On Wednesday, September 23, 2026, Daniel's father, Paul passed away. He had been sick and was in hospice care, but all the same it was unexpected. Paul had moved up to Bellingham to live with his wife, both for better climate and for a little assistance.

Daniel planned a trip to go see him and spend some quality time. They had made reservations at different fancy restaurants for every night of the week. But when he got there, he quickly realized that probably wasn't happening. The situation was rapidly declining, so he extended his trip and I bought a plane ticket to join him Friday after work so I could help out. Unfortunately, he succumbed to his illness sooner than expected. I changed my ticket to the earliest flight the next day and headed up.

Any way you slice it, it's about a full day to get up to Seattle and then up to Bellingham. When I landed, I checked the big board for my gate information for my connecting flight only to see the word, "CANCELED." Not delayed. Just canceled. I was really trying not to be a burden but I was like wtf do I do. His mom will typically not fly between cities, but take a bus charter instead. I got the details for the bus, bought a ticket immediately even if it wasn't going to work, and then set out trying to figure out where to go. You would think the website would have some instructions, but no. I called the number and this nice man stayed on the line as he walked me through where to go. The bus was waiting and I got on board and not 15 minutes later, we were set out for our 2 hour drive up to Bellingham.

I got there by like 8pm. Daniel met me at the Sheraton 4-Points hotel. We said hi to his mom standing in the rain and then went to our fancy hotel. Everything in Bellingham pretty much shuts down at 9pm, so we had to rush to the restaurant next door, and apologize to the wait staff because we were the last ones there past closing, but they were very nice about it. My goal was to just be a fly on the wall, provide emotional support, and help out in any way I could while the family sorted out the most immediate concerns.

Really, I thought we could have short stints of a nice little weekend, and we did. Bellingham is a cute town, although way far left of my comfort zone - and that's saying a lot! Our hotel was really nice, overlooking the water, far from the train tracks, and quiet. One morning, we ran into Lucien Laviscount, who played Alfie in Emily in Paris, that godawful TV show. I didn't recognize him immediately, just said good morning as we passed on the elevator, but then I paused thinking, do I know him? I turned to Daniel and his jaw was on the ground. Rumor is that Tyler Perry was in town filming a movie with John Cena and Michael Buble. We even saw a helicopter over the water performing what looked to be repeated fake rescue operations surrounded by boats potentially housing cameras? When the next Tyler Perry movie comes out we're going to go see it and if it doesn't have Lucien in a water rescue scene we're gonna feel like idiots.

We had some good meals, a few cries, and provided some useful help to his mother. Daniel is the first from our generation to lose a parent, and it was a reminder that we are entering that chapter of our lives. Paul will be deeply missed but always remembered.

Last night we attended a charity gala. I wouldn't say we're exactly gallerinas, but this one was pretty fun. We got some "free" tickets because my dad had made a donation in honor of his late brother, so there was some obligation to go. Plus this is one of the charities I've worked with in my side gig and I know the founder well, so ... we put on suit jackets despite the 100+ temperatures and set out for a warehouse venue near the Galleria.

What was funny is that it was on some random street we've never heard of or seen, and yet just the night before we were like 3 doors down. We went and saw a traveling exhibit of the Trump Epstein Files Reading Room. They printed out all 3 million pages of redacted released files, and put them into volumes on rows and rows of book cases. We promptly started pulling books out and leafing through them looking for a previously unnoticed gold nugget. Some dude came up and said, "I don't think you're actually supposed to touch the books." Which then made us paranoid so we stopped. But it was called "reading room" so I don't get what the hell else you were supposed to do there. It ended up taking like 10 minutes to get thru and then we went to dinner.

Anyway, the gala was fun. It was very inspiring to be in a room full of people who care about other people when that seems to be in low supply these days. Some of the residents of the homeless shelter program even took the mic and spoke about their experiences, which was moving. I got a little emotional when one by one they said how terrible things had gotten that they googled for help and found this organization #1 in the list, because I'm the one that got that all set up and working. So that was cool to remember that things you've done previously can continue to have a ripple effect.

Great meal, good conversations, made a little donation in excess of what we do monthly (and doubled it using my employer), so all in all I'd say it was a wonderful evening.

This is kind of turning into a travel blog, but that's usually the only thing of note going on lately. I'll try to come up with a few different topics here after this. But, we just got back from New Orleans. It was technically my second time there, but first time since I started forming and retaining memories.

