Daniel E. Renfer’s Blog

I woke up rather early, and Amanda is still asleep, so I guess now is as good a time as any to write a post. I was kinda tired last night, so I ended up going to bed around midnight. I usually set my bedtime for around 2:00 am., which is still hard to get used to, considering I used to get off work at that time.

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We just got back from Garden City Café not too long ago. I didn’t intend on going to Garden City Café when I left. (I almost never intend on going there.) We wanted to go to Cole’s. We hadn’t been to Cole’s in quite some time. It’s far away, but I like it there. We were both hungry, and didn’t mind the drive. Unfortunately, when we got there, it was closed. I don’t know why they weren’t open. It’s not Sunday. It’s Monday. Unless they were closed for Valentine’s Day.

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Amanda has the car right now, so I’m stuck here at work for my lunch break. I thought about walking up to Subway again, but instead I just got a chicken sandwich out of the vending machine. It wasn’t that good, but I guess it will do. I still have a little bit of time before I have to punch back in, so I want to see how much i can get written in that given time period.

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I feel like writing for a bit before I go to bed. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything substantial. My posts as of late have been more of the random thought nature, or various links that I’ve found. I’ve been trying to fill more of the role of the average blogger, and less the inane drivel of a Livejournal user.

This new installation of Wordpress has made me very happy. I like having the added ability to include pingbacks and trackbacks. I also like the fact that I now have a more complete control over my content. I could include Javascript into one of my posts. (If I desired to.) I don’t like the fact, that despite my farewell post, only four people added my RSS located at . I hope that in time, more of my friends will add me again, but if not, no big deal.

The following post at http://www.kronkltd.net/wp/index.php?p=561 was originally written as part of the same sitting. They have been split up to separate topics.

I woke up feeling groggy. I was rather suprised at myself for not allowing myself to sleep a little bit longer, when I obviously knew that I needed it. I couldn’t sleep at all the night before. I always hate those nights. It was worse because I had Amanda sleeping so peacefully right beside me. I ended going through all 4 hours of Six Feet Under that I had on VOD.

I love that show. I’d have got to say that that is one of the few shows that has actually brought me to tears before. I first heard about it from Jyl. I downloaded a bunch of episodes and watched them one after another. When I was almost to the end of the pilot episode, my mom called me. She was concerned about me. Kali and I had just broken up, and as a result, she got our car. (I now have that car once again… but the last time I drove it told me that it was overheating.) So I didn’t have a car. She called me up and told me that she was comming by, and that she had found me a car. This was July 13 2002.

Anyways… I woke up before Amanda. I messed around on the computer for a little bit. Candice IMmed me, but I wasn’t quite awake, (nor was I for much of the day) so I wasn’t being very talkative. I have been going over the same old posts from a year ago over and over again. I could probably recite to you everything that has happenend in the month of May last year. (Ahh… but it will be sweet when I’m done)

Amanda woke up. We procrastinated getting up getting dressed and leaving to do our things. We needed to go up to Meijer’s to get some things. I had just gotten my new T-shirt that say “Jesus: King of the Jews V.S. Godzilla: King of the Monsters” that I got off ebay. The problem is… It’s black, and it was extremly hot out. We got our stuff, then came back home. I searched through the mountanous piles of clothing I have laying around my room, but I could not find the one tank top that I own.

We took my old Long John Silver’s T-Shirt that I have. It used to be a pretty good shirt, but I deemed it to be a “disposable” shirt, so I would wear it when I used to work at Durcon. Granted, there is not nearly as much black melted tar on it as some of my other shirts, but you can still see traces. (’better on my shirt then in my lungs’ I always say.) We took that old shirt and cut off the sleeves. This was nice, because now I have a shirt that can show off my tattoo.

We had to go to Amanda’s Grandma’s house. I drove. We got in her house, and it was so increadibly much hotter than outside. I sat down on her couch, stared at the news, (which I could only quite hear,) and basically just zoned out. Amanda and her grandma were chatting up a storm, I didn’t hear any of it. I felt like a zombie. I explored some of the options of my phone. I sent myself an email.

Next, we went to her grandpa’s house. He was out in the garage when we pulled up. He’s got this sweet little screen door insert into his garage with a little door and everything. He’s also got one of those really big fans. We went inside, talked a little bit, and then he started giving her stuff. First it was some little various figurines, (what she originally came over for) and then there was the jar of honey, (which he said was a little comby) and she grabbed some pans, and he tried to give us a mixer, but we couldn’t figure out which beaters went with it, if any. (The bread hook attachment was fun to play with.)

He gave her some of his homemade Irish Creme, but she decided she was going to give it to Kali. It was in a big bottle, so he had her dump out the bottle of plum wine that was almost empty. It was kinda a cool bottle. I kinda wished I could have had it for our almost-collection. We packed up all the shit we had gotten from him, put into the backseat next to the big box of stuff she got from her grandma, that I forgot to mention. Then we left.

Next we went over to her mom’s house. She had made plans earlier in the day to come over at some point in the course of the day, but when it came down to it, we had no idea why we were going over there. The best we can figure, she wanted to show her the book from the Mary Kay thing she is throwing at our place on the 20th. (I’m sure if anyone out there want’s to come, she‘ll welcome you… more free stuff for her) We went over there, she got all of her mail. Her dad had gotten fired. I don’t know what he’s planning on doing, or the exact specifics. Then we left.

We called up Kali, and went over there. We had that bottle of Irish Creme to give her before it went bad. She only had a little bit of time before she had to go to work. They messed up everybody’s schedules to acomidate one person’s scheduling needs. She has been addicted to Final Fantasy XI lately. I’ve been thinking that I want to play it but I don’t really know. When we were living together, I would find a game that I liked. I would play it for two days. She would see it. For the next five months, I would see nothing but that game. I would never play it again. I don’t know if I would actually keep with it, now that I don’t live with her anymore?

Kali left for work. We called up Christin. They didn’t want any company because they were already in bed. It was by now 9:00. I had planned on being there much earlier. I was hoping that I would be able to go over there before Cindel went to bed, so that I could see her. I guess it’s a good thing that we didn’t go over there, the rest of my story would be different from here on out, had we gone over there. (but I guess those are the choices you make every second. Every choice opens new posibilities.)

We tried going over to Ryan’s. He wasn’t there. I asked his dad where he was, and he said Julie Moskal’s house. We drove around for a little bit, tried calling some people, and then finally decided to give it a try anyway. There were so many people over there. At first I felt really uncomfortable. Most of these people I hadn’t seen in a really long time. I was over there almost every day a year ago, but when I moved out here, I stopped going over there. That, and I never quite felt at home in that group. I felt welcome, but never quite at home.

