I’m not going to make this a eulogy. I just need to talk about this because it hurts so much.

Yesterday I lost someone in my life who was a truly good person. You don’t find a lot of those anymore at least not like him. So to make clear my pain, let me explain the man and then I can explain my own feelings about that man and his passing from this life to whatever comes next for him.

I first met the guy about 18 months ago. He started posting on the forums for a podcast called Keith and The Girl (you might’ve heard of them, they’re kind of a big deal). As with all people I tried to get a feel for what kind of person he was by the things he would post. He was a bit aggressive, especially in flirting with the ladies. He seemed to make a few snide remarks towards the guys and I started to think maybe he was kind of a jerk.

I saw him pop up on chat every now and then and I’d see some people I got along with making fun of him here or there and so based on his posts and how seriously he would try to defend himself, I somehow thought it would be ok to join in and not like him. When I joined Paltalk and saw him on camera, that just made it worse. He would sit in a darkened room, leaned back. All I would see is from his upper lip and above. He was, like me, a bit overweight (ok I’m a fatass so sue me) and it kinda freaked me out. Couple that with his wild and aggressive flirting and I took him to be a bit of a creep.

There was a point where I said a few things to him and he’d shoot back. I don’t know if I took it personal and went for the jugular or if I just said something that maybe hit a bit too close or it could be that he had just had enough already. Either way, he really got hurt and let me know about it. He didn’t scream at me. He didn’t rant and rave about me. All he did was calm himself down and post a sobering and humbling message that let me know I’d gone too far and that he’d been hurt by what I said. I wish I could remember what that was so I could be sure to never say it to another person ever again.

Anyways, after this incident I realized what I’d done, what I’d been doing and that I’d never given this guy a fair chance so I deeply apologized and he forgave me almost immediately as if I’d never been mean to him at all. We’d team up together in PalTalk and chat. I remember one night after an episode of Uncast, Victoria and Butch and I were all drunk and having a great time. We jumped on Paltalk and we had already dropped the tops and were flashing everyone in sight. Anthony was the first one to take his shirt off and join the fun. Soon after, everyone else joined in including at least one person who would never do it again and hadn’t done it before then. It was nothing sexualized. It was just a group of friends hanging out and being silly together. We played music, we laughed, showed our elbows off and I have to say it was the most fun I had had in a long time. In fact, I’d dare say that no night of paltalk has been so crazy or epic as that one.

As I got to know him I realized that flirting and giving shit to the guys was just part of who he was. He just started off that way with us right off the bat. Some of us didn’t take it well because we didn’t know him yet and didn’t feel he should be joking like that when we weren’t close enough to make that acceptable. In the end it was just one in a long list of things we liked about him.

The thing we liked most was his personality. The man was always smiling and always so open and honest about himself. He always had a quick comeback for every insult. He always had time to spend with anyone that asked for his time. He was always there in chat, Paltalk or on the forums. He laughed a lot, made more than his fair share of lude comments and he would make fun of himself before others even got the chance. It just seemed like he was a ton of fun to be around when things were great and when someone needed to be serious he wouldn’t hesitate to drop the lolz and help them out or be there for them. I tried my best to be as supportive as I could in return but I worry now that maybe I didn’t do enough. I know, it’s normal thinking and of course I think something would have been said if that were really true and it does no good to worry now.

I wish I’d gotten on the Skype bandwagon and talked to him personally when I could. I might have to look at my skype connection and do that when I can. I think part of the reason is nerves. I get nervous talking to people I haven’t previously spoken to and I’m also not very good at making conversation so I kind of avoided the Skype thing because of that. I regret it now because maybe I could have gotten to be closer to him as a person than I was. Still, that doesn’t make his passing any easier for me.