The main reason we decided to go now was for Ben's 40th birthday party, which happened to coincide with a big gay festival, Southern Decadence and some big late night party called the Horsemeat Disco. Getting to NOLA is beyond easy. We took Southwest out of Love because Daniel had a leftover flight credit from his short lived stint at the startup and we needed to use it or lose it. We normally will only fly American because we're holding onto gold status by our fingernails these days, but it made sense to this time not to. And boy does that eliminate a lot of stress. Love is down the street, we could practically walk there. And the flight was barely an hour long, so easy.

We really had a nice time in the city. The food is great everywhere we went. Great drinks, good nightlife. The night of Horsemeat Disco we took a little disco nap and made it out. We had purchased new clothes just for the event so we would be ever so slightly appropriately dressed. Turned out we were almost the only ones wearing clothes. Lots of butts hanging out everywhere. It was crowded. It was stinky. You could hardly move much less dance, could hardly talk. All in all, I'd have to say not my scene. But I did my best to hang and have a good time, mostly by imbibing.

The next day we went to the Southern Decadence parade. It was so hot. It was so crowded. It was impossible to do anything, so when our friend Ashley had to head for the airport to get back to her kids, we took it as an excuse to escort her back to our hotel where she'd stashed her bag and then we went to the pool. All in all, I'd have to say not my scene. My scene gets more and more specificity added to it every year. Luckily Daniel agrees.

Our last night we went out to dinner in the French Quarter, had a lovely meal, and then strolled down Bourbon Street on our way back to the hotel. At the end of the street a complete nut job had set up an amplifier with a microphone and had dip shits on either side holding big placard signs letting us all know that we were going to hell. When he saw Daniel and me, he singled us out and started harassing us. Daniel grabbed my hand and we told them to fuck off as we walked by. What a downer at the end of the trip.

It did get me thinking though. The analogous opposite of that just truly doesn't exist. Nobody ever sits outside of churches on Sunday morning with big signs saying "None of this is real!" or "You're all morons!" while someone screams at them in a microphone, "You're not going to heaven when you die dipshit!" So ... looking for volunteers for next Sunday. Let's liberate a few minds from the clutches of Idiocracy!

I'm cheating again and I'm going to backdate this blog. I used to just say sorry I am so late getting around to it, but these days I use my blog like a Time Hop, so I'd rather have a semi-accurate date on it depending on the story I'm telling. But I digress. We just got back from a long weekend in NYC.

We've struggled to find our place there. Different hotels, different neighborhoods, nothing ever really felt right. Well, folks, you'll be as thrilled to hear as I am thrilled to announce - we finally found our home away from home in New York. The Chelsea Hotel. It's this super old building with a rich and storied history of being a haven for artists and musicians. But it's been bought out and turned mostly into a high end hotel. I say mostly because some people still live there, so walking down the hall to our hotel room, we passed two residents' doors. I assume that is occasionally annoying but it probably also basically saved the building so take what you can get. There were three restaurants, and we tried two. Both were fab. And we'd go to the bar at night for courvoisier and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

I'd never been to a Broadway show so Daniel got us tickets to two shows while we were there. One was Oh Mary! starring Meg Stalter. I love her to death and she did an amazing job, but ... eh. It was like bawdy and irreverent for the sake of it. I didn't really think it was that CLEVER or anything. Funny enough and we had a great time watching. But ... nothing like our second show Titanique - the telling of the story of the Titanic from Celine Dion's perspective. It was continuously riotously funny throughout with the best music and dancing. Loved it. Loved it.

What else? We went to the Met. Daniel had tried to gaslight me into believing I'd been to the Met before, but I definitely hadn't. Then we walked through Central Park and later on through Hudson River Park, and yowzah the eye candy. I definitely need to step it up or start taking peptides or something. We also saw Davbart and he and Colin took us out to a more traditional Chinese brunch that was completely chaos and then to the Tenement Museum which was super cool and I would def go back to that.

