Date:	2008-01-16 03:08
Subject:	DreamHost = extreme lose
Security:	Public
Mood:	pissed off

( Cut for length )

Because of people being stupid basically, this journal is now friends only. Comment here if you want to be added to my friends list to see the entries from here on out.

Kait made me a nice new layout if no one's noticed yet. Thank you honey, I love it. ^_^

Date:	2005-11-29 03:20
Subject:	why do I love thee?
Security:	Public
Mood:	drunk

Taken from cleric_sylphiel

Reply to this post, and I'll tell you some of why I like/love/adore you.

Then put this in your own journal if you want and spread the love.

Date:	2005-11-26 01:32
Subject:	semi-reunion
Security:	Public
Mood:	nostalgic

It's almost 1:30 as I start this, and I just got home and am in a great mood. Yeah, hard to believe, especially that I'm typing a post this late. I've been up since 3:30, worked at the toy store from 4:30 - 2, cashed my paycheck from there to put gas in the car and get it washed before going into the bell from 4 - 11. Normally, I would already be passed out. Today though, a bunch of us at the bell decided to go to the B'ville Diner after close, so I joined them. It's been a while since we've done that and we had a good time there like normal. This trip was different though, since towards the end of our meal, in walked a group of friends of mine from high school from the track team. Many of them that I knew well before doing track with them. With one exception (since he went to Oswego), I haven't seen any of them in like 4 - 5 years. I jumped to their tables once I paid my part of the bill on mine to talk to them and everything. We were all happy to see each other (from what I gathered, they were in two groups who found each other not long before dinner, so it was a big reunion for the most part) and did our best to catch up. Everyone was pretty shocked when I showed them my license picture of when I had long hair. ^^;;; They were all very happy to hear about me getting engaged, I really wish that Kait could've been there somehow so she could've met them. Before my co-workers left we had one of them take a pic of all of us on Scott's camera. I can't wait to get a hold of that pic. I never thought I would end off black friday on such a high note, it was really great seeing all of them again.

Now I must head off to bed, I have been offically up 22 hours now and need some sleep. ^^;; I'll finally be back in Oswego tomorrow sometime after I get some things here taken care of which I'll get into later. For now, sleepytime... ~_~

Date:	2005-11-24 18:19
Subject:	A very happy Thanksgiving
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy

First off, I'd like to wish everyone who might be reading this a very happy Thanksgiving. ^_^

This Thanksgiving for me has definetly been the best in my life thus far. To start off, we had not only one, but two Thanksgiving dinners. One at Kait's parents' yesterday, the other at my parents' today. What made them even better is the amount of time that me and her have been together for the past few days. We left for her parents' on Tuesday evening and spent the night there. We were there all day yesterday and stayed the night there before leaving for my parents' this morning. We had a lot of fun at her parents' between drinking and spending time with her parents, step-sister and her fiancee. We got picture happy too and I'll be sure to post upsome of those pics sometime this weekend. It was a really fun time there and we both enjoyed it there. At my parents' we had a good time as well, though we were only there for a short time, at least compared to the time we spent over at her parents'. Both dinners were very nice and we got filled up with both of them.

The highlight of this little holiday vacation was definetly the great emotional moments between the two of us the whole time. We talked a lot about our future together, raising a family, and lots of other things. The love between the two of us seems to grow everyday and these past couple days it's felt like that ten-fold. With each day, it seems like we find out something else that proves that we're perfect for each other, and the emotional connections we had this vacation proved that even more. The drive of bringing her back up to Oswego was simply amazing, since we had a great conversation about a lot of the things metioned above and it was so powerful to both of us that we both almost cried of hapiness during the drive.

All in all, this Thanksgiving has been the best I've ever had, and she says it's the best she's ever had too. I can't wait to see what the future holds for us after this great Thanksgiving. ^_^

Date:	2005-11-14 02:27
Subject:	200 questions meme
Security:	Public
Mood:	relieved

( almost-200 questions meme )

Date:	2005-11-13 23:59
Subject:	ring for Kait ^_^
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy

It's been a hell of a week, a really great week. The day after my last post, me and Angel had a little mediation thingy with Mike and everything got worked out, so we didn't lose her as an employee and we both apologized for what happened and such. The me and Mike talked for a little bit after it, and everything's all nice and squared away with it. Besides that, work has been pretty good actually. We got our audit the day after my last post and got a 94, which is awesome. Tom (our DM) was very proud of us for doing so well with him not being there (he was trying to follow Ed around the best he could to help each of the stores with their scores. Actually, one of the things that we got taken off for he's going to argue about (some log that doesn't really apply to mall units), so we might actually have a 97 if that goes through well. On top of that, we had our Champs Check (mystery shopper type thingy) and got a 100 on that. If we get a 100 on our next/final one, then we're actually in the running to be Golden Bell status for the year, which means we really kick ass, a nice bonus and rewards all-around. I'm really looking forward to that if it happens. I also started up at KB, which isn't bad. I haven't really done much there besides help out with the truck and put stuff away, but that's fine. I was taught register but haven't actually used it yet, though I'm sure it will be my best friend on Black Friday. I am not looking forward to that day. -_-

Other stuff, there really hasn't been that many big things this week, except one really big thing this weekend. This weekend, I was finally able to put an engagement ring on Kait's finger. Yep, a way to get her one finally presented itself this weekend unexpectedly. A few years ago when my grandma died, my mom got a couple of rings. Sometime between when we had dinner that night a few weeks ago and this week she remembered about them. So she showed the rings to some of the other teachers she worked with and asked them if she should offer me one to use for an engagement ring for Kait. They all said she should, so when I visited yesterday, she told me about them and showed them to me. I was really shocked and happy, and very gladly accepted her offer. The one thing I've regretted about when I proposed to Kait was the fact that I didn't have a ring for her, so having a ring offered to me just blew my mind. I never thought that something like that would happen, and it just blew my mind. I accepted her offer and suprised her almost right after work last night. She suprised me by cooking me some dinner and bringing it over, so then I suprised her by taking the ring box out of my pocket and opening it in front of her. ^_^ The sheer amount of hapiness and shock was just plain awesome. It was a great night finally putting a ring on her finger, and seeing her so very happy because of it. It was a little big though, sop we went to the mall today to get that fixed. Since the band isn't gold, it couldn't get refitted, but we were able to get a ring guard to get it to fit on her finger nicely. It definetly looks like it belongs on her finger and we're both very happy that her finger is finally not naked anymore. ^_^

Date:	2005-11-03 02:08
Subject:	fun work day
Security:	Public
Mood:	mellow

Today (or yesterday to those of you who pay attention to the timestamp =P ) was a hell of a day. I already pretty much don't like Wednesdays since I work 10 hours (8 - 6) and then go right to DDR Club (7 - 10) and am pretty much dead. Today, it was not only a long day, but a nice eventful one. Pretty much any day now at any time, we're going to be audited, so being the opening manager I'm trying to make sure everything is going perfectly and whatnot, and wasn't doing a bad job in doing so starting out. However, there is always one variable that can change the course of the day and that's customers. And they did, because they came in drives today, and we pretty much got our asses handed to us. Add into this that truck delivery dates and days to place orders changed this past week after years of staying the same, so now for Wednesdays I have added in the job of doing the truck order. These have to be sent in by 3PM. Since we got our asses handed to us, there was really no opportunity to get this done. Only when I went on my break was there a bit of a chance to, so after I ate my food I started it up off the clock so it would at least get done. I didn't like having to do that, but it had to be done so it wasn't a big deal to me since I'm usually bored on breaks anyways. I finished it up about 20 minutes after I punched back in, then sent Becky on break, and had a little incident occur. For my first time, I've had an employee walk out on me during my shift.

