Hola internet people! I’m going to Hawaii! More specifically I’m going to Maui! I’m not going to say when because I don’t need to be giving people advance notice, and plenty of planning time, to burglarize my home. I have an alarm system, but still… no need to test it.

Speaking of my alarm system, I’m getting another control panel installed in my house, in my bedroom. I have one at the garage door, but that’s FAR from my room. I need one in my room so that if someone does break in I can get to the panic button in a flash.

Also, if I have a control panel in my bedroom I can set the motion detectors in the rest of the house. I’ll feel much better at night with those on. I need my house to be as safe as a bank vault full of diamonds and gold.

Anyway, back to Maui… I’m staring to get really excited about it. I’m also excited because I get to use the new luggage that I got for Christmas! WOOT WOOT. My new luggage has nuetral colors, so it should be easy to find an outfit to coordinate. I hate not matching my luggage.

In other news, I’m so happy that the weather is getting nice again. I’m ready to dig up all the dead plants in my back yard and start fresh again. I’m also anxious to dig up the bushes in my front yard and put in something else. Those bushes are unruly and they need to go! I want to plant things that are more drought resistant this year because I’m not trying to be out in the 100+ heat watering again, like last year. It’s exhausting standing around holding a hose and frankly, I’ve got better things to do.

I’ve run out of things to say now.

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Last night Jeff and I went to dinner at Garrido’s for their Austin Restaurant Week special thingy. It was the super most deliciousness. We started with some drinks. I had a yummy kiwi cucumber martini and I forget what he had.

For appetizers we had orders of oyster bocadito and pork bocaditos, followed by delicious grilled lamb chops with ancho glaze, gratin chipotle potatoes, and asparagus. For dessert we shared the Pastel de Calabaza and the Mexican Vanilla Ice Cream w/ Apple Crumbles. It sounds like a lot of food, but it was actually the perfect amount. I wasn’t too full and I was totally satisfied.

We went to my place afterward and watched “The Sweetest Thing” on DVD. Hilarious! I own it, so I’ve seen it many times, but Jeff hadn’t seen it yet.

This morning didn’t start off so well. I went to get into my car (in the garage) and pushed the button twice to unlock all the doors so that I could put my bag in the backseat and get in the front. The back door would not unlock. I tried several times without success and just threw the bad in the back from the front and thought, “I’ll figure this out later.”

Later ended up being like 10 seconds later when I tried to start the car and it was DEAD. OMG. That instant I realized that I had left the headlights on all night.

Now what?

I sat there for a while wondering if I could call a cab to jump me, if there was some better service to call, or if I should just give up and go back to bed. I saw my neighbor across the street getting into his car so I asked him to give me a jump.

Unfortunately that’s when I realized the next huge problem. I couldn’t get the car into neutral because it was DEAD. Going back to bed was starting to look pretty darn good.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t figure out how to get it into neutral and my car was right in the middle of the garage, front end first, so there was no room for another car to pull in for the jump.

My neighbor had to go to work, so he got his dad to come help me. Not that we were making any progress. We couldn’t figure out what to do and he had suggested taking the battery out and jumping it on the ground, which sounded like a disaster waiting to happen, so I was hoping to find a better solution.

After wasting way too much time reading my car manual, he suggested going to Autozone to buy a jump kit. I didn’t feel like there was much else to do, so off we went.

Luckily the guys at Autozone let me borrow their jump kit, so I didn’t have to buy one and wait for it to charge. It worked like a charm and I was off on my way and got to work 45 minutes late. Yays for starting the day off with drama. lol

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I feel like I should blog because I haven’t done it in forever, but I really don’t have much to say.

My life stays pretty much the same. I work all week and then go out on the weekend, and usually about once a month I visit with Kristi and the baby.

This month they were here twice. This past weekend and the weekend before. We went to see Alegria (Cirque du Soliel) last weekend. It was fun because the kid was with us and he totally enjoyed it, but I just thought it was ok. Once you’ve seen one Cirque show, you’ve kind of seen them all. They all follow the same formula. I’ve seen “O” twice, Zumanity, Corteo, and now Alegria. I saw “O” first and everything pales in comparison to that.

Things have finally calmed down with my house. I still haven’t painted or even picked out curtains for my living room. I really need to get on that. I also got lazy and let almost all my outdoor plants die during the winter this year. I don’t mind so much though because it’ll be super fun to plant new ones in the spring.
I’m about to be going on my 3 year anniversary at my job in April, and then in May I’ll have been in my house for a year. I can’t hardly believe how fast time has gone by. It feels like I just moved into this house. I also have so much that I still want to do with the house, besides painting.

I got a new phone, a Palm Pre, and it is making me so much more digital. I have become obsessed with all of Google’s products. I’m using Gmail, Talk, Reader, Picasa, Documents, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Voice, and Maps. I use Reader like crazy to keep up with all my favorite blogs and now I’m starting to use it to share what I find. You can check out My Shared Items by clicking here!

