'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.

'So long, so long...'

I'd recently thought about, and discussed, how love expressed in movies and TV shows is so drastically different from how it is in 'real life'; and while using Google to try and see if my brother recently ripped off someone elses' poetry (I hope you'll take that as a compliment Pete... cause it is, LOL), I found a blog entry about one persons view of love, in where they also compare and contrast it to what you find in romantic comedies, etc. I highly recommend giving it a read, and since most of you probably don't want to bother clicking into another website, I'll post it here for you. The original source however, is here.

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In many movies, (typically romances and romantic comedies,) there is always a scene of exasperatingly-sweet suspense where the main character and the love interest shyly and somewhat unintentionally express mutual attraction for one another, and, as you watch the scene unfold, you think, Maybe they'll kiss, or at least hug…or something. But they don't. It's part of the movie, part of what makes the plot so enticing; you know they'll acknowledge their love for one another in the end, because their feelings, so obvious, are displayed on-screen for everyone to see and understand. Of course they'll be together in the end.

Reality is not a romantic comedy. Though it should be obvious, we often lose ourselves in television's exploits of our inner fantasies and desires, and we begin to think that movies aren't that far off from the real world. The Truth, however, is that relationships of love between real people, in real life, are much more complicated. No matter how talented an actor or actress may be, they cannot, simply with their words and filmed actions, express what the truth of true love is.
I have never known something so vividly pure, so breathtakingly incomparable, yet also so excruciatingly agonizing as real, human relationships. These kinds of connections are built upon many layers of several, varying types of one emotion: love. Love is the simplest thing in the world, yet the hardest to capture in its entirety because of its ever twisting, labyrinthine ways. Love is many things in one, all at once, ever-changing and never slowing down. Nothing in the theater can compare to the notes in reality's love song, simply because love sings in a language we can hear, feel, express, write, and speak…but never falsify. Love is the most mysterious, most irresistible feeling one can vainly try to resist. Love has a pull over us that cannot be broken by any means the world could offer; love is indestructible, but only if it's true.

Love can make you partially unknown to yourself, as it does to me, this very moment. I like to think myself courageous, independent, indifferent; yet here I sit, letting tears dry from my previously unfocused eyes, realizing that this love I feel flaring up from inside me is again introducing me to a stronger feeling than I've ever before felt in my life.

That moment of uncertainty in movies loses its charm in real life; if you watch the scene fifty times over, it becomes a familiarity, a predictable, even boring, occurrence. So is it when my very own scene of suspense plays: the first few times it's something new, something exciting. But after two-and-a-half years' worth of waiting for that moment of opportunity to arise, I find that certainty, assurance, and knowing the truth are much more valuable friends than the betrayal of the unknown.

Love complicates things. Even though that is just it's nature, and there's no other way for it to be, it doesn't give you any comfort knowing that you're waiting for something that might never make a promise to you; something that's a "maybe," or a "might."

Love is the only culprit, the only criminal in a crime of my own inner denial of wish-fulfillment. My own feeling of love, in the same moment, is as loyal to me as it is treacherous. It sends nighttime's heartsick tears to my eyes even as it illuminates a smile of bliss on my lips. What a price one must pay, to love purely; and even if I could force the love away, I would never attempt it. Even though it hurts as much as it heals, I couldn't imagine myself back in a past's world where I didn't have it blooming in my heart. It burns the flower's already-cindered ashes, yet from the black, dusty suffering sprouts a new, stronger bud that grows because of love's water and light caring for it.

In a way, love is like a flower. It needs a little bit of rain–and tears–to be real, but it is also in need of light, brilliant, dazzling light to help dry the rain from its leaves and coax it to grow taller, stronger, so it can be better prepared for the next storm. A perpetual, never-ending cycle.

Truthfully, I couldn't be more indebted to love: because through it, I am able to experience this new, before-unexplored feeling. Through it, I can discover pieces of myself I was not acquainted with before; new friends that tell me what I desire, what I need, and what I deserve. Though it blinds and wounds me sometimes, I cannot pretend that it isn't worth it to feel such love. I cannot pretend that I would be better off without it. And yet, sometimes, I think it would be nice to be sure of it, to be as certain as the main character is in a movie; that her love is returned, that she has nothing to fear, that her heart's whispers will become spoken truths, in the end. It would be fine, indeed, to say adieu to all the worries, trials, and fears of rejection that come along with such a feeling of love.

As I said before, this life's love is not a movie, and never will be; and though it often seems glorious and wondrous, sometimes I can't help but wonder what it would be like for me, right now, if I was just a real-life actress in my own real-life blockbuster, floating, happily-ever-after style, on metaphorical clouds and sharing such infinitely precious truths with the inspiration of my love.

But…I won't try to find out what it would be like. That's another thing, about this love; it's cautionary, it protects me even as it pushes me into the light of the world. It guides me as I try to make my way through its tangled vines. And though I suffer much from it, the purity of it is enough to keep me from abandoning it. It may burn and singe, but it also heals the scars.

