What can I say really? This trip has been one of the most adventuresome and large scale things that I've done in a long while. I really have to say that things have gone as smoothly as I could have ever expected. The only issues have really been occasional uncertainties in meeting up with people, most of which have resolved themselves given enough time and a moderate amount of persistence on my part.

The pattern of me having to take the planning initiative has continued to unfold. This isn't all that unexpected in this instance tho, as I'm the one sailing through the everyday lives of all the people I visit on this trip.

This is overall a pretty momentus trip in scope, which I am partaking of right now. On one hand, I am the first person to visit both my friend John from high school, and Jeneanne and Johan in their respective new homes. On the other hand, I am meeting 4 other journalers for the first time during my trip. All this is combining to make this quite the historical event. Allow me to provide a bit of chronology and thoughts on my journey.

My last day in Cleveland consisted of a lot of packing. I was finishing my moving out of the house and packing for my trip at the same time. I ended up taking a final trip with stuff to my parents house at the last minute. I got back from that about 1 AM. From that point I threw last papers into boxes, packed everything for my trip, washed dishes, and spent a long while trying to screw my glasses together with random objects aafter the popped apart as I was going to sleep. I ended up getting a mere two hours of sleep before having to get up and ready for my flight.

I had a burdened walk to the Rapid station, and got myself to the airport moderately later than my hope. The plane trip was nice, with mostly sunny weather. I flew over Detroit and Yellowstone, among many other sights and natural wonders. I had the good fortune to be seated near a gentleman who enjoyed comparing the view from the plane to a map with me, to see where we were. The 5 hour flight passed fairly quickly, and I arrived in Seattle around 11 AM Friday.

I have to admit that Seattle was a very nice place. The city is fairly clean and not run down for the most part. There are tons of parks within the city itself, giving a much greener and more natural landscape than many urban areas. There seems to be a lot of cultural events, and a lot of cultural diversity as well. The Capitol Hill area, which is generally the center of gay culture for the city, was very welcoming, and a place that I grew comfortable in over the time I was there. And of course, I find that I have a number of friends in Seattle, whom I could enjoy a good foundation for social life if I lived there. My visit definitely didn't remove Seattle from my list of possible places to live.

The difficult thing about Seattle is that housing can potentially be a very expensive prospect. It's not nearly as bad as a lot of California, as I would later find out, but I think it makes most of Ohio look downright cheap. The thing that bothers me is that the housing prices really come down to location more than anything else. Though that makes sense from an economic standpoint, it doesn't make any sense for me. I can't see myself paying thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars for a nice view or the like. I spend my money on more rooms or better construction, not whether I can see the lake or mountain outside my window. As long as I don't have to look at anything particularly disgusting, and I can get to work and the stores without major trauma, the details of the location are somewhat irrelevant to me.

Anyways, that's enough of my rant on housing prices. I'm supposed to be telling all about how exciting and fun my trip was (which it was!)

At this point I should point out that the weather was sunny and warm nearly the entire extent of time I was in Seattle. I am to understand that this is highly abnormal for Seattle, but I'm not complaining since it made my stay that much better. Someone was no doubt smiling down upon me this week!

I got to see a good amount of the city during my five days in town. Robb toured me through a good bit of downtown and up to Capitol Hill when I first arrived. We had lunch at a nifty mexican restaurant (which had good hot salsa, BTW). We checked out various gay themed stores before wandering our way over to Volunteer Park. The park is seemingly a wonderous cruising place, but was just lovely for watching hot guys sunning themselves (not trying to pick them up), which we did for quite some time.... In my limited experience, I've not often had the opportunity to really be surrounded by gay culture in a natural relaxed setting. Everything was so unforced and pleasant. I also think that my comfort level is rising at the same time that I'm broadening my experiences.

I got plenty of experience broadening at the Seattle Pride Parade on Sunday. In all honesty, it wasn't really that strange of an event. Standing in the crowd, waiting for the parade to start, I probably could have been in any prade crowd. There weren't many exceptionally butt-ugly people, and there was a general lack of small annoying children, but that was about the extent of difference. Just a bunch of people gathering together and festivating. Along the same lines, the parade wasn't all that wierd....admittedly, it did begin with Dykes on Bikes, and had the leather men and drag queens, but the vast majority of parade marchers were the religious, social, political, and community groups and businesses.

