even though today is only thursday, i wore jeans and a sweatshirt to work today (my usual ‘casual friday’ attire) because, even though today is only thursday, today is my friday. tomorrow morning (at the ass crack of dawn), i leave for florida. how awesome is that? its 80 degrees in miami….not so much here in good ol’ baltimore.

i am using my south beach trip as a personal cleansing period. i feel like the last year of my life has basically been nothing but crap. i did the best i could with what i was given, but in the end it just wasnt enough. at some point you have to admit that youre fighting a losing battle, cut your losses, and turn around and go back. and that is exactly what i have done. a large loss i admit, one of the biggest i have ever experienced, but with it i have also gained – time, experience, knowledge and a bit more compassion and understanding. and i move on with these things. i move on to bigger and better things. like…a vacation in south beach with 3 absolutely awesome women. time to take a few days, hang out with friends, relax on the beach and just…be.

and drink. lets not forget the drinking.

see you all in a week

ladies and gents, its official—in 65 hours and 20 minutes (give or take a few minutes) i will be enjoying the bright sunny weather of SOUTH BEACH FLORIDA!! yea for vacations! and what a vacation it will be.—4 girls, 3 nights, 2 beds and a hell of a lot of alcohol. pictures to follow in approximately 1 week…there might be a rating on them…

for an idea of what a south beach vacation with me might look like, let us just recap my last trip to south beach shall we…

its early in the evening on february 28, 2004 and deirdre, chris and i have already boarded our flight from BWI to Miami International. the plane turns to begin its path down the runway when, suddenly, it stops, and begins backing up (NO NO STUPID PLANE!). after the plane comes to a complete stop, the pilot announces (and i kid you not) that the right engine hydraulic system is not functioning and ,while they “normally fly with a few things wrong” that particular system is “a lot like the power stearing in your car – you just cant go without it”. so we sit FOR AN HOUR, on the plane, while they REPLACE the right engine. was i nervous to fly after that? oh no, not at all…

also:

• deirdre and i discover that we are in fact rooming with a homeless man named franco who is living out of the hostel, listens to “learn french in your sleep” tapes, and works at a pizza place. i had the pleasure of bunking above franco.
• deirdre burns her feet the first day out on the beach and is forced to wear large white tube socks with her bathing suit.
• i decide to kick around a whole bunch of little black shiny things that are ALL over the beach—it isnt for 3 more days that we run into my friend andy who explains to us that those were in fact baby man-o-wars….ya know, the deadly jelly fish?
• chris gets mugged by 2 hookers…and thats all i will say about that
• we visit Twist, a gay bar, where i discover that there are plenty of men dressed in leather, plenty of men dressed in drag, and absolutely no womens bathrooms in the whole place.
• coyote ugly night at Nerve, where there were hot women in cowboy hats, one of which came up from behind me, tilted my head backwards into her breasts and filled my mouth with rum. i swear to god i didnt ask her to.
• while packing to leave the last night there, the 30 some year old canadian guy who was also staying in our room engages deirdre and i in a conversation as he strips completely naked in front of us, jiggling his wrinkley old canadian balls within feet of my face, all the while still chatting us up.

those are just some of the highlights. tune in sometime next week for the play-by-play for South Beach Spring Break ‘06—the Post-College Edition!!

FINALLY…new pictures! i told you i was trying to get at least one album a month up…

Baltimore Car Show – Feb 11, 2006

these are from the car show Ian and i went to last weekend. let me know what you think.

oh, and i meant to post this as well:

my former roommate sent me this for valentines day…

http://www.dieselsweeties.com/valentines/honeybakedvalentine.pdf

im really sucking at this updating thing. things have just been so….messed up….recently. i meant to update on wednesday, but then i had to do a presentation at a 2 hour meeting, which threw off my entire schedule. and then i meant to update thursday, but i got suckered into participating in a THREE HOUR LONG interdepartmental meeting. gee..that was fun. (by the end of said meeting i was seriously wondering how much it would reallyhurt if i “accidentally” tripped over the cord to the projector and hit my head on the table….multiple times….until i was unconscious) and then today i meant to update, but i had some silly training in the afternoon and then i was working on someone elses problem and….well, yeah…

ok ok. excuses. i know. the truth is im just behind, lazy, depressed and ive also been very sick since monday. but i’m doing the best i can.

oh, and also, i have this silly school thing i do on wednesday nights and now i also have a country line dancing class i do on thursday nights. thats right, i said country line dancing.

stop laughing.

ok, fine. laugh at me. youre just jealous.

i promise there will be wayyyyy more interesting stuff for you to read (and maybe even some pictures for your veiwing pleasure) after next week. why after next week you ask? because ONE WEEK FROM TODAY, i will be in bright, sunny South Beach, FL !!

god i cant wait. i seriously need to drink my face off relax for a couple of days.

it finally snowed here in maryland. its been 60 degrees all winter—one of the mildest winters we’ve ever had—and then, POOF, a foot of snow last night. more in some places. these crazy-ass weather patterns are really starting to bother me.

as a writing major in college, the first thing i learned was the obvious: the best way to improve your writing, is to write. just like any other skill, you have to practice writing daily to keep on top of your game. it is one of the simplest, easiest things a writer can do and, of course, is the one thing i just suck at. one of my news years resolutions was to update this blog on a daily basis. to write something—anything—every day. but, the road to february is often paved with new years resolutions, and i was distracted by a shiny object and veered off the road not even 2 days into the journey.

i think one of my main problems is that i just dont know what to write. blogs are tricky like that. i dont really want to write something funny, because then youre going to expect me to be all funny like all the time, and thats a ton of pressure! (and have you ever noticed how stupid the word funny is? i mean, it just looks like a word that someone would make up, like gooder or something…but i digress…) and while id love to just sit here and tell you all the personal details of my every day, lets be honest—you dont care. and i cant even use this to just bitch and complain about my job or the government or people i dont like because then i could get fired or arrested or kidnapped from my house in the dead of night and taken to a secret CIA prison in poland where i will be forced to wear brightly colored spandex and sing the lyrics to that old 80’s PBS kids show Zoobely Zoo until i admit that i am in fact a terrorist threat…

so yeah…i dont know whats left to write about really.

i remember having a class discussion once about how personal a writer should get in his or her writing and where exactly one should draw the line. the answer was unclear. the truth is, there is no way to keep yourself or your ideas out of your writing, no matter how factual and boring the writing is. and while you dont want to drone on about yourself and your life without making an actual point, putting yourself out there and risking that kind of exposure is the only way to make a real connection with your reader. its the only way to make someone really feel like they know you.

i have always been really good at dispersing useful advice, but never good at following it. most of those who read my blog (or my livejournal or my myspace) do not know me.

but there is always room for change and improvement in life, that is what makes it so incredible. though it often feels like there just arent enough hours in the days, the reality is that time moves just slow enough so that we can sense it, and adjust to it, and work with it. we have the ability to choose to take every minute, learn from it, and make decisions which will help us to make the next moment and every one that follows, better than the last. that is the privilege of life.

happy superbowl sunday everyone! i dont know about you, but i’m all about seahawks today—they have prettier uniforms—and yes, i do pick my superbowl teams based on their uniforms. its a very scientific method really, lots of analysis and the such…

ok, not really, but it works for me.