|
|
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
| |
4:27 pm - Quickly now
|
Okay, real quick I wanted to tell everyone about my awesome plan. There's a new poker tour going on called the Heartland Poker Tour. It's televised on HDNET channel on satellite TV and we enjoy watching it. One of the great things about it is that the players aren't professionals, they're just every day people. I'm not a professional either, but I have a lot of confidence in my game and think I can play at or at least near a pro level. So, on Thursday morning I'll be driving up to the far dang corner of Oklahoma to the Downstream Resort and Casino to participate in a qualifying tournament for a Heartland Poker Tour main event tournament. I'm not sure if I'll win, as poker can be fickle and just plain mean sometimes no matter how good you're playing, but I know it'll be a lot of fun. My friend Johnny is going with me and we'll play in a qualifier on Thursday night. Finish high enough and we get free entry into the $400 qualifier the next night. Finish in the top 30 percent of that and you get free entry into the $1500 main event the following weekend. Make it to the final table of the main event and you get onto the TV show and have a chance to win around $100,000 or so. Lots of ifs, and like I said, poker can just go wrong no matter how well you're playing, but it's going to be an awesome mini-vacation and I'm super excited to at least have the chance to make my way into a big money tournament like this.
That's all for now, gotta hustle to get ready for Basketball coverage tonight!
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, January 10th, 2010
| |
10:12 pm - Inspiration
|
I've had a Best Buy gift card burning a hole in my pocket for a little over a week now and was hoping to spend it today. I had a lot of work to do first and then was also watching the end of the playoffs this evening but I was going to head to Best Buy after that. After all, their website and their automated store phone both assured me that they were open until 9pm on Sundays. Well, I get there around 7:30pm and was saddened to find that they're as closed as could be. I decided to go over to Target and wander around for a bit and found some things to buy that I absolutely don't need. I came to my senses before I get to the register and end up buying nothing, so score one for saving money. I was planning on getting some food but after spending most of the weekend stuck at the house writing the newspaper I didn't just want to pick up food and go back home. I saw a TGI Fridays and decided to head in. Since I was alone I grabbed my notebook even though I didn't have anything I wanted or needed to write, but I figured "why not" and took it in. I sat at the bar so I could watch football highlights, ordered this awesome chicken sandwich that comes on garlic bread, and then opened my notebook. At random times lately I've been thinking about what novel to write next and I came up with the main character name for one of my novel ideas and realized I hadn't written it down anywhere. So I decide to jot it down just so I won't forget it. Then I decide to jot down a few plot details so I won't forget them. Then I spend the next hour outlining about 85 percent of the major plot of the entire novel. It was a bizarre feeling too, because at no point was I really trying to come up with story or plot. It was just sort of happening to me, it wasn't something I was really actively doing. I was coming up with things faster than I could write and sat there and scribbled almost seven pages worth of notes and detailed scenes and plot points. The book had long confused me as I had a great idea and no clue how to execute it. Well, somewhere in my mind the whole thing apparently made sense all along because it came together so bizarrely easy that it honestly kind of freaked me out. It was by far the easiest creative session I've ever had when coming up with an idea. Add into that a super nice and super cute bartender, a tasty sandwich, and highlights of some great football running on the television and you have the recipe for a superb evening out. It was awesome and now I'm more excited than ever to finish my current novel so that I can start on this next one!
I hope you're all doing great and that your week starts out good tomorrow. I've been getting up early on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in order to work on my new freelance writing job. So far it sort of sucks, I'm not going to lie, and it's effectively wiped out the idea of having at least one day off a week (Monday is my on again off again only day off per week but now that I"m getting up and writing in the morning that doesn't feel accurate any longer, now it's just another day in which I work). I mean, even on my days off I usually work on creative writing, which is certainly work too, so I guess in all actuality I never really had a day off anyways. Sometimes I wish I had real days off, but whenever I do take a whole day not to work on any writing I usually feel really guilty and frustrated, so I suppose I should just accept myself for who I am.
That's it. Just wanted to say hello and talk about my great outlining session at TGI Fridays. I hope you're all doing awesome!
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, January 4th, 2010
| |
1:26 am - The Resolution
|
I've never made New Year's resolutions before. I've long thought them to be a stupid thing to do and they're pretty much scientifically proven to be worthless anyways. But for some reason, this year I've decided to make one. While some people vow to get in shape, quit smoking, or be a better husband mine's not going to be any of those things. Simply put, my resolution is to be a better version of myself than I was in 2009. I'm not targeting just one aspect of my life, I'm targeting every aspect of my life. I will be a better uncle, a better son, a better friend, a better brother, a better grandson, a better employee, a better member of society and a better Christian. I'll do better with my finances, my health, my career, my goals, my relationships and anything else that I involve myself in. I will be better. It's not "A" new year's resolution, it's "THE" new year's resolution. It may sound broad and impossible to accomplish but weirdly I think it's kind of simple. Do better, be better, or be a failure. Now I'm not being overdramatic here, but honestly, if at the end of 2010 I can't look in the mirror and say with all honesty that I'm not better than I was a year ago then I will consider 2010 to be a general failure. Will there be setbacks? Sure. I could lose my job, come down with a terrible illness or any number of unforeseen things. But it's in how I react to those things that I'll define myself.
So there you have it. I loved 2009 and I don't feel awful about who I was or anything like that, that's not what this is about. But I know for a fact that I can do better. It's a fact, none of us are perfect and there are ways every single day that we can be better. And I'm making it my stated resolution for 2010 that I will strive to do better on every level of my life.
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, December 28th, 2009
| |
9:24 pm - December 27th: A day so unremarkable that it's remarkable
|
The song of the day today is "Catch and Release" by one of my favorite bands, Silversun Pickups. This is from an unplugged that they did and it's superb. CLICK HERE to listen while you read!
For the second day in a row I woke up pretty early. This time it was due to the fact that I was dreaming about snakes, which was uncool. I don't have an irrational fear of snakes but I do have a rational one and so upon waking up at 8:35 am I was certainly wide awake for the day as there was no chance I was going to go back to sleep and give the snakes a second chance at me.
Okay, to be honest I have very few direct details of what I did today. I wrote some, surfed the internet, did some online shopping, answered some emails, messed around with some ideas, planned some projects for 2010, debated about which novel to write next, and stuff like that. I then watched a football game and then played some Assassin's Creed 2. Honestly it was among the most relaxing afternoons I've had in a long time and it finally felt like I was recovering fully from the Christmas mayhem.
Eventually I went over to my family's house for a bit and then I was going to go to Border's books to spend a gift card but then I decided I didn't want to and so I went back home. I played a bit more AC2 (I talk about Assassin's Creed 2 so much that I'll now be abbreviating it) until Chris and his dad and big brother showed up to watch the Cowboys game. We all watched the game and enjoyed it. While it was on I worked on some stuff for our big poker thing upcoming on Saturday where we'll honor the winners from the tournament season. My brother came over at the end of the game and we all played a card game called Dominion. It was a lot of fun even though I'm apparently really bad at the game as I've come in last both times I've played. After that I played a bit more AC2 and then watched the latest episode of Friday Night Lights (I'm so saddened to be caught up. Now I've got to wait for the new episodes like everyone else!) and then went to bed. All in all it was a good, low key day that was really needed.
The picture of the day is of my nephew Josh, who was sporting some awesome pajamas when I stopped by the house yesterday. I love this little guy a ton, he's awesome.
And that was my Sunday.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, December 27th, 2009
| |
12:55 pm - December 26th: Uncluttering time!
|
For the song of the day I thought I'd share one of my favorite country songs ever. I'm not a big fan of country music most of the time. There are some good songs but as a genre overall I'm just not all that thrilled with the trends in it these days. But back in the day there were some truly powerful country songs and "This Cowboy's Hat" by the late great Chris Ledoux is one of them. CLICK HERE to listen while you read!
