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I'm not sure I fully appreciated just how much 4 miles is when you're tasked with doing it every day. To run for an hour after a full day of work just isn't going to be possible every damn day. I had factored in 3 days off, but now I know I can't afford to take them. So what I've done a couple days is just running 2.5 miles or so and calling it quits. But I know that every time I do that, I'm just adding to what I'm going to have to do at the end of the month. And I do not want to be running a marathon the last day and killing myself.

It doesn't help that I was just scheduled to go to Alabama for work for a day next week. But that one day of work will cost me two days of running. I can only hope that the hotel they put me up in has an workout room. If it doesn't, then I'll be forced to take two days off and totally screw my average. So I've already factored those into the spreadsheet tracking my progress and telling me how far to go each day.

My legs are so exhausted and sore. They can't seem to catch a break. And strangely, my back and shoulders get sore from it too. I never thought that would happen. But it's not all bad news. I have been sleeping like an absolute fucking rock ever since this started. I get my regular 8 hours on the dot, but I'm unable to wake up when the alarm goes off because I was in such a deep slumber. And I haven't lost a pound yet because this running thing is such an appetite stimulator. I get really hungry even when I'm not running, which I'm hoping is a sign that my metabolism is getting a kick in the ass from this. Ultimately, I hope it to be a much more permanent form of weight loss as opposed to say, oh I don't know, drinking nothing but lemonade for days at a time. But right now the finish line seems awfully far away, and all I can do is run a few more miles today.

Do any of you use Pandora? Just go to www.pandora.com, tell it an artist you like and it'll play songs by them. Then it'll get clever and play something similar to that. And you just say yes I like it, or no I don't like that, and the more you listen to it, the more it gets to know your musical tastes. Only, they've employed some new algorithm that actually works. People have tried this in the past and always failed miserably, but Pandora is pretty damn impressive. Right now I have two radio stations that I created. One called "Chill Radio" and one called "Slightly More Upbeat Radio." And they both rock, and continue getting better. Go check it out.

First off, I am still alive. I didn't starve myself to death. Secondly, the Master Cleanse is over. I couldn't do it any more. Things just kept getting worse. The hunger I could deal with, no problem. But I was also cold all day every day. And sweating. And my stomach hurt like I was throwing up all the time. And then on the sixth day, severe heartburn showed up. I've only ever had heartburn while sleeping or laying down, but this was just all day while I was working. That's when my resolve finally crumbled. I came home and had a glass of mango juice.

Valentine's Day we went to see Jumper and I had 6 pieces of popcorn. And then a Clif bar and a protein shake later that night. And my stomach went crazy. It's been really difficult transitioning back into food. I can eat like a fourth of what I normally would before I'm uncomfortably full. So that's good. And I'm down to 155 lbs for the first time in years and years, so that's also good. But other than that, I got zero benefit from cleansing my body of imaginary toxins. Perhaps my attitude kept me from feeling good, but I really believe that the human body is perfectly adept at removing "toxins" on it's own without the help of extreme amounts of lemon juice. I do believe some of what the Master Cleanse talks about with the over-medicating of America and how a balanced diet of raw fruits and vegetables is likely the solution to a larger percentage of problems than we care to admit. That putting the right things into your body will prevent sickness and promote healthy weightloss and energy. But then at the same time, I couldn't reconcile that with only putting syrup and lemons in. Seemed counter productive.

So I quit. And I already decided that Febrehabruarv will be less demanding. It'll be more like Febrehabruarii when I spent all my extra money on fine dining experiences.

Now, contrary to everything I've just said, I think I'm gonna go buy some Kinoki pads and see if they can remove some toxins out the soles of my feet!

A while ago I read an article about residential humidity control... because I work in an environment where not only are articles about residential humidity control sitting around, but I find them interesting. It really is the most overlooked and underestimated aspect of home climate control. Someday I hope to have central whole home humidity control. Until that becomes possible, I went and got myself a humidifier.

When I say humidifier you're probably thinking the same thing Daniel thought when I told him I was bringing one home. Picture the little bowl shaped plastic device with the spout out the top from which obscene amounts of steam billow out until the wall paper peels from the wall. But this is totally different. It's a cool humidifier, meaning it does not use heat to vaporize the water. It uses a honeycomb filter that sucks up water as air blows across it causing the water to evaporate into vapor. It has an adjustable set point for relative humidities between 35% and 55% so it cycles on an off as needed. And, best of all, it looks cool.