What conclusion can you possibly receive from such an article? Well, perhaps one very simple, yet impossibly complex truth: The true kind of love is to be accepted; it is to be cared for and expressed, not shunned and denied. It is to be cherished, and respected. And, most importantly? The truth of love is to be understood. Because everything, especially love, is worthy of unspoken acceptance.

'I could never be the one that you want, don't ask. Well, here's to living in the moment, cause it passed...'

So vacation's been great so far. The day after Mike and I arrived, we took a tour of Whidbey Island where I grew up, along with my brother and Sabrina. To get there we took the ferry to Clinton, then drove north through Clinton, stopping off to get Pete some baking powder for heart burn, and getting some hot chocolate at a drive-in coffee house. We then drove to Greenbank Farms so my brother could pick up some wine. When we got there, we noticed they had some kind of swap meet or something going on in one of the buildings. We went in to check it out, and while looking around I spotted a tiny violin on one of the vendors tables. I went and grabbed Pete to show him, and he found out it was only $25. That was a steal, and he thought it looked pretty cool, and Sabrina used to play violin when she was younger, so he decided to buy it.

We left the farm, and headed north to check out Fort Casey. We walked through there a while, with my brother and I talking a little bit about the fort, and taking a few pictures here and there. After Fort Casey we drove toward Oak Harbor, taking the back road around by West Beach, and passing the most recent house that our parents and us had lived in before we left Oak Harbor. Driving downtown we passed our church and the first apartments we'd lived in when we first moved there, which at the time my dad only paid a mere $80 a month for a three bedroom, two bathroom, two story apartment. Then we drove down Pioneer Road downtown and decided to stop in at Mi Pueblo for lunch. It was dark and empty inside on the first floor, and I almost thought they might actually be closed or something, but we walked upstairs and someone who looked like he was about to fall asleep at the table he was sitting at, jumped up and helped us. The food wasn't bad. Your basic Mexican restaurant stuff.

After eating we went up the street to a house we'd lived in for a number of years which we refer to as 'The Big White House'. The house is well over a hundred years old. I think it was probably one of our favorite places to live just because it was kind of unique. We have a lot of good memories of living there. The compost bins my dad built were still in the back yard, though the apple tree looked like it had been recently trimmed back. We left Oak Harbor and went by Christian's Auto and Metal Recycling, where my brother and I had both worked at one point, though at different times. We drove by the Naval Base, then turned around and headed to Deception Pass.

When we got to the bridge, Sabrina stayed near the parking lot as she's afraid of heights, while Mike, Pete, and myself walked out on to the bridge and over to Canoe Island which is between the two bridges of Deception Pass. On our way across the bridge, Pete noticed a giant splash in the water below, and thought someone had just jumped off the bridge. Turns out there as actually a number of Sea Lions swimming directly below the bridge, and one had jumped out of the water and cause the splash. At first we thought they were seals, but they were much too large. After watching them for a bit, Pete decided to turn back and stay with Sabrina, while Mike and I walked down on to the Island. We took a few pictures and tried to get a better look at the Sea Lions, but we couldn't really see them from the angle we were at. We headed back to the car, and drove over the bridge to Fidalgo Island, and on to Mount Erie. When we got to the top, it was much too cloudy for a good view of Puget Sound. We took a few pictures anyways though. Finally the tour was over, and we headed back to Seattle via the I-5 freeway over the mainland.

The next day Mike, Peter, and myself headed to the Cascade Mountain range, while Sabrina stayed in Bellvue to pack and do some cleaning. We drove up to a campground that we used to camp at frequently called Colonial Creek Campground, which is next to Ross Lake. The campground had changed quite a bit since I'd last been there, but most of it was exactly the same as it had been for decades. We left and drove up to Washington Pass to check out the snow. None of us had brought any boots or anything so we couldn't really go in it. That was the end of the trip though, and we headed back to Seattle.

The next morning I got a phone call early in the morning from my parents. My dad said that they were out of power because it had started snowing the day before around noon, and hadn't stopped since. At the time of the phone call they were up to six inches, with no sign of stopping. This is pretty much exactly what my brother and I had hoped for, minus the lack of electricity of course. Still, I wasn't that worried, as we had at least a nine hour drive to their house in Hamilton, Montana, and we weren't even planning on leaving Seattle for another three hours or so. My dad recommended I get chains for the rental, so while everyone was still sleeping, I drove to Les Schwab and picked some up, making sure I'd be able to return them if they were never used. Filled the car up with gas, and went back to Pete's house. We packed up the car, hit up McDonalds for breakfast, and were on the road by 9:30am. The mountain passes were all clear, so the chains stayed in their bag. Only a couple miles from Hamilton there was a bad accident and we had to turn around and take a different, much slower route. We stopped in at Hamilton to pick up some things for my mom at the store, and made it to their house by 9:30pm MST, so all in all, an 11 hour trip.