It's been pretty difficult to care much about cleaning over the past week or so since I've been so wrapped up in Christmas. While my house wasn't trashed it had become cluttered to a ludicrous degree. Of course, if we want to talk about my bedroom then yeah, I have to admit that it was pretty much a disaster. Since I don't sleep in my bed it mainly serves as a big wide open space to lay junk. When you consider that it's been many, many weeks since my last junk detox of the bed and add on all of the Christmas gifts and such that were added in recent days you can imagine just how bad it had gotten.
But before all of that, I woke up pretty early in the day, which was a nice change. It was around 9am, which sure as heck beats 11am. I needed groceries badly so after paying a bunch of end of the month bills I headed out to get some food. Wal-Mart wasn't as horrible as I had thought it would be but I also didn't find much in the way of meals. Being such a picky eater, I run into this issue from time to time. Since the number of things I eat are so limited every once in a while I'll get so sick of them that I'll go to buy groceries and get very little. All the same old stuff just doesn't sound that good. So that was sort of dumb, as i really needed food and picked up a very tiny selection of food that will only last a few days.
After I got home it was cleaning time. The living room wasn't horrible but as I moved on to the bedroom it was the true definition of a chore. Just a long task of cleaning up and uncluttering the place. Once the room looked great I then set out to fix my computer desk situation. A few months ago I switched from a computer desk to a dual table set up thinking that it would give me more room. It ended up just being clunky and funky and off and the awkward way in which my keyboard had to sit was at least partially responsible for my wrist starting to hurt over the past few weeks of writing. So I cleaned it all up, then broke down all of my equipment and got rid of the tables. When I got rid of my old desk Chris took it and put it in his room and thus took his old desk and put it outside in our storage shed. So I called my brother and he came over and helped me bring in the old desk and set it up. He also did some work on my laptop as it's sort of retarded at times. After that he invited me to go to dinner with him and his family and so we headed to On The Border.
The meal was really good and a lot of fun. I say it all the time but I can't stress enough just how much I love my nephews. They're the best. After the meal I was back home and did a little writing before heading out for a long, long night of doing my second job. When I got home I decided to watch "Mask of the Ninja" which turned out to be an awful, awful movie. But what should I expect of a film that has Casper Van Dien as the star? 40 minutes in I decided I had tortured Chris and myself enough and I cut it off. Chris went to bed and I flipped channels a bit before falling asleep around 3am.
The picture of the day is at On the Border. Josh noticed I was about to take a picture and turned his head but Matt was enjoying his french fries too much to care that I was taking his picture.
And that was my Saturday.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Saturday, December 26th, 2009
| |
7:43 pm - December 25th: Christmas Day, post Christmas
|
For the song of the day I wanted to share "Hero" by Regina Spektor. This was the track that played during one of the most powerful scenes in "500 Days of Summer" and has been stuck with me ever since I saw that amazing sequence in that amazing film. CLICK HERE to listen while you read!
Today started very shortly after yesterday ended thanks to the fact that I was sleeping at the scene of the Santa visit. My oldest nephew Jacob woke me up right at 6 am (I had gone to sleep around 4am) to show me the Nintendo Wii and all the games that Santa had left for he and his brothers. He was thrilled by two things. First was the fact that I had slept through the entire thing and second was the fact that Santa had taken the time to hook up the game system. He gets his brothers up and they all play Wii for some time. I stumbled into the kids bedroom and tried to sleep a little but couldn't really get comfortable and got back up. I spent the morning with my family but around lunchtime I had my dad give me a lift back to my house.
The original plan was to go back to my parents a little later since we had family coming over but I got home, wrote just a little bit and then fell right dang asleep in my computer chair. I slept for about three hours and when I woke up around 4pm I called my mom and found out that she and my dad were about to go visit his parents (aka my grandparents). I haven't seen them since last Christmas so I told them to come pick me up. We all headed out and it was a very nice drive. I've got great memories of the trip out to their house in Boyd and even though I'm supposedly a grownup now it's still an awesome drive and one that makes me feel like a kid. It was great to see my grandparents. I've never really been all that close with them and that's pretty sad to me, but it was great to get to spend a little time with them. Usually it's a big production out there with everyone from my dads side of the family but everyone had sort of scattered by the time we got there and it was just my grandparents. So we hung for a bit and then headed home.
Just like the trip out, the trip home was fun and I was just talking with my parents the whole way. I love both of them a ton, I really do. I think it's awesome that I don't just love my parents, but I like them and they like me and we can have fun hanging out and talking. It makes life awesome to be able to get that kind of joy out of something simple like a car trip. I stopped off at my family's house and said one last merry christmas to all of them before heading home. I watched a little football with Chris and then played a little Assassin's Creed 2. Chris fell asleep on the couch and I spent a lot of time in my room. I watched two more episodes of the new season of Friday Night Lights and it was some of the best television ever created. Seriously just mind blowing good stuff. I then spent many hours just in a weird sort of state of mind. Just sort of lost in the idea of laying 2009 to rest and diving into 2010. I was halfway fuming over some aspects of this past year that haven't played out how I wanted but at the same time I was really just sort of alive with possibilities for the future, so that was cool too. All in all it was a weird time but a good time.
I headed back into the living room and watched a little television, played some more Assassin's Creed 2 and then finally fell asleep around 5 am. All in all it really didn't feel like Christmas to me since I had spent the last 48 hours straight in Christmas mode with my family. I wasn't sad about it or anything but yeah, it just wasn't really like Christmas day for me at all.
For the picture of the day you've got a photograph that I've named "21st Century Countryside". My grandparents neighbor's have a gas well on their land and it's right on the border with my grandparents land. It used to be one of my favorite things to just sit out there and look out across all that land and now there's this giant industrial thing there. I'm not a big fan of the companies doing all of this natural gas drilling and it made me a bit sad to see it out there in what used to be just pure countryside for as far as you could see.
And that was my Friday.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Friday, December 25th, 2009
| |
11:02 pm - December 24th: Christmas Eve with Pete Adolphus
|
I woke up and bummed around the house for a bit. I was going to be spending the night with my family so I was pretty interested in doing as little as possible for the early part of the day. I messed around on the internet a bit, wrote a bit, watched a little television, and that was about all. It was snowing a little and that was pretty special. Chris and I went and grabbed some Jack in the Box and then came back home and it was still snowing a bit but the snow wasn't sticking. We ate and then I played Assassin's Creed 2 for about an hour and a half. Then my brother called me.
Phillip wanted me to go with him to the store to get stuff for dinner and said "we need to do it now because of the weather". I just thought he was being dramatic, as it was just a few snow flurries. But I look out the window and wow, it went from flurries to blizzard in a really short amount of time. It doesn't snow that often here in Texas but it's not like I've never seen it before. But man, this, this was insane. For all of my friends and family that live around here I know you don't need to be told, but it was just whipping this freezing snow all around. It was awesome and a bit scary at the same time. My brother came and picked me up and we headed out. He then informed me we also had to go to Target to look for something real fast. That place was insane and when we came back out the storm had intensified and the walk to the car was psychotic. Seriously, it was like being punched in the face by winter. I dropped him off at the door over at Wal-Mart so he could get groceries and then I tried to survive the combination of winter's fury and the insanity/stupidity of Texas drivers as I circled the store waiting for him to come out. Finally he emerged and we slowly made our way back to their house.
Once there it was really just an amazingly awesome day of family and fun. I know I didn't give too many details yesterday about my Christmas but I'm not even really sure that I've fully absorbed all of it yet. Today was the same. It was just this amazing day filled with all that is good about life, you know? Everyone was in a pretty fun mood and there was a lot of joking and stupidity going on. Eventually Chris came over and we all had dinner and then my nephews got their stockings. They each got a Zhu Zhu pet hamster thingy and my dad at one point has everyone in the room convinced that one of them is named Pete Adolphus, which was about the funniest moment of Christmas when my mom finally grabs the paperwork from him in an attempt to locate the name and we all realized that my dad was just being an idiot. It was pretty great. Eventually the boys went to bed and Phillip, Amanda, me and Chris played a new card game called Dominion and it was a lot of fun. After that Chris went home and me, Phillip and Amanda popped popcorn in their popcorn machine and then watched "500 Days of Summer". After that we all just sort of hung around and stayed up late and I finally went to sleep around 3:30am, which was about two hours and thirty minutes before I would be awakened by an excited nephew who had just discovered the Nintendo Wii that Santa left for him and his brothers.
