'Well thanks for waiting this long to show yourself...'

Well I just got back from a six day vacation in San Diego yesterday. Had an excellent time while I was there. Most of the time there we just relaxed by the pool, but we took a little time out to drive around a bit and took some pictures which you can see here. We stayed at Matt's uncle's house in Rancho Sante Fe, which is just north of San Diego, and is a really high-dollar area as far as mortgage rates go. Matt and Ketti were watching it for him for a few weeks while he was on vacation in Europe with his family.

Going to watch Wall-E this morning with Daniel and Alicia and their kids. After that, hang out at Dennis, and sleep. No plans for the weekend just yet, but I should find out today if I have a date this weekend or not. It was Mike's birthday yesterday, so we'll probably celebrate that this weekend as well. Have no clue what to get him... Tami's birthday was on Tuesday, and I'll give her her gifts tomorrow.

It's Sam's last day at work tonight. I'm going to miss her quite a bit. She's been an awesome friend the last year or so since I transferred to conversions, and helped me get through some really rough times. She's going to be an elementary teacher, and I wish her all the best in her new career.

"I hope you're as happy as you 're pretending..."

So here's a proper blog entry about what I've been up to lately. Well I went to see Metallica a few weeks back with DJ and Dennis. We drove all the way down to Tucson to see them. Got tickets for only $35 each thanks to Tami. While there some chick wanted to sit on my shoulders. I honestly was skeptical if I was even strong enough to lift her. Not that she looked heavy at all, I was just unsure of my strength. It was actually surprisingly easy though, and she was up there for a good 15-20 minutes before I had to put her back down. Apparently she was flashing people, but of course, her being on my shoulders, I couldn't see shit. Then while getting in line on our way out, some chick backed into me with her PT Cruiser. Just a tiny scratch though. Mike says it can probably be buffed out. Took us 2 hours just to get out of the parking lot. I'd planned to go to work that night, but I would've been late, and LaDonna said to just take the night off.

For memorial day I went quadding up at Saguaro Lake with Daniel, Alicia, and some other people from work. Flipped my quad in the first 10 minutes of riding and scraped up my elbow pretty bad. It didn't hurt much though, and I got right back on and continued riding. Unfortunately I was out in the sun for about 8 hours or so that day, and no sun block, so my arms and knees got burned real bad. Add to that the 4 hours or so of riding around on a quad, and I could barely walk the next day. Still had crazy amounts of fun though. I'll have to remember sun-block and gloves next time. It'll make the whole experience quite a bit more enjoyable I'm sure.

Saw Indiana Jones. I read that a lot of people didn't like it because of the whole 'alien' thing, but I liked it anyways... granted, aliens aren't exactly what I would ever picture in Indiana Jones, but the movie as a whole is definitely worth seeing I think. Also saw the new Chronicles of Narnia movie, and liked that quite a bit as well. Seems like they did a better job of acting this time around.

Just signed up to take Spanish 101 at GCC in July tonight. $260. Hopefully it ends up being worth it. Thankfully it's only a month long, 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. I figure I need to start getting back into the idea of school and shit. Would've signed up for photography, but they won't have any classes until next semester. Also went to the eye doctor, and the cardiologist. Contacts should be here any day now, and I go back to the cardiologist for more tests on Friday. I need to sign up for a dentist appointment now as well.

'I see your picture, I smell your skin, on the empty pillow next to mine...'

The last couple weekends have been excellent. The weekend before last I went out with some friends Saturday night to celebrate a co-workers (Shawn) birthday. He'd rented a limo to take everyone to the club and we were there until about midnight when we drove to Mill Ave., which is kind of the hotspot of downtown Tempe where the streets are lined with bars, restaurants, and shops. We were going to go to a place called The Cherry Lounge, but just as we were about to get in, Shawn, who'd had a little to drink that night, walked directly into a pole, and the bouncers wouldn't let us into the bar. After going to another bar we headed home. The next day my friend Ian flew in from California to watch the Seahawks/Cardinals game. I'd bought tickets for Ian, Dennis, and myself, and Ian brought an extra Seahawks jersey for me to wear. In the end the Cardinals won by a single field goal in the last 5 seconds of the game.

This last Saturday was my 26th birthday, and Stacy decided to invite a bunch of my friends to have dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Scottsdale called Benihana. The restaurant has you sit around a table which is also a giant skillet, where the chef cooks your food right in front of you, while also providing entertainment in the process through tricks, jokes, etc. There were 11 of us at a single table, and we barely fit. Most of the menu included seafood, which overall I'm not a fan of, but I still ended up eating some sushi and shrimp.