When we got to my parents, the power was still out, and it stayed out all until the next morning when finally it came back on. The rest of the week went well. Most of the time we stayed inside, with temperatures constantly dropping, at one point even hitting 0 degrees Fahrenheit during the night. To keep entertained we watched movies, TV series on DVD, played video games, and even did some snowboarding on the hill next to the house. Thanksgiving came and my Uncle Jim and Aunt Gidget came to have dinner with us. That Saturday we took a tour of my dad's new workplace at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Hamilton. Finally on Sunday it was time to head back to Seattle. The trip back didn't seem to take quite as long, I think only 9 or 10 hours. The passes were a little more icy than they were the first time through, but there was still no need for the chains, and I returned them the next day before taking the rental back. Speaking of the rental, we'd tried to get a discount on it by going through our friend Justin, who works as a concierge at a local hotel, but when I returned the rental, it apparently didn't get applied, and it ended up costing me nearly $500 for 10 days. Still, that's pretty much what I'd expected to pay going into it, so no big deal.

It's now been about 5 days since we got back. Much of the time has been spent at my brother's house playing Guitar Hero 3 and Assassin's Creed, though I did manage to go out to see Beowulf 3D at the local IMAX along with Clarence and his girlfriend Niessa, which was pretty interesting. Monday before Mike went back to Phoenix, we went downtown and walked around Pike Place Market, and later that night when Sabrina was driving me home, we got into a car accident when her car was rear-ended. Thankfully nobody was hurt, and the girl that hit us actually stopped, and had insurance. Also ended up playing pool at a dive bar up the street called Piper's a couple times. This weekend I'll be heading to Sabrina's parent's house while Pete is introduced to them. They're having enchiladas apparently, so I'm really looking forward to it :P Sabrina and I went Christmas shopping today. I didn't buy anything, just came along to get out of the house and keep her company.

Yesterday my dad called and said my mom was going in for open heart surgery today, which took us all by surprise. Apparently she hadn't been feeling well, and her temperature had risen to 105, and heart was beating very fast. The doctors discovered a hole in her heart, with an infection nearby, which had spread into her blood. The surgery was successful, and they replaced one of the valves in her heart. She'll have to be on IV antibiotics for the next six weeks.

That's all for now, other than Niickiey text messaged me a couple times. Once the night I first arrived in Seattle, wishing me a fun vacation and happy Thanksgiving, and another on Thanksgiving, saying Happy Thanksgiving. I didn't reply to either, as much as I was tempted to. At first I was angry, then the same old thoughts of wanting answers came up, but I ignored them as best I could. If she wants to talk, she can apologize first, then I'll think about it; but honestly, that's not likely to happen.

Pictures of the vacation so far can be viewed here.

'You promise, you promise that you're done, but i cant tell you from the drugs...'

I just found out yesterday that my brother's been doing coke off and on for the last five to seven years. He's been smoking marijuana since he was 12, and I knew he's done ex and shrooms, and possibly acid, but never did I think he'd be stupid enough to do cocaine. I don't know what to do about it, or even if there's anything I can do. He doesn't know that I know yet. I found out through his girlfriend. When she first told me, he'd only told her that he'd done it once or twice in the last year or so, but after I talked to her for some time yesterday we decided she should put pressure on him to tell the truth, because we were certain it had to have been more.

Turns out we were right, and it came out that he'd started after being kicked out of my parents house and living with his friend David. They'd started selling small amounts, and would take a little for themselves now and then. He stopped for a while and then after moving to Seattle he and some friends started selling again, and would take some from that as well. Once he met his first girlfriend he stopped altogether because she made him, and in between her and his current girlfriend he did it again.

Now he's supposed to fly to New York in a week or two to visit some friends, and apparently the plan is to do more while he's there. His girlfriend asked him why he couldn't just go and visit and skip the drugs, and his answer was because it was a 'package deal'. If he was going to New York, he was going to do coke, period.

On one hand, I don't want to think he's addicted. After all, he only does it a handful of times a year at best, he never pays for it, and apparently he wouldn't know where to get it even if he wanted it (although I'm sure if he 'did' want it, it wouldn't be hard to find). But the fact that he can't go to New York without getting high, and the fact that he all but refuses to stop even though his girlfriend is extremely unhappy with him just screams 'addict'.

I still don't know if I'm going to tell him I know. If I do, it won't be until the end of my vacation there in November/December. There's no point in ruining the trip by bringing it up beforehand. I want to see if the increased pressure from his g/f changes anything as well. If he's not addicted, he should be able to give it up if he knows he's hurting someone and will lose them if he continues.

Off that subject, my car is finally in the shop. Apparently it's going to take up to 3 weeks to get repaired. In the meantime, I'm renting a car through Enterprise for a mere $9 a day. At the moment I'm in a Chrysler Aspen, but I'll be trading that in this morning for a car because of the gas milage. It's a pretty nice SUV, very comfortable, and has decent pickup having a V8, though the sound system is horrible. I hooked my MP3 player up through the AUX port, and the speakers were distorting even at low volumes, even after turning the bass down on both the player and the stereo. Hopefully whatever I get today will be fun to drive and include a better sound system.