The Parade was pretty huge....the crowd estimate was around 75,000 people. The parade itself lasted for two and a half hours. I settled myself into a nice spot by a big metal utilities access box on the street edge. Since I didn't bother moving the entire time, I gave myself a rather nasty sunburn on my face which is now mostly mended. I got to see Mickey marching with Queercore, a group he's involved with in Seattle. I rather wish that I had someone to hang out with to enjoy the parade, but I spent the time by myself. I didn't feel quite so alone in the crowd as I sometimes do tho, since everyone was really getting into the parade, but it would have been much better to have a bit of social interaction with my friends during that time.

After the parade, Mickey and I partook of food at the post-parade festival and scouted around the booths belonging to various groups and merchants. Of course we admired the cute bois all around. I got to meet various of Mickey's acquaintences, one of whom was very cute, but Mickey couldn't remember his name....oh well. I picked up lots of various literatures from different groups, especially the Seattle Green Party. I need to think strongly about getting more political now that I'm done with school.

I had an opportunity to interact with all the Washingtonian journalers together on Saturday night. We went over to Ken's house and met up with Robb and Chad and Arti. True to form, where Arti is, a party materializes. I bonded with Arti and Robb at first, while Mickey was volunteering at a pride party with Queercore. I got a chance to show off some of my pictures that don't get posted up here cause I take a lot of pictures. Eventually Ken's cousin brought two turntables (but no microphone...hehe) and spun good music for us, and various other showed up and partied with us. We got some beer and wine and I festivated happily with much wine in me. Wine is my happy alcohol. I also got wine all over Ken's microwave trying to pull the cork out the second time....oops.

The really interesting thing about the Seattle leg of my trip was getting to spend a lot of time with Mickey. I wasn't expecting to do that when I was planning the trip, but as things evolved, that was what I did. The first evening we drove out to Alki Beach and had fish and chips and admired the water. Sunday after the parade we went shopping around Capitol Hill. I got some extremely nifty clubwear for myself. I think that I look extremely good in it, and evidently Mickey did too.....hehe. It's exciting to have some new stuff to wear when I go out next....hopefully I'll turn a few heads. After that we went to a bead shop and Mickey got some stuff to make me a necklace to rember the trip with.

We had dinner at a pizza place with Mickey's friend Aaron, who is a Chemical Engineer like me. I'm sure we bored Mickey to tears at a few points with all our technical talk and whatnot. Aaron was a pretty neat-o guy. You can tell the quality of a person by the quality of their friends I think. Mickey took me up to a tall hill on the north end of the city where we could look down on everything all lit up in the dark. We had dinner with Aaron again on Tuesday night at a nice restaurant whose name I can't recall.

When I left, Mickey took me up to Lake Washington in the evening on the way to John's house. We had a long time to talk and sit in the dark on a pier, listening to the water lap up against it. Mickey gave me a couple of nice gifts, including the necklace he made. I really have to admit that it is a very beautiful piece of jewelery. It's a very simple design of hematite and steel beads with a couple blue and purple multicolor beads in the center. I've been wearing it all the time since then.

Going into this trip, I barely felt like I knew Mickey at all in some ways. He was only one of the various people I was focussed on meeting in Seattle. That he ended up being my primary host in Seattle was very fortunate, in that we got to know a great deal about each other. We had all kinds of fun hanging out and touring around the city....shopping and eating out and spending time talking about our lives. I now feel like I have a true friend instead of a somewhat ephemeral acquaintence. Now when we ICQ or e-mail or talk, I can truly relate in a close way.

I got a couple days to spend time with my friend John from home. He is now living out in Redmond working for a biotech company, as of a few weeks ago. On Saturday I met John downtown at the Pike Place Market to tour around the city for the day. We toured through the market for a while, getting to see the fishmongers and various fresh food and craft marketers. After the market, we took time to walk all around the city, taking in the different stores and public places. We had a late lunch at Wolfgang Puck's, one of several restaurants owned owned by the famous chef of the same name. We had a most wonderful pizza there with fresh basil and other wonderful ingredients on it. It was a lovely dining experience.