Honestly, I don't see how it grew to that happening. Granted, the day was stressful for all four of us working the afternoon shift, but it was also not that bad and we've all been through much worse. When I sent Becky on break, Angel was still on register and I took over line while Amanda finished up some food prep. In the middle of the line, Angel needed me to open her drawer up since she accidentally short-changed a customer. Normally, not a big deal, annoying, especially with the timing, but not normally a big deal. However, this past week I've had to do that 2 - 3 times a day whenever she's been on register, so I told her how often I've had to do that and to pay more attention so I didn't always have to do that. She apparently took offense to this and defended her mistake giving me some excuse. I told her I didn't have time for this since I was on line by myself and there were orders and she said it wasn't her fault I'm slow on line. I let that go since I'm better than resorting to insults and didn't have time for it. She finishes up taking orders and then comes to me and asks why I yelled at her in front of everyone. I told her that I was tired of having to open her drawer over and over, and that I wasn't yelling at her. Annoyed voice tone, yes. Yelling, hell no. Yelling would've gotten a LOT more attention. She made a comment on how long it took me to do the truck order (I don't know/remember why, it's unrelated), which I didn't let slide as much as the previous one for the sole reason I gave up a lot of my break to do that. I basically said something along the lines of her not knowing anything about what she was talking about (which she doesn't, she's not a manager nor has she ever done a truck order) and that next time, if she wants to I can teach her how to do it and see how fast she can do it. The she crossed the line by yelling at me to shut up. That's when I DID yell, stating that she doesn't talk to me like that, that I'm the manager and she's an employee, and she listens to me when I tell her something. I then continued making food and I guess she went to the desk and cried for a few minutes. Becky saw her there when she came back in the store and asked her what happened, and Angel said that I was an asshole and she was leavingl, and she did just that. I didn't see or hear any of that minus her leaving the store. So I punched her out and wrote a writeup and cashed out her drawer. Well, none of that happened right away, we were still pretty much getting served, so it didn't get done as quickly as I would've liked. I eventually talked to Tom (district manager) on the phone about it (our GM is in a different store while that GM is recovering from surgery so I can't really get a hold of him well, plus Tom was basically calling around each store a lot to keep track of Ed (the auditor)), and he gave me advice on how I should handle it and such, and letting me know that I had the power to do anything I needed to about it. After talking to him, then thinking about it on my own, it looks like this will go down as her quitting without notice. I'm going to talk to her tomorrow is she shows up to work, but given that she walked out in response to a request I made of her, added into the fact that she left the store last winter on questionable terms (barely any notice at all if I remember correctly, left a bad taste in most of our mouths back then and I was sketchy when we rehired her, but she's been great prior to this and was great prior to that back then), it doesn't look good for her. It'll be rougher without her, but I don't want an employee who will act like that at a small thing in the store and I can't let something like this slide. She's a good worker, but can't pull this shit and expect nothing to happen, and she's already done it before as mentioned just now. It'll mean a little more stressful weekdays during the day, but once Brian is back it won't matter too much. Hell, we'll probably save on labor during the day because of this, which Brian will love. Anyways, moving on since this was a hell of a lot longer than I thought. ^^;;;

So the last couple of hours of worked sucked too, but that was the peak obviously. I was just ready to leave and was so happy when I finally did. Esepcially when my numbers were pretty bad for the shift. So much for my streak of good numbers. Today I learned firsthand of what a pain in the ass it can be to be a manager. DDR Club helped releave some stress though, and more stress was relieved when going to Kait's after. Thanks hon. ^_~

Tomorrow (or today >P ) should be an interesting day. First shift over at KB, and then going to the bell right after and dealing with what may or may not happen due to today's incident. I just hope our audit is done before I get there, I hate being there for audits. ^^;;;

Date:	2005-10-28 19:30
Subject:	test thingies
Security:	Public
Mood:	calm

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.1
Mind:	7.4
Body:	8.2
Spirit:	5.8
Friends/Family:	5.3
Love:	9.2
Finance:	6.6
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

The Slow Dancer Deliberate Gentle Love Dreamer (DGLDm) Steady, reliable, and cradling her tenderly. Take a deep breath, and let it out real easy...you are The Slow Dancer. Your focus is love, not sex, and for your age, you have average experience. But you're a great, thoughtful guy, and your love life improves every year. There's also a powerful elimination process working in your favor: most Playboy types get stuck raising unwanted kids before you even begin settling down. The women left over will be hot and yours. Your ideal woman is someone intimate, intelligent, and very supportive. Your exact opposite: The Hornivore Random Brutal Sex Master While you're not exactly the life of the party, you do thrive in small groups of smart people. Your circle of friends is extra tight and it's HIGHLY likely they're just like you. You appreciate symmetry in relationships. ALWAYS AVOID: The Battleaxe CONSIDER: The Maid of Honor or The Sonnet Link: The 32-Type Dating Test by OkCupid - Free Online Dating. My profile name: narsk

Date:	2005-10-27 14:00
Subject:	NES 20th Year Anniversary
Security:	Public
Mood:	nostalgic

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the NES, the system that shaped the video game intustry as we know it. 1up.com is having a week long special to celebrate the NES. It's been a great read and has relived a lot of memories of the days when NES ruled the industry. Everyone should go and relieve the great days of the NES by checking the special out and play a lot of NES. XD

Date:	2005-10-26 23:59
Subject:	fun couple of weeks
Security:	Public
Mood:	content