I opted to not introduce Amanda to people. I figure it saved me the chance that I’d run over people that I didn’t know their names. Amanda and I eventually split. I figured that way, she‘d have the opportunity to socalize on her own. She went off and took up a seat in the circle, and stayed there most the night. I, on the other hand wandered around.

I talked to Tim about The Phage. They are having some shows comming up. I’ll have to get the exact details later. It pisses me off so much that I don’t have my site up and running yet. There is such a need for an easy way for musicians to track and record their upcomming shows in a place where their fans can find out about it.

Kristin came up to me out of the blue and asked me how old Hitler would be, were he alive today. I found it funny that she might think that I would know a fact like that. Alas, I didn’t. Nor did the people around me. We were emptying our minds, throwing out dates, trying to figure out when he was born. (In the meantime, Kristin looked it up on the internet.)

I got into a philisophical discussion with Kattie and Mike Clark. I started talking to them about why I feel the the United States goverment should devide itself off into smaller groups. This country would operate a whole lot better, if the whole country didn’t have to agree on an issue before they can act. If this country was devided into smaller, localized groups, then we wouldn’t have any problems reaching desisions on topics such as abortion, marijuana, gay marriages, polygamy, prayer in school, gun control, censorship, you name it. If the north and the south and the west and South Carolina and the corner of 35th and Vine, all have to agree (or at least reach a quarum) before any law can be passed, then no laws will be passed. I’ll bet you anything Michigan wouldn’t be in Iraq right now, were we to have a say in it.

We were all talking really good, and then we all kinda just drifted off in seperate directions. I went over to check on Amanda, then drifted back around, in front of the garage, talked to Trevor for a second, and then wound up talking to Kattie and Mike about philisophical matters again. “Watch. We’ll drift apart and wind back together again.” Mike said. We drifted apart, and each were in close proximity again, but never quite ended up talking like that again.

Amanda said that she was ready to go, so we began to make our goodbye rounds. We got stuck talking to Joe for a little bit, and I was trying to give my email address to Tim, but didn’t have a pen. I hope he remembers it. (I haven’t received anything as of yet) Also, at some point in the night I had to explain my tattoo do Danny. How exactly do you try to explain what a religion is about when the main focus of that religion is to confuse? What rules are good rules to tell someone, “Do this if you want to be a good discordian“? Now what rules do you cite if you believe that rules follow the Heisenberg Uncertanty Principle, they change when you look at them?

Next, we went up to 7-11. I pulled over into the last parking space on the left hand side. I did this conciously, thinking that I might be here a while, I don’t want to obstruct the flow of comerce. A second or two later, a van pulls up to my left. I think to myself, “grr. I don’t think that’s really a parking space. That guy is going to get arrested.” Dave was there. I instantly froze. For some strange reason, all the times when I would try my hardest to avoid him flashed into my mind. I considered whether I should go in or not. For the longest time, right after we broke up, I would wait until he had left, before I would go in, and stay up there the rest of the night. I don’t really feel like trying to go through hoops trying to avoid him anymore, but for a second there that popped back in my head.

Okay… This sucks. There’s this kid… I kno w his name. I want to say carl or craig, but … Jeremy!

Jeremy was up there. It has been a while since I’ve seen him. He looks a little bigger now, plus he’s older, he shaved his head, and got a big piercing in his ear. I was looking at him, because I was noticing all of these differences, and he did that whole “What?” thing. You know, the one where they get really self concious of you, and now that they‘ve gotten your attention like that, and you know they‘re standing over there freaking out wondering what the fuck is up with you, and you just have no choice but to keep looking at them, and you don’t really have anything to say because you were just looking and hadn’t formulated a thought just yet, and the uncomfortableness in the room just keeps growing and growing for about a good 12 seconds or so, until you go and grab a pop. And then there is one more minor incident.

So we buy my pop, and Amanda’s coffee. Dave leaves. I talk to Jeremy a bit, removing the whole thing 45 seconds ago. And then I look out the window, and see a whole bunch of cars. They’re blocking the parking lot, and our car. I walk outside, and see that these non-descript cars actually belong to the police. They were all in plainclothes with “Police” vests on. They were dragging the guy from the van with his hands behind his head, and other officers were searching his van. I turn around and walk back inside. A few seconds later, two more actual police cars show up.

I walk out a short while later. Everything is gone. The van is gone. But there is a car there that wasn’t there before. It didn’t look like a cop car. It didn’t even look like that cool undercover one that the Garden City PD has. I walked around it, slowly. I was afraid of what type of alarm system it might have. It was meticulously clean inside. This wasn’t a 7-11 customer’s car. (the place was empty, save for us loiterers and employees) It didn’t even have a goverment plate. There was no indication that it was being used by the cops. (It was later revealed that there was a CB radio hidden away.) And to think, all this manpower coming to bear on a guy that parks outside of the lines, and partially obstructs the entrance to the alleyway. I was telling people, “You wait, latter on tonight, two cops will pull up, one will get out, and drive this car away.”

I was standing outside smoking, when Jeremy’s two friend’s Tim and Craig. (I’m almost sure that was his name.) They came up to me and asked me if I was a musician. They were perpetuating the stereotype that every long haired, bearded white guy standing out front of a 7-11 smoking a cigarette in a pair of jean shorts and a tank top showing off a tattoo is automatically a musician. (granted, it’s not a very common stereotype, but it exists. It’s an epidemic I tell you!) I am not a musician, but I am at the very least a resessive co-dominant. So I sat out there and talked to Craig about music while Tim went into the store. We both thought we knew Tim from somewhere, but neither of us could quite place it. They left with Jeremy, and we took off shortly thereafter.

We went back home, watched tv out in the living room with Ben. He had came home from work, sick, earlier in the day. We put in “Enemy at the Gate”. Amanda went out on the back porch, fell asleep, I grabbed my pillow and blanket to lay on the couch, but couldn’t get comfortable on that couch, so I went to bed. Amanda came to bed shortly thereafter. I tried putting the pilot episode of Jake 2.0 in, but was having trouble getting it to play, amanda was out before I had it started, and I never saw the end.

Okay, I just ate a hot dog. It was good. I think I might be still a little hungry, so I’ll probably go make another one in a second here. I love microwaved hot dogs. I love just putting a hot dog in the microwave and cook a hot dog for a minute.

Amanda gave me some time to write a live journal post, but I’m having a hard time concentrating. I just got home from work not too long ago. My stomach is growling… Okay, second hot dog. Much better.

One of Amanda’s ex-sorta-boyfriends and his want to come wife out tonight. I just got through trying to set that straight with her. We wanted to go do something and have our big romantic 5th month anneversary and all that, but I don’t think we will end up doing all that much. We are both almost broke. I get paid on Friday, but that doesn’t really help my plight tonight.