The fan has pretty much been running 24/7 since we turned it on. I was trying to figure out how it could possibly be putting at least 3 gallons of water into the air every day and yet never reach set point. But I think I figured it out. The other day the humidity outside was at 20%. That is so low. When it gets cold outside, I like nothing more than a 30 minute long scalding hot shower to warm up. That combined with humidity hovering around nothing dries my skin out so bad. Winter is typically pretty uncomfortable for me.

And now, the point of the story. I haven't had any problems with dry skin this year. And I don't wake up with severe dry mouth either. I think everyone should go out and get themselves a humidifier this winter and you can thank me in the spring.

I had a really fun weekend. First, our dear friend AsH was in town from Boston. She came in town to take her grandmother to the symphony and to catch up with some old friends. We got a crew together Friday night and took her out on the town. After a few drinks at the Hotel Belmont, we ended up at S4 dancing the night away. After we got home, a few of us killed the remains of an ancient bottle of cheap tequila. Bad idea. My forehead hurt the next day from hitting it on the toilet repeatedly the night before. Needless to say we were all hung the fuck over.

Disaster! My friend Brandon finally had a weekend off to come see me. When he got here, he was upset by how much we were all hurting. I figured if I could get in a quick nap while he went to the mall alone that I'd be geared up for another all-nighter. But I was wrong. In the end, it just wasn't possible for me to do anything but remain low key. The next day, I tried to redeem myself by taking him out to Ruby Tuesday for crab cakes with "nearly no cake" and a triple prime burger that "eats like steak, but cuts like butter." Oh my g*d, if you've never been you need to go. I am the worst vegan ever, but I'm not sorry. It was so delicious.

When we got home, I wanted to show Brandon around Addison! Circle because he'd never been here. When we got to the Water Tower Theatre, there were shit tons of people and booths all over. It was this Earth Day/Wellness Expo. We walked around looking at healing crystals, learning about acupuncture, and trying different vitamin fortified juices. There were also several drawings going on. One of them was from the Laser Center of America, a laser hair removal/skin rejuvination company. We entered a drawing for $1500, $500, and $300 dollar prizes. AND I WON! Holy crap. I got the third place prize worth $300.

Now, I'm no fool. I'm well aware -- despite the fact that they refuse to even ballpark how much it could possibly cost without a face-to-face consultation -- that you can't remove a single hair from your body for less than a cool grand. I had this inkling that my "prize" was really an invitation to spend hundreds of dollars on something I didn't want. But, in true Sidesho fashion, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and go check it out. At the very least, I figured, I'd end up with a blog worthy story. I looked up their website online to find directions to the office and my suspicions grew even more as I read, "Click here to receive $300 off your next procedure!" Fuck, if all I had to do was click, then I really didn't win a g*d damn thing. So off I went.

When I got there I filled out a bunch of paperwork and then I walked back to the consultation room. She asked if I had any unwanted body hair and I said, "Not really, no." And she asked if I had any issues with my skin and I said, "Not really, no." This chick procedes to talk at lightning speed about all the different procedures they have and how microdermabrasions are an absolute must for everyone. I threw her a bone by asking how much it would cost to laser my armpit hair away since I have and always will shave my armpits. She honored my $300 winnings, DOUBLED it even, and I was left with a $1200 dollar price tag and a 2 and a half to 3 year commitment. For only my armpit hair. I couldn't help but laugh at her. I was like, "No way." Her best pitch of the day, by far, was when she said, "Now David, if you plan on shaving your underarms for the rest of your life, this procedure will more than pay for itself in the cost of razors alone." Ha fucking ha, what kind of razors do you think I'm using, lady?

I asked her if they had any procedures for under $300 since, let's be honest, I was only there to redeem my prize. The microdermabrasion is only $139 a treatment. So I said, "Great, I'll take two." "Oooh, sorry, our smallest package is five." I knew I was wasting her time, but I didn't feel bad since I'm pretty sure she knew she was wasting mine. So I promised her that if I ever got serious about lasering my pits that she would be the first to know. I thanked her for all of the rapid information, laughed at her again, and excused myself from the office.