The picture of the day is of me on my front porch when the winter storm was first getting bad. It ended up being much worse than this but there was no way I was gonna go out in it again to take another picture!
And that was my Thursday.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Thursday, December 24th, 2009
| |
6:05 pm - December 23rd: Christmas till you crash
|
No song of the day today as I'm not on my home computer. I woke up at some point, maybe around 10ish or something. I'm having one of those weird times when I really can't remember much about what I did in the early hours of the day. Watched some television, I'm sure, and I think I also played a little Assassin's Creed 2. Before long it was time to get Christmas underway so I headed over to my family's house and borrowed my mom's car which has a lot more space. I went back home and loaded it up with all of the gifts I've bought and then went back over. My big present to my whole family was too big to wrap so I gave that to them right away. It's a big popcorn machine and for a family that loves popcorn I knew it was a great gift for them. I'm really happy about the reaction it got and it makes great popcorn and we had a lot of fun with it, so that was awesome.
I spent the day with my family just hanging out and having a great time and Chris and his big brother Johnny came over. My brother got off work as did my dad and we all ate burgers and hot dogs and then it was present time! We had a blast doing it and everyone did an awesome job of gift buying this year. It was by far the best Christmas we've ever had in that regard. My brother and I scored huge with our secret gift to my mom and sister-in-law. A few weeks back while mom and Amanda were gone doing some Christmas shopping Phillip and I set up the house to take some photos of my nephews (his kids). It was a pretty big chore but the end result was some awesome looking pictures which my mom was very nearly convinced had to have been professionally done (a comment she made after seeing them in her christmas gift). Then we printed them all up and put them into these really cool photo frames that we bought. They ended up looking really good and my mom and Amanda were both super happy about them, so it was great. It's funny that no matter how much you spend on a big present it's the ones that you assemble and build yourself that are the best. All in all it was an amazing time and such a special Christmas. I got some great stuff and my brother bought me the 10th Anniversary Sports Night box set which was amazing and all in all it was the best day I can remember in a long, long, long time. One thing that I bought for my nephews was Lego Rockband for their PS3. Well, suffice to say that they enjoyed it for about 20 minutes, and the rest of the grown ups enjoyed it for about 2 hours straight. You haven't heard rock and roll until you've heard my brother belting out "The Final Countdown" as if he's singing to 100 thousand screaming fans. Add in the stellar Phillip/Chris/Johnny performance of a Bon Jovi track as well as my own rendition of "Bad to the Bone" and you've got an ear splitting good time.
We all hung out for a long time and then I headed home. I was exhausted as heck and hung out with Chris for a few minutes. I unloaded all of my gifts and then crash landed right into sleeptown. One moment I was sitting there, looking at presents, the next I was out for the night.
I love my family, I love this time of year, and I loved our Christmas.
The picture of the day is of the popcorn machine I gave to my family. It's awesome and makes tasty popcorn!
And that was my Wednesday.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
| |
9:13 am - December 22nd: At the finish line
|
For the song of the day I'd like to share a band that has a special place in my life. They're called Paw and I relate them to being young and hanging out with my brother. We had the game console the 3DO and one of the games we played constantly was called Road Rash. The band Paw was heavily featured on the game and thus they always instantly take me back in time. This is the song "No Such Luck". CLICK HERE to listen while you read!
The day started early as I had to get up and go get the newspaper. We were again printing a day early thanks to holiday scheduling and I stumped my way down to Granbury. The trip down was uneventful. The trip out? Yeah, a little different. There was so much traffic that it took me about 45 minutes to travel down about 3 miles of road. But once I got out of there it was no big deal and business as usual as I cruised allt he way home.
I met up with my boss at the office and we did our regular routine and I talked about poker a whole lot while we were there. I got a Christmas bonus on my check which was awesome and super appreciated for sure. After we were done up there I headed to the house to grab something and then waded out into the madness that was December 22 shopping. I had a few key places I needed to hit and it was an interesting journey. I was in a very good mood and that helped me out a lot because traffic was a nightmare. I went to Target to exchange an alarm clock that my roommate bought me and then I went to Half Price Bookstore. From there I shot across the street to Gamestop and then it was time to head outta that part of town... very slowly. A very nice person let me back onto the main street and then we slowly inched our way forward for the next 40 or so minutes. This time it was only about a mile and a half traveled in 40 minutes. I finally got out of there and went to Blockbuster to rent "500 Days of Summer".
I got back home around 5:15 pm and had to leave for City Council at 6:00 pm so there wasn't really much down time. I got myself prepared and then headed out for my last council meeting of 2009. There weren't many people there and the first part of the meeting went quick before the council went into a closed door session. Now, when they returned I had to go up and address them to present a few of them with awards they won in the "Best of the West" competition. I've covered council for over 2 years but never have I spoke there and I had a whole forty five minutes to sit and worry about it while they were in closed door session. They came back and it was my time and man, I think it was pretty bad. I say think because, crazy as it sounds, I can't remember everything I said. I know I rushed it a lot and talked at a pretty high rate of speed. People clapped when I was done and handed out the awards so what I was saying must've made some sort of sense I guess. It'll air on the local cable access channel later this week and I hope to never ever see that footage. I'm thinking it'll be bad.
After that I had to go and write the council coverage and so I did. It took longer than I had thought it would but when I got done around 10 pm I was done with work. I'm now newspaper free for five straight days. It will be Monday before I have to do anything and I'm beyond thrilled about that fact. With work done I talked with Chris for a while and then we watched "500 Days of Summer". It was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Seriously, I'm half insulted that no one ever told me how brilliant it was. This was a brilliant film. It was smart, funny, innovative, heartbreaking. It's been a long time since I fell in love with a film the way I did with this movie. Some of the humor can be a bit rough around the edges but this is an amazing film. I'm not a big "film as art" guy but there are things here that really do go beyond regular storytelling and more into art. I found it to be a truly brilliant movie in every way.
Of course, there is a part of the film that really hit way too close to home for me. I had a very similar relationship to the one portrayed in the movie and it does a really good job of looking closely at how love can fade away if you let it and how no matter how hard you want to hang onto something sometimes that's just not how it goes. I don't want to spoil anything, but the way things resolve between the two main characters is actually exactly what happened with me and this girl. Ugh. It honestly hurt to see it layed out in film form that way. I identified so closely with the main guy in that scene, well, in a lot of the scenes actually. It made me think a lot about that relationship and I'd like to write about it someday. Not today though.
After that movie we talked for a while and I was inspired to write some fiction so I came into my room and wrote a little story. I was really pleased with it and if you want to read it just scroll down and you'll see it. After that I watched two more episodes of Friday Night Lights season 4 and it's so good. Amazingly good. I watched some Sportscenter after that and then some poker and then I fell asleep.
The picture of the day is of my favorite tree in the world. You'd think only hippies and environmentalists would have favorite trees but I, in fact, have a favorite tree. It's in Lake Granbury and is this lone tree that sticks out of the water. It never grows leaves, it just sort of sits there defiantly. I'm really sort of drawn to it and love seeing it and since I was stuck in traffic anyways I decided to pull off and grab a picture of it. It's not the best quality because I had to zoom. My sister Paula is in that area sometimes and I bet she'll recognize that tree. Anyways, from me to you, it's my favorite tree in the whole world.
And that was my Tuesday.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| |
2:03 am - Fiction!
|
It's been such a crazy month at work that I've gotten very little written on my novel. Tonight I was inspired to exercise the creative writing muscles a little bit and this is the (very) short story that came out. I hope you enjoy it.