Also, Niickiey and I will be taking a trip up to Sedona the weekend of the 13th-14th. I'll be sure and take plenty of pics while we're there.

'For what I've done, I start again...'

So, what's been going on lately... not a damn thing really. Got Windows Vista installed finally, so I'm playing around with that a bit, though still using XP as my main OS until I get more comfortable with Vista. Working lots of weekends to try and get some cash back into the bank so it can be spent again. Trying the whole cooking at home thing again to attempt to save even more money, as well as giving myself something to do as I've been extra bored lately. I normally spend anywhere from $5-10 on food a day, so I'm hoping to save quite a bit of money. If I don't, then I really don't see the point in cooking for yourself... I've also stopped buying soda and snacks at work almost entirely, and I voluntarily drank a bottle of water for the first time in... probably 5 years or more the other day...

No trips or concerts planned in the near future. I passed up the opportunity to buy tickets to Linkin Park, which some of you may know is one of my favorite bands. I think it's a combination of the fact that the concert is in the hottest month of the year, in an outdoor venue, costs $70 for pit tickets, and my current, but hopefully temporary, disappointment with their new album 'Minutes to Midnight'.

I bought a 4GB Meizu Miniplayer in an attempt to make exercising and sunbathing more entertaining, which will hopefully get me to do both of them more often. Unfortunately I bought it at Walgreens as it was on sale for a mere $99, but it took over a week to ship, and now it's been a week since it shipped, and has yet to arrive.

Saw Spider-man 3 last weekend. Good movie, but not quite what the original and #2 were I think. Still definitely recommended though. Going to see Shrek the Third today with some friends after a little basketball (yay exercise!). Not sure what I'll do the rest of the weekend. Hopefully I can work, if not, maybe hang out with Stacy if she's not doing anything. Dennis is going on a cruise the entire next week. Maybe hang out with Ron again. We hung out last weekend but I ended up falling asleep at his place almost immediately as we got there I was so worn out.

I need to think about what I'm going to do with my vacation time. My brother wants to do a road trip to Montana around July, so I'll look into that. I need to find out if Stacy still wants to go to Vegas for her birthday. Now that she's back with her boyfriend, that may not happen. It's only a few weeks away anyways... and I may not have the money.

Oh, and my dad finally got a new job. He's going to be working for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which is a giant health care company, and one of their main labs is near where my parents moved to a year ago to help take care of my grandmother. He had been working for a heating and air conditioning company, which he's been doing for the last 20 years or so, but they were paying him very little, and giving him very little hours. At GSK he'll be part of the initial stages for setting up some kind of vaccine for cancer or something, which is a far cry from the HVAC industry he's used to, though I think he did have some schooling as a biologist, but seeing as that was well over 30 years ago... Anyways, it sounds like an excellent opportunity for him, and they pay, hours, and benefits are all quite good, so I hope everything goes well for him there. Oddly enough, the company I work for does the tax work for GSK, as well as Starwood Hotels, where my brother is employed.

Also, I recently signed up for Blockbuster's Total Access movie subscription plan, so I'm looking for any and all suggestions of what to watch. Keep in mind that if it's a big movie that came out recently that a lot of people have seen, I've probably seen it. I'm mainly looking for movies that probably slip under the radar, including foreign films. I can watch and enjoy nearly anything, so please keep that in mind before throwing out an idea.

'How long? Not long! Cause what you reap is what you sow!'

So, I saw Rage on Sunday, and they played a damn good show. We ended up getting there perfectly on time to get a half decent spot (about 200 feet from stage). We’d actually left an hour earlier than planned, but ended up arriving about 40 minutes before the show was supposed to start. There was a lot of people there, but looking around, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I figured there’d be like 20,000 people all in front of the main stage, but there were probably only a couple thousand. They also didn’t seem nearly as excited as they should be for a band that hasn’t played together for seven years. I was expecting the place to explode once they came out on stage, but I think I saw more excitement at the Static-X concert last month, and it seems like they’ve played in Phoenix like four times in the last two years… That’s not to say people weren’t excited. A co-worker pointed out that most people were probably too drunk, high, and tired by that point to have as much energy as if they’d just arrived 30 minutes before, as we had.

The one thing I was disappointed with was how long they played. They only played for about an hour, almost exactly, which isn’t bad for your standard band playing a standard concert, but when you’re a band that had potentially broken up for good, hadn’t played in seven years, and have four albums of which 95% of the tracks are downright excellent, and now you’ve gotten back together, and are headlining one of the biggest concerts on the west coast… I expected a little more… maybe I’m being negative. I thought Zach would’ve made some sort of speech about the concert, the band, etc, but the best I got was him talking about the current presidential administration needing to be hung and shot. It made a lot of other people happy, but for someone who doesn’t give a fuck about politics or the current administration… Still, what do you expect from Rage Against the Machine. Their music is all about politics.

