We went to the Phillies game yesterday. They got romped by the Devil Rays. Our seats were in Section 104, Row 10. If you watch a replay of the game, a dude on the other team hit a home run to the exact same seat I was sitting in. Only, it was a little higher. It hit my f@#$@#ing finger!! Which I said to everyone about 10 times really loud. But, the dude behind me got it and immediately threw it back. I almost had it. Damnit! It's incredible when a baseball is coming right at you at like 3129 miles per hour and you're WASTED. I watched it and was like "That's outta here..." Then I'm like "Wait a second, I'm in right field... and it's coming right at me!!" So I stood up, put my hand out, and the sheer speed of the ball probably made me pull it down a little, due to the fear of having a broken hand or some other crap like that. Before Aaron Rowand made his courageous, nose destroying catch, he got hit by a pitch on the back of his hand. They showed it on TV and it was nasty. A huge black and blue mark. I didn't want that. I don't think that popped in my head then though. All that popped in my head was "That's moving pretty fast."

Other than that it was a great time! We had beer, and we had these neighbors at our tailgate party who had Jack Daniels and some rum. They gave me some rum, like a fifth of a red plastic cup of it. DMart had his sister there and his sister's friend... of course, they were at our neighbor's the whole time, drinking heavily, since they were almost, but not quite yet, 21. It was a mess, but it didn't detract from my good time. JY, SG and I were tossing the football around, doing spectacular one handed catches. Not to show off, but I didn't want to put my beer down :)

Then we went to McFadden's after the game. I sorta know a bartender there, she was my mortgage agent when I was looking at houses. I got a free beer from her. [General bar events and chats with girls... etc].

Good times. We're all going to Dorney Park soon too, so that should be fun.

Seamus Michael Bygrave was born on Sunday, May 21, 2006 at 22:21 at Camp Lester Naval Hospital, Okinawa Japan. He weighed in at 7lbs. 2oz. and 21 inches long. And he looks just like his proud father :)

Delivery went well. Mom is doing great. Everyone is healthy and we are home now. Check out the pictures. There is only so many attached, but we will be getting the rest out very, very soon.

When we got home we discovered we had lost power at some point while we were gone, so if anyone did call, we're sorry we lost your messages.

Love to everyone!
Jim, Kate and Seamus



They will be back here in 6 months or so, and I can't wait to see the little guy. Congratulations!! He's adorable!

Looking at only the first half of my life, you would not expect me to be completely opposite for the second half of my life. Up until 14, I was playing sports, from baseball, basketball, football, street hockey, and some "Kill the Man" or some other "whole street" game that we came up with growing up on my street with kids in almost every house. I was active. I played video games back then too, so they're not really the cause for my reversal in activeness. Here is the cause: I am too competitive for team games.

Those little kid leagues where the coach will play every kid for the same amount of time were the only leagues I was in. There was no competition, it was only fun. However, having a huge competitive yearning, these weren't enough for me. I can't just go out and make myself better unless I'm competing. I love competing, and I love winning. Practicing is boring, but scrimmaging was awesome. My big sport growing up was soccer. I loved that, because our practices were scrimmages, mainly. We'd have some standard drills but they would just lead up to a 6 on 6 or something. During one year of soccer, I scored a few goals, and I scored in the All-Star game... as a HALF-BACK (or Mid-Fielder). It's usually the "strikers" that score.

So, practicing is not fun because there's no competition. I guess you have to make a little game out of it in order to make it fun, but I wasn't that creative. So, when I got to high school, I decided to give up on those sports because I wasn't interested in making myself better, and I didn't play anyways. Luckily, in 6th grade, I was introduced to a little game where the competition is built in, with no one else out there. Golf.

My love affair with golf really started, though, in 8th grade, when I had a paper route. Our local course, Kara Kung in Philadelphia, was $8 for a junior (under 17) to walk. So every time I went out collecting for the paper, I'd come back and stash $8 lumps in a sock in my drawer. Then I'd count it up and say "I can go golfing 12 times!!" On top of that, I'd watch golf all the time, my Dad subscribed me to Golf Illustrated, and I read tons of books. But I never practiced.