THE SEQUEL
Owen leaned back in his computer chair and let out a deep, contented sigh. He closed his eyes and bathed in the sound of his printer whirring as it speedily brought his just finished novel off of the computer screen and into the real world for the first time. It was done. It was done and no one would ever be able to take that away from him. No matter what else Owen did in his life he’d always be able to say that he had written a book. The thought brought a smile to his face.
He opened his eyes when the printer stopped and gathered the mass of pages in his hands. He knocked them against his desk to bring them in line and then held it in front of him and marveled at the simple, unassuming title page. It felt heavy and somehow that seemed appropriate. While the task of writing it had only taken him three years, Owen liked to say that he had been working on the novel for a decade. That’s how long he had known he wanted to pursue writing and that’s when he had the idea for the book. It took him seven years to get motivated enough to start and three more to finish. He smiled as he hefted it. A decade. It damn sure better feel heavy.
After enjoying the feel of it in his hands for another moment he slid it into a waiting file folder and then closed and fastened it. He opened the bottom drawer on his desk and dropped the file folder into it. Owen gently pushed on the drawer and watched as it slowly closed. Once it had clicked shut he returned his attention to his laptop. He clicked a button and a word processor document appeared. It was completely blank save for a blinking cursor and all the possibilities in the world.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
| |
10:21 pm - December 21st: The inevitable Christmas crash
|
For the song today I wanted to share with you "Searching" by one of my all time favorite artists Joe Satriani. This is an incredible song and once it gets to the "chorus" (it's an instrumental, so I'm not sure if you can call it the chorus) it quickly goes from good to great and is one of my favorite songs he's ever done. CLICK HERE to listen while you read!
My memories of Monday are a bit scattered. After spending the entire holiday season in an almost sickening state of happiness and joyfulness I finally had my down day. I was irritated and annoyed almost all day long. After writing a ludicrous amount the previous four or five days I had to spend a good four and a half hour block of my "day off" writing nonstop. That made me less than happy, but when I also learned that I had to go and cover basketball and then return home and immediately write up the game and download/edit the photos and send them to my boss asap I was even less pleased. Honestly the majority of the day was me sitting and writing and just not being happy about it.
Before going to basketball I went over to my family's house and that was a really good move on my part. Just being around them for twenty minutes really pulled me out of my funk and even though I was still annoyed honestly what I realized is that I was just exhausted. I tend to operate on enthusiasm and optimism during long stretches of work but it had just all caught up to me and I was just really really exhausted. So I headed to basketball only to find that the game was delayed a good forty minutes. At that point I wasn't super pleased but had nothing else I could do other than wait around for it to start. The game itself was good, our team won big but it was around 10 pm before I even got home and again I just wasn't all that thrilled about it. Especially considering that I immediately had to write it all up and do the pictures.
So I worked some more and eventually finished it. Then Chris and I ended up talking a lot and that really helped me out big time. I don't even remember what we talked about the whole time. I talked a lot about the future and we discussed possible career paths and I mused about ways in which life could conceivably change drastically for me at some point in the future. The whole thing was really nice and a great distraction from my bad mood. Chris eventually went to bed and I finished re-watching season 3 of "Friday Night Lights" and then watched the first two episodes of the new season. That show is so good that it freaks me out. If it gets cancelled after this season, which is a possibility, I will be angry. I usually get sad when my shows get cancelled, but with this one I'll just get flat out pissed because it's stupid that a show this amazing can't pull in enough of an audience to stay on the air. After that I flipped around the television for a while and then went to sleep.
The picture of the day is one of my basketball pictures because I didn't take anything else. I like to pretend that they're all looking up at something crazy in the sky, like a ufo or a ghost or something. Or like a ghost driving a ghostly ufo maybe. That would certainly draw your attention.
And that was my Monday.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Monday, December 21st, 2009
| |
5:22 pm - December 20th: Crippled hand edition
|
Okay, so I've written a novella's worth of material for the newspaper in the past few days and then when you mix in the short story length blog post about my Saturday my hands and wrists are not pleased that I'm writing anything that isn't absolutely neccessary right now. So I'm going to be more brief than usual today and probably tomorrow as well.
After just a handful of hours asleep I was up and not functioning too well. Saturday had been such a draining day and it took me the first few hours of Sunday to really get up to full power. Around 2 p.m. my nephews came over for a few hours so my family could organize and wrap all of their presents. I had a blast with the little guys and they were awesome the whole time. They're so well behaved and so funny and nice, we just had a lot of fun. I gave myself a muscle cramp demonstrating how to do a jump kick in the front yard and I hurt my foot during an intense game of freeze tag in the back yard but it was all worth it. Amanda came and picked up those awesome little dudes around 4:30 pm and Chris and I decided we wanted to eat at Chili's but neither of us wanted to go to Chili's. So we got Chili's take out.
The food was really good and we watched the latest episode of "The Mentalist" and that was really not good. Man that show is so sub par right now that I'm really struggling to find reasons to stick with it. I'll probably stay for the rest of the season but unless it picks up in a big way I'll probably be done with it after that. After that I had to get to work on my "Best (and worst) movies of 2009" mega feature. In the last issue of every year I do this massive feature and it's a lot of fun and we get a great response from it but it's also a true beast to write. So we watched Sunday night football and I slowly but surely made progress as I put together my list. Around 9 pm we decided to go ahead and give each other our Christmas gifts and that was a lot of fun. I got an awesome alarm clock that I've been wanting as well as some CD's and a tv dvd box set so I'm excited to get started on that. There was also much candy involved and it was a lot of fun and my first gifts of the holidays, so that was nice.
After that I got back to work and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. I also laughed and laughed at watching Brett Favre lose, but that's a different story. Eventually I couldn't write any more and we just watched poker for a while. Chris went to bed and then I found myself completely and utterly unable to sleep. It was awful. I watched the rest of a movie called "New York City Serenade" and I really liked it. It wasn't a great film but it was really good and it was cool to see Freddy Prinze Jr. and Chris Klein in good roles and putting forth strong acting performances. I've always liked both of them but they don't ever show up in any worthwhile films. After that I watched like four episodes of Friday Night Lights season 3, a whole bunch of Sportscenter, and eventually fell asleep around 6 am.
The picture of the day is of Matt holding up a lego guy for the camera. I love how he looks in this shot and how you can see Chris, Josh and Jacob in the background.
And that was my Sunday.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Sunday, December 20th, 2009
| |
11:39 pm - December 19th: An ultimate victory
|
For the song of the day I thought it would be fitting to share "Christmas time is here" by the guitar virtuoso Steve Vai. The song is super awesome and a great representation of how I've been feeling lately as I love love love this holiday season. CLICK HERE to listen while you read!
I woke up at some point before noon (how's that for specific) and did some stuff that I can't remember. Surfed the internet, answered a few emails, did a little writing, just usual stuff. After a while Chris woke up and I immediately insulted him (my exact words were "Jerry Jones called and said that you're a worse coach than Wade Phillips". Dallas Cowboys fans can appreciate the insult.). This would set the tone for what turned out to be a wonderful afternoon. Chris and I needed to go to Wal-Mart to get drinks for our poker tournament that evening but Johnny was still asleep and we knew it was sometimes weird if you're at someones house and you wake up and nobody is there. So I decided to leave him a note, but I'll tell you the contents of that note later.
We went to Wal-Mart and got everything we needed and then headed back home. We all then sat around and joked and made fun of each other for about two solid hours. Most Saturdays are filled with me stressing over getting newspaper stuff done but since I had written so much the two nights before I had zero to do on Saturday. Me, Chris and Johnny just had a wonderful afternoon and it was much fun indeed.
