The Stars That Usher Evening Rose

Well like I said it would probably be a week before I posted again and I was right. This is going to be a very long post. Over break we had everything from someone claiming they were going to commit suicide to an uneventful Thanksgiving dinner. Not many parts of the break didn't have some hitch or annoyance of some kind going a long with it.

I left here Tuesday around 3:15pm and preceded to drive to Cathy's house in Charlotte. A normal 2 and half hour drive took 3 and half hours. Thanks to the rain and many traffic jams, some for no apparent reason, that slowed me down. So I finally arrived at Cathy's place just before 7pm. After eating real quick we loaded my stuff into Jeralyn's van and left around 7:30 for Atlanta. This part of the drive went fairly smoothly and we arrived in Atlanta at 11pm.

Wednesday I got up at 9:40am planning to have plenty of time to go get my haircut and all before leaving for Orlando. Our original plan called for my dad to get off work between 3-5pm and leaving then. But as I started eating breakfast I was told we were leaving at 11am. I called my dad to see if we could stall so I could get my hair cut and he said no and that if I wanted to get my haircut I better hurry up. So I was out the door at 10am and was back by 10:30am and got all my stuff ready to go and by the front door like my father had requested. He arrived home at 10:50 and by 11:15 we were on the road. William and I road with my dad in his car and Cathy, Jeralyn, Jillian, and Jacqueline road in Jeralyn's van. My mom was already in Orlando her and my Aunt Becky left that previous Monday. We drove to Macon and arrived there around 1:15pm or so and decided to stop at a Crackle Barrel there and eat. We did and after eating Cathy decided to do some shopping and next thing you knew it was 3pm and we had wasted two hours. Finally after getting gas we were back on the road at 3:30pm and now behind schedule. We drove and only stopped twice more for gas and food. Though like I had the day before we ran into almost non-stop rain the whole way and from Macon on we ran into traffic problems and didn't arrive in Orlando until about 10pm. So an eight hour drive took ten and half hours. We hung out for a while and finally around midnight we decided to call it a night. Cathy, William, and I stayed at my Uncle Kenny's like we did when we came down for Disney World during the summer. And Jeralyn, Jillian, Jacqueline, Aunt Becky, and my parents stayed at my parents place.

Now if you remember correctly Orlando got hit by three hurricanes this year and this was a mobile home park. There was still visible damage to many of the homes there even now in November. Like my parents place the entire back side of the screen porch was gone roof and all. The side part of the screen porch was still there but many of the screens were torn. The house itself was fine though. Many of the other houses had similar damage with their screened porches being ripped off or their carport roofs being peeled off. Even some had roof damage on their homes you could tell by the blue tarps on the roofs. You could tell where the houses that had been destroyed had been standing because the homes had been removed and only an empty lot remained. Though some people had already put in new homes some of which were extremely nice looking. Now the house that I saw that had the most damage that was still there was the one next to my Uncle Kenny's house. That house the roof of it was ripped off and the air conditioning unit had been ripped off and destroyed and much of the siding had been ripped off or was peeled back revealing the insulation in the walls. That house had been declared unfit to live in and was going to be moved out. It was weird to see that house almost completely destroyed and then my Uncle's house that was right next door have absolutely no damage what so ever. The forest on the edge of the park were a mess, either the trees where down and the ones that where left standing were practically stripped of all their leaves. To think that it looked like that a few months after the storms I can not imagine what it must have looked like the days following the storms.

Thanksgiving day came and my cousin David and his wife (Julie) came over. We watched the last half of the Macy's Day Parade which is almost like a ritual in my family especially with Cathy. After words was the only really boring time of the trip we all just kinda set around and did not do much of anything but talk and watch TV while dinner cooked. Finally around 5:30 we had dinner followed by dessert which was a pumpkin roll which was extremely good, Julie had made it and my mom got the recipe from her. After dinner everyone cleaned up and goofed off until Spider-Man came on at 8pm and we all watched that. After that Cathy wanted to go back and go to bed because she, my dad, and Jeralyn where getting up at 3:30am to be at the mall before it opened at 5am to do their Christmas shopping. So since neither William and I were tired we played Texas Hold'em poker and I beat him and then went to bed.

