There's a party going on right here...

I stayed at my dad's house this weekend.  My sister was graduating from nursing school on Saturday and they wanted me out there for a family breakfast Saturday morning.  I knew that there was no way that I was going to get up in time to make it out there for breakfast so I decided to go out there Friday and spend the night.

We got up Saturday morning and made breakfast then all sat down and ate.  My dad had to go to my aunt's and pick some stuff up for the party after the graduation.  My sister and her mom went out to get their hair done but ended up coming back to the house and doing it themselves due to not making an appointment first and there being a long wait at the salon.  My brother made it back home about an hour before we had to leave.

We got to the church and went in.  I set up the video camera and the ceremony began.  It was a nice ceremony.  My sister presented my parents with a rose for each of them for supporting her through the past 2 years of school.  My dad started tearing up.  Once it was finally over we met up with one of my step-mom's students who was coming out to the house with us that night to study for his NCLEX exam.  We got back to the house and started getting everything ready for dinner.  My other brother grilled everything up and my aunt made her famous potato salad.  Then the drinking began.

By the end of the night, and after a never-ending game of UNO, my sister finally stumbled to her room and passed out.  My brother, dad, and I were up until around 4 talking and hanging out.  I passed out around then.

We got up this morning and made breakfast again.  We sat outside on the deck and talked for a while then I had to pack up and get Pete wrangled in the car to get home.

After I got back, I ran up to GameStop to pick up the copy of Guitar Hero World Tour that I had reserved a couple of months ago on the PS2, but wanted to exchange it for the full band kit for the Wii.  They didn't have any extra copies so I went ahead and got the PS2 version.  I ran by Target to see if they had it.  They did.  I purchased it and ran back over to GameStop to return the PS2 version.  I got home and unpacked it all.  It is a lot of fun.  The drum kit for Guitar Hero is a lot nicer than the one for Rock Band.  Instead of having 4 pads and a foot pedal, there are 3 pads, 2 cymbols, and a foot pedal.  They aren't as loud as the Rock Band drums either.  I got about 12 songs into career mode before I decided to shut it down and take a break for a bit.

I need to get a new wireless router so that I can get the Wii back online and download additional content.

Overall, it was a fun weekend and I enjoyed it immensely.

More pics of Pete

 

Here are a couple of pics of Pete that I snapped recently. 

Oktoberfest 2008

I love the company that I work for.  Tomorrow is our annual Oktoberfest.  Otherwise known as "Bring your favorite beer" to work day.

Mmm Mmm Good

I made a Caribbean inspired dish tonight.  I sauteed some onions and green peppers, smoked sausage and garlic.  I dredged some shrimp in chili powder and sauteed them up.  I mixed it all together with a can of Rotel and pineapple chunks.  I then boiled some rice in chicken stock and pineapple juice.  Mixed them up with a little bit of jerk seasoning and sprinkled a little bit of fresh coconut over the top.

It was mighty good.  It was kind of sweet then you bit into one of the shrimp and lit your mouth up.  Probably one of the best creative meals I have made in a while.

I made some sliced cinnamon apples for dessert.

Charlaine Harris: Southern Vampire Mysteries

Over the past two weeks I have read the first five (well, ok, four only because I can't find the second book anywhere for sale other than on Amazon) of Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries(Dead Until Dark, Living Dead in Dallas, Club Dead, Dead to the World, Dead As A Doornail).  I stopped and picked up Definitely Dead and All Together Dead, books 6 and 7, from Borders today while at lunch.  The 8th book, From Dead to Worse, is currently out in hardback.  I may pick that one up after I finish the 7th book, but I would like to wait for its release in paperback before I get it.  I have devoured these books lately.  Mostly reading them in one sitting.  They are not that long; 350 to 400 pages for most of them.

These books are the basis for the new HBO Series True Blood.  Which is how I happened upon the series in the first place.  The show is taking each book as a season.  They have expanded a couple of characters and made a few minor changes, but overall has stayed very close to the original story.

The premise of the story is about a telepathic waitress who gets mixed up in the world of vampires and other supernatural beings set in a time when the release of a newly developed synthetic blood has opened the doors for vampires to "come out of the coffin". 

I would highly recommend these books if you are a fan of supernatural mysteries.  A couple of the books are quite predictable in the outcome, but the first couple books had me riveted.