So when we got to the area where the main stage is, Dennis and my brother wanted to get something to drink. Problem is there are a few thousand other people wanting to get something to drink as well, and we have 30 minutes to find a good spot before Rage comes on. Also, because it’s not a 21 and over show, they have a designated drinking area, so you can’t take your alcohol with you to watch the concert. So I try to explain all this to Dennis and my brother, and I’m getting pissed off as I’m doing it because I don’t understand why it’s necessary to be drunk or even buzzed at the concert to enjoy it. They both had just downed a 40 each at the gas station just 20 minutes earlier. Anyways, somehow or another they give in, and decide to find a spot in the crowd rather than trying to get alcohol. My brother probably wasn’t happy at all, because now he’s without alcohol ‘or’ anything to smoke. So we make our way into the crowd, weaving around people until we finally come up as close as we can get before we begin pissing people off. As chance would have it, the guy standing next to my brother pulls out a joint, and after a few words, my brother is smoking with him. Not 10 minutes later, my brother is telling me he is “too high” to be in the crowd when Rage comes on.

I can’t believe my fucking ears at what he’s saying. I spent a lot of money (I paid for both his concert and plane tickets) and vacation time to bring him down here specifically for this concert, and now he’s saying he can’t even enjoy it with me. Surprisingly I keep my cool and tell him to wait by the fence and we’ll find him after. About half-way through the concert, however, I get a text message from him telling me to stick my phone in the air and wave it around so he can see where I am. Although he never makes it all the way to me, I can see him about 20 feet behind me, with a pretty rough mosh pit going on in between us. So, I feel a lot better that he decided to join us after all, but even as I’m writing this, I can’t completely forgive him for it. Even though I smoke on rare occasion, I still get angry that he always seems to have to get high before he does anything. He claims that he doesn’t actually smoke much back in Washington, and that it’s just because he’s on vacation, but the entire week he was here he would get high before we did ‘anything’. Before lunch, before hanging out with friends, before hiking, before watching a movie; the list goes on. It’s pathetic. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. Earlier he had made the statement that “sober concerts aren’t fun”, but how is it fun to get high and not even be able to be there to see it. Sure, he could see it from the sidelines, but he may as well have just come by himself doing that…

The trip back was tough. I’d been awake since probably about 9am the morning of the concert, had driven all the way there, wore myself out walking to and from the concert, and jumping around while it was going on, and now it’s 2am and I had a 3 hour drive back to Phoenix. I made it, but not before nodding off a couple of times, at one point driving half way into the neighboring lane before waking up. Both my brother and Dennis were asleep though, and the highway was virtually empty, so all was good. We got back to Phoenix just after 5am. I dropped Dennis off, and then headed home to get a few hours of sleep before waking up at 9 to wake my brother up so he could get ready to catch his plane at 11. Only his plane wasn’t at 11, it was at 10:20 according to the email that I double-checked while my brother was in the shower. So we now have an hour to get down to the airport. The drive alone, with good traffic, takes 30 minutes, and it’s 9:30 am on a weekday, so we’d be just catching the end of rush hour.

We actually ended up making it by 10am, and I dropped my brother off and headed toward the nearest gas station, having about 5 miles of gas left in the tank. While on the way there, my brother calls and asks if I can pick him up, as he’s missed the flight after all, and they’ve rescheduled one for him at 7pm. So I fill up on gas, and start heading back, only I notice my car has a slight shudder to it that hadn’t been there before. As I’m driving to the airport, I can hear that something is definitely wrong with the engine, and by the time I pull up to the drop-off point, my car is shaking like crazy, and sounds like an old muscle car that nobody bothered to take care of. I can smell burning oil or something, and there’s a definite loss of power. I pick my brother up, and tell him we have to take my car in to my mechanic, which thankfully was only a few miles away from the airport. I drop the car off, and have them get me a rental car, which ends up being an ’07 Chevy Malibu… not my 1st choice for sure, but at least it was blue…

We start heading home, and I give Stefanie a call to see if she wants to have lunch with us, and we decide to go to The Olive Garden near my place. After lunch, she came over and checked out my semi-new apartment, and played some Tennis and Bowling on the Wii before taking off. I get a call from my mechanic, and he explains what’s wrong with my car (spark plug blew out, stripped the threads, bunch of other stuff I can’t remember) and that it’ll cost roughly $800 to fix, not including tax and my car rental. L Thank god I happen to have some extra money in the bank. Was supposed to be used to buy a new bed, but that’ll have to be pushed to the side for now. My brother and I decided to spend the rest of the time watching episodes of Firefly before heading back down to the airport. After having my brother there for nearly a week, it felt a lot different being by myself in my apartment. It was nice having someone to hang out with every day, but I know from having roommates that eventually it gets on your nerves as well, and as good as my brother and I get along, we can occasionally get on each others nerves. So now I’ll look forward to going up north in a few months. My brother wants to do a road trip to Montana again, possibly in July, though we’d have to rent a car this time, as taking mine isn’t much of an option, and his has a ton of problems as well. I go to bed to get 2 hours of sleep before going to work, and life goes back to normal.