On Friday my mom woke me up by calling my cell phone at 9:30am saying that she, Jacqueline, Jillian, Julie, David, and my Aunt Becky where going to go to the mall to meet up with the others. So since William was up I decided to go ahead and get up and get dressed and head over there. We got there just as they were leaving. William and I decided to stay at that house why they went. So William and I played PS2 until they returned. My dad, mom, and Aunt Becky came back first. About 30 minutes after they arrived we got a phone call from Cathy and them saying they had been sitting in the parking lot for 45 minutes and had not moved. Then about 30 minutes later she calls back saying they were still in the parking lot and was going to call 911 to complain about the traffic in hopes they would bring some cops to direct traffic so they could get out. So finally after waiting almost two hours they got out and arrived back at the house. I later found out during this almost two hour wait David made an ass of himself by yelling and cussing at people out the window of the car this from a man that claims to be a very Christian. So once they arrive we have leftovers from thanksgiving dinner and dessert again and Jeralyn had bought the movie "Elf" so we watched it. I thought it was a very funny and entertaining movie. So Cathy, William and I left for Uncle Kenny's place after the movie only to realize once we got there we had forgotten the keys. So then on the way back to the other house to get the key cathy mentions that we had to be back at the other house at 9am and I asked why and she told me because Aunt Becky needed they car to go see her Father (also my dads father) and she wanted to leave by 10am. No my father did not go with her, my dad has nothing to do with his father. I myself have never met my grandfather and have no real want to since the man knows I exist and has shown little interest in meeting me so why should I try to meet him. So I asked then why are we taking dads car why cant we take another one so we can sleep in. So when we got back we asked if we could leave my dads car for Aunt Becky and take my moms car instead so we could sleep in and they said that was fine. So we took my moms car back and went to bed.

The next day, Saturday, the day Jeralyn, Jillian, Jacqueline, William, Cathy and I left for Charlotte my mom called at 9am to wake Cathy up and tell her to come over. So Cathy got up and got a shower planning to let me and William to sleep in a while since that was the orginal plan. Then at 9:30am my phone rang again this time it woke me up so I answered it and it was my mom saying to get over there soon. I told Cathy that and she said that we couldn't leave right then because we had to clean up. So we cleaned up and left and got to the other house a little after 10am. My mom then ask us where we had been and we said we had been cleaning up. William and I ate quickly while Cathy helped Jeralyn pack up the car. Then Cathy tried to eat and my parents started to get mad at us but mainly Cathy for not being there at 9:30. They claimed they had told us the night before to be there at 9:30 to go eat. But we had made it clear that night we wanted to sleep in so that way people wouldn't be cranky on the drive back home in the car. My parents claimed we never said that and a big argument broke out between my parents and Cathy. Cathy then refused to eat and rushed everyone out the door so we could leave. This was only the beginning of an eventful day.

Now the car trip home was far from fun. For the first 30 minutes everything was fine. Then Jeralyn and Cathy started talking about who was going to pay for what on this trip back. I knew right away this was heading for bad territory so I told them to stop several times but either neither of them heard me or they ignored me. With in a few seconds they were going at it. Cathy went off the deep end and completely started over reacting taking it out on her purse and the pillows she had up there with her. Jeralyn stayed fairly calm for the most part. But Cathy kept saying she didn't want to talk about it anymore but Jeralyn did not listen and kept going. At one point Cathy threatened to Jump out of the car and commit suicide if Jeralyn did not stop talking about it. It didn't work and Jeralyn kept going. Finally Jeralyn stopped that there was silence for about five minutes. But then Jeralyn started again and Cathy went off again finally after about another two or three minutes of fighting I stepped in and told them that if they did not stop that I would make the stop the car and get out and I would leave them there and drive the kids back myself. That worked and I never heard another word about it the rest of the trip. After stopping about an hour later to eat Cathy moved to the back seat and William moved to the front seat. Cathy seemed to get over it fairly quickly and started having a good time playing with the girls. Jeralyn on the other hand kept a sour attitude. When we stopped to eat she sat at a different table and then when Jillian finished eating she and Jillian went out to the car and sat out there and waited for us to finish eating. At one point Jeralyn even throw a CD at Jacqueline because she was complaining about Jeralyn not stopping at a song she wanted to hear on the CD. But we finally made it back to Charlotte at around 6:45pm or so. That night we just hung out and watched TV and played PS2 and eventually went to bed.