I also stayed over John's Monday and Tuesday nights. We ate at an Italian restaurant in Redmond and I bought a bottle of wine made at a local winery to take home. We had some good bonding time watching some DVDs and I shared my MP3 collection with him and got a few different MP3s for myself in the process.

Wednesday morning, John drove me to the airport bright and early, and I eventually found myself on a plane to San Francisco. The flight was uneventful, and Jeneanne picked me right up when I arrived. We got to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge on the way up to Santa Rosa. I helped Jeneanne with stocking the house with groceries, since they only returned from their honeymoon a couple days ago. We made a good angel hair with meat sauce for dinner when Johan got home from his first day of work. They also had two new kittens that were so cute! We played with them whenever we were not out on the road somewhere. Theliked to chace this little feather on a stick, and would leap around doing all kinds of acrobatics.

For Wednesday evening, we drove up to Bodega Bay to see the ocean. The waves were rolling in, and despite it being what I would consider somewhat chilly, there were plenty of amateur survers out in their wetsuits. There were some pretty cute guys from what I could see so I wasn't complaining. It was beautiful seeing the sun set as the waves came crashing into shore. I got myself a little wet when I was trying to take a picture, as a wave came in quite a bit further than I expected and I couldn't back off fast enough. It was a very Monty Python "Run Away!" sort of moment.

Thursday, Jeneanne and I spent most of the day out wine tasting at various Sonoma County wineries. We went north of Santa Rosa to Healdsburg, starting off at Kendall Jackson Store downtown for a wine tasting. It only cost $2, and we got seven varieties a wine glass out of it. We had a wonderful lunch at this little cafe/ grocery on the town square called and then proceeded down the road further north to other wineries. We took a lovely tour at Simi, and did tastings at Clos Du Bois, Canyon Road, and Geyser Peak. The tour was interesting (I now know what a bung hole is....heh heh....I am cornholio and I need TP for my bung hole!) and the entire day only cost us two dollars and the price of lunch. That is value, I daresay!

I ended up buying four bottles of wine, in addition to the Reisling that I got up in Redmond WA when I visited John. I got a Rose from Simi, a Chardonnay from Canyon Road, and a Dry Reisling and Opulence, a dessert wine, from Geyser Peak. Jeneanne and Johan are thinking of taking his parents wine tasting when they come to visit in a few weeks.

I rode the bus into San Francisco Friday morning to meet up with Natarajan and Paul, two of the Tippit gang. We walked about the city for a bit and had lunch at a nice Italian restaurant before meeting up with Rob and his boyfriend Brent at the Sony Metreon, a sort of high tech mall.

Rob and Brent took me around the city to see more of the sights. We eventually headed up to the Castro to give me a comparative glimpse of the gay area of the quintessential gay city. We wandered the shops and got refreshments from a cafe. We took the trolley to the Castro and back, and I got to watch the guys going to and from a gym there while we waited for the ride back.....hehe.

I slept for most of the drive back to Monterey. I have to say that the whole trip really took a lot out of me. I was so scattered in my sleeping with my early flight times and my high activity level. We dropped Brent at his place on the way back. It was very neat to meet Brent. I'm still not totally sure of what to make of him because he was very quiet most of the time. I did get to notice Brent and Rob sharing little quiet moments together now and then throughout the day. Brent seems like a very nice guy tho, and the two of them seemed very much happy together.

On Saturday, Rob took me out to explore the Monterey area in all its glory. I couldn't have asked for a better host or guide for the area. Rob was able to provide all sorts of details and insight into the Monterey area that only a native could provide. I got to learn all the little details of the area that guidebooks and tours won't give you, plus I got the very polished delivery that Rob provides. He should charge money for his tours!

He started out at the Monterey Aquarium, which has to be one of the highlights of my trip. The whole place is so neat and fun, and does a tremendous job of merging the Monterey Bay aquatic life into a form accessible to the public. I could spend all day talking about it, but you are best advised to go see it for yourself.