I love my new phone. It’s so nice to finally have a phone with a good internet browser and a large enough screen to see it. It also has WiFi and a great camera with a flash. I’m always on my phone now.

Ok, that’s enough for now. I gotta get to work.

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So I had a NYE party and it was CRAZY. Well, at least I think it was… or actually… from the way my house looked the next day I can only imagine it was crazy. I have to imagine because I don’t remember it.

Kristi and her family were here, but her mother and kid were going to stay the night in a hotel so we could party it up right at my house, and party I did. I had every intention to stay sober and behave this year, but that went horribly wrong when I started drinking cosmos. That stuff is like koolaide and it really shouldn’t be so easy to drink. You’re wasted before you even know it!

I’d like to say I was tipsy, but I think I plum fell over. I don’t remember anything past probably 11ish. We were doing shots of tequila and I was still drinking cosmos.

I won’t go into all the specifics because nobody needs to know how bad it got, but I had a good time and everyone else had a good time and thankfully nothing too shameful happened. I was drunk, but behaved.

I woke up the next morning and checked my camera immediately, hoping for reminders of what had happened and thankfully there were no crazy pictures. I walked out into the living room and nearly died. My house was TRASHED.

Apparently we had though it would be a good idea to set off poppers, sparklers and pop rocks IN my house. There was glitter, confetti, gun power, rocks, broken glass and trash EVERYWHERE. I nearly cried… instead I went back to bed.

Eric came over to help me pick up trash for about an hour and I spent the rest of the time slaving away by myself trying to clean it all up. It took me four hours. I think everyone had a good time.

You can go to http://picasaweb.google.com/tomithey/20091231NYE to view all the pics.

I spent the next few days hanging out with Kristi and her family. Nothing too interesting happened, except I finally bought running shoes! We went to Run-Tex and this odd German lady helped me. I could barely understand anything she said, actually she didn’t just “say” things to me, she barked orders. “Take off your shoes!” “Roll up your pants legs! NOW RUN! Let me see you run!”

It was a little traumatizing. So she didn’t let me tell her why kind of shoes I wanted, she just watched me walk and run and then went to the back and brought out a bunch of shoes for me to try on. Clearly she is used to people buying shoes for function, not how they look. Clearly she doesn’t know me.

The first box she opened was a really cute pair blue and silver shoes. They fit fine, they looked cute and I was in love. But NOOOOOO… she wanted me to try on another pair of ugly yellow and green shoes. No ma’am. They could have felt a hundred times better than the blue and silver ones and I would have lied and said they were uncomfortable. I wanted the blue and silver ones.

It didn’t end there. She made me try on a couple more pairs of less attractive shoes, but I had already made up my mind. I was just playing her game out of fear of getting hit. She was scary. She finally LET me buy the blue and silver ones and I was super duper happy. Thankfully they actually do feel good and provide support, but honestly I would have worn painful shoes if they were cute enough.

I love my new shoes. I’ve even been running a couple of times this week to get in practice for the 5k this weekend. I’m super excited!

Other than that, nothing too interesting has been going on in my life. Oh, I did take down my Christmas decorations this week. That was depressing. My apartment looks plain and empty now. On the plus side, I was able to clean out my garage in the process.

I’m anxiously awaiting the 14th of this month so I can start decorating for Valentine’s day. I’ve decided that is the acceptable time to decorate. Any sooner and I’d run the risk of people thinking you’re crazy… and I don’t need any help in that area.

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I had two Christmases this year! I had my first one on Christmas even with my mom, dad, younger brother, older brother, his wife and their two kids.

My mom and younger brother came over early to help me with stuff, but there really wasn’t too much to do, so we played Uno. I LOVE playing Uno!

For our Christmas lunch I made 8 mini cakes, 15 bite sized cakes, a ham, turkey loin, green bean casserole, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy. I also had a caramel apple pecan pie, and my mom brought a chocolate pie and a pecan pie. We had SOOOOO much food and it was all soooo good.

I got some stuff for my kitchen for Christmas, stuff I had asked for that’s good for entertaining. I still need to get a few more things for my NYE party, but it’s coming along nicely!

Christmas day I got up early-ish and started cleaning. I kicked my house’s butt! I had the stereo jamming and I was running around like a mad woman cleaning and organizing. I threw away a bunch of stuff too. Once I put up all the Christmas stuff I’ll work on organizing the garage again. It’s gotten crazy looking out there.

After I cleaned I watched some movies. I finally got around to watching Slumdog Millionaire. It was ok. I think it was a little over-hyped. It wasn’t as fantastic as I had expected. It was also a lot more violent and depressing than I had expected.