So here you find me, in all my naturally hairy glory having missed the opportunity to save myself the financial burden of a lifetime of buying an electric razor once every 15 years. Even though she said the offer was only good during the consultation, when I refused she changed her tune and said she would honor it until the end of the month. Which means, I could definitely change my mind and go back.

But let's be honest. There's no fucking way that's going to happen. Suck my hairy balls, Laser Center of America!

In Seattle, it is difficult to tell the homeless from the homeful. Stereotypes about early 90s grunge still dominating here are understatements. I've done my best to adapt by not shaving for 3 weeks, but I'm afraid that without a vintage hobo jacket, tattered Converse, and a pair of cords, no one will ever believe me.

This morning there was about 3 inches of snow accumulated on the ground. You could hardly tell where the curbs and the roads were. I was nervous about driving until I walked on it and there was a surprising amount of traction. My original plan to do a controlled 360 into a parking spot ala Undercover Brother was shot to hell. The weird thing was that by 9am, all the snow had melted. Some freak warm rain storm came through and melted ALL of it. And tonight it's supposed to be back in the 20s. I love talking about the weather.

While I was here I got to go have beers with Stuart. It was really fun. That guy hasn't changed at all except his hair isn't purple and he has no lip ring. I will hopefully see him again before I leave. His sister was visiting him or something and bogarting his time, but I think she left today.

Boy oh boy am I ever ready to get home. I've got a 6 cup tournament with Ryan and Todd scheduled for Saturday night. Daniel's going with me. Anybody else want to chance a trip to Arlington? Scary shit there.

Um, I just felt obliged to update. I really didn't have much to say.

Worst. Post. Ever.

My wine fridge fit almost perfectly under the "bar" area in my living room. It couldn't have been any better if it were custom built. However, the depth was an issue. It had about a 6" overhang. It wasn't a big deal, since that isn't a high traffic area, but still, I thought maybe I could do a little better. I have these built in shelves recessed into a corner of my living room. They occupy the perfect little nook. I think I've shown you a picture of them before when I debuted my Beethoven bust. The only problem was that the bottom shelf would need to be removed.

Let me preface this by saying I'd been laying on the couch watching home improvement shows all day, which sadly, always inspires me to do something to my own apartment. Usually it's painting, but today it was demolition. I got out my biggest hammer and started swinging upward as hard I could. All I really accomplished was some noise pollution. I was on the verge of just giving up when I had an idea.

I ran down to the garage to the trunk of my car and retrieved my jack. I figured if it could hold up my car, it could certainly exert enough force to pry off a book shelf. And I was right. I jacked the shit out of that thing, bending nails and removing them from the framework. It was brilliant. After I finished destroying the shelf, I painted the exposed wall red to match the rest and the results are perfect. You'd never know there was a shelf there to begin with. I popped in the wine fridge and it looks like it was always meant to be there. So excited.

That's all I really had to tell you. I'm leaving tomorrow for Seattle so it depends on how busy I am how much I'll update. This time I have Stuart's phone number so we're hopefully going to hang out a lot. Oh! And yesterday I was walking into my building and ran into G■■■■. He fuckin' moved into my building just down the stairs from me. So welcome to the neighborhood, friend. Sorry I am leaving for two weeks right when you got here but we'll have a house warming when I get back.

Peace out, have-nots.

I finally did it. I've waited for 2 full years and the other day, I just decided to do it. I'm speaking, of course, about curtains for my bedroom. I was really daunted by the task of keeping my vertical blinds up. I could take them down, but then I'd have to store them and I have nowhere to store them. And to cover them means curtain rod extenders and screwing into studs, and I know nothing about any of that. So I came up with an idea. Instead of big beautiful curtains, I got blackout fabric. It's thin, it's light, and it blocks 100% of the light. I measured each window, cut out a piece of fabric that fit it perfectly, folded the top over, put a few grommets in it and hung it on nails. I can take them down, put them up, fold them in half to get some heat in the winter -- you name it. From the outside it looks all white, just like the vertical blinds, and from the inside, all you see is the vertical blinds, just like the vertical blinds. I couldn't be happier with myself. I have had a string of successful projects. I hope it doesn't end. I can't wait to be hungover this weekend and spend allllll fucking day in bed.