So yeah, that mention of updating more often didn't seem to happen these past couple of weeks. ^^;;;; One of these days I'll be as good as I was in the past with updating so much. In any case, as you can imagine, it's been a hell of a couple weeks. I'm happy to say that everyone is happy about the engagement. Shocked obviously, but still happy for us. Each of our familes seem to have the same concerns, and neither questions the strong feelings between the two of us, which is great. I'm glad the response to it has been so well, I had no idea what to expect with it since I'm the first I know of out of many of my friends to get engaged, and it looks like I had nothing to worry about. ^_^;;

Keeping on that subject, the two of us have grown a lot closer since then. We've had a couple arguments and disagreements since it happened, and we've gotten through them really well. I've definetly opened up a lot more with those and even though I don't like going through those things, getting through them has paid off so much and makes it all worth it. We've only gotten stronger together and I see that continuing on for a good long time. ^_^

The two of us had dinner with her dad and stepmother this weekend. It was really nice. We went to Coleman's and had a great dinner with a very good talk. Her parents voiced their concerns to make sure we're prepared for everything that's going to come up. Finances, insuirance, etc., a lot of the important stuff. Though Kait was uncomfortable talking about that kind of stuff, I think it did us good to have that. After dinner, the four of us went back to her place and had a much more emotional driven talk involving Kait's past and her worries about how it will affect her future and such. It was a very emotional moment and really tough on her at times, but we all got through it and I believe it did a lot of good to have that conversation. All in all, it was a very good dinner, and all the talking helped prepare us for what's ahead. This weekend we're going to dinner at my parents', with my sister there too, and possibly even my brother if he doesn't head back to school before it (he's visiting home this weekend). I'm a bit nervous, just like this past weekend, but I'm also really looking forward to it.

Onto other things, I finally got a second job. As of Monday, I'm now offically working at KB Toys in the mall. I'm a seasonal hire right now, but that may turn into an actual part time job after the season depending on various things. The manager (Mike) mentioned a possibility of me becoming a part time assistant manager there sometime and told me to think about it. If he mentions it again, I think I'll accept, since it will be a big help to the wallet. But it's nothing I'm going to get my hopes up for. Right now I'm just going to assume that things will stay with me being seasonal only with a possibility of it becoming a permanent part time position after the season. I'm not going to get ahead of myself with that just yet, especially without having worked a shift there yet. ^^;;; My main concern right now is to get Kait a ring before the end of the year and stay afloat in the process, and this new job will definetly help that.

I'm also looking forward to this weekend because as I mentioned, my brother will be coming home from school this weekend. We always love seeing each other, and right now even moreso since he's been having a rough semester. Not grade-wise, but he's just not enjoying himself there. Except for his roommate and a couple others, he doesn't really know anyone there and most people just stay in their rooms there so he's not really meeting anyone. Worse off, is that his girlfriend broke up with him last week. Complete bs that is imo, there's no logical reason for why she did that, especially after being with him for so long (a year would've been a week and a half away from today). So he's really been down lately and I want to help bring him back up. He's going to be transferring up here to Oswego which will be great. I'll see him a lot more often and better yet, he'll have a lot more fun on campus here since this is a very social campus. This will be a lot better for him, plus he'll always have here to come to whenever he wants and will be close to my place whenever he wants to chill or anything here. I'm glad things are starting to look up for him, I know he'll get through everything well and will do what I can to help.

Last but not least, since I haven't really been much up to anything else not mentioned above outside on work on SMU, I have been kicking ass in DDR lately. I passed Cartoon Heroes in the arcade a few weeks ago, which is a barrier I've been trying to break for a good while now. I also got my first SDG on the home pads in DDR club which was awesome. I tried to do the same in the arcade the very next day, and a pad miss screwed me out of it, I had 9 greats otherwise. >.< At least I know I'm capable of doing them now, which is a great barrier to break when I finally break it, which should be soon. Most impressive though, is my doubles skills in the home version in DDR Club last week. I've been in a bit of a doubles lull since we don't play them much in the club (once, maybe twice a month) and the mall's pads haven't been that good for them. However, in my last song last week on doubles before we packed up, I passed Sakura. Yep, a fricking 10-footer. The easiest 10-footer yet, but still, a 10-footer. Damn did that feel good and was everyone shocked and proud. Tried it in the arcade the next day to no avail, but it was more the pads than it was me, so I know it will happen soon. I'm definetly enjoying this burst of breaking barriers in DDR. ^_^ I haven't played any other games really, but Kait just got X-Men Legends 2 and it's been real fun so far. She's kicking ass with Jean Grey and Scarlet Witch with me using melee characters such as Rouge.

