Weekend of 11JUN11

Thats kind of cool, 11JUN11... I know its not really it, thanks to the 
"2011" thing, but its still neat to look at, right?

Friday -
Work sucked.  Thats really all there is to say on that matter.  Boring, 
no real good projects, and busy work made up my day, though I did have a 
bit more fun than normal, thanks to some advice I had gotten.  Its 
simple really... "Walk around".  My buddy is currently a 2nd LT in the 
Army National Guard in OK, and since he doesn't really have a specific 
job yet, he walks.  He goes around checking up on work-sites, finding 
out what could be done to make it better, and taking on every job that 
comes across his desk.  The simple act of moving yourself around and 
searching for work really makes a differance in getting neat projects, 
and in feeling good and energized.

But no matter how much I walk... it still sucks.  So, I was quite 
excited when the day was finally over, and I was able to head home and 
finish prep work for the BBQ that I had planned for that night.  My 
friend Emma arrived while I was still finishing up my shower, so I 
rinsed off quick and headed downstairs.  We gossipped for a bit about 
the girl I'm currently dating, talking about what Emma knew about this 
girl, and whether or not I should invest myself in a real 
relationship.  The outcome was rather hazy, requiring more research and 
personal experience... but a good outcome, seeing as the last few people 
I've been interested in have all been comeplete asshats.  Allison's only 
at the "may be crazy" level, versus the "holy crap she's totally nuts" 
level I'm used to, hehe.

After about an hour of relaxing and gossiping about each-others sex 
lives, people finally started to arrive and we kicked the BBQ into high 
gear.  Allison arrived and started getting a bit dramatic over me 
paying attention to other girls, but my patented "thats stupid, you're 
awesome, lets party" persona won through, and she was finally able to 
shed her thick shell and partied just as hard as the rest of us.  Maybe 
harder, since I can't really take as much Tequila as she could :P

Once Big T, Maureen, and Filipe showed up we started cooking; everyone 
had pitched in for food, so we had a lot.  And by a lot, I mean "holy 
shit we have too much food", I literally couldn't get people to eat all 
the burgers I cooked; half the food we made is still in my fridge as 
leftovers.  We prepped about 30 Jalapeno poppers as appetizers, I made 
12 Burgers, Mike brought over a pan of Lasagnia, Gene had a 16oz 
Rib-Eye steak, and my neighbor Don brought 6 lbs of lamb-kebabs that he 
had marinated over the last three days.  Everything was amazing, and 
none of us could move by the end of the night... poor Allisons cake 
barely even got touched, since by the time we were ready for dessert 
none of us could even look at food.

As a post-dinner-relaxation, we put on a movie.  Not just any movie, 
but THE WORST MOVIE EVER, Battlefield Earth; made off L. Ron Hubbard's 
"epic" Sci-Fi novel with John Travolta ruining his entire image by 
taking the part of a "Psychlo", AKA a heels-wearing, dreadlocked alien 
obsessed with mining gold.  Not really sure what they use it for, but 
their totally badass, and you can tell because they wear heels.  Yep... 
Horrible movie, but I was quite entertained until Maureen threatened to 
drive her car through the wall if we didn't shut it off :)

After the movie we relaxed a bit more, drank some really nice Tequila 
that Filipe had brought, sipped some wine Kelly had provided, and then 
got ourselves ready to pass out.  Filipe, Big T and Maureen left under 
their own power, Mike stumbled his was to the porch, and then back into 
my place to sleep in the attic, and Allison and I retired to my room.