I’ve been spending so much of my time trying to convert my live journal posts lately. I came up with a special tag (<def Id=”">word</def>) system to mark up a reference to a keyword. (This is part of the code for my website.) Now I managed to get an XML copy of all of my posts that I had to go through and edit. Basically, this is what I’ve been doing. I read through a post and position my cursor in front of every keyword. Then, I hit Ctrl+V to drop the opening tag in front of each word. While I do this, I do some minor formatting. (There was a time when I was opposed to using the ‘Enter’ key.) Then, once I’ve gotten about as far as I feel like going in that particular sesion, and then I scroll back up to the top, or rather I usually hit the “Pretty-Print Xml” button. (God, I love XmlSpy) This will bring me to the first paragraph that has a floating open tag. (the first error) I then, loaded with a fresh copy of “&lt;/def&gt;” in my clipboard, proceed to scan my text again, and find all those keywords I’ve previously marked.

So now I have every reference of a name, a pronoun, or basically any other word that could possibly be something to have an entry about. I switch to “Grid” view, load up my Index page, and I start filling in attributes. So I now have an entire month’s posts, I’ve fixed any well formedness errors. (You have no idea how much I hate the crap that Quizilla gives to people for inclusion) Every entry node contains “p, div class=”quiz”, or lj-cut. And all the rest is the cleanest, closest to XHTML: strict as I felt like going, and I have this huge list of def tags, with empty Id attributes. I find a tag on this list, try to figure out what I was refering to, when I said “him”, switch to my master list, look that person up, find their Id, switch back to Visual Studio, enter that number in, collapse the tree.

I would continue this until every reference was properly marked up, with proper link information. I’ve been using Live Journal since Feb 2003. I don’t really write as much as I used to, but there was a time in my life when I had made a goal for myself to write as much as I could for any given day. I’m really glad I did that. Because of it, I have all of this information at my disposal, but also, it’s going to take me a really long time to convert everything. When I’m done, it will be sweet. Write a simple template to display the information with links intact, and throw it up on the site. Hell, I can even choose to do statistical analyses on that data. (graph the instances of references to Christin over time) This is true nirvana for an obsessive-compulsve data addict like me.

Okay, enough of stuff about my site. I’ve been writing about technical issues a lot lately. It’s mostly because that’s what I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Whenever you spend a lot of time thinking or doing something, that takes up a lot of your thoughts. You ever have one of those nights where you spend almost all of your time doing nothing but having sex. You know, one of those days where you just never really leave the bedroom. You might not actually be having sex the whole time, but it’s basically the topic of the evening. How do you say what you did to someone? You want to think of what to tell them. (possibly shooting for a 2-3 thousand word mark) But the only things you can think to say, probably are not the most appropriate. (”Well, there was this position, and then we did this, and then that… I’m still recovering from that. And then this, then she did that, then we fell asleep”) But really, what else are you going to talk about when someone asks “So, what did you do last night?”

Ben keeps fucking bothering me. I have my own website. He’s got his own site. Let him deal with his own site, because the longer I have to think about it. The more ideas I’m going to come up with. like so… I’m never going to get this written. There are so many distractions right now. I had to make some coffee for amanda a few seconds ago. It should be almost done soon.

Amanda’s friend should be here soon. I’ve met him before, but I can’t quite remember his name right now. I assume, that depending on how major a force he becomes in my life, may get an entry. (Rick Gronczewski) I just asked Amanda for that. I have to try to learn people’s last names. I always feel wierd when I ask someone who knows someone, that person’s last name, and they respond “Why” Amanda is getting nervous because they are not here yet. When they get here, we have to go up to Meijer’s to meet them, then we’ll come back here.

I’m going to stop writing, so I can fill in the tags for this post, (hey, it helps, and then post it.)

Okay, In the past few days, I’ve spent more time editing past journal entries then making new ones. So I guess it’s time to write a new one.

I am currently sitting in my room. It’s a little cold in here, but that is because I had left the window open last night. There was a severe thunderstorm warning at about 3:00 am this morning. I was watching Family Guy when they showed the warning. We switched to the Weather Channel (for some reason, Amanda knows which channel that is) to see if it was going to hit us. Alas, it was just a little bit too far south.

I love a good thunderstorm. I always have. I love the feel in the air when it’s just about to rain. I love the lightning. I love watching a good storm from the top of a parking structure.

So, Amanda didn’t have to work last night. We thought for a while there that she was going to have to, but they called her up and told her that they didn’t need her. Were she to have worked, I probably would have gone over to Christin’s last night and spent the night, but since she didn’t work, we wanted to go out and do something, and Christin would have gone to bed before us, leaving us with little else to do other than sleep. (well, there is Christin’s suggestion on how to help Amanda sleep. I never did help her)

We ended up going to downtown Ann Arbor to go rollerblading. I made her get her skates from her parents’ house last week so we could start going skating. I used to love skating, but it’s going to take me a bit of time to get back into the hang of it. I need a new pair of skates. I still have James’ old skates. He had left them at Ken and Christin’s house like almost 2 years ago. They told him that if he never came and picked them up, they were going to throw them out. He never came. I took them. Later, when he found out, he tried to get me to pay him some money for them. I understand that he should be compensated for them, but on the other hand, had I not taken them, they’d be in a landfill by now.

Is it just me, or does anyone else thing it would be cool to go down to the landfill, and turn off all of the methane vents? I want to see it fill up with methane. I want to see it fill up to the breaking point. I want to be standing there, watching a mountain of garbage, as it explodes. I want to see how far the garbage would fly. Bring a camera, I don’t think many people have footage of garbage exploding.

The other day we were watching some TV show, and the cut to a shot of this building (an exterior shot) and they held it there for a few seconds. Ken later said, “They blew that building up” It makes sense. I was for some reason expecting the end of the building to collapse. I don’t know what the men and women of Law and Order would have done then, but I think it would have been funny. I love stock footage.

We had a team meating yesterday at work. We had to meet with John, he’s the guy in charge of rolling out the new CQE metrics. He’s an okay guy, but he smiles way too much. My main problem with the way we are doing it now, is it seems like we’ve gone from High School back to Elementary school. We’ve gone from grading all the calls on a percentile scale to an A-B-C scale. (or in my opinion, it might as well be Triangle-Circle-Square) They view it like this, if you screw up, if it’s a really shitty call, that’s a C. If it’s exceptional, if you went “Above and beyond” then that is an A. All other’s are B’s. Okay, I can deal with that, but don’t expect, for instance in order to get to Level 3 (which is the next level for me) I would need to have 2 A calls out of 3 for the month. That’s total bull shit. I asked him after the meeting, what percentage of the calls reviewed turned out to be A’s. 13%. Out of all of the calls that were reviewed, only 13% met their expectations of an A level. They’re going to hold off on counting this stat for another month, untill it is properly calibrated, but in my opinion, it’s a handy way to demote everybody.

