:
1. The Long Kiss Goodnight
2. Matrix
3. Mystery Men
4. Bride and Prejudice

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN:
1. Delhi, India
2. Raxaul, India
3. Pittsburgh, PA
4. Washington, DC

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH:
1. Studio 60
2. Heros
3. The Unit
4. My Name is Earl

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION/TRAVELED TO:
1. Disney World
2. London, BABY!!
3. Cancun, BABY!!
4. Maui, Hawaii

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY:
1. BBC News
2. Tiffany’s blog
3. Dave’s blog
4. World of Warcraft.net

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS:
1. Garbage Plate from Nick Tahoes
2. Permanti’s sandwhich
3. Skittles
4. Cookies

FOUR THINGS YOU WON'T EAT:
1. raw meat of any kind
2. Jaljeera
3. Coffee or anything coffee flavored
4. Goat brain. (One of the Docs in Inida wanted to make it for me. Lucky for me he never followed up on it. Though the word is that it’s really good.)

FOUR PEOPLE YOU’D REALLY LOVE TO HAVE DINNER WITH:
1. Kofi Annan
2. John Stewart
3. Aishwarya Rai
4. Tiffany, cause holy crap you’re funny!!

FOUR THINGS YOU ARE THINKING RIGHT NOW:
1. My throat hurts
2. What the heck will I do for the Peace Corp
3. What the heck is “bringing sexyback”
4. Why does the video I’m streaming keep freezing up!?!

My Friend's Best Wedding

My good friend Pam was married on 10/21/06; 10 days ago. It was a nice wedding I suppose. You shouldn’t take that as an insult in any way Pam. Though, since she never posts a comment, I have no idea if she ever really reads this. I think I just don’t get the ceremony. I’ve been in 3 weddings, best man at 2 (always the best man never the bestest man), and it’s mildly fun if you are standing up front. Plus as best man you hold the ring. But watching is not nearly as fun. Especially when your friend/date (were you my date?) who is in the wedding talks to you like you have any clue about what went on behind the scenes but really you’re totally lost on who/what the heck she is talking about. So anyway they said their “I do’s” and that was that. I did get to sit in the back of the sanctuary with a friend from college that I haven’t seen for a while with his new baby. So that was good.

The reception however was one of the best I’ve been to. This is largely because of the live band. The food was pretty good and the open bar was nice, though I only had wine with dinner because I was driving. The band was awesome! Instead of the normal DJ where you get tons of top 40 that nobody really likes, with a few slow songs thrown in for good measure, they had a live band. It was a lot of funk style music. They were really rockin’. I’m really not into dancing that much so I stayed off the floor for most of the first set. I was pretty much ready to leave when I got too close to the dance floor and was ordered by the bride to join in. I ALWAYS have fun with Pam so I went out on the floor. I stayed the rest of the night. It was so fun. We even dragged Lori out onto the floor. It was a fun night.

The band was Brass Taxi at www.brasstaxi.com. If you are having a wedding in the Rochester area you should totally get them. I don’t know how far they travel but if you are having a wedding anywhere they don’t go then that’s sad for you.

"How did it turn out?"

"Hello!! The two most beautiful women here!!"

Pledge THIS!!

A few days ago my friend Dave put a post on his website that I wanted to reply to. As I was writing my comment, I quickly realized that it was probably going to be longer than the original post. So rather than have a really long reply I thought I would just blog about it. His post with the comments is at: http://onegeek.net/blog/2006/10/25/abstinence-pledges-dangerous/#comments . Here is the post itself:

Just read an interesting news piece on abstinence sex education and pledges in the US. It noted that 88 percent of pledge takers had sex before marriage and that were less likely to seek STI testing and less likely to use contraception when they did have sex.

There is a saying that we geeks use: Correlation does NOT prove causation. I hate all statisticians and laugh at everyone that tries to use statistics in an argument.* Statistics can be a useful tool but much they aren’t the last word. Like a hammer is only useful for nails, a statistic has very limited scope and application. Though that limit is almost always ignored. Most would say that this statistic proves that Abstinence Only education is ridiculous and kids will just do it anyway. That’s not what it says. What does it tell us? This number speaks only to success of the program in its current state. This number is useful in evaluating the teaching of our children. What are the numbers of the “war on drugs”? Why haven’t we given up trying to stop teenage drug use? They keep using drugs, why not just assume they will do what they will do? What about teenage drinking? So what if they like to drink at parties? Why hasn’t anybody used the drug and alcohol abuse statistics to prove they should give up?

Because failure means you need to try something different, not give up! When “Just say no” wasn’t enough, they show commercials with a guy frying an egg. If that’s not enough show them Whitney Houston (if she isn’t a walking anti drug commercial, I don’t know what is!). So stop saying that failure is proof that it can’t work.

The Abstinence Only program needs to take some cues from the Drug and Alcohol people. Don’t just tell them “Don’t do it”. That doesn’t work for anything. They need to give the kids tools to keep them out of situations where the decision is already made for them. Help them make good choices about making out all night in a car, at a party (with drugs and alcohol), or in the hallway at school for 4.5 of the 5 mins they have between classes. They need to be taught how to have a healthy, nourishing, loving relationship. They need to be taught how to deal with the emotions and hormones raging in their bodies. The reason that they don’t use contraception or get STI testing is that they are ashamed of their actions. Don’t teach them they are failures for not keeping their promise; teach them the forgiveness of the Father when we fail.

WE are the failures when we don’t support our kids in their own decisions.

*I don’t really hate all statisticians. There’s one at my church that actually has a good sense of humor.