I don't know if New York changed, or if I changed, but I really enjoy it more now than when I was younger. I was even commenting that like nobody was rude the whole time. To us or otherwise. People on the subway said, "Pardon me," when it was their stop. Staff everywhere just super welcoming and friendly. Idk, it is just so enjoyable now where I didn't feel like that 20 years ago. The only thing I didn't like was that EVERY FUCKING ONE was playing Alicia Key's "New York" on repeat. Every store, every pedicab, everywhere you went, you'd sometimes even hear 2 or 3 renditions going on out of sync simultaneously. PEOPLE! There are SO MANY songs about New York. Mix it up!

Then whoosh, we were back home. A super fun little trip for no particular reason. And one we'll hopefully start to do with more regularity.

I have read on the internet again and again and again that using a simple Brita water filter, one can turn ordinary squeezy vodka into a top shelf delight. Being the scientifically minded alcoholic that I am, I just had to try this for myself. Mr. K■■■■■■ and myself set out for the Goody Goody liquor store to get the required materials. I didn't want to simply recreate experiments that have already been done, and this may have affected my results. Most websites I've read involve good, okay, and shitty vodka. After filtering half of the shitty vodka, a blind taste test ensues. Ours was a little different. However, our hypothesis was the same:

Is this the equation to unlimited high-quality, low-cost booze? We decided that cape cods would be our vodka drink of choice. We could have taken straight vodka shots, but I wanted to add a hint of applicability. I'm not gonna say I never drink vodka straight and dance in my underwear to Neil Diamond, but I'm more inclined to have a cocktail. Our two vodkas were McCormick and Effen. I'd never had Effen before, but I just thought it was too much fun to ask for some "Effen vodka." The price differential was over 20 dollars.

The idea here has to do with the distilling and filtration process that vodka producers go through. Many of them use simple carbon filtrating to remove impurities from the vodka. The impurities are what can change the flavor of the alcohol, so if you go a few steps beyond the distillery and run it through the Brita a few times, you're going to be left with a Brita basin full of Greygoose. Seemed unlikely, but plausible. g*d, i'm like my own Myth Buster.

After filtering half of the McCormick twice, we poured ourselves a couple of drinks with the unfiltered variety. I measured out an ounce and a half, since we like our drinks with a little stank on em. The bite was quite intense. After the initial wince, it went down a little easier. I had a few friends over to join in on the taste test. It was good times. We decided that the unfiltered McCormick was most decidedly vile. But, what could twice through a filter accomplish?

On to the filtered vodka. Conclusion? Nasty. There was the same unpleasant taste we'd experienced before. We'd all had a few drinks at this point, and were worried that the intoxication level might taint the experience. Mr. K■■■■■■ was the first to be ready for an Effen vodka cape cod. On his first sip, he started laughing hysterically. I asked him repeatedly what was so fucking funny and all he could do was hand me his glass. I took a sip and joined him in a hearty laugh. It was sooo good. Unbelievably better. From that point on, we called the experiment over and all stuck to Effen for the rest of the night.

There are several X factors involved here. If any of you have tried this differently, with different vodka, straight, blind, or otherwise, let me know if it worked for you. Because for us, it was most definitely BUSTED. Life is too short to drink cheap liquor. Write that down.

But we all got drunk. And if you get drunk, then you have to ultimately call it a success. Hurray!

Fine. I'll post. If I had a nickel for every time Ryan H■■■■ had left me a comment complaining about the frequency of my blogs ... well, I'd have like 30 cents, which really isn't a lot of money. I doubt I'd even make the hypothetical benefactor pay me that 30 cents, but still, to illustrate my point, that is a lot of times to make those comments. I haven't posted lately, but I have had some awesome ideas for new posts. I've since forgotten them all, but believe me, they would have been hilarious.

Today was supposed to be my moving day, but time conflicts have pushed that back until tomorrow. I am still going to take some of my stuff over there today but the furniture doesn't go until tomorrow. Which means you fuckers don't get to see it until at least tomorrow. But knowing me, it'll be more like next week.

My co-, Trey, is going to take care of moving me. I don't think I ever explained this on here. We have had a pool table in our garage for a long time. I think the last time it was used was like 5 years ago. Trey plays pool 6 nights out of the week in various leagues, tournaments, and pool halls. He has always wanted a pool table but couldn't ever afford one. The only thing we use our pool table for is to play ping pong on top of it like once a year. So I told my dad I would buy him a really nice, brand new ping pong table in exchange for that ratty old pool table we don't even use. I will, in turn, give that to Trey who will then enlist the help of his son and friends, all of the people who would use his new pool table. And in the end, I get more man power, with no time restrictions, for less money. It's what you call a win/win/win/win situation.