So, we were in the meeting, and Tim was running his mouth. He always has a lot to say in situations like this. I had a few things to say, but almost everybody else felt the same way as I, so they took care of what I had to say. Tim made some joke about Denson, and he asked him to stay after the meeting. A few minutes later, he said “goodbye” as he walked out the door. I hope he comes back. I really wonder what he said to him. He didn’t take any of his stuff, so I don’t think he was fired/quit. I’ll have to ask Ben later on today if he saw him.

Okay, Amanda is awake now, so I should get going. We have a lot of stuff to do today.

Okay, so I’m using the excuse of needing an opportunity to sit down and write a Live Journal post to get out of sitting in the car with Amanda as she drives out to Inkster to pick up Cindy. I guess that means I should actually get something written this time.

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Okay, well I suppose I really need to sit down and write a journal entry. Amanda is asleep right now, and I don’t really have anything else to do right now. I want to sleep… kinda, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I have to remember to go up to my work and talk to the people in HR, but I think they have already left, so I kinda don’t think I will be doing that today. I do, however, need to drive Amanda’s car up to the gas station and fill up her tank, so that she doesn’t have to worry about it when she has to go to work.

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I half expected to be woken up rather early on Friday morning. I figured that either Amanda would wake me up when she got home from work, or Christin would be over to wake me up and bring me back to Garden City. In retrospect, I am quite glad that I wasn’t woken up. I was hanging out at 7-11 for a few hours the night before, and when I finally got home, I wasn’t tired in the slightest. I didn’t get to bed till at least 5:30 a.m.

I woke up around 12:30. If I had to work, I would have been late. Thank god I didn’t work. Amanda was asleep next to me. Looks like she didn’t bother to wake me up. I got up, and begun work on a Live Journal post. At one time, I used to write like this every day. As time went on, I got out of the habit. It took me several hours to get that first post written.

Some time later, Amanda woke up, and took a bath. We talked for a little bit, and then she went back down for a nap again. Neither of us was feeling all too hot. We talked about going down to downtown Ann Arbor, but seeing as we were both broke, in a bad mood, and just didn’t feel like getting up and doing anything, so it quickly became apparent that that wasn’t going to be happening.

So, I didn’t really do all that much on Friday. I sat around, and watched TV. We watched Phone Booth again. I wrote two incredibly long LJ posts. I had some soup. Amanda got sick, and was throwing up. She later ended up calling in.

I did some work on my website. I still can’t find a good way to store Xml in an MSSQL server, and index, query against, and be able to retrieve information without having to manually convert all of the &lt; and &gt; symbols into < and > respectively. (trust me, it gets really annoying)

The other thing I did was, I looked through some of my old files, and decided to give playing The Sims a try again. I loaded the Hot Date expansion, which I had never tried before. I still need to install more of the upgrades, but I have to download them again.

All and all, Amanda and I didn’t get all that much time to really spend together. We work different shifts now, so we have different times that we need to sleep. She pretty much slept until I needed to go to bed, then she was up for the rest of the night. I really need to transfer to midnights. I’ve done the whole working a different shift as your girlfriend thing before, and it does not work. Things haven’t gotten bad yet, but I know it will always be hard to plan things around our schedules.

I couldn’t really go out and do anything. I wanted to be home in case Amanda woke up. I was thinking of maybe going out and doing something after she went to work, but she called off, so that didn’t happen.

So, I had a boring day, which is cool, I guess. Gives me a chance to sit down and relax.

In keeping with my desire to detail describe the events of my day. I now present Thursday.

I had to work Thursday. I woke up a little groggy. It was Amanda and my three month anniversary. Ger and Cindy had spent the night, the night before. They were asleep one on each of the couches. Ger woke up, as well as Amanda, and I talked to them a little bit each before I left. (forgive me if I’m getting details messed up) Ben and I each took separate cars to work. I can’t quite remember why. I think he woke up later than I did, but I may be confusing that with a different day.

I had a meeting with Denson. I was supposed to meet with him on Tuesday, but when he came by my desk, I was on a call. That call turned out to be a rather annoying and long call, (NIC drivers on Windows 98) and he moved on to meet with someone else. So I finally have my CQE meeting with my boss. For some reason, we can never manage to meet, so it had been a really long time since we had a meeting like this.

Basically, what happens is, a random portion of all of my calls are recorded. We had to sit down, listen to a random call out of the recorded set, and he would score me based on this new and “improved” system they had devised. Now here’s the thing. On average, my calls will last somewhere in the range of 11 minutes. They just took away call length as a grading metric because they wanted to stay away from encouraging short calls. So, assuming you have your average run-of-the-mill call, it’s going to take me 11 minutes. Some calls take quite a bit longer, and then there are the calls that are shorter.

That’s all fine, except, my manager only will pick calls that last about 7 minutes or so if he can help it. I have a problem with this. If you want to take an accurate cross section of my level of customer experience, then you need to open it up to include the whole range of my calls. If you are only picking from my shorter calls, then you are only picking from the calls that I didn’t do something. If I asked every question I’m supposed to ask, if I go “above and beyond”, if I do all the things that it takes to make it a perfect quality call, it’s going to take me that extra 3 minutes, insuring that it will never be heard. I may bust my ass 90% of the time, but if you’re only listening to the 10% where I’m feeling just a little bit lazy, it’s going to skew my scores.

Ben and I went home for lunch. Ger had left, and asked Amanda if she would take Cindy home. She said she would, and then later learned that she had to work. She’s just pretty much started there, and her schedule has been somewhat messed up. She didn’t think she would have to work, but then here we are at 5:30, she hasn’t slept, and she has to go to work later that night. Sounds like fun, huh?

Because she had to go to sleep, Amanda didn’t think that she would be able to drive Cindy home. Not to mention that she didn’t have enough gas money. She managed to barrow some money off of Ben, but he would have to go to the bank to get it. (So Amanda would be driving me back to work, since I left my car at work) Cindy called everyone she could think of trying to find a ride, but no one would get her. I told Amanda that if Cindy could not find anyone, then I would take her home when she left for work. Dave had IMed me anyway and wanted me to come out, so I would have an excuse.

The rest of work was relatively un-interesting. I managed to get out of work a little bit before Ben, so I got home first. Emily nearly scared the shit out of me as I came up the stairs. She said something just as I saw her, and I was not expecting her to be there. She had been there for a while, and had been cleaning. It kinda annoys me when I see other people cleaning my house, but it needs to be done, and I haven’t been the best of that, especially with Amanda moving in, and all.
I went into my bedroom, and Amanda and Cindy were both sleeping there in my bed. I had to wake Amanda up shortly, so that we could spend some time together before she had to go to work, but I also knew that she had not had that much sleep at all. So, I played a couple games of Forty Thieves. (I am such an addict)

About a half hour, or so later, I have to wake up Amanda. She was sleeping against the wall, so I had to try to gently wake her up without disturbing Cindy too much, and without seeming too much the pervert. (Although the thought did go through my head.) Slowly she woke up, and I managed to throw all the pillows I was laying, off the bed.