I think that sums up a lot of the past couple weeks. More posts hopefully in less amounts of time between them coming. ^^;;;;

Date:	2005-10-11 00:49
Subject:	big news tonight ^___^
Security:	Public
Mood:	ecstatic

Tonight marked a big night in mine and Kait's lives today. We were having a serious talk about our future tonight, with lots of talk of how confident we were about being with each other and such, and I did something during that which I'm sure a lot of you will think is crazy. However, with how we've worked through various troubles along the way and how well things are going, as well as the everything we were talking about in our conversation, I felt very sure and confident about what I did right then. At that point, I couldn't hold my thoughts in anymore to her and asked her if she would marry me. I didn't have a ring to ask her with which I wanted to wait until I had one to do that with, but I just coundn't hold it in. Like I've been saying alot recently, I really love her and I do love her that much to be able to ask her what I did. She was pretty shocked that I did (who could blame her?), but she said yes. ^____^ So now, we are offically engaged. It will obviously be a while before we set a date or anything of the sort, but in any case, we are offically engaged and I have never been any happier than I am now. I love you Kait and I'm really glad you feel the same way. ^_^

Date:	2005-10-10 00:34
Subject:	heh
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy

I really should update on a more normal basis so it doesn't feel like a catch-up post everytime I post here. ^^;;;

First off, the damn cat is gone from the house. For those of you who didn't know, a little over a month ago, a cat was following someone and we decided to keep it. I was pretty neutral on the whole thing at the time, though as time went on the damn thing was annoying the hell out of me, and worse it kept Kait from coming over here since she's really allergic to cats. Almost two weeks ago, the cat disappeared and it's gone for good I was told a few days ago. Yay for no more annoying kitty, and bigger yay for Kait being able to come over here again since I cleaned after it left. ^_^

I rearranged my room. It works out better now with this arrangement.

My brother came home from school this weekend. I had him over last night and he spent the night here, and we had a good night chilling with playing games and watching stuff with Kait here too with us. He's going to the open house for here tomorrow (technically today) and is very likely transferring up here. I really hope he does, I think he would enjoy it a lot more up here and it'd be awesome to have him around a lot again. I've missed him a lot since starting college myself.

Finishing off, with the most important thing of all, Kait. ^_^ Things are going fucking awesome with us. I never thought that I'd be doing so well with anyone after such a short time, but that's happening right now. We've been together for a tad over four months and despite a few arguments here and there along the way, it has been simply amazing. Like I mentioned in my last post, we've already been planning on moving together, and the wait for that is rough, but will be worth it. We've also been planning for a trip to TX for A-Kon next year to see Tiff and Derek and possibly more people. I enjoyed my time there last summer, and I know we'll both have a great time down there this coming summer. The really cool part about the trip, is that it falls really close to mine and Kait's one-year anniversary. What a way to celebrate a one year, move in a place together then take a vacation together as well. I'm really happy with how everything is going between us and love her very much. ^___^

Date:	2005-09-25 15:16
Subject:	great week
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy

To start off, things have been great between me and Kait. The time we spend together is great, and I've been feeling a lot of feelings I haven't before which has been amazing. It's hard to put into words, but I love it. We've even started talking about moving in together after the school year ends. ^_^ I spent a lot of last weekend with her as well as the past few nights (minus last night) and I feel really good about how things are going. I love you Kait! ^_^

Other things are going well too. I FINALLY got my black shirt and promotion at the bell this week. It's such a great feeling after waiting for so long. Also, I'm finally getting stuff done for SMU on a semi-regular basis again. I'll probably do some more work on there after I finish up this post. I also finally got my couch and other furnature from my old boss this week too, and my room is finally complete. He also gave me an older computer too, which should be nice to play around on. I'm planning to use it to play my older PC games since Windows XP sucks for old school gaming. Just need to clean up a bit and organize some things, which will take me a while. ^^;;;