David talked me into going out for a little while later on. We went to the Spur and had a few drinks. Instead of the normal routine of Friday night dance lessons and then dancing, they had Karaoke… which was more like SCARYoke! It was BAD. David and I braved the cold and stood out on the patio for a while just to give our ears a break.

Kristi and the family showed up around 12:30am. They originally had planned to stop in Houston on Christmas day and stay the night, then drive to my place the day after, but they were plenty awake, so they drove all the way.

We got up early Saturday to do our Christmas together. The baby was so freaking excited! He was dancing around and screaming, “It’s Christmas time! It’s Christmas time! Let’s open present!”

I outdid myself with his presents. I had the hardest time thinking of things to get him, but in the end I got him the perfect toys. He could not have been more excited. He’s been listening to Kristi too much so now he says (about everything), “Oh I love it. It’s adorable. I love it so much.” It was pretty funny.

Since then we’ve just been running around town shopping and hanging out. I’ve been in enough hippy and granola stores this week to last me a life time. I’ve also eaten a ton of food. I really need to get control of that before I end up the size of a house.

It’s almost New Years and I’m so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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So this weekend I went to Dallas. I went to visit my friend Robert. He used to live in Dallas, moved here for three years and then moved back there this past September.

That city and I have a sordid past. I never seem to be able to go there without getting into trouble, and I never seem to leave there with a full memory intact… however each time I’ve gone I’ve gotten better.

I went this time with the determination to remember everything and to not get plastered drunk, which is not easy when you’re with Robert because that boy can DRINK.

Friday night was the annual Austin Board of REALTORS® holiday party. I went to that with Lisa, a REALTOR® from our office. Our office went because our Broker, Bill, was being installed as a Director on the Board of Directors of the Austin Board of REALTORS®. We went to show our support.

These kind of functions are always interesting. I can’t say anything negative about REALTORS® because it’s a violation of our code of ethics, so all I can say is that it was full of interestingly dressed people, especially women with enhanced bodies and high hair. These people are also lively and seem to enjoy a cocktail or few.

After the event ended, my group went to the bar to have some cocktails and hang out. I had planned on going home, but sometime during the night David texted to see if I was going to go out and I decided I should. However, we spent so much time at this function that I changed my mind.

I took Lisa home and was going to go home and then changed my mind again. I was all dressed up and it seemed like a waste to just go home, so I went to the Rusty Spur. I was shocked to find it crowded. It’s usually kind of slow on Fridays.

I stayed out too late, which made it hard to get up Saturday at 8am and head to Dallas, but I did it anyway! It’s about a 3 hour drive and it’s a boring one.

I stopped at a gas station outside of Dallas to use the restroom and hydrate on Mt. Dew. When I came out of the gas station I walked up to my car, tried to open the door and couldn’t get in. It was not car.

I did this earlier last week as well. Only the owner of the car had left the door unlocked, so I was able to open it and upon doing so was shocked at how filthy my car was. I stood in the open door wondering how I hadn’t noticed my car getting so filthy and I was dumbfounded until I started getting mad that my leather seats were cracking and realized I don’t have leather seats! I was at the wrong car!

Anyway, I got to Dallas at 12:15ish and met Robert at his apartment. We made plans to meet up with Chris and Victor at Gloria’s for lunch… and of course cocktails.

After lunch we stopped by JR’s for some more cocktails. I was starting to worry that I was not going to be able to do much better on this trip. We left JR’s and headed for the mall so I could get a shirt to wear to my company Christmas party (which is today). I found a really cute black shirt at Saks Fifth Avenue in the Galleria.

After leaving the mall we stopped by TMC for some more cocktails. I only had one. I was trying my best to stay sober and so far I was succeeding! Upon leaving TMC, we walked to my car and as I was trying to get in I noticed Robert had kept walking. I asked him where he was going and he said, “That’s not your car.” Damnit! I did it again.

Obviously, I don’t pay attention. If I see a white car, I just assume it’s mine. The body style, make and model doesn’t matter. The first time I did it was with an 2005ish Honda Accord. That has a very similar body style to my Hyundai Sonata. The second time was a Pontiac Sunfire, which isn’t even a four door and it’s much sportier. The third time, was a Cadillac. Seriously?!?! Worse yet, yesterday I was looking at a commercial property for work and when I went to my car I stopped stared at it, realized it wasn’t mine and walked away proud of myself for not doing it again. Then I looked around the parking lot for my actual car and came to the realization that I was at my car.

Anyway… back to Dallas… After TMC we went back to Rob’s place to nap. We were both very tired and had been up since 8. After the nap we went to the Round Up for some dancing and cocktails!

I had the BEST time! At first it was kind of slow for me because I didn’t really know anyone and I wasn’t sure who could dance, or who to ask to dance. I started watching the crowd and noticing people that I could dance with, and would enjoy dancing with, based on their dancing styles. I started asking boys to dance and soon I wasn’t leaving the dance floor.