Speaking of bed ... my sleeping is much better. I have been on time to work 3 of the 4 days this week. That's unheard of. I even started showering in the morning instead of at night because I have so much extra time. I was pretty ecstatic. That, sadly and predictably, has faded. I could feel myself building up a sleep debt as each day went by and this morning I finally had to pay it back. I was one hour late to work. Today, coincidentally, was also the day I got the results of my take-home sleep test. I no longer stop breathing 70-90 times an hour. Now it's 22. 22 is the magick number. The lady from the doctor's office asked me how I'd been feeling and I said, "Much better, but not great." And she said, "Oh, how funny. I was just about to say your test results look much better, but not great." At least I'm no longer severe and am now considered moderate. It's looking like the tonsil are going to come out. I'm shying away from it, but I know that I'll eventually do it. I'll keep you all posted.

I bought a pumpkin today. It was an impulse buy. All I wanted were the seeds. I tossed them with butter and salt and roasted them in the oven. They're delicious. My culinary skill grows little by little every day. I can add that to the list with roasted chicken and blueberry pancakes. Rawk.

Have you ever heard of the mosquito frequency? It's this thing that businesses are using to cut down on teenagers loitering outside. It emits a sound at around 17kHz. Apparently teenagers can hear it and it annoys the fuck out of them, but adults cannot hear it. Trey told me about it at work today so we googled it. I found an MP3 of the sound and hit play. It was maddening. Trey accused me of not really hitting play. He couldn't fuckin' hear it! It didn't take long for everyone 25 and under in my immediate area to come over and ask what the hell the sound was. Then Trey believed me it was real. Which is funny because I'm the one that didn't believe him it existed. We gathered up all the old people around us and not one of them could hear it. One guy put it as his ring tone on his cell phone. Apparently teenagers are also using it to their advantage to allow their cell phones to ring during class without the teacher hearing it. I thought it was fascinating enough to share it with you all. CLICK HERE to listen to the most annoying sound in the world. And tell me if you can hear it.

Methinks it's time for me to go to bed. Gotta stick with the sleep rules now that they're slightly effective. Night, sluts.

In 30 minutes I am leaving for the airport to fly back to Seattle. I will spend the week there returning on Friday. Then my company expects that I will board a plane again the following Monday and stay through the next Friday. In fact, they expect that I will continue to do this for the next 2 months. In reality, I will spend my free time in Seattle surfing Monster.com to find a new job.

They wanted me to fly out this Monday but I refused. I don't know if it's silly or not but I just won't fly on September 11. Especially not for work to somewhere I don't want to go. So they were pissy about that. They told me the arrangements couldn't be changed. I told them I would be in the office in Dallas on Monday morning if they wanted to contact me regarding future travel. They had no choice but to cave.

There were some emails sent back and forth regarding my performance in Seattle the last time I was there. I was basically trying to get out of going back, and they were trying to pin it all on me -- perfectly understandable. However, I'm going in swinging this time. It's no longer their time. It's my time. I have my own laundry list of items I would like to address. If at any time they refuse to take my advice that they are paying for, that item will be crossed off and may not be brought up again. When the list is finished, I am gone. I'm just so glad that they pissed me off before I came, because now I have no qualms laying down the law.

In other news, Daniel, his sister, and I all went to the Goo Goo Dolls/Counting Crows concert last night. It was too much fun. The show was great. We didn't stay through the entire concert because Daniel's sister claimed to have never heard of Counting Crows so we left early through their set. But I got to hear Omaha, Big Yellow Taxi, and Colorblind. Those are three of my favorite songs so I was satisfied.

Not sure what else to report really. I'll update from Seattle if I get bored but I already have plans to hang out with Philip and Robin some more and expense our good times. Grumble, grumble. Ugh, czech you all on the flip side.

Why haven't I ever discussed this here? I try to tell everyone I know about it but have never used my most public of forums to espouse its virtues. I am talking about my ING Direct account. It's the best decision I ever made.