Daniel and Alicia ended up buying me one of the 'mugs' that were available for purchase. The mug is white, and in the shape of a crouching ninja (pic here). Your supposed to pour liquid in through a hole in his back, and drink through a straw placed in the sword scabbard hole at the top of his shoulder. Other gifts include tickets to see Static-X from DJ & Melissa, tickets to see Chevelle from Tami, cologne from Dennis & Nicole, some shirts and a gift card to F.Y.E. from Angi, and Stacy ended up paying for dinner for both myself and Niickiey, which was considerably generous of her, especially considering that the food at Benihana is by no means low priced, and the fact that she'd already given me DVDs of Resident Evil 1&2 the weekend before (which also contained a movie ticket to see #3).

Pictures from Benihana

Pictures from the Seahawks vs. Cardinals game

'Tidal waves they rip right through me...'

Well, another entry, another set of pictures. These were taken last Sunday when I went up to Flagstaff to play in the snow with Daniel, Alicia, and their family. Had a great time up there. It was insanely cold, apparently around 16F, but that was a good thing because the snow didn't melt and get us all wet.

Saturday I thought I was supposed to go to Stacy's sisters birthday party, but turns out that's not until this Saturday, so instead I just met her for a drink at the restaurant she used to work at before she and her boyfriend went to see a movie.

Speaking of Stacy, I'm taking her friend Brandee out to dinner tonight. Originally supposed to be a blind date, which I wasn't too thrilled about, she actually introduced her to me the weekend before last. Probably going to go to P.F. Changs for dinner, as I haven't been there in a while, and I wanted to go somewhere I hadn't taken anyone yet. Hopefully I can get to sleep as soon as I get home from work so I won't be tired.

Pics with comments are here.

'And the riot be the rhyme of the unheard...'

Well, it's been an incredibly long time since I made an entry, and I'm really not going to go over all that's happened in the last month and a half, but I'll let you in on a few things that have been happening lately, and will be happening in the near future.

To start off, I haven't taken many pictures lately, as much as I've meant to. When there are opportunities to take them, I've either forgot my camera, forgot the battery, or forgot the flash card to store the pictures on. I do have a couple pictures to put up though, one taken with my cell phone, and the other by DJ's girlfriend Melissa, as well as a handful from the Halloween costume contest at work.

The first one is a picture of DJ and Melissa's son Nathaniel, as well as Daniel and Alicia's daughter Niya. This was taken at the company picnic which took place near the end of last month, and ended up being a lot more fun than I originally expected.



The second is a picture of DJ, myself, and Daniel at the Arizona State Fair, also at the end of last month.



This is when I forgot my battery, which really sucked, because there were a lot of things to take pictures of. I could've used my phone I suppose, as it's a 1.3mp sensor, but the quality of the image compared to a dedicated camera is still crap, and seeing as we were there in the evening, most of the images would've turned out horribly anyways with the lack of a flash. The fair wasn't bad, but not excellent either. I tried some deep fried cheesecake, which wasn't worth the $5 it cost, and a normal piece of cheesecake would've been better I think. Daniel loves the stuff though. Rode a couple of rides, eventually getting a little motion sickness.

These are the pictures from the costume contest at my work. At first I didn't want to dress up, but then a couple days before Halloween I actually kind of got excited about it, but by that time it was too late to find what I wanted, which was either a Jack Skellington costume (Nightmare Before Christmas) or Captain Jack (of Pirates of the Carriban). The second picture is of my friends Alicia and Angi. I took their picture separate from the group because they had the most unique costumes in my opinion, although the "Cereal Killer" costume was pretty unique as well.



So those are all the pictures I have. Other than that, I've just been working non-stop since my birthday. I've meant to use the extra cash to buy a new exhaust and short-ram intake for my car, but I think that might have to end up waiting until next year, as I ended up spending about $250 fixing some bad belts and pulleys in my engine, and I've also recently made plans to go to Disneyland with Mike & Tiffany during the week before Christmas. That's not to mention my vacation coming up next week to Washington/Montana for Thanksgiving, or various birthdays, the PlayStation 3 (providing I can get one), and of course, Christmas.

'Theres only one sure way to bring the giant down...'