On Sunday I woke up around 11am and eat breakfast and played a round of golf on the PS2 with William before leaving just after 2pm with Cathy, Jacqueline and William to go eat and go to Lowes to help them pick out a Christmas tree. Before this time though Thomas picked up his car that he had left when he had picked up Cathy's to put new brakes on it while we were gone. He dropped her car back off. I didn't even know he had come until I looked out the window and noticed his car gone and Cathy's car there. Come to find out only Jacqueline had seen him and known that he had come. He had made no effort to come say hi to any of us and then later found out that he told my mom he was pissed because we didn't come down and say hi to him. We didn't even know he had come so how could we have come down and say hi to him. So when we did leave to go get the tree and eat we noticed the car was a mess with drinks with drink still left in them that he had left in the car plus other trash and the ash tray was broken which it had not been broken before he took it. So between the argument she had with Jeralyn and the condition the car was left in Cathy claims she was going to send Jeralyn and Thomas a letter in the mail with $75 in it and a note telling them never to call her again. If it wasn't for Jillian I would almost believe her but Cathy would not disown Jillian like that. I guess we shall see what happens. My mom said that she wants us all to sit down together and figure out what went on and try to straighten things out. So after getting the tree we got back just before 4pm in time for me to watch the Falcons game only to find out that the game was not going to be on TV so William brought down his radio and we listened to the game instead. We then went upstairs and unloaded the attic of Cathy's Christmas stuff and then got the tree put up. Cathy and I then tried to put the lights on the tree and got half way before realizing it looked like crap. So we started over. I called our mom to see if we were doing it wrong and she told us not to just put the lights on the outside but to stager them in and out. About 30 minutes later while Cathy was upstairs doing laundry I remembered that the lights clipped on the branches. So I started doing the lights myself and got 2/3rds of the way done when Cathy came down and so I plugged in the tree and she said it looked great. I stopped then and took a break and watched Extreme House Makeover with her and William and then watched Desperate House Wives with her before finishing the tree. After reading for a while I went to bed at 1am.

Today I got up at 10am and got everything ready to go and packed up the car and left Cathy's place at 11am. I missed my class at 10am but I was not getting up at 6am in order to make it in time so I skipped it. My next class after that wasn't until 3:20pm so I was in no big rush. The drive back to campus was easy and uneventful. I arrived here about 1:30pm and got something to eat before leaving for that class. Now I sit here at work typing this up. Well that's my Thanksgiving vacation in a nutshell. Hope you enjoy it took me over an hour and half to type this thing up.

This post is basically a reminder and also will be my last one until probably this time next week. Reason being that I am leaving for Thanksgiving break tomorrow afternoon heading for Charlotte then Atlanta and then finally Orlando on Wednesday. During that time I probably will not have access to a computer with internet until I return to campus on Sunday night or Monday morning. So unless I have one dull ass thanksgiving then when I return I will post about it. Therefore I would like to go a head and wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving.

Last night was some what of an adventure. I had rented Van Helsing earlier in the day. I had wanted to rent Troy but I could not find it. I finished the movie around 2:45am or so and I thought it was a decent movie overall, nothing overly special though.