After the aquarium we walked down the Cannery Row, and Rob explained to me some more of the area history. We had lunch at a nice restaurant in one of the beachfront hotels....a tall beer and burger....yum! In the afternoon we drove out along the coast to Big Sur to see the rocky oceanside cliffs and famous roads and fancy real estate. We made reservations for a fancy dinner in Spanish Bay at 9:30, so drove our way through the nice neighborhoods in Carmel and stopped by Pebble Beach on the way. We took some pictures by the various holes so I can show the relatives.

Dinner was exquisite. The service was very good, and Rob made them work by being very particular about the wine <Zup grins>. We had bruschetta and a wonderful caesar salad, and I had braised duck with ribbon noodles. That was the first time I had tried duck ever, and it was very tasty. I don't think I've ever eaten quite that fancy a meal, so it was a totally delightful experience.

We spent the evening just talking and hanging out. Rob played DJ and put on a bunch of music on his stereo while I finished up a puzzle he had been building. Rob says there are rules to puzzle-building, but I told him I learned to puzzle-build dirty from my family. Every Christmas we spend most of a day putting together all the multi-thousand piece puzzles that my aunts receive as gifts. I know how to persevere through the hardships that would test many men's courage....LOL

On Sunday we got ourselves out to the Carmel Valley and hiked up a nice little mountain. It was almost 2,000 feet change in elevation, which I've not done anything like for quite some time. I have to go back and look to see how tall Mount Baldy was at Philmont Scout Reservation in New Mexico. I can't remember offhand. I think that Rob got a good workout for his mountain excursion later this year. I know I had fun getting out into the wilderness. We also had a deep talk about all kinds of stuff, most significantly my attempt to articulate a bit about the Green Party. On the way to the airport that evening we stopped at In-N-Out Burger to taste some truly distinctive California burger cuisine.

I also really have to thank all of my friends for being gracious and beyond generous in sharing their time and the hospitality of their homes, as well as being materially supportive of me at some points. I really felt bad about people spending money on me at times, but I tried to be gracious and accept it as my friends taking good care of me. What made my travels so great was that I had friends to show me around instead of going on a bunch of impersonal touristy things. I promise that once I have a job and place of my own, I'll be more than happy to host any of you for a vacation. With luck it might be in Ohio so I can do a bit of showing off of my home state in all its wonder.

Yee-ha!!! I just got back from the Red White and Boom! fireworks display in downtown Columbus. What a spiffy way to celebrate the 4th of July (the 3rd actually, but who's counting). It's totally luck that I ended up here for the celebration this year. I was expecting to miss it while I was on the West Coast, but I saw a message from my friend Karen (who's now in Columbus) while I was checking messages on the road. Who am I to miss a tradition that's now 4 years running for me?

The fireworks are billed as the largest and best in the midwest, and I truly believe it. I can say that they are the best I have ever seen anywhere, and they tend to have the newesttypes of fireworks. I'm not sure of the number of people who were downtown this year, as it was rainy most of the day keeping some people away, but I know that they topped a million a year or two ago.

WNCI 97.9 FM is the big sponsor of the event, which makes it all the better since they are one of my favorite radio stations. When I was working down here, I listened to them religiously, and I still look forward to driving to or through Columbus just so I can switch them on.

The fireworks show is actually choreographed to music that they broadcast on the radio, which makes it great to listen and watch from anywhere in the city. There's all the wonderful carnival food and a parade and all that. This year's fireworks were not the best because the air was moving just slightly towards the crowds, so the smoke from the display obscured almost everything after the first half of the show. Still, it was fun and exciting....definitely one of the highlights of the summer for me, as usual.

So, anyhow, my flight back from San Francisco was less than wonderful, in fact, up until I left for Columbus, my day was pretty shitty overall. I intended to get sleep on the plane, but everything was all wrong. The plane was way hot for some reason, and very uncomfortable. Then, I couldn't find any good position to rest in, I was always worried about bumping the old lady next to me, and sometimes her sleeve would brush up against me, waking me up. On top of all that, there were a number of children who incessantly insisted on crying loudly. It was nothing short of horror.