I'm really happy that things have finally gotten better for me this year. ^_^

Date:	2005-09-17 13:52
Subject:	nice couple of weeks
Security:	Public
Mood:	calm

It's been a hell of a couple of weeks. Some bad, but a lot of good, and good came out of the bad. First and foremost, there was stuff between me and Kait. In the days prior to my birthday, we went through some rough waters. It got to a point where we almost broke up right on my birthday. We decided then to take a break from seeing each other for the week and see what happens from there. It was a more calm week for me at least, with work dying down since the kiddies are back in school and staying at my parents' a couple of nights. It seemed to me during this time that being single might be better for me, but when the break stopped, so did those thoughts. We made up on her birthday night, though sadly I was sick and the birthday run came to a halt. I went home to get some rest and told Paul to finish up the run with her giving him my money for her drinks, but she came to my room a little later and then brought me to her place to help me get better. I got a lot of rest and started to feel a bit better, so me and Paul tried the run again that night staying at one bar we like and I didn't drink at all. We got her really drunk, she beat out my birthday by a few drinks though over a little longer time, and even more amazing is that she asked for a drink while she was puking. She only drank half of it, but damn, that was pretty hardcore. I'm so proud of her, and made an away message for her saying that, which she kept up the entire next day. ^^;;; Things have been staying well since then, I'm happy we worked things out. ^__^

Other things have been working out pretty well too. I've been closer to my parents than I have been in years. I've been going there more often to help Dad out with building his barn and other yard work, spending the night when my work schedule makes it not worth driving back home then back to work the next day, it's been pretty nice. Financially, I'm finally just about out of the red. Chris let me borrow some money to help me out since he doesn't want to see me selling my stuff and is letting me pay him back a little each week. I'm caught up on car insurance, will have my rent back pay paid after the weekend, and am off a monthly plan for a cell phone. Granted, I'm nowhere near where I was prior to this past spring, but it is nice to not have to worry as much about getting the important things paid for.

I got a new cell phone. As mentioned above, I'm off a monthly plan, which is largely in part to the bill being unpaid. ^^;;; A phone isn't that important to me, which is why I let that lapse instead of other, more important things. However, with my extra money for the week, and knowing I need a phone of some sort for people to find me (even though I loved my little isolation from this ^^;;; ), I went and got a new phone with pre-paid minutes so I can just buy minutes as I need them. I have to say, I made out really well. The guy working was awesome, he didn't try hard to rope me into any monthly plan or anything like that (like someone at another one of their booths was trying to so bad), he only asked me once and I let him know I already thought about that stuff, and that was it. The rest of the time was just focused on getting me setup with a new phone. I got a pretty nice phone for $100 and it has two and a half of minutes to start out. I also got a case for the phone, which was discounted since I was buying the phone with it, so only $15 there. And to top it all off, they were having a big promotion for prepaid phones, and with the purchase of my phone, I got a cheaper phone with 60 minutes completely free. I didn't need it but I figured I might find someone who may want it, and ended up giving it to one of my shift managers.

Pretty soon, I'm finally going to be getting new contacts. I've been stretching the life out of this last set for over a year longer than I should, so my parents decided for my birthday to have an eye exam and get new contacts. I had the exam this past Tuesday, so hopefully they will be here after this weekend. Onto things not really important but pretty cool, me and Chris have been having a Donkey Kong Country trilogy marathon in our free time the past couple weeks. We got an urge to do that after playing Super Smash Bros. Melee one night and talking about the DKC music in it and started right there to relive the memories of that amazing trilogy. We're going for the max percentage in each game, and have already gotten 101% in the first one, and 102% in the second one. As I type this, we're all the way into the last world and have gotten everything possible to the point we're at, though we're not touching the lost world until we beat the last one. Once we finish that game, we're going to work on Donkey Kong 64 since neither of us really played that game. He never played it, and my expansion pack for the N64 was semi-stolen from me back in the day and I never went through the game when I replaced it a year or two later. It's been nice going through the older games back when they made better quality games.

It's been a nice couple of weeks, my stress level has gone down quite a bit and I finally feel really relaxed in general, something I've been waiting to attain all year long. And I've got this weekend off. I originally was going to the Syracuse DDR tournament, but decided against it last week since I won't get much play time and will pretty much just waste gas and money, not to mention I'm sure there will be a bunch of videos up so I won't miss too much. I was thinking about visiting my brother this weekend, but just as I was thinking about that, I was informed he was coming home this weekend and already made a bunch of plans with a few others also coming home this weekend. I guess today is our school's marching band home show so a bunch of them made plans and such. So with both my plans not really working, I'm just going to relax a bit more. Going to get some cleaning done today since I'm finally getting that couch from my old boss tomorrow morning which means I finally get my loveseat in my room and it will be complete. I'm also going to get an SMU comparison or two done up since it's been a while and I think I can finally get back to getting them done on a regular basis, and I've set myself a goal to help this happen.