Saturday -
The first time with a girl is always exciting.  Not just the first time 
having sex, but the first time you can actually sleep in together, with 
no reason to wake up and no alarms to jolt you both out of sleep.  
Getting to wake up and slowly realize theres another person next to 
you, getting to slowly and gently wake them up with a well-placed kiss 
or caress... Its one of my favorite things, and Saturday morning was 
the first time Allison and I had been able to sleep in together, since 
every other morning had been a weekday, or at the Loj.  One word 
describes: "Ideal".
We finally got out of bed, quickly traveled to PantsLand (AKA got 
dressed), and headed downstairs to make ourselves some quick breakfast.  
I cooked up some Bacon, and we slived up cake and veggies from the night 
before to create a simple and quick, yet amazingly delicious, 
breakfast.  Afterwards I gave my friend Emma a call, and we planned up 
the rest of the day; meeting at NEU, then heading to the mall for some 
shopping and hanging out.  See, Emma and Allison have been in the same 
club together for almost two years, yet never really talked to each 
other, both thinking that the other hated them.  As the peace-maker I 
am, I decided that I'd try to help them out (I hate forcing things on 
people, but I figured two friends of mine, may as well give them some 
time to hang out), so we had made plans at the BBQ to meet up.

We did a bit of window shopping in the mall, chatting idly the whole 
time.  I had the ood fortune to visit Victoria's Secret with both girls, 
definitely a fun situation, but overall the afternoon was a pretty tame 
and relaxed one.  We hung out for almost two hours, then Allison and I 
headed out to run a few quick errands, then we chilled at my place for 
a bit, took a nap, and then I dropped Allison back off at her place 
after some rambunctious fun :)

The rest of my night alone was spent with the company of my computer; 
playing Video Games with my Dad in the early evening, doing a run 
through a new game (The Witcher 2) 'till about 0100 in the morning, 
and then playing a few quick games of Starcraft against Chirag before 
finally heading for dreamland.

Sunday -
I woke up at my usual 0630, realized that it was Sunday, rolled over, 
and went right back to sleep.  This repeated about once every two hours 
or so until I realized that I actually had to wake up for real, pulling 
myself out of bed and into the shower around 1130.  I was showered, 
dressed, and ready to go by about noon, on the way to Brookhaven to 
visit my grandparents for a big family party.

You see, the whole family gets together twice a year, give or take, 
and this was the summer birthday party.  We all met up at Brookhaven 
at 1230, and chatted for a while before heading down to the dining room 
for a big early-sunday dinner.  Dinner was excellent, a perfectly cooked 
tenderloin for myself, and we all had a great time swapping between 
telling our own trip stories and interupting other peoples stories.  
You see... thats what my family does; interuptting each other, talking 
over each other, and trying to control the whole situation.  I've gotten 
used to it by now, which is why I don't generally tell stories with the 
family, but for some reason today it was especially annoying.

I did somehow survive without trying to kill my aunt, though she did 
leave the room at one point to escape my snarky comments.  One exciting 
part was getting to hear about my cousins trip to Spain, and watching 
the slideshow that she had put together earlier.  It was definitely a 
fun time, and I'm really jealous of her getting to go when she did; the 
"Royal De Luxe" was in Barcelona while she was there, so she got to see 
the 30ft puppets that they bring out for the event.  She even went to 
"ile de machina", which is effectively an entire island dedicated to 
clockwork artists and machinists; the whole island looks like something 
out of a steam-punk novel, and I desperately want to go and see it.

After the family visit I headed back home to some more gaming (seeing a 
trend here?  The dangers of getting a new game...) and some roommate 
searching.  See... one of my rommates had left (if I didn't mention 
this), so we needed to find a new one to cover the bills.  I had put 
up a post on Craigslist earlier, and when I got home I had eight new 
emails about people being interested.  I set up a few meetings for the 
rest of the week, and was about to go downstairs to make dinner when I 
got another email, asking if she could check the place out that night.  
She also said she was a climber, so my interest was immediately 
piqued... I said to come on over whenever, and we'd give her a tour 
then.

She arrived almost exactly on time at 8:00, just a few minutes after 
Justin had left to pick up his friend from the airport.  She was your 
standard-issue nerdy climber-girl; not unattractive, but not "holy 
hell your hot" either.  I showed her around and chatted with her for a 
bit, though nothing about her really stood out... she just seemed to be 
your everyday girl, looking for an apartment.  After about half and 
hour she headed out, so we'll see whether anything pans out or not.

After the "show-and-tell, house edition" was over, I finished my dinner 
and headed back upstairs to finish a few missions in my game.  I played 
for a while, finally succoming to the lures of sleep a few minutes 
before midnight.