On arrival in Cleveland I got my bags and boarded the Rapid for home. Thankfully no bags got lost. The bad thing here was trying to walk home. For starters, I must have stressed my right knee just a bit much when I went hiking with Rob, because it was not at all pleased to have weight on it. It probably didn't help that I was twisting my leg in various angles on the plane looking for a comfortable position. All the extra weight from the wine plus the fact that I was carrying my bags uphill this time did not help things either.

Then, true to form, the Cleveland weather struck. As soon as I got out into the open air, it started raining on me. I had hope to beat the heavy rain, but all the weight slowed me down and required frequent rest stops. So, as I was about halfway down my street, the torrential downpour, with appropriately dramatic thunder and lightning, kicked in. I soon realized that even the dry spots beneath trees were not going to help me this time, so, fairly wet, I got under the nearest house porch quickly to wait it out. About 30 minutes later, it slowed enough for me to walk the rest of the way home.

I collapsed onto the sofa about 8 AM; only two hours after I arrived at the airport. I struggled a lot to get myself to sleep, but once I surrendered consciousness, I slept until 1 PM, giving me some well needed rest. After that, it was a bit of laundry, a bit of repacking, and the drive to Columbus to meet up with Karen and Chris for the fireworks.

On a related note as to why I like Columbus, I truly think that it can challenge Seattle or anywhere else for numbers of cute bois. For instance, take your normal parade or carnival or festival. When you think about it, don't they always have about 90% of the butt-ugliest white trash in the universe flocking there? Yeah, it's true....for all the joy of celebrations, they bring the freaks out of the woodwork. Well, I really do believe that in Columbus today (and in general) there were more hot people than there were uglies. This is a wonderful thing.

I told Rob (and others) that he really needs to come visit me in Ohio. I can show off the wonderfulness of my home just as well as anyone else can show off theirs. There is as much cool fun things around here as there are in any other state in the USA. I'm going to plead with you all to try and find a way to come visit me once I settle into a job (assuming it's in Ohio). Ok, enough of my desperate attempts to broaden peoples' horizons.

Anyhow, I'm going to try to get in touch with Allen in the morning and see if he's up for hanging out for a few hours. After that I need to get back to Cleveland to grab my remaining stuff and drag it home. Wednesday, I will probably be starting work for my parents. I need to get some more income if I am going to pay off my credit card bill at the end of the month. I'll also be looking for a more permanent job at the same time. I don't exactly relish living with my parents for long, especially since I'm so far from the rest of civilization in many ways.

As for the rest of the month, I'll be back to Columbus in two weeks for the Origins RPG convention. I'll be hanging out with Allen and some of his friends for part of that. I'm also looking forward to seeing Shades of Gray perform on the 31st. This is the first time they will have done a performance since December, so I can't miss it if at all possible. I'm also going to be seeing Chicago and Survivor in concert sometime, tho I forget if it's July or August. I think a bunch of my college friends are going. Ooh, and I need to get out dancing very soon with Andrew so I can try out my sexy new clubwear that I got in Seattle.

Howdy all! I apologise for not writing in over two weeks. I was dealing with some pent up anger and frustrations that were preventing me from writing rationally. I don't like to spout off emotionally in my journal, as you're all well aware, so I gave various situations a bit of time to work themselves out, and I'm feeling much better at this point.

Here's a quick update on my life since my last entry on the 4th. Basically, I moved all my remaining stuff back to my parents' house that week. I've gotten the computer and my clothing and some books set up in the guest bedroom for now, until I find the job I'm looking for. It's a bit cramped, but I'm managing ok. The small amount of time I spend in my room is either at the computer or sleeping anyhow.

I'm also started working for my parents for the time being. I need to make up the cash that I spent on my trip out West so I can afford an apartment whenever I find my real job in the next couple months. I'm not exactly enjoying the work, but I did it before, and I'll do it again. There was a reason that I went into engineering and not horticulture. I enjoy a bit of gardening on the side, as a hobby and source for some fresh herbs and vegetables, but I'm not all that into slaving away in the fields for the rest of my life....I'll let my parents do that. In any case, I like the feeling of getting my weekly paychecks at the moment, so I'm pretty happy.