Anthony Hartman, aka windowsanddoors aka WD aka Wad, founder and creator of /m\/m\. I’ve been shedding a lot of tears the last 12 hours and I plan on shedding a lot more before the pain has passed. He’s in a better place. He’s no longer hurting. He doesn’t struggle for breath anymore and he’s no longer limited in his travels because of his medical condition. I can take comfort in that. I can take comfort in the deep and powerful blessing from God that I got to spend some of my life with him. I will take his example and use that to change some of the ways I treat the people around me and the way I think about the world. Anthony had a buddhist philosophy and I can most definitely get behind those ideas. Now I’m a Latter-Day Saint (though often it seems I don’t act like it) but I can certainly appreciate the calm and caring way he viewed the world. He realized that people can hurt people. He realized how cruel some were and he detested it but he always strived to be the best friend and best son and best brother or whatever that he could be. He wasn’t perfect and he knew it and used it as an excuse to keep trying…to keep making himself a better person especially when it was easier to NOT be.  He was a brave man and took a lot of pain before his body finally gave out to something as simple and yet complex as pneumonia. November 12, 1985-May 26, 2008. I’m going to miss you, brother.

See? I said I wasn’t going to write a eulogy and apparently I did. Whatever. It feels weird thinking back on those who passed and how my heart reacted with each passing. The gammit was run complete. Some sent me into depression for months. Some I had hardly any reaction at all. I mean my cousin decided to end his time here earlier than I believe God had intended and yet I have shed more tears and felt more heartache for this man who’m I’ve never actually met face to face. I feel like such a terrible person but yet the facts are there and I can’t help how I react when I lose someone I care about. Sometimes the shock produces no tears and no pain. They’re just gone and that’s that. Sometimes it tears me apart. It’s not like I’ve loved any of these people more than the others (well Stephanie was a bit of a special case given the circumstances and how close we were but still) but I have to just take solace and remember the great things that each of these people gave to me and the affect their lives had on mine. There are more losses to come I’m sure. I would just be grateful if they or God would wait at least a few years.

Twenty-Five. As we get ready for the cruise, we’ll put on Return of the King in her honor and tonight’s dinner will be light but a special prayer to her in whatever she’s doing now. Even after 3 years it still hurts. I still miss her and I think I always will. The pain associated with the loss has lessened with each year but the longing really hasn’t. I’ll be going about my life and for a brief moment something will remind me of her or I’ll just think about her for some strange reason and I have to pause a moment to keep from tearing up. It’s just good knowing that the body that betrayed her is being perfected and at the moment it’s not causing her any pain since she’s free of it. I’m sure she’s hard at work doing something for the Lord and probably quite happy doing it.

I also want to ask for a special prayer for my dad. He recently had some knee surgery done and he’s in quite a bit of pain. I don’t know how many people read this and I don’t know what you all believe but if some prayers or positive thoughts could go out his way, I think it would help immensely and I know we’d both appreciate it a lot. Thanks guys.

So…not one comment on the blog since last Thanksgiving. I guess if I wrote more frequently, people would be more inclined to read and respond. I also get that some people just aren’t responders. They like to observe the world more than interact with it. That’s fine. I just like knowing that I’m not just talking to myself here.

Uncast is going strong and is more popular than ever thanks to our being mentioned on Keith and The Girl. For those who haven’t heard their show, it might be worth checking out. It makes me laugh every day and they are the most popular show on the web for a reason.

So, I’ve been gone from here for 3 weeks. I’ll be gone the rest of this week and all of next week. I’ll post when I can so you aren’t stuck reading a full synopsis of the cruise in one post. Here’s the itinerary for those who care:

Thursday: 3pm shuttle to the airport for a 5:00 flight to San Francisco. We’ll eat at Grubstake and hit the Buena Vista Cafe before heading to bed.
Friday: We’ll get up early, get some breakfast and head on the first group for Alcatraz. After that, we’ll go to the Musee Mechanique and then Scoma’s for lunch before returning to the hotel for a short rest. We’ll take a cable car down to Union Square and walk to the Virgin Megastore and Citizen Cupcake. From there it’s the ballpark to watch the Giants take on the Cardinals. I also want to hit up Buena Vista once more before we sleep. We’ll come back to the hotel and record episode 73 of Uncast before we go to sleep.
Saturday: We’ll get up, release episode 73, pack what needs to be packed and head out to Mama’s on Washington Square for breakfast. We’ll send the luggage to the ship and maybe make a trip down to Chinatown and the City Lights Bookstore before getting on The Mercury. It sets sail at 5pm. I’m sure there will be an emergency drill, a Captain’s Welcome party and some sort of entertainment preview show.
Sunday: We’ll have a sea day which means formal night at dinner and we’ll spend most of the day reading, eating and checking out the ship.
Monday: Astoria, Oregon. I’m still contemplating doing the same shore excursion we did last year but this year it’d have to be by myself which is fine. Victoria will stay on the ship. I might also…but again I’m not sure.
Tuesday: Seattle, Washington. We’ll hit up Pike Place Market and a ballgame at Safeco Field to see the Mariners take on the Royals.
Wednesday: Vancouver, BC. I believe Bart has planned on buying a trolley pass and taking a tour of the city. They want to hit a big music store of Robson St and there’s Death By Chocolate. I want to go to Japa Dog as well. Just gotta try a Terimayo hot dog with Terryaki Sauce, Fried Onions, seaweed and a beef dog.
Thursday: Victoria, BC. We only get until 2pm to enjoy this city again and it’s a shame. So, we’ll hit up some shops and Irish Times Pub for Fish and Chips before heading back to the boat.
Friday: This is our second sea day which means a second formal night. I hate formal nights. I know they’re tradition but I do not like getting dressed up.
Saturday: Back in San Francisco. We’ll grab our luggage, disembark the boad and catch a shuttle to the airport where we wait for a 2pm flight. That’s a long wait so we’ll probably use some of that time to record episode 74 of Uncast. God bless San Francisco’s citywide wifi service.

If you need evidence that perhaps Hillary Clinton might not be the best choice for President of The United States of America, then perhaps the fact that given her distant 2nd ranking in the Democratic Primaries thus far, she fails to concede and not only that had the audacity to ask Obama to be her running mate. Even when she came out and said that Obama lacks the experience to be President and also that McCain would be a better president than Obama.

Here is Obama’s answer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3t0ly12Bzk&feature=related

and here is further proof in case that wasn’t enough…

Then there was this little number by Geraldine Ferraro who has since stepped down from the Clinton campaign but certainly not because fellow-Klanswoman Hillary asked her to:

http://www.dailybreeze.com/lifeandculture/ci_8489268

Finally Keith Olbermann got into the act. Now I normally think this guy is a whiner and is nothing but a sort boil on the Democratic Party (as much as an ESPN cast-off can be) but here I think he gets it right:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xtAja20kTCA

Now let me give you this latest memo (with answers from Obama’s campaign in brackets) from the Clinton campaign which came out this morning:

http://thepage.time.com/obama-campaign-annotates-clinton-press-release/

Now after looking at this, let me ask you these four questions:

1. Does this look like the actions of a campaign that can beat John McCain?
2. Does this look like a candidate that will be ready on Day 1?
3. Is this the type of President that you want to pick up the phone in a crisis?
4. Does this look like the actions and words of a person fit to lead our country?

As our reward for renewing our lease with the apartment complex where we live, the management company decided to bestow upon us a free carpet cleaning. My first thought was, “how nice of them.” Then I started to think about all the furniture that had to be moved, random loose items picked up, the dusting, the vacuuming and then what to do with the cat while they cleaned our carpet.

The day drew closer and with each passing day and each chore put off for the next day, I started to wonder if perhaps this carpet cleaning “gift” wasn’t such a good idea. The last couple of days before the cleaning were going to be a real pain and I really only had myself to blame. Still, with all the stains on the carpet from dying our hair, from spilling drinks or food or just foot traffic in general, surely it would be worth it in the end. What could possibly go wrong?