11 Books

About a week ago my blog friend, Tiffany, tagged me. So here are my answers to the book-tag. I enjoyed doing this as well as reading her’s and Dave’s answers. I would like to hear from a bunch of people on this. But I really only read 3 other people’s blogs. I’m not popular like Dave and Tiffany. So I will Tag just 3 people:
1. Lori. Even though she told me not to. But since you have time while you’re home, you might as well.
2. James. If his reading is like his music taste, I’ll have a bunch more suggestions to read.
3. Heather. Because she is the only other person’s blog I read. Also I’m sure that she and Mike (her husband) will come up with some good answers.
Too bad my librarian friend Carrie doesn’t read this. If she does and wants to post her choices I will post them here. She will be my first guest blogger.

11 Books:
1. ONE BOOK THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE?
Blood Brothers by Elias Chaccour. I read part before and part after I spent 5 weeks in Israel and Palestine. It’s the story of the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1949 from the perspective of a 6-year-old boy and his life of living/dealing with it. Though it didn’t happen that summer, that book and trip put me on the track of relief/development work. It’s why I went to India, why I applied to the Peace Corp, and why someday I’ll do something to help people in poverty.

2. ONE BOOK YOU HAVE READ MORE THAN ONCE?
The only one is the Bible. I don’t re-read books. There are too many good ones out there to waste time reading stuff over and over. Though I watch movies multiple times and I bet books would be good the second time too. Plus I read so slowly that re-reading will take up so much time.

3. ONE BOOK YOU WOULD WANT ON A DESERT ISLAND?
I used to say War and Peace because it’s long. But that’s not really a good reason. As a “classic” I’m sure I would find it boring and would just end up imagining car chases and things blowing up. I think a better one would be a survival book about what berries to eat and what leaves you shouldn’t use to wipe your butt. Other wise a good Tom Clancy novel.

4. ONE BOOK THAT MADE YOU LAUGH?
From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple. It’s about this guy’s journey through West Asia visiting ancient churches. The funny part is when he talks to the Greek Orthodox priests, they tell him that he’s going to hell because he’s catholic and that the Pope is the antichrist but welcome to the church. Then he visit’s a Catholic church and they talk about how the Orthodox will all burn in hell. I was laughing out loud on a 1.5 day train ride through India.

5. ONE BOOK THAT MADE YOU CRY?
This is a bad question for me. Pretty much anything even slightly sappy makes me cry. It would probably be a shorter list of the books that didn’t make me cry. Some that made me cry for real and not just water my eyes: Too Small to Ignore by Wess Stratford, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (HE KILLED LENNY!!), Where the Red Fern Grows (which I read 2 years ago), Deliver Us From Evil by William Shawcross (about UN in the ‘90s).

6. ONE BOOK YOU WISH YOU HAD WRITTEN?
The End of Poverty by Jeffery Sachs, though I don’t really agree with everything that he said. The problem of poverty is bigger than economics but that’s as good a place to start as any other. I hope that if I have the chance I will write a book that will slap people in the face like that one does. It’s such a wake up call and I think that every world leader should have to join a book club and read it.

7. ONE BOOK YOU WISH HAD NEVER BEEN WRITTEN?
The Da Vinci Code. Though not for the reason you are thinking. It shattered the illusion for me. Before that book was so popular I thought that Americans, as a whole, weren’t stupid. Boy was I wrong. I mean do you really have no concept of the difference between fiction and real life? Not even good fiction, poorly written fiction and real life. Entertaining and all but we have to have better books than that, what will English teachers of the future, like Tiffany, torture our kids with?

8. ONE BOOK YOU ARE CURRENTLY READING?
I’m reading 2 books now.
One is J is for Judgement by Sue Grafton. This is a popcorn novel and I hope you don’t judge me too harshly for reading it. I just wanted something to read while I’m on my lunch break at work. I can read a few pages and not get lost if I don’t read it for a few days.

I’m really reading Too Small to Ignore: Why Children are the Next Big Thing by Wess Stratford. It’s about how children suffer even more than adults from poverty and usually get the short end of the stick when it comes to relief agencies. Awesome book and it may be changing my view on what I want to do with my life. Which is no good because if I don’t get moving then my life will be done before I figure out what to do with it.

9. ONE BOOK YOU HAVE BEEN MEANING TO READ?
One just isn’t enough. These aren’t in the order I plan to read them:
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafifi, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (though I’ve heard him speak and that almost changed my mind), The Curious Incident of the Dog at Midnight by Mark Haddon, The World Is Flat by Thomas L Friedman, and a ton of other Aid/Delivery books. Of course now that I’ve read Dave’s and Tiffany’s lists I have a ton more books that I have to read.

10. ONE BOOK YOU'RE GLAD YOU OWN?
The Bible, Too Small to Ignore, Blood Brothers, The End of Poverty. Pretty much all of the ones I own. We take owning and reading books too lightly. Though I’m not real proud that I own I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris. I didn’t enjoy it if that makes it any better. I was thinking of Tom Clancy the whole time…

11. ONE BOOK THAT MUST BE READ ALOUD?
Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi; a Funny Kids book.

I'm Not Dead Yet!!

And I won’t be stone dead in a moment either. No my injury from my bike ride wasn’t fatal. Though my new job may be. I do have a “new” job and it made August go so fast. I have been working for a scientific supply company. I have been going through the catalog regrouping and re-categorizing items so that they can be found more easily. Though this is not intellectually stimulating it isn’t too bad a job. I get to sit at a computer with an internet connection all day. My first computer couldn’t play You tube but I was able to get a different one; without tech support or anyone else knowing. (My most recent finds are Chad Vader and “Ask a Ninja”.) The people that I work with are pretty fun. There are about 20 people in the room with all the computers around the walls. We aren’t in cubicles so we get to talk and goof off a good amount. For the project that I’m on, we have no goals. As far as I can tell, I can do 20 lines in my excel file or 1000 lines in a day, without worrying about trouble with my boss. In fact after the first week it was 3 weeks before I saw my boss again. Also any changes that I make are just suggestions. At least 2 people will review them before any changes are made in the actual catalog. So it pretty much doesn’t matter what I put in, they will decide later if they like it or not. Over all I do like the job. We laugh a lot. Though there really aren’t any good stories to tell. That’s why I haven’t written for so long. It feels like so little happens from day to day. It’s hard to write about so little.