I could give you all of the technicalities of it, but instead I'll just link to it here. If you were thinking that you should be saving money -- any money at all -- this is the way to do it. You link it directly to your checking account and then set up automatic payments on the day you get paid. It's the concept of "pay yourself first." You can start out putting in 1 fucking dollar a month and then when you realize you can put more, bump it up to 5. Think about how much you waste on fast food and booze and CDs and gas only because it's sitting in your account. If you pay yourself first, you don't have that problem. And if you accidentally save too much, you can always transfer it back into your checking temporarily to float you to the next paycheck. I don't like to toot my own horn, but I have literally hundreds of dollars stashed away for a rainy day.

Now, I do care about my friends making responsible fiscal decisions. And that is honestly the catalyst for this post. But the other thing I care about ... is you getting free money! That's right. When you sign up and confirm your checking account, you get 25 bucks. For nothing. If all you wanted to do was sign up, wait until your 25 bucks was available for withdrawal, withdraw it and run, you could. You don't need to have extra money laying around to start saving. You get 25 bucks and then add to it when you can. Aaaand if you DO have savings, it makes sense to transfer it to ING because you get a 3.4 annual percent yield (WAY WAY higher than any bank). And that's just the current rate, it's gone up like 5 times since I signed up and trends indicate it will only keep on rising. I'm earning about 10 bucks a month in interest right now. Not a lot, but way more than a bank, and that shit adds up. Awesome.

I also get 10 bucks for referring you. I tell you that only so you'll understand better my motivating the masses, but believe me when I say that I don't need 10 bucks that bad. But in order for me to get my 10 and you to get your 25, I have to refer you through the website. So if you think this might be something you'd be interested in, send me an email at SideshoViD@sideshovid.com or leave me a comment with your first and last name (if I don't know them for sure) and your email address and I will have ING send you all the information you need to get started.

That's the end of my PSA. I do hope some of you take advantage of this great opportunity.

I painted my bedroom ceiling. My walls were already dark green and now my ceiling is dark brown. It looks incredible. I still have some touching up to do, but I'm basically done. Here's a picture I snapped:

I'm trying to get my apartment in tip top shape before Mikey moves to Dallas. It's an indirect motivation since he's already seen my apartment and probably doesn't care either way on the ceiling color. But I needed a deadline to shoot for, so that's the one.

He's moving here on Friday. I am beyond excited. Also happening that weekend: My whole family is coming into town, Brandon is coming up from Austin to celebrate his birthday, Brett S■■■ (so sabulous) is having his 21st birthday party, Addison Circle's Oktoberfest, Dallas Pride. I have a full plate to say the least.

I bought a vacuum finally the other day. It sucks. It's a bagless one and I got through like half of my living room and the canister was full. My 735 square feet of fun filled the damn thing 3 times. How disgusting is that?

Well I suppose I'll go to bed in my Hangover Palace now. It is insanely dark in there; I LOVE IT. HAPPY 22nd BIRTHDAY BRANDON!

I'm sick as a dog. The idiots at the quack shack said it was some kind of throat infection and gave me the same generic medicine they always do. Oh well, maybe it will help. Might as well take it. I didn't sleep a wink last night. I ended up taking a bath at like 5am cause I was so achy and sweating. Today's not much better. Enough pissing and moaning though. Pity me!

I was laying on the couch before my 12:45 yesterday and I noticed a moth on the wall near me. I thought nothing of it. He's welcome to chill there. But then when I came home after my lab at like 8:00 he was still in the exact same spot. I don't mind moths but I hate lazy moths. So I decided to capture him.

I put a cup on the wall, tapped him into it and then placed a coaster over the opening. Then I had a flash of evil genius. I decided to set up a Bond-esque death trap. I opened the lid just enough to allow a drop of water through it and placed it under the faucet. It was dripping slow enough to allow him time to escape, but he was going to have to time it just right. He waited until the last possible moment, the water was encroaching his wings, and then made a break for it. I attempted to squash him but he got away, so I let him go. Owen, Marshall, and I were enthralled. Okay, I was, but they also watched. Then Marshall took me to the mall and bought me some chinese food and ice cream. Rad!