I found one boy in particular (”N”) that I really clicked with, and I had to MOST fun dancing with him. I spent the majority of the night dancing with him. He has a very relaxed and sexy style that I like.

My favorite part was when they started playing the dancey club music (not country) and we danced a two-step to “8th World Wonder” by Kimberly Locke. That was SUPER FUN. I had never two-stepped to a club song before.

Dancing in Dallas was a blast and it was fun hanging out. I got TWO phone numbers! Boys RARELY ever talk to me in Austin. In Dallas, I’m fresh meat. Nobody knows me! In Austin I’m old stale meat and everyone knows me.

I got complimented on my dancing by lots of people and I even had a little cheering section on the opposite side of the dance floor. They started screaming and cheering whenever I’d go by. After they turned on the lights and started shooing us out, a guy came up and told “N” and I that we looked really cute together. Awwwww

Sunday morning Rob and I got up late, had a little snack and then went to brunch at Jorge’s with his friends. We also had bottomless Mimosas. There’s no escaping the alcohol.

During brunch, “N” texted me to see when I was leaving and to invite me to hang out before I left town. So that’s exactly what I did, right after brunch.

I spent a couple of hours hanging out with him and he was VERY nice and ADORABLY SEXY. I wish he lived in Austin because he was so much fun to hang out with and especially to dance with.

I left Dallas around 6 and got back to Austin at 9. Monday I spent the evening cleaning up my house and doing laundry. Last night I went to dinner at Hecho en Mexico with an old friend. I had never been to that restaurant, but I really liked it, so I’ll be going back! I had a really nice time with my friend. I hadn’t hung out with him in probably almost 4 years.

Today is my company Christmas party. We’re having lunch at Green Pastures!

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This weekend I started decorating for Christmas! It’s so pretty in my house now. It’s going to be depressing when I have to take it all down and pack it up. I love how it looks now and I wish it could look this fun all year long.

You can see all the pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/tomithey/ChristmasDecor#

I’ve also been sick. It started Sunday night with a sore throat and it got worse Monday. I really wanted to call in sick but felt bad since I was just out on vacation, so I went in anyway. It was a good thing I did, because everyone else was out. I was the only person in the office all day.

Tuesday I felt MUCH worse. I made it in to the office, but just long enough to get all my stuff and go back home. I slept all morning, got out of bed at 12ish and worked from home for about 3 hours, then went back to bed. I was miserable sick.

Today I feel MUCH better, but I’m still all congested and gross. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll be back to 100%.

Anyway… enjoy the pics!

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I’ve been back from my vacation for a few days now and I’ve been being lazy. I’m trying to recuperate from my vacation and catch up on rest and alone time.

My vacation started on Friday the 21st. Kristi and her family flew in that day and we went to dinner at County Line that night and then watched TV while I packed. It was the finale of ANTM and we were so angry that Laura didn’t win. Kristi swore off watching ANTM again after this finale. We both get so upset because they make it look like one person SHOULD win and then they give it to the other. Laura deserved that prize; she would have been a way better cover girl.

Saturday we went to breakfast at the Galaxy Cafe and then to lunch at Chuy’s. We also went to the mall and I saw a bunch of 18ish year old military boys. It seems SO wrong that children are allowed to enlist in the military and be sent to war. At that age they can’t possibly know what they are in for, or be prepared for it. If the government doesn’t think 18 year olds are mature enough to drink, barely old enough to drive, why should they be mature enough to carry a gun and go to war? This country is messed up.

We took a cab to the airport and it was the NASTIEST cab. I sat up front, next to the driver’s HUGE cup full of cigarette ashes. Kristi, the baby, and her mother were in back. Kristi had to put the window down to be able to breathe and I kept leaning back trying to suck in some of her air. We were all dying. My eyes were practically on fire! I wanted to roll my window down, but it was chilly out and I was worried that the wind would whip up the ashes and spread them all over the car. It was the most miserable twenty minutes we have all had in a long long time. DISGUSTING!

We got to Kristi’s house really late Saturday night and I think we just went to bed. Sunday morning we got up early and went to church to see her friend give a sermon. He’s a US Senator and had been invited to this church just to give a speech on Jesus in the life of a politician. Kristi doesn’t normally go to this church, but we went as guests of the Senator. It was a Southern Baptist Church, so you know it was real interesting.

They did a LOT of singing in this church. They even had a real corny/cheesy guy singing solos. I would say almost 40% of the time spent in that church was singing. Joey (the Senator) gave a good and funny sermon and it didn’t feel like it lasted forever. I can’t say that I paid attention to all of it. My mind wandered some and I kept thinking about how judgmental the pastor of the church was, and how judgmental and un-Christian most churches are in general. The pastor was going off about abortion, so I got stuck on that subject.