A few things have happened in the last month and a half. About 6 years ago 5 friends and I started a roller hockey team. The team has existed year round for nearly 6 years. I am the only founding member still playing. (Though clearly I had a few breaks for India and DC.) We were never a very good team. One could for the most part expect to win 1 maybe 2 games a season but we were having fun. This summer we won the Championship!! It was really very amazing and exciting. There is a girl at church that I like, though I’m fairly certain that she doesn’t like me. I have been medically cleared by the Peace Corp. I am fit to go off by myself to the middle of the wilderness and try to help people. I even freaked out about how I’ll be all alone in the middle of nowhere. Can I handle that?!? Well rest assured that after a short talk with Lori I’m pretty much back on track. Ready to go, if they call me. Also I have an interview tomorrow to work in a research lab. The description was for basic stuff. I pretty much expect to be offered the job. I will have to decide if I want to take the job or if I want to wait and see what the Peace Corp comes up with. I can tell the Peace Corp to put me on hold for a year if I want. I’m not sure yet what I’ll do. I guess I’ll wait till I get an offer to make the decision.

I think that’s about it for the month. I want to say something about another year passing since 9/11. I’m still saddened whenever I think about what happened; during that day and in the time since. I pray for the families of the victims of that day and of wars that have come since. I pray that one day, the world will learn not to hate so much.

Don’t Take your Feet Off The Pedals.

The picture below is what happens when you do. I should warn that it’s not a nice thing that happens. View at your own risk. It’s not like my leg is falling off but there’s some blood.

I went mountain biking last Saturday with my friend Ben Cramer. I was told that people that go biking with him get hurt. But there was a 3rd person with us so I figured that he would get hurt instead of me. Though it was my first time and I was borrowing a bike, whereas he had his own mountain bike. So I should have known it would be me. It was really fun even though I was scared to go down most of the hills. It drizzled most of the morning keeping us pretty cool. Thank you, Mitch, for letting me borrow your bike. I hope I didn’t kill your breaks.

What’s The Score Now?!

I’ve been playing soccer once a week for the last month. Most of the people I play with work at Univ. of Pitt. I knew some of them when I worked there a few years ago. Some of them work in labs and some of them are computer geeks. One of the guys is the fed ex deliveryman for our buildings. We have a large range of skill levels. We have a couple of people that are really good, like the fed ex guy. He played semi-pro in Scotland before he came to the US for School. But he has bad knees so he couldn’t keep playing at that level. We have a few of us that played in high school. I fall into that category. We are skilled and can make some plays and when we can’t we just push each other over. Then we have the people that basically never played before. When the ball comes near them, they pretty much kick it as hard as they can in what ever direction they are facing. Some of them tend to hurt everyone else. I’ve had a bruise on my knee all week because some girl kept kneeing me. I know it’s not cause she likes me because she was kneeing anybody that came near her when the ball was near by. I don’t remember how many goals had been scored when we finished but it was 3 crotches to 4 faces when we finally quit. As one of the crotches I can say with authority that we didn’t win.

I didn’t score any goals. Here’s why:


The girls club Frisbee team was stretching/practicing behind the goal I was shooting at. A little distracting to say the least.

Below are some more pictures from soccer. They are all from water break because I was too busy getting kneed and hit in other areas of the body during play to take pictures.

I do have to mention that I’m writing this while I’m at Pete’s Night of Crafty-ness. It’s the knitting ring that I started a few years back. I’ll write more about that later…

What Up Chris!!

Don’t Hate Me Cause My Pictures Are Beautiful

You have to read that like Fabio. I don't know if that came across well.

Well, I finally entered the 20th century. I bought a digital camera. I don’t want to say where I bought it because a certain friend of mine doesn’t like the company. But I can probably tell you because India is blocking blogspot for some ridiculous reason. It’s probably because of Dave’s blog. It has all his crazy talk about HIV and peace and c%$#%#ms. So, I can tell you that I bought the camera at Best Buy. She doesn’t like Best Buy because she tried to buy a camera there while signing up for a Credit Card with them. But the screwed it all up and I think it did something to her credit. I learned her lesson and skipped getting the credit card with them. It’s a Sony and it takes pictures and videos. I took some pictures around the house and they looked good. I haven’t done any videos yet. I’m going to take it to soccer tomorrow and take some pictures and maybe video and see how it comes out. With this camera I can take tons of pictures and show them to everyone, posting them on the internet for all to see. I just have to remember to bring it with me.

That'll Piss You Off

I’ve gotten my security deposit back, more or less in it’s entirety. My landlord kept $25 saying that he had to fix the dings I left in the walls. $25 isn’t that much so I just let it go but he’s so full of it. Lor, did we leave any dings in the wall? We were pretty careful. Anyway, now that I have it back I figured I’d compile a list of things that would defiantly piss Eric off if he knew about them; things that would probably have created more of a problem with the security deposit.

1. I used to take drinks and snacks to my room every night. He always said that he didn’t want us eating in our rooms. He was very protective of his house. He kicked one guy out because he was too messy. I never ate dinner in my room. However chips or ice cream and tea or hot chocolate or pop were regular visitors to my room.