The hours ticked by and it was time to get ready for the final poker tournament of our 2009 season. Chris and I have had a blast putting these on and a lot went into making them awesome. Plus, a lot was on the line for me. I was in second place in the overall points standings. Donna (chris's mom) had 40 points (you get points depending on how well you do in each tournament and at the end of the season you get prizes based on your final position) and I had 38. This meant that I had to finish 2 points higher than her to tie and force a playoff or I had to get 3 points higher in order to win the whole tournament season straight up. You can win a maximum of 7 points in a tournament and that's if you win the whole tournament. The problem is that Donna is a master of lasting late into tournaments. I knew that at best she would go out in 4th place which would award her with 4 points. That meant that I was going to need to get 2nd to tie and I'd need to win the whole night to win the overall tournament. Of course, while I've played great for the whole season I've only won once so I knew it was going to be a tough night.
As things got underway I immediately thought it was not going to be my night. On the first hand I get Ace/Queen and hit an ace on the flop. I'm up against Donna, the one person I don't want to be playing big pots with, and she bets strong. I call and hit a third ace on the turn and am feeling good but she bets big again and I'm a little worried but I call. The river brings a fourth heart and my three aces turns into the best possible flush which is a very strong hand. So when Donna puts in a third big bet I call her only to see that she hit a full house on the turn and had me killed. Starting off the night losing 1/5th of your chip stack to the one person you must outlast? Yeah, not the best way to start. The first half hour carried on like that. I lost a hand with a straight to the ace, lost one with three of a kind, lost another with a flush, and lost another with three queens. In no time at all I was in big trouble and hanging on for dear life while Donna had built up to almost 4k in chips (compared to my 1100). I scraped back up a little and at the first break I was around 2k (we start with 2500). During the first break we played a gift exchange game and it was a lot of fun and then we were back to the poker action.
The night continued to be a grind and honestly I was just trying to survive. I didn't play a whole heckuva lot and the few hands I won were small and honestly in my mind I had just sort of checked out. No one had enough points to reach me so no matter what I had 2nd place locked up and it just didn't feel like my night. Several other players had a lot on the line and it was a very christmasy feeling night (I had a disc of awesome christmas music playing) so I really was feeling like just sitting back and enjoying myself and being content with second place. But I scrape and scratch and stay low and at the second break I only have 1800, which is really not good at that point in the tournament. A crazy thing happened though. I looked over and noticed that Donna was down to 2100. I had been so wrapped up in my own little world of poker misery that I hadn't even realized that she had been losing chips. I knew she was playing a few more hands than she usually does but I can't pinpoint a time when she lost a big amount. Maybe it happened and I just didn't catch it but I think it was more of just a gradual thing that maybe she didn't even know had gone on. Regardless of how it went down, I realized that she was in sight. She was in the same exact spot I was and we were both going to have to try and make something happen soon in order to keep ourselves afloat. All of a sudden hope was renewed, my energy was back and I was feeling like there might be some magic in the air.
Things didn't turn around for me immediately but they did slowly turn. I won a few hands and a few more and then I lost a huge hand and most of my chips. Then I won a hand and then another and then another and all of a sudden I had a respectable stack of around 3300. Then a magical hand happened on which I had wired Kings and the flop came with two kings, giving me the unbeatable 4 kings. Johnny put some into this pot as did our friend Kevin and when he hit a full house on the river Kevin pushed in all of his money. I called immediately knowing that there was nothing that could beat my hand and just like that I had around 7k and was the chip leader. A few hands later Donna pushed all in with wired queens and got called by someone who had an ace. When an ace came on the flop Donna was out in, just as I had presumed would be the best case scenario, 4th place.
So I needed a second place finish to tie her and a victory to win the entire year long tournament season. I was pumped. I had the opportunity and I had the chips to make it a reality. Johnny (chris's big brother), Amanda (my sister in law) and me were three handed and even though losing in 3rd place would be tragic for me as it would get me just 1 point more than Donna had gotten and thus mean that she still won the overall tournament season but I decided not to play conservatively. I was ahead but not by a ton and now was not the time to play scared. There really weren't any big hands I got into three handed but I consistently won the small and medium sized ones. I was running extremely well and hitting great cards and slowly siphoning off money from both of my opponents. Amanda ended up hitting a big hand against Johnny and he was soon after out in third and I was a huge chip leader going into heads up play.
Now let me say this. I love Amanda. She's the sweetest person I've ever known and I've been so thankful that she's been a part of our family. It's hard to even recall what our family was like before she was a part of it and the last person I wanted to beat up on during heads up poker was her. But there was so much on the line and I just had to win. She was so far behind in chips too, like around 4k to my 16 or 17k and honestly it would've taken a few lucky breaks for her to even get back in it. I got really good luck and she got zero luck and after about 20 minutes I took it down with Ace/8. I won my second tournament of the season and had edged out Donna with a miraculous finish. Winning our tournaments is really really hard and with her lasting until 4th and having to be forced into a victory for the ultimate victory, man, it was just an amazing thing. I don't know, maybe it's stupid that it meant that much to me, but I take poker very seriously and I aspire to be great at it and I've fought hard all season long to put myself in a position to win it all. To be able to overtake her on that final night with a tournament victory, man, it was so supremely sweet.
I could go on and on about how awesome it was, I really could, but this has already gotten way too long. So I'll just say that it was an amazing night and we so cherish all of our great friends and family members who played in these tournaments and participated. We're looking forward to taking a break and then getting them rolling again in 2010.
After the tournament I was super psyched up and my brother drove me to do my second job. I'll just say that it took dang near forever, it was far into Sunday morning by the time I got back home, and I was beyond exhausted. But no matter how tired I was I remained excited about the way poker had gone and was pretty much smiling all night (or morning, as it was).
I took a picture of the note I left Johnny but I'm not on my own computer so instead I'm just going to type up the text of it.
"I have kidnapped your brother and his friend. If you want to see them alive again call (i put my cell phone number at that point in the note but don't want to put it here on the internet. Anyone who needs it has it and if you feel like you need it and you don't have it email me and I'll likely give it to you) and have your ransom offer ready. Do not call the police or your brother will die. Comply with my demands and you'll see them again at dinner. Defy me and you won't see them again until their funerals.
Just kidding. We went to Wal-Mart.
Aarron and Chris
p.s. I just spelled my own name wrong"
And that was my Saturday.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Saturday, December 19th, 2009
| |
10:27 am - December 18th: Christmas jealousy and lots and lots of work
|
For the song of the day we're going to cross over into the fantasy metal or "power metal" as it's sometimes called genre. My brother is the undisputed king of this genre and has discovered a boatload of amazing bands that play this music. Again, just like techno it may not be for everyone but I couldn't love it more and it's one of the awesome ways in which me and my awesome brother bond. This is "The Last Goodbye" from the awesome band Royal Hunt that my brother introduced me to a month or so ago. CLICK HERE to listen while you read!
For the third day in a row I woke up to my alarm. This is what I refer to in my world as "a personal tragedy". Ugh. But whatever. Chris and his brother were out Christmas shopping and I needed to go deliver the winner's certificates to people at the high school because they were about to get out for a 2 week winter vacation. The plan was for us to all meet back up at 10 am at the house and head out to see Avatar. So I got ready and headed up to the school. I had fun delivering them up there. The woman who works in the office is super nice and so she helped me out a lot. She summoned a guy named Jason Ferguson who had won one of our big awards and then she had her office aides deliver some of the certificates to students who were in class. Jason came over and I presented him with his "Best Servant of the People" award which was a big category. Jason's an awesome guy and truly deserving of that particular award and he seemed really genuinely thrilled to get it so that really made my morning awesome. From there I just had to drop off a few as the winners weren't available and then I headed home and got there just a few minutes after 10.