Now yesterday had been Raj's (he is in the room next to mine that my roommate and I share a bathroom with) 21st b-day and so he had been out most of the day. But, he returned not long before my movie ended. I knew he had returned because I heard him in the bathroom throwing up. I figured once he finished he would go back and lay down. Atleast that's what I was hoping for because I needed to brush my teeth and take a piss. At 3:15 I had not heard anything from the bathroom for about 15 minutes or so and even though the light was left on I thought maybe he had gone back to bed and just left the light on. So I knocked on the door and heard no answer so I knocked a second time to just be sure and heard no answer again. So I slowly started to open the door and saw the door to the toilet open and Raj sitting on it. I closed the door and preceded to wait for him to finish. Finally by about 3:45 I gave up and said fuck it and went without brushing my teeth and just laid down in bed and tried to go to sleep. Around 4:30am I was still awake and had to piss and could not really wait any longer. So hoping he had finished since I had not heard anything out of the bathroom for about 20 minutes or so I proceeded to knock on the door again with no answer and so again I knocked a second time and again no answer. So I started to slowly open the door and once again saw the bathroom door open but did not see him. What I did see was a mess because I could tell looking through the slightly open door that he had not flushed toilet and also had missed the toilet on a few occasions. I then happened to look down and I saw feet. Raj had passed out on the floor of the bathroom next to the door. Since I had to piss I decided to go out in the hall and hope that I could maybe find some other person awake to see if I could use their restroom. I got lucky the RA and a few of her friends were still up. I told them about Raj being passed out on the floor in the bathroom and I asked if I could use their restroom and she said told me that I could. After I came out of the bathroom my RA was checking on Raj and I saw her come back out and she told me that a friend of his brought him back around 2:30am and had to literally carry him in because he could not stand up much less walk. I ended up not getting to sleep untill around 5am or so and then woke up at 11am only six hours of sleep. Oh well.

Why would anyone want to get that drunk? Getting that drunk just does not appeal to me. I mean he was so drunk he couldn't even stand up he didn't have a clue really what he was doing and he was non-responsive. I mean I know it was his 21st b-day but even so I can't understand getting that drunk.

On a good note though my Florida Gators beat Florida State 20-13 yesterday.

One other thing I forgot to mention. Leaving dinner the other day this one black guy stopped me and asked me if I went to church. I told him that I didn't. He asked why not and I just told him because I am not from up here and that I am just going to school here. So he gives me this little piece of paper about some church he belongs to up here and telling me about how God changed his life and that thanks to this church he is a new man and all that shit. I just told him what he wanted to hear so he would leave me alone.

I wish the school would not allow those people to come to campus like that. I think its wrong for people to do that. That is one of the problems I have with the Mormon church because they go out and try to convert people and do things like this and I can't stand it when church's do that. I don't have anything against Christians and I even for the most part consider myself one but I can't stand it when other Christians come and rub it in your face like that. They just need to leave people alone its annoying.

Looking back in the last 5 years a lot has changed in my group of friends. Five years ago we were still in High School. Most of us didn't quiet have our license yet. I still lived in PTC and hung out with Carlos and Matt just about every day playing video games. I was just a few minutes away from my other friends. Now 5 years later most of us are away at college. We all have our license and can take off just about anywhere we want, money permitting. I no longer live in PTC and soon to no longer even be in the state of Georgia. I am sure I am just the first to leave. But no longer being in PTC means I hardly see friends anymore unless I or they make the one hour drive back and forth. But all this is just the beginning. In 5 years we will all be out of college and on our own. None of us know where we are going to end up. For all I know Michael could end up over seas living in Europe some where since he he would like to do it if possible. If Andrew and Emily one day get married who knows where they will end up, maybe Andrew will get a job with Disney and that wont lead to a job in Georgia more than likely. Who knows where I will end up, though I do hope to get back to Atlanta if possible, but I will go where ever I find a job and that could be Chicago for all I know. Matt will go wherever his parents go and from what I know they plan to go back to Tallahassee in the not to distant future. Carlos out of all my friends seems to be the most likely to stick around in Atlanta but who knows. In 5 years everything will be quiet different. Maybe only see friends once or twice a year. Growing up sucks in a lot of ways, but not all is bad I guess.

Anyway, yesterday I felt like Michael is some way. This one fairly ugly girl walks by me which normally I don't think anything but this time first thing that popped in my head was "she should grow her hair out because she would look better that way" then my mind also thought that if she not only grew her hair out but also got rid of her glasses and got contacts along with putting on some makeup she wouldn't look half bad. Maybe that means I should talk to him less because all his crap seems to rub off, like making me go broke at the mall and so on. Though since neither of us lead exciting lives we probably wont talk any less.