Date:	2005-09-01 03:25
Subject:	I'm not dead
Security:	Public
Mood:	thoughtful

So.... yeah. It's been a long time since I've done much of anything. I'm not sure where to start since there's been a lot of stuff on my mind and a bunch of stuff I've been made aware of that I've been too blind to see myself. I guess I'll start with my isolation for the good part of the year and hope that leads into things. As I'm sure anyone could tell, I've had a rollercoaster of a year this year. I won't go into any details since most of them are detailed very nicely just on this front page. Somewhere along the way, I got a girlfriend which added a lot more to the ride. It's been crazy having various shitty things happen, going through moving to a different place, and then adding a lot of unknowns when it comes to relationships since this is my first. So for much of this year, instead of venting on here, talking with various people, doing my normal stuff on and offline, and basically anything I normally do, I've kept a lot to myself. Not that I haven't really done that before, but it was taken to a new level. No matter how much in the past I would do something similar, I would never shut myself out so much that interfered with my normal way of life so much. Why I've done this I'm still not sure, hell, I may understand more by the time I'm done because I'm trying to type as I think through this all. In the middle of this isolation, somehow I got together with Kait and it got to the point where I was sharing a lot of my feelings and emotions I was keeping to myself with her and finally slowly letting everything out. It felt good getting them out. Along the way through talking and stuff with her, I've become aware of my flaws, the big one being simple minded, as for some reason I always seem to think that there's easy ways to deal with things and that problems are essentially over once things are dealt with and such, and that's just an example of how I'm simple minded. It's a gateway to even more things which I can't even begin to list. Seeing these flaws in me for the first time was kind of a shocker. I'm not saying I ever thought I was perfect or anything of the sort, it's just that I have discovered various things about myself that I didn't know existed. So those things have been on my mind a lot lately, and because of that, I reverted back to a point long ago where I would basically just shut myself out except to a few people. There's a big difference this time around though. Way back when I did that shit, I was quite a bit of a loner and didn't have many friends, so doing that wasn't really that big a deal. Nowadays, it's the opposite, as I broke out of my shell a while ago and have many friends both IRL and online. However I went about it the same way, and never thought much about anyone else, being very selfish. I've been made aware recentally of just how badly I've shut out so much lately, and that various people are actually worried about me. In some ways, I can't really understand why, but that may be beacuse I've been pretty low on self-esteem for a while now so I might be confised about how anyone could care about someone at such a low point. But then in other ways I can understand why because I know I would be for any of my friends if they were going through tough times. Except for lately though, since I've been horribly selfish about myself to not pay that much attention to other things going on around me. And I want to apologize for that, I've basically been a jackass and not worrying about much of anything outside of me. I've basically left behind a good chunck of my friends off and online, as well as various obligations. Anytime that I probably could've done something, I've just been too lazy to take some initiative and haven't really seemed to care. It's been killing me inside because I know I'm unhappy like that, yet I somehow gave up and until tonight, never really made any strides to get myself closer to where I was. I know I'll never get there again, too much has happened for me to just go back to how I used to be, but I know I can get back on track at least.

I could go on and on about various other things, but I think the general idea was shown fairly well and I know I'd end up repeating myself a bunch of times, if I haven't done so already. ^^;;; But I wanted to explain what's been going on and apologize for my big isolation from the world. I've got a lot of things to work out with in my head, but I'm done shutting everything else out. This is my first step to getting back into the swing of things, and I'm going to make sure it's not the only step and keep working on everything from here. And once again I'm sorry for reating the way I did to my problems by shutting out almost everything. It wasn't the right way to go about it and I feel bad about anything that may have happened that I wasn't there for someone on or anything of the sort. I do feel a bit better now getting all that off my chest and finally doing something about my problems instead of sitting around doing nothing while waiting for good things to happen. It's about time I did something and I'm happy that I finally am.

Date:	2005-08-25 03:41
Subject:	Otakon 2005 report
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired

I will eventually make a small page out of this like A-Kon last year, but until I do that, here's the text of my Otakon trip.