Well, after a string of great weekends, this one tops them all. Starting with Saturday, I go to arguably the best concert I've been to yet, consisting of downright perfect performances by Shinedown, Rob Zombie, and Godsmack. Dennis, DJ, and Dennis' cousin came with me, and Tami came separately with friends and cousins. We all had pit tickets. There's no better way to go to a concert than to be in the pit. Before the concert itself, I wasn't real excited about Rob Zombie, but I've got to hand it to them, they played a kick ass show, even throwing in some 'old school' White Zombie shit that the crowd went crazy for. Before the show I'd even told Dennis that there was no way they were going to play anything from White Zombie. Guess I have to eat my words on that. During the song "More Human than Human" they brought out a giant 'robot' on stage that danced around on stage and tried to attack the band members as they played. That's got to be the coolest stage prop I've ever seen. After Rob Zombie came Godsmack who kept ripping out kick ass songs, one after the other, and nearing the end, Sully rode out on a 2nd drum set, complete with bongo drums, and he and drummer Tommy Stewart played a kick ass drum solo (duo?) while the remote controlled platforms would move around on the stage.

After the concert we were supposed to go to Macayos down the street to hang out with friends, some who went to the concert, and others who were going to show up. Sort of for my birthday I guess, but I just wanted to hang out, so I wouldn't have to go home. So we dropped off Dennis' cousin, and then went back to Dennis' place to pick up my car. Dennis said he wasn't going to go. I figured it was because he had work in the morning, and/or just because it would be a bunch of people from work, who he didn't really know. I'd originally planned on going home real quick to change clothes, but we were already running kind of late (it was already 11:30pm) and we still had to pick up Daniel and Alicia from their place. They were going to ride with us so they could drink, and not have to worry about driving home. Besides, the temperature at the concert had been really cool, so I wasn't really sweating at all. So me and DJ got in the car and headed over there. They actually only live a couple miles from my place. When we pulled up, Alicia said to park the car. I asked her how long we were going to be here and she says all night, and laughs. So I'm like, whatever, and park the car, get out, and follow her toward the house. Daniel's standing out in the front yard, along with Nicola and a couple people I didn't know (Daniel's Uncle and Aunt). I didn't know why Nicola was there, but figured she was just waiting there until we all headed down to Macayos, and would follow us.

So I walk in the house, and Angi's sitting there at the table with a friend, and Alicia turns and explains to me that they're throwing a party for me, which apparently was the plan all along. Nobody was waiting at Macayos. Angi had brought Taquitos, and there was chips and nacho stuff, soda, and their fridge was packed with alcohol. I was in a bit of a shock at first. I'd never have guessed this was going to happen. They'd kept it a very good secret. DJ said he thought I might have known, and was just playing around at first, but when I said I didn't even know we were supposed to "pick up" Daniel and Alicia, he knew I didn't have a clue. Tami and her friends took a while to get there. I guess they'd waited at the concert until everyone had pretty much cleared out of the parking lot, and then got lost on the way to Alicia's house. A few more people showed up, including Yvette, Shawn, and Lisa. I kind of wish I'd known about it, just so I could invite friends that weren't related to work, but then there'd be no surprise.

Everyone was talking for a long while, and then around 1:30 or so, I was sitting by myself, as I'd been on my feet for the last 6 hours, and Lisa came over and asked me if I wanted to join the party in the other room. I complained that the party kept moving, but she grabbed my arm and dragged me to the living room where most everyone was sitting and had me sit down in a chair against the wall. Then out of the corner of my eye, I see a bunch of people in the hallway, and I look over and theres a girl in a police uniform, and I realize what's going on. So she comes out and asks who's birthday it is, and everyone points at me. So she comes over and sits on my lap facing me, takes off the uniform, and the next hour is filled with an innumerable amount of lapdances and 'games', most of them for me, but she also gave other people dances as well. People kept giving me bills for more dances, Tami in particular, who was the one that ordered the dancer in the first place. She was damn good looking. No complaints from me at all. Apparently Tami had actually picked someone else, but for whatever reason they'd sent this girl. At one point Tami yelled "Just wait until you get married!", so if your reading this (and I know you will), I'm going to hold you to that! =P.

After she'd left, Tami was telling me how nobody was sure if I'd be cool with getting a stripper for my birthday. They thought I might walk out or something. I told them I'm not sure why. I'd been to a strip club before, it just wasn't my thing because you drop tons of money just to see naked chicks tease the shit out of you. It just doesn't seem like a worthwhile way to spend my money. Every once in a while is fine, but some people go f'ing crazy, going to strip clubs every other weekend or more. They also thought I might be uncomfortable with it, since it was around a bunch of people I knew, but I was actually much more comfortable in that situation than at a strip club.