Cindy eventually woke up, and said that she wanted to try to be home by 11:00. This kinda pissed me off. Amanda didn’t have to leave until like 11:30, in order to get her home by 11:00, I would have to leave here by like 10:15. That gives us something like 45 minutes to spend together, and it is our anniversary, and we had hardly seen each other that day. (Although, we tend to over-estimate our time apart,) We kicked Cindy out for a bit, so that we could have some time together. I think we ended up taking an extra half-hour. I drove Cindy up to her work. The roads were a little bit slippery. I nearly got into a few accidents before I even got to the highway. (Those tires suck)

After I dropped Cindy off, I went over to Brian’s house. Dave’s band was supposed to be playing/practicing/jamming and he wanted me to check them out. By the time I got there, nobody was there, and I had trouble opening his screen door. I decided to call Dave, but as I was talking to him, I managed to get the door open, and I was talking on the phone as I came up the stairs.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve hung out over at Brian’s like that. It used to be my regular Monday night tradition. I used to go over there and we would all watch RAW and hang out. That was pretty much what we did, thanks in part to the magical instrument of the VCR. Suddenly, we can experience the television of 9:00 Monday night, at Midnight Friday morning. (Thursday night)

It appears that even though I am only a part-time wrestling watcher, I am hosting Wrestlemania this year. Very well, I’m not sure if I get a discount or not, but I need to go up to my work and try to take the day off. I had to take off before I could watch the whole thing, because I wanted to go home and try to sleep so that I could be up when Amanda got off work. It didn’t quite happen like that.

I stopped up at 7-11. Melissa is working at her old 7-11 again. The same 7-11 that she worked at when we were going out, where she met Dave, where I used to spend night after night with her, after we broke up. I always found that funny. Just before we broke up, I did not have a car. She had a car, which we shared, but she would take it to work, leaving me stranded at home.

After we broke up, I got a new car, and now since I had the means, and was still desperately in love with her, I would come up to visit her at her work. I would stay there, throughout the night, talking with her, helping her, and then afterwards sometimes we would go out to breakfast, and then part ways.

Well now we are 1 ¾ years later, my car was dead, she has a different car, and I have her car. (which has been our car all along) It has been good to be able to talk to her again lately. We kinda go in waves of how much time we can get away with spending with each other, and for a while there we weren’t talking all that much. Amanda and Melissa get along. You have no idea how happy that makes me. I don’t have to worry about the two of them hating each other, or not being able to get along.

Melissa and Dave have been having some problems lately. This always puts my in an awkward position when things like this happen. (Which is rather often, they’re horrible for each other) Early on, after we broke up, I decided that, if she wanted a relationship with him, then I would do my best not to interfere. There have been plenty of times where I could have said something to her about him, or criticized him for something, or exerted some form of influence, but I couldn’t.

I had a certain role. I was the jealous ex-boyfriend. Furthermore, I was the jealous ex-boyfriend that wanted her back. I must view any of my opinions as suspect. I made a vow that if they were to ever break up, I must not be a catalyst. This was my mental exercise to hold back my want to say to her “Leave Dave. Come back to me.” I would not do that. But that leaves me with the question, am I allowed to say “Leave Dave. Look at yourself; can you honestly say that you are still happy with him?”

Things are different now. It may have taken a year and a half, but it doesn’t quite hurt like it used to. Firstly, there is Amanda. I love Amanda. Having someone in your life to take a place like that can really go a long way towards helping overcome depression. Add in all of the reading I have been doing lately, and all the things that have happened over the past three months, and the fundamental changes in philosophy that I’ve been going through, and I’m starting to get better. I still love her, and probably always will, but if I can’t have her as a lover like we used to, then I’m glad at least to have her as a friend.

Also, I have no intentions of ever leaving Amanda. Things have been too good with her to ever let go. Christin actually asked me that question the other day while we were driving. She asked me if Kali were single and wanted me back, if I would leave Amanda. I didn’t hesitate a second before saying “No.” Although, I did crack a joke about wouldn’t mind getting a bigger bed.

It is so humorous being up at 7-11 and watching all the drunks. There was this one kid, that I used to know from High School, came in, totally blitzed. He asked for a pack of condoms, and made sure that everyone knew he was getting laid. (He went so far as to show them to the guy behind him.) Then he went off on the fact that they cost $4.00, and how that was too much to spend, and proceed to go into the stereotypical “how much the bitch costs” speech. (First, you gotta take them to dinner, and…)

He said that he didn’t know what type of condoms he wanted, because it had been so long since he had used them. He said, “I don’t know, give me whatever you two use.” Thus, confirming my suspicion that he recognized me. I didn’t bother to correct him. I looked, but they didn’t carry the brands that I prefer. She gave him the spermicidal kind. It wasn’t until another man, nervous to be asking for condoms from a woman, came in not knowing what type he wanted, and she gave him the same type, did I berate her on her choice of brand. First off, I had just read an article about how Nonoxol-9 causes skin irritations. And second, it tastes horrible. Pretty much excludes all post-coital oral. She had one counter opinion. “I don’t want a lot of these people breeding”

I eventually had to leave. I stopped in for a pop, and stayed for two hours. I drove home, and tried to get to sleep. Pretty much tried and failed. It wasn’t until almost 6 before I fell asleep. I was just wondering if I should just stay up until Amanda got home. But that didn’t happen.

Okay, I suppose it’s time for me to try to get in the habit of writing really long posts about what happened to me in my day. My day’s always seemed to take on a bit more importance when I would turn every little thing into a journal entry. My topic for this post shall be the events of Wednesday, because a lot seemed to happen, and it seem like a good place to jump back into things.

Warning: This is a complete description of the events of my life. There may be things in here that you may not be comfortable reading. If that is the case, I suggest that you do not read.

Amanda woke me up early. I had to go to bed, while Ger, Cindy, and Amanda stayed up and hung out. There was the question about whether I would be spending the night at Candice’s house the night before, but I decided that I wasn’t going to be coming out, and instead would just drive over there in the morning. We got into a little bit of a fight over this, mainly because I never got around to talking to her until later in the day. I never said that I would be spending the night over there, but it was what I had done on most of the other nights that I was set to baby-sit Emit, so it was kinda expected.

So Amanda woke me up at like 6:00 (which is rather early for me) because I had to drive out to Garden City, and be there by 7:30. Amanda was up all night. That’s the problem with dating a girl that works a midnight shift. She can’t exactly go to bed with me, because she can’t afford to mess up her sleep schedule like that.