In other news, my brother found out that his unborn baby is a girl. I tried to help him out and give some good suggestions for names. They were thinking about Kaylynn Elizabeth. I figured since she is going to be my brother's daughter, that she's already gonna be the whitest little girl on the planet. It might be a good idea to spice her up a little with an ethnic moniker. My suggestions were:
1. Reshawnda
2. Wei Le (but we would call her Jenny)
3. Consuala
I like them all but I think Consuala might be my favorite. And as an added bonus, it might help her get scholarships later. You never knows. Tonight Thommi and I are going to see some Russian chick play piano with the Russian symphony orchestra. I'll let you you all know how that goes. Peace.

Can I just say, I LOVE not having a job. And yeah, yeah, yeah, one of you fuckheads is gonna bring it up, "But what are you gonna do for money?" Well I don't care. I hate money. That's why I'm always trying to get rid of it so fast. Anyway, my school day ended at 10:00. How awesome is that. I was awake and had the whole day with nothing to do.

So the first thing I did was take a nap. Then I went and bought a book I don't want for a hundred bucks. Then I went to HobLob to hob knob with Marshall and buy a picture frame. Then I went to Academy Sports and Outdoors and bought a yoga kit. So now I have my own mat, strap, and blocks to play with. I also rearranged my bedroom so I have room to yogate in. I wanted to go see Blue October tonight over at the Tap (yes, I was actually willing to go to the Tap) but when I went to see if tickets were on sale this afternoon, they were sold out.

So as soon as Tommy got out of class and I got out of my bubble bath, I headed over to his place to go work out. I'm not sure what happened, but in between the time he got up from the chair to go put his workout pants on and the time he got back to the living room, I feel sound asleep. I've never fallen asleep so fast and so deep. It was crazy. I woke up a while longer and we went and worked out (apparently it was family night at the rec) and then sat in the hot tub. Then we went to see Butterfly Effect.

Holy crap. As you can see, on a scale of 1 to Incredible, I've rated it incredible. I was a bit apprehensive about Ashton in a serious role but he knocked this one outta the park. This movie was like woah. You've got to see it asap. I'm not even lying. If you disagree with me, you are wrong. I can't even really talk about it cause I'm still digesting. Me and Tommy were both blown away by it. Wow. Now I have to go to bed, even though my bed is possessed, but that's another story for another post. Good night!

Remind me never to go out sober again. God, what a dumb thing to do. It was still fun, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't like riotous fun like usual. And all my friends were drunk, which is fine by me, I'm hardly one to complain, but motivating drunk people to do anything (i.e. leave the bar) is next to impossible. So we didn't end up getting home until like 3am and then we watched Splash. What a good movie.

In other news, I had the most delightful email the other day that truly made me feel special. It was from none other than our good friend Dennis DiClaudio. You might recognize his name from the Grammar Cop section of my website. I don't know how he found me, but he did and he sent me this message:

hi,
just wanted to email you quickly and let you know how honored i am that you've quoted me on your website. when i found that, i went around smiling for three days straight.
thanks a lot,
dennis diclaudio

How cool is that? I would email him back and let him know, but I still don't have outgoing email. I could totally get my outgoing POP server information from the people who do our internet here, but I am far too lazy and they are far too inept to even deal with. I hate email anyway. I think Leslie and I are going to go to the mall and return some shit and then meet up with Justino to chaw on some steaks. You all wish you were me. Ciao suckers.

And I'm 22. Wow, feels good to be a palindromic age again. I suppose there are a lot of stories to tell from this past weekend so lets jumponit.

Friday, Allison and I woke up around 7:00 and got ready to leave. We hit the road around 8:30. There was some severe ass weather on the way to New Braunfels to the point that I almost, almost pulled off to the side of the road. But there was no traffic so I braved it through the storm and it didn't slow us down too much. It was a little disappointing though since we were on our way to hopefully float down the Guadalupe River ... and a raging thunderstorm wasn't what we were looking for. We eventually made it to Jenny's parents lake house and met up with the girls were were chillin with. They were iffy on floating because of the weather, but they were also going to be there all weekend, so it didn't matter if they didn't go on Friday. We eventually coerced Lindsay and Jenny into going with us that day. So we loaded up the cooler with sandwiches and tonz of beer and headed out to a rafting place.