DJ had to be home by 3am, and most everyone else left by 4. I went home and tried to sleep, but since I'd slept right before the concert, I wasn't very tired, and ended up waking up around 7 or 8 in the morning. Daniel and Alicia had invited me over to watch football at their place, so I headed over there around 11am. I had softball at 4, so Alicia and I left her place and picked up DJ on the way. We lost both games this time =( . I still ended up scoring a run, although I was running for someone else. After the game, I went home and took a shower before Stacy came and picked me up to go to dinner for my birthday. We went to The Cheesecake Factory and had a great time talking about various stuff. I told her about the party, and about my brother, who's thinking of moving to Hawaii next year. After that, she wanted to go play pool, so we decided to go to Six Shooters. She called her boyfriend; who, until that moment, I wasn't even aware of; to see if he could come, but he was about to go to sleep. So we started driving to Six Shooters, which was some ways away, but on the way there, she decided she just wanted to go home. She said she was feeling kind of sick, but for whatever reason I didn't really believe her, but I didn't say anything about it.

So I took her back to my place, which is where her car was at. We'd taken my car because her tags were expired. I opened her gift, which was a Blockbuster movie pass, microwave popcorn, sprite, and candy, which was pretty cool, cause I love movies. I have a monthly rental subscription pass at Blockbuster, but I told her I could still use it to buy some movies. I also not too fond of popcorn, because it's pretty much all I ate the first six months after moving to Arizona (that and ramen noodles), but I didn't mention anything about it, cause it's hardly a big deal. So then she left. It was around 10:00. The weekend supervisor had called me the night before about working this weekend, but obviously I wasn't going to work Saturday night, and I didn't really feel like going in Sunday night, as I'd been up since 7am already. I might start working again next weekend though. I could really use the money, especially with Christmas right around the corner, the IRS breathing down my back, and the PS3 / Wii launch in November. GameStop is starting to take pre-orders for the PS3 the first week of October as well, so I need to get in on that ASAP.

So, that ends this weekend. Most of the pics from the party are NSFW, so I can't post them here, but there were a couple that I could, including this one below. The quality's pretty shitty, as it came from a photo sharing site (I wasn't able to take many pictures with my own camera). I'm hoping to get the higher quality originals later though. I didn't take any pictures at the concert either. I did get some video with my phone though, and may upload that in the near future if it's half decent looking.

Edit: Pics have been removed, as I seem to have deleted them from the server at some point...

'All is numb, I've been lost too long...'

Ok, I realize not all of you want to read a lot of minor details, so for those people, here's the summary of last night....

- Went to a club for a co-workers birthday
- Lots of alcohol involved
- I actually danced for the first time in my life
- Went to hang out at a friends mom's house afterward until 5 in the morning where someone gets naked in the pool, someone else throws up all night, and being the only one sober, I get to take in all the details, most of them written below.

Now either read the details, or skip to the bottom rule below that start out what happened today, which is quite a bit shorter.

---

So last night got a little crazy. I'd been invited to go to a club in downtown Tempe, called Grahams Central Station, for a co-workers (Shawn) birthday party. He'd rented a limo, and was going to go around and pick everyone up in it on the way to the club, but I decided to take my own car, that way I could come and go on my own schedule. Also picked up a few friends (who also work with me) on the way (DJ, Daniel, and Alicia). When we got there, we couldn't find anyone, so we walked around forever trying to find them. The club is pretty big, as it's four different sections, one for hip-hop, one for country, one for misc (rock, oldies, hip-hop, etc), and a kareokee room. Finally the people that came in the Limo all showed up (Shawn, Lisa, Nicola, Marquis, and Yvette) and we found them in the hip-hop room, where we pretty much stayed at the rest of the night.

So everyone's drinking and talking etc, and Lisa starts trying to get me to go and dance, and this is after I'd told her the previous day that I wasn't going to, etc. So I keep telling her no but she wouldn't give up and she grabs my arm and tries to drag me out onto the dance floor. So anyways, I figured it'd be less embarrassing to just go and dance than to try and fight with her about it, so she starts teaching me how to dance, since I've never tried before, only we're not dancing how everyone else is cause she starts out with basic stuff like steps like it was country line dancing or something, but then on to more... intimate (?) moves, pressing her body against me, so I can feel what she's doing, etc, and try to follow it. Having an attractive woman's moving her body against yours certainly helps take your mind of the fact that you feel like a complete idiot. Sometimes she'd cover my eyes with her hands, I guess in an effort to get me to concentrate on how she was moving, etc. Not sure if it helped me dance, but it was kind of hot, lol. Anyways, after my first "lesson" she got me to go back out two other times, with less resistance on my part, and I definitely had fun doing it, however, I still felt like an idiot, especially when she would move away and try to get me to dance on my own.