'Anger is a gift...'

To continue things from my last entry, I went down to Quiznos the next day on the way to pick up my brother from the airport. I ended up talking to one of the supervisors there (I think she's a supervisor anyways) and asked her how old Kaylie was, which she confirmed was 16. So I told her what had happened the previous night and asked if she might know what was going on. Well, according to her, Kaylie had called in only a few minutes before her shift was supposed to start to say that she wouldn't be coming in because her mom beat her up, which was the complete opposite story from the phone conversation with Kaylie's 'sponsor' the previous night.

Well, after talking to her a bit, it seemed to me that Kaylie's version of the story was probably closer to the truth. If she was 'on the run', as the woman last night had said, then why bother calling in to work? I'm thinking now that the woman that called last night wasn't her sponsor at all, but in fact, Kaylie's mother, trying to find out where she was because she wasn't finished.

I haven't been back to Quiznos since, mostly because my brother's been in town, so I haven't had a chance to talk to Kaylie. Obviously there's no way we can talk to each other anymore outside of her work though. Her being only 16 would put me in far too risky a situation to be worth being friends, and the age difference is obviously a problem.

Now, on to the rest of the week. My brother and I had originally planned on going to California to visit our friend, but at the last minute, we decided against it, because after the six hour drive there, six hour drive back, the cost in gas, and the fact that he had to work the next morning, it would've been just too much driving and money to spend a couple hours hanging out. So instead we ended up driving to the Teton Natural Bridge, which is a little over an hour north-east of Phoenix. The rest of the week was spent hanging out at my place, usually watching movies, playing video games, or getting some sun. We hung out over at Dennis one day, and then on Friday night we played pool with Stacy, and the three of us had dinner at some brewery/restaurant in the Desert Ridge area.

So, tomorrow's the concert. Rage doesn't play until 10:30 at night, so we plan on leaving here around 6pm, and arriving around 9pm. Hopefully it'll be a good trip and all will go well and we'll get fairly close to the stage.

Hopefully a little progress with Brandee lately. She wants me to play World of Warcraft with her. She originally got hooked on it by her ex-boyfriend, and had stopped for a while after they broke up, but recently started playing again. When she asked me, I wasn't real thrilled about the idea. Not because I don't like World of Warcraft or anything. I've never even played the game after all; but because I'd rather spend time with her in person than a MMORPG. So the next day, after thinking about it, I told her that if I signed up for WoW, she had to agree to come over some time and play some Wii Sports, to which she agreed.

Road Trip!

I'm damn tired, thanks to being up all of yesterday on 3 hours of sleep. Accidentally slept through my alarm, and my brother ended up calling me from the airport wondering where I was at, LOL.

Well, today's the day. I'm at work right now, and will be leaving in about 30 minutes. Then I'll go home and sleep until about noon, then pack up the car and head out.

Anyways, here's our general Road Map. The first and last few directions aren't really what roads we'll be taking, it's more steps 4 through 11, with a few adjustments. Google says 1 day and 1 hour, but I'm hoping to make it in under 24 hours. Google uses 60mph for it's measurements, and we'll certainly be traveling faster than that through much of the trip.

In case you haven't been following my blog, I'm taking a road trip from Phoenix, Arizona, to Seattle, Washington. I'll stay in Seattle with my brother for a week, then we'll head over to Hamilton, Montana, where my parents now live, and stay there for three or four days, then that Thursday we'll drive back to Seattle, along with my mom, stay overnight, then start heading back to Phoenix on Friday morning. Will probably stay the night in Sacramento, California, as that's almost exactly the mid-point in the trip. If my mom doesn't feel like driving for 12-13 hours a day, we might end up staying a night somewhere for every 8 or so hours of driving. I also want to drive along the 101 on the way back, which goes along the Pacific Coast, and is supposed to be a great place to drive down.

'Listen to the boulevard, listen to the fallin rain...'

I bought a scanner the other day so I could scan old photographs onto my computer. Sent a few to some friends at work, and decided to upload them here as well.


This is me when I was around 3 years old or so, living in a trailer in Fairbanks, Alaska.




I was probably about 10 or 11 in this pic. My brother is on the left. Taken in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State.




This is me when I was around 12 years old. It was taken at the Stanley Stamm Summer Camp the first year I went there. I continued to go there for three more years, at which point I was too old to attend as a normal camper.




The same camp, but two years later. Some girls I was friends with put rubber bands in my hair.




A bunch of old friends, and some current ones as well (and me of course). This was taken at the apartment I lived in about three years ago.




Taken probably sometime around 2002, from left to right is Dennis, Mike, myself, and Dennis' oldest son, Dylan. This was taken in one of those little picture booths you see at malls, Wal-mart, and arcades, that take a bunch of pics and print the out on a little strip.