March 1st comes and the cleaners are supposed to be knocking on our door somewhere between noon and 2pm. We spend the previous night moving the coffee table, end tables, boxes of loose items and the bench from the dining room into our bedroom. The morning of the 1st we move all our loose items and light dining room furniture into the kitchen along with the dining room table and our lounging chair from the living room. All other items are placed in the bedroom and by noon I’m tired, sweating and cranky. As I prepare the vacuum for one last run across the carpet, I hear a knock on the door. Great. They’re early.

The cleaner goes outside to search for a spigot he can hook up to. He returns to report that both of the spigots within the hoses reach of our apartment are broken. He will either have to call a maintenance worker to fix them or if I have a washing machine in the apartment, he can get started right away. What do you know, I do have a washing machine in the apartment and I let him know. His face lights up a bit and he goes out to get the hose.

He returns a short time later, reaches behind the washing machine, turns the valve on the spigot to off so he can unhook the machine. He proceeds to turn the head on the hose to loosen it off the spigot when all of a sudden, the head snaps due to the pressure of the water that now begins pouring out of the spigot. He slams the hose back on the spigot and tries turning the valve the other way just in case he had it wrong. Nope, that just makes it come out faster. So with the valve not functioning properly and the head on the hose busted, the curses and screams start. He asks me to call the office which I do with no answer. Apparently they all each lunch between noon and 1pm and leave no one behind to answer phones. SO, he asks me to hold the hose in place while he runs out to find a maintenance worker.

I never had any idea how hard and fast the water comes out of these spigots. It’s much harder than what you can get out of your sink or shower. It was a bit of a struggle keeping the hose in place so that at least a majority of the water went into the hose. Still, by the time he returned with help, I was soaked. The maintenance worker shut off water to the building and they both stood in amazement looking at this thing and wondering how it possibly didn’t function as it was supposed to. Meanwhile I’m walking around the apartment soaking wet, the carpet in the hall and about 6 inches into the bedroom is soaked and the washer/dryer closet is flooded as much as the drain in the middle of the closet will allow.

So it turns out the worker doesn’t have the part to replace the valve so that will have to wait until Monday. In the meantime he screws on some sort of lock or whatever so that when he turns the water back on, it won’t come out of that faucet. The carpet cleaner proceeds to rip up the carpet and tear out the soaked padding. He comes in with a wet-vac and sucks up as much of the water as he can. He then leaves saying that as soon as that valve is replaced, he’ll come back to put in new padding, clean up the w/d room and clean our carpets. Well, that’s not exactly how it turned out.

Monday morning we put the cat in the bedroom and shut the door.  We come home and find out the carpet has been cleaned (the outside spigots must have been fixed) and the washing machine is still broken. We call the office and find out they had to go out and get the parts late in the day and didn’t get back in time to replace them. Well, at least now the carpet is clean, the padding is replaced and the w/d room is clean.

Tuesday we get home and we find that the washing machine has a new valve, new head on the hose and is working properly. All is finally well. What should have taken 1-2 hours has taken the better part of three days. What craziness.

Looks like God is mad at Tennessee and Arkansas for voting for Huckabee:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17919734

Start worrying Alabama, West Virginia and Georgia. He’s coming for you next.

Kentucky and Mississippi, that was a warning shot. Do not disappoint The Lord.

The New England Patriots are ….

18 - 1!!!

HA HA HA HA! WTG you arrogant bastards!

Last night an old friend passed. Last night a mentor and teacher left this world and as some could say was “called home”. I know that I haven’t been very active in church and some would say I’ve pulled myself pretty far from the church but it’s always been there. I’ve always identified myself as a Latter-Day Saint and I think I always will.

Whether or not one considers themselves a Latter-Day Saint, I believe no one who has met Gordon B. Hinckley can honestly say that he was anything but an upstanding individual. This was a man whom I admired. Even when I fell off the standard and even as I continue to drink on occasion or skip church or what have you, this man was the standard by which I wanted to measure myself especially as a husband and I hope soon, as a father.