"You never practiced golf?!?! You must suck!" I do. But I love it. You can go out on a golf course and compete all by yourself. Because you're competing with yourself, and you're competing with the course. You can think back, "Last time I played this hole, I got a 6..." So your realistic immediate goal is a 5, but really you'd want a 1 :P It's just an incredible game.

But it's one of those games where you find that you haven't played in almost 3 months, or a year, sometimes when you think back. Time flies between rounds of golf.

Anyway, Zatko and I decide to go golfing on Saturday. I hadn't played since last summer, probably 7 months. I'm a bit rusty. And the first thing to go when you have a long lapse like that between rounds is your short game. You no longer have any idea how a ball off of a quarter swing pitching wedge placed in front of your back foot will react. Or how firm you have to hit it, or any putt that you come across. It's like you're retarded. However, the long game, I almost never lose. That's more like riding a bike than riding a bike to me. My first two shots were a drive into the fairway, and then a 7 iron onto the green. I three putted.

This is my best shot of the day. This dog-leg right... pretty steep right turn with trees hugging the whole fairway, and a driver will surely find its way into the back trees, and the trees on the right are high enough that it's a pretty bad call to try to get over them with a middle to long iron. I hit 4 iron and it hugs the right side. It's looking like path... indeed, it does that exaggeratedly high bounce off the cart path and gives me a few extra yards. I find my ball out there, but now it's a tough shot. It's about a foot off the right of the path, meaning I'll be standing on the cart path hitting this shot. I got about 115 yards to go, but yet another dilemma. The pin is directly over the middle of this huge bunker (sand trap for non golfers), situated right in front of the green. I'm like, "Well, better to try and fail then to lay up and not even guarantee a safe shot then..." So I take out my club, take my few very boring practice swings, and let it rip. The arch is beautiful. It's heading right at it. The lack of grip on my shoes made me slip a bit on the cart path, so I end up facing the fairway, where Zatko is standing. I didn't take my eye off the ball though. It starts its descension. It looks like God hit this ball, it's still dead on. I say to myself "Get over, you f@#%@er." I see it hit the ground... The impact of the landing made sand splash up. I'm like "F@#%@". But then I see it bounce. It hit the very top of the sand trap, the lip, where the happened to be sand, but it wasn't part of the sand trap! I look over at Zatko... he saw the whole thing. I put my arms up in victory and yell "I AM THE GREATEST GOLFER IN THE WORLD!!!" I got to the green and I had about a 12 foot putt ahead of me... or a 17 footer, a 4 footer and a one footer... but I managed to make that one, sealing my only birdie of the day.

Man it was fun. That kind of stuff, for a weekend golfer, is a rare occurrence. It makes it worth it though.

Zatko always walks the course, which I have no objections to. With my lack of activity in the last 6 years (I would go skiing and stuff, and in college there were a lot of hills and drinking games), it's good to walk the course every time. However, the first time out with golf shoes is a lesson in pain. By the third hole, I felt as if someone placed razor blades in the back of my shoes, and at the same time, used a salt / lemonjuice / gasoline mixture in them and set them on fire. However, I don't regret walking at all, even with my complete inability to move faster than 4 inches a second today. To ease some of the pain, I'd kick the ground pretty hard, shoving my toes into the one inch space at the front of the golf shoes, meanwhile slicing the sides of my toes, giving me about 4 seconds of relief before they slid back into place, bringing on the salted flaming razors with a twist of lemon sensation again. Luckily, we went back to the car after 9 and got my regular shoes. After that, I was fine. As you can imagine, my toes hurt today.

And I had so many three putts, that Zatko and I were taking an equal number of shots at me. We coined the term "A hard three-putt". That's one where anyone, ANYONE, who has even dreamt about one day playing golf should make in two putts or less. An easy three-putt is one with lots of twists and turns, or just great distance, or both. They're easy to three putt. I would say I three putted about 14 holes that day. And I ended up with a 90. 45 front, 45 back. Yes, 42 shots could have easily been 28. A 90 could have easily been a 76. Well, most likely not, since I always screw up at the end. I'm not sure exactly how many holes I three putted, so I'm not sure that I could have shot a 76. But just for a "for instance"... this one hole, par 3, over a lake of stagnant, malaria carrying mosquito filled water, I made it right on in one. I three putted. It's brutal.