2. I adjusted the temperature in the house. He told me once that I wasn’t to touch the thermostat. He liked to think of himself of as the house dictator but really he was the house dic… Anyway, cold days got more heat and hot days got more AC.

3. When the furnace was broken I used the oven to heat the kitchen. He would have spazzed out if he had known the gas wasted in the use of the oven as a space heater.

4. Along those lines, I had a space heater in my room. Even if I turned up the thermostat my room was still cold. So I just got a heater. Though with the heater I didn’t need to adjust the thermostat anymore. He would have liked that.
5. I did way more laundry than he thinks I did. I had to wash my work clothes in a few loads every week. He thought that washing clothes in the washing machine was bad for it. I wasn’t wasteful. I wasn’t just washing one sock at a time.

I think that’s it. Only 5. I thought there would be more. Well anyway, I’m happy not to live there anymore. I did like the other roommates there. I just couldn’t stand Eric.

Nightmare on Romine Ave.

Not as good a title as the real movie title. I wonder if the movie started out with a different title. I wonder if they would have made so many movies if they had used a different street name.

So I’ve been having some weird dreams lately. Like last night I dreamt that Lori had 10 new posts on her blog that I hadn’t read. That’s weird because that usually happens with Dave’s blog. Though Dave’s posts are usually short and cryptic. I’ve also recently had dreams about waiting tables. They tend to be ones where all of my tables fill up in the first 30 seconds of opening and the first table I go to can’t even order drinks. They take forever deciding and then try to order their food at the same time without having even looked at the menu. I remember Dr Turner talking about Nightmares about Organic. I never had dreams about Organic Chemistry but this must be what it’s like.

I’m starting to despair. I know it’s only been a week since I sent in the remainder of my medical packet to the Peace Corp. But I haven’t heard anything. June is approaching quickly. I’m worried that I won’t be assigned to this project. Not so much because I don’t like anything else that they have (I don’t really know that much about the project at hand), mostly I just don’t know what I’ll do between now and the next project’s leave date. I better not think too much about it. I’ll probably just get more nightmares.

"Yes it was all very exciting. Tomorrow we'll go to the zoo."

Well, Lori is back in India now. Actually I just assume that she made it. I haven’t heard from her. Her flight was on Saturday. I miss her already. I’m bored now; I don’t have anybody to do anything with me. Last week was so nice and busy. We went to the zoo last Tuesday. I hadn’t been for well over 10 years. It was much smaller than I remember. We also didn’t bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like my family did in the old days. But it was fun none the less. We saw these really cool sea dragons. They were pretty funky. The brown bear was playing in the pool but most of the rest of the animals were sleeping. The petting zoo was a little disappointing. We got to pet a deer but the kangaroos all huddled in a corner and could only be reached from outside their fenced in area. We skipped the goat and sheep pen. The weather was turning bad at that point. The rain did hold off till we were on the way out.

We also went shopping for wedding dresses. Our friend is getting married in October and both of us are hoping to make it back to the country for it. Lori is going to be one of the bride’s maids. So she was trying on a dress. I was just along for “the fun”. The woman at the shop wasn’t very nice or helpful. She couldn’t be bothered to tell Lori about how long it would take to do alterations on the dress. She couldn’t even tell her what size she should get. I’ve walked into Kaufmann’s and had the guy know what size pants I would take. Seems to me this woman should have had some insite or thoughts about weather she should go to the next size or not. We were looking spending a couple hundred dollars for the dress and alterations. One would expect to have some help from the staff. The dress and colors have now been chosen. I’m sure the decision was made largely due to my input on color schemes and dress designs. The rest of the afternoon we went to various shops getting things that Lori wanted to take to India.

But now she’s gone and I’m bored and lonely. I’ll probably have to get a job while I wait to hear from the peace corp. Last week I did what should have been the last medical test for my incompetent Doctor, whom I will never go to again. Of course I’ll probably have to call them everyday for the rest of the week to make sure that they mail in the forms; using the pre-address, postage paid envelope. Also the Dentist took the last X-rays last week. So now I just have to wait and see if I got it all done in time to go in June. Though for me to be able to go I have to find my passport. I’m not sure where it is since the move. That has me a little worried, as it will expire before I’m supposed to return. I want to renew it before I leave. Plus not finding it will only make it more difficult to get a visa for whatever country I end up going to.

Elephants

Where'd he go!?!

mmm, Loriiiii

The deer liked lori's hand. She must have smelled like hamburger from lunch.

Sea Dragons

These were pretty cool. I'm disappointed with the picture quality though.

What do you say to a Giraffe?

The Cheeta, or Lepord, or...

People would walk up to pens and name the wrong animal. I wasn't sure if I should correct them in front of their own children.

Nobody Asked Me!!

I just want to take a second to tell you all that Cingular sucks. They have been doing this ad campaign where they claim that they have the least dropped calls. They definitely didn’t ask me about dropped calls. I don’t think I’ve had a phone conversation in the last month that went more than a minute where I didn’t lose all signal and then drop a call. I’m not even talking about when I’m in the basement or driving through mountains. I mean when I’m sitting on the front steps of my house and I have 3 bars and then the next minute I have no signal. I’m also a little bitter about the whole “more bars in more places” thing. That’s not really happening either. Verizon should defiantly call me. I’d be happy to do an advertisement for them about how bad Cingular is. Of course, we wouldn’t be able to plan it out because my phone would drop the call before we got anywhere with the concept.

Moving Ill!!