I don’t know that I could ever have an abortion, if I was a woman, but I’m not against it. I decided that my stance on abortion is that, “I’m pro-choice because there are enough unwanted children in the world already.” People shouldn’t be forced to have children they don’t want, or can’t care for, and putting them up for adoption isn’t any better. Like I said, there are already enough unwanted children.

We went to lunch with Joey after church to Logan’s Roadhouse. One of my favorite things about going to Hattiesburg is seeing the local “fashion” and hair “styles.” The people in that town will seriously wear any do anything to their hair. There was a woman at a table near us that had a variation of Kate Gosselin’s hair style that was even worse that Kate’s. I couldn’t stop staring at it!

The weird thing about hanging out with Joey is that everywhere you go people are staring, saying hi, and trying to come over to the table. He may just be a Senator, but he’s quite the celebrity in Hattiesburg. There was a woman at another table near us that would not stop staring at Kristi and I the entire time we were eating. She didn’t even care when I stared right back at her and gave her dirty looks.

I woke up Sunday with an intense shoulder pain and it did not go away for DAYS. I was in so much pain all that day. Sunday night we went to see “Precious” at the theater in Hattiesburg, and they only have ONE theater in that town, so it was packed. Unfortunately it was packed with RUDE and IGNORANT people that chose to laugh and make fun during all the sad and horrible scenes in the movie, which ruined the experience for Kristi and me. Kristi was really disturbed by the movie. There were a bunch of scenes where we both had to close our eyes, but I still loved it. I thought it was very well acted and written. I don’t know that I could ever watch it again, but I still loved it.

Monday I woke up again with horrible shoulder pain and was begging Kristi to give me some drugs. She has all kinds of pain pills in her house. The problem is that Kristi is a lightweight when it comes to pills (and drinking) so she thinks drugs affect everyone the as much as the affect her. She can take one regular Tylenol for a headache and feel loopy. I have to take three extra strength Tylenols and I’m lucky if I feel anything at all.

So I was literally begging her to give me drugs. She thought everything she had was too strong and what she was willing to give me were small doses. I ended up getting her to give me two prescription strength Tylenols and two Vicoprofen, which is mixture of Vicoden and Ibuprofen (Hydrocodone and Ibuprofen). Even taking both of those, the pain didn’t go away, but it was minimized.

We dropped off the kid with her mother and went to walk on the “Rails to Trails” near her house. They’ve taken old rail road tracks in certain cities and paves over them, turning them into biking and walking trails. It was pretty cool to walk on.

Later in the day I played with the kid on his playground in the backyard and we made chalk drawings in the driveway. Kristi packed while I watched the kid. We had a lot of fun playing and drawing. It was hard for me to spend any time drawing with the chalk because he kept trying to “help” me by drawing over my drawings. I forgave him though.
Kristi’s I ran around town a bit in the morning and the baby (for the first time ever) insisted that I ride in back with him. He usually doesn’t care who rides in back, but when he does care it’s usually his momma that he wants. When we were riding together in back he referred to me as his buddy. It was super cute.

We met up for dinner with Joey and some of Kristi’s other friends at the Alumni House Sports Bar. Kristi and I weren’t too thrilled about the place, but Joey really wanted to go. There were TVs EVERYWHERE. There were even TVs in the bathroom and one in the bathroom stall. I had to take a picture of that one!

I had worn my UT shirt to dinner, so Joey asked if I was a big UT sports fan, which I’m not. I’m not against UT sports; I’m just not a fan of any sports really. I told him that I didn’t think I had ever even seen a UT game or any football game in its entirety.

Kristi asked if I had at least seen a play. I was like, “Yeah I’ve seen lots of plays at UT.” I mistakenly though she meant like a Broadway play at UT, but she meant a play in a game. Whatever. I don’t do sports talk.

After dinner we went to see “New Moon.” I’m not a Twilight fan. I actually hated the first movie and can’t even imagine ever wanting to read the books. I was only going because her friends wanted to see it and I wanted to hang out with them.

Joey sat by me in the theater and I had sat next to Kristi, so I was between them. Joey was cracking me up while we were waiting for the movie to start. I know Senators (and celebrities too) are just normal people, but the only impression I have of senators is from the ones I see on TV in “Brother’s and Sisters” or “The West Wing” and in movies. They are always uptight, stuffy, humorless boring old people. Joey is a lot of fun and he’s young and hip. I kept thinking, “I can’t believe I’m having THESE kinds of conversations with a Senator.”

My shoulder was still hurting all that day, and during the movie my right foot started hurting. When we got back to Kristi’s place I looked at my foot and it was REALLY swollen up. I had gotten bit by something in the theater and I guess I had a really bad reaction to it. I swear I’m cursed when it comes to getting bit by insects.