So, if I am going to practice anything, it's going to be my putting, and it's going to be at Putt-Putt.

But, onto the other news!!

Jim and Kate had a Boy!!! Seamus Michael!!! I'll be posting pictures as soon as Kate's giganormous email makes its way from Japan. Congratulations Jim and Kate!!! I can't wait to see pictures :)

This is the story of Kate and Jim:

Jim met me in 4th grade. We became best friends. Jim met Kate in High School. They became best friends. Kate and Jason were then best friends by association, and later on, really became best friends. Later, Jim and Kate got married and left for Japan since Jim was in the Air Force and was stationed there. It's been almost 3 years. Now Jim and Kate are having a baby!

So, it's about "that time" now... it was also Jim's birthday on Sunday, and Mother's Day, which Kate now is a part of since she was like 9 months pregnant. If that doesn't qualify for Mother's Day blessings, then I don't know what does. So, I see Kate online this morning.

Me: HAPPY MOTHERS DAY ON SUNDAY :D Tell Jim I said happy birthday too... i'm old and forget things ;)

Kate: guess what...I think I am in labor YAYAYAYA

Me: HAHA you shouldn't be sitting in front of a computer then!! maybe laying in front of it...

Kate: no, this is good, trying to get it out. the sooner it comes out, the more time jim can have off from work

Me: jeez... "it" :)

Kate: sorry, the sooner Lilyann or Seamus comes out...

Me: I hope it's Lilyann. what about Batman?

(EDITOR: Jim wanted to name his first kid [probably a son] Batman, so that when people ask him "Who are you?" He can say "I'm Batman". It was hilARIOUS)

Kate: i vetoed it

Me: DOH! that was like, Jim's only wish and dream growing up

Kate: would you let someone name your kid something ridiculous like that. like Jem or Barbie or Cabbage Patch Kid

Me: not just someone... the father :P it's half of the decision making panel!

what was the middle name again? batman _____ bygrave

Kate: Batman Bicarboncabin Bygrave

Me: HAHAHAHAHA that's right!!!


I totally forget the story behind that middle name, but that's just f@#%@#ing GREAT. Jim, email me or post that here :)

So, pretty soon I'll be getting a phone call from Kate's parents, telling me everything about their new grandchild, and I'm certain that I'll be getting about a 400 GB email from Kate with pictures that are directly from the camera (2-4MB in size each) with no cropping or resizing, just like she always sends me, CC'd to 75 people. The internet screaches to a halt when Kate sends out an email ;-) I love you Kate!

More to come (I'm filing this under "Family" also, because obviously I will also be a new aunt/uncle depending on the sex ... oh wait, I'll only be a new Uncle!! Honorary of course)

Awesome week. On St. Patty's Day, went to Mara and Billy's apartment with a case of Harp beer (yummy, it was the first I've had of them), stayed there until around 7:30 waiting for Billy's sister with a bunch of people, pounding beers and joking around. Great times. Then went to see Blackthorn at the aforementioned Irish festival. There were a lot of Miller Lite kiosks set up... I mean, a lot. Like 30. In this huge clubhouse. We were already blitzed by the time we got there so the next 5-??? beers were just fuel on the fire. I felt great though. Irish music, lots of people there (I heard 1500 tickets were sold), a ride home, tons of beer, hardly any recollection. The things legendary nights are made of.

The next two days were allotted recovery days. I needed them too.