Pete's prgress

Update regarding Pete.  I had taken him back to the vet to have another skin scrape done.  It came back negative for mange.  I requested a different doctor this time.  The vet said that it just looked like really dry skin to him that was causing him to scratch which in turn caused a skin infection.

He told me to start putting some olive oil in his food and mix it up really good.  That would give him extra moisture in his food and help his skin.  He gave me some antibiotics to clear up the infection.  So far it is working wonderfully.  His skin is now back to normal and he isn't scratching at all.  He loves the olive oil added to his food.  I also got some fatty acid stuff to put on his food as well as some multi-vitamins for dogs.  He is doing great.  He is back to his old self again.

Table for one

I really wish they sold bread in half loaves.  I don't eat a whole loaf fast enough before it goes bad.  There are only so many sandwiches that I can eat.

I am looking forward to the big vat of chilli that I am making for dinner tonight though.

Oh dear...

McCain/Palin scare the hell out of me.

For one, shouldn't his healthcare plan of deregulation scare people away from him.  Letting the markets regulate themselves clearly doesn't work as Wall Street has proven succinctly.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

I found out this morning that a friend of mine from back in high school is pretty sick.

We were inseparable back then.  We were in band together and when not in school or at band practice we were always at each other's house.  After my mom died I was pretty bad off.  I got deep into drugs to help ease the pain that I was going through.  It was an easy way to escape everything that was going on.  He knew what I was doing and didn't like it, but still stuck by me.

After graduation he had been working for a local guy helping him out with stuff and he was offered a house to rent.  We talked it over and I moved in with him.  It was the first time that I had been away from home.  My dad had recently remarried and I was not happy about it.  I felt that he was betraying my mother's memory and me.  I was angry at everything and felt that it was my chance to get away from all of it.

I started hanging out with a bad crowd of people and got even further into my addiction; still trying to escape the pain that I was in, it seemed like the best way to handle it.  I ended up screwing him over pretty badly.  I was not paying any of my part of the bills.  I kept promising him that I would give him money the following week, which never happened.  All of my money went to drugs and escapism.  I was dragging him into debt and didn't really care.

On Thanksgiving day of that year as I was driving up to Nashville to visit my grandparents I got in a wreck.  A driver had run a stop sign and I had no choice but to either slam into them or run off the road into the ditch.  I don't know if it was the drugs or just the adrenaline pumping through me, but the ditch didn't look so bad.  It was worse than I had thought.  My parents picked me up and helped me get everything straightened out with insurance.  After staying with them for a few days, I went back home.  Nothing had really changed for me other than being sore from the wreck.  I still didn't care.

Christmas Eve of that year, my stepmother's mother was coming to visit and they wanted the whole family there.  I stayed out there that night.  On Christmas day my dad took my step-mom and everyone else out somewhere.  I didn't want to go.  I got a call from a "friend" asking if I wanted to come party with them.  I could not refuse that offer.  They came out and picked me up.  I didn't leave a note or call anyone.  I don't remember the next few days.  I don't know where I was or what I had been doing.  Someone told me afterwards that I had been passed out for at least a day; more than likely overdosed.

I somehow made it back home.  My parents had talked to Justin and Jen trying to find out where I was.  They told told them what was really going on.  My parents confronted me about and took me home.  Jen finally threatened some sense into me and made me realize that I was killing myself and hurting everyone else with how I was doing it.  Justin asked me to move out.  My parents helped me pack my things up and took me home to get myself sober.  I believe that was the last time that I saw him.

After I got clean I talked my old boss into giving me my job back.  My parents were in charge of my money at that point since we were still dealing with insurance after the car accident and getting my bills under control.  They had gotten in touch with Justin to find out how much money I owed him.  They worked out a payment schedule with him and I paid him back, but things would never be the same. 

We lost touch after that.  Life moved on and took us in different directions.  It wasn't until 2 years ago (8 years after all of this happened) that I found him on MySpace.  We exchanged a couple of emails, but they were nothing more than the standard "Hey, long time, how you doing?" type of emails.  I had not talked to him since then.

I got an email from a mutual friend of ours this morning telling me that she had heard from someone else that he had been diagnosed with a pretty bad form of cancer.  I was hoping that it was not true.  I emailed him this morning to ask him about it.  He emailed me back this evening and confirmed it.

I do not believe I have ever told anyone, that was not involved in all of it, the whole story before.  I have thought about him a lot over the past few years. I will always feel terrible for what I did and how I left things with him.  He was always a good person and a great friend.  He did not deserve any of it and does not deserve what he is going through now.