Tuesday Kristi went to school and her mother took the baby to work with her, so I got to sleep in peacefully. The plan was that I would sleep in so that I could do a lot of the night time driving on the way to Florida later that day. We picked Kristi up for school around 11, had lunch and headed for Gainesville, Florida. That was going to be our stopping point for the night.

Wednesday we got up early and headed out to Port Canaveral. It was going to be about a three hour drive. We got to the boat around 12ish, I think. I was really looking forward to this cruise, but not looking forward to being stuck on a boat with a bunch of straight people and families for five nights. As we walked on the ship there was a cute guy at the entry announcing families as they walked in, yelling out, “Disney Wonder please welcome the _________ family!” As soon as I saw him and heard him speak I realized the boat would be full of gays. It’s Disney AND the service industry!

We went to see a play/show that night called “The Golden Mickey’s” and it was pretty good. Afterward we went to dinner. We had standing dinner reservations every night at 8:15. They gave us an assigned table and restaurant each night. They had three sit down restaurants on the boat so we got to eat at three of them once and one of them twice. We shared our table with another family; a conservative, Church of God, Republican family from Kentucky. The father is a CPA, Pastor at his own church, and running for Mayor. They were actually REALLY nice and we were thankful that we had them instead of many of the obnoxious families we regularly saw on the cruise. We also had the same server (Kabelo) and assistant server (Johan) each night.

Johan and I hit it off right away. He’s a tall good looking guy from Sweden and we started right off flirting from the start. I thought we were being discreet, but apparently Kristi’s mother noticed the first night. Kristi noticed that I was the only person getting regular refills and attention at the table. Her glass stayed empty, but mine was filled before it was half gone.

That night we told the family that we shared our table with that Kristi and I were off to play the couples game at one of the clubs after dinner. We assumed from that point on that they thought we were a couple. Also Johan heard us say that we were playing the couples game, so we had to figure out a way to let him know that we weren’t a couple without making it obvious to the other family at dinner.

So we went to the club to play the game, but we didn’t get chosen to play. We were kind of upset about that. We really wanted to win Spa gift certificates. I could really have used a massage since my shoulder was still killing me. The game was ok, but it would have been more fun if we could have play. After the game the club emptied out, so we went looking at the other 4 clubs to find something to do and they were all EMPTY. We couldn’t find anything to do and I was really worried that it would be like that all week long.

Thursday we went to one of the restaurants for breakfast, instead of the buffet, and Johan was working. He saw me, smiled real big and waved to me. It was real cute! He stopped by our table later to chat and hung around for a while. Kristi thought it was a bit awkward and said that he was blushing a lot.

Thursday was our day to be in Nassau, The Bahamas. We signed up for an excursion to the Atlantis Hotel and Resort to hang out at the beach. We walked around the resort for a while, looked at all the aquariums, checked out the “Lost City of Atlantis” and then went to the beach. The waves were SO incredibly big and rough that you couldn’t swim. All you could do was wade out into the water, wait for a wave and be thrown back on shore, and then do it again. That was actually pretty damn fun to do, even if you did get drowned a bit and had to fight your wave back ashore ever now and then. The last time Kristi did it; she rode a huge wave in and got dragged back out. As she was sitting there laughing, an ENOURMOUS wave snuck up and smacked right down on her, throwing her on the shore and dragging her back out. I had to try to hold onto the baby and rush in to pull her out because she was being pulled under. She lost her hat and I had to go out and try to get it without getting drowned. That was when we stopped playing in the water. It’s all fun and games until someone almost gets drowned.

That night we had dinner again as scheduled, except this time without Nana and the baby. Our dinner couple was also without children, so it was just the four of us. Kristi and I had pre-discussed how we were going to drop the hint to Johan that we weren’t together. She tried first. She told him, “MY mother and MY son won’t be joining us tonight.” She turned to me all proud of herself and I said, “What is it you think you just did?” She repeated what she had told Johan and I said, “Even if we were married she’d still be YOUR mother and he’d still be YOUR child.”

So when I go the chance, while she was talking to the other couple at dinner I said to Johan, “My sister would like some coffee.” I’m sure if I could have had more time or more opportunities I could have come up with something cleverer, but it got the point through and the obviousness of it should have made it clear that I was interested. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t thinking we would be having a relationship or even a date. I was just enjoying flirting.

After dinner we went to the clubs again. The guy that I saw when we walked on board the boat (Chance) was at the club with Frankie doing a scavenger hunt game. Teams were already formed when we got there, so Kristi and I had to be our own team. The way the game worked was that we had a laminated sheet of paper with our team number on it and Chance would call out something like, “I need to see your team number and a bar menu.” One of the members of the team (Kristi or I) would have to run up to Chance on the dance floor to show him the item and our team number. Only the items went from being as innocent as a bar menu to a guy on your team without his shirt (me), a guy on the team wearing lipstick (me), a guy on your team wearing a bra (me with Kristi’s bra), a guy on your team wearing women’s shoes (Me with Kristi’s shoes), and a guy wearing lipstick, a bra and women’s shoes (all me, but some other women’s bra).