The club closed around two in the morning, and Alicia called her mom, and said we could all go over to her mom's house to hang out. Most everyone piled into the limo, but Daniel (Alicia's husband) said Alicia had to ride with me to make sure I got there ok, although I already knew how to get there. Alicia and I arrived well ahead of the limo (I have kind of a heavy foot) and so we waited out front for them. The limo finally arrives about 15 minutes later, and we open the door to find Shawn sprawled out on the floor in the back of the limo, passed out. We wake him up and help him out of the car, and he can barely stand, so Daniel and I stood behind him, trying to hold him up. Everyone's kind of randomly talking and laughing for like 20 minutes, and the limos still there, and eventually we decide that Shawn needs to go home, so we tell the driver to take him home, and Yvette and Marquis say they're going home to, so they hop in the limo as well. They argue with the driver a bit on how much time they have left, but eventually they take off.

Then I find out Nicola's getting worried about getting a ride home, and she's on the phone with her (ex?) boyfriend trying to get him to come and pick her up but she doesn't have a clue where she's at, so I give her the address and directions, and offer her a ride home, but I think she wanted to go home immediately, so she kept talking on the phone. We go inside the house, and out into the backyard where there's chairs and a pool etc. Daniel tries to dump a bottle of water on Lisa. Nicola's still on the phone. Someone suggests we all get in the pool, but nobody wants to be the first one in, everyone wants to make sure everyone else is going to get in to, and nobody has swim suits except Alicia who borrowed some shorts from her sister. I don't want to go in at all, and Lisa says she's not going in if I don't go cause she didn't want to either, so everyone starts trying to convince me to go in but without a pair of shorts, it just wasn't going to happen; though, for a minute, I considered just saying fuck it, and jumping in, but my boxers arn't exactly tight around my waist, and I don't think they'd stay on too long in a pool, lol.

So Alicia and DJ get in, and Daniel almost does, but then comes back and grabs Lisa to try and drag her in, but Lisa grabs me by my front pants pockets (I'm sitting in a chair) and this would've created a pretty interesting picture had someone thought of taking one, anyways, I tried prying her hands from my pockets, which wasn't easy, but finally got her to let go of me, but both her and Daniel flew back onto the ground and into a plastic bucket filled with empty beer cans. So that ended that (for the moment anyways). After a few minutes Daniel went onto the side of the house and started throwing up pretty bad. While he was back there, DJ and Alicia are still trying to convince me and Lisa to get in the pool, and start giving us shit about not going along with the idea. Lisa mentions that it's not like anyones naked or anything, and says if they get naked she'll get in. So then a couple minutes later, after more arguing, DJ slaps his wet boxers on the side of the pool and says now that he's naked, she has to get in. So now everyones laughing and Lisa says she's not getting in, and goes around the side of the house to see if Daniels ok, cause he's been throwing up for the last 30 minutes or more, and DJ puts his boxers back on and him and Alicia get out of the pool. Nicola comes out from inside the house, grabs her purse, and leaves. We think she was mad, but we're not sure why...

Then Lisa and Daniel come back around from the side of the house. He looks ok, and is smiling and everything, and his eyes are barely open cause he's so wasted. Then all of a sudden he grabs Lisa and starts pulling her toward the pool, and then Lisa grabs me, and I grab a wooden post that's holding up the porch awning and Lisa locks her arms around my waist, and everyone else is pulling Lisa trying to get her in the pool, but its no use, and they finally give up. Eventually Daniel goes back on the side of the house and starts throwing up some more, and Alicia and DJ go over to see if he's ok. Lisa and I just sit on the porch talking about dancing and other things. Finally, around five in the morning, we leave Alicia's mom's house. Alicia and Daniel stay there, and I take Lisa and DJ home, stopping to get something to eat on the way. DJ's girlfriend calls right before we get to her house, wondering why he's not home yet. I drop him off, go home, and go to bed for 4 hours, since i'd woken up right before going to the club anyways, I wasn't real tired.

---

So then today I went and exchanged my DS Phat for a Onyx Black DS Lite. This thing is so much better looking than the original DS. EB Games has a deal going on where you trade in the old DS for the new one, and get it for only $70, which is nearly half price, and a hell of a lot better deal than I thought I was going to get. Also picked up Starfox Command for it, and pre-ordered the collectors edition of FFXII for the PS2. On the way home I picked up some Chipotle for lunch, and went to Safeway. Tried calling Mike to see if he and Tiffany wanted to hang out, but they were up in Payson visiting his mom. I have softball at 6pm tonight. Hopefully I do just as well (or not any worse) than last time. My brother called today to recommend the movie "It's all gone Pete Tong". (IMDB) Anyone ever heard of it?