Todays news of his death has hit me kinda hard. I knew he was old. I knew he’d been sick more and more over the last couple years and had I been going to church and paying attention, I’m guessing this wouldn’t have been such a shock to me. All I can say is my prayers and thoughts go out to his family both temporally and spiritually. We’re going to miss having him around. We’ll miss hearing him share in his wisdom but we know that when our time comes and our journeys in this life are through, perhaps…just perhaps we’ll see him again. Either way the man is in for an eternity of joy. Only God can deny him of that now.

Well 2008 has come and it’s now more than two weeks old and I have yet to summarize New Years Eve or New Years Day, the trip home, the drama between friends, updates on Uncast or anything else for that matter.

So on to the trip.

The Vegas strip on NYE can best be described with the following flash images: The obvious casinos, hotels, flashing lights and stores. Add to that Mexicans flicking cards with barely dressed (or fully nude) women on them at passersby, others trying to sell t-shirts and tacky personal party ornaments (flashy hats, beads, silly string, horns, etc), two gallon translucent measuring cups with “Budweiser” on the side sold for $8 on the street, lots of Asians who are confused as to where they are or where they want to go, lots of teens with parents looking like they don’t want to be involved, college kids on vacation looking for booze and chicks, business men in suits doing what the college kids are doing, babies in strollers, the slight hint of pot in the air (No wait…that’s vomit…smells like someone got started early), and cold. A lot of cold in fact.

So now that you have an accurate picture of the strip, let’s go into our trip. We got to the travellodge around 12:40pm or so. Las Vegas Blvd was already backed up and turning into the parking lot with all the pedestrian traffic was damn near impossible. We park in a lot behind the hotel, go up an elevator that’s made of aluminum at best and probably hasn’t seen an inspection since the Nixon administration, into a room where we have to slam the hotel door in order to close it, crack stains on the bathroom floor and I don’t even want to think about what’s on the comforters.

We get a couple text messages letting us know lunch will be at the America Restaurant in the NY/NY Hotel & Casino with Keith, Chemda, Brother Love and a few listeners. Turns out to be a great time as we meet with the DaHonays, The Grundle, Memecherry, Legion, Mikey, Eric and Brad. BTW, we didn’t see Brad again all weekend. Odd. The burger that Victoria and I shared was good. On the way out Victoria had to shoot a pic of their sign “You are now leaving America”. Huh?

So we head back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. We start to get ready but then realize something is missing. The bag with our personals and hygenic items isn’t here. I run down to the car and lo and behold, we left the bag at home in San Diego. No toothbrushes, hairbrushes, mousse, shampoo, body wash, nothing. We would make a trip out to Walgreen’s after sound check and pick up all that stuff.

Sound check is at 5pm so we head down there and after some apprehension I get myself in pretty easily by talking to security. I video tape a disaster of a sound check and we all leave a little bit more frozen and a lot confused as to what shit might sound like later that night. I get my orders to return on stage at 9:45 to tape the concert.

At this point Victoria, Aldo and I decide to take in some dinner and settle on Chin Chin’s. Our waitress from Belarus takes our orders and plays herself off as fun but then ends our dining experience by telling us not to do anything to bring shame on our families. OK. Not a chance in hell we’ll follow that advice. Still, the pineapple fried rice and peanut noodles are amazing so we’ll be back.

Describing the feeling of being backstage on New Years Eve at a concert in Vegas is a bit difficult. Well, to be honest, it felt natural. Yes, at first I was a little apprehensive about going into the green room because I figured BroLo and Chemda would be focusing and prepping themselves for the performance and the last thing they needed was me coming in to break their concentration. Couldn’t be further from the truth. They welcomed me with open arms (literally) and the band didn’t even notice I was there until just before the third set.

So I walk the band to the stage via cam, part the curtain at the back of the stage, walk on stage and immediately I’m struck with two impulses. First is to cower in the corner (which I do for the first song) taping the concert. The other is to grab a mic and join in on backup vocals. Now I don’t think I have a voice to lead a band but I can carry a tune and I have a decent range so backup isn’t out of the realm. Still, that’s not what I was brought on stage for, so I swallow that impulse and get to doing what I’ve been asked to do.