'Its alright cause there's beauty in the breakdown...'

Well, long time no blog, and for good reason. I've been quite busy the last week, as my brother came down to visit. He lives up in Seattle, and I normally go up there a couple times a year to see him and my parents, but we'd been talking for a while about him coming down to AZ for a visit, and I told him last time I was up there that if he'd just get some time off, I'd be more than happy to provide the plane ticket.

I took the week off from work, so he wouldn't have to sit around the house being bored while I worked/slept. He flew down last Saturday afternoon, and we ended up hanging out at Dennis' for a while, and then went out to a bar with Stacy and a friend of hers. The bar wasn't too bad, though it was a little small, and thus, a bit crowded, but any bar would be on a Saturday night, so not a big problem. It was a Karaoke night, which was kind of cool, as you get to see drunk people make fools of themselves. Some actually weren't too bad though. Even Stacy got on the mic and sang some U2. Her friend sang as well, but I didn't recognize the song. I don't have the balls to do something like that myself, and I don't drink either, so you won't be getting any American Idol audition videos from me anytime soon =P. After the bar we all went back to my apartment and hung out for a couple hours, and then I took her home.

Sunday we were going to head up to Montezuma's Castle, which is a place along the I-17 freeway where there is an adobe house set up in the cliffs, and the remains of another house on the ground nearby. There's not a whole lot to see there once you've seen the house (which your not allowed to enter), but it was the only thing decently close that I knew of where we could take some interesting pictures, and it was a good Sunday drive. Unfortunately we arrived at around 5:30pm, and we found out once we got there, that they closed at 5:00. So the next day we went back.

On our way there the 2nd day, I decided to take advantage of being out in the middle of nowhere, and ended up hitting 130mph in my car. I'm positive I could've hit at least 140, but I was forced to slow down as to not hit the cars in front of me =P. At a different spot in the road, someone in a relatively new WRX tried to get me to race, and after he showed off for a bit, I revved my engine hard just to make him happy, and he pulled away pretty quick.

Tuesday we ended up going to a Phoenix Coyotes game (Arizona's professional hockey team). The Coyotes lost to the Vancouver Canucks, but I ended up snagging a free t-shirt without even trying. It practically fell into my lap (after being shot from a t-shirt launcher).

Wednesday we ended up going to Sedona for the day. Sedona is a city about two hours north of Phoenix, located in a valley surrounded by plateau's of red rock. The place is extremely picturesque, and is a giant tourist trap. We went to the Chapel of the Holy Cross, which is a fairly famous spot to visit. Then we headed up to Slide Rock, which wasn't quite what I expected. Just a river that happens to run over a big section of rock that's been worn smooth over countless years of erosion. It was fun to hike around though. Then we had dinner at a place called Oaxaca, which is a Mexican restaurant, and then headed out the Sedona airport, which is located on the top of one of the plateau's so we could try to take some pictures of the sunset. Unfortunately there isn't a very good spot to see the sunset there, and even if there was, it sets behind mountains, rather than the horizon, so it doesn't provide very good pics.

Thursday we went to see Annapolis at the theater. Wasn't a bad movie, but it was more about boxing than the Navy; which wasn't a bad thing per se, but it doesn't really fit the title. Then we went bowling with Ron and a few of his friends down in Tempe. I hadn't been bowling in a very long time, probably around 8-10 years. I was pretty surprised that they actually had shoes in my size to. After that we went and hung out over at Ron's place for a couple hours, which was just down the street.

On Friday we sort of just hung around the house. Later that night Stacy called, and was going to come over with her friend from work. Her friend didn't show up, but Stacy still came. We all just hung out and talked for a while, and then decided to play some Tekken, which is her favorite game.

Then on Saturday I took my brother back to the airport after we had lunch, then headed over to Dennis' house to play pool. I had to work that night, and actually ended up being late because I thought I worked at 10pm, but was actually scheduled for 8pm because I was covering for someone who normally started work then. Work was fairly steady, but the night still seemed to drag because I was pretty tired.

Yesterday I went over to Tiffany's parents house to watch the Superbowl with Mike, Tiffany, and her family. Her parents recently bought a 63" Mitsubishi HDTV, and a gigantic entertainment center. Perfect for watching the game, other than the lack of surround sound, but not a huge loss. It's too bad the Seahawks didn't win. DJ was saying a few days before the game that the Steelers would win because the game was rigged, and after seeing some of the calls made by the refs, you'd almost believe him. Either way, they had their best season in history, and hopefully we'll see some of the same next year. It always sucks to see a team do so well one year, and then fall apart the next.

Today I attempted to install some reverse gauges into my car. Unfortunately for me, they didn't come with any instructions, so I had to do some searching on the net. Didn't take too long before I found some, and the initial part of the installation went quite smoothly. I knew the difficult part would be the electrical part, and when it came time for it, it was proven right. The previous owner had installed some Indiglo gauges in the car (and had taken them out before he sold it), so there was already a power inverter connected. Sweet! All I have to do is cut the red and black wires, and replace it with mine! So I thought anyways.