If you've never done this before, you need to go this summer while you still have the chance. It was so much freaking fun. Even though the water was freezing cold and my ass was completely numb by the time we were done, and even though the sky blackened halfway through and threatened to storm. We drank so much damn beer, all floating on inner tubes with our feet propped up on the middle tube holding the cooler. At one point, a police officer in the river pulled us over to check our IDs. They were all in the cooler in a ziplock bag with our money, so I had to stand up to get them out. Bad idea. Drinking in an inner tube for hours and then standing up in a river is a bad combo. Yeah I fell down. We all thought it was hifuckinglarious, but I'm not so sure the sheriff saw the humor. We eventually made it down the river about 4 hours later and then were treated to the most fantastic dinner of brisket, beans, potato salad, cake, and watermelon.

At one point, my good buddy Kevin drove up to the lake house to see me. As you know, he has the same birthday as me and we weren't able to celebrate it together this year. But he was in New Braunfels so he dropped in to say hello. That was a good time. It's always good to see Kevin. Btw, Happy Birthday Kevin ... I don't want to deprive him of his SideshoViD.com shoutout just because he shares the momentous occasion.

The next morning we had an awesome breakfast of homemade egg McMuffins and then hit the road for Austin. We stopped off at the San Marcos outlet mall but didn't find anything to buy. We got to our hotel around 3 but our room wasn't ready yet so we went to go eat at the Hula Hut. Its some Austinian restuarant that Allison ate at years ago and wanted to find again. Brandon joined us there because he was in the neighborhood. I have to admit the food was damned good. After that we went to our hotel room and showered and then took a nap until about 8:00. We watched some TV while drinking beer and then got ready to go out on the town.

Man, did we ever have a time out in downtown Austin. It sure is a far cry from College Station. Much, much different in all the best ways. It was so much crazy fun. We tried to hit every bar on 6th street. I'm pretty sure we never did but we came damn close, my friends. I drank so much that by 2:00 I was pretty ready to go back to the hotel room. I'm not sure what time that finally happened, but I woke up the next day with a lovely hangover.

We drove back to College Station and now here I am just chillin on my birthday. I partied myself out last night so I'm in no mood to get crazy tonight. Allison is baking me a birthday cake right now and then I think this kid is going to bed. Thank you to everyone who called or IMed, you all made me feel very special today, and for that, you deserve the best of luck making it to the flip side. Where I shall see you there. Peace out, have nots!

Friday night was a right proper blast. It ended up that we decided to stay home and drink some beer. We had a pretty good turnout too considering we didn't really intend on having a party. Maddou came over early on in the evening to start sipping on a few brewskis. Later on then John showed up with one of his female friends. Jennifer drove in from Houston, also with a female friend. Doug and Nicole showed their faces once more and managed to convince a couple people to play drinking games (not me though, I always heed my own advice -- never play Doug's drinking games). There was some other guy there that I think came with Doug, I'm not sure. He had really cool tattoos. I'm sure was a little too interested in them, but I was drunk and they were really intricate. To top off the guestlist, Allison made a semi-surprise visit. We had such a blast. Me and Allison haven't gotten a chance to party together in forever. I don't think we stopped laughing hysterically the entire night. Everything was funny to us. Funny because it was true -- it was funny and true.

If you can imagine, I may have had just a little too much fun on Friday night, though I don't regret it one bit. So last night I took it pretty easy. We watched a bunch of TV and that was just about it. Maddou invited me out to Northgate but I honestly don't have any money. I have like 12 dollars in the bank right now but you need at least $20 to get it out of the ATM ... cause I ain't paying the service fee on the $5 ATM they have on Northgate. Anyway, it turned out to be a right bore, but I think I needed it. Oh yeah, this is off topic, but I talked to Stuart the other night. He finally called me back. You all remember Stuart from Moore Hall, right? He lives in Nashville, Tennessee now. Talk about fucking random. Whatever floats his boat though, I'm sure its better than Fort Worth.

Alright, I think today I'm gonna go to the rec and work out since I have such a fabulouso body now. My weight hovers right around 150 still, I haven't gained a damn pound in so long. The other day I was 152 a new high, and then yesterday I was back down to 149. I don't get it. I can't gain weight for the life of me. And that creatine was giving me heart palpitations so I quit taking it. Anyway, then I'm gonna lay out. So my day is full. You all be good ... and don't forget to tip your waitress.