Yesterday I bought "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater". I have played it the last to days straight only stopping to eat, sleep, and go to class. But today just after 4:30pm I beat it. The graphics where definitely improved on this game compared to the other ones. Gameplay was similar to the others so reteaching myself the techniques did not take me long. The setting of this game was actually set before the first two games so it was kind of cool to see the all the connections in this game that you knew lead to the other games. Overall the game kicked ass but I was expecting no less after those first two games. Now I am ready for "Metal Gear Solid 4." But if history shows anything then I will have to wait until 2007 for it. The "Metal Gear Solid" game out in 1998 then 3 years later in 2001 "Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty" and then 3 years later in 2004 (now) "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater" game out. So if it continues it will be 3 more years 2007 until "Metal Gear Solid 4" comes out. Oh well I waited that long for the others I can do it again.

Michael told me yesterday that my blog felt neglected. So I am posting even though I don't have a whole lot to post about.

I am anxiously awaiting for Wednesday to come along. Reason being that "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater" is coming out. I have been waiting for that game for about three years now. It is the only shooter type game that I like. I have tried the Halo's and other games like it and they just are not as good in my opinion.

My sister has been IMing me and sending e-mails to me, Jeralyn, and my dad about what we plan to do for Thanksgiving. As it stands now I will actually be in Atlanta one night which was not originally planned. I will leave here Tuesday the 23rd and go to Cathys arrive at her place at 6pm and Jeralyn is supposed to meet us there and we are supposed to leave there sometime around 6:30-7:00 and head to Atlanta which is a 4 hour drive. Then Wednesday leave Atlanta around 5pm after my dad gets off work and head for Orlando which is about an 8 hour drive so we would not get there till 1am. So we will be getting there a day late but we figured we would give my dad some company so he didn't have to take the trip by himself.

That's pretty much it, its been a pretty dull last couple of days.

Yesterday I talked to my sister for about 30 minutes. She is worried about William, he has been acting strange and has not been getting his school work done and has been lying to her. I told her that most of that is because he is obsessed with this girl he likes and the rest of it is just him being a kid and that not to worry about it to much. But tell her not to worry is pointless because knowing her she will interrogate the poor kid to try and find out what is going on. Though I do think he is to obsessed with this girl and agree that it is probably effecting his school work. But, what are you going to do, no matter what you tell him it wont change his obsession with this girl. Until it passes he will have to suffer the consequences of it just like everyone else.

The time has come to sign up for spring semester classes. I have to sign up for three meteorology labs (total of 3 credits), Calc. II (4 credits), Humanities 214 (4 credits), those give me a total of 11 credit hours so I need at least one more class to either meet or surpass the min. 12 credit hour limit. What that other class will be I have no idea, I will probably e-mail my advisor person and bug him like I did last time about what class I should take to fill out my schedule that would go well with the major since he would obviously know that better than me.

Its hard to believe Thanksgiving is just over two weeks away, and the semester itself will be over exactly one month from today. Still seems like yesterday I got here back in August and now its almost over. I am not ready for exams yet so this month better move slowly. As for Thanksgiving break I will be in Orlando, FL with the rest of my family.

Also I finished the book Odd Thomas. I thought it was a great book, then ending had an unexpecting twist that gave me goosebumps and for the first time ever a book almost made me cry, almost. So having finished that book I went to one of my favorite stores Barnes & Noble and bought two more Dean Koontz books. One is Lightning which I have read before, but that was about 8 years or so ago. But it was a kick ass book and I wanted to read it again, plus since I have already read it I wanted to have it for my collection. The other book I bought was From The Corner Of His Eye which this is my first time reading it. If you had not been able to tell from all the Koontz books I have read since May, I am a big Dean Koontz fan. I hope to eventually read all his books, but I still have a long way to go.

My roommate got lucky, I decided to let him live another day. Though we did have a little talk and I believe things have been straightened out and I don't believe I have to worry about something like that happening again. Though by chance something like this does happen again there will be hell to pay.

Recently I have been getting amusement out of my nephew who is 12 years old and is overly obsessed with a girl at his school. He has claimed several times that he had asked her out and that she had said yes but even now to this point she has not actually said yes yet. I think its funny to hear 6th graders say that have boyfriends or girlfriends, because they don't have the slightest clue what it is all about. All they do is hang out at school, hug, hold hands, maybe once in a while see each other outside of school but mostly its more of just being best friends at that age. I mean when you give the person you like a note asking them to go out with you with two boxes with one saying yes and one saying no and for them to check one, then you just don't get it. Though none of them realize it. Though like the rest of us they will soon realize what fools they were in the way the acted when they look back at their 6th grade days. But, until that day comes I will continue to enjoy the amusement that I get from him and eventually Jacqueline once she gets to that age as well.