I’m now back in Pittsburgh. I moved on Saturday. The move went about as close to plan as one could expect (“I love it when a plan comes together”). We left only 1.5 hours later than I wanted to. We were actually done packing the truck by, 10 like I had wanted, but then it took time to get everything cleaned up and the last few things into the car. All cleaned up and $100 of gas later ($75 for the U-haul and $25 for my car) we were on the road. The drive up was pretty un-eventful. We arrived in Pittsburgh at a good time. The rain didn’t catch up to us before we got everything unloaded. It did start to rain in DC just as we were getting the last boxes in the truck but really only Mark got wet. I had plenty of great help. Thank you to Mark, Lori, Doug, Ryan, Jen (J-Diddy) and my parents for helping in DC. Thanks to Lori, Mark, Melissa, Dave, Jenn (J Lo), Mom and Dad for help in Pittsburgh.

The night before the move was great. My parents and Lori arrived during the after noon. I showed them around the house that I lived in for the last year. Then we went to get the Uhaul truck and then met Jen, my twin sister-in-law, for dinner. We went to an Afghan Kabob place. The food there is really good. It’s in Springfield, VA. You should go if you are in the area. Then Lori and I went back to my place to meet up with a friend of ours from college and his brother. We sent them to the liquor store while we stopped at the grocery store for juice to mix with the alcohol they bought. We were up till about 130 playing cards and catching up with which of our friends are getting married and who doesn’t like whom. We laughed a lot. I was a great night; it reminded me of our late night card sessions from college, except for the drinking.

Mark was in usual form having plenty of quotes to make us laugh. The best I added to my quote board to the right.

DONE!!

I no longer work at the Fish Market! I’m very excited and happy. Sunday was my last day. It was a glorious day. The sun was shining, the birds singing and I had a song in my heart (I think it was See My Vest from Simpsons). We had few customers. I thought it would be a late start since everybody was a church. But I thought that after the terrible chore of church for the second time in a year (Christmas) that it would get busy. But, thankfully, it never did. It was hard to say goodbye to many of the people. It was a good ending though.

Dinner with the Thai people is tonight. It was just Janna at first. But now it’s going to be a few others too. I’m looking forward to it.

In Peace Corp news: things are pretty frustrating. I needed dental x-rays but they made me gag every time they put it in my mouth. So my dentist wrote very clearly that it was not possible. They sent back my dental packet saying that they need the x-rays that my dentist said couldn’t be done. Plus my doctor in Pittsburgh seems incapable of even simple tasks like faxing requests for medical records. I have had to call them so many times to find out if they got the information or not. They never did any follow up with the VA to see why they didn’t get the information they requested. Today I’m going to the VA to get a few more lab tests done. This time I’m going to see if I can have the results sent directly to me so that I can just take them right to the doctor myself. This doctor is really pissing me off. I just want to go and take my Peace Corp forms back from them and get someone else to take care of it all. Well I better stop now or else I’ll just get angry again at the ineptitude of my doctor.

Wireless-less

I’m at Panera Bread where they have free internet access. Exept for today when it’s not working. I just called the help desk and she said yes, we are aware that it’s down and I can’t say when it will be fixed. How annoying is that?!? I may have to go to another store or (shutter) the library(where I’m pretty sure they have wireless). So hopefully it won’t take too long to post this. If all else fails I’ll do it when I get home.

Not too much has happened in the last week. Pretty much everybody at work knows that I’m leaving on Sunday. It’s hard to explain to some of them what I’m doing/where I’m going. Especially since I don’t know. But I just tell them vague things and that seems to do. They keep asking me if I like Asian girls and if that’s why I’m going. Well, I do like Asian girls but that’s not really why I’m going. Though, I usually just say yes, that’s why I’m going. These last few days at work have been pretty bad. We are really busy now because the weather here is nice now. When the weather is nice our sections get bigger because we have extra tables outside but no extra people to help out. So it’s been kind of crazy because I haven’t gotten a good rhythm down for handling all the tables. Plus yesterday I worked with a bartender lazier than I am and a server that’s not much better. Usually I can get some help from the other servers if I need but not so much from these two. One of my first tables got me all screwed up because he ordered the wrong thing and then complained when I told him that I would make the change and it would take just a few minuets to fix it (who do they think I am, Bullwinkle?!? Hey Rocky, watch me pull a crab cake out of my hat!). But in the time that took I had 2 other tables come in and then I just kept getting behind and couldn’t catch up. I was pretty unhappy the rest of the day. Today was better. I was training a new guy today. I like doing that. It’s fun and if the person is good then they do like half the work for you. It was easier to keep up with everything today. 3 more days of working at the Fish Market. That’s a good feeling.

Next week one of the other servers is taking me out for lunch or dinner at a Thai place. She is Thai: well half Thai, her mom is American. I’m really looking forward to it, except for one thing. I want to get her a gift but I don’t know what to get her. I should point out that she is married. So this isn’t a romantic encounter kind of thing. I wouldn’t say that we are really close but I do have a fondness for her and I will miss her. So I have to think of a good gift before Wednesday. I’m taking suggestions, if anybody has some. Something that will remind her of me. Maybe I’ll just go to the mall tomorrow and see if I can find something I like for her. That’s usually how I shop for people, I just walk around the mall and see if I can get inspired. That’s not always an easy process as Dave and Lori and attest to from Hawaii and Dili Haat. But usually I’m pretty happy with what I come up with. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

FREEZE (SUCKER!)