We all headed off to the West 7th Street Movie Tavern to see Avatar. Once there we bought tickets and headed up only to be told by the employee that we weren't going to be allowed in due to Motorola "buying out the entire theater". This didn't set well with us due to us holding tickets to the very showing we were being told we "weren't going to be allowed in". I'm a pretty passive guy and it's Christmas and I don't get upset easily and honestly I was just ready to leave and go to a different theater. Chris, however, was more interested in getting across the fact that what they were saying to us was stupid. He talked to the girl for a minute and then she went and got her manager and he immediately told us to go on in. Our waiter (yes, for those of you who don't know, Movie Tavern has waiters that bring you your food and drinks in the theater. It's awesome) said that Motorola had bought it out but then had cancelled the reservation. Whatever. Chris and I made up fake jobs that we worked at Motorola and mine was much weirder than his. Of course, now that I keep saying Motorola I can't help but think that it was another cell phone giant, like Nokia. But maybe not.
Whatever. So we watched Avatar and I really really liked it but I didn't really love it. Chris seemed to love it and I think Johnny was more on my side of the fence. Visually it's nothing short of stunning. By far one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen. My gripes with it are all pretty arbitrary and I still gave it my highest rating in my review for the paper (my movie grades go from "DON'T BOTHER" to "RENT IT" to "SEE IT IN THEATERS" to "SEE IT NOW") even though I never really did fall in love with the film. I'm "in like" with it.
After that we headed back home and Chris and Johnny deserted me so they could go off to a family Christmas. I was pretty jealous. I've been desperate to do Christmas for a long time now but my family is holding strong that we wait longer before we do ours. I was like a little kid being abandoned, watching from the window as Chris and Johnny drove away, a single tear rolling forlornly down my cheek. Nah, it wasn't that bad. I was a bit jealous though. But I had much, much work to do and I set out to accomplish it. I was still not super pleased about having to go deliver "best of the west" certificates to businesses on my own but it was "put up or shut up" time and so I just headed out and got to it. I'm going to be honest, I ended up having a lot of fun doing it. While some of the businesses were a bit frosty and a few were downright rude about the whole thing the ones that were excited definitely made up for it. It really seemed to brighten some people's day and get them excited about what they do and justify all of their hard work and I was really glad to get to be a part of making that big of an impact on people. "Best of the West" was my idea and I've secretly been cursing myself ever since we started putting it together because it turned out to be a ludicrous amount of work. But getting to see these reactions by some of the winners made all the work worthwhile and I'm actually hoping we do it again in 2010.
While I was out traversing the city I talked to my family and they invited me over for dinner. I actually bought my final Christmas gift while I was out so I can say that I am 100% completed with Christmas, which is good. I went over to my family's house and it was, as always, the best. I felt like I haven't seen my nephews in forever so it was such a joy to be around them. They're such hilarious little guys and I can't think of a single better thing in the world than getting to hug them and make them laugh. My brother and Amanda made these awesome nachos for dinner and I ate way too much and just had such a pleasant evening there with my whole family. I love them a lot.
I hated to cut the visit short but with much, much, much writing staring me in the face I had to get home and get started. With our publishing schedules so wonky the next two weeks we're getting as much done early as we can so I had to complete a ton of stuff. I wrote for about three hours and then Chris and Johnny returned from their Christmas. I talked with them for a while about it and we were all joking around when my brother called and asked if I'd come over and help him do something. So I went back over to my family's house where I helped put their big screen TV on a new TV stand that they got. I hung around there for an hour or so and then came back home and got back to work. I wrote for about two more hours before hitting a wall. I popped some popcorn, had a DR Pepper and turned on a movie called "New York City Serenade". It was pretty good but I was tired and didn't finish it. I played a little Facebook poker and then fell asleep in my room for the 2nd night in a row, which is a record for me since moving into this house 18 months ago.
The picture of the day is of Chris and Johnny sporting their super stylish 3D glasses at the Avatar showing.
And that was my Friday.
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, December 18th, 2009
| |
8:54 pm - December 17th: Celebrate the writing, do the writing
|
For the song of the day I'm going to go "with the man who has won all imaginable awards in dance music" and the "man who has taken us on a musical journey tonight". That's right, it's the slick stylings of one of my favorite DJ's as DJ Tiesto gives you "Adagio for Strings". I know techno isn't for everyone but I love me some good ol' techno every now and again. So CLICK HERE to listen while you read!
For the second day in a row i had to get up with an alarm. That was unpleasant. I hate having to wake up to an alarm. I'm certain this is a view shared by 99.9% of the world's population so I don't even know why it's worth talking about. In other news, I also breathe air. So yeah, anyways, I got up and was still feeling fuzzy and slow thanks to the lack of caffeine. I dragged (drug?) myself up to the office to meet my boss. We were printing off and framing up the winner's certificates for our "Best of the West" contest and then we were going to set out to deliver some of them. Ben kept talking about "splitting up the list" so we could each do half but I was so not wanting to do that. After almost four years you'd think I'd get over some of my shyness but I just did not want to have to go alone to find the manager, explain to them that they won, take their picture, and all of that. It makes no sense really, but I was dreading doing it alone. It took longer than I had thought to get it all ready but eventually around 11:30 am we headed out to deliver the first few.
The deliveries were actually a lot of fun. I was really glad I had Ben there as he took the lead on most of them but I had a blast being a part of it. We got some really cool reactions from some of the business owners when they discovered they had won. We did a couple but then had to get over to one of the elementary schools where they had a Toys for Tots event going on. A helicopter was flying in to collect the toys that all of the kids had gotten donated and so they marched all of the kids outside to wait for it. I was in a funk thanks to lack of caffeine and just kind of stood around. Looking back I probably should've been a little more helpful but Ben seemed to have it under control and Keith our super photographer was there so I really did just exist for a bit. Eventually the helicopter landed and it was pretty cool, we were all rather close to it. Some marines got out and greeted the kids and all of that so the whole thing was pretty cool. It lasted a bit longer than I had hoped, but it was cool. After it was over Ben took me back to my car at the office where we divided up the remaining awards and parted company.
I had fully intended to go home, eat lunch, and then get busy delivering awards. That, however, did not happen. I ate a little bit of food and then realized that I didn't have much time before I had to go to my company Christmas party. So I just wrote a little bit and relaxed. At 5:30 pm I was dressed and my brother and Amanda came and picked me up and we headed to a local restaurant for the Grizzly Detail Christmas party. We started this tradition last year and I was really glad to see my bosses do it again this year. It's a low key event held in a low key party room at a local restaurant, but the thing feels important. Just getting to have a meal and talk with all of the people who have worked so hard to make the paper work over the past year is really cool. My brother has written some stuff for us this year and it was extra special to have him there with me.
I do want to say a little about my job. When I was a kid I dreamed that one day I would get paid to write. I didn't want to be an astronaut, or president or a NFL quarterback. I just wanted someone to pay me to write. Most kids have wild, over the top dreams for their future that are almost impossible to achieve but mine never faltered. I just wanted to get paid to write. I've said it before but I can't stress it enough, The Grizzly Detail Newspaper has been my lifelong dream come true. Would I like to write a bestselling novel some day? Sure, but even if I don't , I can say that I dreamed something when I was a child and I worked hard and persevered and made it happen. It's a powerful thing to pay your bills doing the thing you believe you were born to do and I just want to state how incredibly lucky I am to be able to do that. I'm beyond thankful to have this job and beyond thankful for Ben and Cheryl welcoming me in and letting me be a partner to them as we fought to find our footing. I look forward to each and every day that I get to continue working for them and for this paper.
Anyways, just wanted to share that. The party was awesome and I had a blast just hanging out and talking with everyone and having a great dinner. I got home around 8:20pm and watched the rest of the Colts game with Chris and his big brother Johnny. The Colts won, because they are awesome, and after the game I had to get straight to dang work. Our publishing schedules are a complete mess thanks to the upcoming holidays so we're trying to get as much done on the next 2 papers as possible. So I spent about four hours straight writing up the enormous "Best of the West" stuff that will accompany the winner's list. We've been trying to make the whole contest fun so I went out of my way to be silly and ended up having a blast writing it. I'm not sure how much of my nutty comedy my bosses will leave in but I had fun doing it.