I have arrived back on campus. I actually returned slightly before 5pm, and now I type this while sitting at work. Just because I am in a sour mood I must correct a mistake in Michael's blog in that it is a 3 hour drive and not a 4 hour drive. Also I left there about 1:45 this afternoon. I would post about what went on while there but I will not for two reasons, one being that Michael has already posted about the weekend and two because right now this weekend is not the topic of my mind. The topic of my current mind is the imminent death that I will partake on my roommate at some point tonight.

My roommate and his friends have made a grave mistake. People who know me should know, if they don't then I advise paying attention, that one of my biggest pet-peeves is when people use my things without first asking my permission. When I returned this afternoon before entering the room I had a suspicion that they had done something of which I would not be very happy about. I was right. First thing I noticed was my bread and that only about half of what was there before I had left this weekend remained. Second I noticed the open and empty Budweiser can sitting behind my TV. I then noticed that one of my PS2 games were missing. I then opened the refrig. and found an almost empty bottle of whiskey. Two problems with this find, one him and his friends are all underage and two the whiskey bottle is much stronger than anything allowed on campus. Campus rules state that any students who drink must be above the age of 21 and no alcohol drinks can have an alcohol content over 14% and obviously a whiskey bottle is going to be about three times higher than that. Finally I noticed that my TV was on a different station than I had left it on leaving me to believe they had watched my TV. Normally the TV thing would not bother me at all, but do to the fact of all my other finds this just added to my flustration.

So the first time I see my roommate after leaving work he and I are going to have a talk. If you feel like saying a prayer for him you are more than welcome, because he is going to need them once I find him.

I called my mom earlier tonight and we talked for about an hour. A much longer phone call than we normally have. We talked about all sorts of things from school, to friends and family, and of course the election. One family topic was that my sister Jeralyn and her Husband Thomas is trying to get custody of his daughter Niki, who is 16, because she is terrified to go back home to her mother for some reason. No one but her knows why, because she wont tell anyone. Which has most of us in the family wondering what is going on. So my parents are sending money to a lawyer to help them gain custody of her. So we shall she how that goes, hopefully it will all work out. This shows an example of what I posted about over a week ago about my family being there for each other, things like this with people pitching into help makes me happy I am related to this people even though we definitely have our problems.

The other family news my parents don't want my sisters knowing, so its a good thing they don't read this. My dad is going to have surgery in the first week of December to get part of a kidney removed because he keeps having a cyst form on it and he wants to stop it. It is a fairly large operation that will have him down and out for several weeks following but other than that its nothing to worry about. Though my parents don't want either of my sisters knowing because both of them would blow it way out of proportion and make it sound like he is dying or something. For Example back when I had blood work with some strange things showing up from my liver both of them thought I had cancer and was going to die. Turned out the condition I have basically just changes the color of my poop (I am sure everyone wanted to know that :P). Course afterwards I found out that both my parents were worried as well about it before we found out what it really was. I was the only one not worried at all and I was the one with the problem, go figure.

Also this weekend I might be going to visit Michael. So If I do I am sure we will have something interesting to post about, but then again maybe not with us who knows.

It's Over Baby!! Kerry just now as I started to type this has called Bush and has conceded. Bush will be re-elected. Maybe there is some hope for this country afterall. Course, Michael would argue that point, but that is his opinion.

In math class today my calc. professor came into class with a shirt that said "North Carolina is Bush/Cheney Country". The class got a laugh out of it and needless to say I had a smile on my face.

I did get to vote. They have ballots called provisional ballots that makes it where you can vote even if your not in your district. I had to fill out some paper work saying who I am and what my actual district is. The after filling that out I got a ballot to vote. The ballot and my information will be sent to the North Carolina Board of Elections and if I am who I say I am and if I am registered in the district I say I am then my vote will be counted.