As I stated in my last posting I went to Pittsburgh last week. It was an AWESOME week. If for no other reason, I wasn’t waiting tables at the Fish Market. There were, however, many other reasons it was great. But I’ll stick with the restaurant reason for the minuet. This break came at a particularly good time. I was yet again at the point where I hated everybody that came into the restaurant. Pretty much for no reason other than they came into the restaurant. My one friend laughs at this saying that they come to give me money. My answer to that is, No they don’t. They come in to try to get free food and leave crappy tips. I can’t believe how many people come in and want to just try a few shrimps or scallops. Do I look like I own the place? Do you think there is a big tub of shrimps in the back where I can just take a hand full and give them to you and nobody will notice? I should take a moment to point out that not all customers are idiots. But apparently, there’s a high correlation with my tables. One of the other servers noticed that I don’t have much patients for people. So it was good that I got a break.

There are other better reasons that this weekend was so good. The main one being that I got to see my friend Lori 3 days in a row. I spent most of Thursday with her at her parent’s house. We mostly sat around and talked about life and her reasons for staying in India for another year. The chief reason seems to be simply that she’s not ready to come back yet. I’m happy for her that she can stay. She had trouble working out her work situation but it seems like she was able to get everything all set up. I’m also glad that she’s staying because the Peace Corp might station somewhere near her. How fun would that be for vacation?!? I can pick Dave up on the way to visit Lori. Or we can just meet in like Thailand or Greece if Pam will come. Friday we went to Phipps Conservatory (Professor Plum did it), and the Carnegie Museum. Neither of us had been since school field trips. Then we went for some irreverent fun at the Church Brew Works. It’s a restaurant that was built in an old church. They brew their own beer. They say they do it there but I don’t believe it. There isn’t room there for the output they would need. The beer was good, no matter where they brew it. Then on Saturday we went to see Ice Age 2: The Melt Down. It was funny and not too crowded with mall rats. Then we went to Houlihan’s and tried some special beer they had. Not that great: don’t remember the name of it though. But the conversation was good.

I was also pretty successful with the doctor and the dentist. I wasn’t able to get the x-rays that I needed at the dentist. He didn’t have the panoramic machine and the other ones kept making me gag. I gag really easily. So I have to see if I can get one done here in DC without it costing too much. I’m also waiting to get my lab results from the VA sent to my doctor. I think I might have to go down and just get them and fax them myself. I have tomorrow off so that might be how I fill my day tomorrow.

I also got to see my parents and some other friends in Pittsburgh. It was my parent’s anniversary. My dad got my mom a Mylar balloon that when you hit it sings, “Still the one” (we’re still having fun, and you’re still the one). Very cute and totally a gift that my dad would get.

So that was my week. Lori told me that I should blog about my trip to the VA hospital. So I might have to see if I can do that.

Another Month

Wow! It’s been a month since I last posted. That’s weird because a lot of things have happened over the last month. I had my interview for the Peace Corp. It went really well and they are ready to send me away for 2 years. It looks like I’ll be posted to Central Asia, Something-stan, as Dave and I have come to call it. I’ll know more when I’m medically cleared. The basic description I was given of the project was educating health care workers about AIDS safety. If I can get all the medical stuff done then I would go on this project as soon as June. If not then I might not go till November. I really don’t want to wait that long. So I’m in Pittsburgh right now trying to get it all done. I tried to do it in DC but when I went to the VA the PA I saw just gave me attitude. She was all upset about me not having a folder with my complete medical history. Next time I fill out a questionnaire on my health I’m just clicking all the no boxes. They don’t need to know about my knee surgery, do they? So I came up to Pittsburgh for 5 days. I saw the family doctor that I saw in high school and college. I haven’t been there since ’99. She didn’t seem happy about that but I’ve only been to the doctor once since then and I didn’t go there because I didn’t have insurance at the time. She was also upset that I had so many forms to fill out. She didn’t think there would be so many. This is a government program, what did she expect? Tomorrow I’m going to see the Dentist. He is a guy from my church here in Pittsburgh. I called to make an appointment and left a message on the office voice-mail because I kept calling and they didn’t answer. So the dentist called my parents and said that they didn’t have an opening but would work through lunch for me. I wonder if I can have pizza delivered to the office as a thank you. They shouldn’t be too upset with me; until they find out that I haven’t been to see a dentist in probably 3 years. But I’ll try to say that with pizza in my mouth and maybe they won’t hear me that well.

So after I make the dentist upset, I’ll get to the third and biggest reason I came to Pittsburgh, my friend Lori. She’s back for a little vacation, from India. She just finished her first year in India and is going back for another. It was pretty clear from phone conversations and her blog that she was coming back for good and then all the sudden she announces that she’s staying back for another year. So I’m interested to hear the story. I’m going to have dinner with her tomorrow. I’ll get the truth serum ready so I can find out all about the husband that she has found (see my blog description).

The other thing that has happened is that Dave is back in India. That’s good for 2 reasons. Now when I’m in Something-stan in a few months I’ll be able to visit Dave and Lori for a vacation. Also I can call India pretty cheaply. So during my time left in the US I can call him and annoy him for much less money.

I can’t wait to not have to work at The Fish Market any more. I’ll miss most of the servers I’ve been working with but I won’t miss ANY of the customers. I’m moving back to Pittsburgh at the end of April. Back to live with my parents for a few months till I can leave with the Peace Corp.

That’s pretty much the major happenings of the last month.

L. Paul Bremer

I’ve been going to some book discussions lately. I rather like being in DC for them. I skip the poetry ones but I’ve been to three: one with Jarred Diamond (wrote “Collapse” and “Guns, Germs, and Steel”), one with the ambassador to Italy during the early ‘80s (wrote “Mission Italy”), and now L. Paul Bremer for “My Year in Iraq”. (I should note that I haven’t had the chance to read any of these books yet.) It was good to hear him speak. It restored my hope. It was really good to hear from somebody that was there and in the thick of what was going on. He was there and knows the score. He told us about how the Parliament is working for democracy and how there is hope. He told us how things are better there and how they will continue to improve. It won’t be over night like the press and many in our congress demand. It’s not a short-term mission; it will likely take decades to be over. I hope that we “stay the course” or rather than having improved anything we will only see it get worse. I really enjoyed hearing him talk.