So I woke up, we made love, then I took a shower, Ger made a comment as I was getting out. I got dressed, and then I headed off towards GC. I was running a little late. I had kinda planned to leave a bit earlier, but with every thing I had to get done, and considering how tired I was, I ended up being a little late.

I arrived at Candice’s house at 7:46. I suppose that’s a fairly good compromise. I said I would be there at 8. She said be there at 7:30. I end up somewhere in between. I had to back out Candice’s mom’s truck, so that Candice could leave. God she has a big truck. I couldn’t handle driving that thing all the time.

I was watching Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, and I couldn’t quite place the voice of the girl on the show. I knew I knew her from somewhere. She was a cartoon, kinda thin, was it Family Guy? It might be. That’s Patrick Warburton. I’d know his voice anywhere. He was the live-action Tick, not to mention Joe from Family Guy. So the Family Guy connection is starting to seem a bit more likely. They could have worked together then as well. After Candice left, I could take it no longer. I pulled up Tvtome.com and looked it up myself. She was on Family Guy, she played various voices, (including a cheerleader) but where she really stood out was, she was Joan of Arc from Clone High.

Now that I had that burning annoyance out of the way, I took some time to surf around Tv-tome. Why do they always have to cancel the shows I like. I don’t care if I never actually watched them when they were on TV, and only would download them and watch them. That’s no reason to say that they aren’t getting the ratings. The Neilson system has to start accepting the fact that more and more people out there will be using Digital Video Recorders to watch their shows when they feel like it. (I just read an article suggesting that they are indeed looking into taking into account just that)

Christin eventually showed up to take Emit and I out to breakfast. That has become one of our traditions now. On the days that I watch Emit, Christin picks us up, and the four of us go out to breakfast. Cindel wasn’t there today. Ken has been off work, so she left the baby with her daddy. As soon as she walked in the door she started talking to me about something that had happened the previous Friday. We went to Cole’s, got some breakfast, and talked some more. Christin was upset about last Friday, and really wanted to sit down and have a long conversation between herself, me, Ken, and Amanda. I wasn’t quite planning on going over there later in the day, but I told her that I would try to arrange that conversation.

After breakfast, we stopped back by my car, so I could pick something up, and then we went back to her house. When we walked in, Ken was napping on the couch, and Cindel was passed out right on the floor. She had little rug burns all across her face after she woke up. Emit and Cindel played together. We put in A Goofy Movie, but just as any other kids movie that ever goes in, the kids were off in their own world, while the adults sat there and got fully engrossed in the movie.

Candice had requested, before she left, that we put Emit down for a nap by 1:00. We were just about to leave to go back to Candice’s house so I could put him down, when he had an accident. Thankfully, Christin was there to help me take care of it. I’m usually really good with kids, and I have done it before, but I don’t have children of my own, so am out of practice with the whole diaper thing. I can do it, but I am also not very good and often leave that job to somebody else. (More so with Cindel than with Emit, seeing as Emit is now partially potty trained)

When we got back to Candice’s house, she was already home. She had had mid-terms and got out as soon as she had finished her test. Christin left, Candice put Emit down, and I hung out with her for a bit. We talked for a little bit, but not about anything all too deep. I showed her what I had done using the FOAF files that Live Journal provides and a rather complex bit of XSLT Stylesheet programming. (People like being able to share their creations)

I drove home, woke up Amanda and Cindy. We made love again. (With Amanda, Cindy stayed in the other room.9) We hung out for a bit, and then we left to go back to Garden City again. I sat in the back and took a little nap. I had only gotten 3 or so hours the night before, and, well… I guess you know what my day was like already. I was kinda in a shitty mood. We were supposed to go out and see a movie and possibly out for dinner as well, but it was looking more and more like that wasn’t going to happen. It was now by this point somewhere around 7. We had to be back at home by (11:30) because that’s when Ger told us he would be over, and we still had to stop over at Ken & Christin’s for this big conversation that Christin wanted to have.

And then, to top it all off, Melissa calls me. She wants to know what’s up, and if I was planning on going to Ken & Christin’s later on. She was going over there with Dave. (the new Dave) I hadn’t met this new guy yet, but I had heard Melissa talk about him, (the few time I had talked to her since they met) and Ken & Christin were talking about him a little bit when I was over there earlier. My mind was going through all these different thoughts, and it was starting to make me a little depressed. I know that most of my thoughts were pretty irrational. But hey! If everyone else in my life can claim moments of temporary irrationality, than I can cop a similar plea as well.

We dropped Cindy off at her house, and then went back to Amanda’s parent’s house. (I guess I can’t call it her house, seeing as she now technically lives with me) I had to wait outside. I haven’t really talked to, or faced her father since we were caught having sex by her mother one morning when I had spent the night over there.

While I waited, I stopped up at the bank to pick up some money. My bank account is now pretty empty. It’s been a while since I’ve ran out of money. I might not have had the money to pay the bills that I wanted to pay, but I have always had money for the past few months or so. I have $23 or so left in the bank. That sucks.

So, Amanda finally finished visiting with her parents, and we went over to Ken & Christin’s. When we got there, Ken was gone, but Melissa and Dave were already there. Dave seems like an okay kid. He looks like someone I know, but then again it may just be he looks like a type I know. Meeting him helped to settle down some of the thoughts going through my head.

We played Euchre. There were five of us, so I sat out. I sat between Amanda and Dave and helped him learn how to play a little bit. Have you ever seen five people how to play a game like Euchre? (Ken returned eventually) I occasionally switched off with Dave on playing a few games, but then Melissa and Dave had to leave. Ken and I took over and we played a few more games.

Since the outsiders were now gone, Christin got the chance to bring up some of the topics that had been going through her head. All and all, I would say that it went fairly well, but I fear that things may not have been successfully resolved in Christin’s own little mind. Oh well, at least some things were brought to the table and there was a little more distinction to the lines. We played a few more games of Euchre, with slightly modified rules.

I hate the rule that if you call Farmer’s, that you can’t call it. If anyone ever play’s in my home, it is a house rule that you can still call it. Just felt like I should state that. Also, you can draw first turn in Magic, the first Mulligan is free, just you don’t go first, and I’m not sure if I’d still allow a re-roll on 6’s for initiative in Shadowrun.

Next stop, we went to Heather’s. Amanda wanted to buy a new belly button ring. The one she had was a little too big and would tend to get caught and rip when we would have sex. I like Heather. I just haven’t really spent all that much time around them. This was the second time that I had been over to their trailer, but they had been over to my apartment several times, although they always seemed a bit out of element when they were over, which is unfortunate, because I think she would like me a lot more if she got to know me a bit better. (She has heard a bit of the shit that has happened in the past 3 months, and has had a negative opinion.)