Once I got Kristi’s bra off, I couldn’t get it back on. Her top was too tight and I kept having to run back up to Chance with things. This is why the next time he called for a bra, I borrowed some random woman’s bra. Then he called for a blonde woman and the team number and I forgot Kristi was blonde and dragged another woman up to Chance. Kristi was in shock. She could have just run up there herself with the team number, but I’m SO SUPER competitive that I didn’t even give her a chance.

Someone on another team noticed that I didn’t take Kristi and yelled out, “Hey he didn’t even take his own wife and she’s blonde!” Then they all started making fun of me, especially Chance. I couldn’t help but wonder if all these things he was calling for was to embarrass the men and makes us play gay… and somewhat to try and figure out if I am gay, because the next thing he called for was a team number and a wedding band. Kristi and I didn’t have one and he noticed real quick because he called me out for it, saying maybe if I had remembered my wife I would have a wedding band and that we were just on Nassau where I could have bought one for a good price. Kristi and I got second place in the game, which was pretty darn impressive since all the other teams had like 5 or so people on them and much more people and items to work with than us.

The next game was a One Hit Wonders game. The teams were guys against girls. The DJ played music from one hit wonders and the first person to run up to Christie (the host) with the name of the group and the song title would get a shot and a point for their team. Well I was one of the first to get a point and shot and I knew just about every one of the songs. Unfortunately Christie hated me and wouldn’t let me answer again after the first one. Yet she kept letting one of the girls answer over and over and over again. So I tried again and got shot down again. Then I tried another time and I didn’t wait for her to reject me. I called out the artist and title and as I was calling it out, that girl (the one she kept letting answer) yelled it out louder and Christie gave her the point and shot instead.

It got so obvious that other members of the crew were coming over talking to me about it and trying to get me to answer again. Then they started talking to her about it, but she didn’t change her attitude. I gave up though; I wasn’t playing her hate game. The girls (mainly just the one) won that game like 13 to 2. It was embarrassing! I went to get some water and people at other tables were stopping me to ask me why the host was being so hateful to me and not letting me answer.

During that game, Chance, came over and put a glow necklace on me. I thought it was odd that he didn’t give one to Kristi and I soon found out why. Apparently he was only putting them on people that they thought would be fun and wild because we would be playing the next SURPRISE game!

There were three ladies and three guys. The three ladies were one young pretty one, a middle aged hefty sized lady, and a 65ish cougar type lady. The ladies had to lip-sync to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” The young one went first and nailed it. She knew almost all the words, danced well and gave lots of attention to us judges (us three men). The hefty lady only paid attention to the middle judge (who we later learned was her husband), she didn’t know hardly any of the words, and she couldn’t dance. The cougar danced ok, played it up with us judges, but didn’t know ANY of the words. Sadly, the cougar won. Pretty girl got ROBBED because she totally deserved it, but Christie (the mean hater host) decided to give it to the cougar instead.

The entire time I was sitting in the judges chair I kept worrying about what they were going to make us men do. If it was going to be lip-syncing I was hoping it wouldn’t be some horrible rock song that I wouldn’t know any of the words to. Lucky for me, that wasn’t it. They made us men to a stripper type dance off, one at a time. I went first and killed it. I played up to the judges, even sitting in the cougar’s lap. I took off the jacket and unbuttoned my shirt and worked it like I had never worked it before. I knew that the couple we shared our dinner table with (the conservative church people) were in the audience, so I felt really self-conscious about dancing in front of them, but I didn’t let it stop me!

The second guy (hefty’s husband) did some horrible weird dance moves that had us horrified and really only paid attention to his wife. The third guy was a 400 pound bald scary dude that also didn’t dance and really didn’t even move. He just took his shirt off and shook all his fat around. It was horrifying.

So of course I already knew Christie hated me and she made it more obvious when the audience said I should win and she gave the prize (spa gift certificates) to the 400 pound scary dude instead. As the club was clearing out people were stopping at our table saying I got robbed and should have won. Our church dinner couple even said I should have won and that I did an awesome job. He even said I should give dance lessons!

Friday was our day at sea, which was kind of weird. The ship was just parked at sea doing nothing. We could see the Disney private island (Castaway Cay) and couldn’t understand why we couldn’t go there Friday and Saturday (which was our scheduled day to be there).