I was upset that I got there about 15 min. late. Even though I left about 1.5 hours before it started. Coming back took about 45 mins. One thing that I won’t miss about DC, when I leave, is the traffic. I’ll miss the cool book discussions though. Its cool being in a town where there’s always something going on. I don’t know where I’ll be going next, yet. I have an interview at a lab at Ohio State U. It is in Columbus where my older brother and his wife live. It’s hard to know if I’m interested in the position or not. The description given is pretty generic and not really helpful. The interview won’t be till the 6th or 7th of March. So it will be a little bit till in know more about that. If I don’t go there, I’ll likely go back to Pittsburgh. I’m still applying for the Peace Corp. either way. I got that application submitted just after Christmas. I have an interview on Tuesday. I’m interested but I’m not sure what they will send me to do. I guess I’ll have to ask all my questions on Tuesday.

So Sad

Sorry guys. No funnies today.
I had heard about the bombing of the mosque, The Golden Dome, in Iraq on the radio. I didn’t really think much about it. Nothing new there, right. Just another bombing sounded like no big deal, we hear about them so much. When I got home today I was hunting through the paper for the comics. On the front page of the comics section (not really sure why this was in the style section) were before and after pictures of the mosque. If I can figure out how, I’ll attach some to this entry. It made me want to cry. Oddly enough I didn’t. Even though I’m rather girlish and cry at movies all the time. The complete destruction of this holy site is breath taking. I know that so much has been written about Iraq and everybody has an opinion on the whole thing. The opinion that we don’t hear enough is how truly sad the situation there is. These people are brothers; these guys share practically the same faith. Yet, this is how they treat each other. One can understand the bombing of the soldiers. Though it’s a poorly thought out view, they may see them as occupiers. But to bomb your own countrymen, because of their faith…? If they can’t be led out from their current line of thinking then there is little chance for any real change. I think that’s where all the planning has failed. The planners and leaders viewed these people as westerners with western values of “tolerance”. I use quotes there because we haven’t gotten it right yet, though we tend to do a little better. I can’t help but think about the middle ages: The wars between the Catholic and the Protestant church, the Spanish inquisition, the Crusades… It all sounds like they are still stuck back in the middle ages, that they haven’t come out of them yet. Then I think about Ireland and the racism that exists here and realize that we the West haven’t gotten it so right either. I don’t want to go on much more. I mostly just wanted to say how sad it makes me to see what’s going on.

I’ll have to keep praying. I didn’t see much hope when Ariel Sharon was elected and he took the first real steps to change the status quo in decades. Some days it feels like praying is all I can do. Some days it feels like all that can be done is to pray.

Fact or Fiction?

I don’t know if you heard, but recently one of the authors that wrote a book that made it onto Oprah’s book club has been disgraced. One would imagine that being on Oprah’s book list would be enough but… The book was A Million Little Pieces. It was supposed to be a memoir about the author’s terrible life growing up. I don’t know who broke the news or how it got out but apparently it was pretty much all made up. He even went back on Oprah (apparently he was on the show as part of a book tour) and tried to defend himself. Oprah was acting all self-righteous and saying how hurt she felt, and really laying into him. (I should note that I don’t watch Oprah, they showed clips of the interview on The Daily Show. The most reliable news source I watch.) He was just saying that maybe not all of it was exactly right and that he may have changed parts of the story. I’m not sure what the big deal is. I mean if Dan Brown has taught us nothing else; he taught us that Americans have no ability to tell fact from fiction. I recently finished reading The Da Vinci Code. By recently I mean about 2 months ago. I read it at the urging of my friend Lori. She used the old “Pete, it wasn’t a very good book, you should read it” trick. So I read it and I’ve got to say that I understand why it was popular. It was short with short sections. It was not complicated. It was all about a conspiracy, even better it was about a religious conspiracy. Not that good over all though. I can’t believe that it’s been on the New York Times bestseller list for like 148 weeks. Definitely won’t ever be used to torture high school English students. I should write a book. I can write at least as well as Dan. I even have a plot in mind. I’m hesitant to say what it is. I mean, my blog is so widely read and I don’t want anybody to steal my idea.

I also recently finished End of Poverty by Jeffery Sachs. It was a very good book. Dr. Sachs talks about the possibility of ending the extreme Poverty that much of the developing world is stuck in. He has some great things to say. Though I did not agree with all of it. He says at one point that the Indian election of 2004 that resulted in Manmohan Singh becoming Prime Minister was largely the result of the population of India wanting economic change. On the list of reasons that people would give, that would be the last reason if it even made the list. The reason that Dr. Singh became Prime Minister is that Sonia Gandhi was the face for the Congress Party (in India they elect a party that forms a coalition government, the party picks a Prime Minister). Most voted for Sonia Gandhi because she is a Gandhi, even though she is Italian and married a Gandhi. That and the threat that if the BJP stayed in power, for like a 3rd or 4th term, they would be able to pass really strict laws about converting religions and laws about if you aren’t a Hindu then you aren’t Indian. That’s one of the rumors that was going around at the time. He also seemed somewhat naive about that prejudices of the US against Russia. He was surprised that the US government didn’t want to help Russia when the communists fell. People didn’t like Russians, just because they were Russian. I was also disappointed about one section where he says that someone he knows is having success using anti retroviral drug in the Caribbean to treat HIV/AIDS. One reason given for drug companies not just handing out the medicine like candy is that you have to take it on a specific schedule, which you can’t do without a clock. But that this guys has had success with treatment even in such a poor area. But there wasn’t any reference to a paper or even to the guy’s name. I was rather disappointed that I couldn’t find anything about it. For the most part I really enjoyed reading the book. It’s not any easy book to read. It’s not as simply written as Dan’s book. But it was an excellent book and I hope that important people that make foreign policies will read and listen to the book.