We spent a lot of time looking through her bags of miscellaneous piercing jewelry. We were trying to convince Amanda to get her tongue pierced, although I still think she should do her hood. <grin> I think that may be because I always wanted to get a magnetic stud for my tongue ring, and then find a girl with a matching clit piercing. I’m still thinking about getting my nipple done. Although, my dad told me it hurts like hell. (God, that’s funny to say.)

We tried to convince Heather to come back to our place and hang out with everybody, but Robbie was sleeping, and she wanted to be there when he woke up, so we left and went back home. I wasn’t feeling very good. I’ve been getting headaches more and more again lately. Heather gave me this big fucking pill of Motrin, and I swallowed it down without my pop. (Which was in the car,)

By the time I finally got home, I was totally tired. I didn’t even come out really to greet Ger and Cindy. That whole situation is rather funny, I must admit. Baring last night, (I write this on Friday morning, Wednesday evening is in context) Ger has been over three nights in a row. The first night (Monday night) we all hung out, and then he hung out with Amanda all night while I slept. The next night (Tuesday), he was back over, but they left to pick up Cindy. (once again, all while I slept) Ger likes Cindy, but I’m not quite sure how Cindy feels, especially considering that she has a boyfriend. (which she was fighting with) So Ger, when he showed up to pick her up at her house, had roses and a note. It was cute.

Anyways, if two nights of not being able to stay up and hang out were good, why not go for a third? I lay in bed, and put in Phone Booth from the In Demand. It was pretty good. I love having a TV in my room again. (Thank you, Amanda) They hung out in the living room, and I eventually fell asleep.

And that would be my day. Perhaps, I’ll do the write up for Thursday, if I get the chance. I would like to be able to do this for every day once again. I just hope I don’t get too far behind.

Often times I will find myself wanting to write a really long post, but it is so hard to get started. I have so much stuff going on in my life, and I’ll really want to have a chance to write, but I never get the chance, and the few chances I do get I end up sitting at my computer playing Forty Thieves solitaire.

I would have to say, that is probably one of the biggest downsides (the few that they are) to having an almost live-in girlfriend now is that I don’t have as much of the boring alone time as I used to. Not that that is even that bad of a thing. (Sex is usually better than solitaire) But I don’t get a chance as often to sit down and write a really long journal post.

Every time I try to think about what I want to write, I think of all the things that have happened to me since the last time I wrote something. Usually there is a whole lot to write about, especially if you look at it from the perspective that everything you encounter in your day to day lives would be something good to write about.

So where do I start? If you were to look back into the history of my writings on Live Journal, you will see a time where I would post a separate entry for each day of my life. Every night (or the next morning) I would sit down and reflect on my day. These were the things I did, the things I saw, the thoughts I have. This works out very well for me considering the way my memory will work. I can go back, read a post, and almost place myself back there with everything that is around me.

Censorship on Live Journal has always been a big issue. The question of public entry vs. private entry is a very good one. I do not have any private entries. (Save one) I put my heart and all I had into these big long rants, and I didn’t care who read it. Of course, at that time, no one did.

As anyone who gets involved in Live Journal will find, the longer they spend here, and the more they get into this community, their Friends list will slowly start to grow. At the time of this writing, I have 43 people that have friended me. That means that this very post will potentially be read by up to 43 people out there. That’s a lot of people. It was one thing when my friends list consisted of a small handful of friends that would occasionally read what I had to write, but it becomes a slightly different matter when there are so many more people.

I know some of the people on my list. In fact, I would say that I know a good deal of the people that read my posts. A lot of them I went to school with, or was friends with, or knew them in some point in my life. And then there are the people that I do not know at all. The people that usually I have friended first, because I like to read people other peoples’ posts, and out of reciprocal respect have friended me back.

So now every word that I write will at lest potentially be read by up to 43 people. (Not to mention my non-friend readers) That’s a lot of people who are now able to read what was originally designed as an incredibly private, and therapeutic journal.

Now of those 43 people that are theoretically reading this post; some of you, I know quite well; some of you, I used to know rather well, but not as much anymore; some of you, I hardly know at all; and the rest, I have never even met. How can I trust all of you? I have several options available to me. I could always open up another Live Journal account and post the juicier bits of my life there, but I like the idea of having all my LJ posts under one account. I could not post what I want to write, but I don’t get that exhibitionist thrill of not only pouring out my emotions and problems into Microsoft Word, but also sharing it with others.

Then there is a third option. I could always devise some sort of elaborate filter system. I could write posts that only a select few of my friends can read certain posts. I don’t like this idea for several reasons. Firstly, I don’t like the idea of having to have private or protected entries. If I’m going to write, and say what I have to say, then part of me wants that information to be available to any and all that really want to know bad enough. But this goes against everything I’m working for. I want to hide parts of my life from those that don’t want to know, but share them with the people that do want to know. And I don’t want to deny people the opportunity to cross over, to make that decision to find out more, if they really want to know. If you have an idea of what I’m talking about, and you are okay with it. Let me know so I can add you if I end up setting up a filter.

This post was originally going to be about my day yesterday. (just to write) Or at the very least a summary of things in my life, but it seems that it turned into something else. So I will leave things as they stand now.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve sat down and wrote a full length journal entry. Sometimes it feels like my life is just a little too complicated to sit down and write everything I feel without worrying about who is reading it. When I first started this journal, it was pretty easy. Nobody read what I had to say, so I felt fairly comfortable saying whatever the fuck I wanted. It’s not quite as easy anymore.

(more…)

It is much less known that, as he was climbing back from the moon surface into the lunar module, he muttered another sentence, “Good luck Mr Gorski.” After his return to earth, curious reporters inquired what this sentence meant, but Armstrong refused to reveal it.

Last year, [1997] at a party in Florida, someone brought it up again. This time, Neil Armstrong felt free to disclose the meaning of the sentence, since, in the meantime, Mr Gorski and his wife had died. When Neil was a boy, the Gorskis were their next-door neighbours. One day, Neil was playing ball in his backyard with his friends. At one point, the ball landed in the Gorski’s garden under the open window of their bedroom and Neil was appointed to retrieve it. The Gorskis were in the middle of a heated argument. As Neil was picking up the ball, he heard Mrs Gorski screaming: “Oral sex? You want oral sex? You’ll get oral sex the day the kid next door walks on the moon.”

(Stanislav Grof, The Cosmic Game, Colourbooks Ltd, Dublin, 1998, pp. 94 - 95.)

(thanks to )

Okay, I guess I need to sit down and write about my Christmas. I had a really good christmas, suprisingly. I wasn't that into christmas going into it, but when all was said in done, I'd have to say that I had a pretty good time this year.