After I was done I went into the living room and rescued Chris and Johnny from horrible TV (they were watching the hilariously named "Psycho 4: The Beginning") by playing some Assassin's Creed 2. I played for a bit, Chris went to sleep, and I realized that going to bed wasn't a terrible idea. Around 1:30am I turned it off and went to my room. The only times I ever sleep in my room is when Johnny stays over once every month or so. It's a bit weird for me to have to sleep in my room but at the same time it's what normal people in the world do so it's probably good for me to practice it every once in a while. I turned on Superman Returns and fell asleep in my recliner. It was cold in my house.
The picture of the day is a (rather poor) look at our Christmas gathering. Nothing amazing but a nice snapshot of a nice night.
And that was my Thursday.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Thursday, December 17th, 2009
| |
4:05 pm - December 16th: An all-time great decision
|
For the song of the day I wanted to go with "All of This" from Blink-182. I'm a huge fan of a band doing something completely different and when they strayed away from their punk-pop style to make this forlorn and thoughtful track Blink 182 created something of a masterpiece. CLICK HERE to listen while you read!
Today started out well enough. I decided not to drink any sodas for the whole day because I've been drinking far too many. So I set out on the road to pick up the newspaper with zero caffeine coursing through my veins. It's about a 2 hour round trip and I have to say that it's been some time since I was that bored. I forgot my cd's at home and ever since my battery died I haven't reprogrammed my radio stations so it's just sitting on ESPN radio. While I prefer to listen to that station, when I'm forced into it (I try not to mess around with the radio while driving) it drives me a bit mad. So I eventually turned it off and drove in complete silence. Normally I love thoughtful drives but with no caffeine to assist it my brain was accomplishing nothing beyond feeling fuzzy and weird.
I returned and went through the motions up at the office as we stuffed envelopes, rolled papers, loaded up the delivery person and all of that fun stuff. We continued to work on the "best of the west" stuff and were very nearly ready to head out and start presenting the winners with their plaques and such. So we worked on that for a while and then I headed home. Once here I... did something? Wrote a little and had lunch and... man, other stuff? OH YEAH! Sheesh, my memory is shockingly bad sometimes. I built my present for my family. It took me a long time, maybe three or so hours, but it's awesome and I'm positive they're going to love it. I watched a whole bunch of Friday Night Lights season 3 while I built it.
Once that was done my boss swung by and showed me the final design on our "best of the west" winner certificates. When he left I decided the house needed a nice scrubbing so I set to doing that. I washed my dishes and cleaned the kitchen, did the trash, cleaned everything out of the living room and then vacuumed the living room. It looks awesome in there now. It wasn't horrible but it was just bad enough, so it was nice to get it back to awesome looking. I feel better about existing when my place of habitation is clean. Chris got home and I popped some popcorn and decided to watch the documentary "Anvil: The Story of Anvil". I've really been looking forward to seeing this movie. It's about an 80's metal band that didn't make it big and now are trying to make a comeback. It's hugely critically acclaimed and I was certain I was going to love it. Well, I was wrong. this was undoubtedly a well made documentary but the guys in the band are so unflinchingly idiotic that I can't understand why anyone would want to watch a 2 hour movie about their train wreck lives. Ugh, it was bad. Just totally unlikable and stupid. I watched maybe 20 minutes before turning it off and playing some Assassin's Creed 2.
As opposed to the day before I only played for about an hour. It was around 10:30pm at this point and I really wanted to see my family and so I decided to go over there and see who was awake. This turned out to be one of my all time great decisions. My mom and Amanda were up and we all chilled out in the living room and talked. It was just a great way to spend the evening. Talked about a lot of stuff and just made sure to be aware of how lucky I was to have such a great family and to be able to share a few hours in conversation with them like that. It was amazing.
I got back home around 12:30am. Chris had fallen asleep on the couch but woke up when I came in. We talked for a bit and then watched poker and then he went to bed. I actually didn't stay up too much later and fell asleep around 3:30am or so.
Under threats from my sister Paula I made sure to take pictures again. The picture of the day is of some Christmas decorations that my nephews made. The two on the outside of are weird scary Santa's that the twins made (they didn't set out to make them weird and scary, that's just my observation) and the middle is a Christmas tree that my oldest nephew made. Oh I'm so excited for Christmas!
And that was my Wednesday.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
| |
6:04 pm - December 15th: Creed of the Assassin
|
The song of the day is a nifty Christmas track by metal greats Dio. They put their very unique rock twist on the song "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and I love it lots and lots. CLICK HERE and listen while you read!
I think this will be the first day so far that I'm actually a little embarrassed about. Woke up and headed out to run a few errands. Picked up something for a Christmas gift and then decided to grab pizza from the new Little Ceaser's that opened up. Brought that home and Chris woke up and we ate pizza and watched a bit of television. After that I decided to play Assassin's Creed 2 and boy did I play it. I'm not going to tell you how long I played because I honestly don't know. It was at least two hours, maybe more. Eventually I turned it off and did a little writing in my room and answered some emails and such. I again was living under the looming stormclouds of work as my boss was supposed to call me and let me know if/when he needed me to go and take photographs of basketball. There were actually two different games and it had been mentioned that he may want me to hit both of them, so I just sort of was in limbo waiting for that phone call. My brother swung by when he got off work and I talked with him for a bit. Then I decided to play more Assassin's Creed 2 while I waited for my boss's potential call that should've already come through. I played for a while and once it was clear that he wouldn't be calling Chris and I went up to IHOP to plan out our big poker extravaganza event.
Since June we've been running a bi-weekly poker tournament and they all have been a part of a season during which you accumulate points depending on how well you do. Well this Saturday is our last tournament so after that we wanted to do a big send off to the season and have a fun day of poker and prizes and stuff. We're holding that on January 2nd so we chilled at IHOP and ironed out details of what we had left to get for that daylong poker event. Near the end of our time there a group of drunk and almost certainly high people came and sat directly behind us. While it's not uncommon to run into unruly drunks when you're in IHOP around 11pm what is uncommon is for that group of obnoxious louses to all be SENIOR CITIZENS. Seriously, this was like a group of great grandparents who had all decided to go out, get blitzed, do some sort of fragrant drugs (the smell was so overpowering that it was making me sick) and then go be loud jerks at the local IHOP.
Once we got back home I sort of wanted to watch a movie but I also kind of wanted to play some more Assassin's Creed 2. Chris voted for Assassin's Creed 2 so I played it a little bit more even though I had far exceeded the number of hours that I should've been spending playing videogames for the day. I finished a big mission and Chris went to bed and I spent a few weird hours being awake but wishing I was asleep. I watched some poker on TV, flipped channels and eventually fell asleep.
For the second day in a row I took no pictures at all, so no picture of the day. I thought about taking one right now and putting it here but that would be dishonest and so I decided not to do it. So yeah, no picture again.
And that was my Tuesday.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
| |
11:45 pm - December 14th: Christmas greatness continued
|
For the song of the day I thought we'd go with one of my all time favorite songs from one of my all time favorite performers. This is the haunting "St. James Infirmary" by the legendary Louis Armstrong. CLICK HERE to listen while you read!
It was my weekly day off and yet I had the specter of lots of work hanging over my head so I was unsure of what to do with myself. My boss (Cheryl) said that my other boss (her husband Ben) should be calling me so we could go out and deliver all of the "best of the west" awards. This was going to be a many hours long undertaking but I still wasn't sure if we were ready to even go do it, so I just sort of waited to hear. Well, Amanda (my sister in law) called me and said that Josh (my nephew) wasn't feeling well. I was going to head over there to do laundry anyways so I loaded all of that up, went by to get Josh some sprite (for his upset stomach) and then went over there. I can't even begin to stand seeing one of my nephews sick. They're so little and awesome and innocent and when I see them unwell it really upsets me. He was running a fever and had thrown up earlier in the day. I hung around for a bit and then ran a few Christmas related errands and then went back to my family's house. Josh's fever was higher and Amanda had made him a doctors appointment.