I had asked off Thursday and Friday, and being a contractor, I'm not given any vacation like regular employers are, but I can take days off and / or be sick, just like regular employees. Even take a 3 month vacation if I wanted to. I just don't get paid :p Mara calls me up on Thursday night after my parents had taken me out for dinner. She's like "Hey, I have a lot of left over beer, wanna come over and help me finish?" They had to work the next day too! We stayed up until 1am, drinking and playing @#%^hole, at which I am a master. I went from @#%^hole to president in one hand, after being @#%^hole the whole night. Then kept presidency for the last two hands, before we ran out of beer :-P I was like, "You guys are out of beer, I'm leaving ;-)"

Friday night was a great time too. My friend Anthony, who has a few years on me, was born 3/24, as opposed to the date of gods, 3/23. So close, Anthony... better luck next time. He had an e-vite going... meet down town, get wasted, watch NCAA basketball... lots of girls! I've not been known to pass up such invites... err, e-vites, rather. Good times had by all. It was a bit crowded until the Villanova / Boston College game ended in 'Nova's favor. In overtime. One of the bathrooms flooded, I asked the bouncer if we were gonna drown. Good times.

And the award goes to:

For most times kissed: Friday night... don't ask
For best/most vibe put out: Friday night. I just stood at the corner of the bar and put out the vibe (ala Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber), which was the reason for the first award :)
For most trashed I've ever been without actually blacking out and/or passing out: Definitely St. Patty's Day
For quietest night that was still a f@#%@#ing blast: My birthday at Mara and Billy's
For the best dance performance: St. Patty's Day, by a long shot. I don't remember much and there was Irish music there. I do remember one time this girl came up to me and told me to calm down!
For most embarassing moment: I'm never embarassed :) I'm sure I do things that would embarass my friends, though. They'll have to weigh in :-P
For best time: I don't know, different factors weigh in differently. I had different types of the best time each of the three nights. It ROCKED :-D

Lesson learned: Drinking should be done in moderation if you only want to get moderately hammered.

I was trying to avoid posting today for some reason, but there's an interesting email going around between friends.

Starts off :

If anyone is looking for a position, contract I am pretty sure, at [company name removed] let me know. Description is below.
----

I'm looking for mid to senior level developer. Should have good experience with Visual Basic (.net would be good), access, excel, VBA. Would be good if they could use reporting tools as a user ( cognos, BO,Crystal). The person should be able to think out of the box and be self directed for the most part. Will probably get some guidance, but should definitely be able to work on there own.

That was a few days ago, and today's Friday, so I reply with no interest to the job...

There are a few openings at the local bar... they're looking to fill part time positions tonight, must have at least 4 years experience in drinking beer and dancing. Thugs & criminals need not apply. You should be able to drink out of the box and be self directed as much as possible the whole night, but if you need people to walk you out, that's fine too.

Then others chime in:

I heard about that opening. But it's only temporary, so there's not much security there. Also, I heard that they were looking for 4 years minimum, but the role is of a Senior Drinking Analyst and they'd prefer at least 6 years of experience. They expect any candidates to be self-starters and "hit the ground drinking."

and more

I think they also require a Bachelor's Degree in Alcohol Engineering or Alcholic Science, or equivalent experience. They need me more than I need them.

I'll add more as the clever responses come in :)

I just got home from the GAP in Conshohocken (Conshy). We went out to the diner just up the street for a nice 1:30 AM meal. This has been a fun week.

Work's going OK. Nothing too much to brag about, but it's fun. I have my routine set. Get in before 9, grab coffee, work til I run out of coffee, get more, repeat until lunch. Then I get a 20 oz soda, go to the bathroom a few times, finish the soda then get more coffee around 3pm and again at 4pm. By this time, I'm getting so much work done from all the caffeine, it's like the caffeine is programming. I love that quote from that guy about mathematicians, but I translate it into Computer Scientists

A Computer Scientist is a device for turning coffee into software.

The real quote is

A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.

Good stuff. So, I get home from work at around 6:45 or so, grab some food, and either watch a game (Flyers, Sixers, etc), or head up to my room to play video games. Like, lately, Zatko and I have been playing Civilization IV. It's awesome. Wednesday, my friends were going out, but so was damn near everyone else in the Philadelphia area, as well as the police. I felt like staying in, so Bean came over, and we all watched some movies. I woke up at like 9am the next morning, thinking I had to be in work. I always think that, there's no getting around it. Even when I was off for a month, it took me until three weeks into it to realize that I don't have to be in work. Of course, by that time, I was interviewing at 9am in places like Wilmington and up in Wayne, which are good 40 minute drives, so I had better wake up.