Paradise City pops in. The whistle, the drums, the girls singing backup, it was all there. They play Brother Love’s song “Push” and halfway through a verse, BroLo steps back and his legs get entangled in the monitor on the stage and he goes tumbling backwards. “I told you I’d fall!” and he laughs but doesn’t miss a word.

Second set they have the crowd in their hands and Brother Love plays four of his own songs in a row and the crowd eats it like candy. Chemda re-writes “Back In Black” by rocking that song harder than AC/DC. Is that even possible? Must be cause it happened. We say goodbye to 2007 with some Poison and “Talk Dirty To Me” as Chemda brings Keith on stage. Amazing. I stand there on stage trying to get footage of the fireworks but all I am thinking is “I’m on stage, at a major venue (to me), in front of thousands of people, in Las Vegas, on New Years Eve, ringing in the new year”. I hug Brother Love. I hug Chemda. I hug varios band mates. I even hug some dude who was standing on the front of the stage but who I’d never seen before and didn’t see after. This is when it clicks in my head that I haven’t kissed Victoria yet.

I look down and spot Victoria getting hugs from people and I jump off stage to give her the biggest kiss of my life. We hug, sway, hold each other and finally I stumble my fat ass back on stage to do some more hugging and go back to the green room. On the way, a couple of ladies point my way and scream out. I do an obligatory “OWWWW! Happy New Year!” a little devil sign and head into the green room. OMG I rock so hard.

So after the show we hang out at the Nine Fine Gentlemen Irish Pub at the NY/NY Hotel & Casino with the DaHonays, The Grundle and Memecherry while waiting for the stars to arrive. Apparently the DaHonays have left all their booze in The Grundle’s room and The Grundle and Memecherry are having issues getting into the room with his card. Once the party arrives, we head upstairs to a tiny little room. There’s about 16 of us and room to seat 12. The DaHonays stand against the one lone empty wall and that wall is JUST long enough to fit 3 people side by side so Victoria takes the last spot by the door leaving me standing IN the doorway so that I can be in the way when people need to come and go.

After about 15 minutes of this, Corey comes in to see BroLo and tells him the surprise is ready and he can bring two friends. Naturally, he grabs Keith and Chemda and they head out which frees up 3 seats so the DaHonays sit down. Someone else comes in and sits down and we hang out for a bit. Mr DaHonay gets up and arrives shortly after with drinks that he’d bought for them AND (Surprise!) two extras for Victoria and I. NOICE! Sooo grateful!

Then Chemda comes barreling into the room and goes, “C’mon guys! They gave us a penthouse suite!” We sit there for a moment completely confused. Then we beam, scream and get out of the room. We all follow Chemda to the Empire elevator and up to the 40th floor where she had a key to the smaller bedroom. We hang out there for a bit until Keith barrels through the door and goes “Well what are ya doin in there? C’mon in!”

We head into the main part of the suite and Chemda makes us move the chairs and stuff into a circle so we can all hang out together and talk. Drinks are made, The DaHonays are re-married and shortly afterwards Mr DaHonay and The Grundle head back to the other room to get their alcohol. When they get there, it turns out Legion was asleep in their room and so they wake him up and bring him back with them. He was so drunk that he’d fallen asleep in the Casino and Memecherry had helped him back up to The Grundle’s room before he got kicked out. Now he was heading up to some strange place and he was as confused as hell.

SO they come back, Mr DaHonay pours champagne, we all toast to the new year and we hang out until about 7ish in the morning. All I know is the sun came up, we ordered room service, it was terrible and then Chemda said “Hey guys. What do you think about we make today today and we make later today another day?”

So we get up and leave, head down to the casino towards Las Vegas Blvd and I smell pot. Hmm Odd. Victoria puts a dollar in a slot machine and wins $3.25 on the first spin. She cashes out and we keep walkin out to the pedestrian bridge. We get across the street and there’s a group of young Mexican gentlemen hanging out. The scent of pot gets stronger and I’m thinking “Oh! They’re smoking out! That’s awesome!” and we walk towards the hotel. A few minutes later I smell it again and I’m like, “There’s no one around me but Victoria. Where’s that sm…oh yeah. It’s me. Cool.”