We had to entertain ourselves on the ship, which seemed really big the first day, but as time went by had gotten MUCH smaller. We went to see the Disney movie, “Old Dogs” which had just been released that day. If I had known what that movie was, you couldn’t have paid me to see it, but I actually ended up enjoying it and finding it kind of funny. Rob Williams really annoys me, and he annoyed me in this, but not nearly as much as usual.

I think this was also the day that I had run into Johan at the breakfast buffet. We stopped and chatted for a while and it was kind of cute. Kristi’s mom made a comment about me getting extra stuff on my plate because Johan was probably responsible. I couldn’t help but wonder what the other couple at our dinner table was thinking. If Nana picked up on it and she was only at dinner one night, surely this other couple must have figured it out.

For dinner I had lobster with macaroni. Who knew those things even went together?!?!? On this cruise I was eating seafood like crazy, and everyone knows I don’t eat anything that comes from the sea… however during this vacation I ate salmon, trout, tuna, tilapia, shrimp, lobster and mahi mahi.

That night was the “Pirates IN the Caribbean” party on the top of the ship and it was SUPER lame. Kristi and I weren’t so happy that we were standing out in the cold to watch a lame show, but we hung on because the fireworks were coming up next. Sadly, they were just as lame.

Saturday morning Kristi and I went to do yoga on the beach… the beach on Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay. I don’t mind doing yoga, but normally it’s just a 30 minute session and this one was an hour! That’s a whole lot of stretching in the heat on the beach. No thanks!

I didn’t see Johan anywhere on the island. I figured he must have been stuck working on the ship. I later found out that they make those guys work 6am to 11pm every day with only two 1 hour breaks. He also told me that the night before was the company party at midnight and he had stayed up until 2am, so he spent his one lunch time off sleeping. They work those people like crazy. One of the employees on the island said that they work 4 months on and then get 6 weeks off. There is nothing on that island but a Disney store, a BBQ place, a bar and sleeping quarters. Can you imagine how boring that would be?!?!?!? That employee also told me that it was “HARD WORK,” and you could tell she meant it.

That night was our last dinner with out church couple and our servers. I was really going to miss Johan and the flirting. Kristi’s mom and the kid couldn’t make it again, so it was just us and the church family (with their kids). Dinner was my favorite time of the day because it was good conversation, kind of peaceful quiet time, and I got to flirt with Johan.

Sunday was our last day on the cruise and it wasn’t even a real day, we had to be off the ship by 9am. We had our breakfast at the buffet and then went back to the room. While Kristi, Nana and the baby went down there, I went to day goodbye to our servers (especially Johan) and our church family.

We spent the rest of that day driving back to Hattiesburg, MS. It was a long long long long drive that took us up until about 8:30ish. Kristi and I watched a little TV and then went to bed… exhausted.

Monday was my day to fly home and it was just about an all day process. I’m cursed when I fly alone. My first flight was late, causing me to almost miss my second flight, but luckily there were enough of us on the first flight that they held the second one almost 30 minutes. My friend Aldo picked me up at the airport and I got home around 5pm. I spent the evening unpacking and catching up on TiVo.

I’ve spent the rest of the week doing that same… trying to rest, relax and catch up on TiVo. This weekend I’m dying to go out dancing! It’s been over a month since I’ve been out! I’m also going to decorate for Christmas and I’m super excited about that!

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I’ve been updating and working on my photo gallery. I decided to move it from my own site, over to Picasa because it’s easier to keep up with and it auto-syncs to the pics on my computer. Also, I can tag faces in Picasa and organize easier. I LOVE PICASA!

So check out my new photo gallery here. I have a ton more pictures, but I only uploaded the galleries that I liked. I’m still working on tagging all of the pictures. It feels like it’s a never ending process!

Things have been pretty much the same around here in my life. My friend Jennifer is supposedly coming to see me this weekend. I’m really excited about that. We’ll hang out around the house, cook, watch movies and find fun things to do. I haven’t hung out with her since July of 2008 and she hasn’t seen my new house yet.

I think I’ve solved the issue of getting eaten up by bugs. I’ll tell more when I am sure it’s done, but so far I think the bugs were inside! SCARY! As for where they came from, either the nasty moving truck that carried my stuff, or they were already in the house when I moved in.

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As I was driving to work this morning I saw a young-ish guy walking from Walgreens to his apartment carrying one of those long beer cans in a paper bag. It was one of those paper bags made specifically for a single beer.

It got me to wondering. If you are walking to the store to get a beer at 7am, then you probably drink quite a bit. You’re probably an alcoholic.

So if you are an alcoholic, does one beer even do anything for you? Do you even get a buzz? Do you feel anything at all, or is it just the act of having a beer that calms you?

So speaking of obsessions… I have become obsessed with Picasa 3 and tagging all the faces in my photo albums. I can’t stop until all the faces are tagged! What’s driving me crazy is that my bad memory is getting in the way and I can’t remember the names of some of the people anymore.

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