That brings up something about me. I never panic. Unless I'm waking up and I think I have to be in work. That's the only time. It saves me a lot of embarrassment, and sometimes my life. Like, this one time, I was at a bar, and we were all out on the deck, which had a bar. There were all these girls out there, and it was the middle of the summer. My friend's girlfriend looks at me and says "Yo, there's this huge ugly bug crawling up your sleeve." I look, and sure enough there's a huge ugly bug crawling up my sleeve, and is now up to my shoulder. Do I panic and scream like a girl in front of a lot of girls, only to embarrass myself? Nope. I'm cool like the other side of the pillow. Slowly, I move my hand up to it, held my middle finger to my thumb, increasing torque, then flicked that thing into the cheap seats.

Then, another time, I'm driving up Route 202 in the left lane, near Frasier, and all the sudden, about 20 feet after a bush, I see a car coming across the median. I'm like, "They'll stop." It's raining, the grass on the median is wet, the road is wet, and I had just put out a cigarette. I get to like 4 feet away from her and say to myself, "They're not stopping." There are cars all around me, and on my right. If I panic, I definitely hit someone on my right side, causing a multiple car accident. Do I panic? Nope. I take the hit, glass shatters all over me, I do a 270 degree turn without changing lanes (because the road was wet). I end up about a foot from oncoming traffic. God rewards the non-panic stricken. I had just bought a coffee about 15 minutes before. I look in my coffee holder, it's not there. So, I try to get out of my car. The driver side door won't open. So, I climb across the seat, and there's my coffee... topside down, but the lid stayed on, and hardly any coffee came out! It was marvelous. I sat on the hood of my broken car, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette until the fire trucks and police came. I had no injuries, save for a few small cuts from the glass on my left hand. The only time I almost panicked was when I thought I had lost my coffee :)

That's an old story though, that happened in February, 2003, 5 months after I got the darn car. I still have it though.



This might turn into a long post. Go get some coffee.

So, Thanksgiving Day. We head to Steve and Patty's house. There's like 15 Connells there. 8 including my brothers and parents, 2 nieces and 3 nephews, one great-Aunt and one Aunt. After dinner, I was beat. Kira, Caden and Ethan were watching movies upstairs, I thought I'd join them. They all have their seats set up about 5 feet from this TV, so I lay down on my stomach right in front of their chairs. About 4 minutes later, I have kids jumping on me, sitting on me, laying on me, and pretty much beating me up. This continued through most of Scooby Doo 2.

After Thanksgiving dinner, we went back home. I drove, and I had some brothers in my car. Jeff, Pat and Bean. We listened to the last few minutes of the Denver / Dallas game on the radio, and went to rent some movies. We ended up getting Batman Begins and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory... the new one with Johnny Depp. Those were both great movies. Batman Begins was up there in the Batman saga, and I'd have to say it was AWESOME.

Friday morning. I told Bean, for his birthday, that I'd put a few pennies towards an iPod for him. So, we head out, grab some coffee and head to MicroCenter. They ran out of the 30GB iPods... and pretty much all other models. They only had the 2GB iPod Nano! 500 songs?!? Yeah, right. I ended up buying a MIDI Piano for myself though. We'll get the iPod soon. And I'll be recording more songs pretty soon with that purchase.

We got back by noon and watched the Flyers. Jeff and I are pretty much addicted to the Flyers now. When they're on OLN (Outdoor Life Network), we can't watch because we subscribe to RCN, and OLN is only on Comcast. We are in both companies' ranges, but RCN has 10GB cable internet, so it was the obvious choice when we chose it, back when OLN didn't get a few Flyers games. It was before we knew that the NHL's season was in dire straights. But, we can deal, there's only like 9 games on OLN the entire season.

I'm getting tired.... really tired.