So we stumble down the wet and sticky street, back to the room and crash out. We both wake up around 2pm and I’m in more pain than I’ve ever felt in my life. I want to scream out but my mouth and throat hurt. I want to see if I’m injured but the inside of my eyelids hurt too much to open my eyes. I want to move so that I can find something with which to kill myself but I can’t move. So about 2 hours later, Victoria gets some naproxin sodium and about 30 minutes from that I finally start to feel better. So we decide to head out for dinner. ..The MGM Grand Hotel’s buffet.

The buffet was expensive ($34 a person) but delicious. There was sushi, Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, kids fare, BBQ, a meat station, pastry and breads station, dessert and other great things like salads of all kinds and soups. It was very tasty. Afterwards we start to walk through the casino and the hotel’s main drag of stores. We see the lions they keep there and I snapped a few pics.

We walked most of the way through the hotel when we realized we were going to just have to walk all the way back through the hotel again so we headed over to a cigar bar called “Rouge” where I watched Georgia destroy Hawaii and I had myself my first Isley scotch…a Lopphraig 15-year old scotch. Peppery, clean and nice. I could taste the wood and it was cool. It’s not Johnny Blue but it’s still awesome.

Afterwards, we head to the M&M store, the Grand Canyon Experience, then over to the NY/NY to hand the DaHonay’s their camcorder. On the way through the casino, Victoria turns her $3.25 in winnings into $9.75. Then she turns $5 of that into $11.75. So she turned $6 into $19. Very good work. We notice Keith at a poker machine with Chemda and BroLo hanging out next to them and we say hello before heading to Chin Chins where we’re supposed to meet the DaHonays.

When we get there, we meet up with The Grundle and talk for a bit. The DaHonays arrive, we hand off the camcorder and head back to our hotel room because we’re feeling a bit in the mood and it’s 2008 and we haven’t had our sex yet. So we get there, hang out, check email and the forums and soon we realize…we STILL haven’t fucked. So we get that out of the way and by the time we’re done we crash out again and wake up on the 2nd.

After waking up, we gather our shit, I put a majority of it in the car and we head out to the Paris Hotel for breakfast buffet. Let’s just say they have the best crepes there that I’ve ever had in my life. They were freshly made in front of me with fresh blueberries inside and I poured strawberry topping on top. AWESOME.

After breakfast we get a text from the DaHonays. The Mrs got sick so she’s not going to make it but we’ll have Legion joining us. So they head over to our room and we record an episode of Uncast together using my Zoom H2. It turns out well, we say good bye and load up the car with the last of our things then drive out around 12:30. 48 hours in Vegas was just about enough but those 48 hours are the best of my life!

Then there was the ride home. Over 7 hours, a six mile line at the California Agricultural Inspection and then rush hour traffic through San Bernardino, Ontario, etc. and finally home to a cat that missed us SOOO much. Really, was there a more rockstar way to start a year?

This has been a pretty normal Christmas season and yet it hasn’t been.

We have our normal late gift shopping, financial woes, lack of planning, trips cancelled or altered, heart warming family moments, heart freezing family moments, stress, crowds, colds, a persistent cough, baking and gift exchanges.

This year we added a new car (Silver 2007 Honda Accord SE V6) and the events surrounding the holidays just totally don’t make sense. When did I move backwards? When did I start acting 16 again? Why do I say this? Just trust me. I feel bad enough. I don’t want to go through it all. Just know next year will be different. I’m not going to feel like this next year. I won’t let that happen.

Christmas is coming and it will be enjoyed but there’s going to be saddened hearts all around and I’m admitting now that it’s mostly my fault. Should have managed funds better, been more responsible, gotten a new car sooner, kept in touch with family, etc. All of these things I’ll take care of properly next year. I’m not going to feel like this again.

Now, if I could have a little time to make some lists so that come January 1st, I can start the year right, I’d appreciate it. Thanks folks. And Merry Christmas.