I volunteered to stay with my other two nephews but Amanda asked if I'd drive her to the doctor instead. The other two wanted to come along so we all went down there. Lucky enough we discovered that they were doing a whole bunch of construction on the street in front of the office so while Amanda and Josh went inside, me, Matt and Jacob stayed outside and watched them do a lot of work on the street. Those guys love construction and we got to see them do a lot of cool stuff so that made the forty minute wait go by decently. When Amanda returned the doctor had proclaimed it a "virus" which really pissed me off. Their doctor uses that word all the time and it seems to just mean that she has no freaking clue what's wrong with them. So the prescription was "watch him and if he gets worse take him to Cook's Childrens hospital". So yeah, the doctor basically said "I have no clue what it is and if it gets worse take him elsewhere". I know they're not miracle workers but still, I just think their doctor is lame as she says things like that about 85% of the time. So we headed home.
I hung around for another hour or so but before I left I told Josh to call me if he thought of anything he wanted. I was home for about an hour and he called and said that he wanted me to come give him a hug. When I was a kid who was sick I was always trying to get stuff so I asked him "Do you want uncle to bring you something?" and he just pathetically said "I just want you to come give me a hug." How could any human say no to that? So I went back over there and hugged the little guy. My brother and I had plans to go finish some Christmas shopping so after he ate dinner we left. We got done with stuff for my dad, my mom and my sister in law and I have to tell you that this really has shaped up to be one of the best Christmases ever. I'm so thrilled to get around to giving these gifts and I know that I'm so lucky to have a life and a job that allows me to do all of this and buy all of this with my writing. Truly awesome. My bro and I had a lot of fun while we were scampering around town and eventually he dropped me back off at home.
Waiting for me was Chris, his mom Donna and his big brother Johnny. We all played poker for a few hours and it was a lot of fun. We were just playing for fun so things got a little nutty at times. On one hand I decided I was going to play it without looking at my cards but I warned that if anyone raised pre-flop I was going to go all in. Well, Chris raises and so I go all in. Chris goes all in, Johnny calls with all of his chips, and then Donna called. Donna had the most and couldn't lose all of her money, I had second most and could lose about half of mine, and Chris and Johnny were both all in and would be broke (we weren't playing for real money) if they lost. The flop is 4,3,6 and the turn is a queen and the river is like a jack or something. Everyone flips up their cards (they had all looked) and while some had decent hands nobody had anything amazing. I flip up my first card to find a 2 which causes me to say "Unless this other one is a 5 then I'm finished". Well, as luck would have it, the other card was a 5 which gave me a straight. Funny how poker works sometimes. There was nothing on the line or anything but it was still a neat hand.
After that they took off and I wrapped presents while we watched poker. Then we watched Survivorman but I fell asleep in the middle. I like to believe that since I fell asleep he in fact did not survive, but perished somewhere in the Colorado Rockies. Oh and my boss never ended up calling me so I didn't have to work after all, which was nice.
Weirdly enough I took no pictures this day, so I have none to share. Sorry about that.
And that was my Monday.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Monday, December 14th, 2009
| |
6:16 pm - December 13th: Another adventure, Cowboys stink, Assassins Creed 2 rules
|
The song of the day is "Shake it Out" by a favorite band of mine, Manchester Orchestra. CLICK HERE to listen while you read!
So, I woke up a little later than I had wanted and decided that even though I had a little bit more work to do I was going to go see my nephews. My mom and sister in law were gone so me and my brother chilled out with the kids and just chilled out. We had a lot of fun at the house but eventually loaded the boys up and went for a picnic at the park. We drove through McDonald's for the picnic food (yeah, not really picnic food, but what do you expect when daddy and uncle are in charge?) and then went and ate. After that we went on an adventure. I wanted to show the boys this cool detention pond that the city built in the back corner of the park so we trekked that way. There was a small stream at one point and my oldest nephew jumped it but the twins were too small. So Phillip (my brother) went across and then I tossed each one of the twins across to him. They thought that was hilarious. We had a blast and the weather was ludicrously nice for a December day. It was just a blast and a great way to spend the afternoon.
When I got home the idiot Cowboys were playing and I watched that while I wrote my coverage of the EDC meeting. I had expected it to be an easy assignment since the meeting was short but it was actually a pain. They did a ton of discussing on several different topics so I had to sift through a ton of notes and quotes in an effort to piece it all together in a way that was informative and worthwhile. After I finished that I watched the rest of the Cowboys loss and then played some Assassins Creed 2. I really love that game so far and was having a lot of fun with it. Chris got home from work but about thirty minutes later he had passed out on the couch. He barely slept all weekend so it was clear he was down for the count. I was feeling bizarrely bored and bounced from many different activities. I watched some television, read my book, played more Assassins Creed, watched the Eagles/Giants game, watched more television, did a little writing, played a little Assassin's Creed, watched bits and pieces of crappy movies on Netflix "on demand" and eventually got so bored that I was using a high powered flashlight to make shadow puppets on the ceiling. Yes, it really happened and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Finally, mercifully, I fell asleep around 5:30 am.
The picture of the day is of my nephew Josh on our adventure at the park.
And that was my Sunday.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, December 13th, 2009
| |
8:23 pm - December 12th: Buzz on, worker bee
|
For today's song I went with one of my favorite guitarists playing one of my favorite Christmas songs on one of my favorite Christmas albums. CLICK HERE and listen while you read!
I slept in for a while on this day which I suppose wasn't that big of a deal. I woke up, messed around on the internet for a half hour or so, then got straight to work. I needed to write all of my newspaper stuff so I got right to it. I wrote the first thing, which was my Pop Culture column, then I ate lunch and watched something on television for an hour. Oh yeah, the last episode of FlashForward that came on, that's what I watched. I really like that show a lot but the ratings have taken a dive and the network is apparently monkeying with it while it's on a few months of hiatus, so that's worrisome. Network involvement usually spells the end for a show. After that I went back to my room and wrote a sports commentary about Tiger Woods, and a few movie related things and all of a sudden day had turned to night and it was around 6:30 p.m. and I was saddened by that. I really didn't want it to be late already, but that's how it goes sometimes.
Chris got home from work and I made myself some oatmeal, scrambled eggs and wheat toast for dinner and then we watched something on television although I have no clue what it was. We may've been watching "Live Free or Die Hard". After I ate I took a shower but before that I shaved the heck outta my beard. I hate not having a beard but once every so often it's good to chop it down and start the thing over. I had cut it into this massive goatee thing a week or so ago and it looked good at first but quickly got out of control and just looked wild. So even though I'm not super happy with how I look right now I decided to cut almost all of my facial hair off. It's a long and at times painful process but felt good to get that tangled mess of a goatee off my face. Now I just have to wait for my beard to grow back, which usually just takes three or four days. I just want it back before my company Christmas party this coming Thursday.
With the holidays upon us I've needed to spend more time on my second job as stores get more and more messed up so I left early for that. My brother drove me and Chris decided to tag along so we had a good time. There's a ton of driving between stores so it was nice to have friends along for the night. Some of my stores were really thrashed but I got through it over the course of many, many hours. Eventually I was done and my brother dropped us back off at my house. I made some popcorn (I was starving for some reason) and Chris and I watched the poker game show "Face the Ace". I decided that it was a stupid, terrible show and soon after it went off I decided it was time to try out Assassin's Creed 2. Chris really wanted to check it out but started to fall asleep right at the beginning and went to bed. I played it for quite some time before turning it off. At this point it was really late, like 4 a.m., but I wasn't tired so I watched an episode of "Friday Night Lights" season 3. Then I went to sleep.
Is it just me or was that a seriously boring day? Just a lot of work really.
The picture of the day is of a book at Wal-Mart. I've proclaimed this to be the worst book title of all time and challenge anyone to outdo its overpowering lameness.
And that was my Saturday.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
freejenkins's journal