When You Should NOT Go Out to a Restaurant

I’ve been inspired by my friend Tiffany to do a public service announcement. She also works in a restaurant (in another state). She has, on a number of occasions, written on her blog about actions that are NOT acceptable behavior in a restaurant. So here’s one from me.

If you are not able to control your kids, do NOT take them to a restaurant. The restaurant is not a playground for your kids. The staff are not baby sitters for you kids. You should not let you kids run around the restaurant, up and down the stairs, too and from the bathroom. They should not be left to stand in the middle of the doorway to the kitchen so that everybody has to walk around them. If they cannot sit for 1 hour while you eat: 1 eat faster, 2. go to McDonalds, 3. don’t go out. I would rather not have your sad measly tip then wait on your unruly kids!

If you hate your kids or they are giving you a headache, you should NOT go out to a restaurant. I don’t want to have a headache from your kids either. I also don’t need your crappy, rude attitude that you bring along with your headache from your misbehaving kids.

I am your waiter. I am there to bring you stuff that you ask for. So when I come and ask if you are ready or if I can help you decide, you can answer: yes or no. However yelling NO!! is not an acceptable response.

If you are too stupid to read the whole flyer, and miss the writing 4 inches below the list of happy hour specials that says that you have to be at the bar for them. And then your waiter goes to the manager and convinces him to make and exception this once. Then you should say thank you, Pete for saving me $3. You should not get more upset when I explain to you that I saved you the measly $3, you should SHUT YOUR MOUTH.

Also I understand that some waiters/waitresses are rude. They give the good ones a bad name. But unless they laughed when they dropped your food on your lap, then keep your mouth shut when you leave and see their manager. You should definitely not complain to the manager when your waiter got you the $3 off your meal (even though you are too stupid to read the flyer and don’t really deserve it but he has been working all day and just wants you to shut up). And if you are too stupid to tell the difference between yourself and the waiter (meaning that you were rude the whole time and the waiter wasn’t ever rude) you should NOT tell the manager that the waiter was rude.

I hope that someone has found this educational. If I’ve helped even one waiter/waitress, then it was worth it.

This was somewhat cathartic. I’ll have to do more posts like this. Thanks for the inspiration Tiff.

Happy HolidayS

That’s right. Happy Holidays. I had 2 great holidays this holiday season. I hope that you all did too. I say that because there has been a controversy this year about a “War on Christmas”. I think that the media has too much time on their hands. I’m pretty sure they should all have to wait tables full time as well as be a “journalist”. Then maybe they would stay with real news. Apparently President Bush’s card said Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. (This is news?!?) And he was getting all this static about it. First of all I’m sure that he never even saw the card until it was on the news and even then I’m sure he didn’t really care about it enough to look at it. Even if he did see it I guess they were all forgetting that it’s a “Holiday Season” with Christmas, and New Years. I would mention the others as well but it was only the “Christians” that seemed to be making a stink. I’m surprised they didn’t raise the question of bad intelligence from the card people calling it Christmas-gate.

Anyway, as I was saying, I had a good time this year. I drove up to Pittsburgh from DC to see my parents and my little brother and sister-in-law. I drove up after getting out of work early. It took less than 5 hours. It was clear driving all the way up. I wasn’t really looking forward to it. I hadn’t gotten into the Christmas spirit yet. I had been in a pretty bad mood, because I had been working 2 waiter jobs. I started at a Japanese restaurant. Other than yelling WASABI! a lot it pretty much sucked. I didn’t like the managers at all. So I quit 2 days before I left for Pittsburgh. My older brother wasn’t going to be around and I didn’t think I would get to see any friends so I just thought I would be sitting around my parent’s house for 4 days. Little did I realize that that was exactly what I needed. I arrived just before my parents got home from the Christmas Eve Service. I wished I could have made it for that but we got to sit and talk for a little that night. Christmas day was nice. The Service at church was nice and I got to see some people and catch up a little with them. Some of the people that I had hoped to see weren’t there. My aunt and 2 cousins came over for dinner at lunchtime. One of them brought his girlfriend. She pretty much sat there and didn’t say anything except when directly asked a question. Then they left in the middle of the afternoon and my little brother and his wife J-Lo came over and we opened gifts. It was a good evening. Then for the next few days I just hung out and drank lots of tea and hot chocolate and really enjoyed having a few days off from work. Then back in DC for New Years. We had a party at my house. I wasn’t really looking forward to it. I don’t mind parties so much; it’s having them at my house that I don’t like. You can’t really show up late and you can’t leave early. Though it is easy to hide upstairs in your bedroom when you get over stimulated. But it was fun. We played Texas Hold ‘Em, some spades, and Fussball plus there was good food. Also people didn’t stay till 4 am like I thought they would. Most left by 100 or so. I was able to go to bed at like 130 and wasn’t kept up by the few people that were still there. I would have stayed up longer but I had to be at work at 10 am. I ended up with a huge headache too. I only had 2 glasses of champagne. It went away after 4 Advil. I also met someone at the party. Didn’t kiss her at midnight but nobody did that. What a lame party, no booze and no kissing. Anyway, I’ll be looking for her at church. She was white, though, from Arkansas. But she was cute with short blonde hair. Not rich but she had a good job. So, not an Indian princess but I still liked her. Anyway, I hope that you all had a good Holiday Season too; no matter where you were for Christmas or how far ahead of me you got to the New Year.