Tonight, I went out to the GAP. I got there and it was packed. There was a reunion or something and they reserved two of the big rooms. I hate that. Literally elbow to elbow in the only room open to everyone. So, we had like 4 beers, and decided to go to the diner. I got French toast. Gia got this giant omelette, which I joked was like eight-tenths of her body weight. I said "You can't finish that." And she said "What will you give me if I do?" So, I said, "I'll give you props." Seeing the look of disgust on her face from only being offered "props", I quickly followed with, "Alright, Mad Props." I told her I would give them to her on my website... so:

Mad Props Gia

We all joke around a lot, so it's always a really good time. Til next week, dudes :)

After a few cups of coffee, french toast, and a knee slapping good time, I took off for Drexel Hill. I plugged in my piano to my Mac Mini, tried it out for a few minutes, then decided I'm gonna just throw on an X-Files episode or two and hit the sack. Still a whole other late night left in this weekend, I'm going to take full advantage.

This one's just an honorary Uncle position. Jim and Kate are HAVING A BABY!!!!!! Don't believe me?!?? Check this picture out...

Unless Kate swallowed a doll or some other baby shaped thing, I'd say she's having a baby!! So, congratulations are in order, you can congratulate me in the comments :) Oh, yeah, I guess you can also congratulate Jim and Kate on their website. I think they have a forum... I sorta remember writing one for them :)

Props out to NATO of NATO Computer Solutions up there in Canada for these two. Buy a computer from him, tell him I sent you. It's Canadian money which is practically glorified Monopoly money. You can get a good deal up there.

Three Texas surgeons were playing golf together and discussing surgeries they had performed. One of them said, "I'm the best surgeon in Texas. A concert pianist lost 7 fingers in an accident. I reattached them, and 8 months later he performed a private concert for the Queen of England."

One of the others said "That's nothing. A young man lost both arms and legs in an accident. I reattached them, and 2 years later he won a gold medal in field events in the Olympics."

The third surgeon said, "You guys are amateurs. Several years ago a cowboy who was high on cocaine and alcohol rode a horsehead-on into a train traveling 80 miles an hour. All I had left to work with was the horse's ass and a cowboy hat. Now he's president of the United States.

That's a riot.

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the President his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, President Bush looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

Quality.

My college buddy, Zatko, and I play video games. We played through the first Serious Sam (Serious Sam: The First Encounter) and maybe also what I thought at the time was Serious Sam 2 (Serious Sam: The Second Encounter). It later became widely known that this was, in fact, not Serious Sam 2. I became confused when GameSpot (not the store, that's GameStop) started putting up screenshots and articles about Serious Sam 2. I'm like, I already have it, beat it, it rocked, etc. But then I clicked one. "What the F@#%#@@ is this?!!?" I thought. Well, this is the real sequel. New graphics engine, physics, new monsters, real time shadows, lighting, and everything else that makes today's games beautiful and immersive. So Zatko and I made a pact: To only EVER play the game cooperatively when it comes out. See, another beautiful thing about the Serious Sam games is that they're $20 and that they ALWAYS have cooperative mode. NO games today have coop. It's stupid. Every game would make a killing if they let you play through the missions with a friend or family member. They don't do this, citing "technical difficulties" or some crap. Anyway, today, I hop onto GameSpot, and lo and behold, there's a Serious Sam 2 DEMO. Knowing my pact with Zatko, and knowing that he'll b@#%@# and moan at me for YEARS if I break it, I went to him:

Jason Connell: serious sam 2 demo
Zatko: you better not play it
Jason Connell: can i play?!?!?
Jason Connell: DOH!!!
Zatko: hell no!
Zatko: don't even look at it
Zatko: tear your eyes out
Jason Connell: can i download it?
Zatko: :)
Jason Connell: at least?!!
Zatko: you can pretend downloading it
Zatko: but thats about it
Jason Connell: alright, i'll write a program that says it's downloading the serious sam 2 demo, but it's really not
Zatko: yea, thats ok
Jason Connell: sweet! you want a copy?
Zatko: i might have to take you up on that
Jason Connell: alright
Jason Connell: oh wait, there's a brothers in arms 2 demo out too, i'll play that instead

So, I can't play :( I will hold to the pact though...