( Otakon 2005 )

Date:	2005-08-23 03:31
Subject:	slightly drunken post for Kait
Security:	Public
Mood:	drunk

Well, Kait told me to have a post up before I go to bed, and I really don't feel like making an Otakon post just yet. Though I will say from that weekend that she got me an early birthday gift before we left. She bought me In The Groove for PS2, which is plain awesome. The next in line of dancing games does not disappoint, and I'm very glad that she got it for me. She is awesome. ^__^ I've played a few rounds on controller and have really enjoyed it thus far, can't wait to play on a dance pad. Looks really fun. ^_^

Date:	2005-08-06 02:08
Subject:	catch-up post
Security:	Public
Mood:	calm

Well, it's been a hell of a month with lots of things to mention though I probably will miss a bunch of them. My finicial status is still quite shaky but I'm still holding on, everything else is great. A couple of weekends ago, me and Kait went up to her parents' new lake house not too far from Cooperstown. It was the first time that I met any of her family and I was a bit nervous, but we all got along pretty well. She later told me that they liked me which made me happy. It was a fun weekend and really made me feel more comfortable in the relationship and everything in various ways. I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but I brought her to my brother's graduation party about a month ago where she met my family, and they liked her. So it's really good that both families like the other in the relationship and I'm really happy for that.

Moving on to other things, I sold a chunck of my DVDs this past weekend to EB Games since I needed money to make a car insurance payment before my next paycheck. I have said this many times, and now that I've done it myself and have experienced it, I will say it again. Never sell your used stuff to stores like that. You will get raped up the ass with what they give you, and they will likely more than double the price they bought it for when they put it on the shelf. I went in hoping that it wouldn't be so bad in that I would get the difference of the money I didn't have for the payment plus enough store credit to leave with In the Groove, which roughly would be ~$100, and there's no reason to get less for as many DVDs as I brought in. I got $63 and some change and was pissed. I was going to take that recepit and laminate it (my mom actually has a machine that does that) or something to show excatly why no one should deal with those places when selling stuff, but I guess I left it on the counter so I can't do that. However, I'll bet that if I go to that store any day now and could randomly find less than 1/3 of those DVDs and the total will probably be double what I got for all that I brought in. Fucking ridiclous.

This past weekend was Harborfest. For those of you not familiar with it, the weekend is basically a town-wide party. There's events and concerts going on everywhere, and tons of drinking. You could roam the streets and just play beer pong with random people, some may just offer you a drink, and there's even places you can actually just walk into and actually party with people you don't even know. I usually take this weekend off from work, and this year was no exception. My main reason for taking it off is that traffic is horrific all weekend long, and the effort to get to and from work just isn't worth it. I spent a good majority of the weekend with Kait, who was feeling pretty uncomfortable with the whole event, and the people out on her porch (her apartment is split into 3 parts) partying really didn't help. I wasn't much in the party-mode either, so it was good casually drinking with her and Paul, and eventually being joined by her step-sister and her boyfriend to play drinking games. It was a fun weekend, and relaxing to have a few days off in a row for once.

Now the big thing for me to look forward to is Otakon. I know I probably shouldn't go since my finicial status isn't excatly the best, but I have two big reasons that are having me still go. First off is that I really need a vacation to keep me sane, I need a good break from the bell and everything else. What's awesome is that it's going to be a longer break than I thought. I took off Thursday - Monday for the trip, the Monday and Tuesday prior to the trip I have off (my normal two days off for the work just happened to fall on those two), and it look like I may have Wednesday off too, which would just kickass since that would be a whole week of no bell. I am really looking forward to that. Reason two for still going is the people going with me, and I'm not gonna cancel the thing just because of me. I would never bring myself to do that to anyone and I refuse to start now. Granted, a lot of people bailed on me, including my brother, which is annoying, but the people who are coming have been dedicated. Kait and Paul haven't backed down since they heard of the trip, Matt (hometown buddy) has been working on his costume for months, and Katy, an online friend of mine for years who lives in PA, has been interested about it since I told her and will be joinging us as well. It's going to be a great weekend, the con itself will already be amazing, and I know we'll all have lots of fun, and I'm looking forward to finally meeting Katy after all this time.

Today (as in Friday, since I haven't gone to bed yet), I finally cleaned this shithole I call a room. Yep, for the first time in this house, there is not stuff just lying around in random places or on the floor. It finally looks presentable in here, as well as in my "office," the little block of space that leads my room and rally has no other purpose. I call it my "office" since it has my old desk as part of it and cleared off with a desk lamp so I can do my reading and other work on it.

So things have been going well lately, and hopefully they'll stay as good as they are, and that my checkbook will get better along the way too. ^^;;; (and I have been a good boy, haven't bought anything for myself non-necessity-wise for three months now minus Warriors of Legend, a great book I highly recommend. ^_^)