(more…)

First off, let me say for the record that I hate christmas shopping. Call me a scrooge if you want, but I am just horrible at shopping for people’s presents. Second, I recently had my car die on me. This made it very dificult to get any shopping done. So I have this “list” of my friends and family, that I feel I should try to buy something for. Now, I suck at thinking of what to get people. I know I keep getting told “Oh, it’s really not that hard. You simply have to listen to what people say they want, and you have to remember these things.” And to that I say: Sure, sounds like a great idea, unfortunatly, I already fucked it up and now I’m here at the Mall and I completly forgot what anyone might have said they wanted.

(more…)

… Is not something I have. I just got off the phone with the auto repair shop. My car is going to need a new engine, in addition to fixing whatever was causing it to overheat. He estimated it would cost approximatly $2200 to get it fixed, not to mention the cost of having it towed there, the diagnostic, and the cost of having it towed back to my house. (which I’m going to have to do)

Looks like I’m going to just have to go to Meijer’s and get a bike after all.

I’m not sure how much Christmas shopping I’m going to be able to do now. Hopefully something good will come of this. I’m just not sure what that is yet.

Edit: And to make matters worse… Someone stole my licence plate!

I woke up with such a horrible headache. I had set the alarm for about 10 or so, but eaither I, or Amanda must have turned it off. Ben woke us up at around 11. We only had an hour left and I still had to try and get my car.

(more…)

Okay, It’s been a really long time since I’ve really sat down and wrote a really good long post. I started to fall behind in my posting, and then I didn’t know what to write after that. I have all these things that I feel that I need to explain in my life, but it comes out to be too much, so I go even longer because I don’t know how to explain what has happened to me. Too much happened yesterday to continue for too long.

So, Amanda spent the night the other night. She called off work so that we could have the day together. We had to give Ben a ride to work, because his car is still being worked on. Amanda came with us, and I took her inside so she could see where I worked. We have a really sweet building here. They spent a whole lot of money making this a very nice place to work. It’s really too bad that some of that effect is kinda lost when you have to come here every day and work. So I gave her the grand tour: my desk, game room, weight room, lunch room. Then we went back home.

I took a shower, because I hadn’t had a chance to before we left. (lost track of time a litte bit there. (”holy shit! it’s 11:50!”)) And then we went to the Coney for breakfast… obstensably. Can you really call it breakfast if it’s at 1:00 pm? Well I can’t. That was why I decided to get a burger instead. I saw something called a “Monster Burger” and thought to myself, “What the hell, I’m hungry” The waitress kinda gave me a wierd look. I realized why when I saw the size of this thing. It had 3 1/3 pound burgers. I could barely fit it in my mouth. I almost couldn’t eat the whole thing. I got down to pretty much the last bite and felt stuffed, but I had to finish it, just to prove a point.

Next, we went to Downtown Ann Arbor. It was so cold up on top of the parking structure. You’ve got to love Michigan winters. We stopped into Harry’s Army Surplus, both to shop around / waste time and to warm up a little bit. I found a (faux) leather jacket I really liked. I tried it on, and then I saw the price. $9.99. I thought it had to be a misprint, but it wasn’t. So now I have a new coat. It’s still a little stiff. I’ll have to break it in a little more.

After that, we went to Stairway to Heaven, Ann Arbor’s local head shop. We looked around for a bit, browsed through their collection of bumper stickers, and bought some new screens. I got to tell one of the guys that worked there about Emperor Norton. I love that shirt. It always gives me a chance to tell his story. Next, we went into the tatoo parlor side. I got some tenative prices on some of the tatoos I want to get, and we discussed how to take care of iguanas.

We went back home, watched the Simpsons, I talked to my Dad, then we headed back to Garden City. We picked up her check, then went back to her house. I got to meet her youngest brother. And then one of her friends showed up. (one I had never met before) We drove around for a little bit. We tried to go to one of their friend’s houses, but no one was home. We dropped her friend back off at her car, and then went over to Ken and Christin’s house. I was only there for a little bit. Candice was over there hanging out, and it’s still a little bit to early before Candice and Amanda can be in the same room with out some uncomfortableness. I ran in, and talked to Ken real quick while Amanda stayed out in the car.

Next, we went to go visit her Grandpa. Another family member. The only one I haven’t met yet is her father now. We sat around for a bit and talked to her Grandpa, and watched Joan of Arcadia. I think I made a fairly good impression. I really don’t know what her family thinks of me just yet. I hope they’ll like me. It really puts a lot less strain on a relationship if your SO’s family doesn’t hate your guts.

So, we leave there, stop by Wendy’s, and then go pick up Cindy. We go back to her place, she tells her mom that she is going back out, and then we go back to Farmer Jack’s so we can pick up my car. We go to Standard Federal so I could pull out some money. (I still owed her $5 from before) and then we went over to Blue’s house.

We hung out at Blue’s house for a little bit, and then called Ben. It was decided that Cindy was going to take Amanda’s car to go pick up Ben. I gave her my phone so she could contact him and find out exactly where he lived. I was kinda worried that she might not be able to find her way back. I ran out there to make sure she‘d be all right, but I didn’t want to leave Amanda in a strange place by herself otherwise I’d have gone with her.

So, Cindy leaves, some more people show up, time goes by, I play with Blue’s turntable, more time goes by, Cindy still has not shown up. By this time we’re starting to get a little worried. This worry is increased by the fact that she has my phone, and nobody there has a phone. At least not untill three more girls showed up. We borrowed one of their phones, but my phone was now dead, and I couldn’t remember Ben’s cell phone number. (it’s in my phone)

Cindy and Ben finally show up, and we find out what was taking them so long. Cindy got pulled over while trying to find Ben’s mom’s place. She got hit with No Ops on Person and a warning for erratic driving. At least it wasn’t any worse. She‘ll be able to take her ID up to the court house and they’ll throw it out. So, we were hanging out for a little bit longer at Blue’s house, but I was starting to feel really uncomfortable being there, and wanted to get going home because I had to work the next day. So, we said our goodbyes and took off.

Ben drove Amanda’s car home with Cindy, and Amanda and I drove home in my car. We split up because we like to take different routes. I was joking that it would be interesting to see who would get home first. That way we’d know which was the faster route. We got all the way to Mile 174 when my car started to overheat and loose speed. I pull over on the side of the road and we let my car cool down.

Thankfully, we were ahead of Ben. He saw us, stopped, and went and got us a bottle of anti-freeze. We filled it up, but the car still wouldn’t start. I was way too tired to fuck with it anymore, so we left my car sitting there on the side of the road. Went home, and tried to watch Clerks once again. But she fell asleep on me again. Oh well. I’ll make her watch that movie, no matter how long it takes.

I have more to this story, but that’s the story of today… which I will write later.