After a couple hours of trying to get it to work, I only ended up cutting the power to the backlights to the original gauges, which means I can't see the gauges at night at all anymore, which sucks for me, because I work at night... I'm not sure how to get them working again, and the reverse gauges still aren't coming on, so I'm going to ask around at work to see if anyone would be willing to fix it for $25/hr or something. I know a couple people there that work on cars, so hopefully it won't be too difficult. On the up-side, they do look good installed. Once I get them fully working, I'll be sure and put up a pic.

Speaking of pictures, here's a few from the last week when my brother was down...

'Did I drive you away? I know what you'll say...'

I'm bored as hell...

This day's been going by so slow, but thankfully, only 1.5 more hours of work. Ordered a new cellphone this week, a Samsung SGH-T809. It's light years ahead of my current Samsung SGH-E105. I was able to talk the T-Mobile rep to giving it to me for a mere $189, when the original upgrade price was $250, and the MSRP is like $379, so not a bad deal at all. Kind of cool how much money you can save just by asking =P.

My brother's coming to visit in a week. He'll be flying down from Seattle next Saturday, and staying until the Saturday after that. I took the week off from work so we'd have plenty of time to hang out. I need to find stuff to do though. I need to get the heater fixed in my car as well. Thought about buying some new wheels and tires also. Would cost me just over $1300 for the ones I want though. The ones I'm looking at are the 17" Enkei DM5's, at Discount Tire, with Yokohama tires. Just got my first oil change the other day. The bottom of my car ended up scraping on the retractable "bridge" (not sure what it's called), so I had to sign a waiver saying they weren't responsible for damage to the car. Didn't scrape too much anyways, and it's not like I can just go without getting my oil changed =P.

Had lunch with Stacy on Tuesday. We went to a fancy Mexican place (Abuelo's), because I thought we should go somewhere new, and it was rated the best on citysearch.com. The food wasn't bad, but no different than most other decent mexican spots. The restaurant itself was pretty nice though. Prices weren't bad at all either, not cheap, but not expensive. While we were there, she asked about Stefanie, and if I'd heard from her yet. I told her I hadn't, but that it was her birthday tomorrow (Wednesday), and that I planned on calling her. Then she said something that caught me a little off guard. She said I'd been taking things out on her, like my frustration about the situation with Stefanie, which is why she (Stacy) hadn't called me in a while. I'd been trying to get a hold of her for a month and a half, with no luck, until she called me while I was in Houston. I apologized, and told her if I did, it certainly wasn't intentional. I tried my hardest to remember having said anything mean to her. The only thing I could think of was some remarks about online dating though, which she had tried a couple months ago. She must've accepted my apology though, because she insisted on paying for lunch. After lunch we went shopping at Walmart. I bought the DVD "Lord of War", and ended up letting her borrow it, because she hadn't seen it yet.

Wednesday I hung out at Dennis' for a while with him and DJ. Played a little pool, and then watched American Pie 4, which was about as bad as I thought it would be. After that I went and got my oil changed, which took a lot longer than I thought, because I had to go to Napa to buy my filter, because Walmart didn't carry it, then drive back to Walmart to get it changed. It took 30 minutes just for my cars turn, and another 30 to get it done. I just walked around Walmart the whole time. Wasn't really interested in looking for anything in particular though, since I'd just been there the previous day with Stacy, so it was pretty boring. After that I went home and told Stefanie's voice mail Happy Birthday.

Thursday, I started watching my "Firefly" box set, and now I love the series more than ever. I really hope Fox, or anyone really, picks this show back up.

And now we're at today, which I don't really have any plans other than renewing my apartment lease for yet another 7-15 months, depending on if they'll give me any months for free for the longer leases. I thought about moving, but I'd have to move the week my brother was here; plus, I'm not even sure if I really need to move. My rent is being increased by $30 a month if I re-sign, which is hardly much more money, and certainly cheaper than where I thought about moving in to, which would be somewhere around $200 more per month, though it's quite a bit nicer there, and certainly bigger.

Today's pay day, so I'll have to make the decision on whether or not to get the wheels and tires, or if I should build a new computer. I think I'm going to go with the wheels/tires though. The new Elder Scrolls doesn't come out for a couple months, and that's when I'll need my new PC, so I can hold off on that. I need to look into getting refunded for the money I spent in Houston as well. Turns out my employer will reimburse me for my car rental as well. Too bad I didn't know that before I went; I would've got it for the entire two weeks, instead of just the weekend. Would've made things a hell of a lot easier, and funner. Oh well, I'll know better next time.

Here's what too much alchohol gets you...

Brother just had his 21st birthday on the 5th. He drank a little too much that night, and the next morning, while going to get something to eat, had to throw up (for the 10th time or so that morning). Well, his roommate pulled the car over, and while he was throwing up, he passed out, and fell right onto the asphalt (and his own bile). Now look at him...