Jim sent me this picture from Kadena AFB in Okinawa, Japan.

Click on the image, it's gigantic. But look really close at the closer jet. You can see his name on it! That's bad ASS.

Now I feel left out. Out of the two of us, I am the only person without their name on a kickass fighter jet that can take on whole armies and break the sound barrier in no time, and also accelerate in a vertical climb. On top of that, I'm the single one. But, I'll bet Jim doesn't work in a skyscraper in Center City Philadelphia... Woohoo. I got one on him there. :)

I was at Mara and Billy's place last night. We played A$$hole. But instead of the normal drinking mechanisms, which are those beautiful red plastic cups or straight from the artistic glob of green glass that is the Yuengling bottle, we used Pilsner glasses. Beer doesn't stand a chance in these things.

It's like they were perfectly crafted through years of testing. The world's top minds got together, got bombed every night, and the next morning reworked their current designs and got ripped again that night. There is no better way to spend tax dollars. Cheers to those guys for their hard work.

I can't put into words what my friend Todd's website means to me. See, Todd and I are like twins, mentally. I'd say we look alike too, but I'm much better looking ;-) But, he has been traveling down a path that I only started on, or maybe I'm not on it yet, perhaps I'm in the woods staring at a rock, procrastinating, waiting for the rock to move so I can get to the path. But I'm near it :) Todd's posts are filled with spiritual thoughts, life struggles, inspiration and hope.

Todd's website has a "comments" section, but I never have anything to add to his posts because they pretty much say it all. Browse around a bit. Or read these prime cuts:

Eternal-Global Perspective and the Need for Significance
That What is Mortal May Be Swallowed Up by Life
Pretty much every post in this topic
Can't Sleep

It would be unjust for me to not make a post about his site, I've read it 4 times. So it's more like it's about time. Thanks Todd, enjoy the 2 new visitors :)

Thanks, everyone, for coming to the game on Saturday. I usually judge how successful a party is by how sunburnt I am, how little I remember of it, and how much money I have left in my wallet. The wallet one is usually a shock, like "I spent $80 last night?!!?" but never have I had more money than I started with, so that made it extra successful :) If anyone got too wasted (I won't point fingers) then please forgive them, for they know not what they do after many, many beers, and not drinking that much just might not be an option for them during this stage of their life. Don't get too angry, I am talking about me, so don't be like "what a DICK!!! he drank more than me!!" :) I got home that night, ate some wawa (thanks Tom!) and turned on the news because I wondered how the Phillies did that day.

So, thank your guests for me if they aren't on this email. I hope everyone had as good a time as me, and I hope we can do it again soon.

Love Always,

Jason

Yes, I said "Love Always". And NO ONE said anything about it! I was expecting a "awww, I love you too" or "dude, you're never coming out with us again..." Something. I had to mention it to someone and she had "figured you just must be an emotional type of guy...really emotional". Oh well, it was fun :) I had way too many beers that day, but I sent that email on Monday, so they had to figure it was not from the alcohol, right?! Unless I was bombed at 11 am on a MONDAY. On the first day of my New JOB!? I don't care that I only waited 8 hours before pointing out the error in their ways. They still should have checked their email and responded to me right away, putting every bit of the email under intense scrutiny. As if they have more important things to do with their lives.

We were at a Phillies game and I did wonder how they did when I got home. It wasn't really from the beer, we got in the game at around the 5th inning, got to our seats, and then a few people went to get cheesesteaks. I didn't get back to my seat until the 7th or 8th inning, and before I knew it, it was over. What a blast!

[Later on...] Ahh, the glorious jokes that come out of mistypings and misspellings:

Tom: I won't tell a sole
Me : i'm glad you won't tell any shoes
Tom: shut up

Or just quality humor about drinking...

Me : i like lyrical humor, but i can't get it out when i'm drinking. i can hardly form words, let alone think of long words to say