The Bi-Monthly Update?

Sheesh, I'm really getting awful at updating this thing. There's a reason for that though: been getting a lot busier (or at least a lot more occupied) these last couple weeks. Still haven't heard anything new on the grad-school front, so as of right now I'm Tuscaloosa bound if nothing else tunrs up [though I haven't committed to anywhere yet].

So what in the hell have I been doing that's been taking up so much of my precious time? Well, in the last week alone I worked 40+ hours, drove 1,600 miles, and at one point was up for 40 hours straight. That and a bachelor party, a wedding, and week of house and dog-sitting for family friends.

1,600 Miles? Well, I drove from Tallahassee to Chapel Hill the past weekend to see friends (specifically, Meg) and to check out the N.C. State campus. The latter was important to me as I didn't want to commit to a school I had yet to ever set foot on - even though that didn't deter me from enrolling at Georgia Tech. So after working 11p-7a on Thursday night/Friday morning, I came home and took a 3 hour nap and proceeded to drive 10 hours north to North Carolina. The drive was exhausting, and only audiobooks, mp3s, caffeine, and sheer will alone made the drive possible. Spending the weekend with Meg was great - we had a lot of fun together just hanging around the city. The horrendous drive was made up for by my wonderful host, and leaving on Monday really, really sucked. Oh, in case you wanted a visual for miss Meg, here goes [forgive me, Meg! My friends are curious!]:


Meg, Tarheel Extraordinaire

So Monday I drove straight home, another 10 hour sojourn through South Carolina and Georgia, only to turn right around and go straight back to work.

The rest of the week, Tuesday-Sunday, was spent at the house of some family friends as a housesitter and a dogsitter. While the dogs could be very irritating at times (barking at all hours of the day/night), the huge 52" Plasma HDTV setup they had certainly soothed my insomnial woes. ESPNHD was the channel of choice on the TV pretty much 95% of the time - I couldn't bring it upon myself to change off of such an amazing channel. Oh, and widescreen HD Xbox play is also freaking incredible. I almost cried when I fired up Halo 2 for the first time.

Wednesday night I woke up at around 6pm to let the dogs out (suprisingly, they were barking again) - but I didn't know that I would be awake for about the next 40 hours. I went to work at 11pm, left work at 7am, then drove to Jacksonville on Thanksgiving day to have dinner with the family. I left Jacksonville around 6pm and got back to Tallahassee close to 8pm - only to turn around and drive out to Monticello for Andrew's bachelor party. Now typically when you think bachelor parties you probably think of strippers and other likewise debauchery. Not with us. For this party picture a cold night in a dark clearing between two foresty areas with a campfire in the middle. Now add 20 guys, all dressed in black with ski-masks and the like, one keg, a few bottles of liquor, and a ton of hotdogs. And picture them playing Capture The Flag, drunk as hell. We couldn't see a thing, we were freezing, we couldn't run straight...

What a time.

Poor Robert Eaton, one of the groomsmen at Andrew's wedding, pulled a face-plant in the middle of the game and managed to bloody himself all nice and proper with a huge scrape to the face/forehead - he looked real good in all those wedding photos. For his bachelor party (whenever that will be) we've already decided that he's gonna wear one of those boxing helmets that protects the whole head and face. We've got to have Bobby looking slick for those pictures, you know?

The wedding was on Saturday at Los Robles Park in Tallahassee. Or rather, it would have been at Los Robles had the rain not decided to come down in buckets early Saturday afternoon. The wedding was moved indoors, and after showing up early to help re-arrange the area (it was set up for the reception, had to move tables and the like and set up rows of seats) the wedding went off without a hitch. The service was a good one, and Alexandria looked absolutely beautiful. Her and Andrew both just glowed with happiness, and I have to admit most of their friends (including myself) did too. Congrats to them - pictures will follow in the near future whenever I can get them from somebody.

The rest of the night was spent with the wedding reception (which was a blast) and then some drinking and chilling over at Teresa's place. My date for the wedding, Elise, ducked out early in order to make the drive back to Destin before it got too late in the night. Hella weak, but I understand given the circumstances that she had some work to get done.

Now that we're caught up on current events (did you care? hah!) I've got some other things to say:

Traveling 1,600 miles in a car in one week sucks.
If not for Audiobooks-on-MP3-that-I-downloaded and some other good music, I would've been a-goner. What books? "Rainbow Six" by Tom Clancy, "Equal Rites" by Terry Pratchett, and "Wyrd Sisters" by Terry Pratchett. God bless my '99 Chevy Malibu for keeping itself together, and for my AIWA CDC-MP3 in-dash mp3 player for hodling up.

I've been neglecting some music that I downloaded earlier this year.
I downloaded Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance earlier this year but never really listened to it - what a mistake. The three-track barrage of "Give 'Em Hell Kid", "To The End", and "You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison" is probably second only to the three tracks that opened Bad Religion's 2002 album The Process of Belief in terms of sheer tenacity and momentum. This is music that rocks and makes you want to get up and scream along. Other gems I've overlooked include Death From Above 1979's album You're a Woman, I'm A Machine and Penance Soiree by The Icarus Line. Those two albums are pretty raw rock-and-roll, but after some sifting you really see the quality of the music. If I weren't so enamoured with some good recently-released albums (like The Arcade Fire's Funeral) then I probably would've spent more time listening to them. Also good albums: Bows and Arrows by The Walkmen and Shake the Streets by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. Look for a "Best of 2004" within the next couple weeks (or at my current posting rate - months).

I really can't stand U2.
U2 has finally made my illustrious "bands I can't stand list" alongside Aerosmith, Creed, New Found Glory, and Blink 182 (and countless other pop-punk bands). Now I'm not here to demean them or belittle them - they're one hell of a band. I respect U2, I just think that the music they're making now is complete and utter crap. I absolutely love The Joshua Tree and War, but with 1991's Achtung Baby things just started to head downhill quality-wise for me. Songs like "Sunday Bloody Sunday" have been replaced by crap like "Vertigo", the band's newest single. "Vertigo" is possibly one of the worst popular songs I've ever heard. Ugh.

Exhaustion sucks.
But the reward of seeing a beautiful woman after 10 long hours of driving on no sleep makes it all worth it. Women have magical powers, I'm certain of it.

Okay, time to go pass out. Work's only a few hours away...