At my hotel room, my friend came over and asked to use the phone. I said "Certainly." He said "Do I need to dial 9?" I say "Yeah. Especially if it's in the number. You can try four and five back to back real quick." I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughtnut... I don't need a receipt for the doughnut. I give you money and you give me the doughnut, end of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. To some skeptical friend, Don't even act like I didn't buy a doughnut, I've got the documentation right here... It's in my file at home. ...Under "D". I saw a human pyramid once. It was totally unnecessary. This shirt is dry clean only. Which means... It's dirty.

Those are all Mitch Hedberg quotes, you can read more by clicking his name. I saw him and Stephen Lynch last weekend in Austin. Three words: hi-larious. I liked Mitch a lot better, but that is not to say that Stephen Lynch wasn't brilliant in his lyrics and guitar stylings. That paragraph above is pretty much how the show went. Mitch comes on stage drunk, stumbles a little, leans forward over the table where his sheets of paper with jokes written on them are, his hair falls forward over his face and he proceeds to read on after the other. I think we saw his face once. It's like he went to a school for how to become a comedian and then did the exact opposite. I'm always impressed when comedians with long stand-up acts can tie it all together, or use recurring jokes. Mitch did none of this. Didn't even try. I have a lot of respect for that. It was probably 2 of the 50 funniest hours of my life. Didn't get to go out because Stinky Pants got too drunk, but did manage to drink a whole lot (just not at breakfast).

I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do today besides move. I might go see Scott Mechlowicz's new movie, Mean Creek. I'm pretty sure it's out. And he's so dreamy. My internet will be up and running Monday in the apartment, so don't expect another post before then. But do keep checking back hourly just in case I post from home. Hey Ryan, happy now, fucker?

Rain is not fun. Rain is not soothing. Rain is not romantic. Rain is wet. Rain is cold. Rain is a hassle. Today it rained. I got wet despite my jacket and umbrella. But I found a good solution to the problem. We have a heat gun in our lab. It is designed to shrink shrink-wrap, but we use it to dry off circuit boards after they've been electro-plated. Today I used them to heat my shoes to a toasty 100 degrees before I slipped them back on. Instant comfort. Took them off and repeated the process. Its the little things that make life worth living.

Today I went to yoga again. I forgot that we were supposed to turn in our yoga journals today so now I have to turn it in to the front office tomorrow. Not too happy about that cause it means I definitely have to go to school tomorrow and I am not in the practice of going to class on Fridays. We practiced our shoulder stands, where you essentially (to point out the obvious) stand on your shoulders with your entire body up in the air. If you do it incorrectly, your butt will jut out and it is hard to balance. I got another compliment from the teacher cause she walked by me and said I was "very straight."

Hey everyone, thanks for all the great comments on the new layout. I think its really working out good. There's still some things I need to do. One request that I'm working on is to make the comments link tell you how many comments have been left. That will require some more scanning and as of right now, all of the scanners in the SCC are occupado. Of course, we have a scanner at home, but Keith is "going to hook it up soon" so I'm not allowed to have it. There's something else I want to scan to show all of you. Something incredibly creepy that was brought to my attention last night. If you look at the coupons in the coupon books they hand out on campus, and take a peek at the Fitzwilly's coupon, you might notice something scary. Of course, you would have to also know my friend Jay. Turns out, whoever drew the cowboy guy for the logo was using Jay as their model. It looks exactly like him. I'm gonna scan that in and put it up here soon. Damn, I wish all the scanners weren't taken.

I'm also working on a website for the PRSSA here on campus. They haven't hired me yet, but I'm gonna make them a 'sample' to decide if they want me to redesign their site or not. I'm not sure if they can afford me, but maybe they can. Its the Public Relations Student Society of America. Their current site is at prssa.tamu.edu. You can check it out and see how much it sucks. As soon as I get something working, I'll let you all see how I've revamped. Its quite impressive, methinks.

Anyway, sorry about not updating right away, my internet at home has been down now for like 2 days. Its really starting to upset me, but I really don't know what I can do about it. Hopefully it'll be working when I get home in a little bit. On the sched for this week is studying all night tonight, and then a big test tomorrow, to be followed by lots and lots of drinking. Thats about it. Have a great day, or not. The choice is yours.