Two weekends ago I went back out to Cecil house to hang out with my former roomies. I broke open one of the bottles of wine from California with Andrew and some of his friends. We hung out and did a bit of drinking, but nothing to exorbitant. I just needed a bit of social time for the week. I also got together with Jeff and Jamie and our friend Melissa one evening later that week. We just built a bonfire and sat ourselves down for an evening to talk over what's been up in our lives in the past year or so. I haven't had a chance to catch up with old friends in a long time, so that was nice.

Last weekend, I took Friday off of work and drove down to Columbus Thursday night. It was time for the big event, the Origins 2000 gaming convention. I've made a tradition of attending Origins since I lived down in Columbus in 1997. It happens to be one of the big three gaming conventions in the country, right up there with Gen-Con and Dragon-Con, and conveniently just down the highway from me.

I stayed with Allen and his friends at the Crown Plaza hotel across from the convention center, which made for convenient transitions from sleep to convention mode and back. I was only able to go to Origins for Friday, so I tried to make the best of the time I had. I usually buy a lot of gaming books and other items, but with my limited funds this year, I managed to not buy anything, but spent a lot of time in the Dealers room looking at stuff I want to eventualy buy when I have a bit more financial fluidity. I got to see some new stuff from Profantasy, the makers of the Campaign Cartographer program I bought last month.

I got to see Shades of Gray perform for the first time in six months tonight. I tried amazingly hard to find someone to go see them with me but to no avail through about half a dozen people. I had planned to rant on how people never want to do something when I invite them, even though *I* go do a lot of stuff for and with other people. I'm not going to though, because Shades of Gray is uplifting and energising for me, and puts me in a good mood. I guess it's their loss, because I certainly feel wonderful after seeing the concert.

The concert was out in Lakewood, which was a new experience for me because I've only seen Shades of Gray perform at Arabica on campus. They actually had a lot of their friends play some different stuff also this time around. It was neat to hear some of the music performed with some orchestral accompaniment. They got very much into some of their social activism during the show, a bit moreso than I've seen in the past. It was very refreshing and uplifting. I think that someday if I run for office under the Green Party I will ask Shades of Gray to play at some benefit or rally for me.

On the subject of the Green Party, I really need to look more into their politics. Johan e-mailed me the national platform with some indignation about it being socialism. Honestly, from reading the platform, it was socialism for all intents and purposes. I was sortof shocked, and I think that I need to really explore again what the Greens are about. I honestly question whether the national organization has much in common with many of the local organizations. I'm not sure at this point though. I like a lot of what the greens stand for, but I'm certainly not for socialism, and I'm quite frankly a realist about the amount of time it takes for political change. The public is not looking for a radical overthrow of the status quo, whether it is needed or not, so for a third party to be successful, it has to concentrate its message on common sense things, not radical things.

Earlier today was the memorial service for my brother's friend Jesse, who was killed in a motorcycle accident on Monday. That was a hell of a birthday present, but I think that everyone is coping the best they can with his death. Jesse was a good kid and a father for about a year. I hadn't seen him in a couple years I think, but I recall things about him from years ago. He really deserves special mention here, because he is one of the reasons that this webpage exists. At one point he was doing some simple web design, trying to learn and hone his skills, and he asked me to let him design a page for me. That was the original version of my front page, long before I ever started my journal. I changed a lot about it over the years, but I think that the background and the animated flames are his. He also was the person who had me set up the Geocities account which still hosts my pages today. I want to dedicate this journal entry to his memory, and I think that I am going to do something on the front page to that effect in the next couple days too.

It was good to see at te memorial service and over the past week how my brother and his friends have really come together to support each other right now. The wierd thing is that they are really close all the time. They have stuck together unlike most people from high school. It saddens me at times to think how far I've fallen away from people I knew in high school. In some ways, I probably wasn't very close at all to most of the people I knew then, besides my group of friends whom you see mentioned on these pages now and again. I don't know how I feel about that exactly. Someimes I wish for reality to be much more than it is.....it's somewhat disappointing to me often.

Last weekend was fairly busy for me. Saturday, my friend John came in from DC. We went that evening to see the X-Men movie! It was all I could have ever asked for in an adaptation of a comic book. The characters and story were all incredibly accurate to what has gone before in the comics. The action was exciting and suspense-filled despite my knowledge of all that has gone before. The plot was easy to follow with enough little subpoints to intrigue, but not enough to confuse the issues. The characters were complex and interesting...three dimensional....plus the casting was superb. I strongly suggest that you all go and see this movie and make all your friends see it as well. I want this to make a lot of money, because if it does it will ensure that future movie adaptions of comic books continue to be made. This would make me happy.

Besides seeing the movie with my friend John, we also spent most of the day (8.5 hours to be exact) working on revisions to the rules of procedure for the Model UN conferences hosted at Kent State University Ashtabula Campus. There were 7 of us at the rules committee meeting today, and everyone there was fairly reasonable and dedicated, so arguably we saved a lot of time off of what it could have taken. It takes a special breed of person to spend hours or even days arguing the fine semantics of how to phrase parliamentary rules.

We still have a few points to hash out on the rules, but I think that we got through a vast majority of it. This will free us somewhat to do a quick revamp to the rules for our own conference at CWRU and to continue out work on the MUN.net project. We have a lot left to accomplish with that, so I'll have to force myself to work on it more diligently.

On Sunday, John and I went to church. Jeneanne once commented to me that she didn't like Catholic Church when she tried it once because the sermons were boring and irrelevant and the music was halfhearted and droning, more or less. I think that I finally understood what she was talking about on Sunday. The music really was bad and the homily after the readings was neither useful nor interesting. Today's mass was much better, but I still miss church at school because it was such an awesome community.

My birthday was as good as can be expected, aside from Jesse's death. I worked all day, then my mom made a special meal of spaghetti and meatballs. We had a bit of cake and ice cream in the evening with the relatives, and I received some money as gifts. I did get a lot of nice birthday wishes from people. Mickey and Yves and Ed and Robb all sent me electronic greetings, and my friend Chrissy called me up! Thanks to all of you for remembering my birthday! Mickey also sent me a nifty shirt that arrived after a bit of fretting over its lateness. I'm not thinking that I look as nice in the shirt as I should, so I guess that's one more reason that I need to get back to my workouts and get buff! *Zup grins*

I'm not quite sure of what else I have to discuss....my lack of net time shouldn't be holding me back from writing, since I really do most of my writing offline. I guess that I've felt a bit unmotivated, and I've also been very tired after I get through work and all my other activities of the day. I need to find a better way to motivate myself. I know that I certainly seemed to accomplish more when I was living in Parma and working than I do no that I am at home. And sadly, I think that I have less of a social life here at home to distract me.....go figure.

I'm remotivating on my job search with a new focus. I'll keep you updated if anything develops. Otherwise, nothing has changed. Laters!

As usual, time flies between journal entries these days.....I know....a month is more like time speeding at light speeds than flying. Honestly, my heart was not in my journal these past few weeks. I've had a lot of things to keep me occupied in some ways, and I've been languishing socially in others. I'm making my attempt to move forward in life, but doing so half-heartedly.

The job search has just not felt very good. I just do not have motivation to find anything because I feel like what I want isn't out there. The job search is really the first time in my life where temporary setbacks have so demoralized me about the entire process. I just feel like I am running around in circles and really don't have control of anything. I'm just running into a lot of little hurdles that I don't feel like jumping over. This isn't to say that I'm not moving forward, just that it's much, much more slowly than I should be. I have two companies where I probably have a good chance of being hired, if I'm willing to wait about 6 months when they will be hiring. Ther is one company that has specific openings in Cleveland and Columbus that I just have to send a cover letter and resume to, however, I just have not gotten my cover letter finished in a way I feel comfortable sending yet. I guess it's my hope that this place will work once I send my info.

I had talked to people about maybe positioning myself in DC or someplace where I could make social connections that would move me towards eventual international work, however, I've decided that this really isn't important to me at this point. My real goal right now is to be able to move out from my parents' house, become financially independant, and develop and social life and a dating life. I need to build my own life a bit, and then I can work on long term career goals.